Bücher veröffentlicht von Springer Berlin Heidelberg

During the past decade digital imaging has significantly progressed in all imaging areas ranging from medicine, pharmacy, chemistry, biology to astrophysics, meteorology and geophysics. The avalanche of digitized images produced a need for special techniques of processing and knowledge extraction from many digital images with minimal or even without human interaction. This has resulted in a new area in the digital processing called pattern recognition that becomes increasingly necessary owing to a growing number of images to be processed. The first applications of pattern recognition techniques were for the analysis of medical X rays and MMR images that enabled the extraction of quantified information in terms of texture, intensity and shape and allowed to significantly improve a di agnosis of human organs. These techniques were significantly developed over the la st few years and combined feature detection and classification by using re gion based and artificial intelligence methods. By using growing databases of medical images processed with pattern recognition and classification t echniques, one can produce fast and consistent diagnosis of diseases based on the accumulated knowledge obtained from many other similar cases from the stored databases. The use of CCD cameras for astroph ysical instruments on the ground and space produce digitized images in va rious fields of astrophysics. In the past decade, many space and ground based instruments provide large numbers of digitized images of the ni ght skies and of the Sun, our closest star.

This book addresses the significant environmental changes experienced by high latitude and high altitude ecosystems at the beginning of the 21st c- tury. Increased temperatures and precipitation, reduction in sea ice and glacier ice, the increased levels of UV-radiation and the long-range tra- ported contaminants in arctic and alpine regions are stress factors that challenge terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. The large natural variation in the physical parameters of these extreme environments is a key factor in structuring the biodiversity and biotic productivity, and the effect of the new stress factors can be critical for the population structures and the - teraction between species. These changes may also have socio-economic effects if the changes affect the bio-production, which form the basis for the marine and terrestrial food chains. The book is uniquely multidisciplinary and provides examples of va- ous aspects of contemporary environmental change in arctic and alpine - gions. The 21 chapters of the book are organised under the fields of ¿Climate change and ecosystem response, ¿Long range transport of poll- ants and ecological impacts, and ¿UV radiation and biological effects, each also including aspects of the ¿Socio-economic effects of environmental change. The introductory chapter presents and explains the internal c- nection and integration of all chapters. The added value of these reviews and review-like manuscripts from different disciplines hopefully yields new information about the integrated aspects of environmental change.

In the year 1900 at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris David Hilbert delivered what is now considered the most important talk ever given in the history of mathematics, proposing 23 major problems worth working at in the future. One hundred years later the impact of this talk is still strong: some problems have been solved, new problems have been added, but the direction once set - identify the most important problems and focus on them - is still actual.Computational Intelligence (CI) is used as a name to cover many existing branches of science, with artificial neural networks, fuzzy systems and evolutionary computation forming its core. In recent years CI has been extended by adding many other subdisciplines and it became quite obvious that this new field also requires a series of challenging problems that will give it a sense of direction. Without setting up clear goals and yardsticks to measure progress on the way many research efforts are wasted.The book written by top experts in CI provides such clear directions and the much-needed focus on the most important and challenging research issues, showing a roadmap how to achieve ambitious goals.

Parallel imaging techniques have only recently been introduced into magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in clinical routine, but they have already gained wide clinical acceptance in numerous applications. Their substantial advantages in terms of higher spatial and temporal resolution and improved image quality have revolutionized the role of MRI in many areas of comprehensive disease imaging. This book presents the first in-depth introduction to parallel imaging techniques and, in particular, to the application of parallel imaging in clinical MRI. It will provide readers with a broader understanding of the fundamental principles of parallel imaging and of the advantages and disadvantages of specific MR protocols in clinical applications in all parts of the body at 1.5 and 3 Tesla.

A secure future has to be the goal and motivation of every attempt at progress and of all politics. Engineers, teachers, and scientists can assume a part of their personal responsibility in such attempts. We should all search for organizational and technical possibilities individually and with our fellow professionals that can help avoid technogenic - and therefore - sociogenic catastrophes. When we consider the extremely short time for inventions and the practical ap- plication of essential ideas, it is not enough to rely on the methods for finding new ideas that our wonderful, yet so imperfect civilization has created. Perhaps this civilization is sometimes so deficient because the methods that have shaped it are imperfect. Who controls the development of humanity? Can we really make a reliable prognosis about our best way into the future? How can sociogenic, geogenic, and cosmic catastrophes be avoided? How can we insure the progress and security of coming generations? TRIZ teaches us how to make inventions! TRIZ teaches us how to construct the future! TRIZ changes your thinking, i.e., all of civilization, too! Rational decisions about the problems above cannot be made today without the use ofTRIZ.

Combinatorial enumeration is a readily accessible subject full of easily stated, but sometimes tantalizingly difficult problems. This book leads the reader in a leisurely way from the basic notions to a variety of topics, ranging from algebra to statistical physics. Its aim is to introduce the student to a fascinating field, and to be a source of information for the professional mathematician who wants to learn more about the subject. The book is organized in three parts: Basics, Methods, and Topics. There are 666 exercises, and as a special feature every chapter ends with a highlight, discussing a particularly beautiful or famous result.