Bøger udgivet af Presses Polytechniques et Universitaires Romandes

The book presents the state of the art in machine learning algorithms (artificial neural networks of different architectures, support vector machines, etc.) as applied to the classification and mapping of spatially distributed environmental data. Basic geostatistical algorithms are presented as well. New trends in machine learning and their application to spatial data are given, and real case studies based on environmental and pollution data are carried out. The book provides a CD-ROM with the Machine Learning Office software, including sample sets of data, that will allow both students and researchers to put the concepts rapidly to practice.

Investigates the effects of French-English high school study abroad programs in Switzerland. Living Their Best Life? is centered on the study abroad experiences of high school students enrolled in French-English programs in Switzerland. It aims at exploring students' experiences abroad regarding their social, cultural, and linguistic positionings and their possible impact on the experience. In this book, Murielle Ferry-Meystre provides valuable insights into the understudied subject of adolescents' experiences abroad. She also suggests practical recommendations for developing support programs for high school students before and during study abroad. Scholars, educators, and institutions will gain valuable insights, including a nuanced understanding of adolescents' experiences abroad and the benefits and drawbacks of such programs, as well as critical considerations related to social justice and equity.

A new approach to democratic theory that empowers its citizens. Democracy is a complex social system. A Systemic Theory of Democracy investigates the complexity of democracy's functioning through a systemic perspective to identify opportunities and challenges for democratic transformations. It critically reappraises social systems theory, extracting critical tools to describe and evaluate dynamic and ever-evolving democratic systems within their changing societal environment. By articulating political functions, social practices, and democratic principles, this systemic framework transcends theoretical models' boundaries, enabling it to map existing political systems and identify their context-specific shortcomings. A systemic approach to democracy, argues political researcher Victor Sanchez-Mazas, opens the road for the possibility and necessity for citizens to identify the problems faced by their democratic system. A Systemic Theory of Democracy calls for a critical democratic agenda: the constant diagnosis of democratic shortcomings, by citizens themselves and through democratic processes. This book introduces democratic diagnosis as a major challenge and opportunity for both contemporary democratic theory and existing democratic systems.

The personal journey of a designer and scientist through the field of fiber-polymer composites. Composites in Structural Engineering and Architecture is about the author's twenty-five-year journey as a pioneer, scientist, designer, and lecturer in the field of fiber-polymer composites as applied to structural engineering and architecture. Composites are construction materials that offer unique properties when compared to conventional materials such as reinforced concrete or steel. In addition to their excellent mechanical properties, their physical properties- including low thermal conductivity, transparency, and color-allow structural building physics and architectural functions to be integrated into individual features of buildings. This merging of functions in buildings, in addition to the modular and hybrid composite construction of bridges, gives rise to novel and compelling solutions regarding structural safety, serviceability, aesthetics, economy, and sustainability. Alongside these opportunities, however, composites may also reveal limitations in their structural application, which can be caused by their anisotropy or viscoelasticity, or in terms of ductility, fatigue, fire resistance, and durability. The monograph first addresses these limitations from a scientific point of view and then demonstrates how they can be overcome through suitable structural and architectural design. Subsequently, it is shown how the opportunities can be explored and the current design space expanded, to allow composites to develop to their full potential in structural engineering and architecture.

Explores the genetics of Drosophila, or fruit flies, to further the study of immunity. Animals possess efficient mechanisms for detecting and neutralizing infection. The application of Drosophila genetics, or the genetics of fruit flies, to the study of these mechanisms has generated insights into insect immunity and uncovered general principles of animal host defense. Although it is difficult to summarize the sheer number of studies published on Drosophila immunity in recent years, the Drosophila Immunity Handbook aims to provide an overview of recent research trends, challenges, and discoveries in immunity through the lens of Drosophila. This overview introduces scientists to the sophisticated fly immune system, highlights exciting recent findings in the field, and pushes new horizons of research by contextualizing existing research and discovering exciting avenues to explore. These studies have shown that Drosophila have multiple defense "modules" that can be deployed in a coordinated response against distinct pathogens, using physical barriers such as epithelia and chitin, production of reactive oxygen species, antimicrobial factors, blood clotting, the melanization reaction, and complex cellular responses. Metabolic reprogramming also fuels the immune system and effectively combats pathogens, as do symbiont-mediated immunity, disease tolerance mechanisms, and behavioral immunity. The research presented here reveals broader roles of the immune system beyond infection, notably in disease pathologies such as neurodegeneration or cancer. This remarkable animal model has ultimately given us a better understanding of the multiple roles of the immune system at the organismal level.

