الصفحة 1
الصفحة 1
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New Vision 2050 : A Platinum Society

Presents the "New Vision 2050," which adds the concept of the “platinum society” to the “Vision 2050”.The 20th century was a century in which energy led the development of material civilization, resulting in deletion of resources, global warming and climate change. What form should sustainable material and energy take to protect the Earth? The "Vision 2050" was established 20 years ago as a model that we should pursue for the next half century. Fortunately, the world is on course for the Vision 2050.Since the author presented the concept of "Vision 2050" in 1999, the idea has been introduced in two books entitled Vision 2050: Roadmap for a Sustainable Earth (2008) and Beyond the Limits to Growth: New Ideas for Sustainability from Japan(2014). The latter includes a chapter that sheds light on the concept of a “platinum society”. In this publication, the author presents the "New Vision 2050" in more detail.

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Industrial enzymes : Structure, function and applications

Man's use of enzymes dates back to the earliest times of civilization. Important human activities such as the production of certain types of foods and beverages, and the tanning of hides and skins to produce leather for garments, serendipitously took advantage of enzyme activities. Important advances in our understanding of the nature of enzymes and their action were made in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, seeding the explosive expansion from the 1950s and 60s onward to the present billion dollar enzyme industry. Recent developments in the fields of genetic engineering and protein chemistry are bringing ever more powerful means of analysis to bear on the study of enzyme structure and function that will undoubtedly lead to the rational modification of enzymes to match specific requirements as well as the design of new enzymes with novel properties.

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Globalization and Sustainable Development : Environmental Agendas

A characteristic of the present global ecological situation is increasing instability or— put another way—a crisis in the civilization system, the global scale of which is expressed through a deterioration of human and animal habitats. The most sub­ stantial features of global ecodynamics of the late 20th and early 21st centuries include the rapid increase in world population (mainly in developing countries), increase in the size of the urban population (considerable growth in the number of megalopolises), and increase in the scales of such dangerous diseases as HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, tuberculosis, etc.

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Global Changes : Ethics, Politics and Environment in the Contemporary Technological World

offers an authoritative analysis of the challenges that have arisen as a result of modern technologies. It covers several environmental problems, such as climate change, overexploitation of natural resources, loss of natural habitats, pollution and human population growth, and discusses practical scenarios for sustainable human dwelling of our planet.  Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the first part introduces “global changes”, describing how they are happening in reality, and the challenges arising from them. The second part introduces methodological approaches borrowed from various disciplines, such as engineering, management science, philosophy and theology, which can help deal with the contemporary challenges resulting from global changes.

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Environmentally Friendly Coastal Protection ; Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Environmentally Friendly Coastal Protection Structures, Varna, Bulgaria, 25-27 May 2004

Coast lines have been and are the central lines of civilization around the world with increasing pressure from both sides - the hinterland and the sea. This book features papers covering related aspects of Environmentally Friendly Coastal Structures - coast, engineering structures, water, sediments, ecosystems in their complicated interaction

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Environmental Technology in the Oil Industry

This significantly updated edition looks at each stage in the life cycle of petroleum products, from exploration to end use, examining the environmental pressures on the Oil Industry and its response. The Oil Industry produces a range of products without which modern civilization could not exist. Nevertheless, in today’s environmentally conscious world, society demands that the industry manufactures and markets the products without unduly polluting the environment. Its ability and willingness to comply determines whether society will allow it a licence to operate. Technical developments are progressing in line with environmental concerns and increasing sophistication of computer modelling techniques. These subjects are inter-related, but have often been dealt with independently.

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Demographic Transition Theory

This study addresses these issues. Part I addresses the situation among hunters and gatherers, traditional farmers and classical civilizations. Part II examines the modern transition, while an introductory chapter synthesizes the findings. An emphasis is placed upon the transmuting of the industrial revolution and rising incomes into longer lives and smaller families. Finally, explanations are sought for below-replacement fertility in Europe and elsewhere. The book has a strong theoretical focus and is unique in addressing both mortality and fertility over the full span of human history.

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Creative Space : Models of Creative Processes for the Knowledge Civilization Age

Many new micro-theories of knowledge and technology creation have emerged in the last decade of the 20th Century and in the beginning years of the 21st Century from fields outside of philosophy. This book contains an integration of such diverse micro-theories of knowledge creation, needed as the foundation for diverse applications in knowledge management and knowledge engineering to provide the reader a better understanding of knowledge creation processes, which is necessary at the beginning stages of the knowledge and informational civilization era.

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Creative Environments : Issues of Creativity Support for the Knowledge Civilization Age

This book contains four parts. The first part presents a further development of models of knowledge creation presented already in Creative Space, in particular the Triple Helix of normal academic knowledge creation and a new, integrated model of normal academic and organizational knowledge creation, called Nanatsudaki (seven waterfalls) Model. The second part presents computational intelligence tools for knowledge acquisition by machine learning and data mining, for debating, brainstorming, for roadmapping and for integrated support of academic creativity. The third part presents the use of statistics for creativity support, virtual laboratories, gaming and role playing for creativity support, methods of knowledge representation and multiple criteria aggregation, distance and electronic learning. The last part addresses knowledge management and philosophical

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Journeys to a Graveyard : Perceptions of Europe in Classical Russian Travel Writing

Journeys to a Graveyard examines the descriptions provided by eight Russian writers of journeys made to western European countries between 1697 and 1880. The descriptions reveal the mentality and preoccupations of the Russian social and intellectual elites during this period. The travellers' perceptions of western European countries are treated here as an ambivalent response to a civilization with which Russia was belatedly coming into close contact as a result of the imperial ambition of the Russian state and the westernization of the Russian elites. The travellers perceived the most advanced European countries as superior to Russia in terms of material achievement and the maturity and refinement of their cultures, but they also promoted a view of Russia as in other respects superior to the western nations. Heavily influenced from the late eighteenth century by Romanticism and by the rise of nationalism in the west, they tended to depict European civilization as moribund. By this means they managed to define their own emergent nation in a contrastive way as having youth and promising futurity.

