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Managed Ecosystems and CO2 : Case Studies, Processes, and Perspectives
Managed ecosystems cover a large part of the Earth's land surface, provide almost all of our food and most of our wood and fibre, and are increasingly a source of renewable energy. Forecasting the ability of managed ecosystems to continue these vital roles in a globally changing environment is an inter-disciplinary challenge. To elucidate the complex responses of managed systems to elevated [CO2], several free air carbon dioxide enrichment (FACE) facilities were established. These FACE systems allow large areas to be exposed to the elevated [CO2] we expect by the middle of the century. This volume summarizes the main findings from 13 experiments with annual crops, permanent pastures and plantation forests at 11 sites throughout the world during the past ten years. The results significantly alter our perception of how rising [CO2] will directly affect these managed ecosystems, with implications for policy, plant-breeding objectives and adaptation.
Malnutrition therapy by CMAM training
This research aims at spotting the light on the problem of malnutrition: its causes and effects, and trying to find possible solutions by using CMAM Program. Severe wasting is the most widespread form of severe acute malnutrition, affecting an estimated 17 million children globally. This analysis assesses the effectiveness of community management of acute malnutrition (CMAM) program.
Making Globally Distributed Software Development a Success Story : International Conference on Software Process, ICSP 2008 Leipzig, Germany, May 10-11, 2008 Proceedings
This volume contains papers presented at the International Conference on Software Process (ICSP 2008) held in Leipzig, Germany, during May 10-11, 2008. ICSP 2008 was the second conference of the ICSP series. The theme of ICSP 2008 was “Making Globally Distributed Software Development a Success Story. ” Software developers work in a dynamic context of frequently changing technologies and with limited resources. Globally distributed development teams are under ev- increasing pressure to deliver their products more quickly and with higher levels of qu- ity. At the same time, global competition is forcing software development organizations to cut costs by rationalizing processes, outsourcing part of or all development activities, reusing existing software in new or modified applications, and evolving existing systems to meet new needs, while still minimizing the risk of projects failing to deliver.
Making European Merger Policy More Predictable
Making European Merger Policy More Predictable analyses European Merger Control with regard to its capacity to generate predictability among the concerned parties. Starting from the premise that predictability is of overwhelming importance for the functioning of market economies, Voigt and Schmidt ask to what degree European Merger Control has been predictable over the last couple of years. The authors show both theoretically and empirically that there have been serious shortcomings with regard to the predictability of competition policy. They identify the insufficient recognition of the consequences of globalization on the competitive processes as well as an often inconsistent application of economic theory as the root causes for the lack of predictability. The inconsistent application of economic theory is particularly relevant with regard to potential competition and the evaluation of collective dominance. The authors generate a substantial number of proposals that could help to improve predictability. On this basis, Voigt and Schmidt critically assess the recent reforms of European Merger Control.
Macrophytes in Aquatic Ecosystems : from Biology to Management ; Proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on Aquatic Weeds, European Weed Research Society
Macrophytes and macrophytes ecology have gained an added importance with the introduction of, and legal requirement to implement, the European Water Framework Directive. This reflects the valuable role that aquatic plant communities play in assessing the ecological status of water bodies. Significant changes in the status and general abundance of these communities has been recorded in the last three decades, consequent on such factors as global warming and, increasingly, on the spread of aggressive alien species. These changes have been most felt in those waters that are exploited for amenity and recreational pursuits. The increased biomass of aquatic vegetation in water bodies has adversely impacted on leisure use of these systems but has also impacted on their use for agricultural, flood relief, municipal and domestic purposes. The loss to national economies resulting from this excessive plant biomass has been appreciable and has put pressure on water managers to develop weed control procedures that are efficient, environmentally sensitive and cost-effective.
Macro-Engineering : A Challenge for the Future
Macro-engineering involves the large-scale modification and manipulation of natural systems for the benefit of mankind. The primary goals of some Earth-based macroprojects described in this book are power production, land reclamation, food production, climate change, environment, water, transport and coastal protection. Other Earth or space projects considered here have a more futuristic ring, but our present-day technical skill makes their realization possible. Earth-based macroprojects usually combine different aspects and aims. They have a major impact on the ecology of a region and the inhabitants' means of living (like tourism, fishing, shipping). Its effects may be felt worldwide, like the rise in global sea level after the damming and evaporation of large ocean gulfs for power production, or the change in climate following the regional reduction of solar insolation.
