الصفحة 13
الصفحة 13
Integrated Groundwater Management : Concepts, Approaches and Challenges
The aim of this book is to document for the first time the dimensions and requirements of effective integrated groundwater management (IGM). Groundwater management is a formidable challenge, one that remains one of humanity’s foremost priorities. It has become a largely non-renewable resource that is overexploited in many parts of the world. In the 21st century, the issue moves from how to simply obtain the water we need to how we manage it sustainably for future generations, future economies, and future ecosystems. The focus then becomes one of understanding the drivers and current state of the groundwater resource, and restoring equilibrium to at-risk aquifers. Many interrelated dimensions, however, come to bear when trying to manage groundwater effectively. An integrated approach to groundwater necessarily involves many factors beyond the aquifer itself, such as surface water, water use, water quality, and ecohydrology.
Integrated Assessment of Water Resources and Global Change : A North-South Analysis
The key papers in this volume from the Bonn conference focus on the challenges of integrated assessment of water resources in the context of global change. The growing gap between North and South is also addressed, in terms not only of access to water and its quality, but also of the capacity to do research and implement solutions. The coverage of the papers is up-to-date and comprehensive. Highlights include emerging concepts such as blue and green water, virtual water, the water footprints of nations, multi-agent modelling, linkages between water and biodiversity, and social learning and adaptive management.
Intangible capital and growth : Essays on labor productivity, monetary economics, and political economy ; Vol.1
It is now widely recognized that intangible capital has been a crucial element in the growth performance of these economies and their firms. In the author's view, “intangible capital” serves as the most appropriate umbrella term for capturing several dimensions of capital that are not tangible in nature but are nevertheless fundamentally important for growth. The term encompasses investments in education (human capital) and in informal (social capital) and formal (rule of law) institutions by the public sector and households, as well as investments by businesses aimed at enhancing their knowledge base, such as software, innovative property, and economic competencies.
Institutional Reform for Innovation and Entrepreneurship : An Agenda for Europe
The authors of this book advise the economies of the European Union to become more entrepreneurial in promoting innovation and economic growth. The authors propose a reform strategy with respect to several aspects to achieve this goal. Starting with the rule of law and the protection of property rights; the tax system; the authors deal with regulations governing savings, capital and finance, and the organization of labor markets and social insurance systems. Framework strategies related to the regulations governing goods and service markets, bankruptcy and insolvency are also put forward. A core understanding and future path is also provided towards R&D, commercialization and knowledge spillovers; human capital investments; and informal institutions.
Institutional Dynamics in Environmental Governance
This book presents fresh analyses of a number of well-known cases, but does so from one comprehensive view, the so-called policy arrangement approach. Cases discussed range over organic farming, integrated water management, nature policy, cultural heritage policy, integrated region-oriented policy, corporate environmental management and target group policy, always in search of the commonality of experience and conclusions to be drawn in understanding the past and in formulating future perspectives.
Institutional Context of Education Systems in Europe : A Cross-Country Comparison on Quality and Equity
In this volume, the authors take up the challenge of considering what a European ‘settlement’ might look like. In doing so, they take into account worldwide trends and the increasing evidence of convergence across educational systems. The outcomes of comparative analyses seem to suggest that strong education systems in terms of finance, governance and choice could be preferable. To a greater or lesser extent, therefore, all the systems of education currently in use in Europe face some common challenges. The way in which these challenges are addressed will determine the future of these systems.
Insomimia
Highlights the significant prevalence of insomnia within the Syrian population and underscores the importance of non-pharmacological treatments and social support in managing the disorder. Further research is needed to develop effective interventions and improve awareness and treatment of insomnia.
Inside asylum bureaucracy : Organizing refugee status determination in Austria
Provides sociological insight into governmental action on the administration of asylum in the European context. It offers an in-depth understanding of how decision-making officials encounter and respond to structural contradictions in the asylum procedure produced by diverging legal, political, and administrative objectives.The study focuses on structural aspects on the one hand, such as legal and organisational elements, and aspects of agency on the other hand, examining the social practices and processes going on at the frontside and the backside of the administrative asylum system.
Inquiry-Based Learning – Undergraduate Research : The German Multidisciplinary Experience
This book provides a systematic overview of experiences with Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) and undergraduate research (UR) in German universities, covering both research universities (Universitäten) and universities of applied sciences (Fachhochschulen). Divided into three parts, the book starts with the principles and common practices of IBL/UR at all universities. Part Two discusses the implementation of IBL/UR for twenty-one individual disciplines, ranging from architecture to theology. Part Three discusses the potential of IBL/UR in relation to several topics including diversity, digitalisation, different forms of universities, and the national job market. The book summarises the project of the German network of UR,
Innovative Tools and methods using BIM for an efficient renovation in buildings
This book describes a BIM-based toolkit that has been developed according to the latest research activities on building information modelling and semantic interoperability to optimize the building process. It highlights the impacts of using such new tools to fast renovation activities starting from the decision-making and design stages to the construction site management with the possibility to monitor occupants' and owners’ feedback during the realization process. In this process, a framework has been developed and implemented to allow stakeholders involved in a renovation project to efficiently compile, maintain, and add data about (i) building elements, (ii) building services systems, (iii) tenants, operators, and owners of the building, and (iv) current and predicted performance of the building from the various data sources available. The framework applies and specializes the existing practices in the Semantic Web, Linked Data, and ontology domain to the management of renovation projects. It has been designed to be open so that any system which implements the required functions and uses the specified conventions will be able to achieve semantic interoperability with other framework-compliant systems in the renovation domain. Finally, this book represents the validation process of the toolkit that has been held in three demo sites: a social housing building in Italy and two private residential buildings in Poland and Finland. The outcome shows that the toolkit facilitates the renovation process with relevant reductions of time, costs, and energy consumption and that the inhabitants can take advantage of the increase in building performances, quality, and comfort.
