This book presents an overview of the current state of research on ultrashort electric field pulses of high intensity and their use in biology and medicine. It examines in detail the most recent and exciting advances in how nanosecond and picosecond electric pulse research has grown and expanded into new areas of biology and medicine. Further, the book specifically focuses on electric pulses in the time domain, on intracellular effects as opposed to plasma membrane electroporation, and highlights the biological and medical applications of these unique pulse effects. Since the authors were initial innovators exploring nanosecond and picosecond pulses, their unique perspectives foreshadowed directions the research took, expanding into new areas that they continue to investigate today.

SYNER-G, a multidisciplinary effort funded by the European Union, allowed the development of an innovative methodological framework for the assessment of physical as well as socio-economic seismic vulnerability and risk at urban and regional level. The results of SYNER-G are presented in two books both published by Springer, the present and a second one, entitled SYNER-G: Typology Definition and Fragility Functions for Physical Elements at Seismic Risk: Buildings, Lifelines, Transportation Networks and Critical Facilities (*), which provides a comprehensive state-of-the-art of the fragility curves, an alternative way to express physical vulnerability of elements at risk.

In this second volume of SYNER-G, the focus has been on presenting a unified holistic methodology for assessing vulnerability at systems level considering interactions between elements at risk (physical and non-physical) and between different systems. The proposed methodology and tool encompasses in an integrated fashion all aspects in the chain, from hazard to the vulnerability assessment of components and systems and to the socio-economic impacts of an earthquake, accounting for most relevant uncertainties within an efficient quantitative simulation scheme. It systematically integrates the most advanced fragility functions to assess the vulnerability of physical assets for buildings, utility systems, transportation networks and complex infrastructures such as harbours and hospitals. The increasing impact due to interactionsbetween different components and systems is treated in a comprehensive way, providing specifications for each network and infrastructure. The proposed socio-economic model integrates social vulnerability into the physical systems modelling approaches providing to decision makers with a dynamic platform to capture post disaster emergency issues like shelter demand and health impact decisions.Application examples at city and regional scale have provided the necessary validation of the methodology and are also included in the book.

The present volume, with its companion volume on fragility functions, represent a significant step forward in the seismic vulnerability and risk assessment of complex interacting urban and regional systems and infrastructures. These volumes are not only of interest to scientists and engineers but also to the insurance industry, decision makers and practitioners in the sector of civil protection and seismic risk management.

(*) Pitilakis K, Crowley E, Kaynia A (eds) (2014) SYNER-G: Typology definition and fragility functions for physical elements at seismic risk, Series: Geotechnical, Geological and Earthquake Engineering 27, ISBN 978-94-007-7872-6, Springer Science+Business Media, Dordrecht.

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The idea for another conference on the theme of Infrared Astronomy with Arrays actually goes back to March 1987. At a party held in my home at the end of the Hilo conference, excitement was running high and everyone present was in favor of another meeting. I recall suggesting to Al Fowler that the next meeting could be in Tucson. Despite Al's reply to the effect that Hawaii was a much nicer location, a meeting was held in Tucson three years later. That meeting focussed more on the astrophysics which had been accomplished with the detectors, rather than on techniques and methods. However, it was already apparent in February of 1990 that a new generation of larger m arrays would soon supersede the 64x64 class of devices and so, having just moved from the UK Infrared Telescope unit in Hawaii to join with Eric Becklin in his move to UCLA, it seemed to me that another Hilo-style conference was appropriate, and Eric agreed.

This symposium was devoted to a new celestial mechanics whose aim has become the study of such objects' as the planetary system, planetary rings, the asteroidal belt, meteor swarms, satellite systems, comet families, the zodiacal cloud, the preplanetary nebula, etc. When the three-body problem is considered instead of individual orbits we are, now, looking for the topology of extended regions of its phase space. This Symposium was one step in the effort to close the ties between two scientific families: the observationally-oriented scientists and the theoretically-oriented scientists.

