Browse Results

Select your format based upon: 1) how you want to read your book, and 2) compatibility with your reading tool. To learn more about using Bookshare with your device, visit the Help Center.

Here is an overview of the specialized formats that Bookshare offers its members with links that go to the Help Center for more information.

• Bookshare Web Reader - A customized reading tool for Bookshare members offering all the features of DAISY with a single click of the "Read Now" link.
• DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System) - A digital book file format. DAISY books from Bookshare are DAISY 3.0 text files that work with just about every type of access technology that reads text. Books that contain images will have the download option of ‘DAISY Text with Images’.
• BRF (Braille Refreshable Format) - Digital Braille for use with refreshable Braille devices and Braille embossers.
• MP3 (MPEG audio layer 3) - Provides audio only with no text. These books are created with a text-to-speech engine and spoken by Kendra, a high quality synthetic voice from Ivona. Any device that supports MP3 playback is compatible.
• DAISY Audio - Similar to the DAISY option above; however, this option uses MP3 files created with our text-to-speech engine that utilizes Ivonas Kendra voice. This format will work with Daisy Audio compatible players such as Victor Reader Stream and Read2Go.
• EPUB - A standard e-book format that can be read on many tools, such as iBooks, Readium or others.
• Word - Accessible Word output, which can be unzipped and opened in any tool that allows .docx files

Vander's Human Physiology: The Mechanisms of Body Function 13th Edition

Vander's Human Physiology, thirteenth edition, carries on the tradition of clarity and accuracy, while refining and updating the content to meet the needs of today's instructors and students. The thirteenth edition features a streamlined, clinically oriented focus to the study of human body systems. It has also responded to reviewer requests for more clinical applications. Physiology Inquiries are maintained throughout the chapters. These critical-thinking questions associated with figures are just one more opportunity to add to the student's learning experience.

Vanilla (ISSN)

Cultivated in an increasing number of countries, vanilla is a universally appreciated flavor that is consumed worldwide. However, most users are unaware of the plant from which the product comes. This book presents up-to-date reviews on the cultivation, curing, and uses of vanilla. The latest scientific data provides information on genetic status, resources, pests, diseases, cultural practices, biosynthesis of aromatic compounds, and aroma development. Leading contributors from around the world examine emergent countries for vanilla production, including China, India and Uganda. The text also explores the relationship between fruit development anatomy and flavor quality.

Vanished Giants: The Lost World of the Ice Age

Featuring numerous illustrations, this book explores the many lessons to be learned from Pleistocene megafauna, including the role of humans in their extinction, their disappearance at the start of the Sixth Extinction, and what they might teach us about contemporary conservation crises. Long after the extinction of dinosaurs, when humans were still in the Stone Age, woolly rhinos, mammoths, mastodons, sabertooth cats, giant ground sloths, and many other spectacular large animals that are no longer with us roamed the Earth. These animals are regarded as “Pleistocene megafauna,” named for the geological era in which they lived—also known as the Ice Age. In Vanished Giants: The Lost World of the Ice Age, paleontologist Anthony J. Stuart explores the lives and environments of these animals, moving between six continents and several key islands. Stuart examines the animals themselves via what we’ve learned from fossil remains, and he describes the landscapes, climates, vegetation, ecological interactions, and other aspects of the animals’ existence. Illustrated throughout, Vanished Giants also offers a picture of the world as it was tens of thousands of years ago when these giants still existed. Unlike the case of the dinosaurs, there was no asteroid strike to blame for the end of their world. Instead, it appears that the giants of the Ice Age were driven to extinction by climate change, human activities—especially hunting—or both. Drawing on the latest evidence provided by radiocarbon dating, Stuart discusses these possibilities. The extinction of Ice Age megafauna can be seen as the beginning of the so-called Sixth Extinction, which is happening right now. This has important implications for understanding the likely fate of present-day animals in the face of contemporary climate change and vastly increasing human populations.

Vanishing America

Miles Powell explores how early conservationists became convinced that the vitality of America's white races depended on preserving the wilderness. Some conservationists embraced scientific racism, eugenics, and restrictive immigration laws, but these activists also laid the groundwork for the many successes of the modern environmental movement.

