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Astronomical Curiosities: Facts and Fallacies by J. Ellard Gore 3.9 Stars (15 Reviews)    Price verified 11 minutes ago

In 'Astronomical Curiosities: Facts and Fallacies' by J. Ellard Gore, readers are taken on a captivating journey through the universe, exploring both scientific facts and common misconceptions. This book combines a scholarly approach to astronomy with a engaging writing style suitable for both experts and laymen alike. Gore carefully dissects popular astronomical beliefs, shedding light on the truth behind them while also presenting lesser-known astronomical wonders for readers to discover. The book is a valuable addition to the field of astronomy literature, providing a comprehensive and thought-provoking look at celestial phenomena. Gore's work is a reminder that the universe is full of surprises and that there is always more to learn about the cosmos. Through his insightful analysis, readers will gain a deeper understanding of the intricacies of our universe and the importance of critical thinking in navigating the complexities of astronomical knowledge. 'Astronomical Curiosities' is a must-read for anyone with a curious mind and a passion for exploring the wonders of the universe.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 431 Pages (1,175 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: May 26th, 2024

Quanology: Evolution & You by John Khoury 4.2 Stars (9 Reviews)    Price verified 16 hours ago

See the world around you in a whole new way with John Khoury's thought-provoking new book, Quanology. A unified theory of human living, the concept of Quanology represents the next evolutionary step in achieving what humans would consider "the good life." And while it's currently popular to view nature and technology as two fundamentally opposed concepts, Quanology approaches each as complementary to the other. So what does this mean for you and your life? It means that applying the principles of Quanology to your life can dramatically increase your sense of purpose, well-being, and fulfillment. Based on the idea of evolution and natural selection, which Khoury proves still rules over us today, Quanology emphasizes the idea that nature is not a force separate from us. Humans are nature, so when we choose to study and embrace it, we are actually studying and embracing our own selves. This key insight is the starting point from which we can learn to live better, more realized lives. Khoury manages to take a technical, sometimes heavy subject and present it in a light and approachable manner that will leave readers with a renewed sense of purpose as they tackle life's challenges.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 327 Pages (1,032 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: May 25th, 2024

Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Techniques for Electrical Engineering Systems (AITEES 2022) (Atlantis ... by Valentina E. Balas (Atlantis Press) Price verified 17 hours ago

This is an open access book. The focus of the conference is to provide a unique platform for exchange of ideas and synergy among researchers, academicians and industrial experts across the globe belonging to emerging electrical engineering domains. It also provides a premier platform for the people to present and discuss the most recent innovations and solutions in solving complex and challenging problems related to intelligent electrical engineering systems. Such a blend of various research-oriented minds will lead to productive results and further advancements in electrical engineering research. The book invites submission of novel, recent area of innovation and previously unpublished research work/idea in the field of modern applications of artificial intelligence techniques to electrical engineering systems. The applications of artificial intelligence related to various fields of electrical engineering are mentioned in the conference tracks. The conference is meant to discuss the challenges and applications of latest evolutionary computing techniques, neural networks, fuzzy logic, machine learning and data analytics in the fields of power systems, power electronics, robotics, automation, instrumentation, control systems, mechatronics and photonics. It provides a platform to the students, researchers, scientists, faculty members, professionals and practitioners to interact, present and get innovative ideas in the field of electrical engineering. As a part of AITEES-2022, many keynote sessions are planned to enhance the research and innovation skills of participants. Eminent professors from academic institutions and world renowned industrial experts from India and abroad will deliver keynote sessions.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 492 Pages (43,835 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: May 15th, 2024

Proceedings of the International Conference of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Control Engineering (ICFPMCE 2022) (Atlantis Highlights in Engineering ... by Liang Yan (Atlantis Press) Price verified 7 hours ago

This is an open access book. Since 1985, held 22 times in different cities all over China, ICFPMCE has now been listed in annual academic activities (non-profit) of the Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (CSTAM), which has become one of the significant conferences in the field of fluid power and mechatronic control engineering. Under the theme of 'Green Intelligence, Innovative Development', ICFPMCE 2022 aims to provide a platform for the participants who have been working in the fields of Fluid mechanics, hydraulic and electrical engineering. In addition to keynote speeches and technical sessions to be hosted by famous experts over the world, the conference will organize a number of mini-symposia with themes of sharing the experiences of applying for the National Natural Science Foundation of China, dialogues between editors-in-chief of the journals and young scholars, experts and entrepreneurs, as well as innovative technology exhibition etc., in order to highlight the significant subjects and trends in the field.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 680 Pages (73,791 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Apr 21st, 2024

The South Pole; an account of the Norwegian Antarctic expedition in the "Fram," 1910-12 — Volume 1 and Volume 2 by Roald Amundsen 4.3 Stars (64 Reviews)    Price verified 16 hours ago

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 493 Pages (1,298 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Apr 16th, 2024

Urban Living Lab for Local Regeneration: Beyond Participation in Large-scale Social Housing Estates (The Urban Book Series) by Nele Aernouts (Springer) 4.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 35 minutes ago

This open access book provides an integrated overview of the challenges and resources of large-scale social housing estates in Europe and outlines possible interdisciplinary approaches and tools to promote their regeneration. It especially focuses on the tool of urban living labs, as promising in promoting new and more effective local governance and in including the different actors into the planning process. The book combines theory and practice, since it is the result of action-research conducted in different social housing estates all over Europe. Building on the results of the SoHoLab project (2017-2020), the book benefits from a multidisciplinary perspective, since the researchers involved belong to the fields of anthropology, urban planning, architecture, urban sociology. The project combined theoretical reflections with the installation and/or the consolidation of Urban Living Labs, run by universities, in large social housing estates in three European cities: Brussels, Milan and Paris.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 351 Pages (12,944 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Mar 29th, 2024

Beyond Cutting Edge with Bob Lazar: From Frozen Candle to Disintegrated Circuits by Alexandre Kassiantchouk 5.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 3 minutes ago

If you have read a previous edition, then start reading with chapter 78.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 438 Pages (71,613 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Mar 29th, 2024

Handbook of Computational Social Science for Policy by Eleonora Bertoni (Springer) 3.0 Stars (2 Reviews)    Price verified 17 hours ago

This open access handbook describes foundational issues, methodological approaches and examples on how to analyse and model data using Computational Social Science (CSS) for policy support. Up to now, CSS studies have mostly developed on a small, proof-of concept, scale that prevented from unleashing its potential to provide systematic impact to the policy cycle, as well as from improving the understanding of societal problems to the definition, assessment, evaluation, and monitoring of policies. The aim of this handbook is to fill this gap by exploring ways to analyse and model data for policy support, and to advocate the adoption of CSS solutions for policy by raising awareness of existing implementations of CSS in policy-relevant fields. To this end, the book explores applications of computational methods and approaches like big data, machine learning, statistical learning, sentiment analysis, text mining, systems modelling, and network analysis to different problems in the social sciences. The book is structured into three Parts: the first chapters on foundational issues open with an exposition and description of key policymaking areas where CSS can provide insights and information. In detail, the chapters cover public policy, governance, data justice and other ethical issues. Part two consists of chapters on methodological aspects dealing with issues such as the modelling of complexity, natural language processing, validity and lack of data, and innovation in official statistics. Finally, Part three describes the application of computational methods, challenges and opportunities in various social science areas, including economics, sociology, demography, migration, climate change, epidemiology, geography, and disaster management. The target audience of the book spans from the scientific community engaged in CSS research to policymakers interested in evidence-informed policy interventions, but also includes private companies holdingdata that can be used to ...

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 893 Pages (7,658 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Mar 15th, 2024

Time Matters: 7th edition by Alexandre Kassiantchouk 4.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 9 minutes ago

8th edition available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CW2WLHRW Two years ago, I started this book by explaining why the ancient Universe is red (or infrared), and how spiral galaxies counter centrifugal force from breaking them. Now I finish it with an explanation of how galaxies appeared from nothing but space and time, and where antimatter is. In the preface below you will find a list of long-standing problems solved in this book. Physicists, please read chapter 61 first: there I explain physics of observations for electrons, atoms, and "Black Holes". Astronomers, please read chapter 62 first, where 80-year-long problem of vanishing stars solved. I hope you enjoy reading my book, as I enjoyed writing it.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 379 Pages (67,468 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Mar 1st, 2024

Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Social Knowledge Sciences and Education (ICSKSE 2022) (Advances in Social Science, Education and ... by Sumarmi Sumarmi Price verified 4 hours ago

This is an open access book. Each country in Southeast Asia has experienced numerous adversities, from pandemic and disasters, to inequalities and threats to democracy. Adding to these challenges, are our common experience of colonialism where its legacies still resonate in the present. Despite these challenges, Southeast Asia continue to participate in global commitments geared towards realizing sustainable development, democracy, and countervailing the imbalance global power relation. Furthermore, Southeast Asia has been the center of studies that critically examined the global power of knowledge production. Categories of 'developing, undeveloped, or third world' have been largely questioned, as these categories created more segregation and reflected Orientalist notion rather than acknowledging countries of Southeast Asia and others as a distinct entity. Under this backdrop, the conference will explore these important questions: what makes Southeast Asia resilient? Why? What brought Southeast Asia together as 'Southeast Asia'? What are the challenges for Southeast Asia today? How do we overcome them? How does Southeast Asia contest and cooperate with global powers within the international network? This conference will bring together academics, educators, activists, or even policy makers who work on Southeast Asia to discuss those questions. Experts within and outside the countries of Southeast Asia are welcome to share their research and knowledge on various issues about the region.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 703 Pages (26,814 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Feb 23rd, 2024

Diseases of Tropical Tree Crops by Dominique Mariau 4.5 Stars (2 Reviews)    Price verified 7 hours ago

This work gives details of some fifty diseases of tropical tree crops which cause very significant yield losses hence compromising or even preventing cultivation. Breeding resistant planting material is currently the most widely used control method. Research is also under way on the rational use of chemical pesticides, the adoption of appropriate crop techniques and on reducing populations of insect vectors of viral and fungal diseases, phytoplasms and Phytomonas.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 445 Pages (32,494 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Feb 21st, 2024