Advanced technologies in astronomy at various wavelengths have provided us with high resolution and high quality data on the QSO population. This meeting was aimed at understanding the morphology and nature of the host galaxies and environments of QSOs. The invited lectures as well as the contributed and poster papers highlighted the main issues of current research: the stellar and gaseous content of the underlying galaxy; the characterization of the population of companions and the nature of their interaction with the host galaxy; the connection between radio-loud QSO and radio-galaxies, and QSOs and ULIRGs; the evolution with redshift of both the host galaxy and its environment, and the main implications in theories of galaxy formation and evolution. This volume provides a valuable overview and timely update of the exciting and rapidly developing field of QSO hosts and their environments - essential reading for graduate students and researchers.

This book, designed as a tool for young researchers and graduate students, reviews the main open problems and research lines in various fields of astroparticle physics: cosmic rays, gamma rays, neutrinos, cosmology, and gravitational physics. The opening section discusses cosmic rays of both galactic and extragalactic origin, examining experimental results, theoretical models, and possible future developments. The basics of gamma-ray astronomy are then described, including the detection methods and techniques. Galactic and extragalactic aspects of the field are addressed in the light of recent discoveries with space-borne and ground-based detectors. The review of neutrinos outlines the status of the investigations of neutrino radiation and brings together relevant formulae, estimations, and background information. Three complementary issues in cosmology are examined: observable predictions of inflation in the early universe, effects of dark energy/modified gravity in the large-scale structure of the universe, and neutrinos in cosmology and large-scale structures. The closing section on gravitational physics reviews issues relating to quantum gravity, atomic precision tests, space-based experiments, the strong field regime, gravitational waves, multi-messengers, and alternative theories of gravity.

China Satellite Navigation Conference (CSNC) 2015 Proceedings presents selected research papers from CSNC2015, held during 13th-15th May in Xian, China. The theme of CSNC2015 is Opening-up, Connectivity and Win-win. These papers discuss the technologies and applications of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), and the latest progress made in the China BeiDou System (BDS) especially. They are divided into 10 topics to match the corresponding sessions in CSNC2015, which broadly covered key topics in GNSS. Readers can learn about the BDS and keep abreast of the latest advances in GNSS techniques and applications. SUN Jiadong is the Chief Designer of the Compass/ BDS, and the academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); LIU Jingnan is a professor at Wuhan University. FAN Shiwei is a researcher at China Satellite Navigation Office; LU Xiaochun is an academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

Geodesy as the science which determines the figure of the earth, its orientation in space and its gravity field as well as its temporal changes, produces key elements in describing the kinematics and the dynamics of the deformable body "earth". It contributes in particular to geodynamics and opens the door to decode the complex interactions between components of "the system earth". In the breathtaking development recently a whole arsenal of new terrestrial, airborne as well as satelliteborne measurement techniques for earth sciences have been made available and have broadened the spectrum of measurable earth parameters with an unforeseen accuracy and precision, in particular to resolve the factor time. The book focusses on these topics and gives a state of the art of modern geodesy.

This thesis presents significant new results on the problem of understanding the origin of dark energy in cosmology. The work develops an original approach based on modifications of General Relativity at cosmological scales, introducing non -local effective terms that can in principle emerge from fundamental local theories. Both the phenomenological consequences and theoretical aspects of the proposal are developed in depth. The thesis also contains significant new material compared to that published by the author in scientific journals.

The book presents a synopsis of the main results achieved during the 3 year EU-project "Advanced Inflight Measurement Techniques (AIM)" which applied advanced image based measurement techniques to industrial flight testing. The book is intended to be not only an overview on the AIM activities but also a guide on the application of advanced optical measurement techniques for future flight testing. Furthermore it is a useful guide for engineers in the field of experimental methods and flight testing who face the challenge of a future requirement for the development of highly accurate non-intrusive in-flight measurement techniques.

