NASA Monograph in Aerospace History series, number 37.

The thesis presents a tool to create rubble pile asteroid simulants for use in numerical impact experiments, and provides evidence that the asteroid disruption threshold and the resultant fragment size distribution are sensitive to the distribution of internal voids. This thesis represents an important step towards a deeper understanding of fragmentation processes in the asteroid belt, and provides a tool to infer the interior structure of rubble pile asteroids. Most small asteroids are 'rubble piles' - re-accumulated fragments of debris from earlier disruptive collisions. The study of fragmentation processes for rubble pile asteroids plays an essential part in understanding their collisional evolution. An important unanswered question is "what is the distribution of void space inside rubble pile asteroids?" As a result from this thesis, numerical impact experiments can now be used to link surface features to the internal structure and therefore help to answer this question. Applying this model to asteroid Steins, which was imaged from close range by the Rosetta spacecraft, a large hill-like structure is shown to be most likely primordial, while a catena of pits can be interpreted as evidence for the existence of fracturing of pre-existing internal voids.

The complexity and vulnerability of the human body has driven the development of a diverse range of diagnostic and therapeutic techniques in modern medicine. The Nuclear Medicine procedures of Positron Emission Tomography (PET), Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) and Radionuclide Therapy are well-established in clinical practice and are founded upon the principles of radiation physics. This book will offer an insight into the physics of nuclear medicine by explaining the principles of radioactivity, how radionuclides are produced and administered as radiopharmaceuticals to the body and how radiation can be detected and used to produce images for diagnosis. The treatment of diseases such as thyroid cancer, hyperthyroidism and lymphoma by radionuclide therapy will also be explored.

The zeta Aurigae stars are the rare but illustrious sub-group of binary stars that undergo the dramatic phenomenon of "chromospheric eclipse". This book provides detailed descriptions of the ten known systems, illustrates them richly with examples of new spectra, and places them in the context of stellar structure and evolution. Comprised of a large cool giant plus a small hot dwarf, these key eclipsing binaries reveal fascinating changes in their spectra very close to total eclipse, when the hot star shines through differing heights of the "chromosphere", or outer atmosphere, of the giant star. The phenomenon provides astrophysics with the means of analyzing the outer atmosphere of a giant star and how that material is shed into space. The physics of these critical events can be explained qualitatively, but it is more challenging to extract hard facts from the observations, and tough to model the chromosphere in any detail. The book offers current thinking on mechanisms for heating a star's chromosphere and on how a star loses mass, and relates this science synergistically to studies of other stars and binaries, and to the increasing relevance of contributions from new techniques in interferometry and asteroseismology. It also includes a detailed discussion of the enigmatic star epsilon Aurigae, which had recently undergone one of its very infrequent and very baffling eclipses. Though not a zeta Aurigae system, epsilon Aurigae is a true "Giant" among eclipsing stars. The 7 chapters of this book, written by a group of experts, have been carefully edited to form a coherent volume that offers a thorough overview of the subject to both professional and student.

The first unified treatment of experimental and theoretical advances in low-temperature chemistry Chemical Dynamics at Low Temperatures is a landmark publication. For the first time, the cumulative results of twenty years of experimental and theoretical research into low-temperature chemistry have been collected and presented in a unified treatment. The result is a text/reference that both offers an overview of the subject and contains sufficient detail to guide practicing researchers toward fertile ground for future research. Topics covered include:
* Developmental history
* Formulation of general problems and the main approximations used to solve them
* Specific features of tunneling chemical dynamics
* One-dimensional tunneling in the path integral formalism
* Special problems of two- and multidimensional tunneling
* An extended presentation of pertinent experimental results

This volume is a new follow-up volume that complements Dynamic Light Scattering (1993) by the same author. The volume is directed to the recent development in the light scattering technique and to describing a wide spectrum of its applications. Both the theoretical development and utilization are traced by authors who are expert in their fields. Development in static light scattering as applied to simple liquids, polymer solutions, and multi-component polymer mixtures are dealt with. The scattering theory of colloidal dispersions is described and scattering from rod-like polyelectolytes is reviewed. There are chapters on concentrated polymer systems, aggregation phenomena, polymer-polymer interactions, polyelectrolytes in solution. Emphasis is given to more complex systems, for example, ternary polymer systems, complex micellar systems, and block copolymers in the ordered and disordered states. Low-angle light scattering is reviewed, as well as simultaneous static and dynamic light scattering. The determination of particle size distributions and combined chromatographic light scattering techniques are also treated.

Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) emerges as a possible new modality for cancer treatment. This book provides a comprehensive introduction into fundamentals of the CAP and plasma devices used in plasma medicine. An analysis of the mechanisms of plasma interaction with cancer and normal cells including description of possible mechanisms of plasma selectivity is included. Recent advances in the field, the primary challenges and future directions are presented.

This book contains the elaborated and updated versions of the 24 lectures given at the 43rd Saas-Fee Advanced Course. Written by four eminent scientists in the field, the book reviews the physical processes related to star formation, starting from cosmological down to galactic scales. It presents a detailed description of the interstellar medium and its link with the star formation. And it describes the main numerical computational techniques designed to solve the equations governing self-gravitating fluids used for modelling of galactic and extra-galactic systems. This book provides a unique framework which is needed to develop and improve the simulation techniques designed for understanding the formation and evolution of galaxies. Presented in an accessible manner it contains the present day state of knowledge of the field. It serves as an entry point and key reference to students and researchers in astronomy, cosmology, and physics.

This book presents new and advanced concepts, theories and methodologies in polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) target scattering mechanism modeling and interpretation, which is dedicated to bridge the gap between the acquired data and practical applications. It proposes adaptive and generalized polarimetric target decompositions, to precisely interpret the target scattering mechanisms. Further, it develops a uniform polarimetric matrix rotation theory and a polarimetric coherence pattern visualization and interpretation tool to completely explore and characterize the deep information and target signatures in the rotation domain. Finally, it demonstrates land cover classification, target detection, natural disaster damage investigation and mapping applications which use the novel scattering mechanism investigation tools. The book is a valuable resource for senior undergraduate and postgraduate students, teachers, engineers and researchers in the field of microwave remote sensing, radar polarimetry, imaging radar, and environmental studies.

The Tide-Dominated Han River Delta provides a thorough analysis of a river delta in which tidal currents have reworked the river-borne sediment, generating characteristic geomorphological and sedimentological signatures in the process. Such "tide-dominated" deltas are common in the modern ocean, forming the substrate upon which entire populations are built. Furthermore, ancient examples contain enormous volumes of hydrocarbon. Despite this, tide-dominated deltas remain less well understood than their wave- and river-dominated counterparts, largely because processes within them are inherently more complex and fewer modern examples have been investigated in detail. This multi-year study by a team of experts in coastal geoscience represents the most complete documentation of a tide-dominated delta to date. Results help advance, and are applicable to, a broad range of fields within sedimentary geology, including clastic sedimentology, seismic and sequence stratigraphy, and coastal geomorphology, in addition to petroleum geology and reservoir engineering.

The focus of his prize-winning thesis is on observations and modeling of binary millisecond pulsars. But in addition, John Antoniadis covers a wide range of observational measurements of binary compact stars systems and tests of General Relativity, like indirect measurements of gravitational wave emission and posing the most stringent constraints on Scalar-Tensor gravity theories. Among others, he presents a system that hosts the most massive neutron star known to date, which has important ramifications for strong-field gravity and nuclear physics. This impressive work was awarded the Otto-Hahn Medal of the Max-Planck Society and the Best PhD in Gravity, Particle and Atomic physics award by the German Physics Society (DPG).

Geophysical Inverse Theory and Applications, Second Edition, brings together fundamental results developed by the Russian mathematical school in regularization theory and combines them with the related research in geophysical inversion carried out in the West. It presents a detailed exposition of the methods of regularized solution of inverse problems based on the ideas of Tikhonov regularization, and shows the different forms of their applications in both linear and nonlinear methods of geophysical inversion. It's the first book of its kind to treat many kinds of inversion and imaging techniques in a unified mathematical manner. The book is divided in five parts covering the foundations of the inversion theory and its applications to the solution of different geophysical inverse problems, including potential field, electromagnetic, and seismic methods. Unique in its focus on providing a link between the methods used in gravity, electromagnetic, and seismic imaging and inversion, it represents an exhaustive treatise on inversion theory. Written by one of the world's foremost experts, this work is widely recognized as the ultimate researcher's reference on geophysical inverse theory and its practical scientific applications.

