الصفحة 8
الصفحة 8
Ecosystem Function in Heterogeneous Landscapes
The book elucidates the challenges faced by ecosystem scientists working in spatially heterogeneous systems, relevant conceptual approaches used in other disciplines and in different ecosystem types, and the importance of spatial heterogeneity in conservation resource management. The distinguished authors discuss how how much heterogeneity needs to be taken into account for specific types of scientific and management issues. Their chapters cover the spectrum from proposing novel conceptual approaches to detailing the practical implications of heterogeneous landscapes for fire management, water management and conservation planning.
Ecophysiology of High Salinity Tolerant Plants
Halophytes get increasing attention today because of the steady increase of the salinity in irrigation systems in the arid and semi-arid regions where the increasing population reaches the limits of freshwater availability.
Ecology of Riparian Forests in Japan : Disturbance, Life History, and Regeneration
It presents the dynamics and mechanisms that govern the coexistence of riparian tree species, tree demography, the response to water stress of trees, and the conservation of endangered species, and focuses on natural disturbances, life-history strategies, and the ecophysiology of trees. Because many riparian landscapes have been degraded and are disappearing at an alarming rate, the regeneration of the remaining riparian ecosystems is urgent. With contributions by more than 20 experts in diverse fields, this book offers useful information for the conservation, restoration, and rehabilitation of riparian ecosystems that remain in world streams and rivers.
Ecology and Conservation of Neotropical Montane Oak Forests
Covers the range of natural and managed oak forests in the highlands of tropical America. Providing an understanding of ecological patterns and processes that determine the structure and functioning of these forests, this volume aims to serve as a basis for sustainable forest management and biodiversity conservation.
Early Life Origins of Health and Disease
Early Life Origins of Health and Disease is a new book which presents and discusses the many factors that may have impact on normal development. In a concise and readable manner, the authors consider both the proven and suggestive evidence that the high prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, obesity and, in some populations, kidney disease, may not be all due to genetics or adult environment alone. There is good evidence that stress and more subtle dietary deficiencies, as well as placental malfunction, may increase the risk that the offspring will develop these problems in later life. Finally, new and emerging evidence for other areas of human health and disease such a motor control and mental health is critically reviewed for the first time. The book is a ‘must’ for all scientists interested in researching these areas, as there is a critical evaluation of the methodology used and suggestions for the ‘optimal’ way in which to investigate these phenomena.
Dynamic Population Models
The book is well organized and clearly written so that it is accessible to those with only a minimal knowledge of calculus. It begins with a review of fixed rate population models, from the basic life table to multistate stable populations. The process of convergence to stability is described, and the regularities underlying change in the size and composition of any population are explored. Techniques for estimating rates from multistate population distributions are presented, and new multi-age, multistate dynamic models are developed.
Drugs for Relapse Prevention of Alcoholism
whet there ought to be a reasonable hope that pharmacological drugs will be developed that interfere with an addiction memory, and as a result, finally lead to a cure? In this book, leading preclinical and clinical experts in the field of alcohol relapse prevention strive to furnish an answer to this question. None of the researchers or clinicians believes in a magic bullet that will be of help to all alcoholic patients in overcoming this disease. However, there is now convi- ing evidence demonstrating that specific subpopulations of alcoholic patients experience satisfactory benefit from currently available treatments.
Drug development for rare diseases
A disease is defined as rare if the prevalence is fewer than 200,000 in the United States. It is estimated that there are more than 7,000 rare diseases, which collectively affect 30 million Americans or 10% of the US population. This diverse and complex disease area poses challenges for patients, caregivers, regulators, drug developers, and other stakeholders. This book is proposed to give an overview of the common issues facing rare disease drug developers, summarize challenges specific to clinical development in small populations, discuss drug development strategies in the evolving regulatory environment, explain generation and utilization of different data and evidence
Doing Cross-Cultural Research : Ethical and Methodological Perspectives
Conducting cross-cultural research is rife with methodological, ethical and moral challenges. Researchers are challenged with many issues in carrying out their research with people in cross-cultural arenas. In this book, I attempt to bring together salient issues for the conduct of culturally appropriate research. The task of undertaking cross-cultural research can present researchers with unique opportunities, and yet dilemmas. The book will provide some thought-provoking points so that our research may proceed relatively well and yet ethical in our approach. The subject of the book is on the ethical, methodological, political understanding and practical procedures in undertaking cross-cultural research.
Divorce in Europe : New Insights in Trends, Causes and Consequences of Relation Break-ups
This book collects the major discussions in divorce research in Europe. It starts with an understanding of divorce trends. Why was divorce increasing so rapidly throughout the US and Europe and do we see signs of a turn? Do cohabitation breakups influence divorce trends or is there a renewed stability on the partner market?
Diversity Training for Classroom Teaching : A Manual for Students and Educators
This book encourages readers to generate their own construction of effective multicultural education and learn how to adapt it across various student populations and educational problems. At the same time, learning activities encourage readers to respect and seek to understand the experiences and worldviews of different people and how these diverse realities influence what is meant by multicultural education
Dissecting the Molecular Anatomy of Tissue
The book provides an updated overview of molecular analysis of human tissues, and the impact this analysis has on diagnosis and prognosis of human diseases. Special emphasis is placed on human cancer and the future directions of the field. Methods of handling clinical tissue samples, including the impact of handling on subsequent molecular analysis, are also discussed. In addition, detailed protocols for molecular analysis of DNA, RNA and protein, with special emphasis on molecular analysis of highly complex human tissue samples containing mixtures of cell populations, are provided.
