Growing human populations and higher demands for water impose increasing impacts and stresses upon freshwater biodiversity. Their combined effects have made these animals more endangered than their terrestrial and marine counterparts. Overuse and contamination of water, overexploitation and overfishing, introduction of alien species, and alteration of natural flow regimes have led to a 'great thinning' and declines in abundance of freshwater animals, a 'great shrinking' in body size with reductions in large species, and a 'great mixing' whereby the spread of introduced species has tended to homogenize previously dissimilar communities in different parts of the world. Climate change and warming temperatures will alter global water availability, and exacerbate the other threat factors. What conservation action is needed to halt or reverse these trends, and preserve freshwater biodiversity in a rapidly changing world? This book offers the tools and approaches that can be deployed to help conserve freshwater biodiversity.

In this historical volume Salvatore Califano traces the developments of ideas and theories in physical and theoretical chemistry throughout the 20th century. This seldom-told narrative provides details of topics from thermodynamics to atomic structure, radioactivity and quantum chemistry. Califano’s expertise as a physical chemist allows him to judge the historical developments from the point of view of modern chemistry. This detailed and unique historical narrative is fascinating for chemists working in the fields of physical chemistry and is also a useful resource for science historians who will enjoy access to material not previously dealt with in a coherent way.

As ecology becomes the new engineering, the projection of landscape as infrastructure—the contemporary alignment of the disciplines of landscape architecture, civil engineering, and urban planning— has become pressing. Predominant challenges facing urban regions and territories today—including shifting climates, material flows, and population mobilities, are addressed and strategized here. Responding to the under-performance of master planning and over-exertion of technological systems at the end of twentieth century, this book argues for the strategic design of "infrastructural ecologies," describing a synthetic landscape of living, biophysical systems that operate as urban infrastructures to shape and direct the future of urban economies and cultures into the 21st century. Pierre Bélanger is Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture and Co-Director of the Master in Design Studies Program at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. As part of the Department of Landscape Architecture and the Advansed Studies Program, Bélanger teaches and coordinates graduate courses on the convergence of ecology, infrastructure and urbanism in the interrelated fields of design, planning and engineering. Dr. Bélanger is author of the 35th edition of the Pamphlet Architecture Series from Princeton Architectural Press, GOING LIVE: from States to Systems (pa35.net), co-editor with Jennifer Sigler of the 39th issue of Harvard Design Magazine, Wet Matter, and co-author of the forthcoming volume ECOLOGIES OF POWER: Mapping Military Geographies & Logistical Landscapes of the U.S. Department of Defense. As a landscape architect and urbanist, he is the recipient of the 2008 Canada Prix de Rome in Architecture and the Curator for the Canada Pavilion ad Canadian Exhibition, "EXTRACTION," at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale (extraction.ca).

Instead of investigating various isolated extremal problems in the theory of schlicht functions, the authors have concentrated their efforts on the investigation of the family of extremal schlicht functions in the large.

Manufacturing with lasers is becoming increasingly important in modern industry. This is a unique, most comprehensive handbook of laser applications to all modern branches of industry. It includes, along with the theoretical background, updates of the most recent research results, practical issues and even the most complete company and product directory and supplier's list of industrial laser and system manufacturers. Such important applications of lasers in manufacturing as welding, cutting, drilling, heat treating, surface treatment, marking, engraving, etc. are addressed in detail, from the practical point of view. A list of specific companies dealing with manufacturing aspects with lasers is given.