Miscellaneous

One of the principal goals declared by the author of this volume was to establish the connection between the mechanical hardness numbers and the physics of the chemical bonds in quantitative and simple ways. In the past, this has not been achieved in the effective manner as the commonly involved atomic processes have not been properly an fully identified.

Though it is still true for the cases of the complex atomic structures, the author of the title believes that the relatively simple prototype cases are duly understood today. It should be taken into consideration, however, that the associated mechanisms change with the types of the chemical bonding. And no universal chemical mechanism exists there to determine the mechanical hardness. The author has made an attempt to develop the proper understanding of the plastic deformation and hardness; this is definitely not a straightforward task as the literature sources covering this subject is still partly confused.

The chapters of the volume cover the indentation and plastic deformation, covalent semiconductors and chemical bonding, transition metals, ionic and molecular crystals, glasses and polymers, chemical and hot hardness, simple alloys and metals, inter-metallic compounds, hard metals and "superhard" materials, actually everything one will require to be aware of...

The author of this document examines the major strategic interests of China in the South China Sea region, focusing on the power projection and security of the resources. Of course, China is pursuing other interests; however, in order to make the publication an easily manageable endeavor the author has discussed mainly the topics relating to the resources and power making necessary connections to such important areas as economics, national security and others.

He has also taken quite close look at how exactly the dynamics in those multi-dimensional domains are affecting the drafting of the strategies as well as policy-making and also addresses the influence they could have state actions. The book starts with the introduction covering the assessment of the PRC's internal and external dynamics and understanding of their global search, plus touching the oil security matters. The second part of the document contains the country-specific case studies from Japan, US, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Finally, the last part of the book deals with the resource security and also the power projection. The list of abbreviations and acronyms used throughout the work is there, as well. A definitely useful publication for anyone involved in the shipping industry and with general interest in geopolitics.

The present volume is intended to unify and enhance the accessibility of the modern scholarly researches relating to the advances in the field of coastal modeling. A wide spectrum of the innovative models is addressing the whole diversity and all different aspects of these researches together with the dynamics and responses of the coastal systems and subsystems.

The chapters of the book have been prepared by the coastal experts from different countries in order to provide readers with the valuable technical insights of the developments and contemporary knowledge of the models considered essential for proper understanding and prediction of the dynamics. Among the features of the present publication we would underline the encompassing and very impressive presentation of the operational/functional models for all people with the interest in professional modeling of the oceans, seas and coasts.

The content of the volume also includes the chapters focusing on the shore lines and beaches modeling, in addition to the dynamic processes of waves and flows, currents and transport of sediments. The main scope of the publication has been strengthened with supplementary chapters that concentrate of the major effects that the coastal structures have on the near-shore flows, coastal pollution and eco-modeling and other relevant information.

Most of the planet's surface is covered by the ocean waters. Many of the important aspects of our day-to-day activities may easily be affected by the waves in one of another way. And sometimes the waves can result in disasters, such as the tsunami occurred in the Indian Ocean some years ago. This demonstrate how critical it is for the people to thoroughly understand the ocean waves paying particular attention to the large waves.

One of the ways to get to this understanding is to conduct the numerical simulation on the basis of the non-linear theory. There have been several serious researches in this field in the past decades by the development of the different numerical methods and their application to the emerging problems; however, there has been no comprehensive volume that would reflect those advances. This book should bridge the subject gap. It consists of the eighteen self-contained chapters worked out by more than fifty professional authors from twelve different countries, with most of the authors being the world recognized experts in the field.

The content of each chapter is mainly based on the researches conducted by the authors. Altogether the chapters of the book are dealing with the literally all numerical methods currently employed to the simulation of the non-linear water waves, covering most of the interesting and important applications.