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Books > Professional & Technical > Environmental engineering & technology > General
Military robots and other, potentially autonomous robotic systems such as unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) could soon be introduced to the battlefield. Look further into the future and we may see autonomous micro- and nanorobots armed and deployed in swarms of thousands or even millions. This growing automation of warfare may come to represent a major discontinuity in the history of warfare: humans will first be removed from the battlefield and may one day even be largely excluded from the decision cycle in future high-tech and high-speed robotic warfare. Although the current technological issues will no doubt be overcome, the greatest obstacles to automated weapons on the battlefield are likely to be legal and ethical concerns. Armin Krishnan explores the technological, legal and ethical issues connected to combat robotics, examining both the opportunities and limitations of autonomous weapons. He also proposes solutions to the future regulation of military robotics through international law.
This book develops and demonstrates an interdisciplinary method that reads literary works as a way of thinking about the city. Literary works do not only provide reflections of the city – depictions of the city as an aesthetically compelling setting – but the literary reflection of the city also offers a critical reflection on the city. How can spatial difference be conceived in cities that are changing beyond the form of the classical modern metropolis of the early 20th century? How can one think of the relation between individual urban subjects and their urban environment, when neither spaces nor discourses of the city provide them with an answer to the question where they might "belong"? How does the human body interact with its urban surroundings, and how should technological mediations be thought of? This book approaches these questions through analysing literary texts, focusing on concepts like heterotopia, non-place and the posthuman. This book will be of interest to interdisciplinary scholars and students of the city, particularly in the fields of Urban Studies, Literary Studies, Geography, and Architecture.
This book includes contributions by leading experts across the globe with the first part of the book focusing on the analysis of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, examines COP26, and questions the political process in the US for the creation of policy for meaningful greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Part 2 explores various ways in which one can effectively mitigate climate change. The contents provide an analysis of carbon pricing, development of specific green energy technologies to promote economic prosperity, and analysis of electric vehicles and other elements of electrification in areas with carbon-intensive electricity supply. Part 3 analyses the international dimension of energy governance (both regional and global) and climate action. It further provides an analysis of the challenges faced by small island developing states, least-developed countries and other vulnerable places. It also offers an analysis of the prospects for a European Energy Union and explores why energy security and decarbonization are significant. Lastly, it explores global energy governance and how its fragmentation can be reduced. This volume will be a useful reference for those in industry and academia.
With cities striving to meet sustainable development goals, circular urban systems are gaining momentum, especially in Europe. This research-based book defines the circular city and circular development. It explains the shift in focus from a purely economic concept, which promotes circular business models in cities, to one that explores a new approach to urban development. This approach offers huge opportunities and addresses important sustainability issues: resource consumption and waste; climate change; the health of urban populations; social inequalities and the creation of sustainable urban economies. It examines the different approaches to circular development, drawing on research conducted in four European cities: Amsterdam, London, Paris and Stockholm. It explores different development pathways and levers for a circular urban transformation. It highlights the benefits of adopting a circular approach to development in cities, but acknowledges that these benefits are not shared equally across society. Finally, it focuses on the challenges to implementing circular development faced by urban actors. This ground-breaking book will be essential reading to scholars, students, practitioners and policymakers interested in the circular economy, urban sustainability, urban ecology, urban planning, urban regeneration, urban resilience, adaptive cities and regenerative cities.
Originally published in 1994, this book links the distant past with the urgent problems of today, taking the reader on a literary and scientific tour of global pollution from pre-history to the post-industrial age. Ancient problems such as lead poisoning in Rome and water pollution in Mesopotamia provide the background to a discussion of modern catastrophes including the hole in the ozone layer, climate change and the global drinking water crisis. The book chronicles 800 years of pollution in London, charts the growth of environmental activism and spotlights the rise of the consumer society as the driving force behind today's malaise.
Features: • Provides an accessible introduction to the subject. • Up to date with the latest advances in emerging technologies and procedures. • Provides a historical overview of CT technology.
Unraveling the mystery of the negative thermal expansion of liquid water has been a challenge for scientists for centuries. Various theories have been proposed so far, but none has been able to solve this mystery. Since the thermodynamic properties of matter are determined by the interaction between particles, the mystery can be solved fundamentally if the thermodynamic physical quantities using the laws of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics are determined, the experimental results are reproduced, and the phenomena in relation to the shape of the interaction between particles are elucidated. In this sense, this book has fundamentally unraveled this mystery. In addition, it discusses the mysteries of isothermal compressibility, structural diversity, as well as liquefaction and boiling points of water in relation to the shape of the interaction between particles. It carefully explains the analysis and calculation methods so that they can be easily understood by the readers.