Creating Resilient Futures: Integrating Disaster Risk Reduction, Sustainable Development Goals and Climate Change Adaptation Agendas by Stephen Flood (Palgrave Macmillan) Price verified 3 minutes ago

This open access edited volume critically examines a coherence building opportunity between Climate Change Adaptation, the Sustainable Development Goals and Disaster Risk Reduction agendas through presenting best practice approaches, and supporting Irish and international case studies. The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted existing global inequalities and demonstrated the scope and scale of cascading socio-ecological impacts. The impacts of climate change on our global communities will likely dwarf the disruption brought on by the pandemic, and moreover, these impacts will be more diffuse and pervasive over a longer timeframe. This edited volume considers opportunities to address global challenges in the context of developing resilience as an integrated development continuum instead of through independent and siloed agendas.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 332 Pages (6,119 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Feb 17th, 2024

Feeling Mediated: A History of Media Technology and Emotion in America (Critical Cultural Communication Book 31) by Brenton J. Malin (NYU Press) 5.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 7 hours ago

New technologies, whether text message or telegraph, inevitably raise questions about emotion. New forms of communication bring with them both fear and hope, on one hand allowing us deeper emotional connections and the ability to forge global communities, while on the other prompting anxieties about isolation and over-stimulation. Feeling Mediated investigates the larger context of such concerns, considering both how media technologies intersect with our emotional lives and how our ideas about these intersections influence how we think about and experience emotion and technology themselves. Drawing on extensive archival research, Brenton J. Malin explores the historical roots of much of our recent understanding of mediated feelings, showing how earlier ideas about the telegraph, phonograph, radio, motion pictures, and other once-new technologies continue to inform our contemporary thinking. With insightful analysis, Feeling Mediated explores a series of fascinating arguments about technology and emotion that became especially heated during the early 20th century. These debates, which carried forward and transformed earlier discussions of technology and emotion, culminated in a set of ideas that became institutionalized in the structures of American media production, advertising, social research, and policy, leaving a lasting impact on our everyday lives.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 320 Pages (3,061 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Feb 6th, 2024

Letters of a Traveller Or, Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America by William Cullen Bryant 5.0 Stars (3 Reviews)    Price verified 17 hours ago

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 458 Pages (745 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Feb 2nd, 2024

Green Voices: Defending Nature and the Environment in American Civic Discourse (SUNY Press Open Access) by Richard D. Besel (SUNY Press) Price verified 17 hours ago

The written works of nature's leading advocates -- from Charles Sumner and John Muir to Rachel Carson and President Jimmy Carter, to name a few -- have been the subject of many texts, but their speeches remain relatively unknown or unexamined. Green Voices aims to redress this situation. After all, when it comes to the leaders, heroes, and activists of the environmental movement, their speeches formed part of the fertile earth from which uniquely American environmental expectations, assumptions, and norms germinated and grew. Despite having in common a definitively rhetorical focus, the contributions in this book reflect a variety of methods and approaches. Some concentrate on a single speaker and a single speech. Others look at several speeches. Some are historical in orientation, while others are more theoretical. In other words, this collection examines the broad sweep of US environmental history from the perspective of our most famous and influential environmental figures. This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to Knowledge Unlatched -- an initiative that provides libraries and institutions with a centralized platform to support OA collections and from leading publishing houses and OA initiatives. Learn more at the Knowledge Unlatched website at: https://www.knowledgeunlatched.org/, and access the book online at the SUNY Open Access Repository at http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12648/7126.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 416 Pages (4,960 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Jan 16th, 2024

Evolving the Common Agricultural Policy for Tomorrow's Challenges by Cécile Détang-Dessendre (Quae) 5.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 45 minutes ago

As in other parts of the world, agriculture in Europe is not sustainable. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) must foster its necessary evolution. This book draws the contours of an ambitious CAP that would facilitate the agro-ecological transition of agricultural systems in the European Union.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 548 Pages (3,795 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Jan 5th, 2024

Ecology of Angola: Terrestrial Biomes and Ecoregions by Brian John Huntley (Springer) 5.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 5 hours ago

This open access book richly illustrates the first, and comprehensive, account of the country's biomes and ecoregions, the driving forces that account for their diversity and vulnerability, and the ecological principles that provide an understanding of the patterns and processes that have shaped landscapes, ecoregions, and ecosystems. Angola encompasses the greatest diversity of terrestrial biomes and is the second richest in terms of ecoregions, of any African country. Yet its biodiversity and the structure and functioning of its ecosystems are largely undocumented. The author draws on personal field observations from over 50 years of involvement in ecological and conservation studies in Angola and across Southern Africa. The vast recent literature published by researchers in neighboring, better resourced countries provides depth to the accounts of ecological principles and processes relevant to Angola and thus contributing to the understanding and sustainable management of its natural resources.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 763 Pages (106,166 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Jan 4th, 2024

A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses by C. Tadulinga Mudaliyar 5.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 6 hours ago

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 336 Pages (501 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Dec 24th, 2023

Knowing the Salween River: Resource Politics of a Contested Transboundary River (The Anthropocene: Politik—Economics—Society—Science Book 27) by Carl Middleton (Springer) 3.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 7 hours ago

This open access book focuses on the Salween River, shared by China, Myanmar, and Thailand, that is increasingly at the heart of pressing regional development debates. The basin supports the livelihoods of over 10 million people, and within it there is great socio-economic, cultural and political diversity. The basin is witnessing intensifying dynamics of resource extraction, alongside large dam construction, conservation and development intervention, that is unfolding within a complex terrain of local, national and transnational governance. With a focus on the contested politics of water and associated resources in the Salween basin, this book offers a collection of empirical case studies that highlights local knowledge and perspectives. Given the paucity of grounded social science studies in this contested basin, this book provides conceptual insights at the intersection of resource governance, development, and politics of knowledge relevant to researchers, policy-makers and practitioners at a time when rapid change is underway. - Fills a significant knowledge gap on a major river in Southeast Asia, with empirical and conceptual contributions - Inter-disciplinary perspective and by a range of writers, including academics, policy-makers and civil society researchers, the majority from within Southeast Asia - New policy insights on a river at the cross-roads of a major political and development transition

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 483 Pages (11,586 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Dec 19th, 2023

Biomineralization: From Molecular and Nano-structural Analyses to Environmental Science by Kazuyoshi Endo (Springer) 3.9 Stars (10 Reviews)    Price verified 8 hours ago

This open access book is the proceedings of the 14th International Symposium on Biomineralization (BIOMIN XIV) held in 2017 at Tsukuba. Over the past 45 years, biomineralization research has unveiled details of the characteristics of the nano-structure of various biominerals; the formation mechanism of this nano-structure, including the initial stage of crystallization; and the function of organic matrices in biominerals, and this knowledge has been applied to dental, medical, pharmaceutical, materials, agricultural and environmental sciences and paleontology. As such, biomineralization is an important interdisciplinary research area, and further advances are expected in both fundamental and applied research.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 588 Pages (51,613 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Nov 29th, 2023

Transforming Education for Sustainability: Discourses on Justice, Inclusion, and Authenticity (Environmental Discourses in Science Education Book 7) by María S. Rivera Maulucci (Springer) Price verified 16 hours ago

This book investigates how educators and researchers in the sciences, social sciences, and the arts, connect concepts of sustainability to work in their fields of study and in the classrooms where they teach the next generation. Sustainability, with a focus on justice, authenticity and inclusivity, can be integrated into many different courses or disciplines even if it is beyond their historical focus. The narratives describe sustainability education in the classroom, the laboratory, and the field (broadly defined) and how the authors navigate the complexities of particular sustainability issues, such as climate change, water quality, soil health, biodiversity, resource use, and education in authentic ways that convey their complexity, the sociopolitical context, and their hopes for the future. The chapters explore how faculty engage students in learning about sustainability and the ways in which working at the edge of what we know about sustainability can be a significant source of engagement, motivation, and challenge. The authors discuss how they create learning experiences that foster democratic practices in which students are not just following protocols, but have a stake in creative decision-making, collecting and analysing data, and posing authentic questions. They also describe what happens when students are not just passively receiving information, but actively analysing, debating, dialoguing, arguing from evidence, and constructing nuanced understandings of complex socioscientific sustainability issues. The narratives include undergraduate student perspectives on what it means to engage in sustainability research and learning, how students navigate the complexities and contradictions inherent in sustainability issues, what makes for authentic, empowering learning experiences, and how students are encouraged to persevere in the field. This is an open access book.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 806 Pages (19,652 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Nov 19th, 2023

The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II by A. E. (Adolf Erik) Nordenskiöld 5.0 Stars (2 Reviews)    Price verified 3 minutes ago

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 1,127 Pages (1,138 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Oct 27th, 2023

Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission by Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission 5.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 3 minutes ago

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 372 Pages (1,715 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Oct 16th, 2023

Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 Embracing the Transactions of the Minnesota State Horticultural Society,Volume 44, from December 1, ... by Various 5.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 5 hours ago

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 720 Pages (6,942 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Oct 5th, 2023

Second Assessment of Climate Change for the Baltic Sea Basin (Regional Climate Studies) by The BACC II Author Team (Springer) 5.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 9 hours ago

?This book is an update of the first BACC assessment, published in 2008. It offers new and updated scientific findings in regional climate research for the Baltic Sea basin. These include climate changes since the last glaciation (approx. 12,000 years ago), changes in the recent past (the last 200 years), climate projections up until 2100 using state-of-the-art regional climate models and an assessment of climate-change impacts on terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems. There are dedicated new chapters on sea-level rise, coastal erosion and impacts on urban areas. A new set of chapters deals with possible causes of regional climate change along with the global effects of increased greenhouse gas concentrations, namely atmospheric aerosols and land-cover change. The evidence collected and presented in this book shows that the regional climate has already started to change and this is expected to continue. Projections of potential future climates show that the region will probably become considerably warmer and wetter in some parts, but dryer in others. Terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems have already shown adjustments to increased temperatures and are expected to undergo further changes in the near future. The BACC II Author Team consists of 141 scientists from 12 countries, covering various disciplines related to climate research and related impacts. BACC II is a project of the Baltic Earth research network and contributes to the World Climate Research Programme.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 1,272 Pages (31,774 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Oct 5th, 2023

