From patient selection and monitoring to follow-up care, Carotid Interventions is the first source to offer a practical how-to approach to carotid angioplasty and stenting-providing maneuvers and strategies for difficult situations, as well as step-by-step guidance on specific surgical procedures, equipment selection and instrumentation, protection devices, and room/facility layout.

Covering both noninvasive and surgical treatment alternatives, Critical Limb Ischemia defines practical guidelines for a multidisciplinary approach to critical limb ischemia, and follows a step-by-step description of the latest techniques.

Topics covered include:

• balloon angioplasty and stenting
• cryoplasty
• pharmacotherapy
• topical therapies combined with hyperbolic oxygen treatment
• endovascular techniques
• strategies for leg revascularization

Provides vascular surgeons, general and interventional cardiologists, interventionalists, radiologists, podiatrists, and endocrinologists a valuable resource for daily practice.

Understanding Galois representations is one of the central goals of number theory. Around 1990, Fontaine devised a strategy to compare such p-adic Galois representations to seemingly much simpler objects of (semi)linear algebra, the so-called etale (phi, gamma)-modules. This book is the first to provide a detailed and self-contained introduction to this theory. The close connection between the absolute Galois groups of local number fields and local function fields in positive characteristic is established using the recent theory of perfectoid fields and the tilting correspondence. The author works in the general framework of Lubin-Tate extensions of local number fields, and provides an introduction to Lubin-Tate formal groups and to the formalism of ramified Witt vectors. This book will allow graduate students to acquire the necessary basis for solving a research problem in this area, while also offering researchers many of the basic results in one convenient location.

Number theory currently has at least three different perspectives on non-abelian phenomena: the Langlands programme, non-commutative Iwasawa theory and anabelian geometry. In the second half of 2009, experts from each of these three areas gathered at the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge to explain the latest advances in their research and to investigate possible avenues of future investigation and collaboration. For those in attendance, the overwhelming impression was that number theory is going through a tumultuous period of theory-building and experimentation analogous to the late 19th century, when many different special reciprocity laws of abelian class field theory were formulated before knowledge of the Artin-Takagi theory. Non-abelian Fundamental Groups and Iwasawa Theory presents the state of the art in theorems, conjectures and speculations that point the way towards a new synthesis, an as-yet-undiscovered unified theory of non-abelian arithmetic geometry.

The algebraic techniques developed by Kakde will almost certainly lead eventually to major progress in the study of congruences between automorphic forms and the main conjectures of non-commutative Iwasawa theory for many motives. Non-commutative Iwasawa theory has emerged dramatically over the last decade, culminating in the recent proof of the non-commutative main conjecture for the Tate motive over a totally real p-adic Lie extension of a number field, independently by Ritter and Weiss on the one hand, and Kakde on the other. The initial ideas for giving a precise formulation of the non-commutative main conjecture were discovered by Venjakob, and were then systematically developed in the subsequent papers by Coates-Fukaya-Kato-Sujatha-Venjakob and Fukaya-Kato. There was also parallel related work in this direction by Burns and Flach on the equivariant Tamagawa number conjecture. Subsequently, Kato discovered an important idea for studying the K_1 groups of non-abelian Iwasawa algebras in terms of the K_1 groups of the abelian quotients of these Iwasawa algebras. Kakde's proof is a beautiful development of these ideas of Kato, combined with an idea of Burns, and essentially reduces the study of the non-abelian main conjectures to abelian ones. The approach of Ritter and Weiss is more classical, and partly inspired by techniques of Frohlich and Taylor. Since many of the ideas in this book should eventually be applicable to other motives, one of its major aims is to provide a self-contained exposition of some of the main general themes underlying these developments. The present volume will be a valuable resource for researchers working in both Iwasawa theory and the theory of automorphic forms.

