Bücher veröffentlicht von Springer New York

In Basophils and Mast Cells: Methods and Protocols, experts in this challenging field explore techniques to research these cells from the most practical point of view. Given the tremendous influence of mast cells and blood-borne basophils over immune system function, this volume intends to aid the reader in the development of better tools for the isolation of these cells from primary tissues, peripheral blood, bone marrow, or cord blood. Also covered are protocols for the in vitro and in vivo study of their functions. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology format, chapters in this book contain introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls straight from the researchers who use the methods most.Authoritative and easy to use, Basophils and Mast Cells: Methods and Protocols will provide the necessary tools for future research into mast cells and basophils with the goal of aiding in the quest to shed more light on these fascinating cell types.

Brain Energy Metabolism addresses its challenging subject by presenting diverse technologies allowing for the investigation of brain energy metabolism on different levels of complexity. Model systems are discussed, starting from the reductionist approach like primary cell cultures which allow assessing of the properties and functions of a single brain cell type with many different types of analysis, however, at the expense of neglecting the interaction between cell types in the brain. On the other end, analysis in animals and humans in vivo is discussed, maintaining the full complexity of the tissue and the organism but making high demands on the methods of analysis. Written for the popular Neuromethods series, chapters include the kind of detailed description and key implementation advice that aims to support reproducible results in the lab.Meticulous and authoritative, Brain Energy Metabolism provides an ideal guide for researchers interested in brain energy metabolism with the hope of stimulating more research in this exciting and very important field.

This book provides the Assisted Reproduction Technologies (ART) community an update of the fast approaching novel technologies that may allow improved assessment of the reproductive potential of sperm, oocytes and embryos. The reader has access to concise updates on the rapidly developing diagnostic technologies (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics) and morphological methods which may help us better assess the gametes and embryos. Methodologies are described which enable selection of the best gamete or embryo by invasive and non-invasive diagnostics, as well as the clinical validity of these techniques.

The Compressed Word Problem for Groups provides a detailed exposition of known results on the compressed word problem, emphasizing efficient algorithms for the compressed word problem in various groups. The author presents the necessary background along with the most recent results on the compressed word problem to create a cohesive self-contained book accessible to computer scientists as well as mathematicians. Readers will quickly reach the frontier of current research which makes the book especially appealing for students looking for a currently active research topic at the intersection of group theory and computer science. The word problem introduced in 1910 by Max Dehn is one of the most important decision problems in group theory. For many groups, highly efficient algorithms for the word problem exist. In recent years, a new technique based on data compression for providing more efficient algorithms for word problems, has been developed, by representing long words over group generators in a compressed form using a straight-line program. Algorithmic techniques used for manipulating compressed words has shown that the compressed word problem can be solved in polynomial time for a large class of groups such as free groups, graph groups and nilpotent groups. These results have important implications for algorithmic questions related to automorphism groups.

Shotgun Proteomics: Methods and Protocols serves as a vital collection of protocols through which thousands of proteins can be simultaneously identified, quantified and characterized in a high throughput manner. Beginning with the history of proteomics centered on the vital role of mass spectrometry in its development, this detailed volume continues with chapters on sample pre-fractionation, in vivo and in vitro stable isotope labeling, label-free proteomics, informatics, protein-protein interactions, targeted proteomics and post-translational modifications. Written for the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls.Practical and comprehensive, Shotgun Proteomics: Methods and Protocols is an ideal and up-to-date guide for researchers seeking to understand the proteome of any given species.

This book explores a proactive and domain-driven method to classification tasks. This novel proactive approach to data mining not only induces a model for predicting or explaining a phenomenon, but also utilizes specific problem/domain knowledge to suggest specific actions to achieve optimal changes in the value of the target attribute. In particular, the authors suggest a specific implementation of the domain-driven proactive approach for classification trees. The book centers on the core idea of moving observations from one branch of the tree to another. It introduces a novel splitting criterion for decision trees, termed maximal-utility, which maximizes the potential for enhancing profitability in the output tree. Two real-world case studies, one of a leading wireless operator and the other of a major security company, are also included and demonstrate how applying the proactive approach to classification tasks can solve business problems. Proactive Data Mining with Decision Trees is intended for researchers, practitioners and advanced-level students.

