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Communication in Plants : Neuronal Aspects of Plant Life
Plant neurobiology is a newly emerging field of plant sciences. It covers signalling and communication at all levels of biological organization – from molecules up to ecological communities. In this book, plants are presented as intelligent and social organisms with complex forms of communication and information processing. Authors from diverse backgrounds such as molecular and cellular biology, electrophysiology, as well as ecology treat the most important aspects of plant communication, including the plant immune system, abilities of plants to recognize self, signal transduction, receptors, plant neurotransmitters and plant neurophysiology. Further, plants are able to recognize the identity of herbivores and organize the defence responses accordingly. The similarities in animal and plant neuronal/immune systems are discussed too. All these hidden aspects of plant life and behaviour will stimulate further intense investigations in order to understand the communicative plants in their whole complexity.
Biological Invasions Belowground : Earthworms as Invasive Species
he most conspicuous biological invasions in terrestrial ecosystems have been by exotic plants, insects and vertebrates. Less conspicuous but possibly of equal importance are invasions by soil invertebrates, which are occurring literally beneath our feet. Familiar examples include the South American fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) which has invaded North America and Australia, and the New Zealand flatworm (Arthurdendyus triangulatus) which has become wide-spread in the United Kingdom; both have caused considerable ecological and economic damage. There is now evidence that exotic earthworm invasions are increasing world-wide and may be having significant impacts on soil processes and plant communities in some regions. Much remains to be learned about these ‘cryptic’ biological invasions. The papers in this book are based on efforts by an international group of soil ecologists to assess the biological and ecological mechanisms of earthworm invasions, their geographic extent and impacts on terrestrial ecosystems, and possible means by which earthworm invasions might be mitigated.
Biofuels and sustainability : Holistic perspectives for policy-making
This open access book presents a comprehensive analysis of biofuel use strategies from an interdisciplinary perspective using sustainability science. This interdisciplinary perspective (social science-natural science) means that the strategies and policy options proposed will have significant impacts on the economy and society alike. Biofuels are expected to contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, revitalizing economies in agricultural communities and alleviating poverty. However, despite these anticipated benefits, international organizations such as the FAO, OECD and UN have published reports expressing concerns that biofuel promotion may lead to deforestation, water pollution and water shortages. The impacts of biofuel use are extensive, cross-sectoral and complex, and as such, comprehensive analyses are required in order to assess the extent to which biofuels can contribute to sustainable societies.
Arts and health promotion : Tools and bridges for practice, research, and social transformation
This book offers an overview of the beautiful, powerful, and dynamic array of opportunities to promote health through the arts from theoretical, methodological, pedagogical, and critical perspectives. This is the first-known text to connect the disparate inter-disciplinary literatures into a coherent volume for health promotion practitioners, researchers, and teachers. It provides a one-stop depository for using the arts as tools for health promotion in many settings and as bridges across communities, cultures, and sectors.
Application of microbes in environmental and microbial biotechnology
Discusses the innovative approaches and investigation strategies, as well as provides a broad spectrum of the cutting-edge research on the processing, properties and technological developments of microbial products and their applications. Microbes finds very important applications in our lives including industries and food processing. They are widely used in the fermentation of beverages, processing of dairy products, production of pharmaceuticals, chemicals, enzymes, proteins and biomaterials / conversion of biomass into fuel, fuel cell technology, health and environmental sectors. Some of these products are produced commercially, while others are potentially valuable in biotechnology. Microorganisms are considered invaluable in research as model organisms. This is a useful compilation for students and researchers in microbiology, biotechnology and chemical industries.
Aging Well : Solutions to the Most Pressing Global Challenges of Aging
Outlines the challenges of supporting the health and wellbeing of older adults around the world and offers examples of solutions designed by stakeholders, healthcare providers, and public, private and nonprofit organizations in the United States. The solutions presented address challenges including: providing person-centered long-term care, making palliative care accessible in all healthcare settings and the home, enabling aging-in-place, financing long-term care, improving care coordination and access to care, delivering hospital-level and emergency care in the home and retirement community settings, merging health and social care, supporting people living with dementia and their caregivers, creating communities and employment opportunities that are accessible and welcoming to those of all ages and abilities, and combating the stigma of aging. The innovative programs of support and care in Aging Well serve as models of excellence that, when put into action, move health spending toward a sustainable path and greatly contribute to the well-being of older adults.
African Land Reform Under Economic Liberalisation: States, Chiefs, and Rural Communities
This book offers unique in-depth, comprehensive, and comparative analyses of the motivations, context, and outcomes of recent land reforms in Africa. Whereas a considerable number of land reforms have been carried out by African governments since the 1990s, no systematic analysis on their meaning has so far been conducted. In the age of land reform, Africa has seen drastic rural changes. Analysing the relationship between those reforms and change, the chapters in this book reveal not only their socio-economic outcomes, such as accelerated marketisation of land, but also their political outcomes, which have often been contrasting.
Managing Cyber Threats : Issues, Approaches, and Challenges
Brings together the latest techniques for managing cyber threats, developed by some of the world’s leading experts in the area. The book includes broad surveys on a number of topics, as well as specific techniques. It provides an excellent reference point for researchers and practitioners in the government, academic, and industrial communities who want to understand the issues and challenges in this area of growing worldwide importance.
Knowledge Cartography : Software Tools and Mapping Techniques
The authors see mapping software as a set of visual tools for reading and writing in a networked age. In an information ocean, the primary challenge is to find meaningful patterns around which we can weave plausible narratives. Maps of concepts, discussions and arguments make the connections between ideas tangible and disputable.With 17 chapters from the leading researchers and practitioners, the reader will find the current state–of-the-art in the field. Part 1 focuses on educational applications in schools and universities, before Part 2 turns to applications in professional communities.
