This book reports on an original approach to problems of loci. It shows how the theory of mechanisms can be used to address the locus problem. It describes the study of different loci, with an emphasis on those of triangle and quadrilateral, but not limited to them. Thanks to a number of original drawings, the book helps to visualize different type of loci, which can be treated as curves, and shows how to create new ones, including some aesthetic ones, by changing some parameters of the equivalent mechanisms. Further, the book includes a theoretical discussion on the synthesis of mechanisms, giving some important insights into the correlation between the generation of trajectories by mechanisms and the synthesis of those mechanisms when the trajectory is given, and presenting approximate solutions to this problem. Based on the authors’ many years of research and on their extensive knowledge concerning the theory of mechanisms, and bridging between geometry and mechanics, this book offers a unique guide to mechanical engineers and engineering designers, mathematicians, as well as industrial and graphic designers, and students in the above-mentioned fields alike.

This proceedings book includes papers that cover the latest developments in automotive vehicles and environment, advanced transport systems and road traffic, heavy and special vehicles, new materials, manufacturing technologies and logistics and advanced engineering methods. Authors of the papers selected for this book are experts from research, industry and universities, coming from different countries. The overall objectives of the presentations are to respond to the major challenges faced by the automotive industry, and to propose potential solutions to problems related to automotive technology, transportation and environment, and road safety. The congress is organized by SIAR (Society of Automotive Engineers from Romania) in cooperation with SAE International. The purpose is to gather members from academia, industry and government and present their possibilities for investigations and research, in order to establish new future collaborations in the automotive engineering and transport domain. This proceedings book is just a part of the outcomes of the congress. The results presented in this proceedings book benefit researchers from academia and research institutes, industry specialists, Ph.D. students and students in Automotive and Transport Engineering programs.

This book reports on an original approach to problems of loci. It shows how the theory of mechanisms can be used to address the locus problem. It describes the study of different loci, with an emphasis on those of triangle and quadrilateral, but not limited to them. Thanks to a number of original drawings, the book helps to visualize different type of loci, which can be treated as curves, and shows how to create new ones, including some aesthetic ones, by changing some parameters of the equivalent mechanisms. Further, the book includes a theoretical discussion on the synthesis of mechanisms, giving some important insights into the correlation between the generation of trajectories by mechanisms and the synthesis of those mechanisms when the trajectory is given, and presenting approximate solutions to this problem. Based on the authors' many years of research and on their extensive knowledge concerning the theory of mechanisms, and bridging between geometry and mechanics, this book offers a unique guide to mechanical engineers and engineering designers, mathematicians, as well as industrial and graphic designers, and students in the above-mentioned fields alike.

"Leading scholars in perceived control research review the important historical foundations and most recent developments in key areas of control theory, research, and practice. Their reviews provide insights into how this important concept became so widely influential, and project how it will continue to generate new knowledge in the future"--

Many present-day and ancient continental deformation systems appear to have formed due to significantly oblique relative plate motions. Transpression and transtension zones are formed where the oblique motions involve components of compression and extensions, respectively. This book covers the recent advances in our understanding or transpressional and transtensional deformation zones both in theory and in real geological settings from around the world. The volume opens with an up-to-date overview of the topic that sets the scene for the more detailed papers which follow. The papers are grouped into four sections. The first, Modelling Transpression and Transtension, includes a series of papers that discuss theoretical strain models in the context of field examples and analogue experiments. The second section details the tectonic evolution of Continental Transform Zones and includes papers on the Dead Sea Transform, western USA and Chile. The third section, Oblique Divergence Zones, has papers on gravitational collapse in the Norwegian Caledonides and in SW North America, the break-up of Gondwana and a pull-apart basin in northern China. The final section on Oblique Convergence Zones, has case studies from Brazil, European Variscides, Antarctica, the Himalayas, the Sierra Nevada batholith and Italy.

