Agricultural biodiversity and biotechnology in economic development
The topics addressed in this book are of vital importance to the survival of humankind. Agricultural biodiversity, encompassing genetic diversity as well as human knowledge, is the base upon which agricultural production has been built, and protecting this resource is critical to ensuring the capacity of current and future generations to adapt to unforeseen challenges. Agricultural biodiversity underpins the productivity of all agricultural systems and is particularly important for poor and food-insecure farmers, who maintain highly diverse production systems in response to the marginal and risky production conditions they operate under. Understanding the importance of agricultural biodiversity in the livelihoods of the food insecure and enhancing its performance through the use of a variety of tools, including biotechnology, is a critically important issue in the world today
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.
Advances in fuzzy logic systems
Fuzzy logic systems have been a hot topic in the scientific and academic community for more than half a century. The idea of making machines behave and make decisions like humans do is astounding. The development and implementation of fuzzy logic systems can be seen in various real physical applications in daily human life. The methods employed using fuzzy logic have resulted in innovative technologies. This book provides insights into understanding the principles and concepts behind the advances of fuzzy logic systems. It presents ideas concerning fuzzy logic systems and their technological applications. The book is arranged into two sections on theories and foundations of fuzzy logic systems and implementations of fuzzy logic systems in service to the community.
Advances in Discrete Differential Geometry
On a newly emerging field of discrete differential geometry and an excellent way to access this exciting area. It surveys the fascinating connections between discrete models in differential geometry and complex analysis, integrable systems and applications in computer graphics. The authors take a closer look at discrete models in differential geometry and dynamical systems. Their curves are polygonal, surfaces are made from triangles and quadrilaterals, and time is discrete. Nevertheless, the difference between the corresponding smooth curves, surfaces and classical dynamical systems with continuous time can hardly be seen. This is the paradigm of structure-preserving discretizations. Current advances in this field are stimulated to a large extent by its relevance for computer graphics and mathematical physics.
A Time for Metabolism and Hormones
Recent years have seen spectacular advances in the field of circadian biology. These have attracted the interest of researchers in many fields, including endocrinology, neurosciences, cancer, and behavior. By integrating a circadian view within the fields of endocrinology and metabolism, researchers will be able to reveal many, yet-unsuspected aspects of how organisms cope with changes in the environment and subsequent control of homeostasis. This field is opening new avenues in our understanding of metabolism and endocrinology. A panel of the most distinguished investigators in the field gathered together to discuss the present state and the future of the field. The editors trust that this volume will be of use to those colleagues who will be picking up the challenge to unravel how the circadian clock can be targeted for the future development of specific pharmacological strategies toward a number of pathologies.
A Theory of Shape Identification
Recent years have seen dramatic progress in shape recognition algorithms applied to ever-growing image databases. They have been applied to image stitching, stereo vision, image mosaics, solid object recognition and video or web image retrieval. More fundamentally, the ability of humans and animals to detect and recognize shapes is one of the enigmas of perception. The book describes a complete method that starts from a query image and an image database and yields a list of the images in the database containing shapes present in the query image. A false alarm number is associated to each detection. Many experiments will show that familiar simple shapes or images can reliably be identified with false alarm numbers ranging from 10-5 to less than 10-300.
A Fair Share of Tax : A Fiscal Anthropology of Contemporary Sweden
Takes a taxpayer's perspective to the relations taxation creates between people and their state. Larsen proposes that in order to understand tax compliance and cheating, we have to look beyond law, psychological experiments and surveys to include tax collectors and taxpayers' practices. The text explores the view of taxes seen as citizen’s explicit economic relation to the state and implicit economic relation to all other compatriots. Larsen suggests how to build and increase tax compliance if we take the idea of taxation creating reciprocal relations seriously.
100 diagnostic dilemmas in clinical medicine
Presents 100 real-life scenarios seen in the hospital and community setting. A succinct summary of the patient's history, examination and any initial investigations is followed by a detailed consideration of the diagnosis and management of each case, in the short, medium and, where appropriate, long term.
100 cases in obstetrics and gynaecology
Presents 100 obstetric- or gynaecology-related scenarios commonly seen by medical students and junior doctors in the emergency department, outpatient clinic or on the ward. A succinct summary of the patient's history, examination and initial investigations – including photographs where relevant – is followed by questions on the diagnosis and management of each case. The answer includes a detailed discussion on each topic, with further illustration where appropriate, providing an essential revision aid as well as a practical guide for students and junior doctors.
100 cases in clinical pathology and laboratory medicine
Presents 100 clinical scenarios commonly seen by medical students and junior doctors in the emergency department, outpatient clinic, operating theatre or in general practice. A succinct summary of the patient's history, examination and initial investigations is followed by questions on each case, with particular emphasis on the interpretation of the results and in which an understanding of the underlying clinical pathology is central to arriving at the correct diagnosis. The answer includes a detailed discussion on each topic, providing an essential revision aid as well as a practical guide for students and junior doctors, especially those preparing for undergraduate and postgraduate examinations.