Machine Learning and Cognitive Computing for Mobile Communications and Wireless Networks
Communication and network technology has witnessed recent rapid development and numerous information services and applications have been developed globally. These technologies have high impact on society and the way people are leading their lives. The advancement in technology has undoubtedly improved the quality of service and user experience yet a lot needs to be still done. Some areas that still need improvement include seamless wide-area coverage, high-capacity hot-spots, low-power massive-connections, low-latency and high-reliability and so on. Thus, it is highly desirable to develop smart technologies for communication to improve the overall services and management of wireless communication. Machine learning and cognitive computing have converged to give some groundbreaking solutions for smart machines. With these two technologies coming together, the machines can acquire the ability to reason similar to the human brain. The research area of machine learning and cognitive computing cover many fields like psychology, biology, signal processing, physics, information theory, mathematics, and statistics that can be used effectively for topology management. Therefore, the utilization of machine learning techniques like data analytics and cognitive power will lead to better performance of communication and wireless systems.
Machine Learning : Modeling Data Locally and Globally
Machine Learning - Modeling Data Locally and Globally presents a novel and unified theory that tries to seamlessly integrate different algorithms. Specifically, the book distinguishes the inner nature of machine learning algorithms as either "local learning"or "global learning."This theory not only connects previous machine learning methods, or serves as roadmap in various models, but – more importantly – it also motivates a theory that can learn from data both locally and globally. This would help the researchers gain a deeper insight and comprehensive understanding of the techniques in this field. The book reviews current topics,new theories and applications.
Low-Cost Country Sourcing : Trends and Implications
Globalization has induced immense cost pressure in most industries. In combination with the economic downturn after the turn of the century, companies are increasingly looking for new ways of reducing costs and increasing shareholder value. From this perspective, low-cost country sourcing has proved to be an effective means to realize cost-saving targets. Although many external key success factors have been identified, relatively little is known about intra-firm factors that can influence the outcome of low-cost country sourcing initiatives.
Logistics Systems : Design and Optimization
In a context of global competition, the optimization of logistics systems is inescapable. LOGISTICS SYSTEMS: Design and Optimization falls within this perspective and presents twelve chapters that well illustrate the variety and the complexity of logistics activities. Each chapter is written by recognized researchers who have been commissioned to survey a specific topic or emerging area of logistics. The first chapter, by Riopel, Langevin, and Campbell, develops a framework for the entire book. It classifies logistics decisions and highlights the relevant linkages to logistics decisions. The intricacy of these linkages demonstrates how thoroughly the decisions are interrelated and underscores the complexity of managing logistics activities. Each of the following chapters focus on quantitative methods for the design and optimization of logistics systems.
Location- and Context-Awareness ; Vol. 3479 ; First International Workshop, LoCA 2005, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, May 12-13, 2005, Proceedings
The workshop was organized by the Institute of Communications and Navigation of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Oberpfa?enhofen, and the Mobile and Distributed Systems Group of the University of Munich. During the workshop, novel positioning algorithms and location sensing techniques were discussed, comprising not only enhancements of singular systems, like positioning in GSM or WLAN, but also hybrid technologies, such as the integration of global satellite systems with inertial positioning. Furthermore, improvements in sensor technology, as well as the integration and fusion of sensors, were addressed both on a theoretical and on an implementation level. Personal and confidential data, such as location data of users, have p- found implications for personal information privacy. Thus privacy protection, privacy-oriented location-aware systems, and how privacy aspects the feasibility and usefulness of systems were also addressed in the workshop.
Local Pattern Detection ; International Seminar Dagstuhl Castle, Germany, April 12-16, 2004, Revised Selected Papers
Introduction The dramatic increase in available computer storage capacity over the last 10 years has led to the creation of very large databases of scienti?c and commercial information. The need to analyze these masses of data has led to the evolution of the new field knowledge discovery in databases (KDD) at the intersection of machine learning, statistics and database technology. Being interdisciplinary by nature, the field offers the opportunity to combine the expertise of different fields into a common objective. Moreover, within each field diverse methods have been developed and justified with respect to different quality criteria. We have to investigate how these methods can contributet o solving the problem of KDD. Traditionally, KDD was seeking to end global models for the data that - plain most of the instances of the database and describe the general structure of the data. Examples are statistical time series models, cluster models, logic programs with high coverageor classi?cation models like decision trees or linear decision functions. In practice, though, the use of these models often is very l- ited, because global models tend to end only the obvious patterns in the data, 1 which domain experts already are aware of . What is really of interest to the users are the local patterns that deviate from the already-known background knowledge. David Hand, who organized a workshop in 2002, proposed the new field of local patterns.
