When the evil wizard Gargamel chases the tiny blue Smurfs out of their village, they tumble from their magical world and into ours – in fact, smack dab in the middle of Central Park. Just three apples high and stuck …

Two women–a literature professor and a painter–start to rely upon their friendship as an alternative to their unhappy relationships with the men in their lives.

The Devil takes a trip disguised as a tinker. He meets Frau Ane, farmer Asmus' wife, who yearns to have a baby but in vain. So the devil takes advantage of Frau Ane's motherly inner desire by making a deal with her.

The three volume set LNAI 10462, LNAI 10463, and LNAI 10464 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Applications, ICIRA 2017, held in Wuhan, China, in August 2017.

This book includes selected peer-reviewed papers presented at the International Conference on Trends in Electronics and Health Informatics (TEHI 2021), organized by Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering and Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Pranveer Singh Institute of Technology Kanpur, India, during 16–17 December 2021. The book is broadly divided into five sections—artificial intelligence and soft computing, healthcare informatics, Internet of things and data analytics, electronics, and communications.

Are satellites a threat to individual privacy? - How bad is climate change and global warming? - Why can we not find Osama bin Laden? - Does the world have enough fresh water? Watching Earth from Space gives you the answers to these and many other burning questions of the day. This is the story of how our planet is being monitored by hundreds of space-borne instruments for both military and peaceful reasons. It highlights the technical challenges of those instruments and describes the agencies that gather useful information from them.

„Öffentlicher Personennahverkehr“ ist eine Beschreibung der täglich mit öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln durchgeführten Ortsveränderungen. Das Werk stellt die unterschiedlichen Bereiche des Nahverkehrs vor und ermöglicht dem Leser, die Bedingungen nachzuvollziehen, nach denen in Deutschland Nahverkehr stattfindet.
Das Buch geht auf die Entstehung des Nahverkehrs in Deutschland ein und erklärt die Strukturen, welche den deutschen Nahverkehr prägen. Ein umfangreicher Teil ist den Rechtsverhältnissen des Nahverkehrs gewidmet und dem zunehmenden Einfluss der europäischen Einrichtungen auf das deutsche (Nahverkehrs-)Recht. Es ist beschrieben, welche Institutionen den Nahverkehr in Deutschland gestalten und der Umfang der täglichen Mobilität ist dargestellt.

This book covers a variety of topics in the field of mechanical engineering, with a special focus on methods and technologies for modeling, simulation, and design of mechanical systems. Based on a set of papers presented at the 1st International Conference “Innovation in Engineering”, ICIE, held in Guimarães, Portugal, on June 28–30, 2021, it focuses on innovation in mechanical engineering, spanning from engineering design and testing of medical devices, evaluation of new materials and composites for different industrial applications, fatigue and stress analysis of mechanical structures, and application of new tools such as 3D printing, CAE 3D models, and decision support systems.

Three people rob a bank to help a day care center that's in debt. Wolf is captured, Werner identified, police suspect Christa is the third. She and Werner ask Hans, a clergyman, to launder the money and give it to the kindergarten. He refuses. They try Ingrid, Christa's friend, who tries to help, but the school rejects the money. When tragedy strikes Werner, Hans helps Christa bolt to a collective in Portugal. Ingrid visits her; their relationship makes the collective nervous, so she returns to Germany and ceases living in hiding. The police are still looking for her and so is a witness to the robbery, Lena, a bank clerk. Lena's interest brings Christa's second awakening.

The updated textbook is intended to serve as an advanced and detailed treatment of the evolution of the subject of stratigraphy from its disparate beginnings as separate studies of sedimentology, lithostratigraphy, chronostratigraphy, etc., into a modern integrated discipline in which all components are necessary.
There is a historical introduction, which now includes information about the timeline of the evolution of the components of modern stratigraphy. The elements of the various components (facies analysis, sequence stratigraphy, mapping methods, chronostratigraphic methods, etc.) are outlined, and a chapter discussing the modern synthesis is included near the end of the book, which closes with a discussion of future research trends in the study of time as preserved in the stratigraphic record.

This book offers a practical reference guide to soft rock mechanics for engineers and scientists. Written by recognized experts, it will benefit professionals, contractors, academics, researchers and students working on rock engineering projects in the fields of civil engineering, mining and construction engineering.
Soft Rock Mechanics and Engineering covers a specific subject of great relevance in Rock Mechanics – and one that is directly connected to the design of geotechnical structures under difficult ground conditions. The book addresses practical issues related to the geomechanical properties of these types of rock masses and their characterization, while also discussing advances regarding in situ investigation, safety, and monitoring of geotechnical structures in soft rocks. Lastly, it presents important case histories involving tunnelling, dam foundations, coal and open pit mines and landslides.

This handbook provides comprehensive knowledge on device and system technologies for seamlessly integrated networks of various types of transmission media such as optical fibers and millimeter and THz waves to offer super high-speed data link service everywhere. The seamless integration of the knowledge of radio and optical technologies is needed to construct wired and wireless seamless networks. High-frequency bands such as millimeter-wave and THz-wave bands where super wideband spectra are available can offer high-speed data transmission and high-resolution sensing. However, the expected coverage is limited due to large wave propagation loss. Thus, convergence of radio and optical links is indispensable to construct worldwide networks. The radio and optical technologies share the same physics and are closely related to each other but have been developed independently. Therefore, there is a big gap between these two fields. Bridging the two fields, this handbook is also intended as a common platform to design integrated networks consisting of wireless and wired links.

This atlas provides a step-by-step manual in using the video-oto-endoscope (VOE) as a tool to study ear diseases in cats and dogs. Illustrated by numerous high-resolution images and case studies, the book explains in a highly accessible manner when and how to use VOE. It teaches how to differ between a normal and a pathological animal ear and guides the reader in diagnosing a particular disease. The book's main section provides in-depth information on causes, clinical picture, and imaging of ear diseases such as acute otitis externa, chronic otitis externa, and otitis media in small animals. Moreover, the atlas introduces technical fundamentals of the instrument and gives tips for its correct handling and cleaning. Further, readers are instructed on how to best prepare the animal patient for examination by VOE.
The atlas addresses veterinary practitioners and veterinary technicians who are interested in performing otological examinations in cats and dogs.

For almost 15 years chaos and fractals have been riding a wave that has enveloped many areas of mathematics and the natural sciences in its power, creativity and expanse. Traveling far beyond the traditional bounds of mathematics and science to the distant shores of popular culture, this wave captures the attention and enthusiasm of a worldwide audience.

This book presents the results of the ComBoNDT European project, which aimed at the development of more secure, time- and cost-saving extended non-destructive inspection tools for carbon fiber reinforced plastics, adhered surfaces and bonded joints. The book reports the optimal use of composite materials to allow weight savings, reduction in fuel consumptions, savings during production and higher cost efficiency for ground operations.