A guide to both risk management and insurance. Risk management is becoming increasingly important to companies and society in general, and Risk Management & Introduction to Insurance offers an accessible guide for anyone trying to understand it. Divided into two parts, the book first offers an introduction that examines the concept of risk and its historical context while defining the key terminology. In addition, the tools necessary for risk assessment are reviewed and the different steps of the risk management process are discussed. The second part of the book focuses on the economics of insurance, social insurance, and the private insurance market. The different branches and products of private insurance are analyzed, and an overview of the basics of calculating insurance premiums based on contractual benefits and the practice of an actuary is provided. Numerous practical applications (such as cyber risk management), examples, and illustrations complete the book. As a whole, the book is an essential reference for business school students, professionals, and anyone interested in risk management and insurance.

A study of the forces that shape postcolonial landscapes and built environments. Archival power, silences, and absences profoundly shape and structure postcolonial landscapes, spaces, and urban environments by controlling bodies, histories, and interactions. This book explores how to dismantle these imperial entanglements by developing an interdisciplinary dialogue that brings together history, memory politics, critical theory, and archival practice along with the built environment, landscape, urban studies, architecture, and the arts. Unearthing Traces catalyzes critical discussions that not only challenge the objectivity and dismantle the neutrality surrounding current archival practices and archival institutions but also question what constitutes the archive itself. The book unearths potential histories and minor narratives buried by the imperial production of pasts and silences. It provides a critical resource for scholars, architects, artists, activists, and archivists who want to engage with landscapes and built environments using a critical and postcolonial perspective.

An analysis of dormitories as an architectural type. Concepts of type and typology are not specific to architecture. Rather they represent an interdisciplinary approach to ordering knowledge and gaining insight. In the field of architecture, the study of types and typology offers a didactic perspective that allows us to see the complex network of interconnections between theory and practice as an inseparable material and social construct. This book is the result of a research project focused on dormitories as an architectural type, conducted at Laboratory EAST. Through a structured analysis, it unveils how architecture has offered solutions to the challenges of creating buildings designed for sleeping collectively.

A whimsical examination of math in the Middle Ages. This book brings together many unusual and entertaining examples of Medieval mathematical exercises. Medieval treatises on arithmetic and algebra frequently include along with the usual commercial and daily life applications, mathematical games, and recreational problems. The latter, while still on the subject of trade or daily life, involve conditions that are quite unrealistic if not totally absurd. As this book demonstrates, the authors of these problem sets hoped to show that mathematics could both be fun and useful.

This book reveals the origin, definition, and evolution of New Brutalism in architecture. The New Brutalism movement in architecture addressed a new way of understanding the urban dimension in the post-war period, and in particular the role of the architect in an insecure society. But the original definition was manipulated, diluted, and fragmented as the concept spread from Europe to the United States, Japan, and South America. New Brutalism follows its contributions on a global scale, as it challenged the ambivalent collaboration between critics and architects and opened a controversial debate over a new "international style." Disruptive, revolutionary, and at times even Dadaist, New Brutalism steered the cultural trajectory of the Modern Movement. A corrective to the many myths and misinterpretations of the style, this book reasserts the foundations of New Brutalism and offers a close examination of its international influence and variations.

A study of the equilibrium properties of Coulomb systems in physics that is the first of its kind. This book studies the equilibrium properties of Coulomb systems, i.e. classical or quantum systems of charged particles interacting exclusively with the Coulomb force, drawing on results that are mathematically rigorous or derived from formal perturbation series, without ad hoc modeling or intermediate approximations. Two main themes form the essential purpose of Statistical Mechanics of Coulomb Systems: the simplified description of the proofs of four fundamental theorems on the existence of Coulomb matter on the one hand and the development of a formalism based on diagrammatic expansions adapted to the treatment of classical and quantum screening phenomena on the other hand. The result is an authoritative analysis of Coulomb systems that will be essential for any physicist working in this area.

A book that brings awareness to preservation in architecture. This third TSAM volume presents content from teaching courses that have been developed at the EPFL for fifteen years. The aim is to promote preservation as a discipline, one of the main branches in the emerging field of socioecological transition. This book also demonstrates how the educational potential of preservation can be harnessed, uniting many social and scientific disciplines, the history of architecture and architects, materiality and its constructed expression, the theory of architecture and design, and the examination‿both abstract and concrete‿of what surrounds us in every sense, from the teaspoon to the territory. In short, what a minority of responsible architects has always concerned itself with: a silent and sometimes fragile architecture. These qualities should enable preservation to reform and reconstruct a new design process for architecture, which will in turn lead to a new kind of practice. Â