Advances in Integrated Soil Fertility Research in sub-Saharan Africa : Challenges and Opportunities
Food insecurity is a central concern and a fundamental challenge for human welfare and economic growth in Africa. Low agricultural production, results in low incomes, poor nutrition, vulnerability to risks and lack of empowerment. Land degradation and soil fertility depletion are considered the major threats to food security and natural resource conservation in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Investments in technology, policy and institutional reforms are needed to increase agricultural productivity to ensure food security and sustained national economies. Past research has generated numerous soil fertility management technologies which if adopted could propel the African continent out of the poverty trap. However, these technologies have had little, if any, impact due to low adoption by the smallholder farmers.
3D printing of pharmaceutical and drug delivery devices progress from bench to bedside
Discover the latest, fast-developing technology to help move towards more cost-effective, small-batch, decentralized manufacturing of personalized systems . 3D printing has revolutionized manufacturing. Its precision and flexibility have enabled the large-scale production of materials and devices too complex for conventional industrial manufacturing. This has been particularly revolutionary in the field of pharmaceutical production, where 3D printing is being integrated into the manufacture of both drugs and drug delivery devices. It has never been more important for industry professionals to understand this form of production.
Materials for Information Technology : Devices, Interconnects and Packaging
The Engineering Materials and Processes series focuses on all forms of materials and the processes used to synthesise and formulate them as they relate to the various engineering disciplines.
JDF : Process Integration, Technology, Product Description
The arrival of PDF has successfully optimized certain elements of the production workflow – the next challenge facing the print media industry is to resolve the problem of non-networked software packages that exist in isolation. Businesses today need to identify process inefficiencies to ensure the successful process integration of the entire value added chain. The PDF document format and the vendor-independent JDF (Job Definition Format) provide the technical platform for devising new, fully integrated workflow solutions. Networking decisions involve virtually every department of a print service provider and lay down the direction of the company over the long term. These decisions offer opportunities, but they also harbor risks. If businesses are to make the right investment decisions, it is vital they have extensive background information on technical and business management issues. The authors provide focused information for decision makers looking for support in implementing networking projects successfully. This book is couched in straightforward language, explains and highlights relevant terms, and provides readers with numerous practical illustrations, graphics and checklists that they can apply to real-life applications.
Building a Data Warehouse : With Examples in SQL Server
The book is organized as follows. In the beginning of this book (chapters 1 through 6), you learn how to build a data warehouse, for example, defining the architecture, understanding the methodology, gathering the requirements, designing the data models, and creating the databases. Then in chapters 7 through 10, you learn how to populate the data warehouse, for example, extracting from source systems, loading the data stores, maintaining data quality, and utilizing the metadata. After you populate the data warehouse, in chapters 11 through 15, you explore how to present data to users using reports and multidimensional databases and how to use the data in the data warehouse for business intelligence, customer relationship management, and other purposes. Chapters 16 and 17 wrap up the book: After you have built your data warehouse, before it can be released to production, you need to test it thoroughly. After your application is in production, you need to understand how to administer data warehouse operation.
Beginning Ruby on Rails E-Commerce : From novice to professional
Beginning Ruby on Rails E-Commerce: From Novice to Professional is the first book of its kind to guide you through producing e-commerce applications with Rails, the stacked web framework taking the world by storm. The book dives right into the process of creating a production-level web application using agile methodologies and test-driven development combined with Rails best practices.
Android Essentials
Android Essentials is a no–frills, no–nonsense, code–centric run through the guts of application development on Google's Mobile OS. This book uses the development of a sample application to work through topics, focusing on giving developers the essential tools and examples required to make viable commercial applications work. Covering the entirety of the Android catalog in less than 150 pages is simply impossible. Instead, this book focuses on just four main topics: the application life cycle and OS integration, user interface, location–based services, and networking.
Analysis and Development of Sustainable Urban Production Systems
Manufacturing of products in urban production sites is connected to unique potentials, yet also to specific challenges. Urban factories can provide functional diversity and contribute positive impacts to a city. The concept of urban production receives rising attention in research and industry and it is recognized in its interdisciplinary nature. With a holistic approach from both the urban perspective and the factory perspective, negative impacts can be minimized, positive effects enabled and mutually beneficial, symbiotic combinations created. The presented framework and methods for the evaluation and implementation of sustainable urban production systems allow the assessment of impacts and provide the means to control and utilize the unique strengths of urban factories for cities and industry. This will allow a structured derivation of methods and measures from the concept of urban production for producing enterprises and the urban stakeholders.
Ambisonics : A Practical 3D Audio Theory for Recording, Studio Production, Sound Reinforcement, and Virtual Reality
Provides a concise explanation of the fundamentals and background of the surround sound recording and playback technology Ambisonics. It equips readers with the psychoacoustical, signal processing, acoustical, and mathematical knowledge needed to understand the inner workings of modern processing utilities, special equipment for recording, manipulation, and reproduction in the higher-order Ambisonic format. The book comes with various practical examples based on free software tools and open scientific data for reproducible research. The book includes an extensive mathematical appendix. The book offers readers a deeper understanding of Ambisonic technologies, and will especially benefit scientists, audio-system and audio-recording engineers.
