This book offers a broad range of options for technically adapting, handling and processing wood with specific wood characteristics. It starts by discussing wood anatomy and the general factors leading to the formation of wood characteristics. The individual characteristics are then categorized into four groups: 1. Wood characteristics inherent in a tree’s natural growth. 2. Biotically-induced wood characteristics. 3. Abiotically-induced wood characteristics. 4. Types and causes of cracks. New to this English edition is a comparison of wood characteristics found in trees from the boreal, temperate and tropical climate zones. The results show a clear relationship between the effects of sunshine duration, the vertical and horizontal angle of radiation, and crown coverage and the way wood characteristics form. The book addresses all those who work with wood professionally: foresters, gardeners and arborists who want to be able to observe a living tree and identify its internal features and the causes of its prominent wood characteristics. Based on the findings described in this book they can determine how to avoid certain undesirable characteristics, or alternatively how to promote favorable ones as the tree and stand grow. Botanists and dendrologists will learn how wood characteristics arise, and how they affect living trees and wood products. The needs of wood technologists seeking to prevent adverse wood characteristics from influencing wood processing, or to enhance favorable wood characteristics, are also addressed.

Understanding games--whether computer games, card games, board games, or sports--by analyzing certain common traits. Characteristics of Games offers a new way to understand games: by focusing on certain traits--including number of players, rules, degrees of luck and skill needed, and reward/effort ratio--and using these characteristics as basic points of comparison and analysis. These issues are often discussed by game players and designers but seldom written about in any formal way. This book fills that gap. By emphasizing these player-centric basic concepts, the book provides a framework for game analysis from the viewpoint of a game designer. The book shows what all genres of games--board games, card games, computer games, and sports--have to teach each other. Today's game designers may find solutions to design problems when they look at classic games that have evolved over years of playing.

Five laboratories from France, Hungary and the Czech Republic have solved a Project supported fmancially by NATO within the Science for Peace Program (under Nr. 972655) for three years. The project, titled Fracture ResistanceofSteelsfor Containers of Spent Nuclear Fuel, was focused (i) on the generation of data needed for the qualification procedure of a new container introduced by Skoda Nuclear Machinery and (ii) on a number of topics of scientific nature associated with the interesting field of transferability of fracture mechanical data-, It has been found during numerous conference presentations of project results that the knowledge developed within the project would be more attractive when published in a more comprehensive form. This was the reason why the final project workshop was arranged as a meeting of project collaborators and contributing invited experts working in very similar field. The main scope of the final project workshop, titled Transferability of Fracture Mechanical Data and held in Brno from 5 to 6 November 200I, was to bring together project collaborators with a number of invited international experts, both covering the spectrum of topics solved within the project and reviewing the project results in the presence ofthese specialists. A totalof34 colleagues from 7 European countries and the USA participated in the workshop.

This volume includes the proceedings of a workshop on Invariant Theory held at Queen's University (Ontario). The workshop was part of the theme year held under the auspices of the Centre de recherches mathematiques (CRM) in Montreal. The gathering brought together two communities of researchers: those working in characteristic 0 and those working in positive characteristic. The book contains three types of papers: survey articles providing introductions to computational invarianttheory, modular invariant theory of finite groups, and the invariant theory of Lie groups; expository works recounting recent research in these three areas and beyond; and open problems of current interest. The book is suitable for graduate students and researchers working in invarianttheory.

Researchers and psychologists have spent decades working to dissect and analyze the personality characteristics intrinsic to successful entrepreneurs. While a number of theories have been advanced about what it takes to achieve entrepreneurial success, none have tapped directly into the collective wisdom of the entrepreneurs themselves. In The Five Characteristics of a Successful Entrepreneur, serial entrepreneurs Ryan Westwood and Travis Johnson recount their two year mission to survey 100,000 highly successful U.S. business CEOs and founders whose organizations have grossed at least $1 million in annual revenue. Armed with survey results from more than 2,600 respondents from across the nation, Mr. Westwood and Mr. Johnson take an in-depth look at the five personality traits most commonly identified as essential to entrepreneurial success. Filled with real-life examples, insightful analysis, and action plans at the end of each chapter, The Five Characteristics of a Successful Entrepreneur is an unprecedented journey into the rich, nuanced fabric that has made American entrepreneurs the most savvy and innovative on earth. It is a must-read for any aspiring entrepreneur seeking to follow a clear path to success—and for any accomplished entrepreneur seeking to impart the most salient, relevant advice to the next generation.

Characteristics of Hawaiian Volcanoes establishes a benchmark for the currrent understanding of volcanism in Hawaii, and the articles herein build upon the elegant and pioneering work of Dutton, Jagger, Steams, and many other USGS and academic scientists. Each chapter synthesizes the lessons learned about a specific aspect of volcanism in Hawaii, based largely o continuous observation of eruptive activity and on systematic research into volcanic and earthquake processes during HVO's first 100 years. NOTE: NO FURTHER DISCOUNTS FOR ALREADY REDUCED SALE ITEMS.