springer netherlands dez 1999 (36 results)

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -'The best of all things is water' -Pindar 460 B. C. The provision of secure drinking water for its citizens is an aim of every government, and is a priority item to all the NATO and CP countries. The quantity of water in most of these countries is usually adequate, but the quality in many cases is not. With the development of new analytical methods, one suddenly finds new substances of human origin in drinking water. Also, new microorganisms and their toxins pass through the conventional treatment plants to show up in the finished water. What aU of this means to public health is not quite clear at the moment, but it seems that increased vigilance is necessary to provide safe drinking water to all citizens. The NATO Advanced Research Workshop was organized to focus on five major areas of concern: - Inorganic contaminants, focusing on arsenic and copper - Organic contaminants, focusing on petroleum products, and insecticides and pesticides - Biological/bacteriological problems in raw water, finished water, and in the distribution system - River water watch and surveillance systems - The role of research, the economics of privatization, the support of international organizations This volume presents the papers that were delivered at the workshop over a period of four and one-half days. The workshop was attended by over 40 scientists, government officials, and academics from 20 NATO and CP countries. 264 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This special issue of the International Review of Education includes contri butions on indigenous knowledge, the cultural context of learning and on the interplay between the so-called 'traditional' and 'modern' ways of educa tion. It starts from the assumption that cultures are not static, that they are shifting and mutating, and that the Western need to encapsulate 'other cultures', which found its most extreme form in their being frozen in time and boxed behind glass in museums of ethnology, has distorted our under standing of the way in which different cultures create, recreate and repro duce knowledge. The basic premise of this position is that there is no such thing as a pure culture, and that all cultures borrow, lend, adapt, and distort distinct elements from other cultures. All cultures, moreover, provide their members with ways of learning about that culture, which include elements such as language, forms of social organisation, and ritual spaces for the trans mission of specialised knowledge. Meaning may be shifted over time, but that in itself is a product of the passage of knowledge through history. Indeed, much meaning is cyclical and reinterpretive so that cultures may look back to a mythological past which they assumed gave them their essential identity but which may be part fact, part fantasy, and part fiction. This is then rein terpreted in the light of changed and changing historical circumstances. 144 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -The papers for this special issue were selected from a pool of nearly 700 presentations which were made at the 10th Congress of the World Council of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES), which was held in Cape Town, South Africa, from 12 to 17 July 1998. The congress was hosted by the Southern African Comparative and History of Education Society (SACHES) and held on the campuses of the University of the Western Cape and the University of Cape Town. The papers were selected by the convenors of the conference's standing commissions, which provided a significant focus for the conference proceedings. These commissions were on the following themes: Teachers and teacher education Curriculum - Higher education - Lifelong learning - Language, literacy and basic education - Gender and education Policy - Theory and theory shifts Basic education in Africa Peace and Justice Dependency European Education Policy Research in Africa Culture, Indigenous Knowledge and Learning The papers presented, as the discussion below makes clear, ranged widely in subject matter and theoretical perspective and addressed issues of concern both to individual countries and to regions of the world. While some of the papers use comparison as an approach, it remains a matter of concern that the comparative perspective is so little in evidence. It is hoped that the com parative research approach will be more in evidence in the future. 256 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This proceedings volume contains the contributions of the speakers who attended the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on 'Perspectives, Science and Technologies for Novel Silicon on Insulator Devices' held at the Sanatorium Pushcha OLema, Kyiv, th Ukraine from It' to 15 October 1998. This meeting was the second NATO Silicon on Insulator (SOl) Workshop to be held in st the Ukraine where the first meeting (Gurzuf, Crimea, 1 to 4th November 1994) focussed upon the physical and technical problems to be addressed in order to exploit the advantages of incorporating SOl materials in device and sensor technologies. On this occasion emphasis was placed upon firstly, promoting the use of SOl substrates for a range of novel device and circuit applications and secondly, addressing the economic issues of incorporating SOl processing technologies and device technologies within the framework of the resources available within the laboratories and factories of the Newly Independent States (NIS). The primary goal of both workshops has been the breaking of the barriers that inhibit closer collaboration between scientists and engineers in the NATO countries and the NIS. Indeed, it was a pleasure for attendees at the first meeting to renew acquaintances and for the first time attendees to make new contacts and enjoy the warm hospitality offered by our hosts in Kyiv. An outcome was the forging of new links and concrete proposals for future collaborations. 