Advances in Production Technology
This edited volume contains the selected papers presented at the scientific board meeting of the German Cluster of Excellence on “Integrative Production Technology for High-Wage Countries”, held in November 2014. The topical structure of the book is clustered in six sessions: Integrative Production Technology, Individualised Production, Virtual Production Systems, Integrated Technologies, Self-Optimising Production Systems and Human Factors in Production Technology. The Aachen perspective on a holistic theory of production is complemented by conference papers from external leading researchers in the fields of production, materials science and bordering disciplines.
A Computational Model of Natural Language Communication : Interpretation, Inference, and Production in Database Semantics
Part I of this book presents a high-level description of an artificial agent which humans can freely communicate with in their accustomed language. Part II analyzes the major constructions of natural language, i.e., intra- and extrapropositional functor - argument structure, coordination, and coreference, in the speaker and the hearer mode. Part III defines declarative specifications for fragments of English, which are used for an implementation in Java.
3D Printing in Oral Health Science : Applications and Future Directions
Equips readers with a sound understanding of contemporary clinical applications in all fields of dentistry and their future directions. In the last few years, the development of 3D printing for medical and dental applications has increased tremendously. Advancements in 3D printing create the possibility of customized products, savings on small-scale productions, ease of sharing and processing of patient image data, and educational up-gradation. Looking at the dental specialties, it is evident that 3D printing has applications in all aspects of oral health science including prosthodontics, oral surgery, periodontics, endodontics, and orthodontics. This book will cover all major fields in dentistry and will help the practitioner in the process of decision-making and apply concepts in clinical or laboratory practice. It is based on current scientific evidence to provide readers with an up-to-date contemporary underst
Managing Socio-ecological Production Landscapes and Seascapes for Sustainable Communities in Asia : Mapping and Navigating Stakeholders, Policy and Action
This book presents up-to-date analyses of community-based approaches to sustainable resource management of SEPLS (socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes) in areas where a harmonious relationship between the natural environment and the people who inhabit it is essential to ensure community and environmental well-being as well as to build resilience in the ecosystems that support this well-being.
Civil Engineering Materials for Transportation Infrastructure
Includes the fundamental mechanical and physical properties of materials; properties, tests, and gradation designs of aggregates; production, composition, hydration, properties, and tests of lime and cement; composition, tests, and design of cement concrete; mechanisms, properties, and design of inorganic binder stabilized material; properties, tests, and grading of asphalt; composition, properties, tests, and designs of asphalt mixture; and properties, treatments, tests, and selections of steel.
Alternative concrete - geopolymer concrete : Emerging research and opportunities
Focuses on fly ash-based alkali-activated geopolymer concrete, its production and characteristic properties. The re-use of waste materials and industrial by-products, such as fly ash, is not only economically of interest but also helps to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The carbon footprint of these materials is much lower than that of concrete using ordinary Portland cement. They thus offer new sustainable solutions to the construction industry.
Advances in sustainable materials and technology
Discusses numerous relevant areas and innovative technologies, such as key construction materials and production, materials with lower energy impact, production processes encouraging less use of ever-depleting natural raw materials, minimization of the generation of greenhouse gases, development of new, environmentally friendly materials and agents, characterization of the properties of construction materials, and methodologies applied in the building of structures.
Advanced structural mechanics : An introduction to continuum mechanics and structural mechanics
In recent years an increasing emphasis has been placed on numerically based methods of structural analysis. This has been reflected in the production of structural mechanics texts that are orientated towards particular numerical methodologies, especially the finite element method. Whilst this approach serves the needs of potential research' engineers, a concentration on the numerical analysis aspects of structural mechanics is of less relevance to professional' engineers, who are likely to be concerned with the use and interpretation of numerical analyses, but not in the development of the methodologies.
Marketing for Sustainable Development : Rethinking Consumption Models
Many people see a weak association between marketing and sustainable development and even consider them as two incompatible fields. However, marketing benefits from an extremely powerful position to encourage transformations at the production level and to guide consumers towards responsible behaviors. From its inception, marketing has been positioned as a support for the relationship between the company and its customers, with the quest for well-being set in the very foundations of the discipline.
Marine Resource Conservation and Poverty Reduction Strategies in Tanzania
Despite the social, nutritional, economical and environmental importance of Tanzanian coastal areas, yet they are vulnerable to both over-exploitation and degradation of their habitats. Using the data from two coastal villages and econometric methods as well as Stochastic Production Frontier techniques, the book demonstrates the extent which various socio-economic dimensions of rural coastal households influence livelihood pathways, production efficiency and attitudes towards conservation initiatives. Thus, attention to differential patterns of rural coastal households presents more viable possibilities for coastal villages to have conservation-development policies/programs that lead to poverty reduction.
Managing Business Interfaces : Marketing and Engineering Issues in the Supply Chain and Internet Domains
Within companies and organizations there is an increased emphasis on making different functional areas work together seamlessly. These developments have led to an increased emphasis on research and practice in business that integrate the functional areas within and between business entities. The research community has recognized the importance of addressing these different, and often conflicting, business perspectives. This has led to research streams that address issues characterizing the domain of business interfaces. These include the benefits of coordination, new product development, product portfolio management, supply chain coordination, and partnerships and collaboration in the Internet space.



