This comprehensive book offers a clear account of the theory and applications of advanced metal forming. It provides a detailed discussion of specific forming processes, such as deep drawing, rolling, bending extrusion and stamping. The author highlights recent developments of metal forming technologies and explains sound, new and powerful expert system techniques for solving advanced engineering problems in metal forming. In addition, the basics of expert systems, their importance and applications to metal forming processes, computer-aided analysis of metalworking processes, formability analysis, mathematical modeling and case studies of individual processes are presented.

These are the proceedings of the "AstroNet-II International Final Conference". This conference was one of the last milestones of the Marie-Curie Research Training Network on Astrodynamics "AstroNet-II", that has been funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme. The aim of the conference, and thus this book, is to communicate work on astrodynamics problems to an international and specialised audience. The results are presented by both members of the network and invited specialists. The topics include: trajectory design and control, attitude control, structural flexibility of spacecraft and formation flying. The book addresses a readership across the traditional boundaries between mathematics, engineering and industry by offering an interdisciplinary and multisectorial overview of the field.

Where do most stars (and the planetary systems that surround them) in the Milky Way form? What determines whether a young star cluster remains bound (such as an open or globular cluster), or disperses to join the field stars in the disc of the Galaxy? These questions not only impact understanding of the origins of stars and planetary systems like our own (and the potential for life to emerge that they represent), but also galaxy formation and evolution, and ultimately the story of star formation over cosmic time in the Universe. This volume will help readers understand our current views concerning the answers to these questions as well as frame new questions that will be answered by the European Space Agency's Gaia satellite that was launched in late 2013. The book contains the elaborated notes of lectures given at the 42nd Saas-Fee Advanced Course "Dynamics of Young Star Clusters & Associations" by Cathie Clarke (University of Cambridge) who presents the theory of star formation and dynamical evolution of stellar systems, Robert Mathieu (University of Wisconsin) who discusses the kinematics of star clusters and associations, and I. Neill Reid (S pace Telescope Science Institute) who provides an overview of the stellar populations in the Milky Way and speculates on from whence came the Sun. As part of the Saas-Fee Advanced Course Series, the book offers an in-depth introduction to the field serving as a starting point for Ph.D. research and as a reference work for professional astrophysicists.

""What about the twenty-first century? Will we finally accept our responsibilities as guardians of planet Earth, the biological living trust, for the beneficiaries, the children of today, tomorrow, and beyond? Or, will it too be a century of lethal, economic struggle among the polarized positions of the supremely dysfunctional among us? Are they--once again--to be allowed to determine the legacy we, as a society, as a nation, bequeath those who follow us? The choice is ours, the adults of the world. How shall we choose?""

So writes Chris Maser in this compelling study of three interactive spheres of the ecosystem: atmosphere (air), litho-hydrosphere (rock that comprises the restless continents and the water that surrounds them), and biosphere (all life sandwiched in between).

Rich in detail and insightful analogies, "Earth in Our Care" addresses key issues including land-use policies, ecological restoration, forest management, local living, and sustainability thinking. Exploring our interconnectedness with the Earth, Maser examines today's problems and, more importantly, provides solutions for the future.

Space curves around you, time slows down, particles are waves, a cat is both alive and dead. What's going on? It all starts to make sense when we untangle the universe with this clear and enlightening book. Day-dreamers and deep-thinkers, these are the concepts that will send your mind wandering to new places with a deeper understanding of the natural world. Physics has always been a tricky subject for the general public. Millions are fascinated by the laws of the physical world, but there has been a lack of books written specifically for general readers. The Universe Untangled is for those who are curious; yet do not have an extensive mathematical background. It uses images, analogies and comprehensible language to cover popular topics of interest including the evolution of the universe, fundamental forces and particle interactions, the nature of space and time according to Special and General Relativity, the ideas of Quantum Mechanics and the quest for knowing the unknown. The Universe Untangled is a unique book because it is written by an author whose career has been built on making science accessible to all. She has contributed to the design and content production of educational games, professional development courses, and science workbooks. In essence, this is not a book written by a physicist for other physicists. It is written by an educator who cares only about sharing her passion for science with others.

