In this article, after a brief description of some signi®cant catastrophic structural failures going back to the period when iron and steel began to replace wood and masonry as the primary structural materials, the historical development of the ®eld of fracture mechanics is discussed. First, the basic concepts of the ®eld, the motivation underlying their development and the key contributions ma...

A hundred years have passed since the description of the genus Dunaliella, the unicellular green alga which is responsible for most of the primary production in hypersaline environments worldwide. The present paper provides an historical survey of research on Dunaliella, from the early work in the 19th century to the thorough taxonomic studies by Teodoresco, Hamburger, Lerche and others from th...

Recent research in the field of phosphor and scintillator materials and related detectors is reviewed. After a historical introduction the fundamental issues are explained regarding the interaction of x-ray radiation with a solid state. Crucial parameters and characteristics important for the performance of these materials in applications, including the employed measurement methods, are describ...

The paper is a survey of the main technological aspects of advanced visual-based surveillance systems. A brief historical view of such systems from the origins to nowadays is given together with a short description of the main research projects in Italy on surveillance applications in the last twenty years. The paper then describes the main characteristics of an advanced visual sensor network t...

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a well‐documented disorder with a high heritability.[1] It was familiar to physicians from antiquity, but the clear description was provided in the mid‐19th century. Over the next 150 years, the understanding, management and research of BD changed in significant ways. Mania may be the only disorder in the medical encyclopedia where patient “enjoys the sufferings” from a...

In response to the recent special issue of The American Journal of Psychoanalysis dedicated to Sándor Ferenczi's works, this article highlights his essay entitled, "A Little Chanticleer" as a first-of-its-kind legacy of a description of conscious and unconscious dynamics linked to a child's musical preferences in daily life. In addition to its historical value, Ferenczi's essay merits study fro...

This special issue on community-based interdisciplinary research grew out of the work of the SCRA Interdisciplinary Task Force and an Interdisciplinary Working Conference held at Vanderbilt University in May, 2004. In this introduction to the special issue, the historical context for interdisciplinary underpinnings for community psychology theory, research, action and training is first depicted...

Lasers have caused revolutionary changes in many fields of science and technology. Since 1960, six orders of magnitude, from 10 to 10 seconds, have been added to time-resolved observation of fast phenomena, which makes ultrafast research grows rapidly among materials science, biology, and chemistry. The use of these ultrashort high-power pulses went hand-in-hand with their development and alrea...

Japan's research and development of computers began in the 1940's. However, Japanese production of commercial computers started a decade after the U.S. production did. Since then the computer industry has developed into the most rapidly growing industry in Japan. Thirty-nine thousand computers were installed as of the end of 1976. This is second in the world after the United States. It is diffi...

An agent-based simulation model representing a theory of the dynamic processes involved in innovation in modern knowledge-based industries is described. The agent-based approach allows the representation of heterogeneous agents that have individual and varying stocks of knowledge. The simulation is able to model uncertainty, historical change, effect of failure on the agent population, and agen...