An important aim behind the restructuring of Germany's and Europe's electricity systems is to reduce the environmental burden, especially with respect to greenhouse gas emissions, of the current systems. Emissions must be brought down to a level that is sustainable in the long run and consistent with greenhouse gas emission reduction goals. Meeting these goals will require a system (as best as current knowledge suggests) that will be able to cope simultaneously with the fundamental demands for economic efficiency, environmental sustainability and supply security. Making use of existing scenarios, this study sketches such a system. It focuses in particular on auxiliary systems such as energy storage methods and network extensions.
The study introduces technologies that can balance electricity in energy systems and that can serve as enabling technologies for the integration of large quantities of renewable energies in the power supply system. It begins with a discussion of normative aims for the future electricity system before continuing with a description of current policies and political developments and an overview of relevant existing energy system studies. These sections serve as background for the remainder of the study. They are followed by discussion and analysis of the growing demand for means to balance the fluctuations found in electricity generated in power systems with a high penetration of renewable energies, the potentials of diverse technologies, requirements for electrical networks, economic impacts and important legal issues. Finally, the main challenges to the achievement of developing balancing technologies and processes for renewable electricity-dominant systems are summarised and recommendations made.

Representation theory studies maps from groups into the general linear group of a finite-dimensional vector space. For finite groups the theory comes in two distinct flavours. In the 'semisimple case' (for exampleover the field of complex numbers) one can use character theory to completely understand the representations. This by far is not sufficient when the characteristic of the field divides the order of the group.

"Modular Representation Theory of finite Groups" comprises this second situation. Many additional tools are needed for this case. To mention some, there is the systematic use of Grothendieck groups leading to the Cartan matrix and the decomposition matrix of the group as well as Green's direct analysis of indecomposable representations. There is also the strategy of writing the category of all representations as the direct product of certain subcategories, the so-called 'blocks' of the group. Brauer's work then establishes correspondences between the blocks of the original group and blocks of certain subgroups the philosophy being that one is thereby reduced to a simpler situation. In particular, one can measure how nonsemisimple a category a block is by the size and structure of its so-called 'defect group'. All these concepts are made explicit for the example of the special linear group of two-by-two matrices over a finite prime field.

Although the presentation is strongly biased towards the module theoretic point of view an attempt is made to strike a certain balance by also showing the reader the group theoretic approach. In particular, in the case of defect groups a detailed proof of the equivalence of the two approaches is given.

This book aims to familiarize students at the masters level with the basic results, tools, and techniques of a beautiful and important algebraic theory. Some basic algebra together with the semisimple case are assumed to be known, although all facts to be used are restated (without proofs) in the text. Otherwise the book is entirely self-contained."

The algebraic techniques developed by Kakde will almost certainly lead eventually to major progress in the study of congruences between automorphic forms and the main conjectures of non-commutative Iwasawa theory for many motives. Non-commutative Iwasawa theory has emerged dramatically over the last decade, culminating in the recent proof of the non-commutative main conjecture for the Tate motive over a totally real p-adic Lie extension of a number field, independently by Ritter and Weiss on the one hand, and Kakde on the other. The initial ideas for giving a precise formulation of the non-commutative main conjecture were discovered by Venjakob, and were then systematically developed in the subsequent papers by Coates-Fukaya-Kato-Sujatha-Venjakob and Fukaya-Kato. There was also parallel related work in this direction by Burns and Flach on the equivariant Tamagawa number conjecture. Subsequently, Kato discovered an important idea for studying the K_1 groups of non-abelian Iwasawa algebras in terms of the K_1 groups of the abelian quotients of these Iwasawa algebras. Kakde's proof is a beautiful development of these ideas of Kato, combined with an idea of Burns, and essentially reduces the study of the non-abelian main conjectures to abelian ones. The approach of Ritter and Weiss is more classical, and partly inspired by techniques of Frohlich and Taylor. Since many of the ideas in this book should eventually be applicable to other motives, one of its major aims is to provide a self-contained exposition of some of the main general themes underlying these developments. The present volume will be a valuable resource for researchers working in both Iwasawa theory and the theory of automorphic forms.

Covering both noninvasive and surgical treatment alternatives, Critical Limb Ischemia defines practical guidelines for a multidisciplinary approach to critical limb ischemia and follows a step-by-step description of the latest techniques. Topics covered include: Balloon angioplasty and stenting Cryoplasty Pharmacotherapy Topical therapies combined with hyperbolic oxygen treatment Endovascular techniques Strategies for leg revascularization The book provides vascular surgeons, general and interventional cardiologists, interventionalists, radiologists, podiatrists, and endocrinologists a valuable resource for daily practice.

