Free eBooks by Peter Handke

The aim of this PhD thesis was to develop and assess the performance of techniques for continuous RR monitoring using ECG and PPG signals for use in wearable sensors to detect deteriorations.

The Brazilian Forest Code (FC) requires all private rural properties to maintain a fixed proportion of their area in natural vegetation as a u0093legal reserveu0094 whose proportions are differentiated by biome. Landowners have often ignored the law. Regaining full compliance would require costly restoration in areas converted. Recent changes to the FC provide that landowners may u0093compensateu0094 their legal reserve shortages by purchasing surplus compliance obligations from other properties. This paper discusses critical policy issues regarding Environmental Reserve Quotas or Cotas de Reserva Ambiental (CRA). We examine the relative environmental effectiveness of the CRA, its efficiency in resource use and social justice, as well as potential implementation hurdles. Allowing for compensation with off-site conservation can enable both more efficient, and less fragmented agricultural production, as well as forest conservation, compared to the default on-farm conservation proposition. CRA as a means for compensation has great intuitive appeal, yet controversy exists regarding its implementation. We review international experience with similar economic instruments, as well as Brazilian studies simulating the potential results of the CRA. Interviews with leading actors regarding the instrument complement the literature review. We finish with a synthetic assessment of the implications of our results for policy implementation.

Is inequality largely the result of the Industrial Revolution? Or, were pre-industrial incomes and life expectancies as unequal as they are today? For want of sufficient data, these questions have not yet been answered. This paper infers inequality for 14 ancient, pre-industrial societies using what are known as social tables, stretching from the Roman Empire 14 AD, to Byzantium in 1000, to England in 1688, to Nueva Espąa around 1790, to China in 1880 and to British India in 1947. It applies two new concepts in making those assessments -- what we call the inequality possibility frontier and the inequality extraction ratio. Rather than simply offering measures of actual inequality, we compare the latter with the maximum feasible inequality (or surplus) that could have been extracted by the elite. The results, especially when compared with modern poor countries, give new insights in to the connection between inequality and economic development in the very long run.

The durability of concrete repairs depends to a large extent on the proper selection and application of repair materials. Restrained contraction of repair materiais, the restraint being provided through bond to the extsting concrete substrate, is a major factor which significantly increases the complexity of repair projects as compared to new construction. Preliminary performance criteria for dimensionally compatible repair materials were developed based on a state-of-the-art review of the literature on cement-based repair materials. These preliminary criteria are intended for screening and selecting cement-based materials for concrete surface repairs. A comprehensive experimental program of laboratory and field tests was developed to verify the performance criteria. (MM).

Provides a broad, concept-based introduction to market segmentation for use in both undergraduate and graduate transportation-related courses.

Bottom current measurements were taken in the head of Monterey Submarine Canyon in a water depth of 130 meters (72 fathoms) utilizing an Ekman current meter placed 480 centimeters (15.7 feet) above the bottom. Currents were observed to follow the canyon axes, and flow was seaward (down-canyon) on the rising tide and coastward (up-canyon) on the falling tide. Current speed was sometimes fairly steady and other times variable. It ranged between 0 and 41 centimeters per second (0 to 0.8 knot) and had a median speed of 10 cm/sec (0.2 knot). The six hours centered around low tide generally had considerably stronger currents than the similar period of time centered around high tide. (Author).