Download or read book The North American Mosaic written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A New roadmap for the Man and the Biosphere MAB Programme and its World Network of Biosphere Reserves written by UNESCO and published by UNESCO Publishing. This book was released on 2017-03-20 with total page 53 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Engaging People in Sustainability written by Daniella Tilbury and published by IUCN. This book was released on 2004 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book is based on the exchange of professional experiences which featured in an IUCN CEC workshop in August 2002. Practitioners from around the world shared their models of good practice and explored the challenges involved in engaging people in sustainability. The difficulties facing practitioners vary between country and context but some challenges are universal: A lack of clarity in communicating what is meant by sustainable development; An ambition to educate everyone to bring about a global citizenship; Social, organisational or institutional factors constrain change to sustainable development, yet there is an emphasis on formal education, and community educators do not receive the same support; A lack of balance in addressing the integration of environmental, social and economic dimensions leading to an interpretation that ESD is mainly about environment and conservation issues; New learning (rather than teaching) approaches are called for to promote more debate in society. Yet, few are trained or experienced in these new approaches. Practitioners need support to explore new ways of promoting learning. [Foreword, ed].

Download or read book Multicriteria Evaluation in a Fuzzy Environment written by Giuseppe Munda and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the result of some years of research carried out at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam and at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. The awareness of actual and potential conflicts between economic progress in production, consumption, and technology and the environment has led to the concept of "sustainable development", implying that economic and ecological values are well balanced in evaluation and decision making. The linkages between ecosystems and economic systems are the focus of ecological economics. In ecological economics, a multidimensional approach to economic and policy-making is emphasised. In this book, the introduction of multicriteria decision aid techniques in the framework of ecological economics is widely discussed. Since such techniques are based on a "constructive" rationality and allow one to take into account conflictual, multidimensional, incommensurable and uncertain effects of decisions, they can be considered perfectly consistent with the methodological foundations of ecological economics. Since here the assumption is accepted that efficiency, equity and sustainability are the three conflictual values of economics, a mathematical procedure able to deal with these issues in an operational framework is developed, with a particular view on imprecise information in a practical environmental planning context. Given the problem of the differences in the measurement levels of the variables used for economic-ecological modelling, multicriteria methods able to deal with mixed information (both qualitative and quantitative measurements) can be considered particularly useful. Another problem related to the available information concerns the uncertainty (stochastic and/or fuzzy) contained in this information.

Download or read book Sustainability Assessment written by Alan James Bond and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Currently the writing on the subject is limited and comprises, for the most part, guidance documents and completed assessments.

Download or read book Sustainable Tourism written by Gerda K. Priestley and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although widely advocated, sustainable tourism is subject to numerous interpretations -- from environmentally friendly forms of tourism to maintaining the economic viability of tourist activity in a specific place. This book explores various views on sustainable tourism and demonstrates its complexity and diversity, in order to clarify the issues in operational terms. It addresses questions such as: can tourist activity be sustainable economically; can tourism lead to sustainability from an environmental perspective; and what is the role of tourism as a sustainable development strategy? Much of the book consists of a series of European case studies, from the U.K., France, Spain, Italy and Greece. These case studies cover three main themes: recreation and tourism in natural and rural areas; coastal tourism; and islands. The book represents a valuable supplementary text for students of tourism, as well as related disciplines such as geography, economics, environmental management, and local and regional planning and development.

