This book provides information about microbial mats, from early fossils to modern mats located in marine and terrestrial environments. Microbial mats layered biofilms containing different types of cells are most complex systems in which representatives of various groups of organisms are found together. Among them are cyanobacteria and eukaryotic phototrophs, aerobic heterotrophic and chemoautotrophic bacteria, protozoa, anoxygenic photosynthetic bacteria, and other types of microorganisms.

These mats are perfect models for biogeochemical processes, such as the cycles of chemical elements, in which a variety of microorganisms cooperate and interact in complex ways. They are often found under extreme conditions and their study contributes to our understanding of extremophilic life. Moreover, microbial mats are models for Precambrian stromatolites; the study of modern microbial mats may provide information on the processes that may have occurred on Earth when prokaryotic life began to spread."

A workshop was held in June 1994 at the University of Western Ontario, London, concerned with education and training in global environmental change science. It was principally devoted to post-school education from first year university to postgraduate levels. I have arranged the papers and the results of discussions in the following order: Section 1: Introduction These papers set the scene. It begins with one by Beran whose original idea the workshop was. Schneider outlines various ways in which interdisciplinary courses in general and global change science in particular can be set up. Fyfe looks at the wider issues of global change that affect us all. There are then papers which examine major problems (Leal Filho; and Troost) and programmes to meet them (Carter; Fisher). Harger Section 2: Global Change Science Courses These papers are concerned with courses concerned with various aspects of global change courses. They include contributions from nine countries at different levels of secondary and university education. Section 3: Resources for teaching Global Change Science New resources are needed for effective courses, particularly those in which students can participate actively. There are wide selections both in terms of topics and teaching strategies, most of which are interactive. Section 4: Workshop discussions The workshop participants split themselves amongst three groups, one to discuss early undergraduate courses, another with senior undergraduate courses and the third with postgraduate courses. Their discussions are brought together in this section and common themes are identified.

The increasing production of industrial goods, heat, and energy, as well as traffic, has led to the release of considerable amounts of toxic trace metals to the atmosphere. The result is elevated concentrations of toxic metals in local populations and eco systems. Recently the problem of atmospheric long-range transport of trace metals has also been recognized. Significant amounts of these pollutants are disposed and deposited both on regional and global scales. In the atmosphere they may influence the chemical reactions. Of particular interest is their catalytic effect on the oxidation prosesses taking place in water droplets or on the surface of wet particles (e. g. the oxidation of sulphur dioxide to sulphate), however, the main environmental impact starts when the atmospheric trace metals are deposited on ground and vegetation and subsequently brought into the water circulation. During the later years significant progress has been made in the development of equipment to reduce and control the atmospheric emissions of toxic trace metals. This particularly applies to electrostatic precipitators and wet scrubbers for the collection of fine particles. The main objective of the workshop was to survey present knowledge concerning the sources, atmospheric fluxes, sinks and chemical impact of the atmospheric trace metals, and to review the developments of emission control equipment and the perspectives to reduce the potential risks from toxic metals. During the first two days of the meeting, 15 invited review papers were presented."

The 3rd International Symposium on Monitoring of Gaseous Pollutants by Tunable Diode th Lasers, held at the Fraunhofer Institute in Freiburg on October 17th and 18 , continued a tradition, established by the two preceeding meetings held at the same location, in 1986 and 1988. The steadily increasing number of participants and contributions emphasizes the need for such a meeting, which is unique in Europe and appreciated abroad. This third symposium in particular, was specially marked by the presence of the former Eastern Block Countries, with a number of scientists, and contributions, from the USSR (stilI existing at the time of the meeting) and from East Berlin. The large number of contributions proposed, originally, as oral presentations, could not be fitted in the schedule of the two-day limit which the participants to the previous meetings had recommended. To take account of these contributions, poster sessions were held, combined with extended discussion time. This intensified personal interaction was much appreciated by the participants.

Radiative heat transfer is a fundamental factor in the energetics of the terrestrial atmosphere: the system consisting of the atmosphere and the underlying layer is heated by the Sun, and this heating is compensated, on the average, by thermal radia tion. Only over a period of 1-3 days from some specified initial moment can the dynamic processes in the atmosphere be considered to be adiabatic. Global dynamic processes of long duration are regulated by the actual influxes of heat, one of the main ones being the radiative influx. Radiation must be taken into account in long-term, weather forecasting and when considering the global circulation of the atmosphere, the theory of climate, etc. Thus it is necessary to know the albedo of the system, the amount of solar radiation transmitted by the atmosphere, the absorptivity of the atmosphere vis-a-vis solar radiation, and also the effective radiation flux, the divergence of which represents the radiative cooling or heating. All these quantities have to be integrated over the wavelength spectrum of the solar or thermal radiation, and they must be ascertained as functions of the determining factors. The relation ships between the indicated radiation characteristics, the optical quantities directly determining them, the optically active compo nents of the atmosphere, and the meteorological fields will be discussed in this book."

