These proceedings contain 25 papers, which are the peer-reviewed versions of presentations made at the 1st International Workshop on the Quality of Geodetic Observation and Monitoring (QuGOMS'11), held 13 April to 15 April 2011 in Garching, Germany. The papers were drawn from five sessions which reflected the following topic areas: (1) Uncertainty Modeling of Geodetic Data, (2) Theoretical Studies on Combination Strategies and Parameter Estimation, (3) Recursive State-Space Filtering, (4) Sensor Networks and Multi Sensor Systems in Engineering Geodesy, (5) Multi-Mission Approaches With View to Physical Processes in the Earth System.

Preface. Measurement of matric suction using tensiometric and axis translation techniques; F.A.M. Marinho et al. Indirect measurement of suction; R. Bulut, E.C. Leong. Axis translation and negative water column techniques for suction control; S.K. Vanapalli et al. Vapour equilibrium and osmotic technique for suction control; J. Blatz et al. Mechanical testing in unsaturated soils; L.R. Hoyos et al. Laboratory hydraulic testing in unsaturated soils; F. Masrouri et al. Microstructure investigation in unsaturated soils: a review with special attention to contribution of mercury intrusion porosimetry and environmental scanning electron microscopy; E. Romero, P.H. Simms. Geoenvironmental testing; P. Delage, E. Romero. Field measurement of suction, water content, and water permeability; A. Tarantino et al. Water balance and evapotranspiration monitoring in geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering; Y.J. Cui, J.G. Zornberg. Monitoring the performance of unsaturated soil slopes; C.W.W. Ng et al. Monitoring large scale tests for nuclear waste disposal; E.E. Alonso et al.

This work provides an up-to-date overview of modern instruments used in earthquake seismology as well as a description of theoretical and practical aspects of seismic instrumentation. The main topics are: * Choosing and installing equipment for seismic stations * Designing and setting up seismic networks and arrays * Maintaining and calibrating seismic instruments It also provides detailed descriptions of the following: * Seismic sensors * Digitizers * Seismic recorders * Communication systems * Software used for seismic station and networks In this second edition, new seismic equipment is presented and more comprehensive sections on topics like MEMS accelerometers, sigma-delta AD converters, dynamic range discussion and virtual networks have been included. This book is primarily intended for seismologists, engineers and technicians working with seismological instruments. It combines practical "know-how" with sufficient theory to explain the basic principles, making it also suitable for teaching students the most important aspects of seismic instrumentation. The book also gives a current overview of the majority of instruments and instrument manufacturers on the market, making it easy to compare the capability of instruments from different sources. SEISAN software was used for several examples in the book. This widely extended seismic analysis software is freely available from the University of Bergen website. The content of this book draws on the authors' (a seismologist and a physicist) combined experience of working in this field for more than 35 years.

This biography summarizes the seminal contributions to auroral and space science of Carl Stormer (1874 - 1957). He was the first to develop precise photographic methods to calculate heights and morphologies of diverse auroral forms during four solar cycles. Stormer independently devised numerical techniques to determine the trajectories of high-energy charged particles allowed and forbidden in the Earth's magnetic field. His theoretical analyses explained cosmic ray access to the upper atmosphere, 20 years before they were identified by other scientists. Stormer's crowning achievement, "The Polar Aurora," published when he was 81 years old, stands to this day as a regularly cited guide in graduate-level courses on space physics. The authors present the life of this prodigious scientist in relation to the cultural life of early 20th century in Norway and to the development of the space sciences in the post-Sputnik era.

In a globalized market where the emerging workforce will increasingly travel within their nations and abroad for work opportunities, it is valuable to learn about the international education system and practices, to assess the competition. For example, annual comparison of student performance is measured across math and science subjects globally. What is not well known is how geography educational systems compare around the world and how student success in this subject translates to learning in other courses or employment after graduation. The importance of geography in our personal, professional, and civic lives is transparent when one considers how finding one's way with a map, understanding of world cultures, or identifying spatial patterns of disease spread might influence the decisions we make. Written for a global audience, this is the first English publication on geography education in Japan, addressing some fundamental questions. What is the nature of the geography educational systems in Japan? How does the focus on content and skills in Japanese schools differ from that in other countries? This book includes 25 authors from diverse geography instruction and research experiences, making it an authoritative publication on Japan's geography education system. The contribution of this book to the larger geography educational community is sharing the key strengths, concerns, and future of this school subject in English, where previously most publications were in Japanese. It will be a useful source for researchers and teachers to understand Japan's evolving geography instruction in the past, present, and future. The 21 chapters are organized into themes, beginning with an overview of the geography education system in Japan, followed by chapters that deal with regional geography and fieldwork, teacher training, geography education's contributions to society, and a comparative study of geography education across multiple countries. The book ends with a vision of geography education in the future.

