Peter Wild – författare

The opalescent deserts of the American Southwest have become romantic icons in the public imagination through the words of writers, the images of artists and photographers, and the visual storytelling of filmmakers. In this spirited, personal, beautifully written book, Peter Wild explores the lives and works of sixteen writers whose words have shaped our visions of the opal desert. Wild begins with Cabeza de Vaca, whose RelaciÓn of his desert wanderings sent treasure-hungry Spaniards searching for cities of gold. He goes on to discuss the works of both widely read and lesser-known nineteenth- and twentieth-century authors, including such luminaries as Mary Austin, Joseph Wood Krutch, Edward Abbey, Ann Zwinger, and Charles Bowden. He links all the writers as explorers of one kind or another, searching for tangible or intangible treasures, some finding and some losing their dreams in the opal desert.

For manufacturers of complex engineering equipment, the focus on service and achieving outcomes for customers is the key to growth. Yet, the capability to provide service for complex engineered products is less understood.Taking a trans-disciplinary approach, Complex Engineering Service Systems covers various aspects of service in complex engineering systems, with perspectives from engineering, management, design, operations research, strategy, marketing and operations management that are relevant to different disciplines, organisation functions, and geographic locations. The focus is on the many facets of complex engineering service systems around a core integrative framework of three value transformations – that of material/equipment, information and people.Complex Engineering Service Systems is the outcome of the EPSRC/BAE Systems S4T (Service Support Solutions: Strategy and Transition) research programme of 10 universities and 27 researchers, which examined how high-value manufacturers of complex engineering products adapt to a multi-partnered environment to design and deliver value in a service system.  Complex Engineering Service Systems aims to be the main source of knowledge for academics and professionals in the research and practice of contracting, managing, designing, leading, and delivering complex engineering service systems. The book takes a value-based approach to integrating equipment and human factors into a total service provision. In doing so, it aims to advance the field of service systems and engineering.

For manufacturers of complex engineering equipment, the focus on service and achieving outcomes for customers is the key to growth. Yet, the capability to provide service for complex engineered products is less understood.Taking a trans-disciplinary approach, Complex Engineering Service Systems covers various aspects of service in complex engineering systems, with perspectives from engineering, management, design, operations research, strategy, marketing and operations management that are relevant to different disciplines, organisation functions, and geographic locations. The focus is on the many facets of complex engineering service systems around a core integrative framework of three value transformations – that of material/equipment, information and people.Complex Engineering Service Systems is the outcome of the EPSRC/BAE Systems S4T (Service Support Solutions: Strategy and Transition) research programme of 10 universities and 27 researchers, which examined how high-value manufacturers of complex engineering products adapt to a multi-partnered environment to design and deliver value in a service system.  Complex Engineering Service Systems aims to be the main source of knowledge for academics and professionals in the research and practice of contracting, managing, designing, leading, and delivering complex engineering service systems. The book takes a value-based approach to integrating equipment and human factors into a total service provision. In doing so, it aims to advance the field of service systems and engineering.

Iris Biometrics: From Segmentation to Template Security provides critical analysis, challenges and solutions on recent iris biometric research topics, including image segmentation, image compression, watermarking, advanced comparators, template protection and more. Open source software is also provided on a dedicated website which includes feature extraction, segmentation and matching schemes applied in this book to foster scientific exchange. Current state-of-the-art approaches accompanied by comprehensive experimental evaluations are presented as well. This book has been designed as a secondary text book or reference for researchers and advanced-level students in computer science and electrical engineering. Professionals working in this related field will also find this book useful as a reference.

Iris Biometrics: From Segmentation to Template Security provides critical analysis, challenges and solutions on recent iris biometric research topics, including image segmentation, image compression, watermarking, advanced comparators, template protection and more. Open source software is also provided on a dedicated website which includes feature extraction, segmentation and matching schemes applied in this book to foster scientific exchange. Current state-of-the-art approaches accompanied by comprehensive experimental evaluations are presented as well. This book has been designed as a secondary text book or reference for researchers and advanced-level students in computer science and electrical engineering. Professionals working in this related field will also find this book useful as a reference.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Task Models and Diagrams for User Interface Design, TAMODIA 2009, held in Brussels, Belgium, in September 2009. The 12 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions for inclusion in the book. The workshop features current research and gives some indication of the new directions in which task analysis theories, methods, techniques and tools are progressing. The papers are organized in topical sections on business process, design process, model driven approach, task modeling, and task models and UML.