This Asian design book, featuring hundreds of stunning color photographs and insightful commentary, showcases the art, architecture and design of the East. Eclectic, baroque and sophisticated--such are the characteristics of the lifestyle resorts and extravagant private residences crafted by the renowned Bensley Design Studios in Bangkok and Bali. The 27 resorts and homes featured in Paradise by Design are set amidst resplendent tropical gardens and spread from China to India to Bali. Focused in Asia Pacific, these buildings are unconventional, sensual and hold a special reverence for the tropical climate. Focusing not only on the architecture of the buildings but also the landscape design, interior design, horticulture and fine arts and crafts found within and without these buildings, Paradise by Design transcends the traditional and details an inclusive look at some of the most stylish and diverse homes and resorts in Asia.

Due to the decreasing production costs of IT systems, applications that had to be realised as expensive PCBs formerly, can now be realised as a system-on-chip. Furthermore, low cost broadband communication media for wide area communication as well as for the realisation of local distributed systems are available. Typically the market requires IT systems that realise a set of specific features for the end user in a given environment, so called embedded systems. Some examples for such embedded systems are control systems in cars, airplanes, houses or plants, information and communication devices like digital TV, mobile phones or autonomous systems like service- or edutainment robots. For the design of embedded systems the designer has to tackle three major aspects: The application itself including the man-machine interface, The (target) architecture of the system including all functional and non-functional constraints and, the design methodology including modelling, specification, synthesis, test and validation. The last two points are a major focus of this book. This book documents the high quality approaches and results that were presented at the International Workshop on Distributed and Parallel Embedded Systems (DIPES 2000), which was sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP), and organised by IFIP working groups WG10.3, WG10.4 and WG10.5. The workshop took place on October 18-19, 2000, in Schloß Eringerfeld near Paderborn, Germany. Architecture and Design of Distributed Embedded Systems is organised similar to the workshop. Chapters 1 and 4 (Methodology I and II) deal with different modelling and specification paradigms and the corresponding design methodologies. Generic system architectures for different classes of embedded systems are presented in Chapter 2. In Chapter 3 several design environments for the support of specific design methodologies are presented. Problems concerning test and validation are discussed in Chapter 5. The last two chapters include distribution and communication aspects (Chapter 6) and synthesis techniques for embedded systems (Chapter 7). This book is essential reading for computer science researchers and application developers.

Tara Simms is determined to create a new beginning for herself this holiday season. She's purchased a new condo on Miami Beach in the ultrachic Paradise Designs Resort and Spa where there is no chance of paranormal activity. She's looking for a new man and thinks that David Blake, the lead realtor at the high-rise, is a good prospect. When Tara sees the spirit of a murdered woman enter her condo she freaks out. David offers his protection and his apartment. Together Tara and David must solve the murder and help the spirit into the light.

Design and Analysis of Distributed Embedded Systems is organized similar to the conference. Chapters 1 and 2 deal with specification methods and their analysis while Chapter 6 concentrates on timing and performance analysis. Chapter 3 describes approaches to system verification at different levels of abstraction. Chapter 4 deals with fault tolerance and detection. Middleware and software reuse aspects are treated in Chapter 5. Chapters 7 and 8 concentrate on the distribution related topics such as partitioning, scheduling and communication. The book closes with a chapter on design methods and frameworks.