Bücher der Reihe SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology

This book describes a collaborative Design Pilot Project held in Brazil (called MODU.Lares) involving micro and small enterprises and other actors in the furniture sector.

This book develops and analyses computational wear simulations of the total ankle replacement for the stance phase of gait cycle. The emphasis is put on the relevant design parameters. The book presents a model consisting of three components; tibial, bearing and talar representing their physiological functions.

Dr. Fleischer explores how applications of PCMS have expanded over the past 10 years to include the development of high efficiency building materials to reduce heating and cooling needs, smart material design for clothing, portable electronic systems thermal management, solar thermal power plant design and many others.

The proposed solution implements three approaches to multi-objective multi-constraint optimization, namely, an evolutionary approach with NSGAII, a swarm intelligence approach with MOPSO and stochastic hill climbing approach with MOSA.

This short book describes the basic technological aspects involved in the creation of purely clinch and clinch-adhesive joints made of different types of adherent materials and employing different joining technologies.

This book explains the potential value of using mobile phone data to monitor urban practices and identify rhythms of use in today's cities.

Two in-depth case studies on institutional change in metropolitan transport (in London and Barcelona) are presented with a view to testing the aforementioned hypotheses and providing insights into the ways in which the two transport institutions were reformed.

This book proposes a novel approach for time-series prediction using machine learning techniques with automatic feature generation. The proposed method can be applied to a wide range of machine learning architectures and applications to represent complex feature dependencies explicitly when machine learning cannot achieve this by itself.

This book focuses on two specific areas related to fractional order systems ΓÇô the realization of physical devices characterized by non-integer order impedance, usually called fractional-order elements (FOEs); and the characterization of vegetable tissues via electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) ΓÇô and provides readers with new tools for designing new types of integrated circuits. The majority of the book addresses FOEs.The interest in these topics is related to the need to produce ΓÇ£analogueΓÇ¥ electronic devices characterized by non-integer order impedance, and to the characterization of natural phenomena, which are systems with memory or aftereffects and for which the fractional-order calculus tool is the ideal choice for analysis.FOEs represent the building blocks for designing and realizing analogue integrated electronic circuits, which the authors believe hold the potential for a wealth of mass-market applications. The freedom to choose either an integer- or non-integer-order analogue integrator/derivator is a new one for electronic circuit designers. The book shows how specific non-integer-order impedance elements can be created using materials with specific structural properties.EIS measures the electrical impedance of a specimen across a given range of frequencies, producing a spectrum that represents the variation of the impedance versus frequency ΓÇô a technique that has the advantage of avoiding aggressive examinations.Biological tissues are complex systems characterized by dynamic processes that occur at different lengths and time scales; this book proposes a model for vegetable tissues that describes the behavior of such materials by considering the interactions among various relaxing phenomena and memory effects.

This book provides a comprehensive and contemporary overview of advances in energy and energy storage technologies.

This book addresses cutting-edge topics in robotics and related technologies for rehabilitation, covering basic concepts and providing the reader with the information they need to solve various practical problems.

Sustainable and Environmentally Friendly Dairy Farms presents an innovative environmental proposal. While chiefly focusing on dairy farms, the environmental solution it describes is applicable to the entire livestock sector. In turn, the third chapter covers dairy farm systems, explaining both intensive and extensive husbandry systems.

This Volume presents a unified approach to calculate the plane stress distribution of stress and strain in thin elastic/plastic discs subject to various loading conditions. There is a vast amount of literature on analytical and semi-analytical solutions for such discs obeying Tresca's yield criterion and its associated flow rule.

This Brief stands as a primer for heat transfer fundamentals in heat transfer enhancement devices, the definition of heat transfer area, passive and active enhancement techniques and their potential and benefits and commercial applications.

This book investigates how established transport planning tools can evolve to understand and plan for the ever-changing contemporary mobilities that influence the opportunities available to individuals.

Memristive Nonlinear Electronic Circuits deals with nonlinear systems in the design and implementation of circuits for generating complex dynamics.

This book presents the basics of the Laser Assisted Oxygen (LASOX) cutting process, its development, advantages and shortcomings, together with detailed information on the research work carried out to date regarding the modelling and optimization of the process.