Towards a Sustainable Future - Life Cycle Management: Challenges and Prospects by Zbigniew Stanislaw Klos (Springer) 4.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 60 minutes ago

This open access book includes a selection of contributions from the Life Cycle Management 2019 Conference (LCM) held in Pozna?, Poland, and presents different examples of scientific and practical contributions, showing an incorporation of life cycle approach into the decision processes on strategic and operational level. Special attention is drawn to applications of LCM to target, organize, analyze and manage product-related information and activities towards continuous improvement, along the different products life cycle. The selection of case studies presents LCM as a business management approach that can be used by all types of businesses and organizations in order to improve their sustainability performance. This book provides a cross-sectoral, current picture of LCM issues. The structure of the book is based on five-theme lines. The themes represent different objects that are focused on sustainability and LCM practices mainly related to: products, technologies, organizations, markets and policy issues as well as methodological solutions. The book brings together presentations from the world of science and the world of enterprises as well as institutions supporting economic development.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 507 Pages (23,711 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Oct 2nd, 2023

Climate-Smart Forestry in Mountain Regions (Managing Forest Ecosystems Book 40) by Roberto Tognetti (Springer) 3.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 25 minutes ago

This open access book offers a cross-sectoral reference for both managers and scientists interested in climate-smart forestry, focusing on mountain regions. It provides a comprehensive analysis on forest issues, facilitating the implementation of climate objectives. This book includes structured summaries of each chapter. Funded by the EU's Horizon 2020 programme, CLIMO has brought together scientists and experts in continental and regional focus assessments through a cross-sectoral approach, facilitating the implementation of climate objectives. CLIMO has provided scientific analysis on issues including criteria and indicators, growth dynamics, management prescriptions, long-term perspectives, monitoring technologies, economic impacts, and governance tools.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 1,035 Pages (47,278 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Sep 7th, 2023

Aventures d'un jeune naturaliste. English by Lucien Biart 5.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 2 hours ago

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 400 Pages (714 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Aug 21st, 2023

Bioimage Data Analysis Workflows ‒ Advanced Components and Methods (Learning Materials in Biosciences) by Kota Miura (Springer) 4.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 4 hours ago

This open access textbook aims at providing detailed explanations on how to design and construct image analysis workflows to successfully conduct bioimage analysis. Addressing the main challenges in image data analysis, where acquisition by powerful imaging devices results in very large amounts of collected image data, the book discusses techniques relying on batch and GPU programming, as well as on powerful deep learning-based algorithms. In addition, downstream data processing techniques are introduced, such as Python libraries for data organization, plotting, and visualizations. Finally, by studying the way individual unique ideas are implemented in the workflows, readers are carefully guided through how the parameters driving biological systems are revealed by analyzing image data. These studies include segmentation of plant tissue epidermis, analysis of the spatial pattern of the eye development in fruit flies, and the analysis of collective cell migration dynamics. The presented content extends the Bioimage Data Analysis Workflows textbook (Miura, Sladoje, 2020), published in this same series, with new contributions and advanced material, while preserving the well-appreciated pedagogical approach adopted and promoted during the training schools for bioimage analysis organized within NEUBIAS - the Network of European Bioimage Analysts. This textbook is intended for advanced students in various fields of the life sciences and biomedicine, as well as staff scientists and faculty members who conduct regular quantitative analyses of microscopy images.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 349 Pages (143,819 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Aug 19th, 2023

Machine Learning and Its Application to Reacting Flows: ML and Combustion (Lecture Notes in Energy Book 44) by Nedunchezhian Swaminathan (Springer) 5.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 3 minutes ago

This open access book introduces and explains machine learning (ML) algorithms and techniques developed for statistical inferences on a complex process or system and their applications to simulations of chemically reacting turbulent flows. These two fields, ML and turbulent combustion, have large body of work and knowledge on their own, and this book brings them together and explain the complexities and challenges involved in applying ML techniques to simulate and study reacting flows. This is important as to the world's total primary energy supply (TPES), since more than 90% of this supply is through combustion technologies and the non-negligible effects of combustion on environment. Although alternative technologies based on renewable energies are coming up, their shares for the TPES is are less than 5% currently and one needs a complete paradigm shift to replace combustion sources. Whether this is practical or not is entirely a different question, and an answer to this question depends on the respondent. However, a pragmatic analysis suggests that the combustion share to TPES is likely to be more than 70% even by 2070. Hence, it will be prudent to take advantage of ML techniques to improve combustion sciences and technologies so that efficient and "greener" combustion systems that are friendlier to the environment can be designed. The book covers the current state of the art in these two topics and outlines the challenges involved, merits and drawbacks of using ML for turbulent combustion simulations including avenues which can be explored to overcome the challenges. The required mathematical equations and backgrounds are discussed with ample references for readers to find further detail if they wish. This book is unique since there is not any book with similar coverage of topics, ranging from big data analysis and machine learning algorithm to their applications for combustion science and system design for energy generation.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 603 Pages (50,850 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Aug 3rd, 2023

Hypergraph Computation (Artificial Intelligence: Foundations, Theory, and Algorithms) by Qionghai Dai (Springer) 5.0 Stars (4 Reviews)    Price verified 21 minutes ago

This open access book discusses the theory and methods of hypergraph computation. Many underlying relationships among data can be represented using graphs, for example in the areas including computer vision, molecular chemistry, molecular biology, etc. In the last decade, methods like graph-based learning and neural network methods have been developed to process such data, they are particularly suitable for handling relational learning tasks. In many real-world problems, however, relationships among the objects of our interest are more complexthan pair-wise. Naively squeezing the complex relationships into pairwise ones will inevitably lead to loss of information which can be expected valuable for learning tasks. Hypergraph, as a generation of graph, has shown superior performance on modelling complex correlations compared with graph. Recent years have witnessed a great popularity of researches on hypergraph-related AI methods, which have been used in computer vision, social media analysis, etc. We summarize these attempts as a new computing paradigm, called hypergraph computation, which is to formulate thehigh-order correlations underneath the data using hypergraph, and then conduct semantic computing on the hypergraph for different applications. The content of this book consists of hypergraph computation paradigms, hypergraph modelling, hypergraph structure evolution, hypergraph neural networks, and applications of hypergraph computation in different fields. We further summarize recent achievements and future directions on hypergraph computation in this book.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 393 Pages (49,855 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Aug 3rd, 2023

Agricultural Value Chains in India: Ensuring Competitiveness, Inclusiveness, Sustainability, Scalability, and Improved Finance (India Studies in ... by Ashok Gulati (Springer) 5.0 Stars (2 Reviews)    Price verified 3 minutes ago

This open access book provides a clear holistic conceptual framework of CISS-F (competitiveness, inclusiveness, sustainability, scalability and access to finance) to analyse the efficiency of value chains of high value agricultural commodities in India. It is based on the understanding that agriculture is an integrated system that connects farming with logistics, processing and marketing. Farmer's welfare being central to any agricultural policy makes it very pertinent to study how a value chain works and can be strengthened further to realize this policy goal. This book adds value to the existing research by studying the value chains end-to-end across a wide spectrum of agricultural commodities with the holistic lens of CISS-F. It is not enough that a value chain is competitive but not inclusive or it is competitive and inclusive but not sustainable. The issue of scalability is very critical to achieve macro gains in terms of greater farmer outreach and sectoral growth. The research undertaken here brings out some very useful insights for policymaking in terms of what needs to be done better to steer the agricultural value chains towards being more competitive, inclusive, sustainable and scalable. The value chain specific research findings help draw very nuanced policy recommendations as well as present a big picture of the future direction of policy making in agriculture.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 523 Pages (37,943 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Aug 2nd, 2023

Security of Ubiquitous Computing Systems: Selected Topics by Gildas Avoine (Springer) 5.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 21 minutes ago

The chapters in this open access book arise out of the EU Cost Action project Cryptacus, the objective of which was to improve and adapt existent cryptanalysis methodologies and tools to the ubiquitous computing framework. The cryptanalysis implemented lies along four axes: cryptographic models, cryptanalysis of building blocks, hardware and software security engineering, and security assessment of real-world systems. The authors are top-class researchers in security and cryptography, and the contributions are of value to researchers and practitioners in these domains. This book is open access under a CC BY license.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 462 Pages (6,490 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Aug 2nd, 2023

The Story of the Soil; from the Basis of Absolute Science and Real Life, by Cyril G. (Cyril George) Hopkins 3.2 Stars (19 Reviews)    Price verified 17 hours ago

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 325 Pages (637 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Jul 19th, 2023

Mining Gold and Manufacturing Ignorance: Occupational Lung Disease and the Buying and Selling of Labour in Southern Africa by Jock McCulloch (Palgrave Macmillan) Price verified 17 hours ago

This open access book charts how South Africa's gold mines have systematically suppressed evidence of hazardous work practices and the risks associated with mining. For most of the twentieth century, South Africa was the world's largest producer of gold. Although the country enjoyed a reputation for leading the world in occupational health legislation, the mining companies developed a system of medical surveillance and workers' compensation which compromised the health of black gold miners, facilitated the spread of tuberculosis, and ravaged the communities and economies of labour-sending states. The culmination of two decades of meticulous archival research, this book exposes the making, contesting, and unravelling of the companies' capacity to shape - and corrupt - medical knowledge.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 610 Pages (2,592 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Jul 12th, 2023

Japan Nutrition by Teiji Nakamura (Springer) 4.8 Stars (5 Reviews)    Price verified 3 minutes ago

This Open Access auto-translation book demonstrates a time series of nutrition improvement in Japan since the introduction of nutrition sciences to Japan about 150 years ago. The chapters present the historical event where nutritional deficiency due to food shortage was improved in almost a century, by the introduction of nutrition policy and practices such as the "Nutrition Improvement Law". The book contributed to the construction of a longevity nation by resolving the double burden of malnutrition, which is a mixture of undernutrition and overnutrition and creating a social environment in which sustainable healthy diets can be accessed. This publication is designed mainly for nutrition specialists, nutritionists, nutrition administrators, medical doctors, pharmacists, nurses, physiotherapists, nutrition educators, cookers, nutrition volunteers, health and nutrition food developers, school lunch managers, and etc. Furthermore, students studying nutrition, teachers involved in the education and training of dietitians, and general consumers who are interested in nutrition, diets, and how to improve malnutrition, will find this book useful. Through this book, dietitians, nutrition volunteers, and consumers engaged in nutrition improvement can understand the significance of nutrition improvement and know specific methods. Young nutritionists who will study and research nutrition can learn the importance of nutrition and take pride in nutrition research. The government official who implements nutrition policy can know the concrete method of nutrition policy. Today, people around the world understand the importance of nutrition and are gaining international interest. However, malnutrition has not improved as much as expected. This book is an interesting way for everyone involved in nutrition to learn how to eradicate malnutrition from the world. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). The ...