Vanishing Bees: Science, Politics, and Honeybee Health

In 2005, beekeepers in the United States began observing a mysterious and disturbing phenomenon: once-healthy colonies of bees were suddenly collapsing, leaving behind empty hives full of honey and pollen. Over the following decade, widespread honeybee deaths--some of which have come to be called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)--have continued to bedevil beekeepers and threaten the agricultural industries that rely on bees for pollination. Scientists continue to debate the causes of CCD, yet there is no clear consensus on how to best solve the problem. Vanishing Bees takes us inside the debates over widespread honeybee deaths, introducing the various groups with a stake in solving the mystery of CCD, including beekeepers, entomologists, growers, agrichemical companies, and government regulators. Drawing from extensive interviews and first-hand observations, Sainath Suryanarayanan and Daniel Lee Kleinman examine how members of each group have acquired, disseminated, and evaluated knowledge about CCD. In addition, they explore the often-contentious interactions among different groups, detailing how they assert authority, gain trust, and build alliances. As it explores the contours of the CCD crisis, Vanishing Bees considers an equally urgent question: what happens when farmers, scientists, beekeepers, corporations, and federal agencies approach the problem from different vantage points and cannot see eye-to-eye? The answer may have profound consequences for every person who wants to keep fresh food on the table.

The Vanishing Present: Wisconsin’s Changing Lands, Waters, and Wildlife

Straddling temperate forests and grassland biomes and stretching along the coastline of two Great Lakes, Wisconsin contains tallgrass prairie and oak savanna, broadleaf and coniferous forests, wetlands, natural lakes, and rivers. But, like the rest of the world, the Badger State has been transformed by urbanization and sprawl, population growth, and land-use change. For decades, industry and environment have attempted to coexist in Wisconsin-- and the dynamic tensions between economic progress and environmental protection makes the state a fascinating microcosm for studying global environmental change. The Vanishing Present brings together a distinguished set of contributors-- including scientists, naturalists, and policy experts-- to examine how human pressures on Wisconsin's changing lands, waters, and wildlife have redefined the state's ecology. Though they focus on just one state, the authors draw conclusions about changes in temperate habitats that can be applied elsewhere, and offer useful insights into future of the ecology, conservation, and sustainability of Wisconsin and beyond. A fitting tribute to the home state of Aldo Leopold and John Muir, The Vanishing Present is an accessible and timely case study of a significant ecosystem and its response to environmental change.

Vannamei Shrimp Farming

This volume arose from an attempt to find a new way to approach the shrimp aquaculture’s future, facing up to the central insight that a global, technology-driven blue revolution will require new forms of governance to match the technological and social changes brought by innovative aquaculture practices. Each chapter contains evidence-based background information emphasizing core science, intended for the professional who already possesses a basic understanding of the principles of shrimp aquaculture and layout of each chapter includes a table of contents, materials and methodologies and a concluding set of objectives of the experimental study for the better understanding of the subject matter to the readers. The aim of this book is to provide a basic understanding of the modern culture techniques currently used in shrimp aquaculture research, primarily for vannamei, such that readers can develop an understanding of both the power and limitations of Intensive systems.Recently, in the scientific literature, there has been a profusion of information pertaining to many advanced culture systems such as raceways, reciruclatory aquaculture systems and many advanced culture practices such as biofloc technology and probiotics based culture practices.The material covered in the chapters of this book provides background to newcomers interested in Intensive shrimp culture techniques and a description of the current state of research and scientific understanding of advanced systems and standard management practices in regards to environmental sustainability of shrimp aquaculture would be much more helpful for the farmers and the industrial stakeholders. For researchers currently working in the field on specific culture systems and practices this text provides invaluable information that relates innovative intensive culture systems. Note: T&F does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Vapor Crystal Growth and Characterization: ZnSe and Related II–VI Compound Semiconductors

The book describes developments in the crystal growth of bulk II-VI semiconductor materials. A fundamental, systematic, and in-depth study of the physical vapor transport (PVT) growth process is the key to producing high-quality single crystals of semiconductors. As such, the book offers a comprehensive overview of the extensive studies on ZnSe and related II-VI wide bandgap compound semiconductors, such as CdS, CdTe, ZnTe, ZnSeTe and ZnSeS. Further, it shows the detailed steps for the growth of bulk crystals enabling optical devices which can operate in the visible spectrum for applications such as blue light emitting diodes, lasers for optical displays and in the mid-IR wavelength range, high density recording, and military communications.The book then discusses the advantages of crystallization from vapor compared to the conventional melt growth: lower processing temperatures, the purification process associated with PVT, and the improved surface morphology of the grown crystals, as well as the necessary drawbacks to the PVT process, such as the low and inconsistent growth rates and the low yield of single crystals. By presenting in-situ measurements of transport rate, partial pressures and interferometry, as well as visual observations, the book provides detailed insights into in the kinetics during the PVT process.This book is intended for graduate students and professionals in materials science as well as engineers preparing and developing optical devices with semiconductors.