This thesis covers a diverse set of topics related to space-based gravitational wave detectors such as the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). The core of the thesis is devoted to the preprocessing of the interferometric link data for a LISA constellation, specifically developing optimal Kalman filters to reduce arm length noise due to clock noise. The approach is to apply Kalman filters of increasing complexity to make optimal estimates of relevant quantities such as constellation arm length, relative clock drift, and Doppler frequencies based on the available measurement data. Depending on the complexity of the filter and the simulated data, these Kalman filter estimates can provide up to a few orders of magnitude improvement over simpler estimators. While the basic concept of the LISA measurement (Time Delay Interferometry) was worked out some time ago, this work brings a level of rigor to the processing of the constellation-level data products. The thesis concludes with some topics related to the eLISA such as a new class of phenomenological waveforms for extreme mass-ratio inspiral sources (EMRIs, one of the main source for eLISA), an octahedral space-based GW detector that does not require drag-free test masses, and some efficient template-search algorithms for the case of relatively high SNR signals.

This book offers a succinct but comprehensive description of the mechanics of muscle contraction and legged terrestrial locomotion. It describes on the one hand how the fundamental properties of muscle tissue affect the mechanics of locomotion, and on the other, how the mechanics of locomotion modify the mechanism of muscle operation under different conditions. Further, the book reports on the design and results of experiments conducted with two goals. The first was to describe the physiological function of muscle tissue (which may be considered as the "motor") contracting at a constant length, during shortening, during lengthening, and under a condition that occurs most frequently in the back-and-forth movement of the limbs during locomotion, namely the stretch-shortening cycle of the active muscle. The second objective was to analyze the interaction between the motor and the "machine" (the skeletal lever system) during walking and running in different scenarios with respect to speed, step frequency, body mass, gravity, age, and pathological gait. The book will be of considerable interest to physiology, biology and physics students, and provides researchers with stimuli for further experimental and analytical work.

This book is an introduction to wave dynamics as they apply to earthquakes, among the scariest, most unpredictable, and deadliest natural phenomena on Earth. Since studying seismic activity is essentially a study of wave dynamics, this text starts with a discussion of types and representations, including wave-generation mechanics, superposition, and spectral analysis. Simple harmonic motion is used to analyze the mechanisms of wave propagation, and driven and damped systems are used to model the decay rates of various modal frequencies in different media.Direct correlation to earthquakes in California, Mexico, and Japan is used to illustrate key issues, and actual data from an event in California is presented and analyzed. Our Earth is a dynamic and changing planet, and seismic activity is the result. Hundreds of waves at different frequencies, modes, and amplitudes travel through a variety of different media, from solid rock to molten metals. Each media responds differently to each mode; consequently the result is an enormously complicated dynamic behavior. Earthquakes should serve well as a complimentary text for an upper-school course covering waves and wave mechanics, including sound and acoustics and basic geology. The mathematical requirement includes trigonometry and series summations, which should be accessible to most upper-school and college students. Animation, sound files, and videos help illustrate major topics.

The book presents the first comprehensive molecular theory of the living cell ever published since the cell doctrine was formulated in 1838-1839. It introduces into cell biology over thirty key concepts, principles and laws imported from physics, chemistry, computer science, linguistics, semiotics and philosophy. The author formulates physically, chemically and enzymologically realistic molecular mechanisms to account for basic living processes such as ligand-receptor interactions, enzymic catalysis, force-generating mechanisms in molecular motors, chromatin remodelling, and signal transduction. Possible solutions to basic and practical problems facing contemporary biology and biomedical sciences have been suggested, including pharmacotherapeutics and personalized medicine.

In the field of particle and astrophysics, one of the major unresolved problems is to understand the nature and properties of dark matter, which constitutes almost 80% of the matter content of the universe. This book gives a pedagogical introduction to the field of dark matter in general, and in particular to the model building perspective. Starting from the evidence and need for dark matter, it goes into the deeper understanding of how to accommodate a dark matter candidate in a particle physics model. This book focuses on teaching the basic tools for model building of dark matter, starting from the easiest to gradually the difficult one. Although there are plenty of dark matter models available in the literature, this book concentrates on the important ones. This book aims to motivate the reader to propose a new dark matter model complying with all observational constraints.

Meteorology has made significant strides in recent years due to the development of new technologies. With the aid of the latest instruments, the analysis of atmospheric data can be optimized. Computational Techniques for Modeling Atmospheric Processes is an academic reference source that encompasses novel methods for the collection and study of meteorological data. Including a range of perspectives on pertinent topics such as air pollution, parameterization, and thermodynamics, this book is an ideal publication for researchers, academics, practitioners, and students interested in instrumental methods in the study of atmospheric processes.