An important aim behind the restructuring of Germany's and Europe's electricity systems is to reduce the environmental burden, especially with respect to greenhouse gas emissions, of the current systems. Emissions must be brought down to a level that is sustainable in the long run and consistent with greenhouse gas emission reduction goals. Meeting these goals will require a system (as best as current knowledge suggests) that will be able to cope simultaneously with the fundamental demands for economic efficiency, environmental sustainability and supply security. Making use of existing scenarios, this study sketches such a system. It focuses in particular on auxiliary systems such as energy storage methods and network extensions.
The study introduces technologies that can balance electricity in energy systems and that can serve as enabling technologies for the integration of large quantities of renewable energies in the power supply system. It begins with a discussion of normative aims for the future electricity system before continuing with a description of current policies and political developments and an overview of relevant existing energy system studies. These sections serve as background for the remainder of the study. They are followed by discussion and analysis of the growing demand for means to balance the fluctuations found in electricity generated in power systems with a high penetration of renewable energies, the potentials of diverse technologies, requirements for electrical networks, economic impacts and important legal issues. Finally, the main challenges to the achievement of developing balancing technologies and processes for renewable electricity-dominant systems are summarised and recommendations made.

The theory, observations, and applications ofgravitational lensingconstitute one ofthe most rapidly growing branches ofextragalactic astrophysics. The deflection of light from very distant sources by intervening masses provides a unique possibility for the investigation of both background sources and lens mass distributions. Gravitational lensing manifestsitselfmost distinctly through multiply imaged QSOs and the formation of highly elongated im ages of distant galaxies ('arcs') and spectacular ring-like images of extra galactic radio sources. But the effects of gravitational light deflection are not limited to these prominent image configurations; more subtle, since not directly observable, consequences of lensing are the, possibly strong, mag nification of sources, which may permit observation of intrinsically fainter, or more distant, sources than would be visible without these natural tele scopes. Such light deflection can also affect the source counts of QSOs and of other compact extragalactic sources, and can lead to flux variability of sources owing to propagation effects. Trying to summarizethe theory and observationalstatus ofgravitational lensing in a monograph turned out to be a bigger problem than any of the authors anticipated when we started this project at the end of 1987, encour aged by Martin Harwit, who originally approached us. The development in the field has been very rapid during the last four years, both through the ory and through observation, and many sections have been rewritten several times, as the previous versions became out of date.

Manifolds over complete nonarchimedean fields together with notions like tangent spaces and vector fields form a convenient geometric language to express the basic formalism of p-adic analysis. The volume starts with a self-contained and detailed introduction to this language. This includes the discussion of spaces of locally analytic functions as topological vector spaces, important for applications in representation theory. The author then sets up the analytic foundations of the theory of p-adic Lie groups and develops the relation between p-adic Lie groups and their Lie algebras. The second part of the book contains, for the first time in a textbook, a detailed exposition of Lazard's algebraic approach to compact p-adic Lie groups, via his notion of a p-valuation, together with its application to the structure of completed group rings.

This book grew out of a course which I gave during the winter term 1997/98 at the Universitat Munster. The course covered the material which here is presented in the first three chapters. The fourth more advanced chapter was added to give the reader a rather complete tour through all the important aspects of the theory of locally convex vector spaces over nonarchimedean fields. There is one serious restriction, though, which seemed inevitable to me in the interest of a clear presentation. In its deeper aspects the theory depends very much on the field being spherically complete or not. To give a drastic example, if the field is not spherically complete then there exist nonzero locally convex vector spaces which do not have a single nonzero continuous linear form. Although much progress has been made to overcome this problem a really nice and complete theory which to a large extent is analogous to classical functional analysis can only exist over spherically complete field8. I therefore allowed myself to restrict to this case whenever a conceptual clarity resulted. Although I hope that thi8 text will also be useful to the experts as a reference my own motivation for giving that course and writing this book was different. I had the reader in mind who wants to use locally convex vector spaces in the applications and needs a text to quickly gra8p this theory.

