This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the IFIP International Conference on Network and Parallel Computing, NPC 2004, held in Wuhan, China in October 2004. Also included are selected refereed papers from two workshops associated with NPC 2004. The 46 revised full papers and 23 revised short papers presented together with abstracts of 5 invited presentations were selected from a total of 338 submissions. The 25 workshop revised papers included also were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on grid computing, peer-to-peer computing, Web techniques, cluster computing, parallel programming environments, network architecture, network security, network storage, intelligent sensor networks, and multimedia modeling and security in next generation network information systems.

Countless numbers of people turn to their cups of coffee in the mornings to get them going. Caffeine gives them that burst of energy and the mental edge they need to make the most of their day. Others use caffeine to boost sports performance and even as a weight-loss aid. Now, the benefits of coffee are being enhanced-not in another pill, but in that very same cup so many of us enjoy. It's called functional coffee. In this book, readers will discover various blends of java that contain health-promoting and performance-enhancing nutraceuticals.

Neuroimmune pharmacology seeks to harness the immune system to provide pharmacological intervention to combat neurodegenerative diseases. This book provides a comprehensive overview of topics that embrace the link between the immune system and the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative disorders. Results from recent studies strongly suggest that a major part of the process in diseases including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s as well as Prion diseases, comes from changes in the innate and adaptive arms of the brain and peripheral immune systems. Thus, the book provides an in-depth study of numerous fields including immunology, pharmacology, neuroscience and neurovirology. It is accompanied by a CD-ROM that includes access to lectures, slide presentations, and question and answers on neuroimmune pharmacology.

This is the first book to set the development of tourism in China since 1949 in its policy context. Underpinned by a strong conceptual framework, this systematic study of China contributes to an in-depth understanding of how public policy-making for tourism works and how it affects the development of tourism in the real world. The text explores tourism policy during three distinct leadership periods since creation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. The attitudes and values of leaders and central government agencies towards tourism are considered, as well as the interactions of ideological orthodoxies, socioeconomic conditions and institutions in their influence on national policy-making and tourism development. A separate chapter is devoted to policy-making in Hong Kong and Macau, as well as Taiwan. Drawing on China’s experience over 60 years the book concludes with both theoretical and practical implications for tourism policy-making.

The International Handbook of Population Aging examines research on a wide array of the profound implications of population aging. It demonstrates how the world is changing through population aging, and how demography is changing in response to it.

The Namibian constitution makes full provision for education as a fundamental human right and freedom. Three years into independence, as part of the government’s educational policy, the ‘Education for All Policy’ was launched as a stepping stone to free quality education. However, inequities have become widely pronounced within the Namibian educational system. Democracy and Education in Namibia and beyond debates the education–democracy nexus in Namibia and the southern African context. It defines and explores the meaning of democracy and related concepts. It also looks at what democracy means in the context of human rights and access to education. The ten chapters in this collection interrogate the strengths and limitations of education as an instrument of social change and question whether or not the Namibian educational objectives and practices do develop and help to sustain a democratic culture in Namibia. The authors in the collection have drawn material from their own teaching and research experience across the fields of education and social science in Namibia and beyond, and present their findings in a pedagogical framework suitable as a challenging text for tertiary students. At a time when education is in crisis, especially in South Africa where strident calls for free tertiary education and Africanisation of the curriculum are spreading like wildfire, this book gives scholarly insight into the history and social conditions that gave rise to our current predicament.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Trust Management, iTrust 2006. 30 revised full papers and 4 revised short papers are presented together with 1 keynote paper and 7 trust management tool and systems demonstration reports. Besides technical issues in distributed computing and open systems, topics from law, social sciences, business, and philosophy are addressed.