It has only recently been appreciated that the immune and skeletal systems have major interactions. It is now well documented that osteoclasts, which are important cellular mediators of skeletal homeostasis, are derived from hematopoietic precursors that also give rise to immune cells. In addition, numerous cytokines that were first shown to regulate immune cell function have also been demonstrated to regulate bone cells and influence skeletal health. Conversely, products of bone cells appear critical for the engraftment of marrow in bone, the normal development of the hematopoietic and immune systems and provide niche for long-term memory B and T cells.In the past scientists involved in immune and bone cell investigations have rarely interacted in a significant way as these disciplines have developed independently and, for the most part, remain separate. The conference will bring together leading international scientists from both fields to interact so that new collaboration can develop and more rapid progress in understanding the relationships between these fields can be achieved. Short talks will be selected from abstracts from the international community. This conference will have a format to provide an environment of maximum interaction and interchange through lectures, posters, and open discussion.

This handbook provides research guidelines to study roles of the genes and other factors involved in a variety of complex behaviors. Utilizing methodologies and theories commonly used in behavior genetics, each chapter features an overview of the selected topic, current issues, as well as current and future research.

Poor data quality is known to compromise the credibility and efficiency of commercial and public endeavours. Also, the importance of managing data quality has increased manifold as the diversity of sources, formats and volume of data grows. This volume targets the data quality in the light of collaborative information systems where data creation and ownership is increasingly difficult to establish.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Symposium on Intelligence Computation and Applications, ISICA 2008, held in Wuhan, China, in December 2008.The 93 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from about 700 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on computational intelligence, evolutionary computation, evolutionary multi-objective and dynamic optimization, evolutionary learning systems, neural networks, classification and recognition, bioinformatics and bioengineering, evolutionary data mining and knowledge discovery, intelligent GIS and control, theory of intelligent computation, combinational and numerical optimization, as well as real-world applications.

These two volumes constitute the refereed proceedings of the First International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Applications, ICIRA 2008, held in Wuhan, China, in October 2008.The 265 revised full papers presented were thoroughly reviewed and selected from 552 submissions; they are devoted but not limited to robot motion planning and manipulation; robot control; cognitive robotics; rehabilitation robotics; health care and artificial limb; robot learning; robot vision; human-machine interaction and coordination; mobile robotics; micro/nano mechanical systems; manufacturing automation; multi-axis surface machining; realworld applications.

After nearly three decades of rapid economic development, China is now a major power whose actions can significantly affect other countries, from America to Zimbabwe. As a result, China Studies has grown exponentially. In particular, there is a growing interest in studies of Chinese politics, not least because of the considerable uncertainties that remain over the country’s future political direction.

This new Routledge title is a comprehensive collection of the best classic and cutting-edge scholarship. Volume I examines policy-making and policy implementation and includes analyses of élite politics, central–local relations, government reform, and bureaucratic behaviour. Volume II explores political economy, including issues such as property rights, the management of foreign investment, reform of state-owned enterprises, and financial reform. Volume III brings together the best political analysis of social problems such as unemployment, the rural–urban income gap, the inadequate provision of social welfare, the exploitation of migrant workers, and new public-health challenges. The final volume of the collection focuses on democratization and is organized around themes such as political reform, the development of civil society, political participation, and political culture.

Politics of Modern China is fully indexed and has a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editors, which places the material in its historical and intellectual context. In addition to the general introduction, there is a thematic introduction to each volume.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed joint post-workshop proceedings of three international workshops held in conjunction with the 10th Asia-Pacific Web Conference, APWeb 2008, in Shenyang, China, in April 2008 (see LNCS 4976).The 15 revised full papers presented together with 4 invited papers and 4 keynote lectures were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. Topics addressed by the workshops are business intelligence and data mining (BIDM 2008), health data management (IWHDM 2008), and data engineering and Web technology research (DeWeb 2008). The papers focus on issues such as Web searching, Web services, database, data mining, bioinformatics, and business intelligence.

