Agroecology now! : Transformations towards more just and sustainable food systems
Develops a framework for advancing agroecology transformations focusing on power, politics and governance. It explores the potential of agroecology as a sustainable and socially just alternative to today’s dominant food regime. Agroecology is an ecological approach to farming that addresses climate change and biodiversity loss while contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals
Agriculture and Climate Beyond 2015 : A New Perspective on Future Land Use Patterns
Interactions between agriculture, climate and patterns of land use are complex. Major changes in agriculture, and land use patterns are foreseen in the next couple of decades in response to shifts in climate, greenhouse gas management initiatives, population growth and other forces. The book explores key interactions between changes in agriculture, patterns of land use and efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions from agriculture. The volume is based on inter-disciplinary science and policy interactions, exploring the way land use may aid in addressing or be affected by the onset of climate change and alterations in food demand. Future forces shaping land use decisions are examined, and its sensitivity to climate change is highlighted. Patterns of land use and the agricultural role in climate change mitigation are explored. Also, policy and social responses to the new perspectives on future land use patterns are identified. The perspective of the book is beyond the year 2015.
Advances in semantic media adaptation and personalization
Realizing the growing importance of semantic adaptation and personalization of media, the editors of this book brought together leading researchers and practitioners of the field to discuss the state-of-the-art, and explore emerging exciting developments. This volume comprises extended versions of selected papers presented at the 1st International Workshop on Semantic Media Adaptation and Personalization (SMAP 2006).
Advances in Discrete Tomography and its Applications
Advances in Discrete Tomography and Its Applications is a unified presentation of new methods, algorithms, and select applications that are the foundations of multidimensional image reconstruction by discrete tomographic methods. The self-contained chapters, written by leading mathematicians, engineers, and computer scientists, present cutting-edge research and results in the field.Three main areas are covered: foundations, algorithms, and practical applications. Following an introduction that reports the recent literature of the field, the book explores various mathematical and computational problems of discrete tomography including new applications.
Advanced Visual Quantum Mechanics
Investigate and to teach quantum mechanics with the aid of computer-generated animations. It is a self-contained textbook that combines selected topics from atomic physics (spherical symmetry, the hydrogen atom, and particles with spin) with an introduction to quantum information theory (qubits, EPR paradox, teleportation, quantum computers). It explores relativistic quantum mechanics and the strange behavior of Dirac equation solutions. A series of appendices covers important topics from perturbation and scattering theory. The book places an emphasis on ideas and concepts, with a fair to moderate amount of mathematical rigor. Though this book stands alone, it can also be paired with Thaller Visual Quantum Mechanics to form a comprehensive course in quantum mechanics. The software for the first book earned the European Academic Software Award 2000 for outstanding innovation in its field.
Advanced memory optimization techniques for low-power embedded processors
this book explores a collaborative approach by proposing novel memory hierarchies and software optimization techniques for the optimal utilization of these memory hierarchies. Linking memory architecture design with memory-architecture aware compilation results in fast, energy-efficient and timing predictable memory accesses.The evaluation of the optimization techniques using real-life benchmarks for a single processor system, a multiprocessor system-on-chip (SoC) and for a digital signal processor system, reports significant reductions in the energy consumption and performance improvement of these systems. The book presents a wide range of optimizations, progressively increasing in the complexity of analysis and of memory hierarchies. The final chapter covers optimization techniques for applications consisting of multiple processes found in most modern embedded devices.
Advanced BDD Optimization
This book gives a modern presentation of the established as well as of recent concepts. Latest results in BDD optimization are given, c- ering di?erent aspects of paths in BDDs and the use of e?cient lower bounds during optimization. The presented algorithms include Branch ? and Bound and the generic A -algorithm as e?cient techniques to - plore large search spaces. ? The A -algorithm originates from Arti?cial Intelligence (AI), and the EDA community has been unaware of this concept for a long time. Re- ? cently, the A -algorithm has been introduced as a new paradigm to explore design spaces in VLSI CAD. Besides AI search techniques, the book also discusses the relation to another ?eld of activity bordered to VLSI CAD and BDD optimization: the clausal representation as a SAT problem.
Adaptive Techniques for Dynamic Processor Optimization : Theory and Practice
This book discusses the different approaches and responses to adaptive techniques used for processor power, frequency and functionality optimization. Adaptive Techniques for Dynamic Processor Optimization: Theory and Practice includes chapter contributions that explore promising approaches and present the supporting data.
