Animal life, now and over the past half billion years, is incredibly diverse. Describing and understanding the evolution of this diversity of body plans - from vertebrates such as humans and fish to the numerous invertebrate groups including sponges, insects, molluscs, and the many groups of worms - is a major goal of evolutionary biology. In...

The adult population with congenital heart disease is increasing rapidly. More than 80% of children with congenital heart disease now reach adulthood, with some congenital heart diseases diagnosed for the first time in adults. The operations performed during childhood may have severe residual findings, which need to be repaired. Cardiologists...

Thermal degradation of polymeric materials is an important issue from both the academic and the industrial viewpoints. Understanding the thermal degradation of polymers is of paramount importance for developing a rational technology of polymer processing and higher-temperature applications. Controlling degradation requires understanding of...

This volume constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Sanskrit Computational Linguistics, held in New Delhi, India, in December 2010. The 18 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers can be categorized under following broad areas such as phonology...

Soils long have been taken for granted being so commonplace and lacking often striking features. However, soil is one of the most complex media on Earth, vital for the biogeosphere and human civilization. With increased usage of soil for world food production, building materials, waste repositories, etc awareness has grown for the need of...