Vapor Intrusion Simulations and Risk Assessments

This book introduces key concepts in modeling and risk assessments of vapor intrusion, a process by which the subsurface volatile contaminants migrate into the building of concern. Soil vapor intrusion is the major exposure pathway for building occupants to chemicals from the subsurface, and its risk assessments determine the criteria of volatile contaminants in soil/groundwater in brownfield redevelopment. The chapters feature the recent advances in vapor intrusion studies and practices, including analytical and numerical modeling of vapor intrusion, statistical findings of United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Vapor Intrusion Database and Petroleum Vapor Intrusion Databases, the challenges of preferential pathways, and the application of building pressure cycling methods, and field practices of vapor intrusion risk assessments at developed contaminated sites and in brownfield redevelopment. This volume also summarizes the advantages and limits of current applications in vapor intrusion risk assessment, laying the groundwork for future research of better understanding in risk characterization of soil vapor intrusion using models. Written by experts in this field, Vapor Intrusion Simulations and Risk Assessments will serve as an invaluable reference for researchers, regulators, and practitioners, who are interested in perceiving the basic knowledge and current advances in risk assessments of soil vapor intrusion.

Vapor-Liquid Interfaces, Bubbles and Droplets

Physically correct boundary conditions on vapor-liquid interfaces are essential in order to make an analysis of flows of a liquid including bubbles or of a gas including droplets. Suitable boundary conditions do not exist at the present time. This book is concerned with the kinetic boundary condition for both the plane and curved vapor-liquid interfaces, and the fluid dynamics boundary condition for Navier-Stokes(fluid dynamics) equations. The kinetic boundary condition is formulated on the basis of molecular dynamics simulations and the fluid dynamics boundary condition is derived by a perturbation analysis of Gaussian-BGK Boltzmann equation applicable to polyatomic gases. The fluid dynamics boundary condition is applied to actual flow problems of bubbles in a liquid and droplets in a gas.

Vapor Liquid Two Phase Flow and Phase Change

This comprehensive textbook highlights features of two phase flows and introduces the readers to flow patterns and flow maps. It covers a wide range of fundamental and complex subjects focusing on phase change processes like boiling, condensation or cavitation, and boiling phenomenon starting from pool boiling curves to heat transfer under nucleate boiling, film, and flow boiling. It also discusses themes such as numerical techniques for solving boiling and condensation as well as equipment used in industry for evaporation, boiling, and condensation. It includes pedagogical aspects such as end-of-chapter problems and worked examples to augment learning and self-testing. This book is a valuable addition for students, researchers, and practicing engineers.

Varanoid Lizards of the World

The large and impressive monitor lizard (genus Varanus) has attracted a great deal of interest. Despite being wary and difficult to observe, monitors have received an extraordinary amount of attention from devoted students. Varanoid Lizards of the World is a comprehensive account of virtually everything important that is known about monitor lizards, beginning with detailed species accounts and proceeding to various modern comparative analyses. Where possible, people who have had detailed field experience with a particular species have assembled the species accounts. In the process of reporting what is known, the book also identifies what remains to be learned about these lizards. This volume stands as a model for showing how such a diverse monophyletic group can be exploited both to identify and to understand the actual course of evolution.

Variability and Consistency in Early Language Learning: The Wordbank Project

A data-driven exploration of how children's language learning varies across different languages, providing both a theoretical framework and reference.The Wordbank Project examines variability and consistency in children's language learning across different languages and cultures, drawing on Wordbank, an open database with data from more than 75,000 children and twenty-nine languages or dialects. This big data approach makes the book the most comprehensive cross-linguistic analysis to date of early language learning. Moreover, its data-driven picture of which aspects of language learning are consistent across languages suggests constraints on the nature of children's language learning mechanisms. The book provides both a theoretical framework for scholars of language learning, language, and human cognition, and a resource for future research.

Variable Structure Control of Complex Systems

This book systematizes recent research work on variable-structure control. It is self-contained, presenting necessary mathematical preliminaries so that the theoretical developments can be easily understood by a broad readership. The text begins with an introduction to the fundamental ideas of variable-structure control pertinent to their application in complex nonlinear systems. In the core of the book, the authors lay out an approach, suitable for a large class of systems, that deals with system uncertainties with nonlinear bounds. Its treatment of complex systems in which limited measurement information is available makes the results developed convenient to implement. Various case-study applications are described, from aerospace, through power systems to river pollution control with supporting simulations to aid the transition from mathematical theory to engineering practicalities. The book addresses systems with nonlinearities, time delays and interconnections and considers issues such as stabilization, observer design, and fault detection and isolation. It makes extensive use of numerical and practical examples to render its ideas more readily absorbed. Variable-Structure Control of Complex Systems will be of interest to academic researchers studying control theory and its application in nonlinear, time-delayed an modular large-scale systems; the robustness of its approach will also be attractive to control engineers working in industries associate with aerospace, electrical and mechanical engineering.

