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Building a Resilient and Sustainable Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa
What are the challenges and action points for agricultural sustainability in Sub-Saharan Africa? This collection of papers offers technical analyses, policy recommendations and an overview of success stories to date. Each carefully selected paper provides valuable insights for improved policy making and defines relevant strategic priorities on Africa’s sustainable transformation process, which is in line with the international development agenda. Although agriculture remains the main source of income for Africa’s population, the sector is rain-fed subjecting it to the vagaries of weather and climate change. This volume demonstrates the rationale of developing a competitive, inclusive and sustainable agribusiness sector for Africa’s food security and structural transformation.
Broadband Opto-Electrical Receivers in Standard CMOS
Broadband Opto-Electrical Receivers in Standard CMOS starts from the basic fundamentals, necessary for the design of opto-electronic interface circuits. The book continues with an in-depth analysis of the photodiode, transimpedance amplifier (TIA) and limiting amplifier (LA). To thoroughly understand the light detection mechanisms in silicon, first a one-dimensional and second a two-dimensional model is developed. Analytical design equations are derived to guide the design of the amplifying circuits. For the TIA, the focus lies on the sensitivity-speed trade-off. For the LA, a high gain-bandwidth is pursued. Several practical design examples reveal the subtleties and challenges encountered during the design of high-performance analog circuits.
Bioremediation of Soils Contaminated with Aromatic Compounds
Environmental biotechnology, which was in its infancy in the early 80's, has evolved thanks to the revolution brought about by molecular biology. Multiple successes in the biological cleanup of civil and industrial wastewater and of hydrocarbon soil pollution, demonstrate the vast power of clean technologies. In addition, the buildup of information on the activities of microorganisms as catalysts in all sorts of natural, industrial and animal environments has flourished. There is a continuing realization of the critical role of microbial processes in biological, industrial and geological systems. Since environmental biotechnology has matured, it is ready to tackle bigger challenges: the scaling up of many bioremediation systems still in progress, the search for novel biocatalysts for industrial applications, the continuing effort against common human life-threatening processes such as antibiotic resistance, the accumulation of hormone-mimicking substances (endocrine disrupters), the deposition of air-borne pesticides in the environment and, the degradation of recalcitrant contaminants. These endeavors will help prevent the contamination of food chains, protect human life and allow for human activity and economic development that do not compromise environmental sustainabijity.
Biology and Control Theory : Current Challenges
Creating some links between control feedback and biology modeling communities based on similarities in modeling, observing and perceiving alive structures, and analyzing interconnections between biological structures and subsystems was the main objective of this volume. The idea of this book was conceived in the context mentioned above with the objective to help in claiming many of the problems for control researchers, starting discussions and opening interactive debates between the control and biology communities, and, finally, to alert graduate students to the many interesting ideas at the frontier between control feedback theory and biology.
Bioeconomy and Global Inequalities Socio-Ecological Perspectives on Biomass Sourcing and Production
This book explores bioeconomy and bioenergy policies across South America, Asia and Europe. It discusses how a transition away from a fossil and towards a bio-based economic order alters, reinforces and challenges socio-ecological inequalities. A series of conceptual discussions and case studies with a multidisciplinary background in the Social Science illuminate how the deployment of biomass sources from the agricultural and forestry sectors affect societal changes concerning knowledge production, land and labour relations, political participation and international trade
Baseband Analog Circuits for Software Defined Radio
Baseband Analog Circuits for Software Defined Radio aims to describe the transition towards a Software Radio from the analog design perspective. A complete overview of the actual state-of-art for reconfigurable transceivers is given in detail, focusing on the challenges imposed by flexibility in analog design.
Autonomous Robots and Agents
This book deals with the theoretical and methodological aspects of incorporating intelligence in Autonomous Robots and Agents. Challenges faced in the real world to accomplish complex tasks, which require collaborative efforts, and methods to overcome them, are detailed. Several informative articles deal with navigation, localization and mapping of mobile robots, a problem that engineers and researchers are grappling with all the time.This edited volume is targeted to present the latest state-of-the-art methodologies in Robotics. It is a compilation of the extended versions of the very best papers selected from the many that were presented at the 3rd International Conference on Autonomous Robots and Agents (ICARA 2006) which was held at Palmerston North, New Zealand from 11-14 December, 2006. Scientists and engineers who work with mobile robots will find this book very useful and stimulating.
