This book provides the conceptual foundation required for the design and development of complex distributed and real-time applications. It summarizes a large spectrum of concepts; but by concentrating on Java and presenting mainly the programmatic aspects and basic functioning of the concepts, the readability and ease of comprehension are greatly improved. Thus the idea behind the book is not to overwhelm the reader, but rather to provide sufficient information for the creation of prototypes, covering most aspects of an application. The reader will be guided to determine himself which is the best global architecture for the application: thin or thick client; direct database access or EJBs; listeners or multi-threading; etc. The book also presents a number of architectures, namely sets of components, threads and links, around which the functionalities of the application may be built and checked incrementally. One of the strengths of this book is the availability of simple examples, which have all been carefully checked and are available at the book’s website.

Foreword - Some Basics Java Features - Graphical User Interfaces - TCP / IP /, RMI - Security, Authentication - XML and Compilation (JavaCC) - Database - MySQL - Web Applications - Enterprise Java Beans - Multi-threading and Active Objects - Development Process.

The novel architectural form of this building, conceived of by the architects of SAANA (winners of the Pritzker Prize in 2010), compelled the building engineers to come up with unprecedented structural, technical and logistical solutions.

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The universe, in all its richness, diversity and complexity, is populated by a myriad of intriguing celestial objects. Among the most exotic of them are gravitationally lensed quasars. A quasar is an extremely bright nucleus of a galaxy, and when such an object is gravitationally lensed, multiple images of the quasar are produced – this phenomenon of cosmic mirage can provide invaluable insights on burning questions, such as the nature of dark matter and dark energy.

This companion book to the classic Thermodynamics and Energy Systems Analysis: From Energy to Exergy, by Lucien Borel and Daniel Favrat, provides a series of exercises (many solved, some with just numerical answers) to be used in conjunction with the textbook.