The publication of this first volume on the Quaternary Period in Saudi Arabia marks a significant milestone in the study of this Kingdom's basic geology. It also represents a major achievement in international cooperation in scholarship. The study of the Quaternary Period of Saudi Arabia was first proposed by Austrian scientists and by the officers of the Austrian Academy of Sciences early in 1972. A meeting was arranged between representatives of that Academy and of the University of Petroleum and Minerals, in Vienna, during May and June of that year, and tentative agreement was reached on the details of this cooperative venture. An exchange of letters, 15th June 1972 from the Austrian Academy of Sciences and 21th June 1972 from the Uni versity of Petroleum and Minerals, formally recorded the basis of the agree ment and arranged for the first visit to Saudi Arabia of the initial research team and accompanying officials from Austria. This team was headed by Professor Dr. JOSEF ZOTL, of the Department for Hydrogeology, Technical University of Graz, the initial project director. Many scientists, administrators, and officials have contributed to the success of this fundamental research project. Their number is too extensive to mention in this Foreword, but the principal contributors have been listed in the body of this text in conjunction with the specific areas of investigation in which they participated. The enormous contribution of Professor Dr. ZOTL, however, merits exceptional commendation.

This book on electromagnetic resonance phenomena describes a general approach to physical problems, ways to solve them, and properties of the solutions obtained. Attention is given to the discussion and interpretation of formal and experimental data and their links to global atmospheric conditions such as the dynamics of global thunderstorm activity, variations of the effective height of the lower ionosphere, etc.

Schumann resonance is related to worldwide thunderstorm activity, and simultaneously, to global properties of the lower ionosphere. Transverse resonance is predominantly a local phenomenon containing information on the local height and conductivity of the lower ionosphere and on nearby thunderstorm activity.

Transient events in ELF-VLF radio propagation are also treated. These are natural pulsed radio signals and/or abrupt changes of manmade VLF radio signals. The transients associated with cloud-to-ionosphere discharges (red sprites, blue jets, trolls) are discussed, and clarification of the underlying physical ideas and their practical applications to pioneer results achieved in the field recently are emphasised.

The present work is not exactly a "course," but rather is presented as a monograph in which the author has set forth what are, for the most part, his own results; this is particularly true of Chaps. 7-13. Many of the problems dealt with herein have, since the school year 1975-76, been the subject of a series of graduate lectures at the "Universire des Sciences et Techniques de Lille I" for students preparing for the "Diplome d'Etudes Ap profondies de Mecanique (option fluides)." The writing of this book was thus strongly influenced by the author's own conception of meteorology as a fluid mechanics discipline which is in a privi leged area for the application of singular perturbation techniques. It goes without saying that the modeling of atmospheric flows is a vast and complex problem which is presently the focal point of many research projects. The enonnity of the topic explains why many important questions have not been taken up in this work, even among those which are closely related to the subject treated herein. Nonetheless, the author thought it worthwhile for the development of future research on the modeling of atmospheric flows (from the viewpoint of theoretical fluid mechanics) to bring forth a book specifying the problems which have already been resolved in this field and those which are, as yet, unsolved."

Since this new science is of an unprecedented interdisciplinary nature, the book does not merely take stock of its numerous ingredients, but also delivers their multifaceted integration.
The resulting master paradigm - the co-evolution of nature and anthroposphere within a geo-cybernetic continuum of processes - is based on a structured manifold of partial paradigms with their specific ranges. Most importantly, this serves the scientific foundation of a meaningful, safe and efficient environment and development management for solving the most burning questions concerning humankind and its natural environment.
The more concrete elucidation of the natural and human dimensions, as well as various attempts and instruments of integration are represented in the different parts of the book, while the didactic quality is heightened by many allegoric illustrations.

