Understanding the stars is the bedrock of modern astrophysics. Stars are the source of life. The chemical enrichment of our Milky Way and of the Universe withallelementsheavierthanlithiumoriginatesintheinteriorsofstars.Stars arethe tracersofthe dynamics ofthe Universe,gravitationallyimplying much more than meets the eye. Stars ionize the interstellar medium and re-ionized the early intergalactic medium. Understanding stellar structure and evolution is fundamental. While stellar structure and evolution are understood in general terms, we lack important physical ingredients, despite extensive research during recent decades.Classicalspectroscopy,photometry,astrometryandinterferometryof stars have traditionally been used as observational constraints to deduce the internal stellar physics. Unfortunately, these types of observations only allow the tuning of the basic common physics laws under stellar conditions with relatively poor precision. The situation is even more worrisome for unknown aspects of the physics and dynamics in stars. These are usually dealt with by using parameterised descriptions of, e.g., the treatments of convection, rotation,angularmomentumtransport,theequationofstate,atomicdi?usion andsettlingofelements,magneto-hydrodynamicalprocesses,andmore.There is a dearth of observational constraints on these processes, thus solar values areoftenassignedtothem.Yetitishardtoimaginethatonesetofparameters is appropriate for the vast range of stars.

This volume provides a comprehensive selection of recent studies addressing insect hearing and acoustic communication. The variety of signalling behaviours and hearing organs makes insects highly suitable animals for exploring and analysing signal generation and hearing in the context of neural processing, ecology, evolution and genetics. Across a variety of hearing species like moths, crickets, bush-crickets, grasshoppers, cicadas and flies, the leading researchers in the field cover recent scientific progress and address key points in current research, such as:

. How can we approach the evolution of hearing in insects and what is the developmental and neural origin of the auditory organs?

. How are hearing and sound production embedded in the natural lifestyle of the animals, allowing intraspecific communication but also predator avoidance and even predation?

. What are the functional properties of hearing organs and how are they achieved at the molecular, biophysical and neural levels?

. What are the neural mechanisms of central auditory processing and signal generation?

The book is intended for students and researchers both inside and outside of the fascinating field of bioacoustics and aims to foster understanding of hearing and acoustic communication in insects."

Working in mathematical oncology is a slow and difficult process, requiring the acquisition of a special mindset that goes well beyond the usual applications of mathematics and physics. "Mathematical Oncology 2013" presents the most significant recent results in the field of mathematical oncology, highlighting the work of world-class research teams. This innovative volume emphasizes the way different researchers see and approach problems, not just technical results. It covers many of the most important topics related to the mathematical modeling of tumors, including: Free boundaries. Tumors are growing entities, as such their spatial mean field description involves free boundary problems.Constitutive equations. Tumors should be described as nontrivial porous media.Stochastic dynamics. At the end of anti-cancer therapy, a small number of cells remain, whose dynamics is thus inherently stochastic.Noise-induced state transitions. The growth parameters of macroscopic tumors are non-constant, as are the parameters of anti-tumor therapies. This may induce phenomena that are mathematically equivalent to phase transitions.Stochastic and fractal geometry. Tumor vascular growth is self-similar.

The intended audience consists of graduate students and researchers in the fields biomathematics, computational and theoretical biology, biophysics and bioengineering, where the phenomenon tumor is acquiring the same relevance as in modern molecular biology."

This exhaustive work sheds new light on unsolved questions in gamma-ray astrophysics. It presents not only a complete introduction to the non-thermal Universe, but also a description of the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov technique and the MAGIC telescopes. The Fermi-LAT satellite and the HAWC Observatory are also described, as results from both are included. The physics section of the book is divided into microquasars and pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe), and includes extended overviews of both. In turn, the book discusses constraints on particle acceleration and gamma-ray production in microquasar jets, based on the analyses of MAGIC data on Cygnus X-1, Cygnus X-3 and V404 Cygni. Moreover, it presents the discovery of high-energy gamma-ray emissions from Cygnus X-1, using Fermi-LAT data. The book includes the first joint work between MAGIC, Fermi-LAT and HAWC, and discusses the hypothetical PWN nature of the targets in depth. It reports on a PWN population study that discusses, for the first time, the importance of the surrounding medium for gamma-ray production, and in closing presents technical work on the first Large-Size-Telescope (LST; CTA Collaboration), along with a complete description of the camera.

This volume documents the progress made in the design of complex artificial systems and in the study of intermolecular forces and interactions. It is possible, using appropriate strategies based on building blocks, to obtain very large supramolecular arrays containing several hundered atoms, where specific sites are occupied by the desired chemical functions. Such arrays can be used for such things as molecular recognition, self-organization, self-replication, selective reactivity, selective catalysis, photoinduced energy and electron transfer, signal processing, information storage and drug delivery.

