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Special Paper 498 contains 12 new scientific papers, assembled as part of an NSF-sponsored workshop in 2011. The work highlights study of persistently active volcanoes and their hazards, mostly in Central America. Such volcanoes are termed "open vents" by volcanologists, and they offer the chance to study active processes. Insight into how volcanoes work and how hazards might be mitigated are the goals of the work. Overall, the volume presents insight into hazards infrastructure collaborations and development for geoscientists and students.

Echocardiography has now reached its maturity and plays a key role in the clinical assessment of cardiac function. However, its ability to assess myocardial perfusion remains a clinical challenge. Myocardial contrast echocardiography is a technique that uses microbubbles. These microbubbles remain entirely within the intravascular space and their presence in any myocardial region denotes the status of microvascular perfusion within that region. During the last few years, a large number of research studies have been dedicated to this topic. The latest developments in echocardiographic techniques and second-generation contrast agents allow for the potential assessment of myocardial perfusion and provide an accurate endocardial border delineation. In the present book, these new echocardiographic techniques dedicated to the assessment of myocardial perfusion are described in detail by experts from both sides of the Atlantic. Tips and tricks are included, explaining the basic concepts that are needed to understand and perform contrast echocardiography.

Using Puerto Rican politics in New York City as a case study, particularly focusing on political elites, Puerto Rican Identity, Political Development, and Democracy in New York, 1960–1990 argues that ethnic identity is a positive force in political development. José E. Cruz suggests that in using ethnic identity to claim and exercise social and civil rights, to pursue representation, and to access resources and benefits, Puerto Ricans sustained and enriched liberal democracy in New York City. This book shows how in carrying out politics in this way, Puerto Rican political elites placed themselves out of the margins and into the mainstream of city politics as significant contributors to urban democracy.

NUMGE 2018 is the ninth in a series of conferences on Numerical Methods in Geotechnical Engineering organized by the ERTC7 under the auspices of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE). The first conference was held in 1986 in Stuttgart, Germany and the series continued every four years (1990 Santander, Spain; 1994 Manchester, United Kingdom; 1998 Udine, Italy; 2002 Paris, France; 2006 Graz, Austria; 2010 Trondheim, Norway; 2014 Delft, The Netherlands). The conference provides a forum for exchange of ideas and discussion on topics related to numerical modelling in geotechnical engineering. Both senior and young researchers, as well as scientists and engineers from Europe and overseas, are invited to attend this conference to share and exchange their knowledge and experiences. This work is the first volume of NUMGE 2018.

Molecular rearrangements occupy center stage in the development of organic synthesis and, consequently, in the impressive achievements that have resulted in the total synthesis of many complex natural products in the last decades. The purpose of this chapter, in this volume of a book series dedicated to the Studies in Natural Product Chemistry, is to show a set of selected and organized molecular rearrangements based on a personal choice of expertise related to the synthesis of complex bioactive molecules. Our selection addresses [3,3]-sigmatropic rearrangements, which continue to provide excellent opportunities for reaching high chemical diversity, operating in efficient synthetic schemes. [3,3]-Sigmatropic rearrangements, such as the Cope and Claisen rearrangements, are among the most basic and useful transformations in synthetic organic chemistry. This is possibly due to the fact that these rearrangements are efficient methods for the synthesis of quaternary, sterically hindered chiral centers, and for the stereoselective formation of carbon–carbon and carbon–heteroatom bonds. In addition, [3,3]-sigmatropic rearrangements can be easily integrated in, and adapted to, cascade processes as a simple method to prepare complex molecules in atom-efficient reactions. Consequently, in the context of [3,3]-sigmatropic rearrangements, we focus on the transformations of propargylic esters, whose rearrangements, in different experimental conditions, have been largely exploited for the synthesis of interesting key and useful intermediates. The rearrangements can be promoted by protic acids, Lewis acids, and noble metals such as Pt, Au, or Cu salts, or complexes that have recently emerged as the most popular and potent electrophilic activators of alkynes toward a number of nucleophilic agents, under homogeneous conditions.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th Iberoamerican Congress on Pattern Recognition, CIARP 2006, held in Cancun, Mexico in November 2006. The 99 revised full papers presented together with three keynote articles were carefully reviewed and selected from 239 submissions. The papers cover ongoing research and mathematical methods.