372 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -In our contemporary learning society, expectations about the contribution of education and training continue to rise. Moreover, the potential of information and communication technology (ICT) creates many challenges. These trends affect not only the aims, content and processes of learning, they also have a strong impact on educational design and development approaches in research and professional practices. Prominent researchers from the Netherlands and the USA present their latest findings on these issues in this volume. The major purpose of this book is to discuss current thinking on promising design approaches and to present innovative (computer-based) tools. The book aims to serve as a resource and reference work that will stimulate advancement in the field of education and training. It is intended to be useful in academic settings as well as for professionals in design and development practices. 312 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book contains 18 reviewed papers originally presented at the conference Practical Work in Science Education - the Face of Science in Schools, held at the Royal Danish School of Educational Studies in Copenhagen, in May 1998. Substantial literature about practical work has been published during the last decade. This book contains contributions by researchers from England, France, Germany, Norway, Israel, Italy, Sweden and South Africa and adds important aspects to a varied and balanced view of practical work. Some of the papers are conceptual, addressing aims and rationales for practical work from a theoretical and critical perspective. Most papers, however, encounter recent empirical research. Important aspects about the outcome of students' practice of science both inside and outside the conventional laboratory are addressed and make a substantial contribution to our understanding of the effectiveness of practical work for conceptual learning and the attainment of skills and processes normally associated with science. 332 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This collection of essays presents a systematic and up-to-date survey of the main aspects of Georg Henrik von Wright's philosophy, tracing the general humanistic leitmotiv to be found in his vast, varied output. The analysis covers the developments in Von Wright's thought up to the end of the 1990s. The essays are arranged thematically to focus on the chief areas of Von Wright's interests: practical rationality; human action and determinism; philosophical logic and theories of norms; research in the analytical tradition; and Wittgenstein studies. Readership: Scholars and students of moral philosophy, logic, psychology, sociology, cognitive science and the history of contemporary philosophy. 260 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Few areas of human expertise are so well understood that they can be completely reduced to general principles. Similarly, there are few domains in which experience is so extensive that every new problem precisely matches a previous problem whose solution is known. When neither rules nor examples are individually sufficient, problem-solving expertise depends on integrating both. This book presents a computational framework for the integration of rules and cases for analytic tasks typified by legal analysis. The book uses the framework for integrating cases and rules as a basis for a new model of legal precedents. This model explains how the theory under which a case is decided controls the case's precedential effect. The framework for integrating rules and cases is implemented in GREBE, a system for legal analysis. The book presents techniques for representing, indexing, and comparing complex cases and for converting justification structures based on rules and case into natural-language text. This book will interest researchers in artificial intelligence, particularly those involved in case-based reasoning, artificial intelligence and law, and formal models of argumentation, and to scholars in legal philosophy, jurisprudence, and analogical reasoning. 240 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Expanded bed adsorption chromatography is a novel processing technique for the purification of biomolecules, combining clarification, concentration and initial purification in one step. By such an integration it is possible to reduce the number of steps in the purification process, to shorten the processing time and to improve the yields. The technology is new, and interesting developments have taken place concerning the adsorbents, the processing technology and potential applications. Both small-scale laboratory processes and larger industrial processes are being developed. Expanded bed chromatography is one of the most exciting new developments in downstream processing in recent years. The technology will be a standard procedure when new biotechnological processes are being developed. 