This book presents the novel formulation and development of a Stochastic Flood Forecasting System, using the Middle River Vistula basin in Poland as a case study. The system has a modular structure, including models describing the rainfall-runoff and snow-melt processes for tributary catchments and the transformation of a flood wave within the reach. The sensitivity and uncertainty analysis of the elements of the study system are performed at both the calibration and verification stages. The spatial and temporal variability of catchment land use and river flow regime based on analytical studies and measurements is presented. A lumped parameter approximation to the distributed modelling of river flow is developed for the purpose of flow forecasting. Control System based emulators (Hammerstein-Wiener models) are applied to on-line data assimilation. Medium-range probabilistic weather forecasts (ECMWF) and on-line observations of temperature, precipitation and water levels are used to prolong the forecast lead time. The potential end-users will also benefit from a description of social vulnerability to natural hazards in the study area.

This text is an introductory compilation of basic concepts, methods and applications in the field of spectroscopy. It discusses new radiation sources such as lasers and synchrotrons and describes the linear response together with the basic principles and the technical background for various scattering experiments.

Laurent Gizon.Paul Cally.John Leibacher Originally published in the journal Solar Physics, Volume 251, Nos 1-2, 1-2. DOI: 10. 1007/s11207-008-9248-y (c) The Author(s) 2008 The seismology of the Sun and stars has come a long way in a short time. The "original" Global Helioseismology has reached a level of maturity that allows many internal prop- ties of the Sun to be probed with exquisite precision, although it currently faces a severe challenge to reconcile interior models with helioseismic inversions near the base of the c- vection zone in the age of the new solar chemical abundances. Asteroseismology suffers in comparisonbybeingrestrictedtoverylowsphericalharmonicdegree( ), butitmakesupfor this by providing many more subjects for study (including solar-like stars) and many cases of well-identi ed g modes. Where once we were restricted to stellar spectra in studying in- vidual stars, asteroseismology now provides a crucial tool with which we may explore their deep structure. Its natural synergy with planet-search programs also invigorates it. Local Helioseismology has seen the development of an exciting array of techniques and insights over the two decades since observations of surface oscillations in and around active regions gave the rst clues that something different was happening there, and it has been parti- larly important in mapping ows of various types in shallow subsurface layers."

A trio of editors [Professors from Austria, Germany and Israel] present Life on Earth and other Planetary Bodies. The contributors are from twenty various countries and present their research on life here as well as the possibility for extraterrestrial life. This volume covers concepts such as life's origin, hypothesis of Panspermia and of life possibility in the Cosmos. The topic of extraterrestrial life is currently 'hot' and the object of several congresses and conferences. While the diversity of "normal" biota is well known, life on the edge of the extremophiles is more limited and less distributed. Other subjects discussed are Astrobiology with the frozen worlds of Mars, Europa and Titan where extant or extinct microbial life may exist in subsurface oceans; conditions on icy Mars with its saline, alkaline, and liquid water which has been recently discovered; chances of habitable Earth-like [or the terrestrial analogues] exoplanets; and SETI's search for extraterrestrial Intelligence.

What are the relations between the shape of a system of cities and that of fish school? Which events should happen in a cell in order that it participates to one of the finger of our hands? How to interpret the shape of a sand dune? This collective book written for the non-specialist addresses these questions and more generally, the fundamental issue of the emergence of forms and patterns in physical and living systems. It is a single book gathering the different aspects of morphogenesis and approaches developed in different disciplines on shape and pattern formation. Relying on the seminal works of D'Arcy Thompson, Alan Turing and Rene Thom, it confronts major examples like plant growth and shape, intra-cellular organization, evolution of living forms or motifs generated by crystals. A book essential to understand universal principles at work in the shapes and patterns surrounding us but also to avoid spurious analogies.

Since the use of high-precision/resolution spectroscopy is closely connected to the ability to collect a large number of photons, the scientific domains using this technique benefit tremendously from the use of 8-meter class telescopes and will fully exploit the tremendous gain provided by future Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs). This volume comprehensively covers the astrophysical and technical aspects of high-precision spectroscopy with an outlook to future developments.

This book provides an introduction to the mathematical aspects of Euler's elastic theory and its application. The approach is rigorous, as well as visually depicted, and can be easily digested. The first few chapters introduce the needed mathematical concepts from geometry and variational calculus. The formal definitions and proofs are always illustrated through complete derivations and concrete examples. In this way, the reader becomes acquainted with Cassinian ovals, Sturmian spirals, co-Lemniscates, the nodary and the undulary, Delaunay surfaces, and their generalizations. The remaining chapters discuss the modeling of membranes, mylar balloons, rotating liquid drops, Hele-Shaw cells, nerve fibers, Cole's experiments, and membrane fusion. The book is geared towards applied mathematicians, physicists and engineers interested in Elastica Theory and its applications.