Download or read book Soil and Sediment Remediation written by Piet Lens and published by IWA Publishing. This book was released on 2005-09-30 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soil and Sediment Remediation discusses in detail a whole set of remediative technologies currently available to minimise their impact. Technologies for the treatment of soils and sediments in-situ (landfarming, bioscreens, bioventing, nutrient injection, phytoremediation) and ex-situ (landfarming, bio-heap treatment, soil suspension reactor) will be discussed. The microbiological, process technological and socio-economical aspects of these technologies will be addressed. Special attention will be given to novel biotechnological processes that utilise sulfur cycle conversions, e.g. sulfur and heavy metal removal from soils. Also the potential of phytoremediation will be highlighted. In addition, treatment schemes for the clean-up of polluted megasites, e.g. harbours and Manufactured Gaswork Plants (MGP), will be elaborated. The aim of Soil and Sediment Remediation is to introduce the reader in: the biogeochemical characteristics of soil and sediments- new techniques to study soil/sediment processes (molecular probes, microelectrodes, NMR) clean up technologies for soils polluted with organic (PAH, NAPL, solvents) or inorganic (heavy metals) pollutants- preventative and remediative strategies and technologies available in environmental engineering novel process applications and bioreactor designs for bioremediation the impact of soil pollution on society and its economic importance.

Download or read book Decision Analysis and Behavioral Research written by D. von Winterfeldt and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1986-09-26 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Decision analysis is a technology designed to help individuals and organizations make wise inferences and decisions. It synthesises ideas from economics, statistics, psychology, operations research, and other disciplines. A great deal of behavioural research is relevant to decision analysis; behavioural scientists have both suggested easy and natural ways to describe and quantify problems and shown the kind of errors to which unaided intuitive judgements can lead. This long-awaited book offers the4first integrative presentation of the principles of decision analysis in a behavioural context. The authors break new ground on a variety of technical topics (sensitivity analysis, the value-utility distinction, multistage inference, attitudes toward risk), and attempt to make intuitive sense out of what have been treated in the literature as endemic biases and other errors of human judgement. Those interested in artificial intelligence will find it the easiest presentation of hierarchical Bayesian inference available.

Download or read book Designing Transformation written by Elana Shapira and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-07-29 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jewish designers and architects played a key role in shaping the interwar architecture of Central Europe, and in the respective countries where they settled following the Nazi's rise to power. This book explores how Jewish architects and patrons influenced and reformed the design of towns and cities through commercial buildings, urban landscaping and other material culture. It also examines how modern identities evolved in the context of migration, commercial and professional networks, and in relation to the conflict between nationalist ideologies and international aspirations in Central Europe and beyond. Pointing to the production within cultural platforms shared by Jews and Christians, the book's research sheds new light on the importance of integrating Jews into Central European design and aesthetic history. Leading historians, curators, archivists and architects present their critical analyses further to 'design' the past and push forward a transformation in the historical consciousness of Central Europe. By reconsidering the seminal role of Central European émigré and exiled architects and designers in shaping today's global design cultures, this book further strengthens humanistic, progressive and pluralistic cultural trends in Europe today.

Download or read book Therapeutic Landscapes written by Allison Williams and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The therapeutic landscape concept, first introduced early in the 1990s, has been widely employed in health/medical geography and gaining momentum in various health-related disciplines. This is the first book published in several years, and provides an introduction to the concept and its applications. Written by health/medical geographers and anthropologists, it addresses contemporary applications in the natural and built environments; for special populations, such as substance abusers; and in health care sites, a new and evolving area - and provides an array of critiques or contestations of the concept and its various applications. The conclusion of the work provides a critical evaluation of the development and progress of the concept to date, signposting the likely avenues for future investigation.

Download or read book The Employment and Support Allowance Regulations 2013 written by Great Britain and published by . This book was released on 2012-12-10 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Enabling power: Welfare Reform Act 2007, ss. 2 (1) (a) (c) (4) (a) (c), 3 (1) (c) (2) (b) (d) (3), 8 (1) to (3) (4) (a) (b) (5) (6), 9 (1) to (3) (4) (a) (b), 11A (5), 11B (2) (3), 11D (2) (d), 11E (1), 11H (5) (6), 11J (3) (4) (8), 17 (1) (2) (3) (a) (b), 18 (1) (2) (4), 20 (2) to (7), 24 (1) (2) (b) (3), 25 (2) to (5), sch. 1, paras 1 (3) (4), 3 (2), 4 (1) (a) (c) (3) (4), sch. 2, paras 1 to 4A, 5, 6, 9, 10 & Social Security Administration Act 1992, ss. 5 (1A), 189 (4) to (6), 191 & Social Security Act 1998, s. 21 (1) (a) & Welfare Reform Act 2012, sch. 5, paras 2 (3), 3. Issued: 10.12.2012. Made: -. Laid: -. Coming into force: 29.04.2013. Effect: None. Territorial extent & classification: E/W/S. For approval by resolution of each House of Parliament