This volume contains the written versions of the lectures given at the 26th course of the renowned Saas-Fee series. The book represents a comprehensive and up-to-date review of the field of galaxy interaction. Nowadays, galaxies are no longer seen as immutable objects: they evolve, interact, merge, blaze, and reshape. Dynamic forces can induce powerful stellar activity able to transform the matter composition and morphology of galaxies. The lectures included in this book aim at a better understanding of these remarkable and fascinating phenomena. Though the book is intended for graduate students and young post-docs in astrophysics, it contains more advanced and original material, as well as historical perspectives, which will be of great interest to experts and astronomy teachers also.

This volume gives a comprehensive and integrated overview of current knowledge about cosmic rays in the heliosphere. It is the result of a workshop at ISSI, where experimental space physicists as well as theorists presented and discussed their views on the behaviour of cosmic rays during the currently prevalent solar minimum conditions, when the heliosphere has a well-ordered and relatively simple configuration. An unprecedented array of spacecraft - Ulysses, Pioneer, Voyager, IMP-8, Wind, to name a few - in conjunction with ever more sophisticated numerical models made this possible, gave us our first clear view of the three-dimensional heliosphere at solar minimum, and have significantly advanced our knowledge. The status of the field is first presented in a series of introductory papers; these are followed by four Working Group reports attempting to synthesise this knowledge, make progress in our understanding, and point out directions of future research. A summary of the parameters used in cosmic ray modulation and an epilogue on conditions and consequences expected at the upcoming solar maximum conclude the volume. The book is intended to provide active researchers in space physics with an up-to-date status report and also to introduce the advanced graduate student to the field.

This volume details the essential role of the spiral ganglion neurons. The volume elucidates and characterizes their development, their environment, their electrophysiological characteristics, their connectivity to their targets in the inner ear and the brain, and discusses the potential for their regeneration. A comprehensive review about the spiral ganglion neurons is important for researchers not only in the inner ear field but also in development, neuroscience, biophysics as well as neural networks researchers. The chapters are authored by leading researchers in the field.

Non-Newtonian properties on bubble dynamics and cavitation are fundamentally different from those of Newtonian fluids. The most significant effect arises from the dramatic increase in viscosity of polymer solutions in an extensional flow, such as that generated about a spherical bubble during its growth or collapse phase. In addition, many biological fluids, such as blood, synovial fluid, and saliva, have non-Newtonian properties and can display significant viscoelastic behaviour. This monograph elucidates general aspects of bubble dynamics and cavitation in non-Newtonian fluids and applies them to the fields of biomedicine and bioengineering. In addition it presents many examples from the process industries. The field is strongly interdisciplinary and the numerous disciplines involve have and will continue to overlook and reinvent each others' work. This book helps researchers to think intuitively about the diverse physics of these systems, to attempt to bridge the various communities involved, and to convey the interest, elegance, and variety of physical phenomena that manifest themselves on the micrometer and microsecond scales.

Significant advances have been made recently in both the theoretical understanding and observation of small-scale turbulence in different layers of the Sun, and in the instabilities that give rise to them. The general development of solar physics, however, has led to such a degree of specialization as to hinder interaction between workers in the field. This book therefore presents studies of different layers and regions of the Sun, but from the same aspect, concentrating on the study of small-scale motions. The main emphasis is on the common theoretical roots of these phenomena, but the book also contains an extensive treatment of the observational aspects.

This volume contains the papers presented at the Third Alexander von Humboldt Colloquium on Celestial Mechanics. The papers cover a large range of questions, from the behaviour of dust particles to the stability of the solar system as a whole. The motions of asteroids and their classification into families are also discussed. Specific topics addressed are KAM theory, chaotic motions, resonances, Lyapunov characteristic exponents, perturbation theory and numerical integration.

The enormous advances in observational techniques over the last two decades has produced a wealth of data and unexpected discoveries which have helped to reshape astrophysics as a field with well-formulated theories and sophisticated numerical calculations. In nuclear particle physics, plasma physics, as well as in general relativity, the Universe has become a laboratory for cutting-edge research. The courses collected in the book are intended to provide students with this insight, giving a general background on each topic such as cosmic rays, nuclear and neutrino astrophysics, solar physics and strong fields, as well as a presentation of the current research and open problems. The book is aimed at graduate students in physics and astrophysics, as well as researchers, bridging a gap between the specialized reviews and the comprehensive books.