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 335 Pages (14,962 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Jul 3rd, 2023

Electrochemical Supercapacitors for Energy Storage and Delivery: Fundamentals and Applications (Electrochemical Energy Storage and Conversion) by Aiping Yu (CRC Press) 4.3 Stars (13 Reviews)    Price verified 17 hours ago

Although recognized as an important component of all energy storage and conversion technologies, electrochemical supercapacitators (ES) still face development challenges in order to reach their full potential. A thorough examination of development in the technology during the past decade, Electrochemical Supercapacitors for Energy Storage and Delivery: Fundamentals and Applications provides a comprehensive introduction to the ES from technical and practical aspects and crystallization of the technology, detailing the basics of ES as well as its components and characterization techniques. The book illuminates the practical aspects of understanding and applying the technology within the industry and provides sufficient technical detail of newer materials being developed by experts in the field which may surface in the future. The book discusses the technical challenges and the practical limitations and their associated parameters in ES technology. It also covers the structure and options for device packaging and materials choices such as electrode materials, electrolyte, current collector, and sealants based on comparison of available data. Supplying an in depth understanding of the components, design, and characterization of electrochemical supercapacitors, the book has wide-ranging appeal to industry experts and those new to the field. It can be used as a reference to apply to current work and a resource to foster ideas for new devices that will further the technology as it becomes a larger part of main stream energy storage.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 373 Pages (6,086 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Jul 3rd, 2023

YOUMARES 9 - The Oceans: Our Research, Our Future: Proceedings of the 2018 conference for YOUng MArine RESearcher in Oldenburg, Germany by Simon Jungblut (Springer) 4.7 Stars (4 Reviews)    Price verified 17 hours ago

This open access book summarizes peer-reviewed articles and the abstracts of oral and poster presentations given during the YOUMARES 9 conference which took place in Oldenburg, Germany, in September 2018. The aims of this book are to summarize state-of-the-art knowledge in marine sciences and to inspire scientists of all career stages in the development of further research. These conferences are organized by and for young marine researchers. Qualified early-career researchers, who moderated topical sessions during the conference, contributed literature reviews on specific topics within their research field.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 981 Pages (28,021 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Jul 3rd, 2023

Rangeland Systems: Processes, Management and Challenges (Springer Series on Environmental Management) by David D. Briske (Springer) 4.7 Stars (9 Reviews)    Price verified 17 hours ago

This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 2.5 license. This book provides an unprecedented synthesis of the current status of scientific and management knowledge regarding global rangelands and the major challenges that confront them. It has been organized around three major themes. The first summarizes the conceptual advances that have occurred in the rangeland profession. The second addresses the implications of these conceptual advances to management and policy. The third assesses several major challenges confronting global rangelands in the 21st century. This book will compliment applied range management textbooks by describing the conceptual foundation on which the rangeland profession is based. It has been written to be accessible to a broad audience, including ecosystem managers, educators, students and policy makers. The content is founded on the collective experience, knowledge and commitment of 80 authors who have worked in rangelands throughout the world. Their collective contributions indicate that a more comprehensive framework is necessary to address the complex challenges confronting global rangelands. Rangelands represent adaptive social-ecological systems, in which societal values, organizations and capacities are of equal importance to, and interact with, those of ecological processes. A more comprehensive framework for rangeland systems may enable management agencies, and educational, research and policy making organizations to more effectively assess complex problems and develop appropriate solutions.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 1,274 Pages (13,178 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Jun 1st, 2023

The Climate-Smart Agriculture Papers: Investigating the Business of a Productive, Resilient and Low Emission Future by Todd S. Rosenstock (Springer) 3.9 Stars (7 Reviews)    Price verified 3 minutes ago

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This volume shares new data relating to Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA), with emphasis on experiences in Eastern and Southern Africa. The book is a collection of research by authors from over 30 institutions, spanning the public and private sectors, with specific knowledge on agricultural development in the region discussed. The material is assembled to answer key questions on the following five topic areas: (1) Climate impacts: What are the most significant current and near future climate risks undermining smallholder livelihoods? (2) Varieties: How can climate-smart varieties be delivered quickly and cost-effectively to smallholders? (3) Farm management: What are key lessons on the contributions from soil and water management to climate risk reduction and how should interventions be prioritized? (4) Value chains: How can climate risks to supply and value chains be reduced? and (5) Scaling up: How can most promising climate risks reduction strategies be quickly scaled up and what are critical success factors? Readers who will be interested in this book include students, policy makers, and researchers studying climate change impacts on agriculture and agricultural sustainability.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 331 Pages (30,283 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: May 26th, 2023

Sentient Ecologies: Xenophobic Imaginaries of Landscape (Environmental Anthropology and Ethnobiology Book 31) by Alexandra CoÈ›ofană (Berghahn Books) 5.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 3 minutes ago

Employing methodological perspectives from the fields of political geography, environmental studies, anthropology, and their cognate disciplines, this volume explores alternative logics of sentient landscapes as racist, xenophobic, and right-wing. While the field of sentient landscapes has gained critical attention, the literature rarely seems to question the intentionality of sentient landscapes, which are often romanticized as pure, good, and just, and perceived as protectors of those who are powerless, indigenous, and colonized. The book takes a new stance on sentient landscapes with the intention of dispelling the denial of "coevalness" represented by their scholarly romanticization.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 402 Pages (85 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: May 19th, 2023

Microplastic in the Environment: Pattern and Process (Environmental Contamination Remediation and Management) by Michael S. Bank (Springer) 5.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 7 hours ago

This open access book examines global plastic pollution, an issue that has become a critical societal challenge with implications for environmental and public health. This volume provides a comprehensive, holistic analysis on the plastic cycle and its subsequent effects on biota, food security, and human exposure. Importantly, global environmental change and its associated, systems-level processes, including atmospheric deposition, ecosystem complexity, UV exposure, wind patterns, water stratification, ocean circulation, etc., are all important direct and indirect factors governing the fate, transport and biotic and abiotic processing of plastic particles across ecosystem types. Furthermore, the distribution of plastic in the ocean is not independent of terrestrial ecosystem dynamics, since much of the plastic in marine ecosystems originates from land and should therefore be evaluated in the context of the larger plastic cycle. Changes in species size, distribution, habitat, and food web complexity, due to global environmental change, will likely alter trophic transfer dynamics and the ecological effects of nano- and microplastics. The fate and transport dynamics of plastic particles are influenced by their size, form, shape, polymer type, additives, and overall ecosystem conditions. In addition to the risks that plastics pose to the total environment, the potential impacts on human health and exposure routes, including seafood consumption, and air and drinking water need to be assessed in a comprehensive and quantitative manner. Here I present a holistic and interdisciplinary book volume designed to advance the understanding of plastic cycling in the environment with an emphasis on sources, fate and transport, ecotoxicology, climate change effects, food security, microbiology, sustainability, human exposure and public policy.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 640 Pages (11,902 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: May 17th, 2023

Critical Materials: Underlying Causes And Sustainable Mitigation Strategies (World Scientific Series In Current Energy Issues Book 5) by S Erik Offerman (World Scientific) 5.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 21 minutes ago

This book covers a new frontier of research in Critical Materials that provides insight in terms of the possible sustainable mitigation strategies, the complexity, broadness and multi-disciplinarity of the subject. By exploring in both 'systems view' and 'in-depth materials view' in light of the circular economy, this book tackles the problem of sustainable usage of materials that is closely intertwined with the energy issue and climate change. Topics covered include: geopolitics of materials, the energy-materials nexus, definitions of the criticality of materials, circular product design, the development of alternative materials (substitution), sustainable mining and recycling.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 392 Pages (13,292 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: May 16th, 2023

Transforming Trauma: Resilience and Healing Through Our Connections With Animals (New Directions in the Human-Animal Bond) by Philip Tedeschi (Purdue University Press) 4.9 Stars (28 Reviews)    Price verified 17 hours ago

Have you ever looked deep into the eyes of an animal and felt entirely known? Often, the connections we share with non-human animals represent our safest and most reliable relationships, offering unique and profound opportunities for healing in periods of hardship. This book focuses on research developments, models, and practical applications of human-animal connection and animal-assisted intervention for diverse populations who have experienced trauma. Physiological and psychological trauma are explored across three broad and interconnected domains: 1) child maltreatment and family violence; 2) acute and post-traumatic stress, including military service, war, and developmental trauma; and 3) times of crisis, such as the ever-increasing occurrence of natural disasters, community violence, terrorism, and anticipated or actual grief and loss. Contributing authors, who include international experts in the fields of trauma and human-animal connection, examine how our relationships with animals can help build resiliency and foster healing to transform trauma. A myriad of animal species and roles, including companion, therapy, and service animals are discussed. Authors also consider how animals are included in a variety of formal and informal models of trauma recovery across the human lifespan, with special attention paid to canine- and equine-assisted interventions and psychotherapy. In addition, authors emphasize the potential impacts to animals who provide trauma-informed services, and discuss how we can respect their participation and implement best practices and ethical standards to ensure their well-being. The reader is offered a comprehensive understanding of the history of research in this field, as well as the latest advancements and areas in need of further or refined investigation. Likewise, authors explore, in depth, emerging practices and methodologies for helping people and communities thrive in the face of traumatic events and their long-term impacts. As ...

