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.

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.

This useful and practical work by Anand Pillay and Jin Wang was aimed to cater to a remarkably very broad range of interested readers, including experienced professional safety and operation engineers and design specialists particularly those working in both marine and offshore industries.

The book may also serve as a useful thorough reference compilation of materials to the under- and postgraduate students of such disciplines as the marine technology, general-  and safety- and reliability engineering; the content of this volume for sure will be be beneficial for industrial researchers and academics.

This title is intended to serve as a good start point for the newcomers to safety engineering and to the apprentices newly engaged in the use of risk analysis methods. The publication includes several useful sections briefly introducing the readers to the shipping scenes and setting the further mood through defining the rules and relevant regulations governing fishing and merchant vessels. Once all applicable safety requirements have been established, note there are numerous risk analysis and safety assessment instruments available to the readers have been highlighted.

The methods described in this title are mainly based on the framework of the Formal Ship Safety Assessment, and they have all been demonstrated using numerous real-life practical examples.