Building Online Communities with Drupal, phpBB, and WordPress
Content management, blogs, and online forums are among the most significant online trends today, and Drupal, phpBB, and WordPress are three of the most popular open source applications facilitating these trends. Drupal is a full content management system that allows you to create any type of website you desire, from an e-commerce to a community-based site. phpBB enables you to set up a bulletin board or forum. And WordPress is the software of choice for the exploding blog community. All three technologies are based on PHP and MySQL.
Architecting dependable systems V
As software systems become increasingly ubiquitous, the issues of dependability become more and more crucial. Given that solutions to these issues must be considered from the very beginning of the design process, it is reasonable that dependability is addressed at the architectural level. This book was born of an effort to bring together the research communities of software architectures and dependability.
Architecting dependable systems III
As software systems become ubiquitous, the issues of dependability become more and more crucial. Given that solutions to these issues must be considered from the very beginning of the design process, it is reasonable that dependability is addressed at the architectural level. This book comes as a result of an effort to bring together the research communities of software architectures and dependability. The papers are organised in topical sections on architectures for dependable services, monitoring and reconfiguration in software architectures, dependability support for software architectures, architectural evaluation, and architectural abstractions for dependability
Analysis and Modelling of Faces and Gestures ; 2nd International workshop, AMFG 2005, Beijing, China, October 16, 2005, Proceedings
During the last 30 years, face recognition and related problems such as face detection/tracking and facial expression recognition have attracted researchers from both the engineering and psychology communities. In addition, extensive research has been carried out to study hand and body gestures. The understanding of how humans perceive these important cues has significant scientific value and extensive applications. this one-day workshop (AMFG 2005) provided a focused international forum to bring together well-known researchers and research groups to review the status of recognition, analysis and modeling of faces and gestures, to discuss the challenges that we are facing, and to explore future directions. Overall, 30 papers were selected from 90 submitted manuscripts. The topics of these papers range from feature representation, robust recognition, learning, and 3D modeling to psychology.
Agent Intelligence Through Data Mining
AGENT INTELLIGENCE THROUGH DATA MINING offers a self-contained overview of a relatively young but important area of research: the intersection of agent technology and data mining. This intersection leads to considerable advancements in the area of information technologies, drawing the increasing attention of both research and industrial communities. It can take two forms: a) the more mundane use of intelligent agents for improved data mining and; b) the use of data mining for smarter, more efficient agents. The second approach is the main focus of this volume. this book presents a methodology for developing multi-agent systems, describes available open-source tools to support this process, and demonstrates the application of the methodology on three different cases. AGENT INTELLIGENCE THROUGH DATA MINING is designed for a professional audience composed of researchers and practitioners in industry.
AdvancED Flex Application Development : Building Rich Media X
Many Flex books cover the basics—this book does something different, and goes far further. The authors, leading Flash platform developers at Almer/Blank, working with Adobe User Group communities, are the creators of the Rich Media Exchange (RMX), a social media network for Adobe developers. In covering just how the RMX was built, this book contains all the knowledge you need to build similar large-scale rich Internet applications with Adobe Flex. From the inception of the idea through to deployment, the authors show the techniques needed to plan and build advanced applications. You'll learn how to use forms, styles, validators, video, sound analysis, and framework caching, ensuring you make the most of the features introduced in Flex 3.
Managing Socio-ecological Production Landscapes and Seascapes for Sustainable Communities in Asia : Mapping and Navigating Stakeholders, Policy and Action
This book presents up-to-date analyses of community-based approaches to sustainable resource management of SEPLS (socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes) in areas where a harmonious relationship between the natural environment and the people who inhabit it is essential to ensure community and environmental well-being as well as to build resilience in the ecosystems that support this well-being.
Marginality : Addressing the Nexus of poverty, exclusion and ecology
In this volume economists, ecology experts, geographers, agronomists, sociologist, and business experts come together to address marginality. The inter-disciplinary research offers conceptual innovations and presents the dimensions of marginality in developing countries. Economic, political, and environmental drivers are assessed and mapped globally and in detail for countries in Africa and Asia, especially Ethiopia, India, Bangladesh, China, Indonesia. Economic growth especially in rural areas remains and farming communities is central to poverty reduction but needs to be complemented with specific actions to reach those at the margins.
Knowledge management : Systems and processes in the AI era
Aimed at students and managers who seek detailed insights into contemporary knowledge management (KM). It explains the concepts, theories, and technologies that provide the foundation for knowledge management; the systems and structures that constitute KM solutions; and the processes for developing, deploying, and evaluating these KM solutions. It serves as a complete introduction to the subject of knowledge management, incorporating technical and social aspects, as well as concepts, practical examples, traditional KM approaches, and emerging topics. This third edition has been revised and expanded to include more coverage of emergent trends such as cloud computing, online communities, crowdsourcing and artificial intelligence.
Knowledge and Institutions
Bridges the disciplinary boundaries within the social sciences to explore the role of social institutions in shaping geographical contexts, and in creating new knowledge. It includes theorizations as well as original empirical case studies on the emergence, maintenance and change of institutions as well as on their constraining and enabling effects on innovation, entrepreneurship, art and cultural heritage, often at regional scales across Europe and North America. Rooted in the disciplines of management and organization studies, sociology, geography, political science, and economics the contributors all take comprehensive approaches to carve out the specific contextuality of institutions as well as their impact on societal outcomes. Not only does this book offer detailed insights into current debates in institutional theory, it also provides background for scholars, students, and professionals at the intersection between regional development, policy-making, and regulation.
Communities of practice to actively manage best practices
Stefano Borzillo examines a large variety of CoPs by means of six success factors and identifies three basic types: innovating strategic, operational excellence, and social and productive space CoPs.