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 697 Pages (3,055 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: May 13th, 2023

Augmented Humanity: Being and Remaining Agentic in a Digitalized World by Peter T. Bryant (Palgrave Macmillan) 4.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 17 hours ago

This open access book will examine the implications of digitalization for the understanding of humanity, conceived as a community of intelligent agency. It addresses important topics across a range of social and behavioral theories and identifies a range of novel mechanisms and their social behavioral effects. Across the book, the author highlights the expansion of intelligent processing capability brought about by digitalization and the challenges this exposes for integrating artificial and human capabilities. It includes the altered effects of bounded rationality in problem solving and decision making; related changes in the perception of rationality, plus novel myopias and biases. It also seeks to address cognitive intersubjectivity, learning from performance and agentic self-generation; and the novel methods and patterns of reasoned thought which emerge in a digitalized world; and how these mechanisms will combine in making and remaking the world of human experience and understanding. This book examines the problematics and prospects for digitally augmented humanity. In doing so, it maps the terrain for a future science of augmented agency. It will have cross-disciplinary appeal to students and scholars of applied psychology, cognitive and behavioral science, organizational psychology and management, business, finance, and digital cultures and humanities.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 334 Pages (5,511 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: May 10th, 2023

Decision Science for Future Earth: Theory and Practice by Tetsukazu Yahara (Springer) 3.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 17 hours ago

This open access book provides a theoretical framework and case studies on decision science for regional sustainability by integrating the natural and social sciences. The cases discussed include solution-oriented transdisciplinary studies on the environment, disasters, health, governance and human cooperation. Based on these case studies and comprehensive reviews of relevant works, including lessons learned from past failures for predictable surprises and successes in adaptive co-management, the book provides the reader with new perspectives on how we can co-design collaborative projects with various conflicts of interest and how we can transform our society for a sustainable future. The book makes a valuable contribution to the global research initiative Future Earth, promoting transdisciplinary studies to bridge the gap between science and society in knowledge generation processes and supporting efforts to achieve the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Compared to other publications on transdisciplinary studies, this book is unique in that evolutionary biology is used as an integrator for various areas related to human decision-making, and approaches social changes as processes of adaptive learning and evolution. Given its scope, the book is highly recommended to all readers seeking an integrated overview of human decision-making in the context of social transformation.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 367 Pages (28,525 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Mar 27th, 2023

Health of People, Health of Planet and Our Responsibility: Climate Change, Air Pollution and Health by Al-Delaimy (Springer) 4.6 Stars (7 Reviews)    Price verified 3 hours ago

This open access book not only describes the challenges of climate disruption, but also presents solutions. The challenges described include air pollution, climate change, extreme weather, and related health impacts that range from heat stress, vector-borne diseases, food and water insecurity and chronic diseases to malnutrition and mental well-being. The influence of humans on climate change has been established through extensive published evidence and reports. However, the connections between climate change, the health of the planet and the impact on human health have not received the same level of attention. Therefore, the global focus on the public health impacts of climate change is a relatively recent area of interest. This focus is timely since scientists have concluded that changes in climate have led to new weather extremes such as floods, storms, heat waves, droughts and fires, in turn leading to more than 600,000 deaths and the displacement of nearly 4 billion people in the last 20 years. Previous work on the health impacts of climate change was limited mostly to epidemiologic approaches and outcomes and focused less on multidisciplinary, multi-faceted collaborations between physical scientists, public health researchers and policy makers. Further, there was little attention paid to faith-based and ethical approaches to the problem. The solutions and actions we explore in this book engage diverse sectors of civil society, faith leadership, and political leadership, all oriented by ethics, advocacy, and policy with a special focus on poor and vulnerable populations. The book highlights areas we think will resonate broadly with the public, faith leaders, researchers and students across disciplines including the humanities, and policy makers.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 718 Pages (31,008 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Mar 26th, 2023

Engineering Agile Big-Data Systems by Kevin Feeney (River Publishers) 5.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 16 hours ago

To be effective, data-intensive systems require extensive ongoing customisation to reflect changing user requirements, organisational policies, and the structure and interpretation of the data they hold. Manual customisation is expensive, time-consuming, and error-prone. In large complex systems, the value of the data can be such that exhaustive testing is necessary before any new feature can be added to the existing design. In most cases, the precise details of requirements, policies and data will change during the lifetime of the system, forcing a choice between expensive modification and continued operation with an inefficient design.Engineering Agile Big-Data Systems outlines an approach to dealing with these problems in software and data engineering, describing a methodology for aligning these processes throughout product lifecycles. It discusses tools which can be used to achieve these goals, and, in a number of case studies, shows how the tools and methodology have been used to improve a variety of academic and business systems.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 434 Pages (10,708 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Mar 10th, 2023

Quantifying Quality of Life: Incorporating Daily Life into Medicine (Health Informatics) by Katarzyna Wac (Springer) 5.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 11 minutes ago

This open access book presents the rise of technology-enabled methods and tools for objective, quantitative assessment of Quality of Life (QoL), while following the WHOQOL model. It is an in-depth resource describing and examining state-of-the-art, minimally obtrusive, ubiquitous technologies. Highlighting the required factors for adoption and scaling of technology-enabled methods and tools for QoL assessment, it also describes how these technologies can be leveraged for behavior change, disease prevention, health management and long-term QoL enhancement in populations at large. Quantifying Quality of Life: Incorporating Daily Life into Medicine fills a gap in the field of QoL by providing assessment methods, techniques and tools. These assessments differ from the current methods that are now mostly infrequent, subjective, qualitative, memory-based, context-poor and sparse. Therefore, it is an ideal resource for physicians, physicians in training, software and hardware developers, computer scientists, data scientists, behavioural scientists, entrepreneurs, healthcare leaders and administrators who are seeking an up-to-date resource on this subject.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 1,079 Pages (32,118 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Mar 1st, 2023

Monte Carlo N-Particle Simulations for Nuclear Detection and Safeguards: An Examples-Based Guide for Students and Practitioners by John S. Hendricks (Springer) 4.8 Stars (6 Reviews)    Price verified 3 minutes ago

This open access book is a pedagogical, examples-based guide to using the Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP®) code for nuclear safeguards and non-proliferation applications. The MCNP code, general-purpose software for particle transport simulations, is widely used in the field of nuclear safeguards and non-proliferation for numerous applications including detector design and calibration, and the study of scenarios such as measurement of fresh and spent fuel. This book fills a gap in the existing MCNP software literature by teaching MCNP software usage through detailed examples that were selected based on both student feedback and the real-world experience of the nuclear safeguards group at Los Alamos National Laboratory. MCNP input and output files are explained, and the technical details used in MCNP input file preparation are linked to the MCNP code manual. Benefiting from the authors' decades of experience in MCNP simulation, this book is essential reading for students, academic researchers, and practitioners whose work in nuclear physics or nuclear engineering is related to non-proliferation or nuclear safeguards. Each chapter comes with downloadable input files for the user to easily reproduce the examples in the text.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 464 Pages (35,624 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Feb 20th, 2023

Open Mapping towards Sustainable Development Goals: Voices of YouthMappers on Community Engaged Scholarship (Sustainable Development Goals Series) by Patricia Solís (Springer) 5.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 11 minutes ago

This collection amplifies the experiences of some of the world's young people who are working to address SDGs using geospatial technologies and multi-national collaboration. Authors from every region of the world who have emerged as leaders in the YouthMappers movement share their perspectives and knowledge in an accessible and peer-friendly format. YouthMappers are university students who create and use open mapping for development and humanitarian purposes. Their work leverages digital innovations - both geospatial platforms and communications technologies - to answer the call for leadership to address sustainability challenges. The book conveys a sense of robust knowledge emerging from formal studies or informal academic experiences - in the first-person voices of students and recent graduates who are at the forefront of creating a new map of the world. YouthMappers use OpenStreetMap as the foundational sharing mechanism for creating data together. Authors impart the way they are learning about themselves, about each other, about the world. They are developing technology skills, and simultaneously teaching the rest of the world about the potential contributions of a highly connected generation of emerging world leaders for the SDGs. The book is timely, in that it captures a pivotal moment in the trajectory of the YouthMappers movement's ability to share emerging expertise, and one that coincides with a pivotal moment in the geopolitical history of planet earth whose inhabitants need to hear from them. Most volumes that cover the topic of sustainability in terms of youth development are written by non-youth authors. Moreover, most are written by non-majoritarian, entrenched academic scholars. This book instead puts forward the diverse voices of students and recent graduates in countries where YouthMappers works, all over the world. Authors cover topics that range from water, agriculture, food, to waste, education, gender, climate action and disasters from ...

