It was in ancient Greek philosophy where the idea arose that there is a supreme law before which any civil law created by human societies has to be justified. Since then the concept of natural law not only remained one of the paradigms of Western civilization but has shaped the development of international legislation in general. The understanding of the significance of the idea of a natural la…
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Verification, Model Checking, and Abstract Interpretation, VMCAI 2015, held in Mumbai, India, in January 2015. The 24 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 53 submissions. The papers cover a wide range of topics including program verification, model checking, abstract interpr…
The inventive process is the most important driver of economic growth. Venture capital (VC) funds have contributed a small, but critical, part to the inventive process. VC funds boost the inventive process by selecting a small number of radical ideas out a large flow of ideas and invest in their testing, development and commercialization. They bring together capital from general savings, manage…
What makes some characters seem so real? Mimetic Lives explores this unprecedented question on the rich ground of Tolstoy’s and Dostoevsky’s fiction. Each author discovered techniques for intensifying the aesthetic illusion Kitzinger calls mimetic life: the reader’s sense of a character’s embodied existence. Both authors tested the limits of that illusion by pushing it toward the novelâ…
The central focus of this book is the avian respiratory system. The authors explain why the respiratory system of modern birds is built the way it is and works the way that it does. Birds have been and continue to attract particular interest to biologists. The more birds are studied, the more it is appreciated that the existence of human-kind on earth very much depends directly and indirectly o…
This open access book discusses the contribution of sociology and survey research to climate research. The authors address the questions of which behaviors are of climate relevance, who is engaging in these behaviors, in which contexts do these behaviors occur, and which individual perceptions and values are related to them. Utilizing survey research, the book focuses on the measurement of clim…
This book presents vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) from the their onset, gradually going into technical details, providing a clear understanding of both theoretical foundations and more practical investigation. The editors gathered top-ranking authors to provide comprehensiveness and timely content; the invited authors were carefully selected from a list of who’s who in the respective fiel…
This book provides an introduction to the design and mechanical development of reciprocating piston engines for vehicular applications. Beginning from the determination of required displacement and performance, coverage moves into engine configuration and architecture. Critical layout dimensions and design trade-offs are then presented for pistons, crankshafts, engine blocks, camshafts, valves,…
This Brief examines the impact of the Oxford Transport Strategy in central Oxford as a means of assessing the effect of reduced traffic congestion in the city centre on its sustainability. Air pollution (from vehicular traffic) has been monitored at three locations in central Oxford on the High Street, St Aldates and St Ebbes (background monitoring station). There is a further monitoring site s…
Vehicular communication is a key technology in intelligent transportation systems. For many years now, the academic and industrial research communities have been investigating these communications in order to improve efficiency and safety of future transportation. Vehicular networking offers a wide variety of applications, including safety applications as well as infotainment applications. T…