The environment is currently a matter of international public and academic concern, but is often considered separately from health issues. This book brings together work from environmental and health historians to conceptualise the connection between environment and health at different times and in different geographical locations.

The book is the first thorough overview of the first important steps to develop a worldwide virtual observatory so that, in the future, it could be easier to "dial-up" a part of the sky than wait many months to access a telescope. The articles in this book present details on the status of the first efforts to develop a standardized framework for the virtual observatory, including steps towards completion and deployment of technical infrastructure, uptake by data providers worldwide, and utilization by the scientific community.

The book is the first thorough overview of the first important steps to develop a worldwide virtual observatory so that, in the future, it could be easier to "dial-up" a part of the sky than wait many months to access a telescope. The articles in this book present details on the status of the first efforts to develop a standardized framework for the virtual observatory, including steps towards completion and deployment of technical infrastructure, uptake by data providers worldwide, and utilization by the scientific community.

The environment is currently a matter of international public and academic concern, but is often considered separately from health issues. This book brings together work from environmental and health historians to conceptualise the connection between environment and health at different times and in different geographical locations.

The objective of this research is to improve the performance of semiconductor quantum well lasers operating in the mid-infrared. Research in mid-infrared laser technology has uncovered numerous applications for commercial and government use. Many military applications require operation near room temperature with compact power supplies. Limiting factors for improving the efficiency of mid-infrared semiconductor lasers at elevated temperatures include non-radiative recombination and carrier relaxation. Carrier lifetimes are typically on the order of 5 nsec, therefore, recombination mechanisms and carrier relaxation times are difficult to measure directly. Time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL), utilizing a non-linear wave mixing technique known as upconversion, is used to study the time evolution of carrier densities in semiconductor lasers. Carrier recombination and relaxation information is extracted from this data to further the understanding of how quantum well structures impact semiconductor laser performance.