280 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Computer simulations provide an essential set of tools for understanding the macroscopic properties of liquid crystals and of their phase transitions in terms of molecular models. While simulations of liquid crystals are based on the same general Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics techniques as are used for other fluids, they present a number of specific problems and peculiarities connected to the intrinsic properties of these mesophases. The field of computer simulations of anisotropic fluids is interdisciplinary and is evolving very rapidly. The present volume covers a variety of techniques and model systems, from lattices to hard particle and Gay-Berne to atomistic, for thermotropics, lyotropics, and some biologically interesting liquid crystals. Contributions are written by an excellent panel of international lecturers and provides a timely account of the techniques and problems in the field. 444 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Iteration regularization, i.e., utilization of iteration methods of any form for the stable approximate solution of ill-posed problems, is one of the most important but still insufficiently developed topics of the new theory of ill-posed problems. In this monograph, a general approach to the justification of iteration regulari zation algorithms is developed, which allows us to consider linear and nonlinear methods from unified positions. Regularization algorithms are the 'classical' iterative methods (steepest descent methods, conjugate direction methods, gradient projection methods, etc.) complemented by the stopping rule depending on level of errors in input data. They are investigated for solving linear and nonlinear operator equations in Hilbert spaces. Great attention is given to the choice of iteration index as the regularization parameter and to estimates of errors of approximate solutions. Stabilizing properties such as smoothness and shape constraints imposed on the solution are used. On the basis of these investigations, we propose and establish efficient regularization algorithms for stable numerical solution of a wide class of ill-posed problems. In particular, descriptive regularization algorithms, utilizing a priori information about the qualitative behavior of the sought solution and ensuring a substantial saving in computational costs, are considered for model and applied problems in nonlinear thermophysics. The results of calculations for important applications in various technical fields (a continuous casting, the treatment of materials and perfection of heat-protective systems using laser and composite technologies) are given. 356 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Hydrogeology of Crystalline Rocks deals with deep groundwater in the granite and gneiss basement of the continents. It has become evident during the past years that highly mineralized water is present in an interconnected fracture network of the basement. Thus, the upper part of the crust of the continents can be viewed as an aquifer and investigated with tools common in hydrogeology. This book presents accounts on water-conducting features of crystalline rocks and summarizes the hydraulic properties of the basement. The volume includes reviews, new data and research on the often remarkable chemical composition of deep groundwater. Microbial processes in the deep basement aquifer are probably more important than previously thought. Two contributions focus on this recent extension of research of the biosphere to greater depth in the Earth. This book represents the first multidisciplinary and integrated account of deep groundwater hydrology in crystalline basement. It is of interest to hydrologists and hydrogeologists working with water in crystalline rocks, but also to solid earth geophysicists, geochemists and petrologists with an interest in fluids in the crust. Scientists involved in nuclear waste disposal programs and geothermal energy development will find a wealth of stimulating ideas in this volume. 292 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Partial melting occurs in a variety of geological environments, from granitic partial melts in the continental crust, to basaltic or carbonate partial melts in the upper mantle. Partial melting is the first stage of magmatism and therefore plays a role of primary importance in the chemical differentiation of the Earth and in the transport of heat to the Earth surface. This special volume contains contributions presented at the symposium `Physics and Chemistry of Partially Molten Systems' of the EUG 9 meeting, held in Strasbourg, France, on March 23-27, 1997. It is intended to provide a current understanding of the physics of partial melting and melt segregation and covers topics such as the rheology of partially molten systems, the topology of partial melts, modelling of partial melting processes, and field observations of partial melts. Audience: This book is intended for a broad readership, including graduate students, specializing in petrology and geodynamics. The volume may be recommended as a textbook for graduate courses on petrology, geomaterial sciences and geophysics. 