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Ceramic materials : Science and engineering
Ceramic Materials: Science and Engineering is an up-to-date treatment of ceramic science, engineering, and applications in a single, integrated text. Building on a foundation of crystal structures, phase equilibria, defects and the mechanical properties of ceramic materials, students are shown how these materials are processed for a broad diversity of applications in today's society. Concepts such as how and why ions move, how ceramics interact with light and magnetic fields, and how they respond to temperature changes are discussed in the context of their applications. References to the art and history of ceramics are included throughout the text. The text concludes with discussions of ceramics in biology and medicine, ceramics as gemstones and the role of ceramics in the interplay between industry and the environment. The text is extensively illustrated and includes references and questions for the student.
Carbon and Its Domestication
Carbon is chemically versatile and is thus the body and soul of biological, geological, ecological and economic systems. Its appropriation by humans through diversion of its biogeochemical cycle has been a mainstay of development. This domestication is characterized by a number of thresholds: control of fire, development of agriculture, expansion of Europe, fossil-fuel use and biotechnology. All have exacted an environmental toll, not least being climatic change and biodiversity loss. Carbon management now and in the future is a ‘hot’ political issue.
Building the Foundation : Whole Numbers in the Primary Grades : The 23rd ICMI Study
This twenty-third ICMI Study addresses for the first time mathematics teaching and learning in the primary school (and pre-school) setting, while also taking international perspectives, socio-cultural diversity and institutional constraints into account. One of the main challenges of designing the first ICMI primary school study of this kind is the complex nature of mathematics at the early level. Accordingly, a focus area that is central to the discussion was chosen, together with a number of related questions. The broad area of Whole Number Arithmetic (WNA), including operations and relations and arithmetic word problems, forms the core content of all primary mathematics curricula. this study presents a meta-level analysis and synthesis of what is currently known about WNA, providing a useful base from which to gauge gaps and shortcomings, as well as an opportunity to learn from the practices of different countries and contexts.
Blind Speech Separation
This is the first book to provide a cutting edge reference to the fascinating topic of blind source separation (BSS) for convolved speech mixtures. Through contributions by the foremost experts on the subject, the book provides an up-to-date account of research findings, explains the underlying theory, and discusses potential applications. The individual chapters are designed to be tutorial in nature with specific emphasis on an in-depth treatment of state of the art techniques. Blind Speech Separation is divided into three parts:Part 1 presents overdetermined or critically determined BSS. Here the main technology is independent component analysis (ICA). ICA is a statistical method for extracting mutually independent sources from their mixtures. Part 2 addresses underdetermined BSS, where there are fewer microphones than source signals. Here, the sparseness of speech sources is very useful; we can utilize time-frequency diversity, where sources are active in different regions of the time-frequency plane.Part 3 presents monaural BSS where there is only one microphone. Here, we can separate a mixture by using the harmonicity and temporal structure of the sources. We can build a probabilistic framework by assuming a source model, and separate a mixture by maximizing the a posteriori probability of the sources.
Autistic community and the neurodiversity movement : Stories from the frontline
This book marks the first historical overview of the autism rights branch of the neurodiversity movement, describing the activities and rationales of key leaders in their own words since it organized into a unique community in 1992. Sandwiched by editorial chapters that include critical analysis, the book contains 19 chapters by 21 authors about the forming of the autistic community and neurodiversity movement, progress in their influence on the broader autism community and field, and their possible threshold of the advocacy establishment
Asia-Pacific fishing livelihoods
Where fishing livelihoods come from and where they are going are simple questions with no simple answers. Using examples of small-scale fisheries in Asia-Pacific, Fabinyi and Barclay offer eloquent analyses of how fishing livelihoods are shaped, resting on a relational approach idea
Arctic Alpine ecosystems and people in a changing environment
This book addresses the significant environmental changes experienced by high latitude and high altitude ecosystems at the beginning of the 21st c- tury. Increased temperatures and precipitation, reduction in sea ice and glacier ice, the increased levels of UV-radiation and the long-range tra- ported contaminants in arctic and alpine regions are stress factors that challenge terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. The large natural variation in the physical parameters of these extreme environments is a key factor in structuring the biodiversity and biotic productivity, and the effect of the new stress factors can be critical for the population structures and the - teraction between species. These changes may also have socio-economic effects if the changes affect the bio-production, which form the basis for the marine and terrestrial food chains. The book is uniquely multidisciplinary and provides examples of va- ous aspects of contemporary environmental change in arctic and alpine - gions. The 21 chapters of the book are organised under the fields of •Climate change and ecosystem response, •Long range transport of poll- ants and ecological impacts, and •UV radiation and biological effects, each also including aspects of the •Socio-economic effects of environmental change. The introductory chapter presents and explains the internal c- nection and integration of all chapters.