Innovative Learning Environments in STEM Higher Education : Opportunities, Challenges, and Looking Forward
As explored in this book, higher education in STEM fields is influenced by many factors, including education research, government and school policies, financial considerations, technology limitations, and acceptance of innovations by faculty and students.
Innovative comparative methods for policy analysis : Beyond the quantitative-qualitative divide
Innovative Comparative Methods for Policy Analysis aims to provide a decisive push to the further development and application of innovative and specific comparative methods for the improvement of policy analysis. To take on this challenge, this volume brings together methodologists and specialists from a broad range of social scientific disciplines and policy fields.
Innovative approaches for learning and knowledge sharing ; 1st European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, EC-TEL 2006, Crete, Greece, October 1-4, 2006, Proceedings
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, EiTEL 2006, held in Crete, Greece in October 2006. The 32 revised full papers, 13 revised short papers and 31 poster papers presented together with 2 keynote talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 192 submissions. The conference provides a unique forum for all research related to technology-enhanced learning, as well as its interactions with knowledge management, business processes and work environments. Topics addressed are collaborative learning, personalized learning, multimedia content, semantic web, metadata and learning, workplace learning, learning repositories and infrastructures for learning, as well as experience reports, assesment, and case studies.
Innovations Towards Sustainability : Conditions and Consequences
The volume contains eight articles together with comments by twenty authors and discussants on the topic of innovations and sustainability. It provides a competently written, balanced and differentiated state-of-the-art insight into the relation between innovations and sustainability from the perspective of evolutionary economics. The scope of the contributions encompasses the technological, social, organizational, and political dimensions of the topic. Each article is discussed by a competently written commentary providing a critical evaluation and relating it to the relevant literature. Particular interest lies on the issues of steering opportunities and path formation capabilities by decentralized agents, or governmental institutions from the viewpoint of evolutionary economics.
Innovations in Quantitative Risk Management ; TU München, September 2013
The KPMG Center of Excellence in Risk Management conference Risk Management Reloaded and this proceedings volume contribute to bridging the gap between academia –providing methodological advances– and practice –having a firm understanding of the economic conditions in which a given model is used. Discussed fields of application range from asset management, credit risk, and energy to risk management issues in insurance. Methodologically, dependence modeling, multiple-curve interest rate-models, and model risk are addressed. Finally, regulatory developments and possible limits of mathematical modeling are discussed.
Innovation, Sustainability and Management in Motorsports: The Case of Formula E
This book provides novel insights on management innovation and sustainability in motorsport. Utilizing the all-electric racing championship called Formula E as case, it draws upon data from multiple sources such as sustainability reports of Formula and its stakeholders, media data, podcasts and newspaper articles, partner publications, and social media outputs
Innovation in Strategic Philanthropy : Local and Global Perspectives
This book is the result of case studies conducted as part of the International Network on Strategic Philanthropy, which focus on the role of philanthropy in the globalization process and in lesser developed economies. Throughout, they emphasize the lessons in innovation that can be taken from them, and together demonstrate that these emerging philanthropic institutions can develop their own methods and indeed offer criteria that the Western world might learn from.
Innovation Capacity and the City : The Enabling Role of Design
This book represents one of the key milestones of DESIGNSCAPES: value creation through design-enabled innovation”. The book demonstrates that adopting design allows us to embed innovation within the city so as to arrive at feasible answers to complex global challenges. In this way, innovation can become disruptive, while also sparking a dynamic of gradual change in the “urbanscape” it acts within. To explore this potential, the book puts forward the concept of “design enabled innovation in urban environments” and examines the part that the city can play in promoting and facilitating the adoption of design among public and private sector innovators. This leads to a potential evaluation framework in which a given urbanscape is assessed both in terms of its capacity for generating innovation, and of the nature (more or less design-dependent or design-prone) of the innovative initiatives it hosts. This thread of reasoning holds many promising implications, including a possible “third way” between those who dream of an alternative economic model where revenues and growth are sacrificed on the altar of social and environmental respect, and the supporters of the traditional market-based view, who feel it is enough to add a touch of responsibility and concern to a system that should continue rewarding the profitability of innovations.
Inner Speech - L2 : Thinking Words in a Second Language
The purpose of this book is to explore "inner speech" and its connections to second language (L2) learning. reviews the extant literature on L1-L2 inner speech in its attempt to offer a coherent and comprehensive account of the phenomenon. The book draws mainly from Vygotskyan sociocultural theory for insights into the nature of L2 inner speech and the processes that engender it and characterize its development. The pedagogical implications of recognizing the crucial role inner speech plays in L2 learning are also addressed.
Information, Interaction, and Agency
Agents perform actions based on the available information and in the presence of other interacting agents. From this perspective Information, Interaction, and Agency neatly ties together classical themes like rationality, decision-making and belief revision with games, strategies and learning in a multi-agent setting.Unified by the central notions Information, Interaction, and Agency, the essays in this volume provide refreshing methodological perspectives on belief revision, dynamic epistemic logic, von Neumann games, and evolutionary game theory; all of which in turn are central approaches to understanding our own rationality and that of other agents.