This book includes the recent 10-year achievement of geo-disaster mitigation by leading Asian scientists from Japan, China, Indonesia, Korea, Iran and Far East of Russia. Case studies on recent occurred geo-disasters in Asian region have been presented. The forming mechanics of hazards such as earthquake and landslide are deeply discussed, and the disaster mitigation technology for building and pipeline safety, landslide hazard assessment and risk management are introduced.

The ARTEMIS mission was initiated by skillfully moving the two outermost Earth-orbiting THEMIS spacecraft into lunar orbit to conduct unprecedented dual spacecraft observations of the lunar environment. ARTEMIS stands for Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of the Moon's Interaction with the Sun. Indeed, this volume discusses initial findings related to the Moon's magnetic and plasma environments and the electrical conductivity of the lunar interior. This work is aimed at researchers and graduate students in both heliophysics and planetary physics. Originally published in Space Science Reviews, Vol. 165/1-4, 2011.

This book contains a selection of the papers that were presented at the EUROMECH colloquium on particle-laden flow held at the University of Twente in 2006. The multiscale nature of this challenging field motivated the calling of the colloquium and reflects the central importance that the dispersion of particles in a flow has in various geophysical and environmental problems. The spreading of aerosols and soot in the air, the growth and dispersion of plankton blooms in seas and oceans, or the transport of sediment in rivers, estuaries and coastal regions are striking examples.

GPR Remote Sensing in Archaeology provides a complete description of the processes needed to take raw GPR data all the way to the construction of subsurface images. The book provides an introduction to the "theory" of GPR by using a simulator that shows how radar profiles across simple model structures look and provides many examples so that the complexity of radar signatures can be understood. It continues with a review of the necessary radargram signal processes needed along with examples. The most comprehensive methodology to construct subsurface images from either coarsely spaced data using interpolation or from dense data from multi-channel equipment and 3D volume generation is presented, advanced imaging solutions such as overlay analysis are introduced, and numerous worldwide site case histories are shown. The authors present their studies in a way that most technical and non-technical users of the equipment will find essentials for implementing in their own subsurface investigations.

This book is one out of 8 IAEG XII Congress volumes, and deals with the preservation of cultural heritage. In 1972, the World Heritage Convention linked in a single framework the concepts of nature conservation and the preservation of cultural sites. Since then, engineering geology is enlarging its contributions to national and international projects on this topic and is extending its interests to key issues like: safeguarding of monuments and sites from geotechnical perspectives; advanced monitoring; investigations on cultural landscapes; development of geo-databases for cultural heritage classification; studies on the interactions between humankind, natural landscape evolution and cultural heritage; analysis of weathering and deterioration of rock properties of monuments; risk analysis of sites affected by natural hazards and many others. With the contributions in this book, engineering geologists, conservation scientists and further experts from other natural, social and economic sciences, as well as representatives of international organizations and national and local administrative authorities exchange their ideas and practices on culture heritage preservation by presenting both local case studies and multidisciplinary international projects. The Engineering Geology for Society and Territory volumes of the IAEG XII Congress held in Torino from September 15-19, 2014, analyze the dynamic role of engineering geology in our changing world and build on the four main themes of the congress: Environment, processes, issues and approaches. The congress topics and subject areas of the 8 IAEG XII Congress volumes are: Climate Change and Engineering Geology. Landslide Processes. River Basins, Reservoir Sedimentation and Water Resources. Marine and Coastal Processes. Urban Geology, Sustainable Planning and Landscape Exploitation. Applied Geology for Major Engineering Projects. Education, Professional Ethics and Public Recognition of Engineering Geology. Preservation of Cultural Heritage.

This book is an update of the first BACC assessment, published in 2008. It offers new and updated scientific findings in regional climate research for the Baltic Sea basin. These include climate changes since the last glaciation (approx. 12,000 years ago), changes in the recent past (the last 200 years), climate projections up until 2100 using state-of-the-art regional climate models and an assessment of climate-change impacts on terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems. There are dedicated new chapters on sea-level rise, coastal erosion and impacts on urban areas. A new set of chapters deals with possible causes of regional climate change along with the global effects of increased greenhouse gas concentrations, namely atmospheric aerosols and land-cover change. The evidence collected and presented in this book shows that the regional climate has already started to change and this is expected to continue. Projections of potential future climates show that the region will probably become considerably warmer and wetter in some parts, but dryer in others. Terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems have already shown adjustments to increased temperatures and are expected to undergo further changes in the near future. The BACC II Author Team consists of 141 scientists from 12 countries, covering various disciplines related to climate research and related impacts. BACC II is a project of the Baltic Earth research network and contributes to the World Climate Research Programme.