The observation, in 1919 by A.S. Eddington and collaborators, of the gra- tational de?ection of light by the Sun proved one of the many predictions of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity: The Sun was the ?rst example of a gravitational lens. In 1936, Albert Einstein published an article in which he suggested - ing stars as gravitational lenses. A year later, Fritz Zwicky pointed out that galaxies would act as lenses much more likely than stars, and also gave a list of possible applications, as a means to determine the dark matter content of galaxies and clusters of galaxies. It was only in 1979 that the ?rst example of an extragalactic gravitational lens was provided by the observation of the distant quasar QSO 0957+0561, by D. Walsh, R.F. Carswell, and R.J. Weymann. A few years later, the ?rst lens showing images in the form of arcs was detected. The theory, observations, and applications of gravitational lensing cons- tute one of the most rapidly growing branches of astrophysics. The gravi- tional de?ection of light generated by mass concentrations along a light path producesmagni?cation,multiplicity,anddistortionofimages,anddelaysp- ton propagation from one line of sight relative to another. The huge amount of scienti?c work produced over the last decade on gravitational lensing has clearly revealed its already substantial and wide impact, and its potential for future astrophysical applications.

The observation, in 1919 by A.S. Eddington and collaborators, of the gra- tational de?ection of light by the Sun proved one of the many predictions of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity: The Sun was the ?rst example of a gravitational lens. In 1936, Albert Einstein published an article in which he suggested - ing stars as gravitational lenses. A year later, Fritz Zwicky pointed out that galaxies would act as lenses much more likely than stars, and also gave a list of possible applications, as a means to determine the dark matter content of galaxies and clusters of galaxies. It was only in 1979 that the ?rst example of an extragalactic gravitational lens was provided by the observation of the distant quasar QSO 0957+0561, by D. Walsh, R.F. Carswell, and R.J. Weymann. A few years later, the ?rst lens showing images in the form of arcs was detected. The theory, observations, and applications of gravitational lensing cons- tute one of the most rapidly growing branches of astrophysics. The gravi- tional de?ection of light generated by mass concentrations along a light path producesmagni?cation,multiplicity,anddistortionofimages,anddelaysp- ton propagation from one line of sight relative to another. The huge amount of scienti?c work produced over the last decade on gravitational lensing has clearly revealed its already substantial and wide impact, and its potential for future astrophysical applications.

The present book is a self-contained text which leads the reader through all the important aspects of the theory of locally convex vector spaces over nonarchimedean fields. One can observe an increasing interest in methods from nonarchimedean functional analysis, particularly in number theory and in the representation theory of p-adic reductive groups. The book gives a concise and clear account of this theory, it carefully lays the foundations and also develops the more advanced topics. Although the book will be a valuable reference work for experts in the field, it is mainly intended as a streamlined but detailed introduction for researchers and graduate students who wish to apply these methods in different areas.

The goal of Endovascular Skills: Guidewire and Catheter Skills for Endovascular Surgery has always been to provide a "step-by-step" approach to techniques and procedures that comprise one of the most exciting and rapidly developing specialties in medicine today: minimally invasive management of vascular disease. Endovascular technique has gone from being a novelty to a mainstay of vascular care and this edition of Endovascular Skills has been revised and expanded to reflect these changes. This book serves as a "how-to" guide for endovascular intervention and aims to assist clinicians in the development and refinement of skills that are now essential to vascular practice. The book introduces readers to strategy, vascular access, guidewire-catheter handling, and arteriography in a multitude of vascular beds. The knowledge base builds as the text progresses in much the same manner that the skill of the professional builds as experience is gained by performing more complex cases and managing complicated patterns of disease. The chapters progress to all aspects of endovascular therapy, including sheath access, balloon angioplasty, stents, and other treatment modalities.

Dedicated to the investigation of fortifications as important and integral elements of ancient built space, the present volume results from the activity of the German based international research network Fokus Fortifikation. Ancient Fortifications in the Eastern Mediterranean and is intended as a guide to research on ancient fortifications and a source of inspiration for new research. Ancient city walls and other fortification structures have long been underestimated. Since the early years of the 21st century, research on ancient fortifications has experienced an international boom, particularly amongst young researchers. They approached the study of fortifications with fresh ideas and new aims, and felt the need to discuss the problems and potentials of these monuments and to develop harmonised research methods and objectives. The outcome is the present bilingual (English and German) book, which offers a condensed view of the network's extended conversations. The goal is not so much to offer an overview on the development of ancient fortifications, but rather to present versatile and diverse approaches to their research and interpretation and to serve as a kick-off for a new understanding of this category of ancient buildings. The book is divided into two parts: the first part includes 12 chapters on methods of interpretation, documentation, and field project organisation; the systematic description and presentation of fortifications; the'building experience'; masonry forms and techniques; defensive, symbolic, and urbanistic functions and aspects; on fortifications in written sources, the visual arts, and as a historical source; and on regional and rural fortifications, and regionally confined phenomena. Part two is a catalogue that offers exemplary presentations of fortifications studied by network members; it is arranged in four sections: regions, sites, architectural elements and architectural details. The book is Volume 1 in the new series Fokus Fortifikation Studies. Volume 2 in the series, Focus on Fortification: New Research on Fortifications in the Ancient Mediterranean and the Near East (Oxbow Books), the proceedings of an international conference held in Athens in December 2012, will also appear in 2015.