This book gives a detailed, up-to-date account of the Lense-Thirring effect and its implications for physics and astrophysics. Starting from a profound intuition of Lense and Thirring in 1918, based on a simple solution to the linearized Einstein field equations, this has emerged in the past four decades as a phenomenon of extraordinary importance in cosmology, radio jets in quasars, and the physics of neutron stars and black holes, besides leading to some of the most sophisticated experiments ever performed in the space surrounding our planet. The book contains the contributions presented at the "Third William Fairbank Meeting," which have been expanded by adding a complete set of classical and prominent contemporary papers on this subject and a general introduction by R Ruffini.

This book reviews the phenomenology displayed by relativistic jets as well as the most recent theoretical efforts to understand the physical mechanisms at their origin. Relativistic jets have been observed and studied in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) for about half a century and are believed to be fueled by accretion onto a supermassive black hole at the center of the host galaxy. Since the first discovery of relativistic jets associated with so-called "micro-quasars" much more recently, it has seemed clear that much of the physics governing the relativistic outflows in stellar X-ray binaries harboring black holes and in AGN must be common, but acting on very different spatial and temporal scales. With new observational and theoretical results piling up every day, this book attempts to synthesize a consistent, unified physical picture of the formation and disruption of jets in accreting black-hole systems. The chapters in this book offer overviews accessible not only to specialists but also to graduate students and astrophysicists working in other areas. Covered topics comprise Relativistic jets in stellar systems Launching of AGN jets Parsec-scale AGN jets Kiloparsec-scale AGN jets Black hole magnetospheres Theory of relativistic jets The structure and dynamics of the inner accretion disk The origin of the jet magnetic field X-ray observations, phenomenology, and connection with theory

This book brings together contributions from groundwater researchers and scientists on underground water resources in Egypt's deserts. The aquifers' quantity and quality are evaluated in many regions of the Egyptian deserts using established methods that can be effectively employed to investigate the potential for sustainable development in Egypt and similarly arid countries. The water resources in Egypt's deserts are subject to deterioration, mainly by land salinization and water deficiency. This book presents the best management practices, water quantity and quality, and optimal and sustainable usage of available groundwater. The book offers a unique guide for all readers interested in groundwater, modeling, and assessment for sustainable development in Egypt and countries with similar weather and water conditions.

The book provides an elaborate treatment of groundwater prospecting and management covering remote sensing, geological-geophysical cum hydrogeological studies, exploration (geological and geophysical), development (well logging techniques, pump test, its analysis and applications in well design), contamination (pollution of groundwater) and regulatory legislations regarding groundwater utilization under one cover. The book presents an elucidation of fundamental and theoretical background of each technique supported by necessary illustrative examples and exclusive case studies. It is a text-cum-reference book not only for students, research scholars and practicing earth scientists but also for practicing civil and agricultural engineers working in the application of groundwater resources, engaged in its exploration, development, contamination, legislation and management. The general readers can also refer the book for understanding the groundwater domain for adequate knowledge, as groundwater resources are essential life support commodity which is replenishable but not inexhaustible.

Magnetotactic bacteria (MTB) synthesize intracellular nano-sized minerals of magnetite and/or greigite magnetosomes for magnetic orientation. They play important roles in global iron cycling and sedimentary magnetism, and have a broad range of potential applications in both biotechnological and biomedical fields. However, because the majority of MTB in nature remain unculturable, our understanding of these specific bacteria remains fairly limited. This thesis describes the development of a novel approach for effectively collecting, purifying and characterizing uncultivated magnetotactic bacteria. The diversity, genomic information and rock magnetic properties of various uncultivated MTB are investigated and characterized using a combination of biological and geophysical methods. The results will lead to a better understanding of the biogeography and biomineralization mechanisms of MTB in nature, and improve our knowledge of the contributions of MTB to biogeochemical cycles of elements and sedimentary magnetism. Dr. Wei Lin works at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

Availability of advanced computational technology has fundamentally altered the investigative paradigm in the field of biomechanics. Armed with sophisticated computational tools, researchers are seeking answers to fundamental questions by exploring complex biomechanical phenomena at the molecular, cellular, tissue and organ levels. The computational armamentarium includes such diverse tools as the ab initio quantum mechanical and molecular dynamics methods at the atomistic scales and the finite element, boundary element, meshfree as well as immersed boundary and lattice-Boltzmann methods at the continuum scales. Multiscale methods that link various scales are also being developed. While most applications require forward analysis, e.g., finding deformations and stresses as a result of loading, others involve determination of constitutive parameters based on tissue imaging and inverse analysis. This book provides a glimpse of the diverse and important roles that modern computational technology is playing in various areas of biomechanics including biofluids and mass transfer, cardiovascular mechanics, musculoskeletal mechanics, soft tissue mechanics, and biomolecular mechanics.