Local Heroes in the Global Village : Globalization and the New Entrepreneurship Policies
The book contributes to the debate what role public policies play in stimulating national and regional economic growth. With a better understanding of the complexity and variety of existent entrepreneurship policies in the U.S. and Germany the reader of this volume will be able to formulate best practice, hands-on strategies which aim to promote nations as well as regions in an "entrepreneurial economy".This volume brings together conference contributions of leading academics and policy advisors from the United States and Europe,The volume has the virtue of both providing solid empirical analysis and theoretical underpinning from leading economists,social scientists as well as a fresh perspective on the myths and realities concerning the operation of the U.S
Local Elites, Political Capital and Democratic Development : Governing Leaders in Seven European Countries
This book helps to understand in which ways local governing elites are important for the success or failure of national democratic development. Although we know a great deal about the general importance of civil society and social capital for the development of sustainable democracy, we still know little about what specific local governing qualities or political capital that interact with democratic development. The collected data covers time series of surveys from between 15 to 30 political and administrative leaders in over a hundred middle-sized European and Eurasian cities. The study takes us across the 1980s and 1990s, going from cities in Sweden and the Netherlands - through the Baltic cities - to the cities of Belarus and Russia.
Load balancing using SDN
Software-Defined Network (SDN) is considered a breakthrough to the global network. It plays an important role in performance improvement and network optimization. SDN is a new mechanism for managing and designing networks rather than the current traditional network system which does not afford more services and higher data rates; therefore, we analyze the effect of applying load balancing techniques and its importance in different SDN environments. In this paper, we propose a dynamic server load balancing technique in SDN architecture. Hence, we implement a server Connection-based load balancing technique and evaluate its performance with a static Round-robin and Random-based in both mininet emulation environment and OpenFlow-enabled switch using Ryu OpenFlow controller.
Lives in Architecture : Terry Farrell
Offering a compelling personal account of his life in architecture as an influential postmodern designer, architect-planner and principal of a leading global practice, this autobiography includes anecdotes and invaluable insights into Terry’s life and work from the 1940s to the present day. An inside view of what it’s like to be an architect at the top of his profession, this book also highlights what it takes to develop a successful international practice. Offers the inside view of what it is like to be an architect at the top of his profession, including insights into the defining projects and watershed moments of Sir Terry Farrell's career Provides the inside story on some of Terry Farrell’s most significant buildings and projects, including Charing Cross Station, The MI6 Building, Alban Gate and Beijing South Railway Station. Abundantly illustrated with over 80 images, including personal photos and images of key buildings.
Linked Open Data -- Creating Knowledge Out of Interlinked Data : Results of the LOD2 Project
Linked Open Data (LOD) is a pragmatic approach for realizing the Semantic Web vision of making the Web a global, distributed, semantics-based information system. This book presents an overview on the results of the research project “LOD2 -- Creating Knowledge out of Interlinked Data”. LOD2 is a large-scale integrating project co-funded by the European Commission within the FP7 Information and Communication Technologies Work Program. Commencing in September 2010, this 4-year project comprised leading Linked Open Data research groups, companies, and service providers from across 11 European countries and South Korea.
Life in Extreme Environments
Investigating life processes under extreme conditions can also bring clues for understanding and predicting ecosystems' responses to global changes. Furthermore, this area of research has a wide application potential in the fields of (bio)technoloty, chemical industry, pharmaceutics, biomedicine or cosmetics.
Leveraging Data Science for Global Health
Explores ways to leverage information technology and machine learning to combat disease and promote health, especially in resource-constrained settings. It focuses on digital disease surveillance through the application of machine learning to non-traditional data sources.
Les techniques de monitorage hémodynamique en réanimation = Hemodynamic monitoring techniques in intensive care
The hemodynamic monitoring of intensive care patients is undergoing major changes. Technological advances such as computerization and miniaturization have made it possible to considerably expand the range of assessment tools available at the bedside. Thus, the approach to cardiovascular monitoring - which was once readily "invasive" and global - is gradually becoming non-invasive and locoregional or even tissue. At the same time, the combined evolution of technology and physiological and pathophysiological concepts now provides the clinician with access to a variety of "functional hemodynamic monitoring". The aim of this book is to provide a better understanding of the interest and the limits of the hemodynamic parameters accessible by current hemodynamic monitoring techniques. It thus aims to ensure that the use of these techniques is perfectly mastered by resuscitators and anesthetists-resuscitators so that patient care is ultimately optimal.