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 797 Pages (102,396 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Feb 20th, 2023

Bacterial NanoCellulose: A Sophisticated Multifunctional Material (Perspectives in Nanotechnology) by Miguel Gama (CRC Press) 4.4 Stars (4 Reviews)    Price verified 6 hours ago

The first book dedicated to the potential applications and unique properties of bacterial cellulose (BC), this seminal work covers the basic science, technology, and economic impact of this bulk chemical as well as the companies and patents that are driving the field. It reviews the biosynthesis and properties of BC, including genetics and characterization; discusses the advancing technology as it relates to product development, bioreactors, and production; and analyzes the economic impact of BC on a diverse range of industry applications, including materials and biomaterials, biological and polymer sciences, and electromechanical engineering.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 314 Pages (36,489 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Feb 17th, 2023

Food Security in the High North: Contemporary Challenges Across the Circumpolar Region (Routledge Research in Polar Regions) by Kamrul Hossain (Routledge) 5.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 10 hours ago

This book explores the challenges facing food security, sustainability, sovereignty, and supply chains in the Arctic, with a specific focus on Indigenous Peoples. Offering multidisciplinary insights and with a particular focus on populations in the European High North region, the book highlights the importance of accessible and sustainable traditional foods for the dietary needs of local and Indigenous Peoples. It focuses on foods and natural products that are unique to this region and considers how they play a significant role towards food security and sovereignty. The book captures the tremendous complexity facing populations here as they strive to maintain sustainable food systems - both subsistent and commercial - and regain sovereignty over traditional food production policies. A range of issues are explored including food contamination risks, due to increasing human activities in the region, such as mining, to changing livelihoods and gender roles in the maintenance of traditional food security and sovereignty. The book also considers processing methods that combine indigenous and traditional knowledge to convert the traditional foods, that are harvested and hunted, into local foods. This book offers a broader understanding of food security and sovereignty and will be of interest to academics, scholars and policy makers working in food studies; geography and environmental studies; agricultural studies; sociology; anthropology; political science; health studies and biology.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 337 Pages (7,651 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Jan 26th, 2023

Perspectives on Digital Humanism by Hannes Werthner (Springer) 4.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 2 hours ago

This open access book aims to set an agenda for research and action in the field of Digital Humanism through short essays written by selected thinkers from a variety of disciplines, including computer science, philosophy, education, law, economics, history, anthropology, political science, and sociology. This initiative emerged from the Vienna Manifesto on Digital Humanism and the associated lecture series. Digital Humanism deals with the complex relationships between people and machines in digital times. It acknowledges the potential of information technology. At the same time, it points to societal threats such as privacy violations and ethical concerns around artificial intelligence, automation and loss of jobs, ongoing monopolization on the Web, and sovereignty. Digital Humanism aims to address these topics with a sense of urgency but with a constructive mindset. The book argues for a Digital Humanism that analyses and, most importantly, influences the complex interplay of technology and humankind toward a better society and life while fully respecting universal human rights. It is a call to shaping technologies in accordance with human values and needs.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 537 Pages (7,178 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Jan 25th, 2023

Modern Cryptography Volume 1: A Classical Introduction to Informational and Mathematical Principle (Financial Mathematics and Fintech) by Zhiyong Zheng (Springer) 4.0 Stars (9 Reviews)    Price verified 4 hours ago

This open access book systematically explores the statistical characteristics of cryptographic systems, the computational complexity theory of cryptographic algorithms and the mathematical principles behind various encryption and decryption algorithms. The theory stems from technology. Based on Shannon's information theory, this book systematically introduces the information theory, statistical characteristics and computational complexity theory of public key cryptography, focusing on the three main algorithms of public key cryptography, RSA, discrete logarithm and elliptic curve cryptosystem. It aims to indicate what it is and why it is. It systematically simplifies and combs the theory and technology of lattice cryptography, which is the greatest feature of this book. It requires a good knowledge in algebra, number theory and probability statistics for readers to read this book. The senior students majoring in mathematics, compulsory for cryptography and science and engineering postgraduates will find this book helpful. It can also be used as the main reference book for researchers in cryptography and cryptographic engineering areas.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 557 Pages (113,088 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Dec 25th, 2022

Catálogo dos estágios iniciais de desenvolvimento dos peixes da bacia de Campos (Zoologia: guias e manuais de identificação) (Portuguese Edition) by Ana Cristina Teixeira Bonecker (SciELO - Sociedade Brasileira de Zoologia) 4.7 Stars (78 Reviews)    Price verified 8 hours ago

Foram identificados 4.490 indivíduos incluindo 17 ordens, 68 famílias e 160 espécies de peixes nos estágios de larvas e juvenis. Foram elaborados textos com informações gerais das ordens e famílias, descrição das principais características das espécies, fotografias dos diferentes estágios de desenvolvimento, georeferrenciamento, habitat da espécie, nome vulgar e as referências utilizadas para a identificação.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 420 Pages (33,214 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Dec 24th, 2022

Handbook of the Cultural Foundations of Learning by Na'ilah Suad Nasir 3.9 Stars (5 Reviews)    Price verified 11 minutes ago

Edited by a diverse group of expert collaborators, the Handbook of the Cultural Foundations of Learning is a landmark volume that brings together cutting-edge research examining learning as entailing inherently cultural processes. Conceptualizing culture as both a set of social practices and connected to learner identities, the chapters synthesize contemporary research in elaborating a new vision of the cultural nature of learning, moving beyond summary to reshape the field toward studies that situate culture in the learning sciences alongside equity of educational processes and outcomes. With the recent increased focus on culture and equity within the educational research community, this volume presents a comprehensive, innovative treatment of what has become one of the field's most timely and relevant topics. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license. Funded by The Spencer Foundation.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 479 Pages (5,542 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Dec 4th, 2022

Challenges in Cybersecurity and Privacy - the European Research Landscape by Jorge Bernal Bernabe (River Publishers) Price verified 17 hours ago

Cybersecurity and Privacy issues are becoming an important barrier for a trusted and dependable global digital society development. Cyber-criminals are continuously shifting their cyber-attacks specially against cyber-physical systems and IoT, since they present additional vulnerabilities due to their constrained capabilities, their unattended nature and the usage of potential untrustworthiness components. Likewise, identity-theft, fraud, personal data leakages, and other related cyber-crimes are continuously evolving, causing important damages and privacy problems for European citizens in both virtual and physical scenarios. In this context, new holistic approaches, methodologies, techniques and tools are needed to cope with those issues, and mitigate cyberattacks, by employing novel cyber-situational awareness frameworks, risk analysis and modeling, threat intelligent systems, cyber-threat information sharing methods, advanced big-data analysis techniques as well as exploiting the benefits from latest technologies such as SDN/NFV and Cloud systems. In addition, novel privacy-preserving techniques, and crypto-privacy mechanisms, identity and eID management systems, trust services, and recommendations are needed to protect citizens' privacy while keeping usability levels. The European Commission is addressing the challenge through different means, including the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program, thereby financing innovative projects that can cope with the increasing cyberthreat landscape. This book introduces several cybersecurity and privacy research challenges and how they are being addressed in the scope of 15 European research projects. Each chapter is dedicated to a different funded European Research project, which aims to cope with digital security and privacy aspects, risks, threats and cybersecurity issues from a different perspective. Each chapter includes the project's overviews and objectives, the particular challenges they are covering, ...

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 370 Pages (3,718 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Nov 30th, 2022

Data Assimilation Fundamentals: A Unified Formulation of the State and Parameter Estimation Problem (Springer Textbooks in Earth Sciences, Geography ... by Geir Evensen (Springer) Price verified 16 hours ago

This open-access textbook's significant contribution is the unified derivation of data-assimilation techniques from a common fundamental and optimal starting point, namely Bayes' theorem. Unique for this book is the "top-down" derivation of the assimilation methods. It starts from Bayes theorem and gradually introduces the assumptions and approximations needed to arrive at today's popular data-assimilation methods. This strategy is the opposite of most textbooks and reviews on data assimilation that typically take a bottom-up approach to derive a particular assimilation method. E.g., the derivation of the Kalman Filter from control theory and the derivation of the ensemble Kalman Filter as a low-rank approximation of the standard Kalman Filter. The bottom-up approach derives the assimilation methods from different mathematical principles, making it difficult to compare them. Thus, it is unclear which assumptions are made to derive an assimilation method and sometimes even which problem it aspires to solve. The book's top-down approach allows categorizing data-assimilation methods based on the approximations used. This approach enables the user to choose the most suitable method for a particular problem or application. Have you ever wondered about the difference between the ensemble 4DVar and the "ensemble randomized likelihood" (EnRML) methods? Do you know the differences between the ensemble smoother and the ensemble-Kalman smoother? Would you like to understand how a particle flow is related to a particle filter? In this book, we will provide clear answers to several such questions. The book provides the basis for an advanced course in data assimilation. It focuses on the unified derivation of the methods and illustrates their properties on multiple examples. It is suitable for graduate students, post-docs, scientists, and practitioners working in data assimilation.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 415 Pages (47,869 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Oct 29th, 2022

Regularized System Identification: Learning Dynamic Models from Data (Communications and Control Engineering) by Gianluigi Pillonetto (Springer) 5.0 Stars (3 Reviews)    Price verified 11 minutes ago

This open access book provides a comprehensive treatment of recent developments in kernel-based identification that are of interest to anyone engaged in learning dynamic systems from data. The reader is led step by step into understanding of a novel paradigm that leverages the power of machine learning without losing sight of the system-theoretical principles of black-box identification. The authors' reformulation of the identification problem in the light of regularization theory not only offers new insight on classical questions, but paves the way to new and powerful algorithms for a variety of linear and nonlinear problems. Regression methods such as regularization networks and support vector machines are the basis of techniques that extend the function-estimation problem to the estimation of dynamic models. Many examples, also from real-world applications, illustrate the comparative advantages of the new nonparametric approach with respect to classic parametric prediction error methods. The challenges it addresses lie at the intersection of several disciplines so Regularized System Identification will be of interest to a variety of researchers and practitioners in the areas of control systems, machine learning, statistics, and data science. This is an open access book.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 651 Pages (87,765 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Oct 27th, 2022

Interdisciplinary Nutritional Management and Care for Older Adults: An Evidence-Based Practical Guide for Nurses (Perspectives in Nursing Management ... by Ólöf G. Geirsdóttir (Springer) 3.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 20 minutes ago

This open access book aims to primarily support nurses as leaders and champions of multimodal, Interdisciplinary nutrition care for older adults. A structured approach to fundamentals of nutrition care across Interdisciplinary settings is combined with additional short chapters about special topics in geriatric nutrition. The book is designed to provide highly accessible information on evidence-based management and care for older adults, with a focus on practical guidance and advice across acute, rehabilitation, and primary and secondary malnutrition prevention settings.The cost of malnutrition in England alone has been estimated to be £19.6 billion per year, or more than 15% of the total public expenditure on health and social care. ^65 years. The importance and benefit of specialised nutrition care, delivered by experts in field, is well established for those with complex nutrition care needs. However, despite the substantial adverse impact of malnutrition on patient and healthcare outcomes, specialised management of this condition is often under-resourced, overlooked and under-prioritised by both older adults and their treating teams. As an alternative, timely, efficient, and effective supportive nutrition care opportunities may be appropriately implemented by nurses and non-specialist Interdisciplinary healthcare team members, working together with nutrition specialists and the older adults they care for. Practical, low-risk opportunities should be considered across nutrition screening, assessment, intervention, and monitoring domains for many patients with, or at risk of malnutrition. Whilst a variety of team members may contribute to supportive nutrition care, the nursing profession provide a clear focal point. Nurses across diverse settings provide the backbone for Interdisciplinary teamwork and essential patient care. The nursing profession should consequently be considered best placed to administer Interdisciplinary, multimodal nutrition care, wherever ...