The papers in this volume explore various issues relating to theories of rational choice and social welfare and their applications. The topics include resource allocation problems, population ethics, rationalizability of choice functions and demand functions for money, game theory, individual rights, and measurements of vulnerability, diversity, and changes in individual welfare. Researchers and advanced graduate students who want to learn more about such topics will find the book very useful.

In this modern spiritual classic, the Tibetan meditation master Chögyam Trungpa highlights a common pitfall to which every aspirant on the spiritual path falls prey: what he calls spiritual materialism. The universal human tendency, he shows, is to see spirituality as a process of self-improvement—the impulse to develop and refine the ego when the ego is, by nature, essentially empty. “The problem,” Trungpa says, “is that ego can convert anything to its own use, even spirituality.” His incisive, compassionate teachings serve to wake us up from this trick we all play on ourselves, and to offer us a far brighter reality: the true and joyous liberation that inevitably involves letting go of the self rather than working to improve it. It is a message that has resonated with students for over thirty years and remains fresh as ever today.

This edition includes a foreward by Chögyam Trungpa's son and lineage holder Sakyong Mipham.

Over the last decade it has been shown that orphan G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) can be used as targets to discover novel neuropeptides. A dozen neuropeptides have been identified through this approach. Each of these neuropeptides has opened new doors for our understanding of fundamental physiological or behavioral responses. For example the orexins, MCH and ghrelin carry fundamental roles in regulating food intake while neuropeptide S, neuromedin S, the prokineticins and the orexins are major players in modulating sleep and circadian rhythms. The chapters of this book review the latest research in the field, most of them are written by the original discoverers of the respective novel neuropeptide. Emphasis is set not only on their discovery but also on their functional significance. Since many of these neuropeptides are part of drug discovery programs, this book impacts academic as well as pharmaceutical research.

In Sources of East Asian Tradition, Wm. Theodore de Bary offers a selection of essential readings from his immensely popular anthologies Sources of Chinese Tradition, Sources of Korean Tradition, and Sources of Japanese Tradition so readers can experience a concise but no less comprehensive portrait of the social, intellectual, and religious traditions of East Asia. Volume 2 covers major events from 1600 to the present, including the initial contact of China, Korea, and Japan with the West; nineteenth- and twentieth-century reform movements in China, along with the Nationalist and Communist revolutions; Korea's encounter with imperialist Japan; and the Meiji Restoration, the emergence of political parties and liberalism, and the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars. De Bary maintains his trademark balance of source materials, including seminal readings in the areas of history, society, politics, education, philosophy, and religion, thereby continuing his own tradition of providing an exceptional resource for teachers, scholars, students, and the general reader.

?Sound and solid case studies on vulnerability and adaptation have been woefully lacking in the international discourse on climate change. This set of books begins to bridge the gap.?Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of United Nations Environment Programme?Important reading for students and practitioners alike.?Martin Parry, Co-Chair, Working Group II (Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability), Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)?This book fills an important gap in our understanding ... It is policy-relevant and deserves to be widely read.?Richard Klein, Senior Research Fellow, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), SwedenThe award of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 to the IPCC brings needed attention to the threats from climate change for highly vulnerable regions of the developing world. This authoritative volume (along with its companion covering adaptation) resulting from the work of the Assessments of Impacts and Adaptations to Climate Change (AIACC) project launched with the IPCC in 2002, is the first to provide an in-depth investigation of the stakes in developing countries. It discusses who is vulnerable and the nature and causes of their vulnerability for parts of the world that have been poorly researched till now. It also provides researchers with new examples of applications of vulnerability assessment methods, an approach that is of growing interest in the climate change area but for which there are relatively few applications in the literature.Published with TWAS and START

An analysis of the feasibilities of East Asian economic integration, providing diverse positions on East Asian economic integration by ASEAN countries as well as the north-eastern countries of China, Japan, and Korea.

