The ranker, a central component in every search engine, is responsible for the...

Social networking has become a driving force on the Internet. Many people are part of at least one social network, while more often people are members of many different communities. For this reason many business people are trying to capitalize on this movement and are in a rush to put up their own social network. As the growth of social...

Progress in biology is dependent on the ability to observe, measure, and model the behavior of organisms at multiple levels of abstraction, from the microscopic to the macroscopic. There has been a tremendous growth recently in the techniques to probe the structure and workings of cellular and organ-level mechanisms. Significant advances have...

Prefaces to sets of essays, such as this one, are often devoted to explaining why publication was delayed or why certain planned essays are missing from the completed book. This Preface is an exception. All of the authors met their deadlines — or near to — and they produced a very close approximation to the volume that the editors...

150 Best Jobs for Your Skills identifies the top ten skills that are the most important in today’s economy, based on data from the U.S. Department of Labor and the latest O*NET. It helps job seekers find a fulfilling job and students explore their future career options by focusing on the 50 most promising jobs for each skill. It...

With a population in the millions and a monthly growth rate of 20 percent, Second Life® is a virtual 3-D world bursting with opportunities in areas like real estate, legal practice, and marketing, corporate connections, and people just like you. This all-in-one...

The book begins with...

Delineating the tremendous growth in this area, the Handbook of Approximation Algorithms and Metaheuristics covers fundamental, theoretical topics as well as advanced, practical applications. It is the first book to comprehensively study both approximation algorithms and metaheuristics.

Starting with basic approaches, the...

Iron is of fundamental importance to the growth, development and well-being of almost all living organisms. Multiple biological systems have evolved for the uptake, utilisation, storage, and homeostasis of iron in microbes, plants and mammals. Both iron deficiency and iron overload are found extensively in humans; the intimate links between...

The goal is to provide a...

For many scientists and clinicians, obesity has at last come of age. When the editors were going through medical school and even specialist training in diabetes and endocrinology, obesity was a nonentity that fell out of the mainstream of ‘real’ diseases and was notable for being dull and unrewarding to treat. Admittedly, this was...