Atoms, Molecules and Photons

Atoms, Molecules and Photons

This introduction to Atomic and Molecular Physics explains how our present model of atoms and molecules has been developed over the last two centuries, both by many experimental discoveries and, from the theoretical side, by the introduction of quantum physics to the adequate description of micro-particles. It illustrates the wave model of particles by many examples and shows the limits of classical description. The interaction of electromagnetic radiation with atoms and molecules and its potential for spectroscopy is outlined in great detail and, in particular, lasers as modern spectroscopic tools are discussed thoroughly. Many examples and problems with solutions are offered to encourage readers to actively participate in applying and adapting the fundamental physics presented in this textbook to specific situations.

Atoms, Molecules and Photons

Air Force Service Procurement

Air Force Service Procurement

To satisfy requirements in the fiscal year 2002 National Defense Authorization Act (U.S. Congress, 2001) to improve the acquisition of services by the Department of Defense, the Air Force established a Program Executive Officer for Combat and Mission Support (AFPEO/CM) who is responsible for management and oversight of a well-defined portfolio of Air Force services acquisition activities. This office is the single point of contact for Air Force services acquisition inquiries and is also responsible for developing long-range plans for cost-effective acquisition of services. To fulfill its responsibilities, the AFPEO/CM needs metrics to help it monitor compliance with statutory requirements, needs to respond to congressional inquiries about specific acquisitions, and needs to effectively manage Air Force services acquisition activities and organizations. RAND Project AIR FORCE was asked to help develop a portfolio of ‘overarching’ measures that will allow the AFPEO/CM to assess the health of Air Force acquisition activities, diagnose problems, and target improvement efforts. This report describes our recommendations. To help develop this portfolio of metrics, we considered the experience of commercial firms, which have long had a ‘strategic’ view of purchasing direct materials (goods) because they are direct inputs to production, but have only recently explored applying such approaches to purchasing services. Through interviews with well-respected chief purchasing officers and other executives involved in service acquisitions, through conference participation, and through a review of the business literature, we found that commercial firms are beginning to manage their service acquisitions in a manner similar to their acquisition of direct materials.

Air Force Service Procurement

In the Beginning

In the Beginning

‘Applying extensive original sources and social movement theory, Lienesch begins with fundamentalism, describing how early twentieth-century fundamentalists worked to form a collective identity, to develop their own institutions, and to turn evolution from an idea into an issue. He traces the emerging antievolution movement through the 1920s, examining debates over Darwinism that took place on college campuses and in state legislatures throughout the country. With fresh insights and analysis, Lienesch retells the story of the 1925 Scopes monkey trial and reinterprets its meaning. In tracking the movement from that time to today, he explores the rise of creation science in the 1960s, the alliance with the New Christian Right in the 1980s, and the development of the theory of intelligent design in our own time. He concludes by speculating on its place in the politics of the twenty-first century.

