The Chinese share an imprecation (the first of three)—May you live in interesting times.1 The other two are considered even more forbidding—May you come to the attention of those in authority; and May you find what you are looking for. In contrast we, as authors, are blessed to live in interesting times; otherwise our search for...

The idea for this book started when we organized a topical workshop entitled “Innovation Networks – New Approaches in Modeling and Analyzing” (held in Augsburg, Germany in October 2005), under the auspices of Exystence, a network of excellence funded in the European Union’s Fifth Framework Program. Unlike other...

Before...

Controversy over the conduct and coordination of international trade policy has become a politically charged issue in current times. At the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference in Seattle in 1999, groups from civil society went to the barricades to protest various facets of ‘globalization’. Similar spectacles have been...

Wireless communications is rapidly becoming one of the ubiquitous technological underpinnings of modern society (such as electric power, fossil fuels, automobiles, etc.). Few people think about the technology within their mobile phones, remote controls, garage door openers, GPS navigation devices, and so on. These devices are always at hand...

This is the first book to collate and synthesise the recent burgeoning primary research literature on dog behaviour, evolution and cognition. The author presents a new ecological approach to the understanding of dog behaviour, demonstrating how dogs can be the subject of rigorous and productive scientific study without the need to confine...

Energy: We want it affordable, we want it available in ample quantities and from reliable sources, and we want it to be produced and used in ways that are safe and environmentally benign. In other words, we want plenty of energy too cheap to meter and with no impact on the environment. Ha! With a refreshing lack of bias, this book dissects...

From a very young age James Van Praagh was aware of a dimension that most of us cannot see, and he has dedicated his life to explaining it to the rest of us. The New York Times bestseller Ghosts Among Us takes us on an incredible journey...

The runic alphabet, in use for well over a thousand years, was employed by various Germanic groups in a variety of ways, including, inevitably, for superstitious and magical rites. Formulaic runic words were inscribed onto small items that could be carried for good luck; runic charms were carved on metal or wooden amulets to ensure peace or...

The Smell of Kerosene tells the dramatic story of a NASA research pilot who logged over 11,000 flight hours in more than 125 types of aircraft. Donald Mallick gives the reader fascinating first- hand descriptions of his early naval flight training, carrier operations, and his research flying career with NASA and its predecessor agency, the...

All editors of encyclopedias are faced with the problem of what to include. Even if the title is agreed and the numbers of volumes and pages have been decided, the sum of possible entries could be very large. In the case of the Encyclopedia of 20th-Century Technology, the editor decided that in order to construct a logical and consistent set...

While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. While working to solve the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in...