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Climate change : Environment and history of the Near East

When the ?rst edition of this book was published in 2004, the following year 2005 has happened to have been the warmest year since 1880, when the ?rst reliable worldwide instrumental records came into existance. Claiming no li- age between the publication of our book and the temperature record, yet this record demonstrates the trend of increase in the global surface temperatures during thepast20years,reinforcedbyevidenceofriseofatmosphere’sand oceans’ temperatures, and increased melting of ice and snow in the arctic and antarctic regions as well as on mountain tops. All these observations are par- leled by the increase in the quantity of heat trapping gases in the atmosphere, causing most probably, the global greenhouse effect. In order to try and predict, what might be the impact of this effect on the on the natural and human environments of the Near East, (Figs. 1–1d) the authors adopted the saying that the past is the key for the future. The practical conclusion of this principle says that the acquiring knowledge of the impact of past climate changes on the nature and human societies, may allow conclusions with regard to future possible impact of climate changes. By correlating proxy data of all types, paleo-sea and lake levels, paleo-hydrology, pollen pro?les, environmental isotopes as well as archaeological and historical documents, the authors tried to collect as much as possible of this knowledge.

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Bright modernity : Color, commerce, and consumer culture

Color is a visible technology that invisibly connects so many puzzling aspects of modern Western consumer societies research and development, making and selling, predicting fashion trends, and more. Building on Regina Lee Blaszczyk’s go-to history of the “color revolution” in the United States, This book explores further transatlantic and multidisciplinary dimensions of the topic. Covering history from the mid nineteenth century into the immediate past, it examines the relationship between color, commerce, and consumer societies in unfamiliar settings and in the company of new kinds of experts. Readers will learn about the early dye industry, the dynamic nomenclature for color, and efforts to standardize, understand, and educate the public about color.

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Bioactive Molecules and Medicinal Plants

Use of medicinal plants is as old as human civilization and continuous efforts are being made to improve medicinal plants or produce their products in high amounts through various technologies. About 200,000 natural products of plant origin are known and many more are being identifed from higher plants and microorganisms. Some plant-based drugs have been used for centuries and there is no alternative medicine for many drugs, such as cardiac glycosides. However, natural products research was sidelined to pave the way for com- natorial chemistry, which was expected to produce large numbers of synthetic compounds for high-throughput screening (HTS). This line of work has failed to deliver desirable results. Moreover, it is not possible for all pharmaceutical companies and institutions to adopt costly HTS technology. Therefore, medi- nal plants and their bioactive molecules are always in demand and are a central point of research. While planning this book, we endeavored to incorporate - ticles that cover the entire gamut of current medicinal plants research.

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Artificial Intelligence, Business and Civilization : Our Fate Made in Machines

Looks at what exactly artificial intelligence is, how it can be classified, how it differentiates from other concepts such as machine learning, big data, blockchain, or the Internet-of-Things, and how it has evolved and might evolve over time.

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Artificial intelligence and data mining approaches in security frameworks

Offers solutions to the problems of security, outlining the concepts behind allowing computers to learn from experience and understand the world in terms of a hierarchy of concepts, with each concept defined through its relation to simpler concepts. provides state of the art approaches of artificial intelligence and data mining in these areas. It includes areas of detection, prediction, as well as future framework identification, development, building service systems and analytical aspects. In all these topics, applications of AI and data mining, such as artificial neural networks, fuzzy logic, genetic algorithm and hybrid mechanisms, are explained and explored. This book is aimed at the modeling and performance prediction of efficient security framework systems, bringing to light a new dimension in the theory and practice. This groundbreaking new volume presents these topics and trends, bridging the research gap on AI and data mining to enable wide-scale implementation. Whether for the veteran engineer or the student, this is a must-have for any library. This groundbreaking new volume: Clarifies the understanding of certain key mechanisms of technology helpful in the use of artificial intelligence and data mining in security frameworks ; Covers practical approaches to the problems engineers face in working in this field, focusing on the applications used every day ; Contains numerous examples, offering critical solutions to engineers and scientists ; Presents these new applications of AI and data mining that are of prime importance to human civilization as a whole

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Architectural styles : A visual guide

It begins with the earliest styles of the ancient civilizations – Egypt, Greece and Rome – before travelling through Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque and into the modern world via the panoply of 19th century revivalist styles. Also covered is the traditional architecture of China, India, Japan and Pre-Columbian America. A final section gathers together key architectural elements from different periods – columns, towers, doorways, windows.

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An Ottoman Era Town in the Balkans : The Case Study of Kavala

Presents the town of Kavala in Northern Greece as an example of Ottoman urban and residential development, covering the long period of Kavala’s expansion over five centuries under Ottoman rule. Kavala was part of the Ottoman Empire from 1387 to 1912. In the middle of the sixteenth century, Ibrahim Pasha, grand vizier of Suleiman the Magnificent, contributed to the town's prosperity and growth by the construction of an aqueduct. The Ottomans also rebuilt and extended the existing Byzantine fortress.

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