Despite being written so long ago, the theories expressed within The Art of War are still considered shrewd and penetrating, and are used today as a source of insight into office politics, business management and corporate strategy. The lessons in the text can be applied to many areas of life.

The Asian Logic Conference is part of the series of logic conferences inaugurated in Singapore in 1981. It is normally held every three years and rotates among countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The 11th Asian Logic Conference is held in the National University of Singapore, in honour of Professor Chong Chitat on the occasion of his 60th birthday. The conference is on the broad area of logic, including theoretical computer science. It is considered a major event in this field and is regularly sponsored by the Association of Symbolic Logic. This volume contains papers from this meeting.

This book describes the propagation of light in biaxial media, the properties of biaxial thin films, and applications such as birefringent filters for tuning the wavelength of dye lasers. A novel feature of the first part is the parallel treatment of Stokes, Jones, and Berreman matrix formalisms in a chapter-by-chapter development of wave equations, basis vectors, transfer matrices, reflection and transmission equations, and guided waves. Computational tools for MATLAB are included. The second part focuses on an emerging planar technology in which anisotropic microstructures are formed by oblique deposition in vacuum. Methods for characterizing dielectric and metal films are discussed. Topics such as form birefringence, effective medium theory, anisotropic scatter and anisotropic fluid transport are discussed in detail. Practical applications of bulk and layered birefringent media are considered in the final part. Separate chapters are devoted to linear polarizers, phase retarders, and birefringent filters. Traditional bulk-media polarizing elements are included and compared with thin film designs.

The 2009 International Conference on High-Performance Networking, Computing and Communication Systems and the 2009 International Conference on Theoretical and Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (ICHCC -ICTMF 2009) were held during December 13-14, 2009, in Sanya, Hainan Island, China. ICHCC -ICTMF 2009 was a comprehensive conference focused on the various aspects of advances in high-performance networking, computing, communication systems and mathematical foundations. The conferences provided a chance for academic and industry profe- ionals to discuss recent progress in the area of high-performance networking, com- ting, communication systems and mathematical foundations. The conferences were co-sponsored by the Intelligent Information Technology Application Research Association, Hong Kong and Wuhan Institute of Technology, China. The goal was to bring together researchers from academia and industry as well as practitioners to share ideas, problems and solutions relating to the multifaceted aspects of this area. We received 60 submissions. Every paper was reviewed by three Program C- mittee members, and 15 were selected as regular papers for ICHCC -ICTMF 2009, representing a 25% acceptance rate for regular papers. The participants of the conference had the chance to hear from renowned keynote speakers Jun Wang from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong and Chin-Chen Chang from Feng Chia University, Taiwan. We thank Springer, who enthusiastically supported our conference. Thanks also go to Leonie Kunz for her wonderful editorial assistance. We would also like to thank the Program Chairs, - ganization staff, and the members of the Program Committees for their hard work.

Military Strategy Classics of Ancient China presents modern translations of eight of the most important and relevant military texts from antiquity, which have gained new prominence among Western students of Eastern military strategy and philosophy. These texts provide background for a wide range of disciplines, including: history, linguistics, wuxia, martial arts, business and trial strategy. Contents include:

The Six Secret Teachings - Jiang Ziya
The Art of War - Sun Tzu
Methods of War - Sima Rangju
The Book of Wuzi - Wu Qi
The Book of Wei Liaozi - Wei Liao
The Three Strategies of Huang Shigong
The Thirty Six Stratagems
Questions and Replies: Tang Taizong and Li Jing