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Amazon Fruits: An Ethnobotanical Journey (Ethnobiology)
by Nigel SmithThis is the first comprehensive listing of Amazon fruits from an ethnobotanical perspective. This detailed book covers 50 botanical families, 207 species, in the Amazon including how the people of each region use them. It is lavishly illustrated with high-quality photographs taken by the author, an extensive list of references, and Dr. Smith’s latest, meticulous research. This book should be a foundational work for scholars working in the plant sciences, researchers in ethnobotanical studies, and general interest scholars seeking more detailed information on the latest research by a leading scientist in the Amazon.
Amazon: Pollen Manual and Atlas
by Paul A Collinvaux Paulo E. De Oliveira Enrique MorenoAmazon will prove a powerful tool for ecologists and climate modelers. It also contains brief reviews of pioneering pollen work in the Amazon to date; sections on pollen methods, pollen statistics, paleoecology, and lake coring methods.
Amazonia and Global Change
by Pedro Silva Dias Mercedes Bustamante John Gash Michael KellerPublished by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Geophysical Monograph Series, Volume 186.Amazonia and Global Change synthesizes results of the Large-Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA) for scientists and students of Earth system science and global environmental change. LBA, led by Brazil, asks how Amazonia currently functions in the global climate and biogeochemical systems and how the functioning of Amazonia will respond to the combined pressures of climate and land use change, such asWet season and dry season aerosol concentrations and their effects on diffuse radiation and photosynthesisIncreasing greenhouse gas concentration, deforestation, widespread biomass burning and changes in the Amazonian water cycleDrought effects and simulated drought through rainfall exclusion experimentsThe net flux of carbon between Amazonia and the atmosphereFloodplains as an important regulator of the basin carbon balance including serving as a major source of methane to the troposphereThe impact of the likely increased profitability of cattle ranching.The book will serve a broad community of scientists and policy makers interested in global change and environmental issues with high-quality scientific syntheses accessible to nonspecialists in a wide community of social scientists, ecologists, atmospheric chemists, climatologists, and hydrologists.
Amazonian Floodplain Forests: Ecophysiology, Biodiversity and Sustainable Management (Ecological Studies #210)
by Florian Wittmann Jochen Schöngart Maria T. Piedade Pia Parolin Wolfgang J. JunkCentral Amazonian floodplain forests are an unique and endangered ecosystem. The forests grow in areas that are annually flooded by large rivers during mean periods of up to 8 months and at depths of up to 10 m. Despite this severe stress, these forests consist of over 1,000 species and are by far the most species-rich floodplain forests worldwide. The trees show a broad range of morphological, anatomical, physiological, and phenological adaptations that enable them not only to survive the adverse environmental conditions, but also to produce large amounts of biomass when the nutrient levels in water and soils are sufficiently high. This is the case in the floodplains of white-water rivers, which are used for fisheries, agriculture, and cattle-ranching but which also have a high potential for the production of timber and non-timber products, when adequately managed. Latest research on ecophysiology gives insight how tree species adapt to the oscillating flood-pulse focusing on their photosynthesis, respiration, sap flow, biochemistry, phenology, wood and leave anatomy, root morphology and functioning, fruit chemistry, seed germination, seedling establishment, nitrogen fixation and genetic variability. Based on tree ages, lifetime growth rates and net primary production, new concepts are developed to improve the sustainability of traditional forest managements in the background of an integrated natural resource management. This is the first integrative book on the functioning and ecologically oriented use of floodplain forests in the tropics and sub-tropics.It provides fundamental knowledge for scientist, students, foresters and other professionals on their distribution, evolution and phytogeography. "This book is an excellent testimony to the interdisciplinary collaboration of a group of very dedicated scientists to unravel the functioning of the Amazonian Floodplain forests. They have brought together a highly valuable contribution on the distribution, ecology, primary production, ecophysiology, typology, biodiversity, and human use of these forests offering recommendations for sustainable management and future projects in science and development of these unique wetland ecosystems. It lays a solid scientific foundation for wetland ecologists, foresters, environmentalists, wetland managers, and all those interested in sustainable management in the tropics and subtropics." Brij Gopal, Executive Vice President International Society for Limnology (SIL).