Especially due to the increasing environmental problems there is a need to collect as many data as possible in the upper atmosphere. This book serves as a general multidisciplinary guide and introduction for a more effective use of the large amount of now available data from the Earth's atmosphere. It also shows the problems of the use of large amounts of time series data - for basic science as well as for environmental monitoring - and the related information systems. The book is aimed for scientists and students interested in the Earth's atmosphere which is vital for the understanding of environmental changes in the global system Earth.

It would be difficult to think of a more important field of study in medicine than the interaction of cells with natural and foreign surfaces, but it is rare for those in the practice of medicine and surgery to get together with the basic scientists to discuss what they know about it, so that ground of common interest can be explored. Perhaps the symposium should have been entitled "Interactions between those interested in cell surfaces *** " because it is here that the chief value of such meetings must lie. Even a brief perusal of this volume shows just how far advanced thought and work are on some facets of the topic. Some of the most pressing problems in medicine are those of tumour spread and of thrombosis of blood vessels where surface phenomena are of paramount importance. Our understanding is still very limited but, as the symposium illustrated, the answers are only to be found by study at fundamental levels, the work gaining direction and point from interaction with surgeons and others concerned with the actual disease states.

An increasing allllo~/allce because of the anthropogenically induced ozone depletion and relevant illcrca5e of the surface ultraviolet (UV) radiation (including erythemal part of the UV spectrum) has resulted in the growth of interest to total ozone (TOZ) surface and satellite observations, surface UV measurements (with an emphasis on UV -B) and. the interpretation of observation results to assess potential impacts of the UV radiation enhancement on man and biosphere. The significance of this phenomenon is diJIcrent in various cowltries. Special attention has been paid, for instance, to ozone depletion and UV radiation increase at high latitudes (this problem has also been discussed during the Workshop). It is equally clear, however, that low and mid-latitude environmental dynamics requires carefuU monitoring and assessment of environm(:ntal trends as well. Such a conclusion is especially true for the Mediterranean Region where numerous resort places are located and subject to excessive levels of Solar Ultraviolet Radiation. This is why the NATO Advanced Rcsearch Workshop "Ground-Level and Satellite Ozone Observations: Changes in the Mediterranean Region" was organized and took place in Athens (Grcccc) during the Lime period 31 October -4 November 1995. It should be pointed out, however, that presentations discussed during the Workshop went far beyond the regional scale of consideration. This has been very important, because it opened an opportwlity to analyse the Mediterrane:an environmental situation in the broader contcx1 of the European global changes.

Seasonal Snowpacks examines the processes which control the chemistry of seasonal snowcover and provides detailed information on the biogeographical distribution of snow (e.g. urban, alpine snowpacks), snow composition (e.g. micropollutants, stable isotopes) or the physical and biological processes which influence the chemical changes in snow (e.g. wind, microbiological activity). The fluxes of chemicals at the snow-atmosphere and snow-soil interfaces are examined, as are processes which modify composition within the snowcover. It is the first book in which the reader will find a comprehensive overview of the theoretical concepts, latest measurement techniques, process-oriented research methods, and models of studies in snow chemistry. The linkages between snow chemistry, atmospheric chemistry and hydrology will make this book of use to both research workers and students in the physical and biological sciences and to natural resource management personnel.

In the years since the pioneering efforts of Sir Edward Appleton, M. A. F. Barnett, G. Breit, and M. A. Thve, many radio techniques have been employed to investigate the terrestrial ionosphere. The purposes of this book are to exam ine the basic physical interaction process of radio waves with the ionosphere, scrutinize each of the radio techniques currently in use, and describe the elements of each technique, as well as assess their capabilities and limitations. I have included some of the history of each technique, since we often tend to forget the efforts of the "pioneers". The interaction of radio waves with the terrestrial ionosphere has been described in considerable detail in several "classic" treatments, e.g., Ratcliffe (1959), Al'pert (1963), Budden (1961) and Davies (1965), Rishbeth and e.g., Flock (1979), Davies Garriott (1969), and in other more recent books, (1990), Hargreaves (1979), and Budden (1985). A few of the radio techniques have been described by Hargreaves (1979) and a book by Giraud and Petit (1978) has also included discussion of several of the techniques. The "WITS" handbook No. 2 (1989) also contains description of several radio techniques.

This book is based on a workshop on biogeography of freshwater algae held during the Fifth International Phycological Congress in China 1994. A group of outstanding specialists covering widely different approaches to the subject have been brought together, and this collection of their contributions forms a unique volume: there is no other book on the subject. It thus fills an evident gap in the phycological literature, and will be of major interest to researchers and teachers within phycology, limnology, and evolutionary biology. However, it may also be useful in courses for advanced students.

