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Although much is known about the processes and effects of land degradation and climate change, little is understood about the links between them. Less still is known about how these processes are likely to interact in different social-ecological systems around the world, or how societies might be able to adapt to this twin challenge. This book identifies key vulnerabilities to the combined effects of climate change and land degradation around the world. It identifies triple-win adaptations that can tackle both climate change and land degradation, whilst supporting biodiversity and ecosystem services. The book discusses methods for monitoring effects of climate change and land degradation, and adaptations to these processes. It argues for better co-operation and knowledge exchange, so that the research, land user and policy communities can work together more effectively to tackle these challenges, harnessing the "wisdom of crowds" to assess vulnerability and adapt to climate change and land degradation, whilst protecting livelihoods and biodiversity.
An insightful guide to understanding conflicts over the conservation of biodiversity and groundbreaking strategies to deal with them.
What kind of experience is incarceration? How should one define its constraints? The author, who conducted extensive fieldwork in a maximum-security jail in Papua New Guinea, seeks to address these questions through a vivid and sympathetic account of inmates' lives. Prison Studies is a growing field of interest for social scientists. As one of the first ethnographic studies of a prison outside western societies and Japan, this book contributes to a reinterpretation of the field's scope and assumptions. It challenges notions of what is punitive about imprisonment by exploring the creative as well as negative outcomes of detention, separation and loss. Instead of just coping, the prisoners in Papua New Guinea's Last Place find themselves drawing fresh critiques and new approaches to contemporary living.
Sarah Palin has many faces: hockey mom, fundamentalist Christian, sex symbol, Republican ideologue, fashion icon, "maverick" populist. But, above all, Palin has become one thing: an American obsession that just won't go away. Edited by two senior editors at 'The Nation' magazine, this sharp, smart, up-to-the-minute book examines Palin's quirky origins in Wasilla, Alaska, her spectacular rise to the effective leadership of the Republican Party, and the nightmarish prospect of her continuing to dominate the nation's political scene. With contributions by: Amy Alexander, Max Blumenthal, Juan Cole, Joe Conason, Jeanne Devon, Eve Ensler, Michelle Goldberg, Jane Hamsher, Christopher Hayes, Mark Hertsgaard, Jim Hightower, Linda Hirshman, Naomi Klein, Dahlia Lithwick, Amanda Marcotte, Shannyn Moore, John Nichols, Rick Perlstein, Tom Perrotta, Katha Pollitt, Robert Reich, Frank Rich, Hanna Rosin, Jeff Sharlet, Matt Taibbi, Michael Tomasky, Rebecca Traister, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Jessica Valenti, Patricia Williams, JoAnn Wypijewski and Gary Younge among others.
A superalloy, or high-performance alloy, is an alloy that exhibits excellent mechanical strength at high temperatures. Superalloy development has been driven primarily by the aerospace and power industries. This compilation of papers from the Twelfth International Symposium on Superalloys, held from September 9-13, 2012, offers the most recent technical information on this class of materials.
Bill Reed had it all – brains, looks, athleticism, courage and a talent for leadership. After a challenging childhood in Depression-era Iowa, Reed joined the US Army Air Corps, but the outbreak of World War II saw him give up his commission. Instead, he travelled to China to fly for the American Volunteer Group – the legendary Flying Tigers. After a brief return to America, he resumed the fight as a senior pilot and later squadron commander in the Chinese-American Composite Wing. Soon afterwards, Reed tragically lost his life in a desperate parachute jump late in the war, by which point he was a fighter ace with nine confirmed aerial victories. His obituary was front-page news throughout the state of Iowa. This book is a biography of his extraordinary life, focusing on his time spent flying with some of the famous aerial groups of World War II. It draws heavily on Reed's own words, along with the author's deep knowledge of the China air war and years of research into Reed's life, to tell his compelling story.
Artificial neural networks are nonlinear mapping systems whose structure is loosely based on principles observed in the nervous systems of humans and animals. The basic idea is that massive systems of simple units linked together in appropriate ways can generate many complex and interesting behaviors. This book focuses on the subset of feedforward artificial neural networks called multilayer perceptrons (MLP). These are the mostly widely used neural networks, with applications as diverse as finance (forecasting), manufacturing (process control), and science (speech and image recognition). This book presents an extensive and practical overview of almost every aspect of MLP methodology, progressing from an initial discussion of what MLPs are and how they might be used to an in-depth examination of technical factors affecting performance. The book can be used as a tool kit by readers interested in applying networks to specific problems, yet it also presents theory and references outlining the last ten years of MLP research.
This book collects wide-ranging contributions such as case studies, reviews, reports on technological developments, outputs of research/studies, and examples of successful projects, presenting current knowledge and raising awareness to help the agriculture and forestry sectors find solutions for mitigating climate variability and adapting to change. It brings the topic of ecosystem services closer to education and learning, as targeted by the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020. Climate change and its impacts on agriculture and agroforestry have been observed across the world during the last 50 years. Increasing temperatures, droughts, biotic stresses and the impacts of extreme events have continuously decreased agroforestry systems’ resilience to the effects of climate change. As such, there is a need to adapt farming and agroforestry systems so as to make them better able to handle ever-changing climate conditions, and to preserve habitats and ecosystems services.