This book contains a collection of papers that were presented at the IUTAM Symposium on "Computer Models in Biomechanics: From Nano to Macro" held at Stanford University, California, USA, from August 29 to September 2, 2011. It contains state-of-the-art papers on: - Protein and Cell Mechanics: coarse-grained model for unfolded proteins, collagen-proteoglycan structural interactions in the cornea, simulations of cell behavior on substrates - Muscle Mechanics: modeling approaches for Ca2+-regulated smooth muscle contraction, smooth muscle modeling using continuum thermodynamical frameworks, cross-bridge model describing the mechanoenergetics of actomyosin interaction, multiscale skeletal muscle modeling - Cardiovascular Mechanics: multiscale modeling of arterial adaptations by incorporating molecular mechanisms, cardiovascular tissue damage, dissection properties of aortic aneurysms, intracranial aneurysms, electromechanics of the heart, hemodynamic alterations associated with arterial remodeling following aortic coarctation, patient-specific surgery planning for the Fontan procedure - Multiphasic Models: solutes in hydrated biological tissues, reformulation of mixture theory-based poroelasticity for interstitial tissue growth, tumor therapies of brain tissue, remodeling of microcirculation in liver lobes, reactions, mass transport and mechanics of tumor growth, water transport modeling in the brain, crack modeling of swelling porous media - Morphogenesis, Biological Tissues and Organs: mechanisms of brain morphogenesis, micromechanical modeling of anterior cruciate ligaments, mechanical characterization of the human liver, in vivo validation of predictive models for bone remodeling and mechanobiology, bridging scales in respiratory mechanics

Special functions enable us to formulate a scientific problem by reduction such that a new, more concrete problem can be attacked within a well-structured framework, usually in the context of differential equations. A good understanding of special functions provides the capacity to recognize the causality between the abstractness of the mathematical concept and both the impact on and cross-sectional importance to the scientific reality. The special functions to be discussed in this monograph vary greatly, depending on the measurement parameters examined (gravitation, electric and magnetic fields, deformation, climate observables, fluid flow, etc.) and on the respective field characteristic (potential field, diffusion field, wave field). The differential equation under consideration determines the type of special functions that are needed in the desired reduction process. Each chapter closes with exercises that reflect significant topics, mostly in computational applications. As a result, readers are not only directly confronted with the specific contents of each chapter, but also with additional knowledge on mathematical fields of research, where special functions are essential to application. All in all, the book is an equally valuable resource for education in geomathematics and the study of applied and harmonic analysis. Students who wish to continue with further studies should consult the literature given as supplements for each topic covered in the exercises.

This is the first book that is not exclusively focused on ion channels functioning in sensory mechanisms that are characteristic of animals and humans, but also describes the role of ion channels in signal transduction mechanisms found in microbial cells and plants. It summarizes comprehensively the progress that has been made in studies of ion channels and their role in sensory physiology.

Mars, the most habitable of our sister planets, holds a special place in our imaginations and in our space exploration program. Fully half of NASA's planetary exploration effort is now devoted to Mars. Key questions include: Has Mars ever harbored life? Is there life on Mars now? Will humans be able to survive on the Martian surface? Answers to these questions lie in determining the present location of water on Mars and its likely inventory in the past, and in determining the present radiation environment of Mars. The 2001 Mars Odyssey Mission contributes greatly these answers by detecting near-surface water through measurements of neutron flux, from the detection of carbonates, and the quantification of its radiation environment. This book captures the objectives, the design of the mission and the details of the instruments carried to Mars. It should be of interest to every scientist interested in participating in the on-going exploration of Mars from graduate students to senior scientists as it provides the background information essential to interpret the many exciting results now appearing from the mission.

This work contains the proceedings of an International Astronomical Symposium devoted to the interactions between physics and dynamics in the solar system, especially with regard to the small bodies (asteroids, comets, meteors). These two topics were traditionally considered as almost independent, but their interactions are increasingly being reviewed as the key to an understanding of the formation and evolution of the solar system. For instance, the rotational dynamics of planets have a profound influence on their climate. On the other hand, a good understanding of the complicated dynamics of asteroids and the identification of families of bodies born from the break-up of a parent body may tell us much about the formation and the evolution of the solar system. All these, and several related questions are discussed in these proceedings, which should be of interest to both physicists and dynamicists.