This book is written in a pedagogical style intelligible for graduate students. It reviews recent progress in black-hole and wormhole theory and in mathematical cosmology within the framework of Einstein's field equations and beyond, including quantum effects. This collection of essays, written by leading scientists of long standing reputation, should become an indispensable source for future research.

Foreword; J. Davies, D. Burstein. Introductory Remarks; M. Disney. Interstellar grain evolution and temperatures in spiral galaxies; J. Mayo Greenberg, A. Li. Radiative transfer models; G. Bruzual A. Radiative transfer in dusty galaxies; A.N. Witt. Opacity Diagnostics in spiral galaxies; N.D. Kylafis. Modeling dusty galaxies; G. Magris C., G. Bruzual A. Inclination-dependence of spiral galaxy physical properties: history and tests; D. Burstein, et al. Why a distance selection effect invalidates the Burstein, Haynes and Faber opacity test; J.I. Davies, et al. Statistical tests for opacity; E.A. Valentijn. Statistical measures of internal absorption in spiral galaxies; B. Cunow. The distribution of galactic inclinations; H. Jones, et al. Optical thickness of Sb-Scd galaxies from the Tully--Fisher relation; L. Gouguenhei, et al. Extinction in Sc galaxies at I band and in the 21cm line; R. Giovanelli. Extinction in the galaxy and in galactic discs; G. de Vaucouleurs. Properties of dust in backlit galaxies; W. Keel, R.E. White. The optical depth through NGC 3314A; P. James, P. Puxley. Dust extinction in highly inclined spirals; J. Knapen, et al. An optical search for dusty disks; M. Naslund, S. Joersater. Photometric asymmetry and dust opacity of spiral galaxies; Y.I. Byun. The scale-length test for dust in face-on spirals; J.E. Beckman, et al. Color gradients in spiral galaxies; S. Courteau, J. Holtzman. Constraints on the opacity of spiral disks from near-infrared observations; H.W. Rix. Arcsecond resolution of cold dust in spiral galaxies using optical and NIR imaging -- dust masses increase by nine hundred percent; D.L. Block, et al. Unveiling stars and dust in spiral galaxies;R.F. Pelletier, et al. Azimuthal distribution of dust in NGC 2997; P. Grosbol, et al. Internal extinction in spiral galaxies at optical and near infrared wavelengths; A. Boselli, G. Gavazzi. The opacity of spiral galaxy disks; N. Devereux. The far infrared/stellar energy balance; R. Evans. Opacity from luminosity functions; M. Trewhella, et al. Estimating disk opacities using infrared images; W. van Driel. DIRBE observations of galactic extinction; R.G. Arendt, et al. Kinematics of edge-on galaxies and the opacity of spiral disks; A. Bosma. Spectroscopic studies of the disk and halo of M82; C.D. McKeith, et al. Disk origin and evolution; J. Silk. The luminosity and opacity of galaxies; B. Wang. Dust obscuration in starburst galaxies; D. Calzetti. Polarimetry of dusty edge-on galaxies; R.D. Wolstencroft, S.M. Scarrott. HII regions and extinction in the spiral galaxy M83; S. Ryder, et al. A search for dust in galactic halos; D. Zaritsky. Concluding thoughts and reflections: dust in galaxies; H.A. Thronson Jr.