292 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Over the last twenty-five years the significance of criminal justice has dramatically changed. In a 'post-modern' culture, criminal law serves more and more as a focal point in public morality. The 'discovery' of the victim of crime can be seen as the marking point by which criminal justice got its central position in the maintenance of social order. It is the result of a general 'victimalization' of today's morality. This ingenious book - according to Michael Tonry - combines insights from criminology, sociology and moral philosophy. It is especially inspired by the work of Richard Rorty, who stresses the sensibility for suffering as the major source of morality in post-modern times. It describes the arousal of attention for victims and the development of crime prevention. More specifically, it analyzes child sexual abuse and prostitution. This 'illuminating' book will be an eye-opener for theorists in criminology and moral philosophy, but will also be an inspiring work for policy makers in the area of criminal justice. 194 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -The importance of left ventricular hypertrophy in cardiovascular disease has gained wide recognition. Left ventricular hypertrophy is a highly important risk factor associated with major cardiovascular events, including symptomatic heart failure, particularly in patients with systemic hypertension. Over the past years much has been learned about the genetics, molecular background, prevalence, incidence and prognosis of left ventricular hypertrophy. A variety of noninvasive methods has emerged for detecting left ventricular hypertrophy and the assessment of reversal of hypertrophy. Yet, a lot of controversy remains about the connotations and clinical implications of left ventricular hypertrophy. For instance, in the athlete's heart left ventricular hypertrophy may constitute a physiological adaptation to pressure overload, which normalizes following discontinuation of strenuous physical activity. On the other hand, in particular in patients with hypertension, left ventricular hypertrophy denotes a serious prognosis in the course of hypertension. In these patients left ventricular hypertrophy should be regarded as a grave prognostic sign rather than an innocent compensatory phenomenon. The distinction between physiologic and pathophysiologic left ventricular hypertrophy has been the basis for this book. 196 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -The International Conference on Finsler and Lagrange Geometry and its Applications: A Meeting of Minds, took place August 13-20, 1998 at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. The main objective of this meeting was to help acquaint North American geometers with the extensive modern literature on Finsler geometry and Lagrange geometry of the Japanese and European schools, each with its own venerable history, on the one hand, and to communicate recent advances in stochastic theory and Hodge theory for Finsler manifolds by the younger North American school, on the other. The intent was to bring together practitioners of these schools of thought in a Canadian venue where there would be ample opportunity to exchange information and have cordial personal interactions. The present set of refereed papers begins with the Pedagogical Sec tion I, where introductory and brief survey articles are presented, one from the Japanese School and two from the European School (Romania and Hungary). These have been prepared for non-experts with the intent of explaining basic points of view. The Section III is the main body of work. It is arranged in alphabetical order, by author. Section II gives a brief account of each of these contribu tions with a short reference list at the end. More extensive references are given in the individual articles. 324 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -As Japan comes to grips with a decade of economic malaise after its spectacular post-war growth record, how will Japanese society react Contributors to this volume examine the challenges ahead for Japan in the fields of politics, economics, sociology, environment and business. This multidisciplinary inquiry looks for areas of continuity and for new directions in government, business and social policy and practice. Also examined is how Western students should approach the study of Japan; what new directions should institutions take to ensure that students learn about the `real' Japan Written by Canadian academics, the articles in this volume will be of interest to academics and policy-makers studying or teaching about contemporary Japan. 348 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Number 10 Sound: The Musical Way 10 the Scientific Revolution is a collection of twelve essays by writers from the fields of musicology and the history of science. The essays show the idea of music held by Euro th pean intellectuals who lived from the second half of the 15 century to the th early 17 : physicians (e. g. Marsilio Ficino), scholars of musical theory (e. g. Gioseffo Zarlino, Vincenzo Galilei), natural philosophers (e. g. Fran cis Bacon, Isaac Beeckman, Marin Mersenne), astronomers and mathema ticians (e. g. Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei ). Together with other people of the time, whom the Reader will meet in the course of the book, these intellectuals share an idea of music that is far removed from the way it is commonly conceived nowadays: it is the idea of music as a science whose object-musical sound--can be quantified and demonstrated, or enquired into experimentally with the methods and instruments of modem scientific enquiry. In this conception, music to be heard is a complex, variable structure based on few simple elements--e. g. musical intervals-, com bined according to rules and criteria which vary along with the different ages. However, the varieties of music created by men would not exist if they were not based on certain musical models--e. g. the consonances-, which exist in the mind of God or are hidden in the womb of Nature, which man discovers and demonstrates, and finally translates into the lan guage of sounds. 