Amazonian Mammals: Current Knowledge and Conservation Priorities
by Adrian A. Barnett Wilson R. Spironello Jessica W. Lynch Paulo E. D. Bobrowiec Sarah A. BoyleThe mammal fauna of the Brazilian Amazon is one of the most diverse on Earth with over 450 known species. Bringing together more than 70 of the world’s top experts on Amazonian mammals, this book unites, for the first time, up-to-date data on the current state of knowledge on the ecology of all groups of non-rodent mammals in the Brazilian Amazon, analyses the effectiveness of current conservation programmes and identifies research and conservation priorities for the future.
Amazon®: How Jeff Bezos Built the World's Largest Online Store
by Aurelia JacksonToday, Amazon.com is the world's most successful online store, selling everything from hand soap to computer parts, from books to children's toys. But Amazon wasn't always the amazing success it is now. Years ago, Amazon.com was just the dream of one person: Jeff Bezos. Learn about the man behind one of the most successful online businesses of all time. Discover how he started Amazon and led the company to incredible success. Find out how Jeff and Amazon are planning to change the future of online shopping.
Ambassadors from Earth: Pioneering Explorations with Unmanned Spacecraft (Outward Odyssey: A People's History of Spaceflight)
by Jay GallentineRewind to the 1950s and ponder: was America&’s first satellite really built by a college student? How did a small band of underappreciated Russian engineers get pictures of the moon&’s far side—using stolen American film? As the 1960s progressed, consider: how the heck did people learn to steer a spacecraft using nothing but gravity? And just how were humans able to goose a spaceship through a thirty-year journey to the literal edge of our solar system? Ambassadors from Earth relates the story of the first unmanned space probes and planetary explorers—from the Sputnik and Explorer satellites launched in the late 1950s to the thrilling interstellar Voyager missions of the '70s—that yielded some of the most celebrated successes and spectacular failures of the space age. Keep in mind that our first mad scrambles to reach orbit, the moon, and the planets were littered with enough histrionics and cliffhanging turmoil to rival the most far-out sci-fi film. Utilizing original interviews with key players, bolstered by never-before-seen photographs, journal excerpts, and primary source documents, Jay Gallentine delivers a quirky and unforgettable look at the lives and legacy of the Americans and Soviets who conceived, built, and guided those unmanned missions to the planets and beyond. Of special note is his in-depth interview with James Van Allen, the discoverer of the rings of planetary radiation that now bear his name. Ambassadors from Earth is an engaging bumper-car ride through a fog of head-banging uncertainty, bleeding-edge technology, personality clashes, organizational frustrations, brutal schedules, and the occasional bright spot. Confessed one participant, &“We were making it up as we went along.&”
Amber Waves: The Extraordinary Biography of Wheat, from Wild Grass to World Megacrop
by Catherine ZabinskiA biography of a staple grain we often take for granted, exploring how wheat went from wild grass to a world-shaping crop. At breakfast tables and bakeries, we take for granted a grain that has made human civilization possible, a cereal whose humble origins belie its world-shaping power: wheat. Amber Waves tells the story of a group of grass species that first grew in scattered stands in the foothills of the Middle East until our ancestors discovered their value as a source of food. Over thousands of years, we moved their seeds to all but the polar regions of Earth, slowly cultivating what we now know as wheat, and in the process creating a world of cuisines that uses wheat seeds as a staple food. Wheat spread across the globe, but as ecologist Catherine Zabinski shows us, a biography of wheat is not only the story of how plants ensure their own success: from the earliest bread to the most mouthwatering pasta, it is also a story of human ingenuity in producing enough food for ourselves and our communities. Since the first harvest of the ancient grain, we have perfected our farming systems to grow massive quantities of food, producing one of our species’ global mega crops—but at a great cost to ecological systems. And despite our vast capacity to grow food, we face problems with undernourishment both close to home and around the world. Weaving together history, evolution, and ecology, Zabinski’s tale explores much more than the wild roots and rise of a now-ubiquitous grain: it illuminates our complex relationship with our crops, both how we have transformed the plant species we use as food, and how our society—our culture—has changed in response to the need to secure food sources. From the origins of agriculture to gluten sensitivities, from our first selection of the largest seeds from wheat’s wild progenitors to the sequencing of the wheat genome and genetic engineering, Amber Waves sheds new light on how we grow the food that sustains so much human life.