With a collection of 57 articles in English, French and German, presenting the most recent research on ancient fortifications, this book is the most substantial publication ever to have issued on the topic for many years. While fortifications of the ancient cultures of the middle east and ancient Greek and Roman worlds were noticed by travellers and scholars from the very beginning of research on antiquity from the late 18th century onwards, the architectural, economic, logistical, political, urban and other social aspects of fortifications have been somewhat overlooked and underestimated by scholarship in the 20th century. The book presents the research of a new generation of scholars who have been analysing those aspects of fortifications, many of them with years of experience in field-work on city walls. Much new evidence and a fresh look at this important category of built structure is now made available, and the publication will be of interest not only to the field of ancient architecture, but also to other sub-disciplines of archaeology and ancient history. The papers were presented at a conference in Athens in December 2012, and they all present material and discuss topics under seven headings that represent the most central themes in the study of fortification in antiquity: the origins of fortification, physical surroundings and building technique, function and semantics, historical context, the fortification of regions and regionally confined phenomena, the fortifications of Athens and new field research. The book is Volume 2 in the new series Fokus Fortifikation Studies, created by the German based international research network Fokus Fortifikation. The topics included have been identified by the network over many previous conferences and workshops as being the most important and as needing research and discussion beyond the network members. Volume 1 in the series, Ancient Fortifications: a compendium of theory and practice (Oxbow Books) will also appear in 2015 and together the two volumes bring the field of fortification studies up-to-date and will be an essential resource for many years to come.

In this second English-language edition, existing chapters have been completely revised and new chapters added. The number of illustrations has been expanded and new terminolo- gy included. The novel how-to approach emphasizes basic principles that will help experienced as well as beginning eye surgeons master the unexpected.

Starting with the description of our home galaxy the Milky Way, this cogently written textbook introduces the reader to the astronomy of galaxies, their structure, active galactic nuclei, evolution and large scale distribution. Then, from the extensive and thorough introduction to modern observational and theoretical cosmology, the text turns to the formation of structures and astronomical objects in the early universe. The basics of classical astronomy and stellar astrophysics needed for extragalactic astronomy are given in the appendix.

In particular, Peter Schneider s Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology has the goal of imparting the fundamental knowledge of this fascinating subfield of astronomy, while leading readers to the forefront of astronomical research. But it seeks to accomplish this not only with extensive textual information and insights. In addition, the author s evident admiration for the workings of the universe that shines through the lines and the many supporting color illustrations will deeply inspire the reader.

While this book has grown out of introductory university courses on astronomy and astrophysics, it will not only be appreciated by undergraduate students and lecturers. Through the comprehensive coverage of the field, even graduate students and researchers specializing in related fields will appreciate it as reliable reference."

In diesem kompetent geschriebenen Lehrbuch wird, ausgehend von der Beschreibung unserer Milchstrasse, die Astronomie der Galaxien und ihrergrossraumigen Verteilungeingehend dargestellt und schliesslich im kosmologischen Kontext diskutiert. Aufbauend auf eine Einfuhrung in die moderne beobachtende und theoretische Kosmologie wird die Entstehung von Strukturen und astronomischen Objekten im fruhen Universum besprochen.

Peter Schneiders Einfuhrung in die extragalaktische Astronomie und Kosmologie fullt eine Lucke im Angebotastronomischer Lehrbucher, indem es Studenten mit Grundkenntnissen in Astronomie und Astrophysik die Moglichkeit bietet, sich umfassend in diese faszinierenden und aktuellen Gebiete der Astronomie einzuarbeiten."