Written by a leading geographer of climate, this book offers a unique guide to students and general readers alike for making sense of this profound, far-reaching, and contested idea. It presents climate change as an idea with a past, a present, and a future. In ten carefully crafted chapters, Climate Change offers a synoptic and inter-disciplinary understanding of the idea of climate change from its varied historical and cultural origins; to its construction more recently through scientific endeavour; to the multiple ways in which political, social, and cultural movements in today's world seek to make sense of and act upon it; to the possible futures of climate, however it may be governed and imagined. The central claim of the book is that the full breadth and power of the idea of climate change can only be grasped from a vantage point that embraces the social sciences, humanities, and natural sciences. This vantage point is what the book offers, written from the perspective of a geographer whose career work on climate change has drawn across the full range of academic disciplines. The book highlights the work of leading geographers in relation to climate change; examples, illustrations, and case study boxes are drawn from different cultures around the world, and questions are posed for use in class discussions. The book is written as a student text, suitable for disciplinary and inter-disciplinary undergraduate and graduate courses that embrace climate change from within social science and humanities disciplines. Science students studying climate change on inter-disciplinary programmes will also benefit from reading it, as too will the general reader looking for a fresh and distinctive account of climate change.
Although many radiation protection scientists and engineers use dose coefficients, few know the origin of those dose coefficients. This is the first book in over 40 years to address the topic of radiation protection dosimetry in intimate detail. Advanced Radiation Protection Dosimetry covers all methods used in radiation protection dosimetry, including advanced external and internal radiation dosimetry concepts and regulatory applications. This book is an ideal reference for both scientists and practitioners in radiation protection and students in graduate health physics and medical physics courses. Features: A much-needed book filling a gap in the market in a rapidly expanding area Contains the history, evolution, and the most up-to-date computational dosimetry models Authored and edited by internationally recognized authorities and subject area specialists Interrogates both the origins and methodologies of dose coefficient calculation Incorporates the latest international guidance for radiation dosimetry and protection
This book gathers the latest advances, innovations, and applications in the field of innovative biosystems engineering for sustainable agriculture, forestry and food production. Focusing on the challenges of implementing sustainability in various contexts in the fields of biosystems engineering, it shows how the research has addressed the sustainable use of renewable and non-renewable resources. It also presents possible solutions to help achieve sustainable production. The Mid-Term Conference of the Italian Association of Agricultural Engineering (AIIA) is part of a series of conferences, seminars and meetings that the AIIA organizes, together with other public and private stakeholders, to promote the creation and dissemination of new knowledge in the sector. The contributions included in the book were selected by means of a rigorous peer-review process, and offer an extensive and multidisciplinary overview of interesting solutions in the field of innovative biosystems engineering for sustainable agriculture.
Global Garbage examines the ways in which garbage, in its diverse forms, is being produced, managed, experienced, imagined, circulated, concealed, and aestheticized in contemporary urban environments and across different creative and cultural practices. The book explores the increasingly complex relationship between globalization and garbage in locations such as Beirut, Detroit, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Manchester, Naples, Paris, Rio de Janeiro and Tehran. In particular, the book examines how, and under what conditions, contemporary imaginaries of excess, waste, and abandonment perpetuate - but also sometimes counter - the imbalances of power that are frequently associated with the global metropolitan condition. This interdisciplinary collection will appeal to the fields of anthropology, architecture, film and media studies, geography, urban studies, sociology, and cultural analysis.
Highlights the utilization of nanofillers. Investigates the moisture absorption and ageing on the physio-chemical, mechanical, thermal properties of the vinyl ester-based composites. Considers the influence of hybridization, fibre architecture, and fibre-ply orientation on the mechanical and thermal properties of vinyl ester-based biocomposites. Discusses the effects of the alkali treatment. Chapters are written by global experts to cover a diverse scope of industry applications for fibre-reinforced polymer composites.
This book uncovers, explores and analyses the cultural and social factors and values that lie behind waste making, recycling and disposal in the Asia Pacific region, where impressive economic growth has led to significant increases in production, consumption and concomitant waste production. This volume demonstrates the immense scope of waste as a multi-sectoral phenomenon, covering discussions on food, menstrual products, sewage, electronics, scrap, nuclear waste, plastics, and even entire villages as they are submerged underwater by dam building, considered expendable in favour of economic growth. It discusses the wide range of approaches and contexts through which people interact with waste, including socio-economic analysis, participatory observation, laboratory science, art, video, installations, literature and photography. Case studies focusing on India, China and Japan, in addition to other regional examples, demonstrate the ubiquity of waste, materially and geographically. It examines the duality of waste management, fostering community building while simultaneously excluding marginalised groups; how it can be linked to efforts creating circular economies, to then reappear in oceanic garbage patches; or technical waste repurposed for high-tech laboratory research before being discarded once again. This timely and wide-ranging collection of essays will be an important read for scholars, researchers and students in sustainability, development studies, discard studies, and social and cultural history, particularly focusing on countries in the Asia-Pacific.