This book contains contributions to the 10th International Workshop on Bifurcation and Degradation in Geomaterials held in Hong Kong, May 28-30, 2014. This event marks the silver Jubilee anniversary of an international conference series dedicated to the research on localization, instability, degradation and failure of geomaterials since 1988 when its first workshop was organized in Germany. This volume of book collects the latest progresses and state-of-the-art research from top researchers around the world, and covers topics including multiscale modeling, experimental characterization and theoretical analysis of various instability and degradation phenomena in geomaterials as well as their relevance to contemporary issues in engineering practice.  This book can be used as a useful reference for research students, academics and practicing engineers who are interested in the instability and degradation problems in geomechanics and geotechnical engineering.

The book deals primarily with the aspects like energy resources and its proper utilization, disposal of various forms of wastes and its effects and effects of major catastrophic events like nuclear disasters, global warming, etc. It also deals with the choice of suitable disposal sites for solid and hazardous waste, which is growing at an extremely rapid pace due to rapid industrialization, population growth (primarily in countries like India and China) and urbanization. In addition groundwater contamination due to various causes and its effect on the food chain is also amply discussed. The book is specifically aimed with the state-of-art information regarding research and development in these areas of study, coupled to extensive modelling and case based results obtained, both from India as well as other countries. The book is extremely instructive for the students, research workers, scientists, faculty members in Applied Physics, Solid Earth Geophysics, Radiometric Methods and Exploration, Ground Water Geochemistry, Mathematical Modeling Techniques in Earth Sciences, Near Surface Geophysics and Earth and Environmental Sciences.

Strategic minerals are a major element of resource geopolitics. The US has always provided the ‘umbrella’ for the West and is now the ‘global policeman’ on strategic mineral supply. As the global economic system has developed it has become increasingly clear that the geopolitical balance in global mineral supply is focused on the countries of the former Soviet Union, China and South Africa. The entire import list of US non-fuel minerals is examined in the context of import dependence, the criticality of end-use and the vulnerability of sources. This analysis builds up a complete picture of the varying levels of vulnerability for each mineral, allowing lists of both key and marginal strategic minerals to be compiled. The major sources of these minerals and their relative potential problems of supply are considered. These problems range from geopolitical concerns to the monopolistic agency of multinationals and cartels to the mechanistics of sea-line communications. The book concludes with an assessment of present and future scenarios based on shifting geopolitical influence at the global level, outlining countermeasures, both actual and potential.

This thesis presents an in-depth, high-resolution observational study on the very beginning of the formation process: the fragmentation of dense molecular clouds known as infrared dark clouds (IRDCs). Using the Submillimeter Array (SMA) and Very Large Array (VLA) radio interferometers, the author has discovered a common picture of hierarchical fragmentation that challenges some of the leading theoretical models and suggests a new, observation-driven understanding of how massive star formation in clustered environments may begin: it is initiated by the hierarchical fragmentation of a dense filament from 10 pc down to 0.01 pc, and the stellar mass buildup is simultaneously fed by hierarchical accretion at similar scales. The new scenario points out the importance of turbulence and filamentary structure, which are now receiving increasing attention and further tests from both observers and theorists.

This book is the collection of papers from the latest International Uranium Mining and Hydrogeology Conference (UMH VII) held in September 2014, in Freiberg, Germany. It is divided to five sessions: Uranium Mining, Uranium and Phosphates, Clean-up technologies for water and soil. Uranium and daughter nuclides and basic research and modeling. Each session covers a wide range of related topic and provides readers with up to date research and solutions on those matters.

This book covers advances made since the 2004 Springer volume "Polarized Light in Animal Vision" edited by Horvath and Varju, but also provides reviews and synopses of some areas. Part I examines polarization sensitivity across many animal taxa including vertebrates and invertebrates and details both terrestrial and aquatic life. Part II is devoted to the description of polarized light in nature and explores how the physics of light must be taken into account when understanding how polarized light is detected by the visual system. This includes underwater polarization due to scattering; polarization patterns reflected from freshwater bodies; polarization characteristics of forest canopies; normal and anomalous polarization patterns of the skies; skylight polarization transmitted through Snell's window and both linearly and circularly polarized signals produced by terrestrial and aquatic animals. This Part also examines polarized "light pollution" induced by anthropogenic factors such as reflection off asphalt surfaces, glass panes, car bodies, and other man-made structures that are now known to form ecological traps for polarotactic insects. Part III surveys some of the practical applications of polarization vision including polarization-based traps for biting insects, ground-based polarimetric cloud detectors and an historical examination of the navigational abilities of Viking seafarers using the sky polarization compass. The deterrent qualities of ungulate pelage to polarization-sensitive biting insects is also examined in this section.

