The distributed computing infrastructure known as ‘the Grid’ has undoubtedly been one of the most successful science-oriented large- scale IT projects of the past 20 years. It is now a fully operational international entity, encompassing several hundred computing sites on all continents and giving access to hundreds of thousands of CPU (central processing unit) cores and hundreds of petabytes of storage, all connected by robust national and international scientific networks. It has evolved to become the main computational platform many scientific communities. This book presents lectures from the Enrico Fermi International School of Physics summer school Grid and Cloud computing: Concepts and Practical Applications, held in Varenna, Italy, in July 2014. The school aimed to cover the conceptual and practical aspects of both the Grid and Cloud computing. The proceedings included here are divided into eight chapters, with chapters 1, 2, 3 and 8 covering general applications of Grid and Cloud computing in various scientific fields, while chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7 discuss specific technical areas of Grid and Cloud structures. The book will be of interest to all those whose work involves the use of the Grid or Cloud computing.

This primer is aimed at elevating graduate students of condensed matter theory to a level where they can engage in independent research. Topics covered include second quantisation, path and functional field integration, mean-field theory and collective phenomena.

The past half-century has witnessed a dramatic increase in the scale and complexity of scientific research. The growing scale of science has been accompanied by a shift toward collaborative research, referred to as "team science." Scientific research is increasingly conducted by small teams and larger groups rather than individual investigators, but the challenges of collaboration can slow these teams' progress in achieving their scientific goals. How does a team-based approach work, and how can universities and research institutions support teams? Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science synthesizes and integrates the available research to provide guidance on assembling the science team; leadership, education and professional development for science teams and groups. It also examines institutional and organizational structures and policies to support science teams and identifies areas where further research is needed to help science teams and groups achieve their scientific and translational goals. This report offers major public policy recommendations for science research agencies and policymakers, as well as recommendations for individual scientists, disciplinary associations, and research universities. Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science will be of interest to university research administrators, team science leaders, science faculty, and graduate and postdoctoral students.

This book discusses novel research on and practices in the field of physics teaching and learning. It gathers selected high-quality studies that were presented at the GIREP-ICPE-EPEC 2017 conference, which was jointly organised by the International Research Group on Physics Teaching (GIREP); European Physical Society – Physics Education Division, and the Physics Education Commission of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP). The respective chapters address a wide variety of topics and approaches, pursued in various contexts and settings, all of which represent valuable contributions to the field of physics education research. Examples include the design of curricula and strategies to develop student competencies—including knowledge, skills, attitudes and values; workshop approaches to teacher education; and pedagogical strategies used to engage and motivate students. This book shares essential insights into current research on physics education and will be of interest to physics teachers, teacher educators and physics education researchers around the world who are working to combine research and practice in physics teaching and learning.

This two-volume book presents an unusually diverse selection of research papers, covering all major topics in the fields of information and communication technologies and related sciences. It provides a wide-angle snapshot of current themes in information and power engineering, pursuing a cross-disciplinary approach to do so. The book gathers revised contributions that were presented at the 2018 International Conference: Sciences of Electronics, Technologies of Information and Telecommunication (SETIT'18), held on 20–22 December 2018 in Hammamet, Tunisia. This eighth installment of the event attracted a wealth of submissions, and the papers presented here were selected by a committee of experts and underwent additional, painstaking revision. Topics covered include: · Information Processing · Human-Machine Interaction · Computer Science · Telecommunications and Networks · Signal Processing · Electronics · Image and Video This broad-scoped approach is becoming increasingly popular in scientific publishing. Its aim is to encourage scholars and professionals to overcome disciplinary barriers, as demanded by current trends in the industry and in the consumer market, which are rapidly leading toward a convergence of data-driven applications, computation, telecommunication, and energy awareness. Given its coverage, the book will benefit graduate students, researchers and practitioners who need to keep up with the latest technological advances.

TO THE SECOND EDITION In the nine years since this book was first written, rapid progress has been made scientifically in nuclear fusion, space physics, and nonlinear plasma theory. At the same time, the energy shortage on the one hand and the exploration of Jupiter and Saturn on the other have increased the national awareness of the important applications of plasma physics to energy production and to the understanding of our space environment. In magnetic confinement fusion, this period has seen the attainment 13 of a Lawson number nTE of 2 x 10 cm -3 sec in the Alcator tokamaks at MIT; neutral-beam heating of the PL T tokamak at Princeton to KTi = 6. 5 keV; increase of average ß to 3%-5% in tokamaks at Oak Ridge and General Atomic; and the stabilization of mirror-confined plasmas at Livermore, together with injection of ion current to near field-reversal conditions in the 2XIIß device. Invention of the tandem mirror has given magnetic confinement a new and exciting dimension. New ideas have emerged, such as the compact torus, surface-field devices, and the EßT mirror-torus hybrid, and some old ideas, such as the stellarator and the reversed-field pinch, have been revived. Radiofrequency heat ing has become a new star with its promise of dc current drive. Perhaps most importantly, great progress has been made in the understanding of the MHD behavior of toroidal plasmas: tearing modes, magnetic Vll Vlll islands, and disruptions.