Download or read book Capitalism in the Web of Life written by Jason W. Moore and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2015-08-18 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Integrating both social and historical factors, this radical analysis of the development of capitalism reveals the ever-deepening relationship between capital and ecology Finance. Climate. Food. Work. How are the crises of the twenty-first century connected? In Capitalism in the Web of Life, Jason W. Moore argues that the sources of today’s global turbulence have a common cause: capitalism as a way of organizing nature, including human nature. Drawing on environmentalist, feminist, and Marxist thought, Moore offers a groundbreaking new synthesis: capitalism as a “world-ecology” of wealth, power, and nature. Capitalism’s greatest strength—and the source of its problems—is its capacity to create Cheap Natures: labor, food, energy, and raw materials. That capacity is now in question. Rethinking capitalism through the pulsing and renewing dialectic of humanity-in-nature, Moore takes readers on a journey from the rise of capitalism to the modern mosaic of crisis. Capitalism in the Web of Life shows how the critique of capitalism-in-nature—rather than capitalism and nature—is key to understanding our predicament, and to pursuing the politics of liberation in the century ahead.

Download or read book Environmental Governance written by Arild Vatn and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2015-12-18 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this innovative book, Arild Vatn presents an overview of the field of environmental governance, from its theoretical foundations, to the major issues and practical applications. While having an interdisciplinary orientation, the main theoretical basis is in institutional theory. The book spans issues from the global to the local level and puts environmental governance within the wider field of economic policy and development. This book is perfect for interdisciplinary masters programs in environmental studies, environmental policy and management, as well as being of value to practitioners in the field.

Download or read book Advances in Robotics written by Calin Ciufudean and published by Createspace Independent Pub. This book was released on 2013-03-15 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Advances in Robotics - Modeling, Control and Applications is suitable for advanced undergraduate students and postgraduate students. It takes a practical approach rather than a conceptual approach. It offers a truly reader-friendly way to get to the subject, providing a definitive guide in this vibrant and evolving discipline. This book is an invaluable companion for students from their first encounter with the subject to more advanced studies, while the high quality artworks are designed to present the key concepts with simplicity, clarity and consistency. There are totally 18 chapters in this book. Chapter 1 proposes a simple control system for a biped robot using nonlinear oscillators based on the physiological concept of central pattern generator and physiological evidence of phase resetting. Chapter 2 presents work that attempts to extract principles by which spiders and other species achieve these features. Chapter 3 proposes methods for a robot manipulator with a racket to do two kinds of ball juggling, the paddle juggling and the wall juggling, based on discrete control systems of states of the hit ball. Chapter 4 proposed a new control algorithm in a robot arm based on active tactile slippage sensation. Chapter 5 provides a look at some possibilities of modern voice analysis technologies in the field of ambient assisted living, which seems to be a promising application for robotic systems. Chapter 6 focuses on adaptive filtering techniques for acoustics application. Adaptive acoustic in an important topic for signal processing in robots since robot sound inputs are usually recollected through acoustic sensors. Chapter 7 aims at examining the method and equipment of preliminary-announcement of the upcoming operation of a mobile robot moving on a two-dimensional plane to those who are in the surroundings. Chapter 8 introduces two kinds of instruction learning systems for partner robots: (1) a hand image instruction learning system; and (2) three kinds of voice learning systems, using Kohonen's self-organizing map (SOM) and its variations such as Transient-SOM (T-SOM), Parameter-less SOM (PL-T-SOM) and Parameter-less Growing SOM (PL-G-SOM). Chapter 9 presents the study on throw-over movement informing a receiver of the object landing distance as an example of the informative motion for human synergetic robots. In Chapter 10, the author examines the application of a touch screen to an operational interface of a mobile robot remote operation system. Chapter 11 describes low processing approach for identification of obstacles in a robotic soccer team. Chapter 12 couples a general purpose stat/space representation with a reactive algorithm for mobile robot navigation In Chapter 13, the author designs an general-purposed affective behavior decision system based on linear dynamics to solve the limitation that affective model is difficult to be applied to various social robots without redesigning. Chapter 14 proposes a control mechanism based on multiple-criteria decision making for autonomous control of ambient environment. Chapter 15 proposes an information gathering support system in post-disaster environment by utilizing a robot sensor network in which a teleoperated mobile robot deploys wireless sensor nodes (SNs). Chapter 16 proposes fault accommodation procedure in discrete-event robots. Chapter 17 deals with application of robotic technology for performing risky tasks, mainly for de-mining operations. Finally, Chapter 18 briefly describes an application of robot in medial health.

