This book reviews the state of the art in the use of organic materals as physical, chemical and biomedical sensors in a variety of application settings. Topics covered include organic semiconductors for chemical and physical sensing; conducting polymers in sensor applications; chemically functionalized organic semiconductors for highly selective sensing; composite organic-inorganic sensors; artificial skin applications; organic thin film transistor strain gauges for biomedical applications; OTFT infrared sensors for touchless human-machine interaction; smart fabric sensors and e-textile technologie; image capture with organic sensors; organic gas sensors and electronic noses; electrolyte gated organic transistors for bio-chemical sensing; ion-selective organic electrochemical transistors; DNA biosensors; metabolic organic sensors; and conductive polymer based sensors for biomedical applications.

A major flaw in semi-Riemannian geometry is a shortage of suitable types of maps between semi-Riemannian manifolds that will compare their geometric properties. Here, a class of such maps called semi-Riemannian maps is introduced. The main purpose of this book is to present results in semi-Riemannian geometry obtained by the existence of such a map between semi-Riemannian manifolds, as well as to encourage the reader to explore these maps. The first three chapters are devoted to the development of fundamental concepts and formulas in semi-Riemannian geometry which are used throughout the work. In Chapters 4 and 5 semi-Riemannian maps and such maps with respect to a semi-Riemannian foliation are studied. Chapter 6 studies the maps from a semi-Riemannian manifold to 1-dimensional semi- Euclidean space. In Chapter 7 some splitting theorems are obtained by using the existence of a semi-Riemannian map. Audience: This volume will be of interest to mathematicians and physicists whose work involves differential geometry, global analysis, or relativity and gravitation.

Con algunos relatos diferentes entre si, un misterioso hombre trata de influenciar el estado de animo de dos viajeros a bordo de un barco que navega con rumbo a un pais desconocido y maravilloso, en el cual, solo existen la alegria y la felicidad. Durante la travesia, ese hombre, que se autonombra como un narrador de historias, en cada relato que les cuenta, hace que la pareja vaya cambiando el modo de percibir las cosas acerca de diferentes hechos ocurridos en sus vidas. Casi al final del viaje -que es completamente surrealista- los viajeros deben decidir por si mismos si lo terminan, o regresan a su lugar de origen a continuar con sus vidas actuales, vacias de cosas buenas y llenas de una cruel desesperanza; a tratar de sobrevivir en un lugar muy triste, donde no le importan a nadie y que se encuentra dominado por la maldad en todos su rincones.

Pharmaceutical and fine chemical products are typically synthesised batchwise which is an anomaly since batch processes have a series of practical and economical disadvantages. On the contrary, flow continuous processes present a series of advantages leading to new ways to synthesise chemical products. Flow processes - * enable control reaction parameters more precisely (temperature, residence time, amount of reagents and solvent etc.), leading to better reproducibility, safer and more reliable processes * can be performed more advantageously using immobilized reagents or catalysts * improve the selectivity and productivity of the process and possibly even the stability of the catalyst * offer opportunities for heat exchange and energy conservation as well as an easy separation and recycling of the reactants and products by adequate process design * achieve multistep syntheses by assembling a line of reactors with minimum or no purification in between two reaction steps * can be assured by facile automation * scale-up can be easily conducted by number-up With all the new research activity in manufacturing chemical products, this comprehensive book is very timely, as it summarises the latest trends in organic synthesis. It gives an insight into flow continuous processes, outlining the basic concepts and explaining the terminology of, and systems approach to, process design dealing with both homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis and mini- or micro-reactors. The book contains case studies, extensive bibliographies and reference lists in each chapter to enable the reader to grasp the contents and to go on to more detailed texts on specific subjects if desired. The book is written by both organic chemists and engineers giving a multidisciplinary vision of the new tools and methodologies in this field. It is essential reading for organic chemists (in industry or academia) working alongside chemical engineers or who want to undertake chemical engineering projects. It will also be of interest for chemical engineers to see how basic engineering concepts are applied in modern organic chemistry.

This volume contains research and expository papers on recent advances in foliations and Riemannian geometry. Some of the topics covered in this volume include: topology, geometry, dynamics and analysis of foliations, curvature, submanifold theory, Lie groups and harmonic maps.Among the contributions, readers may find an extensive survey on characteristic classes of Riemannian foliations offering also new results, an article showing the uniform simplicity of certain diffeomorphism groups, an exposition of convergences of contact structures to foliations from the point of view of Thurston's and Thurston-Bennequin's inequalities, a discussion about Fatou-Julia decompositions for foliations and a description of singular Riemannian foliations on spaces without conjugate points.Papers on submanifold theory focus on the existence of graphs with prescribed mean curvature and mean curvature flow for spacelike graphs, isometric and conformal deformations and detailed surveys on totally geodesic submanifolds in symmetric spaces, cohomogeneity one actions on hyperbolic spaces and rigidity of geodesic spheres in space forms. Geometric realizability of curvature tensors and curvature operators are also treated in this volume with special attention to the affine and the pseudo-Riemannian settings. Also, some contributions on biharmonic maps and submanifolds enrich the scope of this volume in providing an overview of different topics of current interest in differential geometry.