Ambient Assisted Living (Rehabilitation Science in Practice Series)
by Nuno M. Garcia Joel J. P. C. RodriguesAddresses an Emerging Shift in Developing CountriesThe authors and contributors of Ambient Assisted Living have recognized that the demographic profile is changing in many developing countries and have factored in an inversion of the demographic pyramid. The technology of ambient assisted living (AAL), supports the elderly and disabled in their dai
Ambient Assisted Living: ForItAAL 2023 (Lecture Notes in Bioengineering)
by Pietro Siciliano Andrea Monteriù Alice Bettelli Mario Bochicchio Domenico De FanoThis book provides state-of-the-art information on ambient assisted living (AAL), and focuses on technologies, services, living spaces, policies, and interventions to promote health, improve quality of life, and active aging. It includes various research contributions, case studies, and projects where assistive technologies are successfully applied in the field, and it covers a wide range of topics: Tailoring products and services to the Aging society, Bio-data and Artificial sensing AAL scenarios, Cognition, and Technologies, and Designing for Inclusion and Well-Being. The volume gathers the refereed proceedings of the 12th Italian Forum on Ambient Assisted Living (ForItAAL), held in Bari, Italy on June 14-16, 2023. With its wide-ranging contributions to the topic, the book will inspire the readers and the researchers to continue their exploration of AAL technologies to support the development of products and services that make a real difference in people’s daily lives.
Ambient Assisted Living: Italian Forum 2014 (Biosystems & Biorobotics #11)
by Pietro Siciliano Andrea Monteriù Bruno Andò Vincenzo MarlettaThis book documents the state of the art in the field of ambient assisted living (AAL), highlighting the impressive potential of novel methodologies and technologies to enhance well-being and promote active ageing. The coverage is wide ranging, with sections on assistive devices, elderly people monitoring, home rehabilitation, ICT solutions for AAL, living with chronic conditions, robotic assistance for the elderly, sensing technologies for AAL, and smart housing. The book comprises a selection of the best papers presented at the Fifth Italian Forum on Ambient Assisted Living, which was held in Catania, Italy, in September 2014 and brought together end users, technology teams, and policy makers to develop a consensus on how to improve provision for elderly and impaired people. Readers will find that the expert contributions offer clear insights into the ways in which the most recent exciting advances may be expected to assist in addressing the needs of the elderly and those with chronic conditions.
Ambient Assisted Living: Italian Forum 2018 (Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering #544)
by Pietro Siciliano Alessandro Leone Andrea Caroppo Gabriele Rescio Giovanni DiracoThis book documents the state of the art in the field of ambient assisted living (AAL), highlighting the impressive potential of novel methodologies and technologies to enhance well-being and promote active ageing. The coverage is wide ranging, with sections on care models and algorithms, enabling technologies and assistive solutions, elderly people monitoring, home rehabilitation, ICT solutions for AAL, living with chronic conditions, robotic assistance for the elderly, sensing technologies for AAL, and smart housing. The book comprises a selection of the best papers presented at the 9th Italian Forum on Ambient Assisted Living (ForitAAL 2018), which was held in Lecce, Italy, in July 2018 and brought together end users, technology teams, and policy makers to develop a consensus on how to improve provision for elderly and impaired people. Readers will find that the expert contributions offer clear insights into the ways in which the most recent exciting advances may be expected to assist in addressing the needs of the elderly and those with chronic conditions.