Download or read book Report of the Expert Meeting on Ciguatera Poisoning written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2020-06-01 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Phytoplankton blooms, micro-algal blooms, toxic algae, red tides, or harmful algae, are all terms for naturally occurring phenomena that have occurred throughout recorded history. About 300 hundred species of micro algae are reported at times to form mass occurrence, so called blooms. Nearly one fourth of these species are known to produce toxins. Even non-toxic algal blooms can have devastating impacts when they lead to kills of fish and invertebrates by generating anoxic conditions. Some algal species, although non-toxic to humans, can produce exudates that can cause damage to the delicate gill tissues of fish (raphidophytes Chattonella, Heterosigma, and dinoflagellates Karenia, Karlodinium) . Aquatic animals can suffer devastating mortalities, which could lead economical and food losses, and eventually became a food security problem. Of greatest concern to humans are algal species that produce potent neurotoxins that can find their way through shellfish and fish to human consumers where they evoke a variety of gastrointestinal and neurological illnesses (paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP), amnesic shellfish poisoning (ASP), diarrhoeic shellfish poisoning (DSP), neurotoxic shellfish poisoning (NSP), azaspiracid shellfish poisoning (AZP) and ciguatera fish poisoning (CFP)). Worldwide, ciguatoxins are estimated to cause around 50 000 cases of ciguatera fish poisoning annually; neurological effects may last for weeks or even years and one percent of these cases are fatal . Climate change and costal water over enrichment create an enabling environment for harmful algal blooms, which seem to have become more frequent, more intense and more widespread in the past decades.

Download or read book Natural Disaster Hotspots Case Studies written by Margaret Arnold and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These case studies complement the earlier groundbreaking work of Natural Disaster Hotspots: A Global Risk Analysis published in April 2005. Three case studies address specific hazards: landslides, storm surges and drought. An additional, three case studies address regional multi-hazard situations in Sri Lanka, the Tana River basin in Kenya, and the city of Caracas, Venezuela.

Download or read book 11th International Conference on Theory and Application of Soft Computing Computing with Words and Perceptions and Artificial Intelligence ICSCCW 2021 written by Rafik A. Aliev and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-01-04 with total page 803 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents the proceedings of the 11th Conference on Theory and Applications of Soft Computing, Computing with Words and Perceptions and Artificial Intelligence, ICSCCW-2021, held in Antalya, Turkey, on August 23–24, 2021. The general scope of the book covers uncertain computation, decision making under imperfect information, neuro-fuzzy approaches, natural language processing, and other areas. The topics of the papers include theory and application of soft computing, computing with words, image processing with soft computing, intelligent control, machine learning, fuzzy logic in data mining, soft computing in business, economics, engineering, material sciences, biomedical engineering, and health care. This book is a useful guide for academics, practitioners, and graduates in fields of soft computing and computing with words. It allows for increasing of interest in development and applying of these paradigms in various real-life fields.