Variable-Structure Systems and Sliding-Mode Control: From Theory to Practice (Studies in Systems, Decision and Control #271)

The book covers the latest theoretical results and sophisticated applications in the field of variable-structure systems and sliding-mode control. This book is divided into four parts. Part I discusses new higher-order sliding-mode algorithms, including new homogeneous controllers and differentiators. Part II then explores properties of continuous sliding-mode algorithms, such as saturated feedback control, reaching time, and orbital stability. Part III is focused on the usage of variable-structure systems (VSS) controllers for solving other control problems, for example unmatched disturbances. Finally, Part IV discusses applications of VSS; these include applications within power electronics and vehicle platooning.Variable-structure Systems and Sliding-Mode Control will be of interest to academic researchers, students and practising engineers.

Variables: FOSS Science Stories

NIMAC-sourced textbook

Variant Calling: Methods and Protocols (Methods in Molecular Biology #2493)

This volume provides practical guidance on a variety of techniques and steps to ensure successful variant calling. Chapters detail methods for variant calling from single-nucleotide variants to structural variants, variant calling in specialized data types such as RNA-seq and UMI-tagged sequencing, alignment-free genotyping and SNP calling, variant detection in single-cell DNA sequencing data, variant annotation, and preanalytical quality control to ensure successful variant calling. Written in the format of the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series, each chapter includes an introduction to the topic, lists step-by-step protocol to execute the algorithms, describes the input and output data, and includes tips on troubleshooting and known pitfalls. Authoritative and cutting-edge, Variant Calling: Methods and Protocols aims to be a foundation for future studies and to be a source of inspiration for new investigations in the field.

Variation and Evolution in Plants and Microorganisms: 50 Years after Stebbins

The National Academies Press (NAP)--publisher for the National Academies--publishes more than 200 books a year offering the most authoritative views, definitive information, and groundbreaking recommendations on a wide range of topics in science, engineering, and health. Our books are unique in that they are authored by the nation's leading experts in every scientific field.

The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume 1

The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume 2

Variational Analysis and Set Optimization: Developments and Applications in Decision Making

This book contains the latest advances in variational analysis and set / vector optimization, including uncertain optimization, optimal control and bilevel optimization. Recent developments concerning scalarization techniques, necessary and sufficient optimality conditions and duality statements are given. New numerical methods for efficiently solving set optimization problems are provided. Moreover, applications in economics, finance and risk theory are discussed. Summary The objective of this book is to present advances in different areas of variational analysis and set optimization, especially uncertain optimization, optimal control and bilevel optimization. Uncertain optimization problems will be approached from both a stochastic as well as a robust point of view. This leads to different interpretations of the solutions, which widens the choices for a decision-maker given his preferences. Recent developments regarding linear and nonlinear scalarization techniques with solid and nonsolid ordering cones for solving set optimization problems are discussed in this book. These results are useful for deriving optimality conditions for set and vector optimization problems. Consequently, necessary and sufficient optimality conditions are presented within this book, both in terms of scalarization as well as generalized derivatives. Moreover, an overview of existing duality statements and new duality assertions is given. The book also addresses the field of variable domination structures in vector and set optimization. Including variable ordering cones is especially important in applications such as medical image registration with uncertainties. This book covers a wide range of applications of set optimization. These range from finance, investment, insurance, control theory, economics to risk theory. As uncertain multi-objective optimization, especially robust approaches, lead to set optimization, one main focus of this book is uncertain optimization. Important recent developments concerning numerical methods for solving set optimization problems sufficiently fast are main features of this book. These are illustrated by various examples as well as easy-to-follow-steps in order to facilitate the decision process for users. Simple techniques aimed at practitioners working in the fields of mathematical programming, finance and portfolio selection are presented. These will help in the decision-making process, as well as give an overview of nondominated solutions to choose from.