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 527 Pages (9,599 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Oct 24th, 2022

Atlas of Fallen Dust in Kuwait by Ali Al-Dousari (Springer) 3.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 20 minutes ago

This open access book serves as an atlas of deposited dust and dust storms in Kuwait in relation to local and global regions. It features a wealth of maps and images of dust storm trajectories in the region, together with detailed descriptions of the chemical and physical properties of fallen dust, including the amount, particle size, statistical parameters, spectra absorption, dust mineralogy, trace and major elements, organic matter, associated pollen, and radionuclides and connected pollutants. Given its scope, the book is a valuable resource for a broad range of researchers, including geologists, chemists, environmentalists, botanists, air quality specialists, nanotechnology scientists, and solar energy experts.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 382 Pages (231,006 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Oct 24th, 2022

Vermin, Victims and Disease: British Debates over Bovine Tuberculosis and Badgers by Angela Cassidy (Palgrave Macmillan) 4.7 Stars (12 Reviews)    Price verified 3 hours ago

This open access book provides the first critical history of the controversy over whether to cull wild badgers to control the spread of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in British cattle. This question has plagued several professional generations of politicians, policymakers, experts and campaigners since the early 1970s. Questions of what is known, who knows, who cares, who to trust and what to do about this complex problem have been the source of scientific, policy, and increasingly vociferous public debate ever since. This book integrates contemporary history, science and technology studies, human-animal relations, and policy research to conduct a cross-cutting analysis. It explores the worldviews of those involved with animal health, disease ecology and badger protection between the 1970s and 1990s, before reintegrating them to investigate the recent public polarisation of the controversy. Finally it asks how we might move beyond the current impasse.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 452 Pages (10,842 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Oct 22nd, 2022

The Sanitation Triangle: Socio-Culture, Health and Materials (Global Environmental Studies) by Taro Yamauchi (Springer) 5.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 21 minutes ago

This open access book deals with global sanitation, where SDG 6.2 sets a target of enabling access to sanitation services for all, but has not yet been achieved in low- and middle-income countries. The transition from the United Nations MDGs to the SDGs requires more consideration based on the socio-cultural aspects of global sanitation. In other words, equitable sanitation for those in vulnerable situations could be based on socio-cultural contexts. Sanitation is a system that comprises not only a latrine but also the works for the treatment and disposal of human waste. Sanitation systems do not function by themselves but have significance only through social management. The process of decision-making also largely depends on socio-cultural conditions, and the importance of sanitation needs to be socially acknowledged. The health benefits of sanitation improvement -- among the significant contributions of sanitation -- also need to be considered in the socio-cultural milieu. Further, the social-culture itself is affected, and potentially even created, by sanitation. In this context, more progress on the improvement of sanitation requires a more holistic approach across disciplines. In this book, we present the concept of the Sanitation Triangle, which considers the interconnections of health, materials, and socio-culture in sanitation, as a holistic approach, and the case studies based on the Sanitation Triangle by diverse disciplines such as Cultural Anthropology, Development Studies, Health Sciences, Engineering, and Science Communication. By the deep theoretical examinations and inter-dialogues between the different disciplines, this book explores the potentialities of inter-disciplinary studies on global sanitation.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 449 Pages (15,973 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Oct 20th, 2022

Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville by Mary Somerville 4.2 Stars (27 Reviews)    Price verified 17 hours ago

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 394 Pages (373 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Oct 18th, 2022

Neighbourhoods in Transition: Brownfield Regeneration in European Metropolitan Areas (The Urban Book Series) by Emmanuel Rey (Springer) 3.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 17 hours ago

This open access book is focused on the intersection between urban brownfields and the sustainability transitions of metreopolitan areas, cities and neighbourhoods. It provides both a theoretical and practical approach to the topic, offering a thorough introduction to urban brownfields and regeneration projects as well as an operational monitoring tool. Neighbourhoods in Transition begins with an overview of historic urban development and strategic areas in the hearts of towns to be developed. It then defines several key issues related to the topic, including urban brownfields, regeneration projects, and sustainability issues related to neighbourhood development. The second part of this book is focused on support tools, explaining the challenges faced, the steps involved in a regeneration process, and offering an operational monitoring tool. It applies the unique tool to case studies in three selected neighbourhoods and the outcomes of one case study are also presented and discussed, highlighting its benefits. The audience for this book will be both professional and academic. It will support researchers as an up-to-date reference book on urban brownfield regeneration projects, and also the work of architects, urban designers, urban planners and engineers involved in sustainability transitions of the built environment.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 455 Pages (37,915 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Oct 6th, 2022

Transactions with the World: Ecocriticism and the Environmental Sensibility of New Hollywood by Adam O’Brien (Berghahn Books) Price verified 2 hours ago

In their bold experimentation and bracing engagement with culture and politics, the "New Hollywood" films of the late 1960s and early 1970s are justly celebrated contributions to American cinematic history. Relatively unexplored, however, has been the profound environmental sensibility that characterized movies such as The Wild Bunch, Chinatown, and Nashville. This brisk and engaging study explores how many hallmarks of New Hollywood filmmaking, such as the increased reliance on location shooting and the rejection of American self-mythologizing, made the era such a vividly "grounded" cinematic moment. Synthesizing a range of narrative, aesthetic, and ecocritical theories, it offers a genuinely fresh perspective on one of the most studied periods in film history.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 314 Pages (3,658 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Sep 18th, 2022

Land Use and Food Security in 2050: a Narrow Road: Agrimonde-Terra by Chantal le Mouël 5.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 17 hours ago

After a first foresight study on 'World food security in 2050' (Agrimonde), CIRAD and INRA have turned their attention to a new foresight exercise on 'Land use and food security in 2050' (Agrimonde-Terra). This new study seeks to highlight levers that could modify ongoing land-use patterns for improved food and nutrition security. Agrimonde-Terra proposes a trend analysis on the global context, climate change, food diets, urban-rural linkages, farm structures, cropping and livestock systems, and explores five scenarios. Three scenarios entitled 'Metropolization', 'Regionalization' and 'Households' are based on current competing trends identified in most world regions. Two scenarios entitled 'Healthy' and 'Communities' involve potential breaks that could change the entire land use and food security system. The 'Healthy' scenario is the only one that makes it possible to achieve sustainable world food and nutrition security in 2050. Nevertheless, current trends in agricultural and food systems in most parts of the world converge towards the 'Metropolization' scenario, which is not sustainable in terms of both land use and human health. Therefore, changing the course of ongoing trends in favor of sustainable land uses and healthy food systems will be one of the main challenges of the next decades. It will require systemic transformation, strong and coherent public policies across sectors and scales, and consistent actions from a wide range of actors. This foresight provides a large information base on land uses, food systems and food security and constitutes a tool box to stimulate debates, imagine new policies and innovations. It aims to empower decision makers, stakeholders, non-governmental organizations and researchers to develop a constructive dialogue on the futures of land uses and food security at either world, regional and national levels.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 728 Pages (10,759 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Aug 25th, 2022

Biocultural Rights, Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities: Protecting Culture and the Environment (Routledge Explorations in Environmental Studies) by Fabien Girard (Routledge) 5.0 Stars (3 Reviews)    Price verified one hour ago

This volume presents a comprehensive overview of biocultural rights, examining how we can promote the role of indigenous peoples and local communities as environmental stewards and how we can ensure that their ways of life are protected. With Biocultural Community Protocols (BCPs) or Community Protocols (CPs) being increasingly seen as a powerful way of tackling this immense challenge, this book investigates these new instruments and considers the lessons that can be learnt about the situation of indigenous peoples and local communities. It opens with theoretical insights which provide the reader with foundational concepts such as biocultural diversity, biocultural rights and community rule-making. In Part Two, the book moves on to community protocols within the Access Benefit Sharing (ABS) context, while taking a glimpse into the nature and role of community protocols beyond issues of access to genetic resources and traditional knowledge. A thorough review of specific cases drawn from field-based research around the world is presented in this part. Comprehensive chapters also explore the negotiation process and raise stimulating questions about the role of international brokers and organizations and the way they can use BCPs/CPs as disciplinary tools for national and regional planning or to serve powerful institutional interests. Finally, the third part of the book considers whether BCPs/CPs, notably through their emphasis on "stewardship of nature" and "tradition", can be seen as problematic arrangements that constrain indigenous peoples within the Western imagination, without any hope of them reconstructing their identities according to their own visions, or whether they can be seen as political tools and representational strategies used by indigenous peoples in their struggle for greater rights to their land, territories and resources, and for more political space. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental law, ...

