"SAS[superscript 2]: A Guide to Collaborative Inquiry and Social Engagement represents a groundbreaking international effort to support the creation and mobilization of practical, authentic knowledge for social change. The guiding principle behind SAS[superscript 2] (Social Analysis Systems, www.sas2.net) is that group dialogue and social inquiry are crucial for local and global development. Social issues must be addressed socially and in a multistakeholder mode, not by private interests and experts alone, and the insights that emerge fully integrated into processes of knowledge production, planning, and decision-making." "This book will be an invaluable resource for researchers, consultants, facilitators, and activists working with people to solve problems and support inclusive inquiry and decision-making. It will also be useful to scholars and academics studying and teaching participatory action research in the social sciences."--BOOK JACKET.

This book develops techniques for simulating digital logic circuits in Microsoft’s Excel that provide a useful tool to both the student and the practicing engineer. It introduces the subject by showing how logic devices, taken from the standard 7400 family, can be modeled and stored in a library. These functions can then be combined by the user as building blocks to design more complex circuits, both combinatorial and sequential. The simulations not only allow the designs to be verified to ensure they provide expected outputs and states, but can also perform detailed timing analysis. Worst case timing conditions can be imposed to stress the circuits so that the resultant behavior can be observed. Methods showing how the user can add additional devices to the simulation library are also covered.

The present monograph on matrix partial orders, appearing for the first time, is a unique presentation of many partial orders on matrices that have fascinated mathematicians for their beauty and applied scientists for their wide-ranging application potential. Except for the Lwner order, the partial orders considered are relatively new and came into being in the late 1970s. After a detailed introduction to generalized inverses and decompositions, the three basic partial orders namely, the minus, the sharp and the star and the corresponding one-sided orders are presented using various generalized inverses. The authors then give a unified theory of all these partial orders. This is followed by a study of the Lwner order and a limited treatment of majorization (there is an abundance of literature available on majorization). The authors also study the parallel sums and shorted matrices, the latter being studied at great length. Partial orders of modified matrices are a new addition. Finally, applications are given in statistics and electrical network theory.

This work develops a set of advanced signaling concepts for IP-based networks. It proposes a design for secure and authentic signaling and provides QoS signaling support for mobile users. Furthermore, this work develops methods which allow for scalable QoS signaling by realizing QoS-based group communication mechanisms and through aggregation of resource reservations.

From July 7 to 12, 2008 in Zelenogradsk, a cosy resort on the bank of the Baltic Sea near Kaliningrad in Russia, the 1st International Conference “Atmosphere, Ionosphere, Safety (AIS-2008)” has been carried out. The State Russian University of I. Kant, Semenov Institute of chemical physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Pushkov Institute of terrestrial magnetism and radio-waves propagation of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Russian Committee on Ball Lightning (BL) have acted as organizers of the conference. Financial support was made by Russian Fund of Fundamental Research Project N. 08-03-06041 and European Of?ce of Aerospace Research and Development Grant award FA8655-08-1-5052. The International conference “Atmosphere, Ionosphere, Safety” (AIS-2008) was devoted to (i) the analysis of the atmosphere–ionosphere response on natural and man-made processes, the reasons of occurrence of the various accompanying geophysical phenomena, and an estimation of possible consequences of their in?uence on the person and technological systems; (ii) the study of the monitoring possibility and search of the ways for the risk level decrease. Discussion of the physical and chemical processes accompanying the observable geophysical p- nomena was undertaken. One can see from a list of the Conference sections that questions of safety took only rather modest place, so main topics of the Conference became discussion of processes taking place in the atmosphere, ionosphere and methods of monitoring these processes.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 5th International ICST Conference, SecureComm 2009, held in September 2009 in Athens, Greece. The 19 revised full papers and 7 revised short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 76 submissions. The papers cover various topics such as wireless network security, network intrusion detection, security and privacy for the general internet, malware and misbehavior, sensor networks, key management, credentials and authentications, as well as secure multicast and emerging technologies.

Vehicle Dynamics and Control: Advanced Methodologies features the latest information on advanced dynamics and vehicle motion control, including a comprehensive overview of passenger cars and articulated vehicles, fundamentals, and emerging developments. This book provides a unified, balanced treatment of advanced approaches to vehicle dynamics and control. It proceeds to cover advanced vehicle control strategies, such as identification and estimation, adaptive nonlinear control, new robust control techniques, and soft computing. Other topics, such as the integrated control of passenger cars and articulated heavy vehicles, are also discussed with a significant amount of material on engineering methodology, simulation, modeling, and mathematical verification of the systems. This book discusses and solves new challenges in vehicle dynamics and control problems and helps graduate students in the field of automotive engineering as well as researchers and engineers seeking theoretical/practical design procedures in automotive control systems. - Provides a vast spectrum of advanced vehicle dynamics and control systems topics and current research trends - Provides an extensive discussion in some advanced topics on commercial vehicles, such as dynamics and control of semitrailer carrying liquid, integrated control system design, path planning and tracking control in the autonomous articulated vehicle

Chromatin Signaling and Diseases covers the molecular mechanisms that regulate gene expression, which govern everything from embryonic development, growth, and human pathologies associated with aging, such as cancer. This book helps researchers learn about or keep up with the quickly expanding field of chromatin signaling. After reading this book, clinicians will be more capable of explaining the mechanisms of gene expression regulation to their patients to reassure them about new drug developments that target chromatin signaling mechanisms. For example, several epigenetic drugs that act on chromatin signaling factors are in clinical trials or even approved for usage in cancer treatments, Alzheimer's, and Huntington's diseases. Other epigenetic drugs are in development to regulate various class of chromatin signaling factors. To keep up with this changing landscape, clinicians and doctors will need to stay familiar with genetic advances that translate to clinical practice, such as chromatin signaling. Although sequencing of the human genome was completed over a decade ago and its structure investigated for nearly half a century, molecular mechanisms that regulate gene expression remain largely misunderstood. An emerging concept called chromatin signaling proposes that small protein domains recognize chemical modifications on the genome scaffolding histone proteins, facilitating the nucleation of enzymatic complexes at specific loci that then open up or shut down the access to genetic information, thereby regulating gene expression. The addition and removal of chemical modifications on histones, as well as the proteins that specifically recognize these, is reviewed in Chromatin Signaling and Diseases. Finally, the impact of gene expression defects associated with malfunctioning chromatin signaling is also explored. - Explains molecular mechanisms that regulate gene expression, which governs everything from embryonic development, growth, and human pathologies associated with aging - Educates clinicians and researchers about chromatin signaling, a molecular mechanism that is changing our understanding of human pathology - Explores the addition and removal of chemical modifications on histones, the proteins that specifically recognize these, and the impact of gene expression defects associated with malfunctioning chromatin signaling - Helps researchers learn about the quickly expanding field of chromatin signaling