The Little Book of Stars tells the story of stellar science and what the stars mean to us from a variety of perspectives. Beginning with the "big picture;' the book moves through progressively more and more intimate views until we feel we can hold the stars in our hands, from which we can then throw them back to the sky to see our place among them. The book opens with a summary of the event that created our Universe, the Big Bang, and then goes on to describe the natures of the Big Bang's progeny, the stars-what they are, how they shine, and how they can live such immensely long lives. Approaching horne, it next examines the measures of the stars: where they are, how they are collected together from pairs to galaxies of billions, and how we learn of their individual properties. Yet closer, we look in depth at the Sun and at the physical differences among the stars, at the immense range of properties they possess. Finally, arriving at Earth, we see the signif­ icance of the stars to human life, how we have used them to tell our stories and to find where we are in both space and time. v From this base, the book looks more closely at stellar details, concentrating on temporal phenomena-on stellar change-and on the observational base that helps set the stage for the theory that links them all together.

This book presents several novel approaches to model the interaction between the attacker and the defender and assess the security of Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs). The first security assessment approach is based on the attack tree security assessment model, which leverages tree based methods to analyze the risk of the system and identify the possible attacking strategies the adversaries may launch. To further capture the interaction between the attacker and the defender, the authors propose to utilize the attack-defense tree model to express the potential countermeasures which could mitigate the system. By considering rational participants that aim to maximize their payoff function, the brief describes a game-theoretic analysis approach to investigate the possible strategies that the security administrator and the attacker could adopt. A phased attack-defense game allows the reader to model the interactions between the attacker and defender for VANET security assessment. The brief offers a variety of methods for assessing the security of wireless networks. Professionals and researchers working on the defense of VANETs will find this material valuable.

Will address an important, yet underrepresented, topic. The correlation between viruses and atherosclerosis has been a focal point of the authors' work, for a number of years. This volume will explore the relationship between different viral strains and atherosclerosis. It will begin by describing the hypothesis and denoting the mechanisms of virus-driven atherosclerosis, then expanding on the subject by focusing on different virus strains-from Herpes, to Epstein-Barr, to the triad of Hepatitis viruses, et al-on a chapter-by-chapter basis. While there are books, albeit few, that cover particular viral strains and their relationship to cardiovascular diseases, this work will be unique in its scope by considering multiple strains of viruses, making it a repository of information on the topic; a truly comprehensive volume.

This brief guides the reader through three basic Internet resource pricing models using an Internet cost analysis. Addressing the evolution of service types, it presents several corresponding mechanisms which can ensure pricing implementation and resource allocation. The authors discuss utility optimization of network pricing methods in economics and underline two classes of pricing methods including system optimization and entities' strategic optimization. The brief closes with two examples of the newly proposed pricing strategy helping to solve the profit distribution problem brought by P2P free-riding and improve the pricing efficiency with the introduction of the price discrimination. The Internet resource pricing strategy is not only the key factor of Internet resource allocation efficiency, but also the determinant of the profit. The methods and models discussed in Internet Resource Pricing Models increase the efficiency of existing pricing strategies to ensure a sound and sustainable development of the Internet. The brief will help researchers and professionals working with this key factor of Internet resource allocation.

Mathematics in the Real World is a self-contained, accessible introduction to the world of mathematics for non-technical majors. With a focus on everyday applications and context, the topics in this textbook build in difficulty and are presented sequentially, starting with a brief review of sets and numbers followed by an introduction to elementary statistics, models, and graph theory. Data and identification numbers are then covered, providing the pathway to voting and finance. Each subject is covered in a concise and clear fashion through the use of real-world applications and the introduction of relevant terminology. Many sample problems ¿ both writing exercises and multiple-choice questions ¿ are included to help develop students¿ level of understanding and to offer a variety of options to instructors.Covering six major units and outlining a one-semester course, Mathematics in the Real World is aimed at undergraduate liberal art students fulfilling the mathematics requirement in their degree program. This introductory text will be an excellent resource for such courses, and will show students where mathematics arises in their everyday lives.