340 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -How, if at all, can we do moral philosophy in the light of the radical critique made by Elizabeth Anscombe in 'Modem Moral Philosophy' Among the principal theses of this essay is that ethical thinking (that of philosophers and others) suffers from a widespread appeal to incoherent uses of terms such as 'obligation,' 'ought,' 'right' and 'wrong. ' In this book I first explain and evaluate her thesis and the argument for it, and I then confront the challenge it poses: what ways are there of doing moral philosophy that avoid the kind of incoherence to which she has drawn our attention The best way to show how it is possible for us to think about ethics is to demonstrate how to do so, using actual cases. This book therefore combines the critical study of central theoretical issues about ethics, in the first half, with concrete examination of serious practical issues, in the second. Following Dostoyevsky's Ivan Karamazov, it is often said that if God does not exist then everything is permitted. This is not literally the case, since God cannot permit anything if He does not exist, and those of us who do exist do not permit everything, or at least our parents, employers, and governments do not. It is true, though, that if God does not exist then nothing is forbidden in the traditional sense of 'forbidden'. 196 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Recent studies in psycho linguistics have ranged through a variety of languages. In this trend, which has no precedent, studies in language processing have followed studies in language acquisition and theoretical linguistics in considering language universals in a broader scope than only in English. Since the beginning of the century, studies in language acquisition have produced a vast body of data from a number of Indoeuropean languages, and the emphasis on the universal has preceded the emphasis on the particular (see (Slobin 1985) for a review). Nowadays, the research in the field advances by means of a continuous linking between the cross-linguistic uniformities and the individual language influences on development. The level of language universals is continuously refined as the data from a number of languages contribute to the elaboration of a more distinctive picture of the language of children. The first cross-linguistic studies in theoretical linguistics appeared at the end of the seventies. Within the Chomskian paradigm, the reference to the Romance languages caused a shift from a rule-based toward a principle-based formalism (Chomsky 1981, 1995); within alternative theories, the reduced prominence of the pure phrase structure component in favor of the lexicon and/or the functional relations (see, e.g., Lexical Functional Grammar (Bresnan 1982), Relational Grammar (Perlmutter 1983)) sought empirical support in languages exhibiting deep structural differences with respect to English (e.g. Bantu, Malayalam, Romance and Slavic languages Warlpiri). The M. De Vincenzi and V. Lombardo (eds.), Cross-linguistic Perspectives on Language Processing, 1-19. 272 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -My impulse when I decided to collect into a single volume the essays on topics in logical theory and related subjects that I have written in the last fifteen years was to borrow from the title of a work by Sextus Empiricus, and call my collection 'Against the Logicians.' Although the essays address a variety of problems that interest me, the thread that runs through them is a scepticism about how logicians see things. So, the title appealed to me. However, I had second thoughts and chose instead a title of one of my own essays, 'In Defense of Informal Logic', which emphasizes my support for other approaches. Although my criticisms of logical theory are designed to cut deeply, I do not want to be unresponsive to the needs that it is supposed to satisfy. However, my position that we have adequate resources for critically analyzing a particular argument and 00 not need a theory of argumentation, will not completely satisfy those who think that there is a need for it. So, I want them to know that I am taking their concerns seriously. 244 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Bioactive Carbohydrate Polymers is probably the first book dealing with the latest in the field of polysaccharides and related products and their biological activities, especially the immunological effects. The different chapters describe the structure and bioactivity of polysaccharides from plants used in traditional medicine in different parts of the world, especially China, Japan and Europe. The focus of the book is on immunologically active plant and seaweed polysaccharides, pharmacological activities of sulphated polysaccharides of animal and seaweed origin, and on possible activities of polysaccharides in our food. Methods for isolation and characterisation of the polymers with chemical and enzymatic methods is covered, as well as discussions on the different biological test-systems and the information they provide. This book will be useful to scientists and postgraduate students working with polysaccharides and their possible uses, and should be of interest for people working in the areas of chemistry, biology, pharmacy and medicine. 