Ambient Assisted Living: Italian Forum 2019 (Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering #725)
by Sauro Longhi Andrea Monteriù Alessandro FreddiThis book documents the state of the art in the field of ambient assisted living (AAL), highlighting technologies and services which aim to improve health and quality of life, while promoting active aging. The coverage is wide ranging, with topical sections devoted to human monitoring, smart living services, biomedical and robotic solutions, including different case studies and real-world examples where assistive technologies are successfully applied. The book comprises a selection of the best, refereed papers presented at the 10th Italian Forum on Ambient Assisted Living (ForItAAL), held in Ancona, Italy, in June 2019, which represents the annual event that involves the Ambient Assisted Living Italian Association and brought together researchers, technology teams, policy makers, and stake-holders. Readers will find that the expert contributions offer clear insights into the ways in which the most recent exciting advances may be expected to assist in addressing the needs of the elderly and those with chronic conditions.
Ambient Assisted Living: Italian Forum 2020 (Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering #884)
by Luciano Gamberini Andrea Monteriù Alice BettelliThis book provides state-of-the-art information on ambient assisted living (AAL), and focuses on technologies, services, living spaces, policies, and interventions to promote health, improve quality of life, and active aging. It includes various research contributions, case studies, and projects where assistive technologies are successfully applied in the field, and it covers a wide range of topics: Tailoring products and services to the Aging society, Bio-data and Artificial sensing AAL scenarios, Cognition, and Technologies, and Designing for Inclusion and Well-Being. The volume gathers the refereed proceedings of the 11th Italian Forum on Ambient Assisted Living (AAL), ForItAAL2020. This annual event involves companies, researchers, and stakeholders involved in the field of Ambient Assisted Living, it took place online due to the pandemic situation of Covid-19, and was organized by the University of Padua through the Human Inspired Technologies Research Centre and the Regional Innovative Network “ICT for Smart and Sustainable Living” with the contribution of the Smart Living Technologies’ Cluster. With its wide-ranging contributions to the topic, the book will inspire the readers and the researchers to continue their exploration of AAL technologies to support the development of products and services that make a real difference in people’s daily lives.
Ambient Assisted Living: Italian Forum 2024 (Lecture Notes in Bioengineering)
by Pietro Siciliano Filippo Cavallo Laura Fiorini Alessandra SorrentinoThis book provides state-of-the-art information on ambient assisted living (AAL) and focuses on technologies, services, living spaces, policies, and interventions to promote health, improve quality of life, and active aging. It includes various research contributions, case studies, and projects where assistive technologies are successfully applied in the field, and it covers a wide range of topics: tailoring products and services to the aging society, bio-data and artificial sensing AAL scenarios, cognition, and technologies, and designing for inclusion and well-being. The book gathers the refereed proceedings of the 13th Italian Forum on Ambient Assisted Living (ForItAAL), held in Florence, Italy, on June 25–28, 2024. With its wide-ranging contributions to the topic, the book inspires the readers and the researchers to continue their exploration of AAL technologies to support the development of products and services that make a real difference in people’s daily lives.
Ambient Diagnostics
by Yang CaiAmbient Diagnostics addresses innovative methods for discovering patterns from affordable devices, such as mobile phones, watches, cameras, and game interfaces, to interpret multimedia data for personal health monitoring and diagnosis. This is the first comprehensive textbook on multidisciplinary innovations in affordable healthcare-from senso
Ambient Literature: Towards a New Poetics of Situated Writing and Reading Practices
by Kate Pullinger Tom Abba Jonathan DoveyThis book considers how a combination of place-based writing and location responsive technologies produce new kinds of literary experiences. Building on the work done in the Ambient Literature Project (2016–2018), this books argues that these encounters constitute new literary forms, in which the authored text lies at the heart of an embodied and mediated experience. The visual, sonic, social and historic resources of place become the elements of a live and emergent mise-en-scène. Specific techniques of narration, including hallucination, memory, history, place based writing, and drama, as well as reworking of traditional storytelling forms combine with the work of app and user experience design, interaction, software authoring, and GIS (geographical information systems) to produce ambient experiences where the user reads a textual and sonic literary space. These experiences are temporary, ambiguous, and unpredictable in their meaning but unlike the theatre, the gallery, or the cinema they take place in the everyday shared world. The book explores the potentiality of a new literary form produced by the exchange between location-aware cultural objects, writers and readers. This book, and the work it explores, lays the ground for a new poetics of situated writing and reading practices.