A major flaw in semi-Riemannian geometry is a shortage of suitable types of maps between semi-Riemannian manifolds that will compare their geometric properties. Here, a class of such maps called semi-Riemannian maps is introduced. The main purpose of this book is to present results in semi-Riemannian geometry obtained by the existence of such a map between semi-Riemannian manifolds, as well as to encourage the reader to explore these maps. The first three chapters are devoted to the development of fundamental concepts and formulas in semi-Riemannian geometry which are used throughout the work. In Chapters 4 and 5 semi-Riemannian maps and such maps with respect to a semi-Riemannian foliation are studied. Chapter 6 studies the maps from a semi-Riemannian manifold to 1-dimensional semi- Euclidean space. In Chapter 7 some splitting theorems are obtained by using the existence of a semi-Riemannian map. Audience: This volume will be of interest to mathematicians and physicists whose work involves differential geometry, global analysis, or relativity and gravitation.

Open Compositionality: Towards a New Methodology of Language argues that natural languages, like English and Spanish, are not only systems of representation useful for communication but also, and most importantly, highly interactive cognitive capacities allowing humans to engage in complex forms of cognition. This view goes against the orthodoxy in philosophy of language, which considers natural languages to be specialized systems consisting of only linguistic elements and functioning in a closed compositional manner, allowing for a fully formal, algebraic descriptions. Eduardo Garcia Ramirez rejects the longstanding principle of compositionality, according to which the meaning of any complex expression is fully determined by its parts and the way they are combined, and substitutes it with an alternative, open and interactive one. This novel view of the nature of language better accounts for the empirical evidence. Garcia Ramirez develops an account of open compositionality, accompanied by the cognition first methodology, in which natural languages are conceived as supermodular cognitive capacities that allow for interaction among multiple distinct areas of human cognition. The explanatory success of this novel proposal and its accompanying methodology are tested by the author's account of three enduring philosophical problems: substitution failure, empty names, and the nature of moral discourse.

The subject of this book is Osserman semi-Riemannian manifolds, and in particular, the Osserman conjecture in semi-Riemannian geometry. The treatment is pitched at the intermediate graduate level and requires some intermediate knowledge of differential geometry. The notation is mostly coordinate-free and the terminology is that of modern differential geometry. Known results toward the complete proof of Riemannian Osserman conjecture are given and the Osserman conjecture in Lorentzian geometry is proved completely. Counterexamples to the Osserman conjuncture in generic semi-Riemannian signature are provided and properties of semi-Riemannian Osserman manifolds are investigated.

Countless animals around the world are in danger of dying out! But why are species becoming extinct, and what happens when we lose them? In this non-fiction graphic novel, Max Axiom and the Society of Super Scientists are on a mission to find out. Using their superpowers and super-smarts, the team will break down this urgent issue into an exciting, fact-filled adventure so young readers can learn about the causes and effects of animal extinction and endangerment and discover steps we can all take to save Earth's wildlife.

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon. For the next three years, several other missions to the moon helped scientists learn more about space travel. However, nobody has been to the moon since 1972. Today, NASA is planning to go back to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. In this non-fiction graphic novel, young readers can tag along with Max Axiom and the Society of Super Scientists to discover how NASA plans to finally return to the moon and establish a permanent presence on Earth’s closest neighbour.

Book V completes the discussion of the first four books by treating in some detail the analytic results in elliptic operator theory used previously. Chapters 16 and 17 provide a treatment of the techniques in Hilbert space, the Fourier transform, and elliptic operator theory necessary to establish the spectral decomposition theorem of a self-adjoint operator of Laplace type and to prove the Hodge Decomposition Theorem that was stated without proof in Book II. In Chapter 18, we treat the de Rham complex and the Dolbeault complex, and discuss spinors. In Chapter 19, we discuss complex geometry and establish the Kodaira Embedding Theorem.