This book presents basic information on material science (geochemistry, geophysics, geology, mineralogy, etc.), interaction between subsystem consisting earth system (atmosphere, hydrosphere, litho (geo) sphere, biosphere, humans) and in earth-planet system and evolution of earth-planetary system. The nature-humans interactions are described and new view on earth, planets and humans (integration of anthropocentrism and naturecentrism) are presented.

For the fourth consecutive year, the Association of Geographic Infor- tion Laboratories for Europe (AGILE) promoted the edition of a book with the collection of the scientific papers that were submitted as full-papers to the AGILE annual international conference. Those papers went through a th competitive review process. The 13 AGILE conference call for fu- papers of original and unpublished fundamental scientific research resulted in 54 submissions, of which 21 were accepted for publication in this - lume (acceptance rate of 39%). Published in the Springer Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Car- th graphy, this book is associated to the 13 AGILE Conference on G- graphic Information Science, held in 2010 in Guimaraes, Portugal, under the title "Geospatial Thinking." The efficient use of geospatial information and related technologies assumes the knowledge of concepts that are fundamental components of Geospatial Thinking, which is built on reasoning processes, spatial conc- tualizations, and representation methods. Geospatial Thinking is associated with a set of cognitive skills consisting of several forms of knowledge and cognitive operators used to transform, combine or, in any other way, act on that same knowledge. The scientific papers published in this volume cover an important set of topics within Geoinformation Science, including: Representation and Visualisation of Geographic Phenomena; Spatiotemporal Data Analysis; Geo-Collaboration, Participation, and Decision Support; Semantics of Geoinformation and Knowledge Discovery; Spatiotemporal Modelling and Reasoning; and Web Services, Geospatial Systems and Real-time Appli- tions."

The Fifteenth Rare Earth Research Conference was held June 15-18, 1981 on the Rolla campus of th.e University of Missouri. The conference was hosted by the Graduate Center for Materials Research, the College of Arts and Science, and the School of Mines and Metallurgy. It was expected that the conference would provide a forum for critical examination and review of the current and important trends in rare earth science and technology. To this end, over 170 papers were presented in both oral and poster sessions by researchers representing some nineteen countries. The program committee was particularly gratified to see the diversity of effort being devoted to rare earth research by different disciplines allover the world. The collection of refereed papers in this volume attests to the fact that the objectives of the program committee were indeed realized. A high point of the meeting was the presentation of the Frank n. Spedding Award to a most distinguished colleague, Professor Georg Busch, Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule, Zurich. Prof essor W. Edward hi"allace, University of Pittsburgh, recipient of the first Frank H. Spedding Award made the presentation to Professor Busch who then gave the Plenary Address."

The Twelfth International Diatom Symposium stressed how diatoms can be used to assess the human impact on natural waters, without neglecting other important fields of research. As the frustules of many diatom species are relatively resistant to dissolution they are preserved in freshwater and marine sediments and provide a record of past environments on earth. In past decades they have been successfully used to reconstruct changes in water bodies evoked by changes in salinity, acidification and eutrophication. In the last few years diatom-inferred predictions of environmental variables have become much more quantitative. In the most recent research reports the strong separation between palaeolimnological and neolimnological diatom research is fading, as palaeolimnologists are increasingly using modern calibration sets to infer past states of the environment. This quantitative approach is also very suitable for prediction of future changes in the biota of surface waters. Also ecological changes due to climatic modification have been investigated more thoroughly recently. A very important new research topic is the occurrence of toxic diatoms, particularly along the coasts of North America. These proceedings are intended to be a balanced view of such modern developments in diatom research. They should also be of interest to non-specialists in diatoms, who can use the results of diatom research as a tool in a more general taxonomic, ecological and geological context.

This was the fourth postgraduate summer school on remote sensing to be held in Dundee. These summer schools were originated by, and continue to remain in, the programme of EARSel (European Association of Remote Sensing Laboratories) Working Group 3 on Education and Training in Remote Sensing. The first of these summer schools was held in 1980 on "Remote Sensing in Meteorology, Oceanography and Hydrology." This was followed in 1982 by a more specialised summer school on "Remote Sensing Applications in Marine Science and Technology" which built on the foundation laid in 1980 and then concentrated on the marine applications of remote sensing techniques. The present summer school was another follow-up of the original 1980 summer school but this time concentrating on the atmospheric rather than the marine applications of remote sensing techniques. The 1984 summer school had not specifically involved atmospheric and marine applications but had been involved with the use of remote sensing in the field of civil engineering. This year's summer school was extremely successful. First of all, this was due to our sponsors, for without their very significant material contributions there would have been no summer school. These sponsors included the Scientific Affairs Division of NATO, together with the European Association of Remote Sensing Laboratories, the Council of Europe, the European Space Agency, the German Aerospace Establishment (DFVLR) and the Natural Environment Research Council.