Ambient Mass Spectroscopy Techniques in Food and the Environment (Food Analysis & Properties)
by Leo M.L. Nollet Basil K. MunjanjaAmbient mass spectrometry—that is the use of mass spec but in the atmospheric environment—has been widely employed in food and environmental analysis. Ambient Mass Spectroscopy Techniques in Food and the Environment presents the theoretical underpinnings of mass spectrometry, and the benefits and pitfalls of ambient mass spectrometry, as well as the latest developments of the technique, in the analysis of food and environmental parameters. It describes methods that enable the detection of surface materials like waxes, alkaloids, flavors, or pesticides by plainly exposing the corresponding items to the ionization region of the interface, without harm to samples. Features: Explains the theoretical aspects of ambient mass spectrometry Describes how to use ambient MS techniques for food safety, authenticity, and traceability screening Lists the benefits of ambient MS in analysis of food and environmental parameters Covers recent developments of ambient MS in analysis of food and environmental parameters The specialized work provides insight to professionals practicing in food and the environment, including food scientists, food engineers, food biotechnologists, chemical engineers, and those working in research labs, universities, and government regulatory agencies.
Ambisonics: A Practical 3D Audio Theory for Recording, Studio Production, Sound Reinforcement, and Virtual Reality (Springer Topics in Signal Processing #19)
by Franz Zotter Matthias FrankThis open access book provides a concise explanation of the fundamentals and background of the surround sound recording and playback technology Ambisonics. It equips readers with the psychoacoustical, signal processing, acoustical, and mathematical knowledge needed to understand the inner workings of modern processing utilities, special equipment for recording, manipulation, and reproduction in the higher-order Ambisonic format. The book comes with various practical examples based on free software tools and open scientific data for reproducible research.The book’s introductory section offers a perspective on Ambisonics spanning from the origins of coincident recordings in the 1930s to the Ambisonic concepts of the 1970s, as well as classical ways of applying Ambisonics in first-order coincident sound scene recording and reproduction that have been practiced since the 1980s. As, from time to time, the underlying mathematics become quite involved, but should be comprehensive without sacrificing readability, the book includes an extensive mathematical appendix. The book offers readers a deeper understanding of Ambisonic technologies, and will especially benefit scientists, audio-system and audio-recording engineers.In the advanced sections of the book, fundamentals and modern techniques as higher-order Ambisonic decoding, 3D audio effects, and higher-order recording are explained. Those techniques are shown to be suitable to supply audience areas ranging from studio-sized to hundreds of listeners, or headphone-based playback, regardless whether it is live, interactive, or studio-produced 3D audio material.
Ambitious Science Teaching
by Jessica Thompson Mark Windschitl Melissa BraatenAmbitious Science Teaching outlines a powerful framework for science teaching to ensure that instruction is rigorous and equitable for students from all backgrounds. The practices presented in the book are being used in schools and districts that seek to improve science teaching at scale, and a wide range of science subjects and grade levels are represented. The book is organized around four sets of core teaching practices: planning for engagement with big ideas; eliciting student thinking; supporting changes in students’ thinking; and drawing together evidence-based explanations. Discussion of each practice includes tools and routines that teachers can use to support students’ participation, transcripts of actual student-teacher dialogue and descriptions of teachers’ thinking as it unfolds, and examples of student work. The book also provides explicit guidance for “opportunity to learn” strategies that can help scaffold the participation of diverse students. Since the success of these practices depends so heavily on discourse among students, Ambitious Science Teaching includes chapters on productive classroom talk. Science-specific skills such as modeling and scientific argument are also covered. Drawing on the emerging research on core teaching practices and their extensive work with preservice and in-service teachers, Ambitious Science Teaching presents a coherent and aligned set of resources for educators striving to meet the considerable challenges that have been set for them.
