The book investigates what have become of Cameroonian transnational family and friendship ties in the age of the mobile phone and the internet that make people readily available and reachable. Most theoretical literature states that these tools of sociality cement transnational social relationships through instantaneous interaction. To capture the different experiences and impressions on the significance of these media in easing communication for migrants and non-migrants, Tazanu draws on ethnographic accounts based on his fieldwork in Freiburg (Germany) and Buea (Cameroon). He argues that it is mainly the migrants who maintain or are expected to maintain ties with non-migrants back in Cameroon through calls and material support. The main finding of the study is that cell phones and the internet have facilitated discontents, grudges, insults, fights, avoidance, arguments and estrangement of relationships much more than they have contributed to binding friends or families through direct mediation. Underlying these aspects of distanciation are the high expectations and sometimes contradictory motives for instant virtual interaction. Non-migrants' accounts suggest that direct availability and reachability should lead to uninterrupted transnational interaction and also that the cultural practices of remittances from migrants are easily requested and coordinated. Such motives are generally contrary to migrants' wishes, willingness or ability to support friends and families in Cameroon. These unexpected outcomes arising from rapid speed of interaction questions the advantages that are often associated with instant sociality across space and time. The finding is a call for the cultural background and life-world experiences of media users to be taken into consideration when theorising the significance of information technology in the debate on media globalisation.

Laytime and Demurrage is an indispensable book for those new to laytime and demurrage as well as anyone who needs a more in-depth analysis. It is considered to be the main source of authority on all issues to do with laytime and demurrage. This book deals with all aspects of laytime, demurrage and detention, tracing the development of the law from its origins in the nineteenth century and earlier, right up to the current day. This updated edition covers all of the judicial and arbitral decisions reported since the last edition published in 2005. It provides an both an overview of the general principles of laytime and demurrage, as well as an in-depth analysis of laytime clauses, including both fixed laytime and customary laytime. It also provides an important detailed analysis of the rules relating to commencement of laytime in berth, dock and port charters, an in-depth coverage of why laytime can be suspended and other laytime matters. The book provides a detailed analysis of demurrage rules, and finally, the book details with such matters as despatch, detention and frustration. This book will be an invaluable guide to practitioners who deal with maritime matters, as well as maritime professionals, commodity traders and brokers, arbitrators and other professionals involved in dispute resolution.

Commencement of Laytime is the only in-depth examination and discussion concerning the most important financial aspect of laytime which can affect all voyage charter parties and international contracts for the sale of goods. The information is presented in a style which is readable by ship operators, traders and other lay persons as well as legal professionals.

Our increasingly smart environments will sense, track and model users and provide them with personalized services. We can already embed computers in everyday objects such as shirt buttons and pencils; objects of all sizes, from wristwatches to billboards, will soon incorporate high-quality flexible displays; we have improved access to wireless Internet communication; and we are now transitioning from traditional linear to targeted interactive media. The convergence of these factors -- miniaturization, display technologies, wireless communication, and interactive media -- will allow us to leave our desktop computers and move to a radical computing paradigm, the ubiquitous display environment, where media and visual content will support a rich variety of display devices that enable users to interact with information artifacts in a seamless manner. This is one of the most exciting and important areas of technology development and this book addresses the challenge within the context of an educational and cultural experience. This is inherently a multidisciplinary field and the contributions span the related research aspects, including system architecture and communications issues, and intelligent user interface aspects such as aesthetics and privacy. On the scientific side, the authors integrate artificial intelligence, user modeling, temporal and spatial reasoning, intelligent user interfaces, and user-centric design methodologies in their work, while on the technological side they integrate mobile and wireless networking infrastructures, interfaces, group displays, and context-driven adaptive presentations. This book is of value to researchers and practitioners working on all aspects of ubiquitous display environments, and we hope it leads to innovations in human education, cultural heritage appreciation, and scientific development.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the international symposium Formal Methods Europe, FME 2002, held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in July 2002. The 31 revised full papers presented together with three invited contributions were carefully reviewed and selected from 95 submissions. All current aspects of formal methods are addressed, from foundational and methodological issues to advanced application in various fields.

Intheworldweliveinconcurrencyisthenorm.Forexample,thehumanbody isamassivelyconcurrentsystem,comprisingahugenumberofcells,allsim- taneously evolving and independently engaging in their individual biological processing.Inaddition,inthebiologicalworld,trulysequentialsystemsrarely arise. However, they are more common when manmade artefacts are cons- ered. In particular, computer systems are often developed from a sequential perspective. Why is this? The simple reason is that it is easier for us to think about sequential, rather than concurrent, systems. Thus, we use sequentiality as a device to simplify the design process. However, the need for increasingly powerful, ?exible and usable computer systems mitigates against simplifying sequentiality assumptions. A good - ample of this is the all-powerful position held by the Internet, which is highly concurrent at many di?erent levels of decomposition. Thus, the modern c- puter scientist (and indeed the modern scientist in general) is forced to think aboutconcurrentsystemsandthesubtleandintricatebehaviourthatemerges from the interaction of simultaneously evolving components. Over a period of 25 years, or so, the ?eld of concurrency theory has been involved in the development of a set of mathematical techniques that can help system developers to think about and build concurrent systems. These theories are the subject matter of this book.