This book review series presents current trends in modern biotechnology. The aim is to cover all aspects of this interdisciplinary technology where knowledge, methods and expertise are required from chemistry, biochemistry, microbiology, genetics, chemical engineering and computer science. Volumes are organized topically and provide a comprehensive discussion of developments in the respective field over the past 3-5 years. The series also discusses new discoveries and applications. Special volumes are dedicated to selected topics which focus on new biotechnological products and new processes for their synthesis and purification. In general, special volumes are edited by well-known guest editors. The series editor and publisher will however always be pleased to receive suggestions and supplementary information. Manuscripts are accepted in English.

This book review series presents current trends in modern biotechnology. The aim is to cover all aspects of this interdisciplinary technology where knowledge, methods and expertise are required from chemistry, biochemistry, microbiology, genetics, chemical engineering and computer science. Volumes are organized topically and provide a comprehensive discussion of developments in the respective field over the past 3-5 years. The series also discusses new discoveries and applications. Special volumes are dedicated to selected topics which focus on new biotechnological products and new processes for their synthesis and purification. In general, special volumes are edited by well-known guest editors. The series editor and publisher will however always be pleased to receive suggestions and supplementary information. Manuscripts are accepted in English.

This book focuses on the use of open source software for geospatial analysis. It demonstrates the effectiveness of the command line interface for handling both vector, raster and 3D geospatial data. Appropriate open-source tools for data processing are clearly explained and discusses how they can be used to solve everyday tasks. A series of fully worked case studies are presented including vector spatial analysis, remote sensing data analysis, landcover classification and LiDAR processing. A hands-on introduction to the application programming interface (API) of GDAL/OGR in Python/C++ is provided for readers who want to extend existing tools and/or develop their own software.

This book describes thoroughly the North American Climate of the past 65 million years, with special emphasis on the last 21,000 years, as revealed by paleoclimatic observations and climate models. It analyzes weather observations over the past century and satellite measurements of the last few decades to develop a picture of more recent climatic trends. It explains how global climate models are used to simulate and project climate, and presents the application of these models to reproduce recent climate variations and predict future North American climate. It answers the critical question of whether observed climate change is due to natural variations or human activity.

Irregular engineering structures are subjected to complicated additional loads which are often beyond conventional design models developed for traditional, simplified plane models. This book covers detailed research and recent progress in seismic engineering dealing with seismic behaviour of irregular and set-back engineering structures. Experimental results as well as special topics of modern design are discussed in detail. In addition, recent progress in seismology, wave propagation and seismic engineering, which provides novel, modern modelling of complex seismic loads, is reported. Particular emphasis is placed on the newly developed rotational, seismic ground-motion effects. This book is a continuation of an earlier monograph which appeared in the same Springer series in 2013 (http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789400753761).

This work provides a short "getting started" guide to Fortran 90/95. The main target audience consists of newcomers to the field of numerical computation within Earth system sciences (students, researchers or scientific programmers). Furthermore, readers accustomed to other programming languages may also benefit from this work, by discovering how some programming techniques they are familiar with map to Fortran 95. The main goal is to enable readers to quickly start using Fortran 95 for writing useful programs. It also introduces a gradual discussion of Input/Output facilities relevant for Earth system sciences, from the simplest ones to the more advanced netCDF library (which has become a de facto standard for handling the massive datasets used within Earth system sciences). While related works already treat these disciplines separately (each often providing much more information than needed by the beginning practitioner), the reader finds in this book a shorter guide which links them. Compared to other books, this work provides a much more compact view of the language, while also placing the language-elements in a more applied setting, by providing examples related to numerical computing and more advanced Input/Output facilities for Earth system sciences. Naturally, the coverage of the programming language is relatively shallow, since many details are skipped. However, many of these details can be learned gradually by the practitioner, after getting an overview and some practice with the language through this book.

Commissioned by the Intergovernmental Meeting (IGM) of the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN), this book offers a detailed survey of the current status of climate change and climate variability in the Asia-Pacific region, a thorough and thoughtful assessment of climate and security and clear recommendations on the best paths of climate research in the future.

This book will constitute the proceedings of the ILP Workshop held in Abu Dhabi in December 2009. It will include a reprint of the 11 papers published in the December 2010 issue of the AJGS, together with 11 other original papers.