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Environmental Geology : Handbook of Field Methods and Case Studies
As earth’s population continues to grow and the detrimental aftereffects of industrialization and environmental negligence become more apparent, society has become more aware of, and concerned about, stewardship of the natural environment – water, soil, and air. Sustainable development has become more widely received and promoted in many parts of the world. The need is now critical for earth and environmental scientists and engineers to work together to implement technologies that can preserve our environment. The Earth’s population was 6.6 billion as of April 2007 according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This number is expected to rise to 9.4 billion by 2050. The population is increasing the demand for natural resources and energy, and increasing stress on the environment. Thus, protection of the environment and remediation of damage to the environment must be a priority. It is also important to develop procedures that will help to avert further damage to the environment and to recognize as early as possible the risks associated with changes in the environment. Many methodologies and technologies have become more advanced in the past few decades, and new technologies and approaches have been developed, all to address the growing need for environmental assessment, monitoring, and remediation. As these technologies have grown, the need for interdisciplinary cooperation has also become more apparent.
Environmental Effects of Marine Finfish Aquaculture
Environmental risks associated with large-scale marine finfish cage aquaculture have led to claims that the long-term sustainability of the industry is in doubt. Methods and models currently used to measure near and far-field environmental effects of finfish mariculture and to assess their implications for management are presented in 20 chapters arranged in four sections (Eutrophication, Sedimentation and Benthic Impacts, Changes in Trophic Structure and Function, and Managing Environmental Risks). Case studies show how models may be used to predict environmental changes and provide management tools to minimize potentially adverse environmental risks. The volume is of interest to those working towards sustainable development of mariculture, including environmental managers and decision-makers with regulatory responsibilities.
Environmental Effects of Afforestation in North-Western Europe : From Field Observations to Decision Support
Recognising the need for effective decision making in relation to land-use change, this timely book develops a series of tools for estimating the environmental impacts of afforestation. It also presents guidelines and decision support systems (DSS) to enable both policy makers and forest managers to maximize the benefits and minimize the adverse effects of afforestation. This book will provide a valuable resource for both graduate students and researchers in forest, environmental and biological sciences, as well as for landscape planners and policy makers involved in afforestation projects at local, regional and international levels.
Environmental Crises
This book studies the art and science of analyzing, assessing and anticipating environmental change. Among the issues considered are the observational evidence, statistical analysis and dynamic modeling as well as visioning of not-implausible changes in the environment, the changing public perception of the environment, functions of the environment and its use. Coverage also reviews a series of four prominent cases, namely climate change, the emissions of gasoline lead into the atmosphere and water bodies, fisheries policies and the management of marine oil pollution.
Environmental Chemistry : Green Chemistry and Pollutants in Ecosystems
Environmental chemistry is a new, fast developing science aimed at deciphering fundamental mechanisms ruling the behaviour of pollutants in ecosystems. Applying this knowledge to current environmental issues leads to the remediation of environmental media, and to new, low energy, low emission, sustainable processes. This book describes the state-of-the-art advances regarding the pollution of water, soils, atmosphere, food and living organisms by toxic metals, fossil fuels, pesticides and other organic pollutants. Furthermore, the eco-toxicology section presents novel bio-assays to assess the toxicity of various pollutants such as dioxins and endocrine disrupters within complex media. The green chemistry section highlights novel chemical reactions based upon environmentally friendly conditions. The analytical chemistry section describes very sensitive methods which trace the fate of pollutants in complex ecosystems.
Environmental change and human security : Recognizing and acting on hazard impacts
This book focuses on the linkage between human and environmental security and takes both a conceptual and a pragmatic approach to complex environmental issues (such as soil erosion, desertification, water degradation, demographic shifts, food security and agricultural prospects, urbanization trends, hazard-induced migrations) that affect human security. The book is the direct outcome of a NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW), sponsored by the Science for Peace and Security Programme (SPS), Salve Regina University, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The book summarizes the collective work of both natural and social science disciplines in regard to how best address, mitigate, adapt, or achieve resilience
Environmental Challenges in Civil Engineering II
Rports on findings concerning structural material behavior, and new methods and technologies in constructions. A special emphasis is given to sustainable constructions practices, including material recycling and reuse, renovation and restoration of historical building and to those fostering sustainable development of cities and rural areas, and a better integration of buildings with the environment. Offering a good balance of theory and practice, and covering both technical and organizational aspects in civil engineering and architectural projects, this book offers extensive information on solutions and current challenges in construction projects and structural interventions in the context of environmental protection and earthquake prevention.