Variational Approach to Gravity Field Theories

This book offers a detailed and stimulating account of the Lagrangian, or variational, approach to general relativity and beyond. The approach more usually adopted when describing general relativity is to introduce the required concepts of differential geometry and derive the field and geodesic equations from purely geometrical properties. Demonstration of the physical meaning then requires the weak field approximation of these equations to recover their Newtonian counterparts. The potential downside of this approach is that it tends to suit the mathematical mind and requires the physicist to study and work in a completely unfamiliar environment. In contrast, the approach to general relativity described in this book will be especially suited to physics students. After an introduction to field theories and the variational approach, individual sections focus on the variational approach in relation to special relativity, general relativity, and alternative theories of gravity. Throughout the text, solved exercises and examples are presented. The book will meet the needs of both students specializing in theoretical physics and those seeking a better understanding of particular aspects of the subject.

A Variational Approach to Nonsmooth Dynamics

This brief examines mathematical models in nonsmooth mechanics and nonregular electrical circuits, including evolution variational inequalities, complementarity systems, differential inclusions, second-order dynamics, Lur'e systems and Moreau's sweeping process. The field of nonsmooth dynamics is of great interest to mathematicians, mechanicians, automatic controllers and engineers. The present volume acknowledges this transversality and provides a multidisciplinary view as it outlines fundamental results in nonsmooth dynamics and explains how to use them to study various problems in engineering. In particular, the author explores the question of how to redefine the notion of dynamical systems in light of modern variational and nonsmooth analysis. With the aim of bridging between the communities of applied mathematicians, engineers and researchers in control theory and nonlinear systems, this brief outlines both relevant mathematical proofs and models in unilateral mechanics and electronics.

Variational Continuum Multiphase Poroelasticity

This book collects the theoretical derivation of a recently presented general variational macroscopic continuum theory of multiphase poroelasticity (VMTPM), together with its applications to consolidation and stress partitioning problems of interest in several applicative engineering contexts, such as in geomechanics and biomechanics. The theory is derived based on a purely-variational deduction, rooted in the least-Action principle, by considering a minimal set of kinematic descriptors. The treatment herein considered keeps a specific focus on the derivation of most general medium-independent governing equations. It is shown that VMTPM recovers paradigms of consolidated use in multiphase poroelasticity such as Terzaghi's stress partitioning principle and Biot's equations for wave propagation. In particular, the variational treatment permits the derivation of a general medium-independent stress partitioning law, and the proposed variational theory predicts that the external stress, the fluid pressure, and the stress tensor work-associated with the macroscopic strain of the solid phase are partitioned according to a relation which, from a formal point of view, turns out to be strictly compliant with Terzaghi's law, irrespective of the microstructural and constitutive features of a given medium. Moreover, it is shown that some experimental observations on saturated sandstones, generally considered as proof of deviations from Terzaghi's law, are ordinarily predicted by VMTPM. As a peculiar prediction of VMTPM, the book shows that the phenomenon of compression-induced liquefaction experimentally observed in cohesionless mixtures can be obtained as a natural implication of this theory by a purely rational deduction. A characterization of the phenomenon of crack closure in fractured media is also inferred in terms of macroscopic strain and stress paths. Altogether the results reported in this monograph exemplify the capability of VMTPM to describe and predict a large class of linear and nonlinear mechanical behaviors observed in two-phase saturated materials.

Variational Inequalities and Frictional Contact Problems

Variational Inequalities and Frictional Contact Problems contains a carefully selected collection of results on elliptic and evolutionary quasi-variational inequalities including existence, uniqueness, regularity, dual formulations, numerical approximations and error estimates ones. By using a wide range of methods and arguments, the results are presented in a constructive way, with clarity and well justified proofs. This approach makes the subjects accessible to mathematicians and applied mathematicians. Moreover, this part of the book can be used as an excellent background for the investigation of more general classes of variational inequalities. The abstract variational inequalities considered in this book cover the variational formulations of many static and quasi-static contact problems. Based on these abstract results, in the last part of the book, certain static and quasi-static frictional contact problems in elasticity are studied in an almost exhaustive way. The readers will find a systematic and unified exposition on classical, variational and dual formulations, existence, uniqueness and regularity results, finite element approximations and related optimal control problems. This part of the book is an update of the Signorini problem with nonlocal Coulomb friction, a problem little studied and with few results in the literature. Also, in the quasi-static case, a control problem governed by a bilateral contact problem is studied. Despite the theoretical nature of the presented results, the book provides a background for the numerical analysis of contact problems. The materials presented are accessible to both graduate/under graduate students and to researchers in applied mathematics, mechanics, and engineering. The obtained results have numerous applications in mechanics, engineering and geophysics. The book contains a good amount of original results which, in this unified form, cannot be found anywhere else.