This comprehensive volume offers readers a progressive and highly detailed introduction to the complex behavior of neutrons in general, and in the context of nuclear power generation. A compendium and handbook for nuclear engineers, a source of teaching material for academic lecturers as well as a graduate text for advanced students and other non-experts wishing to enter this field, it is based on the author’s teaching and research experience and his recognized expertise in nuclear safety. After recapping a number of points in nuclear physics, placing the theoretical notions in their historical context, the book successively reveals the latest quantitative theories concerning: • The slowing-down of neutrons in matter • The charged particles and electromagnetic rays • The calculation scheme, especially the simplification hypothesis • The concept of criticality based on chain reactions • The theory of homogeneous and heterogeneous reactors • The problem of self-shielding • The theory of the nuclear reflector, a subject largely ignored in literature • The computational methods in transport and diffusion theories Complemented by more than 400 bibliographical references, some of which are commented and annotated, and augmented by an appendix on the history of reactor physics at EDF (Electricité De France), this book is the most comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to and reference resource in neutronics and reactor theory.

'What is a self and how can a self come out of inanimate matter?' This is the riddle that drove Douglas Hofstadter to write this extraordinary book. In order to impart his original and personal view on the core mystery of human existence - our intangible sensation of 'I'-ness - Hofstadter defines the playful yet seemingly paradoxical notion of 'strange loop', and explicates this idea using analogies from many disciplines.

This report reviews engineering's importance to human, economic, social and cultural development and in addressing the UN Millennium Development Goals. Engineering tends to be viewed as a national issue, but engineering knowledge, companies, conferences and journals, all demonstrate that it is as international as science. The report reviews the role of engineering in development, and covers issues including poverty reduction, sustainable development, climate change mitigation and adaptation. It presents the various fields of engineering around the world and is intended to identify issues and challenges facing engineering, promote better understanding of engineering and its role, and highlight ways of making engineering more attractive to young people, especially women.--Publisher's description.

Comparison is a powerful cognitive research tool in science since it does "across studies" to evaluate similarities and differences, e.g. across taxa or diseases. This book deals with comparative research on plant disease epidemics. Comparisons are done in specifically designed experiments or with posterior analyses. From the apparently unlimited diversity of epidemics of hundreds of diseases, comparative epidemiology may eventually extract a number of basic types. These findings are very important to crop protection. Plant disease epidemiology, being the ecological branch of plant pathology, may also be of value to ecologists, but also epidemiologists in the areas of animal or human diseases may find interesting results, applicable to their areas of research.

In the past decades, the scan rate range of calorimeters has been extended tremendously at the high end, from approximately 10 up to 10 000 000 °C/s and more. The combination of various calorimeters and the newly-developed Fast Scanning Calorimeters (FSC) now span 11 orders of magnitude, by which many processes can be mimicked according to the time scale(s) of chemical and physical transitions occurring during cooling, heating and isothermal stays in case heat is exchanged. This not only opens new areas of research on polymers, metals, pharmaceuticals and all kinds of substances with respect to glass transition, crystallization and melting phenomena, it also enables in-depth study of metastability and reorganization of samples on an 1 to 1000 ng scale. In addition, FSC will become a crucial tool for understanding and optimization of processing methods at high speeds like injection molding. The book resembles the state-of-the art in Thermal Analysis & Calorimetry and is an excellent starting point for both experts and newcomers in the field.