This completely revised and updated second edition of Organometallic Compounds in the Environment treats environmental organometallic chemistry as an integrated and coherent subject area in its own right, bringing together contributions from leading scientists throughout the world. The Introduction summarizes and explores those properties of organometallic compounds that are relevant to their behaviour and impact in the natural environment. Subsequent chapters cover those elements whose organometallic derivatives are especially important in the environmental context. The natural formation of organometallics from inorganic precursors under environmental conditions is also treated in detail. An important underlying theme running through the work is the biological properties and toxicities of the organometallic species present in the environment. In general a full speciation approach is taken, where the full molecular identities of the compounds concerned are considered. Research workers in the fields of organometallic compounds and their environmental impact, as well as those interested in organometallic and environmental chemistry generally, will welcome this new edition. It will also be invaluable as a source book to lecturers teaching courses at undergraduate or graduate level in applied, analytical, industrial, organometallic or environmental chemistry, or in environmental science in general.
This book ranks countries with respect to their achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and their vulnerability to climate change. Human livelihoods, stable economies, health, and high quality of life all depend on a stable climate and earth system, and a diversity of species and ecosystems. Climate change significantly impacts human trafficking, modern slavery, and global hunger. This book examines these global problems using techniques from mathematics of uncertainty. Since accurate data concerning human trafficking and modern slavery is impossible to obtain, mathematics of uncertainty is an ideal discipline to study these problems. The book also considers the interconnection between climate change, world hunger, human trafficking, modern slavery, and the coronavirus. Connectivity properties of fuzzy graphs are used to examine trafficking flow between regions in the world. The book is an excellent reference source for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in mathematics and the social sciences as well as for researchers and teachers.
This imaginative and empowering book explores the ways that our emotions entangle us with climate change and offers strategies for engaging with climate anxiety that can contribute to social transformation. Climate educator Blanche Verlie draws on feminist, more-than-human and affect theories to argue that people in high-carbon societies need to learn to 'live-with' climate change: to appreciate that human lives are interconnected with the climate, and to cultivate the emotional capacities needed to respond to the climate crisis. Learning to Live with Climate Change explores the cultural, interpersonal and sociological dimensions of ecological distress. The book engages with Australia's 2019/2020 'Black Summer' of bushfires and smoke, undergraduate students' experiences of climate change, and contemporary activist movements such as the youth strikes for climate. Verlie outlines how we can collectively attune to, live with, and respond to the unsettling realities of climate collapse while counteracting domineering ideals of 'climate control.' This impressive and timely work is both deeply philosophical and immediately practical. Its accessible style and real-world relevance ensure it will be valued by those researching, studying and working in diverse fields such as sustainability education, climate communication, human geography, cultural studies, environmental sociology and eco-psychology, as well as the broader public. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367441265, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
With new chapters on electrical system optimization and ISO 50001, this edition also covers the latest updates to codes and standards in the energy industry. Also included are chapters on energy economic analysis, energy auditing, waste heat recovery, utility system optimization, HVAC, cogeneration, control systems, energy management, compressed air system optimization and financing energy projects. Additional topics include emerging technologies such as oxy-fuel combustion, high efficiency burners, enhanced heat exchangers, and ceramic membranes for heat recovery as well as information on how to do an energy analysis of any system; electrical system optimization; state-of-the-art lighting and lighting controls. This reference will guide you step by step in applying the principles of energy engineering and management to the design of electrical, HVAC, utility, process and building systems for both new design and retrofit projects. The text is thoroughly illustrated with tables, graphs, diagrams and sample problems.
Why learn functional programming? Isn't that some complicated ivory-tower technique used only in obscure languages like Haskell? In fact, functional programming is actually very simple. It's also very powerful, as Haskell demonstrates by throwing away all the conventional programming tools and using only functional programming features. But it doesn't have to be done that way. Functional programming is a power tool that you can use in addition to all your usual tools, to whatever extent your current mainstream language supports it. Most languages have at least basic support. In this book we use Python and Java and, as a bonus, Scala. If you prefer another language, there will be minor differences in syntax, but the concepts are the same. Give functional programming a try. You may be surprised how much a single power tool can help you in your day-to-day programming.
Image synthesis across and within medical imaging modalities is an active area of research with broad applications in radiology and radiation oncology. This book covers the principles and methods of medical image synthesis, along with state-of-the-art research. First, various traditional non-learning-based, traditional machine-learning-based, and recent deep-learning-based medical image synthesis methods are reviewed. Second, specific applications of different inter- and intra-modality image synthesis tasks and of synthetic image-aided segmentation and registration are introduced and summarized, listing and highlighting the proposed methods, study designs, and reported performances with the related clinical applications of representative studies. Third, the clinical usages of medical image synthesis, such as treatment planning and image-guided adaptive radiotherapy, are discussed. Last, the limitations and current challenges of various medical synthesis applications are explored, along with future trends and potential solutions to solve these difficulties. The benefits of medical image synthesis have sparked growing interest in a number of advanced clinical applications, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-only radiation therapy treatment planning and positron emission tomography (PET)/MRI scanning. This book will be a comprehensive and exciting resource for undergraduates, graduates, researchers, and practitioners.