An Introduction To Chemoinformatics
This, the first text written specifically for this field, aims to provide an introduction to the major techniques of chemoinformatics. The first part of the book deals with the representation of 2D and 3D molecular structures, the calculation of molecular descriptors and the construction of mathematical models. The second part describes other important topics including molecular similarity and diversity, the analysis of large data sets, virtual screening, and library design. Simple illustrative examples are used throughout to illustrate key concepts, supplemented with case studies from the literature.
An Energy Analysis of Household Consumption : Changing Patterns of Direct and Indirect Use in India
The book presents a novel socio-economic approach to analysing the - ergy system and energy consumption in India from a household persp- tive. In doing so, it views households as the ultimate end-consumers and estimates and analyses the direct and indirect energy requirements of household consumption, both at an aggregate national level as well as at a disaggregate household level. In addition, the work incorporates two c- cial aspects often ignored by many energy studies that are characteristic of most developing countries, namely the importance of non-commercial sources of biomass energy in the energy systems of these countries, and the enormous diversity and inequity in the patterns of energy access and use across households with different lifestyles and levels of well being.
Altering nature ; Vol.2 : Religion, Biotechnology, and Public Policy
The two volumes of Altering Nature consider the complex ways that concepts of 'nature' and 'the natural' are understood and the relevance of those understandings to discussions of biotechnology.Volume Two, Religion, Biotechnology, and Public Policy, reviews recent religious and ethical analyses of four specific areas of biotechnology: assisted reproduction, genetic therapy and enhancement, human-machine incorporation, and biodiversity. It identifies and explores the richer normative themes that inform particular debates and suggests ways that policy choices in biotechnology may be illuminated by devoting greater attention to religious perspectives.
Algebraic Groups and Lie Groups with Few Factors
Algebraic groups are treated in this volume from a group theoretical point of view and the obtained results are compared with the analogous issues in the theory of Lie groups. The main body of the text is devoted to a classification of algebraic groups and Lie groups having only few subgroups or few factor groups of different type. In particular, the diversity of the nature of algebraic groups over fields of positive characteristic and over fields of characteristic zero is emphasized. This is revealed by the plethora of three-dimensional unipotent algebraic groups over a perfect field of positive characteristic, as well as, by many concrete examples which cover an area systematically. In the final section, algebraic groups and Lie groups having many closed normal subgroups are determined.
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
A Rosicrucian Utopia in Eighteenth-Century Russia : The Masonic Circle of N.I. Novikov
The author undertakes an investigation into the history of Russian Freemasonry that has not been attempted previously. Her premise is that the Russian Enlightenment shows peculiar features, which prevent the application of the interpretative framework commonly used for the history of western thought. The author deals with the development of early Russian masonry, the formation of the Novikov circle in Moscow, the ‘programme’ of Rosicrucianism and the character of its Russian variant and, finally, the clash between the Rosicrucians and the State. The author concludes that the defenders of the Ancien Régime were not wrong. In fact the democratic behaviour, the critical attitude, the practice of participation, the freedom of thought, the tolerance for the diversity, the search for a direct communication with the divinity.