This book is a guide to concepts and practice in numerical algebraic geometry ? the solution of systems of polynomial equations by numerical methods. Through numerous examples, the authors show how to apply the well-received and widely used open-source Bertini software package to compute solutions, including a detailed manual on syntax and usage options. The authors also maintain a complementary web page where readers can find supplementary materials and Bertini input files. Numerically Solving Polynomial Systems with Bertini approaches numerical algebraic geometry from a user's point of view with numerous examples of how Bertini is applicable to polynomial systems. It treats the fundamental task of solving a given polynomial system and describes the latest advances in the field, including algorithms for intersecting and projecting algebraic sets, methods for treating singular sets, the nascent field of real numerical algebraic geometry, and applications to large polynomial systems arising from differential equations. Those who wish to solve polynomial systems can start gently by finding isolated solutions to small systems, advance rapidly to using algorithms for finding positive-dimensional solution sets (curves, surfaces, etc.), and learn how to use parallel computers on large problems. These techniques are of interest to engineers and scientists in fields where polynomial equations arise, including robotics, control theory, economics, physics, numerical PDEs, and computational chemistry.

Despite Darwin's emphasis, competition's role in diversification remains controversial and largely underappreciated.

Written by a team of leading experts in leadership studies, The Nature of Leadership provides compelling answers to the most vexing questions surrounding leadership: Is leadership measurable? Are there traits that reliably distinguish leaders from nonleaders? Does the situation matter? Are there differences in women′s and men′s leadership styles? Is ethical leadership effective leadership? Are elements of leadership culturally bounded whereas other elements are universal? Does vision really matter? Can leadership be developed? The new volume includes 16 chapters divided into five parts: Introduction, Leadership: Science, Nature, and Nurture; The Major Schools of Leadership; Special Topics in Leadership; and Conclusion. Topical coverage within these parts include research methods, leader and leadership development, evolutionary and biological perspectives of leadership, individual differences, situational and contingency theories, transformational, charismatic, and shared leadership, followership, gender, identity, culture, and ethics.

This is the second volume of a series of edited books whose aim is to collect c- tributed papers within a framework that can serve as a collection of persons in MMS (Mechanism and Machine Science). This is a continuation of the first volume that was published in 2008, again combining very ancient and very recent scholars in order to give not only an encyclopaedic character to this project but also to emphasize the significance of MMS over time. This project has the characteristic that the papers illustrate, by recognizing p- sons and their scientific work, mainly technical developments in the historical evolution of the fields that today are grouped in MMS. Thus, emphasis is also given to biographical notes describing efforts and experiences of people who have c- tributed to the technical achievements whose technical survey is the core of each contributed paper. This second volume of the project has been possible thanks to the invited authors who have enthusiastically shared in this initiative and who have spent time and effort in preparing the papers. The stand-alone papers cover the wide field of the History of Mechanical Engineering with specific focus on MMS. I believe that readers will take advantage of the papers in this book and future ones by supplying further satisfaction and motivation for her or his work (historical or not).

This book is the outcome of a decade of research on the neu roanatomical mechanisms of learning in the young laboratory rat. It is essentially a discourse on the functional organization of the brain in relation to problem-solving ability and intelli gence. During the period between 1980 and 1989, well over 1000 weanling albino rats were subjected to localized brain damage (or sham operations in the case of the controls) under deep anesthesia and aseptic surgical conditions, were allowed tore cover, and subsequently were tested on a wide variety of prob lems designed to measure general learning ability. Since vir tually every part of the brain rostral to the medulla has been explored with lesions, it has become possible not only to map a number of "putative" brain systems underlying the acquisition of distinctive problem-solving tasks, but to isolate several neu roanatomical mechanisms that appear to be selectively in volved in the acquisition of particular kinds of goal-directed learned activities. Of particular interest was the discovery of a "nonspecific mechanism" (previously referred to in our re search reports as the "general learning system") inhabiting the interior parts of the brain. One objective of this volume was to make these maps available in a single source. Another was to provide a descrip tion of learning syndromes arising from local lesions to differ ent parts of the brain.