Ambitious Science Teaching
by Jessica Thompson Mark Windschitl Melissa Braaten2018 Outstanding Academic Title, ChoiceAmbitious Science Teaching outlines a powerful framework for science teaching to ensure that instruction is rigorous and equitable for students from all backgrounds. The practices presented in the book are being used in schools and districts that seek to improve science teaching at scale, and a wide range of science subjects and grade levels are represented. The book is organized around four sets of core teaching practices: planning for engagement with big ideas; eliciting student thinking; supporting changes in students&’ thinking; and drawing together evidence-based explanations. Discussion of each practice includes tools and routines that teachers can use to support students&’ participation, transcripts of actual student-teacher dialogue and descriptions of teachers&’ thinking as it unfolds, and examples of student work. The book also provides explicit guidance for &“opportunity to learn&” strategies that can help scaffold the participation of diverse students. Since the success of these practices depends so heavily on discourse among students, Ambitious Science Teaching includes chapters on productive classroom talk. Science-specific skills such as modeling and scientific argument are also covered. Drawing on the emerging research on core teaching practices and their extensive work with preservice and in-service teachers, Ambitious Science Teaching presents a coherent and aligned set of resources for educators striving to meet the considerable challenges that have been set for them.
Ambivalences of Creating Life: Societal and Philosophical Dimensions of Synthetic Biology (Ethics of Science and Technology Assessment #45)
by Margret Engelhard Kristin Hagen Georg Toepfer"Synthetic biology" is the label of a new technoscientific field with many different facets and agendas. One common aim is to "create life", primarily by using engineering principles to design and modify biological systems for human use. In a wider context, the topic has become one of the big cases in the legitimization processes associated with the political agenda to solve global problems with the aid of (bio-)technological innovation. Conceptual-level and meta-level analyses are needed: we should sort out conceptual ambiguities to agree on what we talk about, and we need to spell out agendas to see the disagreements clearly. The book is based on the interdisciplinary summer school "Analyzing the societal dimensions of synthetic biology", which took place in Berlin in September 2014. The contributions address controversial discussions around the philosophical examination, public perception, moral evaluation and governance of synthetic biology.
Ambulatory Impedance Cardiography: The Systems and their Applications (Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering #76)
by Gerard CybulskiThe book is divided in 4 parts. In the first one, the importance of the analysis of the cardiac dynamics using the ambulatory monitoring technique is presented. The second part contains the description of foundations of impedance cardiography (ICG), the models used to describe the ICG technique and the description of available systems for ambulatory monitoring of cardiac hemodynamics. The third part is devoted to the validation of the ambulatory ICG method, the verification of the quality of long term ICG recordings and the discussion of the limitations of this technique. In the last part, some clinical and research applications of the ICG ambulatory monitoring are presented. The simultaneous recordings of electrocardiogram (ECG) and ICG in the transient cardiac arrhythmia events illustrate the potential applications of that method for quantitative analysis of hemodynamics when the implementation of the stationary methods would be either difficult or not possible to do. The book is followed by references, alphabetical index and appendices containing the technical data of the available systems for portable monitoring of cardiac hemodynamics.
Amebiasis: Biology and Pathogenesis of Entamoeba
by Tomoyoshi Nozaki Alok BhattacharyaThis book documents and presents new developments in the study of amebiasis, one of the neglected tropical diseases. Nearly 50 million people worldwide are infected with the pathogen Entamoeba histolytica, causing large-scale morbidity and mortality particularly in developing countries. This book will help clinicians for better diagnosis and management of the disease, researchers for initiating research projects on some of the poorly understood aspects of the disease and the pathogen, and students for updating their knowledge. The subjects covered range from genomics and molecular and cell biology to drug resistance and new drug development, highlighting major advances in recent years in our understanding due to rapid progress in genomic and other biomedical technologies, such as visualization of molecular processes. Most of the chapters provide recent information based on latest publications. A few chapters describe some of the critical methodological issues that will be helpful for students and researchers interested in getting into the field. The contributing authors include almost all the active researchers and clinicians from around the world. This book will be a useful primary material and a valuable source of information for anyone interested in understanding amebiasis, its diagnosis, and treatment. It will also be useful to those who are interested in learning about the biology of early branching eukaryotes and protist pathogens.
Amelia Bedelia Under Construction (I Can Read! #22)
by Herman ParishWhen Amelia Bedelia babysits for the Hardy family, she become involved in some unexpected remodeling of their house.