Society heavily depends on infrastructure systems, such as road-traffic networks, water networks, electricity networks, etc. Infrastructure systems are hereby considered to be large-scale, networked systems, that almost everybody uses on a daily basis, and that are so vital that their incapacity or destruction would have a debilitating impact on...

Welcome to the 6th Atlantic Web Intelligence Conference (AWIC 2009), to be held during September 9-11, 2009 in Prague, Czech Republic. The conference will be held at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of the Charles University, Prague. This building has a convenient location in the historical city center, in the area called Lesser Town close...

This book gives a comprehensive account of the practical aspects of Real time PCR and its application to veterinary diagnostic laboratories. The optimisation of assays to help diagnose livestock diseases is stressed and exemplified through assembling standard operating procedures from many laboratory sources. Theoretical aspects of PCR are dealt...

Virtual worlds are persistent online computer-generated environments where people can interact, whether for work or play, in a manner comparable to the real world. The most popular current example is World of Warcraft, a massively multiplayer online game with eleven million subscribers. However, other virtual worlds, notably Second Life, are not...

This book addresses the interests of a large community of researchers in the fields of XML-based annotation techniques and corpus-based language technology. It covers the most significant recent developments in this field, from multi-layered mark-up and standards to theoretical formalisms to applications. The contributions are based on research...

This book is an authoritative and comprehensive reference source...

For over fifty years, Eli Schwartz has inspired generations of economists through his prolific publications and dedicated in teaching. In 2008, the Martindale Center for the Study of Private Enterprise at Lehigh University invited prominent academics and practitioners—including Nobel Prize recipients, Robert Solow and Harry Markowitz, and...

Mammalian Toll-like receptors (TLRs) were first identified in 1997 based on their homology with Drosophila Toll, which mediates innate immunity in the fly. In recent years, the number of studies describing TLR expression and function in the nervous system has been increasing steadily and expanding beyond their traditional roles in infectious...

The main role of grasses, clovers and alfalfa in temperate agriculture is still to provide forage for ruminant animals but, in the last decades, the importance of amenity grasses increased markedly and, in the near future, new developments in the areas of energy and biomass use can be envisaged. Fodder Crops and Amenity Grasses, fifth volume in...

In the present thriving global economy a need has evolved for complex data analysis to enhance an organization’s production systems, decision-making tactics, and performance. In turn, data mining has emerged as one of the most active areas in information technologies. Domain Driven Data Mining offers state-of the-art research and...

The evolution of the microelectronics is controlled by the idea of scaling. However, the scaling of the device size below 10 nm is expected to be impossible because of physical, technological and economic reasons. Fundamental considerations (based on Heisenberg's principle, Schrödinger equation, decoherence of quantum states, and Landauer...

This problem may also have socioeconomic implications. Infection commonly results in prolonged use of antibiotics, multiple...