In the Beginning

Nature-Inspired Algorithms for Optimisation

Nature-Inspired Algorithms for Optimisation

Sect. I. Introduction — Why Is Optimization Difficult? / Thomas Weise, Michael Zapf, Raymond Chiong, Antonio J. Nebro — The Rationale behind Seeking Inspiration from Nature / Kent C.B. Steer, Andrew Wirth, Saman K. Halgamuge — Sect. II. Evolutionary Intelligence — The Evolutionary-Gradient-Search Procedure in Theory and Practice / Ralf Salomon, Dirk V. Arnold — The Evolutionary Transition Algorithm: Evolving Complex Solutions out of Simpler Ones / Tom Lenaerts, Anne Defaweux, Jano van Hemert — A Model-Assisted Memetic Algorithm for Expensive Optimization Problems / Yoel Tenne — A Self-Adaptive Mixed Distribution Based Uni-variate Estimation of Distribution Algorithm for Large Scale Global Optimization / Yu Wang, Bin Li — Differential Evolution with Fitness Diversity Self-Adaptation / Ville Tirronen, Ferrante Neri — Central Pattern Generators: Optimisation and Application / Leena N. Patel — Sect. III. Collective Intelligence — Fish School Search / Carmelo J.A. Bastos Filho … [et al.] — Magnifier Particle Swarm Optimization / Ying Tan, Junqi Zhang — Improved Particle Swarm Optimization in Constrained Numerical Search Spaces / Efren Mezura-Montes, Jorge Isacc Flore-Mendoza — Applying River Formation Dynamics to Solve NP-Complete Problems / Pablo Rabanal, Ismael Rodriguez, Fernando Rubio — Sect. IV. Social-Natural Intelligence — Algorithms Inspired in Social Phenomena / Antonio Neme, Sergio Hernandez — Artificial Immune Systems for Optimization / Heder S. Bernardino, Helio J.C. Barbosa — Sect. V. Multi-Objective Optimisation — Ranking Methods in Many-objective Evolutionary Algorithms / Antonio Lopez Jaimes, Luis Vicente Santana Quintero, Carlos A. Coello Coello — On the Effect of Applying a Steady-State Selection Scheme in the Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm NSGA-II / Antonio J. Nebro, Juan J. Durillo — Improving the Performance of Multiobjective Evolutionary Optimization Algorithms using Coevolutionary Learning /Tse Guan Tan, Jason Teo — Evolutionary Optimization for Multiobjective Portfolio Selection Under Markowitzs Model with Application to the Caracas Stock Exchange / Feijoo Colomine Duran, Carlos Cotta, Antonio J. Fernandez.

Nature-Inspired Algorithms for Optimisation

An Economic Analysis of Bilateral Investment Treaties

An Economic Analysis of Bilateral Investment Treaties

Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) are an important instrument for the protection of foreign direct investment (FDI). However, compared to international trade law, international investment law has so far received only little research attention from an economic point of view. By applying a law and economics approach, Jan Peter Sasse provides a systematic analysis of the way BITs function. He explains why BITs are more than just a signal, how they relate to institutional competition as well as to institutional quality and why transparency in international investment arbitration is hard to achieve and may even be detrimental.

An Economic Analysis of Bilateral Investment Treaties

Truly Nonlinear Oscillations

Truly Nonlinear Oscillations

This unique book provides a concise presentation of many of the fundamental strategies for calculating approximations to the oscillatory solutions of truly nonlinear (TNL) oscillator equations. The volume gives a general overview of the author’s work on harmonic balance, iteration and combined linearization-averaging methods. However, full discussions are also presented on parameter expansion procedures and a first-order averaging technique for TNL oscillators. The calculational basis of each method is clarified by applying them to a set of standard TNL oscillator equations. This allows a dire.

Truly Nonlinear Oscillations

Handbook of Service Science

Handbook of Service Science

As the service sector expands into the global economy, a new science of service is emerging, one that is dedicated to encouraging service innovation by applying scientific understanding, engineering discipline, and management practice to designing, improving, and scaling service systems. Handbook of Service Science takes the first major steps to clarifying the definition, role, and future of this nascent field. Incorporating work by scholars from across the spectrum of service research, the volume presents multidisciplinary perspectives on the nature and theory of service, on current research and practice in design, operations, delivery, and innovation of service, and on future opportunities and potential of service research. Handbook of Service Science provides a comprehensive reference suitable for a wide-reaching audience including researchers, practitioners, managers, and students who aspire to learn about or to create a deeper scientific foundation for service design and engineering, service experience and marketing, and service management and innovation.

Handbook of Service Science

An Expedition to Continuum Theory

An Expedition to Continuum Theory

This book introduces field theory as required in solid and fluid mechanics as well as in electromagnetism. It includes the necessary applied mathematical framework of tensor algebra and tensor calculus, using an inductive approach particularly suited to beginners. It is geared toward undergraduate classes in continuum theory for engineers in general, and more specifically to courses in continuum mechanics. Students will gain a sound basic understanding of the subject as well as the ability to solve engineering problems by applying the general laws of nature in terms of the balances for mass, momentum, and energy in combination with material-specific relations in terms of constitutive equations, thus learning how to use the theory in practice for themselves. This is facilitated by numerous examples and problems provided throughout the text.

