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This volume is a compilation of studies on interactions of changes in land cover, land use and climate with people, societies and ecosystems in drylands of Greater Central Asia. It explores the effects of collapse of socialist governance and management systems on land use in various parts of Central Asia, including former Soviet Union republics, Mongolia and northern drylands of China. Often, regional land-atmosphere feedbacks may have large global importance. Remote sensing is a primary tool in studying vast dryland territories where in situ observations are sporadic. State-of-the-art methods of satellite remote sensing combined with GIS and models are used to tackle science questions and provide an outlook of current changes at land surface and potential scenarios for the future. In 10 chapters, contributing authors cover topics such as water resources, effects of institutional changes on urban centers and agriculture, landscape dynamics, and the primary drivers of environmental changes in dryland environment. Satellite observations that have accumulated during the last five decades provide a rich time series of the dynamic land surface, enabling systematic analysis of changes in land cover and land use from space. The book is a truly international effort by a team of scientists from the U.S., Europe and Central Asia. It is directed at the broad science community including graduate students, academics and other professionals at all levels within natural and social sciences. In particular, it will appeal to geographers, environmental and social scientists, economists, agricultural scientists, and remote sensing specialists.

This book provides an up-to-date overview of the current knowledge and research concerning domestic pets as sentinels, forecasters and promoters of human health. Written by leading specialists in the fields of medicine, veterinary, environment, analytical chemistry, sociology and behavioral science, this volume provides a comprehensive understanding of the capabilities of pets in what regards to human health. The first seven chapters are devoted to the use of pets as sentinels for their human companions, in terms of exposure to different classes of environmental chemicals. The following five chapters address the use of pets as models for human diseases and promoters of human health. The final two chapters highlight the psycho-social and psychophysiological aspects of human-animal interactions. The book offers an integrated approach to the One Health concept, providing, in a truly holistic manner, tools to assess the equilibrium between the environment, menand animals. This exercise will highlight and reshape our position towards the planet that despite being ¿a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot lost in the unimaginable infinity of the Universe¿ is still our own. At the end of the day, pets will always be there to help us.

This edited volume is an extensive collection of methods for investigating plant litter dynamics in ecosystems. Particular emphasis is placed on litter decomposition in streams and rivers. The presented methods range from analyses of chemical and physical litter properties to the taxonomic and functional characterization of microbial decomposers, both fungi and bacteria, assessments of litter-consuming invertebrates, and procedures to determine litter dynamics at the stream ecosystem level. Several chapters addressing general topics of data analysis are also included. This second edition of the book has been greatly expanded. Its now 63 chapters cover both well-established and recently elaborated techniques, some of which have not yet been applied to decomposing litter in streams. Modern molecular techniques ranging from next-generation sequencing to proteomics receive special attention among the 20 chapters that are entirely new. Numerous methods on characterizing litter consumers have also been added to fill an evident gap of the first edition. However, the basic original concept and all of the previous chapters have been retained, although most of them have been thoroughly updated. Typical contributions provide step-by-step protocols that are preceded by brief reviews of the ecological significance and the principles underlying the method. Where available, short compilations of published data have been added in overview tables to provide background information on the range of results to expect. Useful hints, a discussion of potential weaknesses, and key references are provided at the end. Hands-on material useful to implement several of the presented methods (e.g. computer code, calculation sheets) is available online. The book is written for students embarking on studies of plant litter dynamics and for established researchers wishing to expand the scope of their methodological toolbox to study litter decomposition and themicrobial decomposers and invertebrates involved in the process. The primary intended audience is aquatic ecologists, since many of the methods presented in the book focus on streams and stream organisms. However, the great majority of the protocols can be easily adapted or even directly applied to coastal and terrestrial ecosystems. Consequently, they should be of equal interest to scientists investigating plant litter dynamics in habitats such as mangroves and salt-marshes, terrestrial grasslands and forests.

This edited volume is an extensive collection of methods for investigating plant litter dynamics in ecosystems. Particular emphasis is placed on litter decomposition in streams and rivers. The presented methods range from analyses of chemical and physical litter properties to the taxonomic and functional characterization of microbial decomposers, both fungi and bacteria, assessments of litter-consuming invertebrates, and procedures to determine litter dynamics at the stream ecosystem level. Several chapters addressing general topics of data analysis are also included. This second edition of the book has been greatly expanded. Its now 63 chapters cover both well-established and recently elaborated techniques, some of which have not yet been applied to decomposing litter in streams. Modern molecular techniques ranging from next-generation sequencing to proteomics receive special attention among the 20 chapters that are entirely new. Numerous methods on characterizing litter consumers have also been added to fill an evident gap of the first edition. However, the basic original concept and all of the previous chapters have been retained, although most of them have been thoroughly updated. Typical contributions provide step-by-step protocols that are preceded by brief reviews of the ecological significance and the principles underlying the method. Where available, short compilations of published data have been added in overview tables to provide background information on the range of results to expect. Useful hints, a discussion of potential weaknesses, and key references are provided at the end. Hands-on material useful to implement several of the presented methods (e.g. computer code, calculation sheets) is available online. The book is written for students embarking on studies of plant litter dynamics and for established researchers wishing to expand the scope of their methodological toolbox to study litter decomposition and themicrobial decomposers and invertebrates involved in the process. The primary intended audience is aquatic ecologists, since many of the methods presented in the book focus on streams and stream organisms. However, the great majority of the protocols can be easily adapted or even directly applied to coastal and terrestrial ecosystems. Consequently, they should be of equal interest to scientists investigating plant litter dynamics in habitats such as mangroves and salt-marshes, terrestrial grasslands and forests.