Combining experts from the medical and materials sciences, the Institute considered current concepts in medical and materials sciences as they relate to implantable prostheses in orthopedic surgical practice. The syllabus included theory and applications of materials properties, physiological function, and host response to metal and non-metal materials. Total hip prostheses are the most common orthopedic device implanted today involved in over 200,000 operations. Failures occur at the rate of 10~-40~ at ~ to 10 years. Failures are due to loosening, infection, fracture of femoral components, or destruction of the pe 1 vi c components .' All these, and other problems related to the implantation of the devices, the surgical procedures, and device pathology, were. discussed in light of current, as well as, emerging technologies and scientific knowledge. Repeatedly, scientists designing prostheses became aware of a lack of understanding of physiological phenomena associated with biocompatibility; the interchange among practising physicians, basic scientists, and pathologists at this Institute was appreciated. We thank all the contributors and participants for their effort. Thanks are also due to the personnel of the Scientific Affairs Division of NATO. The daily routines of running the Institute were greatly facilitated by the efforts of Pedro Cuevas, M.D, Jose Gutierrez Diaz, M.D, and Dr. Hanita Kossowsky. The devoted help of Nir Kossovsky, M.D, in setting the conference and in editing this book, is sincerely appreci ated.

Climate varies on all scales of time and space, bya large variety of reasons. However, before any discussion of reasons can be performed it is necessary to realize the very facts of climate variability by means of observations or reconstructions, respectively. In this book we focus on observed long-term trends of selected climate elements (tempera ture, precipitation, humidity, pressure ) as revealed by direct measurements of the Euro pean station network within the recent 100 years. Of course, there are a number of problems in detail: Reliability and accuracy of data, time series homogeneity, statistical confidence oftrends and so on. We hope that these problems are addressed in an instructive and, as far as possible, exhausting way. The main purpose of this work, however, was to provide a collection of trend charts which specify the regional particularities of observed climate trends in different months or seasons of the year leading us to an 'Atlas of observed climate trends in Europe'. Keeping in mind the recent World Meteorological Organization (WMO) climate nor mal (CLINO) period, we have also calculated the 1961-1990 trends."

The background This volume contains the proceedings of the first International symposium on "Non-C0 Greenhouse Gases: Why and How to 2 Control?" held in Maastricht, The Netherlands from 13-15 Decem ber 1993. Of the known greenhouse gases, political attention to date has been primarily focused on carbon dioxide (C0 ) and the 2 CFCs - the latter because of their interaction with stratospheric ozone. The other greenhouse gases, notably methane (CH ), nitrous 4 oxide (N 0), HCFCs, HFCs and tropospheric ozone and its precur 2 sors nitrogen oxides (NO), carbon monoxide (CO) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), may appear collectively to be of equal importance for global warming but have attracted less attention. Nevertheless, a comprehensive approach to climate change respon se, taking into account all sources and sinks of all greenhouse gases, is explicitly allowed in the Framework Convention on Clima te Change. The Netherlands' policy on climate already addresses all greenhouse gases. In order to stimulate the development of international climate policy on this subject, the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Physical Planning and Environment supported the initative of organizing an international symposium on the science and policy of the non-C0 greenhouse gases. An important rationale behind 2 this initative was recognizing that for the non-C0 greenhouse 2 gases, abatement options are available that do not only address other environmental problems but that also do not require the major structural changes in society that an effective CO policy 2 may."

The three parts of this volume - Technical Refinement; Technical Innovation; and Project Management and Risk Minimisation - reflect the areas of opportunity for improved cost effective techniques for exploration and production of oil and gas in the North Sea and worldwide. The book is indispensable for engineers and scientists interested in the latest advances in technology and resource management that will reduce costs and continue to enhance the safe exploration of oil and gas resources. This volume comprises a selection of contributions presented at the International Conference Subsea International '93, held 28--29 April 1993 in Aberdeen, U.K.