An Expedition to Continuum Theory

Mathematics for the Physical Sciences

Mathematics for the Physical Sciences

This book is intended to provide a bridge from courses in general physics to the intermediate -level courses in classical mechanics, electrodynamics and quantum mechanics. It begins with a short review of some topics in physics that are then used throughout the book to provide the physical contexts for the mathematical methods that are developed: electrostatics, electric currents, magnetic flux, simple harmonic motion, and the rigid rotor. The next chapters treat vector algebra and vector calculus; the concept of magnetic flux serves to give physical meaning to the integral theorems. A short chapter on complex numbers provides the needed background for the remainder of the text. Ordinary differential equations arise in may physical contexts; the simple harmonic oscillator serves as the illustrative example. Examples from both classical and quantum physics illustrate the chapters on partial differential equations and eigenvalue problems: the quantum harmonic oscillator and a particle in a box, a conducting sphere in a uniform field and a vibrating drum head. The eigenvalue problem leads naturally to a discussion of orthogonal functions, which again use the quantum harmonic oscillator to provide the physical insight, and to matrices, where coupled oscillators and the principal axes of a rotating rigid body provide the physical context. The text concludes with a brief discussion of variational methods and the Euler-Lagrange equation. Problems at the end of each chapter give the student experience in applying mathematical methods to the solution of physical problems. Illustrative exercises throughout provide guidance. Many of the exercises call for graphical representations, and some are particularly amenable to the use of numerical methods.

Mathematics for the Physical Sciences

How to Prepare Your Curriculum Vitae

How to Prepare Your Curriculum Vitae

The curriculum vitae, a resume of educational and work background, is essential for undergraduates applying to graduate and professional schools. Now revised and updated, How to Prepare Your Curriculum Vitae helps readers to analyze their academic career and create the best ‘academic resume’ possible.

How to Prepare Your Curriculum Vitae

Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases XVIII, Volume 15

Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases XVIII, Volume 15

‘In the last decades, information modelling and knowledge bases have become hot topics not only in academic communities related to information systems and computer science, but also in business areas where information technology is applied. This book aims to exchange scientific results and experiences achieved in computer science and other related disciplines using innovative methods and progressive approaches. A platform has been established drawing together researches as well as practitioners dealing with information modelling and knowledge bases. The main topics of this publication target the variety of themes in the domain of information modelling, conceptual analysis, design and specification of information systems, ontologies, software engineering, knowledge and process management, data and knowledge bases. The editors also aim at applying new progressive theories. To this end, much attention is also being paid to theoretical disciplines including cognitive science, artificial intelligence, logic, linguistics and analytical philosophy. The selected papers cover many areas of information modelling, namely theory of concepts, database semantics, knowledge representation, software engineering, WWW information management, context-based information retrieval, ontological technology, image databases, temporal and spatial databases, document data management, process management, and many others.’

Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases XVIII, Volume 15

Delta Theory and Psychosocial Systems

Delta Theory and Psychosocial Systems

Delta Theory establishes the foundation for a true scientific applied psychology, a theory of how human influence induces change in others. Delta Theory is unified and universal, applying to all cultures, historical periods, and goals for change. It integrates concepts and research from psychology, sociology, anthropology, evolution theory, philosophy, psychoneurology, cognitive science, and cultural-historical-activity theory. Yet Delta Theory is clear, economical, and elegant, with a full exposition of tactics for its practices. Rich examples are drawn from professional practices, but also from the creation and operations of criminals, healing ceremonies of indigenous peoples, and cross-species comparisons. This book ultimately seeks to describe how influence works, how it could be improved, and how it can be resisted.

Delta Theory and Psychosocial Systems