Augmented Humanity : Being and Remaining Agentic in a Digitalized World
This book will examine the implications of digitalization for the understanding of humanity, conceived as a community of intelligent agency. It addresses important topics across a range of social and behavioral theories and identifies a range of novel mechanisms and their social behavioral effects. Across the book, the author highlights the expansion of intelligent processing capability brought about by digitalization and the challenges this exposes for integrating artificial and human capabilities
Assessment and future directions of nonlinear model predictive control
Thepastthree decadeshaveseenrapiddevelopmentin the areaofmodelpred- tive control with respect to both theoretical and application aspects. Over these 30 years, model predictive control for linear systems has been widely applied, especially in the area of process control. However, today’s applications often require driving the process over a wide region and close to the boundaries of - erability, while satisfying constraints and achieving near-optimal performance. Consequently, the application of linear control methods does not always lead to satisfactory performance, and here nonlinear methods must be employed. This is one of the reasons why nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) has - joyed signi?cant attention over the past years,with a number of recent advances on both the theoretical and application frontier. Additionally, the widespread availability and steadily increasing power of today’s computers, as well as the development of specially tailored numerical solution methods for NMPC, bring thepracticalapplicabilityofNMPCwithinreachevenforveryfastsystems.This has led to a series of new, exciting developments, along with new challenges in the area of NMPC.
Asian century … on a knife-edge : A 360 degree analysis of Asia's recent economic development
This book delves into the widely held belief that the 21st century will be the "Asian Century" by examining the Asia's rapid economic development in the post-war era and the challenges it faces in forging ahead of world leaders in the West. The impact of the current turbulent global political climate on Asia is critically analyzed, employing a holistic and multidisciplinary approach, combining economic, social, political and geopolitical perspectives. Written in an accessible style, the book offers students, business, government, and civil society players powerful insights on Asia.
Artificial sight : Basic research, biomedical engineering, and clinical advances
Artificial sight is a frontier area of modern ophthalmology combining the multidisciplinary skills of surgical ophthalmology, biomedical engineering, biological physics, and psychophysical testing. Many scientific, engineering, and surgical challenges must be surmounted before widespread practical applications can be realized. The goal of Artificial Sight is to summarize the state-of-the-art research in this exciting area, and to describe some of the current approaches and initiatives that may help patients in a clinical setting.
Arabic Computational Morphology : Knowledge-based and Empirical Methods
The morphology of Arabic poses special challenges to computational natural language processing systems. The exceptional degree of ambiguity in the writing system, the rich morphology, and the highly complex word formation process of roots and patterns all contribute to making computational approaches to Arabic very challenging. Indeed many computational linguists across the world have taken up this challenge over time, and many of the researchers with a track record in this research area have contributed to this book.
Approaches to Metaphysics
Today, when systematic philosophy - and reason itself - are challenged both outside of and within philosophy, is it still possible to do metaphysics? This volume provides a broad perspective on contemporary approaches to the nature and the fundamental questions of metaphysics. Drawing on scholars from continental Europe, Asia, Canada, the United States, and Great Britain, and representing a variety of philosophical cultures and traditions, this volume surveys and extends work in metaphysics and its implications for broader philosophical concerns (e.g., in ethics and social philosophy, in mathematics and logic, and in epistemology). It also addresses such questions as the role of history and historicity in undertaking metaphysics, the nature of metaphysics, the priority of metaphysics over epistemology, and the challenges of empiricism and postmodernism.
Animals in Our Midst : The Challenges of Co-existing with Animals in the Anthropocene
This book brings together authoritative voices in animal and environmental ethics, who address the many different facets of changing human-animal relationships in the Anthropocene. As we are living in complex times, the issue of how to establish meaningful relationships with other animals under Anthropocene conditions needs to be approached from a multitude of angles. This book offers the reader insight into the different discussions that exist around the topics of how we should understand animal agency, how we could take animal agency seriously in farms, urban areas and the wild, and what technologies are appropriate and morally desirable to use regarding animals. This book is of interest to both animal studies scholars and environmental ethics scholars, as well as to practitioners working with animals, such as wildlife managers, zookeepers, and conservation biologists.