Self-focusing has been an area of active scientific investigation for nearly 50 years. This book presents a comprehensive treatment of this topic and reviews both theoretical and experimental investigations of self-focusing. This book should be of interest to scientists and engineers working with lasers and their applications. From a practical point of view, self-focusing effects impose a limit on the power that can be transmitted through a material medium. Self-focusing also can reduce the threshold for the occurrence of other nonlinear optical processes. Self-focusing often leads to damage in optical materials and is a limiting factor in the design of high-power laser systems. But it can be harnessed for the design of useful devices such as optical power limiters and switches. At a formal level, the equations for self-focusing are equivalent to those describing Bose-Einstein condensates and certain aspects of plasma physics and hydrodynamics. There is thus a unifying theme between nonlinear optics and these other disciplines. One of the goals of this book is to connect the extensive early literature on self-focusing, filament-ation, self-trapping, and collapse with more recent studies aimed at issues such as self-focusing of fs pulses, white light generation, and the generation of filaments in air with lengths of more than 10 km. It also describes some modern advances in self-focusing theory including the influence of beam nonparaxiality on self-focusing collapse. This book consists of 24 chapters. Among them are three reprinted key landmark articles published earlier. It also contains the first publication of the 1964 paper that describes the first laboratory observation of self-focusing phenomena with photographic evidence.

This book contains the best contributions presented during the 6th National Conference on Earthquake Engineering and the 2nd National Conference on Earthquake Engineering and Seismology - 6CNIS & 2CNISS, that took place on June 14-17, 2017 in Bucharest - Romania, at the Romanian Academy and Technical University of Civil Engineering of Bucharest. The book offers an updated overview of seismic hazard and risk assessment activities, with an emphasis on recent developments in Romania, a very challenging case study because of its peculiar intermediate-depth seismicity and evolutive code-compliant building stock. Moreover, the book collects input of renowned scientists and professionals from Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Turkey and United Kingdom.The content of the book focuses on seismicity of Romania, geotechnical earthquake engineering, structural analysis and seismic design regulations, innovative solutions for seismic protection of building structures, seismic risk evaluation, resilience-based assessment of structures and management of emergency situations. The sub-chapters consist of the best papers of 6CNIS & 2CNISS selected by the International Advisory and Scientific Committees. The book is targeted at researchers and experts in seismic hazard and risk, evaluation and rehabilitation of buildings and structures, insurers and re-insurers, and decision makers in the field of emergency situations and recovery activities.

The aim of the book is to present, in a novel and unified fashion, the elements of Mechanics in Material Space or Configurational Mechanics, with applications to fracture and defect mechanics. This mechanics, in contrast to Newtonian mechanics in physical space, is concerned with defects such as cracks and dislocations, which are embedded in the material and might move in it. The level is kept accessible to any engineer, scientist or graduate student possessing some knowledge of calculus and partial differential equations, and working in the various areas where rational use of materials is essential.

Polarization Spectroscopy of Ionized Gases describes the physical principles of the technique and its applications to remote sensing. Transport phenomena and local anisotropies can be studied. The theoretical part of the book considers the basic phenomena of the ordering of the velocities of fast exciting charged particles. The polarization of the outer electron shells of excited atoms or molecules is described, and a variety of effects are examined in detail. An integral equation is derived which gives the intensity and polarization of emitted lines. Methods for solving the equation are analyzed. Universal spectropolarimetric remote sensing has been applied to low pressure gas discharges in the laboratory and to non-thermal processes in the solar atmosphere. For researchers interested in the remote sensing of ionized gases.

The principal objectives of the Project were to further the establishment of national "operational" weather radar networks, harmonise operations, data handling and processing to minimise the difficulties of, and maximise the benefits of international weather radar data exchange. To transmit the data efficiently, standardised formats and protocols were essential. These were formulated by a working group whose efforts were rewarded when WMO accepted their proposal for worldwide use. A multi-national pilot project area was established and streams of data from each of the countries involved were merged and integrated with data from the satelite METEOSAT. The composite image, known as "the COST image" was regularly distributed via the global telecommunication system of WMO, the public telephone switched network and the Olympus satelite. The utility of the COST image was assessed for, inter alia, short-period forecasting, aviation flight assistance, maritime forecasting and the initialisation of numerical weather prediction models. In all cases, the COST image was found to be beneficial. A report containing proposed curricula for the training of meteorologists, hydrologists and other major users of weather radar data was sent to WMO for possible adoption as one of their standard training manuals. As a report of international scientific cooperation, this is a success story. All the principal objectives of the Memorandum of Understanding were achieved both within time and budget. It is a tale of international cooperation at its best.