Pseudo-Riemannian geometry is, to a large extent, the study of the Levi-Civita connection, which is the unique torsion-free connection compatible with the metric structure. There are, however, other affine connections which arise in different contexts, such as conformal geometry, contact structures, Weyl structures, and almost Hermitian geometry. In this book, we reverse this point of view and instead associate an auxiliary pseudo-Riemannian structure of neutral signature to certain affine connections and use this correspondence to study both geometries. We examine Walker structures, Riemannian extensions, and Kahler--Weyl geometry from this viewpoint. This book is intended to be accessible to mathematicians who are not expert in the subject and to students with a basic grounding in differential geometry. Consequently, the first chapter contains a comprehensive introduction to the basic results and definitions we shall need---proofs are included of many of these results to make it as self-contained as possible. Para-complex geometry plays an important role throughout the book and consequently is treated carefully in various chapters, as is the representation theory underlying various results. It is a feature of this book that, rather than as regarding para-complex geometry as an adjunct to complex geometry, instead, we shall often introduce the para-complex concepts first and only later pass to the complex setting. The second and third chapters are devoted to the study of various kinds of Riemannian extensions that associate to an affine structure on a manifold a corresponding metric of neutral signature on its cotangent bundle. These play a role in various questions involving the spectral geometry of the curvature operator and homogeneous connections on surfaces. The fourth chapter deals with Kahler--Weyl geometry, which lies, in a certain sense, midway between affine geometry and Kahler geometry. Another feature of the book is that we have tried wherever possible to find the original references in the subject for possible historical interest. Thus, we have cited the seminal papers of Levi-Civita, Ricci, Schouten, and Weyl, to name but a few exemplars. We have also given different proofs of various results than those that are given in the literature, to take advantage of the unified treatment of the area given herein.

The Canary Islands is a popular destination for birders and travellers with an interest in wildlife and nature, and one of the best places in the world to see several scarce species such as the Houbara Bustard. They also hold a number of endemic birds that occur nowhere else, such as the emblematic Blue Chaffinch.

This beautifully illustrated guide covers all the birds found in the islands, providing concise descriptions for easy identification and plates for easy identification of all species. It's the perfect guide for any visitor to these sun-kissed islands.

This book, which focuses on the study of curvature, is an introduction to various aspects of pseudo-Riemannian geometry. We shall use Walker manifolds (pseudo-Riemannian manifolds which admit a non-trivial parallel null plane field) to exemplify some of the main differences between the geometry of Riemannian manifolds and the geometry of pseudo-Riemannian manifolds and thereby illustrate phenomena in pseudo-Riemannian geometry that are quite different from those which occur in Riemannian geometry, i.e. for indefinite as opposed to positive definite metrics. Indefinite metrics are important in many diverse physical contexts: classical cosmological models (general relativity) and string theory to name but two. Walker manifolds appear naturally in numerous physical settings and provide examples of extremal mathematical situations as will be discussed presently. To describe the geometry of a pseudo-Riemannian manifold, one must first understand the curvature of the manifold. We shall analyze a wide variety of curvature properties and we shall derive both geometrical and topological results. Special attention will be paid to manifolds of dimension 3 as these are quite tractable. We then pass to the 4 dimensional setting as a gateway to higher dimensions. Since the book is aimed at a very general audience (and in particular to an advanced undergraduate or to a beginning graduate student), no more than a basic course in differential geometry is required in the way of background. To keep our treatment as self-contained as possible, we shall begin with two elementary chapters that provide an introduction to basic aspects of pseudo-Riemannian geometry before beginning on our study of Walker geometry. An extensive bibliography is provided for further reading. Math subject classifications : Primary: 53B20 -- (PACS: 02.40.Hw) Secondary: 32Q15, 51F25, 51P05, 53B30, 53C50, 53C80, 58A30, 83F05, 85A04 Table of Contents: Basic Algebraic Notions / Basic Geometrical Notions / Walker Structures / Three-Dimensional Lorentzian Walker Manifolds / Four-Dimensional Walker Manifolds / The Spectral Geometry of the Curvature Tensor / Hermitian Geometry / Special Walker Manifolds

Historically pharmaceutical and fine chemical products have been synthesised using batch methods, but increasingly chemists are looking towards flow chemistry as a greener and more efficient alternative. In flow chemistry reactions are performed in a reactor with the reactants pumped through it. It has the benefit of being easily scaled up and it is straightforward to integrate synthesis, workup and analysis into one system. Flow chemistry is considered a greener alternative to batch chemistry because it is easier to control and minimise hazardous intermediates and by-products. There is significant interest in the use of flow chemistry both in the lab and on an industrial scale. Flow Chemistry provides an update on recent advances that have been made in the field. Particular emphasis is given to the new integrated approaches that bring together several elements to implement flow processes as a regular green chemistry tool for the chemical industries. With chapter contributions from several well-known experts in the field, this book is a valuable resource for researchers working in green chemistry and synthesis, chemical engineers and industrial chemists working in the pharmaceutical and fine chemicals industries.