This book analyses the underlying communication strategies and approaches of grassroots water management practices in India through a case study-based ethnographic approach. Drawing from fieldwork experiences, this volume provides a detailed overview of Parmarth, a not-for-profit NGO, which is the case study for this research. It presents an in-depth theoretically informed analysis of data collected through multiple methods, which includes key informant interviews, focus group discussions, participant observation, and document reviews, among other approaches. The book examines Parmarth's strategies and processes to mobilise women as important stakeholders in the region's water conservation initiatives. It discusses communicative actions, tactics and campaigns in water interventions and the role of various stakeholders ranging from local community members to civil society. Accessibly written, this volume is a must-read for scholars and researchers of media and communication studies, environmental communication, ecology studies, development studies, public policy, sustainable development, water management, sociology, and political science.

This book provides a comprehensive, up-to-date overview of the different environmental strategies adopted in the football world to foster sustainability. The authors lay out useful insights, both for scholars and practitioners, to improve good governance in football organisations by empowering environmental organisational and operational actions. As well as examining practical methods of implementing green initiatives, the book discusses their added value from different perspectives including football fans, football managers and policymakers. By identifying the most important green actions for the dissemination of environmentally friendly behaviours at both individual and organisational levels, the book demonstrates how football organisations can use operational and organisational methods to develop an environmental sustainability strategy. The book contributes to developing the role of the football world by covering different facets of sustainability such as the circular economy, climate change, green marketing, fans engagement and more. It will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of environmental management, sustainable business and corporate social responsibility, as well as professionals working in the football industry.

The book augurs to be a mix of theoretical and practical perceptions of the related concepts pertaining to image processing. The primary objectives orient to offer an overview to the elementary concepts and practices appropriate to DIP as well as to provide theoretical exposition. It starts with an expanded coverage of the fundamentals to provide a more comprehensive and cohesive coverage of the topics including but not limited to: Applications and tools for image processing, fundamentals with several implementation examples Concepts of image formation, OpenCV installation with step-by-step screen shots Concepts behind intensity, brightness and contrast, color models Ways by which noises are created in an image and the possible remedial measures Edge detection, Image segmentation, classification, regression, Classification algorithms Importance of frequency domain in image processing field Relevant code snippets and the MATLAB codes, several interesting set of simple programs in OpenCV and Python to aid learning and for complete understanding The video lectures for specific topics through YouTube by the authors enable easy inference for the readers to apply the learnt theory into practice. The addition of contents at the end of each chapter such as quiz, review questions etc., fully prepares the readers for further study. Graduate Students, Post Graduate students, Researchers, and anyone in general interested in Image Processing, Computer Vision, Machine Learning domains etc. can find this book an excellent starting point for information and as an able ally.

C. S. Lewis rightly instructed, "The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts." This book aims to achieve this task by pushing the frontiers of scholarship for securing a sustainable future through green energy and infrastructure. This encompasses the notion that what we create is in harmony and integration with both the spatial and temporal domains. Through numerous practical examples and illustrations, this book examines a comprehensive review of the latest science on indoor environmental health, energy requirements for buildings, and the "greening" of infrastructure. Also, it provides a discussion on the underlying properties of biomass and its influence on furthering energy conversion technologies. Energy storage is essential for driving the integration of renewable energy, and different storage approaches are discussed in terms of power balancing, grid stability, and reliability. Features: Focuses on the importance of coupling green energy with green infrastructure Provides an unbiased update of the state-of-the-art of sustainability science Discusses utilizing sustainable building materials for simultaneous improvement in energy, economic, and environmental bottom lines for industry Illuminates practical steps that need to be undertaken to achieve a greener infrastructure Green Energy and Infrastructure: Securing a Sustainable Future is appropriate for researchers, students, and decision-makers seeking the latest, practical information on environmental sustainability.

This book is an excellent best-practice guide for senior managers and directors with innovation responsibilities. It describes how organisations of all sizes and sectors can apply design thinking principles, coupled with commercial awareness, to their innovation agenda. It explains how to keep the customer experience at the centre of innovation efforts and when to apply the range of available practices. It provides a clear, extensive rationale for all advice and techniques offered. Design thinking has become the number one innovation methodology for many businesses, but there has been a lack of clarity about how best to adopt it. It often requires significant mindset and behavioural changes and managers must have a coherent and integrated understanding in order to guide its adoption effectively. Many design thinking implementations are inadequate or sub-optimal through focusing too much on details of individual methods or being too abstract, with ill-defined objectives. This book uniquely provides integrated clarity and rationale across all levels of design thinking practice and introduces the ARRIVE framework for design thinking in business innovation, which the authors have developed over ten years of practice and research. ARRIVE = Audit – Research – Reframe – Ideate – Validate – Execute. The book contains a chapter for each of A-R-R-I-V-E, each of which has explanatory background and step-by-step methods instruction in a clear and standard format. Using the ARRIVE framework, the book provides high-level understanding, rationale and step-by-step guidance for CEOs, senior innovation leaders, innovation project managers and design practitioners in diverse public and private sectors. It applies equally well to innovation of products, services or systems.