176 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Climate change is one of the major global environmental problems, one that has the potential to confront us with great costs during the decades to come. Climate change is caused by emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) such as carbon dioxide (CO). As z deforestation leads to CO emissions and growing forests sequester CO, forestry z z projects provide us with options to mitigate CO effects. This study analyses the z contribution Jorestry projects can make within the context of climate change. The contribution of forestry projects is here discussed on two levels. On a first level, the COz effect of individual projects is analysed. On a second level, the study asks whether the analysis of forestry projects can contribute to questions on climate change which have been discussed in the economic literature during the past two decades. While most studies on forestry projects focus on particular details, predominantly on technical issues, this study takes a rather broad perspective, drawing together different relevant aspects: the stability of international agreements is discussed, costs and benefIts of reducing GHG emissions in industrial countries are reviewed, the underlying causes of deforestation are analysed and insights from resource economics are taken into consideration. Such a wide perspectiveallows the identifIcation, discussion and appreciation of problems and opportunities associated with forestry projects in the context of climate change which are otherwise not recognised. 180 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -'The best of all things is water' -Pindar 460 B. C. The provision of secure drinking water for its citizens is an aim of every government, and is a priority item to all the NATO and CP countries. The quantity of water in most of these countries is usually adequate, but the quality in many cases is not. With the development of new analytical methods, one suddenly finds new substances of human origin in drinking water. Also, new microorganisms and their toxins pass through the conventional treatment plants to show up in the finished water. What aU of this means to public health is not quite clear at the moment, but it seems that increased vigilance is necessary to provide safe drinking water to all citizens. The NATO Advanced Research Workshop was organized to focus on five major areas of concern: - Inorganic contaminants, focusing on arsenic and copper - Organic contaminants, focusing on petroleum products, and insecticides and pesticides - Biological/bacteriological problems in raw water, finished water, and in the distribution system - River water watch and surveillance systems - The role of research, the economics of privatization, the support of international organizations This volume presents the papers that were delivered at the workshop over a period of four and one-half days. The workshop was attended by over 40 scientists, government officials, and academics from 20 NATO and CP countries. 264 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -The present volume contributes to the growing body of work on sentence pro cessing. The goal of work in this area is to construct a theory of human sen tence processing in general, i.e., given a grammar of some particular language and a general characterization of the human sentence processing mechanisms, the particular processing system for that language should follows automati cally. At least that's the goal. What is needed in order to pursue this goal is systematic in-depth analysis of the sentence routines of individual languages. With respect to German, that is precisely what the present volume delivers. In sharp contrast to a decade ago, the study of German sentence process ing is flourishing today. Four lively and active centers have emerged. The University of Freiburg is one prominent center, represented in the present vol ume by the editors Barbara Hemforth and Lars Konieczny (who was at Freiburg for many years) as well as by Christoph Scheepers (who is now in Glasgow) and Christoph Holscher. The University of Potsdam has recently begun an interdisciplinary collaboration on sentence processing involving Matthias Schlesewsky, Gisbert Fanselow, Reinhold Kliegl and Josef Krems. The University of Jena has several investigators trained in linguistics and interested in language processing. That group is represented here by Markus Bader and also includes his colleagues Michael Meng and Josef Bayer. 340 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -JOHN L. INNES University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada The interactions between biomass burning and climate have been brought into focus by a number of recent events. Firstly, the Framework Convention on Climate Change and, more recently, the Kyoto Protocol, have drawn the attention of policy makers and others to the importance of biomass burning in relation to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. Secondly, the use of prescribed fires has become a major management tool in some countries; with for example the area with fuel treatments (which include prescribed burns and mechanical treatments) having increased on US National Forest System lands from 123,000 ha in 1985 to 677,000 ha in 1998. Thirdly, large numbers of forest fires in Indonesia, Brazil, Australia and elsewhere in 1997 and 1998 received unprecedented media attention. Consequently, it is appropriate that one of the Wengen Workshops on Global Change Research be devoted to the relationships between biomass burning and climate. This volume includes many of the papers presented at the workshop, but is also intended to act as a contribution to the state of knowledge on the int- relationships between biomass burning and climate change. Previous volumes on biomass burning (e. g. Goldammer 1990,Levine 1991a, Crutzen and Goldammer 1993, Levine 1996a, 1996b, Van Wilgen et al. 1997) have stressed various aspects of the biomass-climate issue, and provide a history of the development of our understanding of the many complex relationships that are involved. 