Gone Again

Gone Again

‘It’s just to say that no-one has come to pick Nathan up from school, and we were wondering if there was a problem of some kind?’ As Mark Douglas photographs a pod of whales stranded in the waters off Edinburgh’s Portobello Beach, he is called by his son’s school: his wife, Lauren, hasn’t turned up to collect their son. Calm at first, Mark collects Nathan and takes him home but as the hours slowly crawl by he increasingly starts to worry. With brilliantly controlled reveals, we learn some of the painful secrets of the couple’s shared past, not least that it isn’t the first time Lauren has disappeared. And as Mark struggles to care for his son and shield him from the truth of what’s going on, the police seem dangerously short of leads. That is, until a shocking discovery…

Gone Again

Multi-Component Acoustic Characterization of Porous Media

Multi-Component Acoustic Characterization of Porous Media

The feasibility to extract porous medium parameters from acoustic recordings is investigated. The thesis gives an excellent discussion of our basic understanding of different wave modes, using a full-waveform and multi-component approach. Focus lies on the dependency on porosity and permeability where especially the latter is difficult to estimate. In this thesis, this sensitivity is shown for interface-wave and reflected-wave modes. For each of the pseudo-Rayleigh and pseudo-Stoneley interface waves unique estimates for permeability and porosity can be obtained when impedance and attenuation are combined. The pseudo-Stoneley wave is most sensitive to permeability: both the impedance and the attenuation are controlled by the fluid flow. Also from reflected-wave modes unique estimates for permeability and porosity can be obtained when the reflection coefficients of different reflected modes are combined. In this case the sensitivity to permeability is caused by subsurface heterogeneities generating mesoscopic fluid flow at seismic frequencies. The results of this thesis suggest that estimation of in-situ permeability is feasible, provided detection is carried out with multi-component measurements. The results of this thesis argely affect geotechnical and reservoir engineering practices.

Multi-Component Acoustic Characterization of Porous Media

Visualization of Hydrogen-Bond Dynamics

Visualization of Hydrogen-Bond Dynamics

The hydrogen bond represents an important interaction between molecules, and the dynamics of hydrogen bonds in water create an ever-present question associated with the process of chemical and biological reactions. In spite of numerous studies, the process remains poorly understood at the microscopic level because hydrogen-bond dynamics, such as bond rearrangements and hydrogen/proton transfer reactions, are extremely difficult to probe. Those studies have been carried out by means of spectroscopic methods where the signal stems from the ensemble of a system and the hydrogen-bond dynamics were inferred indirectly. This book addresses the direct imaging of hydrogen-bond dynamics within water-based model systems assembled on a metal surface, using a scanning tunneling microscope (STM). The dynamics of individual hydrogen bonds in water clusters, hydroxyl clusters, and water-hydroxyl complexes are investigated in conjunction with density functional theory. In these model systems, quantum dynamics of hydrogen bonds, such as tunneling and zero-point nuclear motion, are observed in real space. Most notably, hydrogen atom relay reactions, which are frequently invoked across many fields of chemistry, are visualized and controlled by STM. This work presents a means of studying hydrogen-bond dynamics at the single-molecule level, providing an important contribution to wide fields beyond surface chemistry.

Visualization of Hydrogen-Bond Dynamics

Numerical Methods for Controlled Stochastic Delay Systems

Numerical Methods for Controlled Stochastic Delay Systems

The Markov chain approximation methods are widely used for the numerical solution of nonlinear stochastic control problems in continuous time. This book extends the methods to stochastic systems with delays. Because such problems are infinite-dimensional, many new issues arise in getting good numerical approximations and in the convergence proofs. Useful forms of numerical algorithms and system approximations are developed in this work, and the convergence proofs are given. All of the usual cost functions are treated as well as singular and impulsive controls. A major concern is on representations and approximations that use minimal memory. Featuring numerical algorithms and examples with applications to control and modern communications systems, this book is the first on the subject and will be of great interest to all those who work with stochastic delay equations and whose main interest is in either the use of the algorithms or in the underlying mathematics. An excellent resource for graduate students, researchers, and practitioners, the work may be used as a graduate-level textbook for a special topics course or seminar on numerical methods in stochastic control.

Numerical Methods for Controlled Stochastic Delay Systems

Magnetic Recording Handbook

Magnetic Recording Handbook

This guide explains everything from tape manufacture to state-of-the-art recording techniques such as digital and laser-beam recording. It provides information on special and unusual head designs, biasing and erasing, and recording drive design. The latest advances are discussed in computer-controlled recording, home video recording, and low-noise electronic system design. The text should be of interest to engineers and technicians in the magnetic recording industry.

Magnetic Recording Handbook

Diffusion-controlled Solid State Reactions

Diffusion-controlled Solid State Reactions

Written by an outstanding group of applied theoreticians with comprehensive expertise and a wide spectrum of international contacts headed by Prof. A. M. Gusak, this monograph coherently presents the approaches and results hitherto only available in various journal papers.

Diffusion-controlled Solid State Reactions

Make a Mind-Controlled Arduino Robot

Make a Mind-Controlled Arduino Robot

Build a robot that responds to electrical activity in your brain – it’s easy and fun. If you’re familiar with , and have , mechanical building skills, this book will show you how to construct a robot that plays sounds, blinks lights, and reacts to signals from an affordable electroencephalography (EEG) headband. Concentrate and the robot will move. Focus more and it will go faster. Let your mind wander and the robot will slow down.

Make a Mind-Controlled Arduino Robot