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 371 Pages (48 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Aug 19th, 2022

Atlas of Global Change Risk of Population and Economic Systems (IHDP/Future Earth-Integrated Risk Governance Project Series) by unknown author (Springer) 5.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 3 minutes ago

This book is open access and illustrates the spatial distribution of the global change risk of population and economic systems with the maps of environment, global climate change, global population and economic systems, and global change risk. The risks of global change are mapped at 0.25 degree grid unit. The risk results and their contribution rates of the world at national level are unprecedentedly derived and ranked. The book can be a good reference for researchers and students in the field of global climate change and natural disaster risk management, as well as risk managers and enterpriser to understand the global change risk of population and economic systems.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 375 Pages (4,380 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Aug 14th, 2022

Uncertainty in Mechanical Engineering: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Uncertainty in Mechanical Engineering (ICUME 2021), June ... by Peter F. Pelz (Springer) 4.0 Stars (2 Reviews)    Price verified 17 hours ago

This open access book reports on methods and technologies to describe, evaluate and control uncertainty in mechanical engineering applications. It brings together contributions by engineers, mathematicians and legal experts, offering a multidisciplinary perspective on the main issues affecting uncertainty throughout the complete system lifetime, which includes process and product planning, development, production and usage. The book is based on the proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Uncertainty in Mechanical Engineering (ICUME 2021), organized by the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 805 of the TU Darmstadt, and held online on June 7-8, 2021. All in all, it offers a timely resource for researchers, graduate students and practitioners in the field of mechanical engineering, production engineering and engineering optimization.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 579 Pages (42,324 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Aug 13th, 2022

The Big Thaw: Policy, Governance, and Climate Change in the Circumpolar North (SUNY series in Environmental Governance: Local-Regional-Global ... by Ezra B. W. Zubrow (SUNY Press) 5.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 20 minutes ago

Climate change, one of the drivers of global change, is controversial in political circles, but recognized in scientific ones as being of central importance today for the United States and the world. In The Big Thaw, the editors bring together experts, advocates, and academic professionals who address the serious issue of how climate change in the Circumpolar Arctic is affecting and will continue to affect environments, cultures, societies, and economies throughout the world. The contributors discuss a variety of topics, including anthropology, sociology, human geography, community economics, regional development and planning, and political science, as well as biogeophysical sciences such as ecology, human-environmental interactions, and climatology. This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to Knowledge Unlatched -- an initiative that provides libraries and institutions with a centralized platform to support OA collections and from leading publishing houses and OA initiatives. Learn more at the Knowledge Unlatched website at: https://www.knowledgeunlatched.org/, and access the book online at the SUNY Open Access Repository at http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12648/7130.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 474 Pages (18,961 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Aug 11th, 2022

Managing Protected Areas in Central and Eastern Europe Under Climate Change (Advances in Global Change Research Book 58) by Sven Rannow (Springer) 4.5 Stars (2 Reviews)    Price verified 16 hours ago

Beginning with an overview of data and concepts developed in the EU-project HABIT-CHANGE, this book addresses the need for sharing knowledge and experience in the field of biodiversity conservation and climate change. There is an urgent need to build capacity in protected areas to monitor, assess, manage and report the effects of climate change and their interaction with other pressures. The contributors identify barriers to the adaptation of conservation management, such as the mismatch between planning reality and the decision context at site level. Short and vivid descriptions of case studies, drawn from investigation areas all over Central and Eastern Europe, illustrate both the local impacts of climate change and their consequences for future management. These focus on ecosystems most vulnerable to changes in climatic conditions, including alpine areas, wetlands, forests, lowland grasslands and coastal areas. The case studies demonstrate the application of adaptation strategies in protected areas like National Parks, Biosphere Reserves and Natural Parks, and reflect the potential benefits as well as existing obstacles. A general section provides the necessary background information on climate trends and their effects on abiotic and biotic components. Often, the parties to policy change and conservation management, including managers, land users and stakeholders, lack both expertise and incentives to undertake adaptation activities. The authors recognise that achieving the needed changes in behavior - habit - is as much a social learning process as a matter of science-based procedure. They describe the implementation of modeling, impact assessment and monitoring of climate conditions, and show how the results can support efforts to increase stakeholder involvement in local adaptation strategies. The book concludes by pointing out the need for more work to communicate the cross-sectoral nature of biodiversity protection, the value of well-informed planning in ...

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 468 Pages (8,626 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Aug 1st, 2022

A Climate of Justice: An Ethical Foundation for Environmentalism (Library of Public Policy and Public Administration Book 16) by Marvin T. Brown (Springer) 5.0 Stars (2 Reviews)    Price verified 3 minutes ago

This open access book helps readers combine history, politics, and ethics to address the most pressing problem facing the world today: environmental survival. In A Climate of Justice, Marvin Brown connects the environmental crisis to basic questions of economic, social, and racial justice. Brown shows how our current social climate maintains systemic injustices, and he uncovers resources for change through a civic ethics of repair and reciprocity. A must-read for researchers and educators in the area of environmental ethics and those teaching courses in the fields of public policy and environmental sustainability. With the support of more than 30 libraries, the LYRASIS United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Fund has enabled this publication related to SDG13 (Climate Action) to be available fully open access.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 335 Pages (3,115 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Jul 26th, 2022

The Innovation Revolution in Agriculture: A Roadmap to Value Creation by Hugo Campos (Springer) 3.8 Stars (9 Reviews)    Price verified 11 minutes ago

This open access book is an important reframing of the role of innovation in agriculture. Dr. Campos and his distinguished coauthors address the need for agriculture to feed a growing global population with a reduced environmental footprint while adapting to and mitigating the effects of changing climate. The authors expand the customary discussion of innovation in terms of supply driven R&D to focus on the returns to investors and most importantly, the value to end-users. This is brought to life by exploring effective business models and many cases from agricultural systems across the globe. The focus on converting the results of innovation in R&D into adoption by farmers and other end-users is its greatest contribution. Many lessons from the book can be applied to private and public sectors across an array of agricultural systems. This book will be of enormous value to agri-business professionals, NGO leaders, agricultural and development researchers and those funding innovation and agriculture across the private and public sectors. Tony Cavalieri, Senior Program Officer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Hugo Campos, Ph.D., MBA, has 20+ years of international corporate and development experience. His distinguished coauthors represent a rich collection of successful innovation practice in industry, consultancy, international development and academy, in both developed and developing countries."

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 355 Pages (12,477 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Jul 19th, 2022

Socio-Technical Innovation Bundles for Agri-Food Systems Transformation (Sustainable Development Goals Series) by Christopher B. Barrett (Palgrave Macmillan) 5.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 34 minutes ago

This open access book is the result of an expert panel convened by the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability and Nature Sustainability. The panel tackled the seventeen UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030 head-on, with respect to the global systems that produce and distribute food. The panel's rigorous synthesis and analysis of existing research leads compellingly to multiple actionable recommendations that, if adopted, would simultaneously lead to healthy and nutritious diets, equitable and inclusive value chains, resilience to shocks and stressors, and climate and environmental sustainability.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 372 Pages (13,294 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Jul 19th, 2022

Molecular Beams in Physics and Chemistry: From Otto Stern's Pioneering Exploits to Present-Day Feats by Bretislav Friedrich (Springer) 5.0 Stars (3 Reviews)    Price verified 7 hours ago

This Open Access book gives a comprehensive account of both the history and current achievements of molecular beam research. In 1919, Otto Stern launched the revolutionary molecular beam technique. This technique made it possible to send atoms and molecules with well-defined momentum through vacuum and to measure with high accuracy the deflections they underwent when acted upon by transversal forces. These measurements revealed unforeseen quantum properties of nuclei, atoms, and molecules that became the basis for our current understanding of quantum matter. This volume shows that many key areas of modern physics and chemistry owe their beginnings to the seminal molecular beam work of Otto Stern and his school. Written by internationally recognized experts, the contributions in this volume will help experienced researchers and incoming graduate students alike to keep abreast of current developments in molecular beam research as well as to appreciate the history and evolution of this powerful method and the knowledge it reveals.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 1,091 Pages (112,841 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Jul 13th, 2022

Magnetism and Accelerator-Based Light Sources: Proceedings of the 7th International School ‘‘Synchrotron Radiation and Magnetism’’, ... by Hervé Bulou (Springer) 5.0 Stars (1 Review)    Price verified 17 hours ago

This open access book collects the contributions of the seventh school on Magnetism and Synchrotron Radiation held in Mittelwihr, France, from 7 to 12 October 2018. It starts with an introduction to the physics of modern X-ray sources followed by a general overview of magnetism. Next, light / matter interaction in the X-ray range is covered with emphasis on different types of angular dependence of X-ray absorption spectroscopy and scattering. In the end, two domains where synchrotron radiation-based techniques led to new insights in condensed matter physics, namely spintronics and superconductivity, are discussed. The book is intended for advanced students and researchers to get acquaintance with the basic knowledge of X-ray light sources and to step into synchrotron-based techniques for magnetic studies in condensed matter physics or chemistry.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 320 Pages (50,379 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Jul 12th, 2022

International Cooperation for Enhancing Nuclear Safety, Security, Safeguards and Non-proliferation: Proceedings of the XXI Edoardo Amaldi Conference, ... by Luciano Maiani (Springer) 5.0 Stars (2 Reviews)    Price verified 6 hours ago

This open access book examines key aspects of international cooperation to enhance nuclear safety, security, safeguards, and nonproliferation, thereby assisting in development and maintenance of the verification regime and fostering progress toward a nuclear weapon-free world. Current challenges are discussed and attempts made to identify possible solutions and future improvements, considering scientific developments that have the potential to increase the effectiveness of implementation of international regimes, particularly in critical areas, technology foresight, and the ongoing evaluation of current capabilities.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 317 Pages (39,062 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Jul 9th, 2022

The Teleological and Kalam Cosmological Arguments Revisited (Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion) by Andrew Loke (Palgrave Macmillan) 4.1 Stars (10 Reviews)    Price verified 35 minutes ago

A prominent issue in many contemporary philosophy of religion debates concerns whether the universe has a Designer. This book moves the discussion ahead in a significant way by devising an original deductive formulation of the Teleological Argument (TA) which demonstrates that the following are the only possible categories of hypotheses concerning fine-tuning and order: (i) chance, (ii) regularity, (iii) combinations of regularity and chance, (iv) uncaused, and (v) design. This book also demonstrates that there are essential features of each category such that, while the alternatives to design are unlikely, the Design Hypothesis is not, and that one can argue for design by exclusion without having to ?rst assign a prior probability for design. By combining the TA with the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA) which it defends against various objections, this book responds to the God-of-the-gaps objection by demonstrating that the conclusion of the KCA-TA is not based on gaps which can be filled by further scientific progress, but follows from deduction and exclusion. This is an open access book.

Genre: Science & Math [x]
Length: 511 Pages (883 KB)
Lending: Not Enabled
Added: Jun 28th, 2022