An Introduction to Quasisymmetric Schur Functions is aimed at researchers and graduate students in algebraic combinatorics. The goal of this monograph is twofold. The first goal is to provide a reference text for the basic theory of Hopf algebras, in particular the Hopf algebras of symmetric, quasisymmetric and noncommutative symmetric functions and connections between them. The second goal is to give a survey of results with respect to an exciting new basis of the Hopf algebra of quasisymmetric functions, whose combinatorics is analogous to that of the renowned Schur functions.

Device-to-Device (D2D) communication will become a key feature supported by next generation cellular networks, a topic of enormous importance to modern communication. Currently, D2D serves as an underlay to the cellular network as a means to increase spectral efficiency. Although D2D communication brings large benefits in terms of system capacity, it also causes interference as well as increased computation complexity to cellular networks as a result of spectrum sharing. Thus, efficient resource management must be performed to guarantee a target performance level of cellular communication. This brief presents the state-of-the-art research on resource management for D2D communication underlaying cellular networks. Those who work with D2D communication will use this book's information to help ensure their work is as efficient as possible. Along with the survey of existing work, this book also includes the fundamental theories, key techniques, and applications.

Statistical shape analysis is a geometrical analysis from a set of shapes in which statistics are measured to describe geometrical properties from similar shapes or different groups, for instance, the difference between male and female Gorilla skull shapes, normal and pathological bone shapes, etc. Some of the important aspects of shape analysis are to obtain a measure of distance between shapes, to estimate average shapes from a (possibly random) sample and to estimate shape variability in a sample[1]. One of the main methods used is principal component analysis. Specific applications of shape analysis may be found in archaeology, architecture, biology, geography, geology, agriculture, genetics, medical imaging, security applications such as face recognition, entertainment industry (movies, games), computer-aided design and manufacturing. This is a proposal for a new Brief on statistical shape analysis and the various new parametric and non-parametric methods utilized to facilitate shape analysis.

With the advancement of wireless technology, vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are emerging as a promising approach to realizing "e;smart cities"e; and addressing many important transportation problems such as road safety, efficiency, and convenience. This brief provides an introduction to the large trace data set collected from thousands of taxis and buses in Shanghai, the largest metropolis in China. It also presents the challenges, design issues, performance modeling and evaluation of a wide spectrum of VANET research topics, ranging from realistic vehicular mobility models and opportunistic routing, to real-time vehicle tracking and urban sensing applications. In addition to the latest research and techniques, the reader will also learn the trace-driven methodologies and tools of performance modeling and analysis, network protocol design and optimization, and network simulation, thus keeping pace with the fast moving VANET research and development.

Introduction to Global Optimization Exploiting Space-Filling Curves provides an overview of classical and new results pertaining to the usage of space-filling curves in global optimization.  The authors look at a family of derivative-free numerical algorithms applying space-filling curves to reduce the dimensionality of the global optimization problem; along with a number of unconventional ideas, such as adaptive strategies for estimating Lipschitz constant, balancing global and local information to accelerate the search. Convergence conditions of the described algorithms are studied in depth and theoretical considerations are illustrated through numerical examples. This work also contains a code for implementing space-filling curves that can be used for constructing new global optimization algorithms. Basic ideas from this text can be applied to a number of problems including problems with multiextremal and partially defined constraints and non-redundant parallel computations can be organized. Professors, students, researchers, engineers, and other professionals in the fields of pure mathematics, nonlinear sciences studying fractals, operations research, management science, industrial and applied mathematics, computer science, engineering, economics, and the environmental sciences will find this title useful .  

In this book the author presents a self-contained account of Harnack inequalities and applications for the semigroup of solutions to stochastic partial and delayed differential equations. Since the semigroup refers to Fokker-Planck equations on infinite-dimensional spaces, the Harnack inequalities the author investigates are dimension-free. This is an essentially different point from the above mentioned classical Harnack inequalities. Moreover, the main tool in the study is a new coupling method (called coupling by change of measures) rather than the usual maximum principle in the current literature.

