facilitated the task of understanding complex sys-tems at cellular and molecular levels in recent years. Segmentation, an important yet dif-ficult problem, is often the first processing step following acquisition. Our team previously demonstrated that a stochastic active contour based algorithm together

Structural and fluid mechanics simulations have been developed for a wide range of applications, including bone mechanics and blood flow through arteries and veins. As these models improve, the next step is to couple fluid and structural simulations for a solution that can better capture

This report focuses on the evidence about the health.consequences of smoking for women, and is intended to serve.the public health and medical communities as 'a unified source of existing scientific research. The major issues about tobacco use and women's health are examined, including

I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Torsten Braun, head of the Computer Network and Distributed Systems group (RVS), for supervising this work and for his insightful advises. Prof. Dr. Torsten Braun encouraged and motivated me to publish my research results and he provided me the opportunity to present the work on various conferences, for which I thank him. I would also like to thank Prof. Dr. Roger Wattenhofer, responsible for the Koreferat of this work. Also, Prof. Dr. Oscar Nierstrasz who was willing to be the co-examinator of this work deserves many thanks. Many thanks go to my colleagues of the RVS group and of the IAM for our various interesting discussions about all kinds of topics and for making the institute a very pleasant and friendly place to work at. Special thanks go to David Steiner, Marc Steinemann, Matthias Scheidegger, Florian Baumgartner, Ruy De Oliveira, and Attila Weyland. There are many students who worked with me and helped a lot in developing and implementing. Among them I especially thankful to Thomas Bernoulli,

RECHERCHES Elastographie par ondes de cisaillement

of statistical mechanics. Examples of such active units in complex physico-chemical and biological systems are chemically pow-ered nano-rods, localized patterns in reaction-diffusion system, motile cells or macroscopic animals. Based on the description of individual motion of point-like active particles