Mine areas left behind by companies that no longer exist are defined as derelict mines- those that were operated and closed at a time when most countries did not have adequate regulations requiring rehabilitation of the impacted mine areas. This new book provides unique information on the extent and severity of derelict mines' impact on environmental degradation and human and environmental health. It examines the nature of derelict mines, short- and long-term risks to sensitive receptors, tools for monitoring and prioritizing risks, and technological advances for rehabilitation. This book considers a risk-based approach to managing derelict mines, which is both reliable and cost effective.
Nuclear energy is the one energy source that could meet the world's growing energy needs and provide a smooth transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy in the coming decades and centuries. It is becoming abundantly clear that an increase in nuclear energy capacity will, and probably must, take place. However, nuclear energy and the use of radionuclides for civilian and military purposes lead to extremely long-lived waste that is costly and highly problematic to deal with. Therefore, it is critically important ot understand the environmental implications of radionuclides for ecosystems and human health if nuclear energy is to be used to avoid the impending global energy crisis. The present volume of the EIC Books series addresses this critical need by providing fundamental information on environmentally significant radionuclides. The content of this book was developed in collaboration with many of the authors of the chapters. Given the enormity of the subject the Editor and the Authors had to be judicious in selecting the chapters that would appropriately encompass and describe the primary topics, particularly those that are of importance to the health of ecosystems and humans. The resulting chapters were chosen to provide this information in a book of useful and appropriate length. Each chapter provides fundamental information on the chemistry of the radionuclides, their occurrence and movement in the enivornment, separation and analyses, and the technologies needed for their remediation and mitigation. The chapters are structured with a common, systematic format in order to facilitate comparions between elements and groups of elements. About EIC Books The Encyclopedia of Inorganic Chemistry (EIC) has proved to be one of the defining standards in inorganic chemistry, and most chemistry libraries around the world have access either to the first of second print editon, or to the online version. Many readers, however, prefer to have more concise thematic volumes, targeted to their specific area of interest. This feedback from EIC readers has encouraged the Editors to plan a series of EIC Books, focusing on topics of current interest. They will appear on a regular basis, and will feature leading scholars in their fields. Like the Encyclopedia, EIC Books aims to provide both the starting research student and the confirmed research worker with a critical distillation of the leading concepts in inorganic and bioinorganic chemistry, and provide a structured entry into the fields covered. This volume is also available as part of "Encyclopedia of Inorganic Chemistry, 5 Volume Set." This set combines all volumes published as EIC Books from 2007 to 2010, representing areas of key developments in the field of inorganic chemistry published in the "Encyclopedia of Inorganic Chemistry." Find out more.
Highlights the performance of epoxy-based biocomposites with reinforced with various natural fibres and plant resources. Investigates the behavior of hybrid biocomposites and biocomposites reinforced with various nanofillers. Evaluates the response of epoxy-based biocomposites exposed to moisture absorption, accelerated weathering, and hygrothermal aging. Discusses the static and dynamic properties, such as creep, fatigue, and free vibration properties. Chapters are written by global experts to cover a diverse scope of industry applications for fiber-reinforced polymer composites.
Showcases the excellent data science environment in Python. Provides examples for readers to replicate, adapt, extend, and improve. Covers the crucial knowledge needed by geographic data scientist.
Image synthesis across and within medical imaging modalities is an active area of research with broad applications in radiology and radiation oncology. This book covers the principles and methods of medical image synthesis, along with state-of-the-art research. First, various traditional non-learning-based, traditional machine-learning-based, and recent deep-learning-based medical image synthesis methods are reviewed. Second, specific applications of different inter- and intra-modality image synthesis tasks and of synthetic image-aided segmentation and registration are introduced and summarized, listing and highlighting the proposed methods, study designs, and reported performances with the related clinical applications of representative studies. Third, the clinical usages of medical image synthesis, such as treatment planning and image-guided adaptive radiotherapy, are discussed. Last, the limitations and current challenges of various medical synthesis applications are explored, along with future trends and potential solutions to solve these difficulties. The benefits of medical image synthesis have sparked growing interest in a number of advanced clinical applications, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-only radiation therapy treatment planning and positron emission tomography (PET)/MRI scanning. This book will be a comprehensive and exciting resource for undergraduates, graduates, researchers, and practitioners. |
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