The theory of function spaces endowed with the topology of point wise convergence, or Cp-theory, exists at the intersection of three important areas of mathematics: topological algebra, functional analysis, and general topology. Cp-theory has an important role in the classification and unification of heterogeneous results from each of these areas of research. Through over 500 carefully selected problems and exercises, this volume provides a self-contained introduction to Cp-theory and general topology. By systematically introducing each of the major topics in Cp-theory, this volume is designed to bring a dedicated reader from basic topological principles to the frontiers of modern research. Key features include:- A unique problem-based introduction to the theory of function spaces.- Detailed solutions to each of the presented problems and exercises.- A comprehensive bibliography reflecting the state-of-the-art in modern Cp-theory.- Numerous open problems and directions for further research.This volume can be used as a textbook for courses in both Cp-theory and general topology as well as a reference guide for specialists studying Cp-theory and related topics. This book also provides numerous topics for PhD specialization as well as a large variety of material suitable for graduate research.

Includes our current knowledge of the invasion or encroachment and cause of population growth and spread of some dry land, arid zone woody legumes. Community structure, population growth, and competition of these woody legumes will also be examined. These species and ecosystems are both extensive and dynamic. They occur worldwide, but mainly in the arid zones of the tropics and sub-tropics. The cause of the growth and spread of these species and communities has long been claimed to be caused by distal factors rather than proximal ones. However, these species appear to be influenced and perhaps controlled by anthropogenic factors, specifically grazing and fire or lack of fire. Their overall worldwide distribution has probably changed little in the recent past, but their populations have expanded into grasslands and their density has increased in many places. Some associated communities have shown dramatic changes in response to recent large-scale droughts and the loss of most of the dominant overstory species. However, changes in the woody legume communities and their species are generally unknown. ¿

The intent of this book is to present recent results in the control theory for the long run average continuous control problem of piecewise deterministic Markov processes (PDMPs). The book focuses mainly on the long run average cost criteria and extends to the PDMPs some well-known techniques related to discrete-time and continuous-time Markov decision processes, including the so-called ``average inequality approach'', ``vanishing discount technique'' and ``policy iteration algorithm''. We believe that what is unique about our approach is that, by using the special features of the PDMPs, we trace a parallel with the general theory for discrete-time Markov Decision Processes rather than the continuous-time case. The two main reasons for doing that is to use the powerful tools developed in the discrete-time framework and to avoid working with the infinitesimal generator associated to a PDMP, which in most cases has its domain of definition difficult to be characterized. Although the book is mainly intended to be a theoretically oriented text, it also contains some motivational examples. The book is targeted primarily for advanced students and practitioners of control theory. The book will be a valuable source for experts in the field of Markov decision processes. Moreover, the book should be suitable for certain advanced courses or seminars. As background, one needs an acquaintance with the theory of Markov decision processes and some knowledge of stochastic processes and modern analysis.

This SpringerBrief is comprehensive account of the functions and effects of the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) EBNA1 protein that relate to EBV-associated cancers and evidence for EBNA1 contributions to these cancers. EBNA1 was the first EBV protein detected and the most critical for EBV latent infection. EBNA1 fulfills multiple functions at EBV genomes which have been described in many (sometimes confusing) reports over the last 28 years. While these were initially thought to be the only roles of EBNA1, many reports in recent years have shown that EBNA1 also directly affects cellular processes in ways that would be expected to contribute to oncogenesis. However, the degree to which EBNA1 promotes cell survival and oncogenesis in various types of human tumours is not entirely clear and a matter of debate. This book offers a current synopsis of EBNA1 functions in EBV latency, including functions in DNA replication, mitotic segregation and transcription. Mechanisms of these EBNA1 functions is also discussed as well as implications for tumourigenesis. In addition, the cellular effects of EBNA1 will be reviewed, including how EBNA1 manipulates specific cellular proteins and relationships to EBV-associated lymphomas and carcinomas.

Distributed Space-Time Coding (DSTC) is a cooperative relaying scheme that enables high reliability in wireless networks. This brief presents the basic concept of DSTC, its achievable performance, generalizations, code design, and differential use. Recent results on training design and channel estimation for DSTC and the performance of training-based DSTC are also discussed.