Digital Towns : Accelerating and Measuring the Digital Transformation of Rural Societies and Economies
This book explores the digital transformation of small and rural towns, in particular, how to measure the evolution and development of digital towns. In addition to access to resources, competition from urban and global markets, and population trends, rural communities present lesser access and use of digital technologies and have lower digital competencies and skills than their urban counterparts. Consequently, they experience less beneficial outcomes from increased digitalisation than urban areas. This book defines what a digital town is and explores digitalisation from the perspective of the four basic economic sectors in towns - individuals and households, businesses, the public sector, and civil society - and three types of enabling infrastructure - digital connectivity, education, and governance.
Digital economies at global margins
Investigations of what increasing digital connectivity and the digitalization of the economy mean for people and places at the world's economic margins. Within the last decade, more than one billion people became new Internet users. Once, digital connectivity was confined to economically prosperous parts of the world; now Internet users make up a majority of the world's population. In this book, contributors from a range of disciplines and locations investigate the impact of increased digital connectivity on people and places at the world's economic margins.
Difficoltà in matematica : Osservare, interpretare, intervenire = Difficulty in mathematics : Observe, interpret, intervene
In a school context, difficulties in mathematics are an important phenomenon both for its diffusion and for the consequences it has at various levels: from the personal distress experienced by many students, to the negative attitude that large sections of the population build towards our discipline, up to the drop in enrollment in scientific degree courses. Faced with these difficulties, which often manifest themselves in behaviors such as giving up trying or responding at random, the didactic action aimed at recovery is generally a local action, which arises from the identification of errors and then intervenes on knowledge deemed necessary to respond correctly. But this type of intervention generally proves to be unsuccessful, and the teacher - together with the pupil - develops a sense of helplessness and frustration.
Differential Undercounts in the U.S. Census : Who is Missed?
This book describes the differences in US census coverage, also referred to as “differential undercount”, by showing which groups have the highest net undercounts and which groups have the greatest undercount differentials, and discusses why such undercounts occur. In addition to focusing on measuring census coverage for several demographic characteristics, including age, gender, race, Hispanic origin status, and tenure, it also considers several of the main hard-to-count populations, such as immigrants, the homeless, the LBGT community, children in foster care, and the disabled. However, given the dearth of accurate undercount data for these groups, they are covered less comprehensively than those demographic groups for which there is reliable undercount data from the Census Bureau. This book is of interest to demographers, statisticians, survey methodologists, and all those interested in census coverage.
Differential Evolution ; Vol.5 : In Search of Solutions
The human being aspires to the best possible performance. Both individuals and enterprises are looking for optimal—in other words, the best possible—solutions for situations or problems they face. Most of these problems can be expressed in mathematical terms, and so the methods of optimization undoubtedly render a significant aid. In cases where there are many local optima; intricate constraints; mixed-type variables; or noisy, time-dependent or otherwise ill-defined functions, the usual methods don’t give satisfactory results. Are you seeking fresh ideas or more efficient methods, or do you perhaps want to be well-informed about the latest achievements in optimization? If so, this book is for you. This book develops a unified insight on population-based optimization through Differential Evolution, one of the most recent and efficient optimization algorithms. You will find, in this book, everything concerning Differential Evolution and its application in its newest formulation.
Difference Equations : From Rabbits to Chaos
Difference equations are models of the world around us. From clocks to computers to chromosomes, processing discrete objects in discrete steps is a common theme. Difference equations arise naturally from such discrete descriptions and allow us to pose and answer such questions as: How much? How many? How long? Difference equations are a necessary part of the mathematical repertoire of all modern scientists and engineers.The book cover the basics of difference equations and some of their applications in computing and in population biology. Each chapter leads to techniques that can be applied by hand to small examples or programmed for larger problems. Along the way, the reader will use linear algebra and graph theory, develop formal power series, solve combinatorial problems, visit Perron—Frobenius theory, discuss pseudorandom number generation and integer factorization, and apply the Fast Fourier Transform to multiply polynomials quickly.
Diet and fertility
Infertility and subfertility affect a significant part of the population. Among various definitions of this pathology, the most ommon one is provided by the World Health Organization; it says that infertility is 'a disease of the reproductive system defined by the failure to achieve a clinical pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourses. The global prevalence of infertility is about 50-70 million couples. Since the process of human reproduction involves a large number of factors, a broad spectrum of infertility tests might be applied. Some of the tests focus directly on the pregnancy, some are only partially effective, whereas others should not be recommended for infertile couples.
Diabetic Kidney Disease
Presents the latest information on the clinical-pathological features of diabetic kidney disease. The data included is based on a cohort study of biopsy-proven diabetic nephropathy patients and nephrosclerosis patients, who were observed over a long term, and on the long-term registry for diabetic nephropathy (diabetic kidney disease) in Japan. It provides a clinical-pathological axis in clinical settings, including differential pathological/clinical diagnoses of CKD in diabetic patients (e.g. the presence of “classic” diabetic nephropathy and/or nephrosclerosis and/or other primary kidney diseases). The abundant biopsy specimens with long-term medical records provide a detailed pathological and clinical description. The book also includes urine-sample data for developing and validating possible candidates for novel biomarkers for diabetic kidney disease. Many countries, including Japan, have ageing populations, in which nephrosclerosis contributes to the progression of kidney lesions in patients with diabetic kidney disease. As such, a comparison of a diabetic nephropathy cohort with nephrosclerosis is indispensable to offer better treatments.
