Computer Generated Physical Properties offers the environmental scientist a basis to predict the properties of molecules and reengineer them to remove those properties that are harmful to the environment. This technology is currently used in other fields and is now becoming popular in the environmental engineering field because of its pollution prevention and waste reduction capabilities. This book, interdisciplinary in scope, treats the physical properties of matter as generated by computers. It covers a wide variety of topics pointing towards synthesizing new molecules to substitute for reactants, intermediaries, and products in industrial processes with better physical and environmental properties than the original. The author achieves this with a spreadsheet program called SYNPROPS that operates on a PC computer with optimization features. A radar type graph - one for each property - visually sorts the various groups in order of their contribution to the property, creating the necessity for a computer to obtain answers for the structure of the optimum molecules for substitution or synthesis. The author discusses applications to biologically active molecules without side effects, including antineoplatic drugs. Additionally, he demonstrates model compounds and the applications of SYNPROPS' optimization and substitution. This book has everything you need to know about deriving properties and combinational chemistry from molecular structure.

Full of examples based on case studies from a variety of industries, Computer Simulated Plant Design for Waste Minimization/Pollution Prevention discusses preventing pollution and minimizing waste using computer simulation programs. The author examines the computer technologies used in the field, including the design and analysis of computer-aided flow sheets. With this book, readers will understand how to use computer technology to design plants that generate little or no pollution and how to use information generated by computer simulations for technical data in proposals and presentations and as the basis for making policy decisions.

An investigation of what makes digital games engaging to players and a reexamination of the concept of immersion. Digital games offer a vast range of engaging experiences, from the serene exploration of beautifully rendered landscapes to the deeply cognitive challenges presented by strategic simulations to the adrenaline rush of competitive team-based shoot-outs. Digital games enable experiences that are considerably different from a reader's engagement with literature or a moviegoer's experience of a movie. In In-Game, Gordon Calleja examines what exactly it is that makes digital games so uniquely involving and offers a new, more precise, and game-specific formulation of this involvement. One of the most commonly yet vaguely deployed concepts in the industry and academia alike is immersion—a player's sensation of inhabiting the space represented onscreen. Overuse of this term has diminished its analytical value and confused its meaning, both in analysis and design. Rather than conceiving of immersion as a single experience, Calleja views it as blending different experiential phenomena afforded by involving gameplay. He proposes a framework (based on qualitative research) to describe these phenomena: the player involvement model. This model encompasses two constituent temporal phases—the macro, representing offline involvement, and the micro, representing moment-to-moment involvement during gameplay—as well as six dimensions of player involvement: kinesthetic, spatial, shared, narrative, affective, and ludic. The intensified and internalized experiential blend can culminate in incorporation—a concept that Calleja proposes as an alternative to the problematic immersion. Incorporation, he argues, is a more accurate metaphor, providing a robust foundation for future research and design.

For more than 100 years the Beilstein Handbook has been publishing checked and evaluated data on organic compounds. It has become the major reference book for the chemical and physical properties of organic com pounds. The prediction of these physical properties was the subject of the Beilstein workshop. The ability to predict physical properties is for several reasons of great interest to the Beilstein Institute. It is of primary importance to be able to check the abstracted data for accuracy and to eliminate simple mistakes like typing errors. Presently all the work whether manuscript writing or evaluation of data is carried out manually. This is very time consuming, with the entry of Beilstein into electronic data gathering and publication, the opportunity for computerized consistency checking has become available. Contrary to belief, when one examines the Beilstein Handbook or Chemical Abstracts there is a dearth of chemical information. There are a great many compounds but few are well defined resulting in large gaps in the information available to the chemist. These information gaps could be filled by using algorithmic methods to estimate the properties of interest. An important question to answer is "What is the chemist's reaction to estimated data?" Will he accept it for use, within limits defined by the method, or will it be unacceptable and therefore detrimental for the data base. However if one could partly fill gaps in the data base the increase in the power of the search techniques would be marked.

This companion reader to Film as Social Practice brings together key writings on contemporary cinema, exploring film as a social and cultural phenomenon.

The book consists of a series of edited chapters, each written by an expert in the field and focusing on a particular characterization technique as applied to glass. The book covers a variety of techniques ranging from the very common (like Raman and FTIR) to the most recent (and less well known) ones, like SEM for structural analysis and photoelastic measurements. The level of the chapters make it suitable for researchers and for graduate students about to start their research work. It will also: discuss the technique itself, background, nuances when it comes to looking at glassy materials, interpretation of results, case studies, and recent and near-future innovations Fill a widening gap in modern techniques for glass characterization Provide much needed updates on the multiple essential characterization techniques

Historically, science has developed by reducing complex situations to simple ones, analyzing the components and synthesizing the original situation. While this 'reductionist' approach has been extremely successful, there are phenomena of such complexity that one cannot simplify them without eliminating the problem itself. Recently, attention has turned to such problems in a wide variety of fields. This is in part due to the development of fractal geometry. Fractal geometry provides the mathematical tools for handling complexity. The present volume is a collection of papers that deal with the application of fractals in both traditional scientific disciplines and in applied fields. This volume shows the advance of our understanding of complex phenomena across a spectrum of disciplines. While these diverse fields work on very different problems, fractals provide a unifying formalism for approaching these problems.