Environmental Bioremediation Technologies
Environmental contamination from both natural and anthropogenic sources is, today, a major environmental concern due to pervasiveness and persistence of many toxicants. It is considered as an inevitable evil of our progress and modernization. To decontaminate the soils, sediments and waters, polluted by anthropogenic activities, the scientists and technologists have evolved different technologies over the years. Although we have to pay high cost for physical and chemical environmental technologies, but they are not eco-friendly and safe. Hence, it was deeply realized to develop viable technologies employing microbes and plants to remediate not only metallic residues and radionuclides, but also the xenobiotic compounds like PCBs, PAHs, PCPs, petroleum sludge and the military wastes. No doubt, the scientists have also got some success in this endeavour and as the result, many companies are in place today to promote the sale of plant or microbe-based technologies to deal with specific environmental contamination challenges. Besides, these technologies are se- driven and do not disturb the sites in cleaning process.
Environmental and Resource Valuation with Revealed Preferences : A Theoretical Guide to Empirical Models
Environmental and Resource Valuation with Revealed Preferences: A Theoretical Guide to Empirical Models provides a systematic review of those economic approaches for valuing the environment and natural resources that use information on what people do, not what they say.
Environmental and Microbial Relationships
After the publication of Volume IV in 1997, the introduction of molecular methods into ecology led to significant new findings. Emphasizing these advances, the chapters for the second edition have been completely updated and revised. This volume provides insight into current research on fungal populations and communities. It focuses on fungal responses to the physical environment, interactions with other fungi, microorganisms and invertebrates, the role of fungi in ecosystem processes such as decomposition and nutrient cycling, and aspects of biogeography and conservation. Several chapters deal with various applications in, e.g. biological pest control, natural products discovery, and the degradation of toxic organic compounds. This is an invaluable source of information both for scientists who wish to update their knowledge of current progress and for graduate students interested in obtaining a first overview of this field of research.
Environmental and Health Risk Assessment and Management : Principles and Practices
The book covers the essential aspects of environmental and health law, environmental economics, applied statistical and probabilistic methods, fundamental notions of applied epidemiology and toxicology, as well as decision analysis, to provide an integrated overview of how risk assessment and management combine to produce sound societal outcomes. Risk-based methods play a pivotal role in identifying and ranking alternative, sustainable choices, while accounting for uncertainty and variability. Specifically, most reductions in risks require a balancing of the costs and benefits associated with the action to reduce exposure to a hazard and thus risk. This balancing necessarily involves linking exposure and response through causation. Fundamentally, in risk assessment and management, science and law intersect through legal and scientific causation to the point that the failure to provide a sound causal argument can make an otherwise beneficial law or regulation invalid.
Environment Learning for Indoor Mobile Robots : A Stochastic State Estimation Approach to Simultaneous Localization and Map Building
This monograph covers theoretical aspects of simultaneous localization and map building for mobile robots, such as estimation stability, nonlinear models for the propagation of uncertainties, temporal landmark compatibility, as well as issues pertaining the coupling of control and SLAM. One of the most relevant topics covered in this monograph is the theoretical formalism of partial observability in SLAM. The authors show that the typical approach to SLAM using a Kalman filter results in marginal filter stability, making the final reconstruction estimates dependant on the initial vehicle estimates. However, by anchoring the map to a fixed landmark in the scene, they are able to attain full observability in SLAM, with reduced covariance estimates.
Enumerative Invariants in Algebraic Geometry and String Theory : Lectures given at the C.I.M.E. Summer School held in Cetraro, Italy June 6–11, 2005
Starting in the middle of the 80s, there has been a growing and fruitful interaction between algebraic geometry and certain areas of theoretical high-energy physics, especially the various versions of string theory. Physical heuristics have provided inspiration for new mathematical definitions (such as that of Gromov-Witten invariants) leading in turn to the solution of problems in enumerative geometry. Conversely, the availability of mathematically rigorous definitions and theorems has benefited the physics research by providing the required evidence in fields where experimental testing seems problematic. The aim of this volume, a result of the CIME Summer School held in Cetraro, Italy, in 2005, is to cover part of the most recent and interesting findings in this subject.