376 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -All over the world, many people who live in urban areas find themselves in an arduous social situation. In the third world, people in overcrowded metropolitan areas have a problem in maintaining even the slightest standards of living. But also richer parts of the world, the United States, Europe and the far-East, show growing social inequalities in their cities. And social problems are not confined to the large metropolitan areas: impoverishment, long-term unemployment, social isolation, and the dependency on welfare programs pops up in medium-sized cities and even in smaller communities. At the same time, these cities are confronted with a growing bureaucratic conglomerate which is increasingly inapt to fight social degeneration. The catastrophe seems to be total: how to deal at once with declining social conditions and bureaucratic inadequacy Two American authors, Osborne and Plastrik (1997), claim to have found the answer: just banish bureaucracy. The liberating accomplishments of the free market will elevate ordinary citizens and force lazy, incompetent bureaucrats to do their work properly. If they succeed, they survive. Otherwise, these agencies will vanish. They illustrate their arguments with the American city of 'Uphill Battle' which stopped its decline by reinventing government. Strict performance measures, allotting financial controls and incentives to the citizens, and improving accountability have saved the city. We should, however, be very careful in taking such measures so far that they banish bureaucracy. It is far from obvious that simply banishing bureaucracy indeed will help people in poor social situations. 316 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -The chapters in this volume are edited versions of papers presented at the NATO Ad vanced Research Workshop on Environmental Change Adaptation and Security held in Budapest, Hungary, from October 16 - 18, 1997. As is evident in this volume, the papers ranged from descriptions of environmental and health issues in Russia and Eastern Europe to models of sustainable land use. This diversity of perspectives on environ ment and security is indicative of both the breadth of this new area of research as well as the varied background of the researchers involved. The discussions at the NATO workshop were remarkably animated and exciting, not surprising given the interest in the topic. I think this vitality is reflected in the papers in this volume as well. The main purpose of the NATO ARW is to foster research links among researchers from NATO countries and Central and Eastern European States, Russia, and the Newly Independent States. In editing this volume, a decision was made to keep to the spirit of this purpose and-if at all possible-include all papers prepared for the workshop. This required extensive editing and rewriting of some of the papers (and consequent delays in production). A determination was made early in the process by the workshop steering committee that the value of publishing the entire collection of articles out weighed the advantages of accepting only a limited number. 436 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Techniques in Speech Acoustics provides an introduction to the acoustic analysis and characteristics of speech sounds. The first part of the book covers aspects of the source-filter decomposition of speech, spectrographic analysis, the acoustic theory of speech production and acoustic phonetic cues. The second part is based on computational techniques for analysing the acoustic speech signal including digital time and frequency analyses, formant synthesis, and the linear predictive coding of speech. There is also an introductory chapter on the classification of acoustic speech signals which is relevant to aspects of automatic speech and talker recognition. The book intended for use as teaching materials on undergraduate and postgraduate speech acoustics and experimental phonetics courses; also aimed at researchers from phonetics, linguistics, computer science, psychology and engineering who wish to gain an understanding of the basis of speech acoustics and its application to fields such as speech synthesis and automatic speech recognition. 336 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -There is a complex relationship between the environment and the development of tourism, which this book discusses in a thorough and informative manner. Specialists from several disciplines pay attention to the challenges of sustainable tourism, devoting their full attention to cultural, regional and policy issues. This is a revised edition that has been expanded to 22 contributions, with inclusion of the cultural element. All chapters have been updated to include new data and information added to the existing body of literature in the last 7 years. It includes new developments and new insights into the relationship between tourism and the environment. An invaluable sequel to the first edition. 392 pp. Englisch.