This book illustrates a new quantitative risk analysis model for road tunnels that is capable of evaluating the role of infrastructure measures, equipment and management procedures as prescribed by EU Directive 2004/54/EC.

This book presents a design-driven investigation into smart materials developed by chemists, physicists, materials and chemical engineers, and applied by designers to consumer products, buildings, interfaces, or textiles.

This Brief provides a clear insight of the recent advances in the field of cancer theranostics with special emphasis upon nano scale carrier molecules (polymeric, protein and lipid based) and imaging agents (organic and inorganic).

This book describes the Exergy-based Input - Output (ExIO) framework, a comprehensive methodology for assessing the primary fossil fuels requirements for the production of goods and services within a given economy from a lifecycle perspective.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of ZnO-nano carbon core shell hybrid issues. There is significant interest in metal oxide/nanocarbon hybrid functional materials in the field of energy conversion and storage as electrode materials for supercapacitors, Li ion secondary battery, electrocatalysts for water splitting, and optoelectronic devices such as light emitting diodes and solar photovoltaic cells. Despite efforts to manipulate more uniform metal oxide-nanocarbon nanocomposite structures, they have shown poor performance because they are randomly scattered and non-uniformly attached to the nanocarbon surface. For higher and more effective performance of the hybrid structure, 3D conformal coating on metal oxides are highly desirable.In the first part of the book, the physical and chemical properties of ZnO and nanocarbons and the state-of-the-art in related research are briefly summarized. In the next part, the 3D conformal coating synthetic processes of ZnO templated nanocarbon hybrid materials such as ZnO-graphene,-C60, single-walled (SWCNT) are introduced with the aid of schematic illustrations. Analysis of their chemical bonding and structure are also presented. In the final section, several applications are presented: UV photovoltaic cells and photoelectrochemical anodes for water splitting using ZnO-C60 and ZnO-graphene, white-light-emitting diodes based on ZnO-graphene quantum dots(GQDs), inverted solar cells using ligand-modified ZnO-graphene QDs, and P(VDF-TrFE) copolymer with mixed with nano-ring SWCNT.The book describes how strong anchoring bonds between a ZnO core and carbon nanomaterial shell will ultimately prevail over the main drawbacks of ZnO with high charge recombination and poor electrochemical stability in liquid solutions. Due to the moderate energy states and excellent electric properties of the nanocarbons, ultrafast charge carrier transport from the ZnO core to the nanocarbon shell is guaranteed with the use of the photoluminescence (PL) lifetime measurement.Given the growing interest and significance of future research in optoelectronic and electrochemical devices applications, the contents are very timely. This book is targeted towards researchers looking for highly efficient metal oxide-nanocarbon hybrid functional materials in the fields of nano-optoelectronics, photoelectrochemistry, energy storage and conversion.

This book develops continuum modeling skills and approaches the topic from three sides: (1) derivation of global integral laws together with the associated local differential equations, (2) design of constitutive laws and (3) modeling boundary processes.

This work identifies the characteristics of racket design parameters that influence racket performance. It is recommended that the racket design consist of low string tension, stiffer racket shafts and bigger head size in order to produce higher shuttlecock speed.

Environmental conditions and pressurized spacesuits expose astronauts to problems of fatigue during lengthy extravehicular activities, with adverse impacts especially on the dexterity, force and endurance of the hands and arms.

This book offers a fascinating exploration of the relationship between information and communication technologies (ICTs) and spatial planning, expanding the concept of "urban smartness" from the usual scale of buildings or urban projects to the regional dimension.

Entransy in Phase-Change Systems summarizes recent developments in the area of entransy, especially on phase-change processes. This book covers new developments in the area including the great potential for energy saving for process industries, decreasing carbon dioxide emissions, reducing energy bills and improving overall efficiency of systems.

This book discusses the evaporation mechanism in the wick of copper heat pipes. The investigations are based on recent visualization experiments for operating horizontal flat-plate heat pipes.

Nanofins Science and Technology describes the heat transfer effectiveness of polymer coolants and their fundamental interactions with carbon nanotube coatings that act as nanofins.