Entry Inhibitors in HIV Therapy
The introductory chapters of this book present an overview of entry inhibitors, review current knowledge of how Env mediates entry, and discuss the challenge of genetic diversity in this region of the viral genome. Subsequent chapters feature current information on individual classes of entry inhibitors that target each step of the virus entry pathway, from attachment to membrane fusion. There is an emphasis on the complex determinants of entry inhibitor susceptibility, resistance mechanisms, the need for clinical phenotyping, and how these issues create new challenges for antiretroviral therapy. Encouraging pre-clinical studies of entry inhibitors as microbicidesare also discussed. The final chapters highlight the current status of entry inhibitors in clinical studies, the major milestone achieved with FDA approval of enfuvirtide, and review drug development, past and present.
Entropy, Search, Complexity
The present volume is a collection of survey papers in the fields of entropy, search and complexity. They summarize the latest developments in their respective areas.More than half of the papers belong to search theory which lies on the borderline of mathematics and computer science, information theory and combinatorics, respectively. Search theory has variegated applications, among others in bioinformatics. Some of these papers also have links to linear statistics and communicational complexity.
Entropy Methods for the Boltzmann Equation : Lectures from a Special Semester at the Centre Émile Borel, Institut H. Poincaré, Paris, 2001
Entropy and entropy production have recently become mathematical tools for kinetic and hydrodynamic limits, when deriving the macroscopic behaviour of systems from the interaction dynamics of their many microscopic elementary constituents at the atomic or molecular level. During a special semester on Hydrodynamic Limits at the Centre Émile Borel in Paris, 2001 two of the research courses were held by C. Villani and F. Rezakhanlou. Both illustrate the major role of entropy and entropy production in a mutual and complementary manner and have been written up and updated for joint publication. Villani describes the mathematical theory of convergence to equilibrium for the Boltzmann equation and its relation to various problems and fields, including information theory, logarithmic Sobolev inequalities and fluid mechanics. Rezakhanlou discusses four conjectures for the kinetic behaviour of the hard sphere models and formulates four stochastic variations of this model, also reviewing known results for these.
Entropy and Energy : A Universal Competition
Entropy and Energy- a Universal Competition" is a students textbook as well as a scientific monograph. The concepts of entropy and energy embody the effects of random walk in a body and of deterministic strife respectively, and are therefore often in competition. The book gives instructive examples from elementary thermodynamics and physico-chemistry and extrapolates the notion to non-standard thermodynamic subjects like shape memory, dissipation of the earth's atmosphere, and sociology
Entrepreneurship, the new economy and public policy : Schumpeterian perspectives
Silicon Valley is the most salient example of high-tech industrial clusters. Public policy makers throughout the world would like to learn the secrets of Silicon Valley in order to build their own high-tech economies. The existing literature on ind- trial clusters, which traces back to Marshall (1920), focuses on the way in which ?rms bene?t from locating in a cluster; it suggests that once a cluster comes into existence However, a more important question is how to reach this critical mass in the ?rst place. In contrast to the literature, evidence suggests that entrepreneurs rarely move when they est- lish high-tech start-ups. This contradicts the notion that location choice analyses lead entrepreneurs to a high-tech cluster. A high-tech industrial cluster such as Silicon Valley is characterized by c- centrated entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship, Growth, and Innovation : The Dynamics of Firms and Industries
This book is recommendable reading for all those scholars and students who want to become more familiar with recent theoretical advances and empirical results in the economics of entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic growth.
Entrepreneurship Policy : Theory and Practice
Entrepreneurship Policy: Theory and Practice is the first book to fully analyze the construction of entrepreneurship policy, a rapidly-evolving area of policy about which little is known. From a study and assessment of the practices of governments in thirteen countries in Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific region, this book fully describes the policy area and shares new tools and methods for better understanding and explaining the how and why of an entrepreneurship policy approach. Methods of note include the entrepreneurship policy comprehensiveness index and the context method. It presents a conceptual model describing the many factors which affect, in a dynamic way, the level of entrepreneurship in a country or region. It also describes a typology of entrepreneurship policy which will be useful to others in categorizing their policy approaches.