Analysis and Numerics for Conservation Laws
The physical and chemical mechanisms as well as the sizes of these processes are quite different. So are the motivations for studying them scientifically.The super- 8 nova is a thermo-nuclear explosion on a scale of 10 cm. Astrophysicists try to understand them in order to get insight into fundamental properties of the universe. In hows around airfoils of commercial airliners at the scale of 3 10 cm shock waves occur that influence the stability of the wings as well as fuel consumption in ight. This requires appropriate design of the shape and structure of airfoils by engineers. Knocking occurs in combustion, a chemical 1 process, and must be avoided since it damages motors. The scale is 10 cm and these processes must be optimized for efficiency and environmental conside- tions. The common thread is that the underlying ?uid ?ows may at a certain scale of observation be described by basically the same type of hyperbolic s- tems of partial differential equations in divergence form, called conservation laws. Astrophysicists, engineers and mathematicians share a common interest in scientific progress on theory for these equations and the development of computational methods for solutions of the equations. Due to their wide applicability in modeling of continua. A substantial portion of mathematical research is related to the analysis and numerical approximation of solutions to such equations. Hyperbolic conservation laws in two or more space dimensions still poseone of the main challenges to modern mathematics.
Analysis and Control of Ultrafast Photoinduced Reactions
The present monograph summarizes, in a comprehensive way, several years of joint experimental and theoretical frontier research on ultrafast laser-induced molecular dynamics and its control. Emphasis is set on the characterization of the nuclear dynamics within molecular systems in various environments (gas phase, surfaces, solids, solution, strong fields) triggered by optical excitations spanning from the infrared to the ultraviolet. Building on the converged analysis between experiment and theory, control of chemical reactions is established by means of optimally shaped laser pulses. This paves the road toward new applications and future challenges in this rapidly developing research field.
An Introduction to Ethics in Robotics and AI
This book provides an introduction into the ethics of robots and artificial intelligence. The book was written with university students, policy makers, and professionals in mind but should be accessible for most adults. The book is meant to provide balanced and, at times, conflicting viewpoints as to the benefits and deficits of AI through the lens of ethics. As discussed in the chapters that follow, ethical questions are often not cut and dry. Nations, communities, and individuals may have unique and important perspectives on these topics that should be heard and considered. While the voices that compose this book are our own, we have attempted to represent the views of the broader AI, robotics, and ethics communities.
Alpine Industrial Landscapes : Towards a New Approach for Brownfield Redevelopment in Mountain Regions
This book presents a pioneering research on brownfield redevelopment in mountain regions, and specifically in the European Alps. The origins and causes, the actual conditions as well as the future challenges and potentials of mountain brownfields are investigated from an interdisciplinary yet landscape-centered perspective. Through the reasoned combination of research-by-design methods and case-study analysis, the book explores the infrastructural relevance of these sites for the specific mountain territory, while advancing an innovative structuralist-systemic approach for their physical and functional transformation. The book includes, among others, a first transnational geo-mapping of Alpine brownfields, whose impressive outcomes in terms of site numbers and distribution can only confirm the urgency of this research.
Algebraic Geometry and Geometric Modeling
Algebraic Geometry provides an impressive theory targeting the understanding of geometric objects defined algebraically. Geometric Modeling uses every day, in order to solve practical and difficult problems, digital shapes based on algebraic models. In this book, we have collected articles bridging these two areas. The confrontation of the different points of view results in a better analysis of what the key challenges are and how they can be met. We focus on the following important classes of problems: implicitization, classification, and intersection. The combination of illustrative pictures, explicit computations and review articles will help the reader to handle these subjects.
Ages, generations and the social contract : The demographic challenges facing the welfare state
Our societies are ageing. The Family is changing. Labour force behaviour is evolving. How is the organisation of family and collective solidarity adapting in this context of longer life spans, low fertility, and work that is simultaneously scarce and abundant? The welfare states are currently facing three main challenges: ensure satisfactory living conditions for the elderly without increasing the cost burden on the active population, reduce social inequality, and maintain equity between successive generations. In this book, researchers from different countries compare their experiences and offer contrasting views on the future of social protection. They consider the theoretical aspects of the intergenerational debate, relations between generations within the family, the living standards of elderly people, and the question of social time.