To represent the past century of Korean fiction, this definitive collection extends beyond familiar writers, challenges cultural norms, and crosses political borders. By inlcuding stories from neglected female, North Korean, and wolbuk writers (those who migrated to the North after 1945 and whose works were widely banned in South Korea) and by bringing politically engaged works together with experimental ones, this anthology articulates the ruptures and resolutions that have makred the peninsula.

From sketches of desperate peasants in straitened circumstances to fast-moving, visceral tales of contemporary South Korea, the works in this collection bear witness to the dramatic transformations and events in twentieth-century Korean history, including Japanese colonial rule, civil war, and economic modernization in the South. The writers explore these developments through a variety of literary and political lenses, revealing wtih precision and poignancy their impact on Korean society and the lives of ordinary Koreans. This anthology includes an introduction, which synthesizes the key developments in modern Korean literature, and a comprehensive bibliography of Korean fiction in translation.

Offering a broad overview of the Asian American experience, Asian Americans provides an accessible resource for all students interested in the expanding and important Asian American population. While historical information is provided for each group, the main focus is on the variables and issues that impact Asian American life today. The scholars who author the chapters look at topics such as labor force participation and economic status, educational achievements, intermarriage, intergroup relations, and settlement patterns. Photo essays help to enhance the presentations.

Modeled after the classic Sources of Chinese Tradition, Sources of Japanese Tradition, and Sources of Indian Tradition, this collection of seminal primary readings in the social, intellectual, and religious traditions of Korea from the sixteenth century to the present day lays the groundwork for understanding Korean civilization and demonstrates how leading intellectuals and public figures in Korea have looked at life, the traditions of their ancestors, and the world they lived in.

The selections range from the mid- and late Chosôn dynasty in the sixteenth century, through the encounter with the West and imperialist Japan in the late ninteenth and early twentieth centuries, to the political and cultural events in South and North Korea since 1945 -- ending with President Kim Taejung's 1998 inaugural address.

This collection of fourteen case studies from all over the world examines the root causes and effects of a global economic system that consigns a fifth of the world's population to abject poverty and offers more equitable alternatives. Simultaneous.

A selective abridgement of the Sourcebook of Korean civilization v. 2 (1996), intended to be read alongside general historical accounts and to give readers a sense of how participants and observers viewed major historical and cultural developments . The focus of the series overall is more on the social and civic than on the broadly humanistic and literary. The volume comprises the text of letters, speeches, manifestos, essays, proclamations, and other documents that comment on politics, education, reform proposals, society and culture, philosophy, encounters with the West, and specific historic events, concluding with the 1998 inaugural address of South Korean President Kim Dae Jung. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Deregulation of electricity supply industries worldwide and the resultant arrival of competition is forcing power utilities to utilise their existing facilities to ever higher levels of efficiency, enabled by advances in power electronics technology. In the 1990s a number of control devices, collectively known as FACTS technology, have come into widescale operation and offer further opportunities to improve the control of transmission systems. Much research activity continues in this field and this book aims to describe the state-of-the-art internationally. It will be widely welcomed throughout the power industry.
'This book provides a comprehensive guide to FACTS, covering all the major aspects in research and development of FACTS technologies [and] will be a useful reference for professional engineers involved in the operation and control of modern power systems. It will also be of value to post-graduate students and researchers.' - IEEE Power Engineering Review

Drawn from Peter H. Lee's Sourcebook of Korean Civilization, Volume I, this abridged introductory collection offers students and general readers primary readings in the social, intellectual, and religious traditions of Korea from ancient times through the sixteenth century. Sources of Korean Tradition is arranged according to the major epochs of Korean history, including sections on: Korean culture - its origins, writing, education, poetry, song, social life, and rituals; religion - the rise of Buddhism and Confucianism; the economy - the land, agriculture, commerce, and currency; and its changing political structures.

A superb collection by the foremost scholars in the field, Sources of Korean Tradition is supplemented by a bibliography and prefaces by both editors. An impressive storehouse for the grand corpus of thought, beliefs, and customs held by people of Korea for centuries, this volume is a valuable companion for those interested in the history of Korea and East Asian studies.