Accessing and Sharing the Benefits of the Genomics Revolution
This edited volume explores the legal, economic and political context for the debate about intellectual property rights for traditional knowledge and genetic resources and critically analyses the theory and practice of access and benefits sharing efforts around the world. The book also investigates the current flashpoints—the David and Goliath battle between Monsanto and Percy Schmeiser over farmers’ rights; the dispute over coexistence of GM and organic production; and the ownership and control of human genetic materials stored in human gene banks around the world.
A Subtle and Mysterious Machine : The Medical World of Walter Charleton (1619-1707)
Walter Charleton (1619-1707) has been widely depicted as a natural philosopher whose intellectual career mirrored the intellectual ferment of the ‘scientific revolution’. Instead of viewing him as a barometer of intellectual change, I examine the previously unexplored question of his identity as a physician. Examining three of his vernacular medical texts, this volume considers Charleton’s thoughts on anatomy, physiology and the methods by which he sought to understand the invisible processes of the body.
A Space of Their Own : The Archaeology of Nineteenth Century Lunatic Asylums in Britain, South Australia and Tasmania
The history of lunatic asylums – what do we really know about them? Films and television programs have portrayed them as places of horror where the patients are restrained and left to listen to the cries of their fellow inmates in despair. But what was the world of nineteenth century lunatic asylums really like? Are these images true? This book will explore this world using the techniques of historical archaeology and history.
A Short Media History of English Literature
Explores the history of literature as a history of changing media and modes of communication, from manuscript to print, from the codex to the computer, and from paper to digital platforms. It argues that literature has evolved, and continues to evolve, in sync with material forms and formats that engage our senses in multiple ways. Because literary experiences are embedded in, and enabled by, media, the book focuses on literature as a changing combination of material and immaterial features.
A Roadmap for Formal Property Verification
This book develops the answers to these questions and fits them into a roadmap for formal property verification – a roadmap that shows how to glue FPV technology into the traditional validation flow. A Roadmap for Formal Property Verification explores the key issues in this powerful technology through simple examples – you do not need any background on formal methods to read most parts of this book.
A History of Male Psychological Disorders in Britain, 1945–1980
Explores the under-researched history of male mental illness from the mid-twentieth century. It argues that statistics suggesting women have been more vulnerable to depression and anxiety are misleading since they underplay a host of alternative presentations of 'distress' more common in men.
A Comprehensible Universe : The Interplay of Science and Theology
Why is our world comprehensible? This question seems so trivial that few people have dared to ask it. In this book we explore the deep roots of the mystery of rationality. The inquiry into the rationality of the world began over two-and-a-half-thousand years ago, when a few courageous people tried to understand the world with the help of reason alone, rejecting the comforting fabric of myth and legend.
A Biomass Future for the North American Great Plains : Toward Sustainable Land Use and Mitigation of Greenhouse Warming
The Great Plains of North America is a major global breadbasket but its agriculture is stressed by drought, heat spells, damaging winds, soil erosion and declining ground water resources. This book explores the possibility that the ecology and economy of the Plains region (and similar regions) would benefit from the introduction of perennial biomass crops. Biomass production and processing on the Plains (possibly aided by genetic engineering) would partially restore a perennial vegetative cover and create new employment opportunities. Biomass also offers a means of reducing fossil fuel use, providing fuel to local power plants and a feedstock for production of cellulosic ethanol, a gasoline substitute. Interest in biofuels is growing rapidly in public, political and business circles with rising fossil fuel prices and because of a growing recognition of the need for energy independence in petroleum importing countries.
25 Years of Transformations of Higher Education Systems in Post-Soviet Countries : Reform and Continuity
A result of the first ever study of the transformations of the higher education institutional landscape in fifteen former USSR countries after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It explores how the single Soviet model that developed across the vast and diverse territory of the Soviet Union over several decades has evolved into fifteen unique national systems, systems that have responded to national and global developments while still bearing some traces of the past. The book is distinctive as it presents a comprehensive analysis of the reforms and transformations in the region in the last 25 years; and it focuses on institutional landscape through the evolution of the institutional types established and developed in Pre-Soviet, Soviet and Post-Soviet time. It also embraces all fifteen countries of the former USSR, and provides a comparative analysis of transformations of institutional landscape across Post-Soviet systems.
