The book presents a remarkable collection of chapters covering a wide range of topics in the areas of intelligent systems and artificial intelligence, and their real-world applications. It gathers the proceedings of the Intelligent Systems Conference 2019, which attracted a total of 546 submissions from pioneering researchers, scientists, industrial engineers, and students from all around the world. These submissions underwent a double-blind peer-review process, after which 190 were selected for inclusion in these proceedings.As intelligent systems continue to replace and sometimes outperform human intelligence in decision-making processes, they have made it possible to tackle a host of problems more effectively. This branching out of computational intelligence in several directions and use of intelligent systems in everyday applications have created the need for an international conference as a venue for reporting on the latest innovations and trends.This book collects both theory and application based chapters on virtually all aspects of artificial intelligence; presenting state-of-the-art intelligent methods and techniques for solving real-world problems, along with a vision for future research, it represents a unique and valuable asset.

The book presents a remarkable collection of chapters covering a wide range of topics in the areas of intelligent systems and artificial intelligence, and their real-world applications. It gathers the proceedings of the Intelligent Systems Conference 2019, which attracted a total of 546 submissions from pioneering researchers, scientists, industrial engineers, and students from all around the world. These submissions underwent a double-blind peer-review process, after which 190 were selected for inclusion in these proceedings. As intelligent systems continue to replace and sometimes outperform human intelligence in decision-making processes, they have made it possible to tackle a host of problems more effectively. This branching out of computational intelligence in several directions and use of intelligent systems in everyday applications have created the need for an international conference as a venue for reporting on the latest innovations and trends. This book collects both theory and application based chapters on virtually all aspects of artificial intelligence; presenting state-of-the-art intelligent methods and techniques for solving real-world problems, along with a vision for future research, it represents a unique and valuable asset.

This handbook examines ethics in finance responses to the main challenges in finance, accounting and organizations in the 21st century. It addresses a broad array of topics, including the ethics of risk management in financial markets, professionalism and codes, responsibility of financiers, trust and fidelity, microfinance, electronic trading, crisis, scandals, and sustainability. The financialization of the economy, technological payments and digitalization of banking, combined with the inclusion of non-traditional ¿financial¿ entities in the market, will radically change the financial ecosystem as we know it. The resulting new scenario is still diffuse, bound to encounter important problems, and will require ethical reflection. This book provides a compendium of works on ethics in finance, and serves as a reference to both researchers and practitioners in the field. It will help those who are already anticipating the ethical reflection about new scenarios in finance, advanced financial products, or emergent financial market situations.

Research in recent years has increasingly shifted away from purely academic research, and into applied aspects of the discipline, including climate change research, conservation, and sustainable development. It has by now widely been recognized that ¿traditional¿ knowledge is always in flux and adapting to a quickly changing environment. Trends of globalization, especially the globalization of plant markets, have greatly influenced how plant resources are managed nowadays. While ethnobotanical studies are now available from many regions of the world, no comprehensive encyclopedic series focusing on the worlds mountain regions is available in the market. Scholars in plant sciences worldwide will be interested in this dynamic content. The field (and thus the market) of ethnobotany and ethnopharmacology has grown considerably in recent years. Student interest is on the rise, attendance at professional conferences has grown steadily, and the number of professionalscalling themselves ethnobotanists has increased significantly. Various societies of such professionals include the Society for Economic Botany, the International Society of Ethnopharmacology, the Society of Ethnobiology, the International Society for Ethnobiology, and many regional and national societies in the field that currently have thousands of members. Growth has been most robust in BRIC countries.This new MRW on Ethnobotany of Mountain Regions covers the best and latest research and scholarship in the field of mountain research. It offers a full range of descriptive, methodological, theoretical, and applied research on the most important plants for each region. Each contribution was examined with scientific rigor and contributes to the overall field of study.

Research in recent years has increasingly shifted away from purely academic research, and into applied aspects of the discipline, including climate change research, conservation, and sustainable development. It has by now widely been recognized that ¿traditional¿ knowledge is always in flux and adapting to a quickly changing environment. Trends of globalization, especially the globalization of plant markets, have greatly influenced how plant resources are managed nowadays. While ethnobotanical studies are now available from many regions of the world, no comprehensive encyclopedic series focusing on the worlds mountain regions is available in the market. Scholars in plant sciences worldwide will be interested in this dynamic content. The field (and thus the market) of ethnobotany and ethnopharmacology has grown considerably in recent years. Student interest is on the rise, attendance at professional conferences has grown steadily, and the number of professionalscalling themselves ethnobotanists has increased significantly. Various societies of such professionals include the Society for Economic Botany, the International Society of Ethnopharmacology, the Society of Ethnobiology, the International Society for Ethnobiology, and many regional and national societies in the field that currently have thousands of members. Growth has been most robust in BRIC countries.The objective of this new MRW on Ethnobotany of Mountain Regions is to take advantage of the increasing international interest and scholarship in the field of mountain research. We anticipate including the best and latest research on a full range of descriptive, methodological, theoretical, and applied research on the most important plants for each region. Each contribution will be scientifically rigorous and contribute to the overall field of study.

Design has intrinsic, economic value. To make this value tangible, design features of buildings need to be explored, measured, and taken into account when initiating projects and financing their construction. It is as calculable as the extrinsic value of a project. However, we need concepts, strategies, methods, techniques, and tools to do just that. The Value Based Design approach and Design-Added Value (D-AV) methodology in this book enables architects, engineers, contractors and owner-clients of buildings to benefit from extraordinary design and construction features. It explains the rationale and motivation for D-AV methodology, outlines and illustrates this methodology with examples, provides complete and detailed examples of how the key analysis techniques work through historical case studies, and describes specific methods used in application of the D-AV methodology, such as Bayesian statistics, cost benefit analysis, pairwise comparison techniques, cognitive walkthroughs, and optimization.