The Handbook of Chemical and Biological Warfare Agents, Volume 2: Pathogens, Mid-Spectrum, and Incapacitating Agents, Third Edition provides rapid access to key data to response professionals and decision-makers on a broad range of agents and pathogens. This volume presents information on a wide range of chemical and biological agents. Chemical agents detailed in this volume are those that were developed specifically for their non-lethal potential. The biological agents described are militarily significant pathogens that could be weaponized to pose a threat to people, animals, or crops and other agricultural interests. Mid-spectrum agents, materials that do not fit clearly into either the Chemical or the Biological Weapons Conventions, include toxins and bioregulators. Entomological agents, the final class of agents discussed in volume, are arthropods that could pose a significant threat to a country's agriculture infrastructure and be used to devastate its economy. They were proposed for inclusion in the Biological Weapons Convention but never adopted. In addition to a discussion of each of these classes of agents, coverage includes detailed information on a broad spectrum of individual agents that have been used on the battlefield, stockpiled as weapons, used or threatened to be used by terrorists, or have been otherwise assessed by qualified law enforcement and response organizations and determined to be agents of significant concern. The information presented in this edition has been updated and expanded to contain more information on toxicology, health effects, presentation of diseases, advances in medical care and treatment, as well as protective actions needed at the scene of an incident. Key Features: Focuses on the key information needed during an emergency response Provides updated toxicology, exposure hazards, physical-chemical data, and treatment of casualties Profiles the presentation of diseases in people, animals and plants Presents updated protective action distances, decontamination, and remediation information All data compiled is gathered from numerous sources and arranged into the current, easy-to-access format. In order to ensure accuracy, all data has been cross-checked over the widest variety of military, scientific and medical sources available. The Handbook of Chemical and Biological Warfare Agents, Volume 2: Pathogens, Mid-Spectrum, and Incapacitating Agents, Third Edition remains the gold-standard reference detailing the widest variety of military, scientific, and medical sources available.

The book is a multidisciplinary space and serves as a platform to share and learn about the frontier knowledge between different areas related to "Recent trends in sustainable engineering." Sustainable engineering promotes the responsible use of resources and materials involved in the different manufacturing processes or the execution stages of a service. An interdisciplinary approach is required in all aspects of engineering. In this sense, engineers, researchers, and the academic community will play a fundamental role in developing new technologies that respect the environment, still, at the same time, that considers social and economic factors.

Radiation theory and measurements are at the core of the climate change debate. This new book describes in detail the basic physics used in the radiative transfer codes that are a key part of climate prediction models. The basic principles are extended to the atmospheres of the Earth and the other planets, illustrating the greenhouse effect and other radiation-based phenomena at work. Several chapters deal with the techniques and measurements for monitoring the Earth's radiation budget and thus tracking global change and its effects. Remote sensing instruments on satellites and the theory of remote sensing are also covered. The book is the first comprehensive new publication on atmospheric radiation in more than a decade, and the first to link the theoretical and experimental aspects of the subject to the contemporary climate problem.

This book examines how public relations might re-imagine itself as an instrument of "sustainable citizenship" by exploring alternative models of representing and building relationships with and among marginalised publics that disrupt the standard discourses of public relations. It argues that public relations needs to situate itself in the larger context of citizenship, the values and ethics that inform it and the attitudes and behaviours that characterize it. Interlacing critical public relations with a theoretical fabric woven with strands of postcolonial histories, indigenous studies, feminist studies, and political theory, the book brings out the often-unseen processes of relationship building that nurtures solidarity among historically marginalized publics. The book is illustrated with global cases of public relations as sustainable citizenship in action across three core elements of the earth – air, water, and land. In each of the cases, readers can see how resistance movements, not necessarily aligned with any specific organization or interest group, are seeking to change the status quo of a world increasingly defined by exploitation, overconsumption, sectarianism, and faux nationalism. This challenging book will be of interest to students and scholars of not only public relations but also the broader social and management sciences who are interested in issues of environmental and social justice.

Describes how nanomaterial functionalization is being used to create more effective sensors. Discusses various synthesis procedures, characterization techniques, and which nanomaterials should be used for sensing applications. Provides an in-depth look into oxide nanostructures, carbon nanostructures, and 2D material fabrication. Explores the challenges of using nanoscale sensors for large-scale industrial applications.

Speaks directly and exclusively to an unserved group of new engineers joining their first professional technical or engineering organization Provides a basic foundation to understanding the engineering organization and covering the first critical steps to learning how to operate within it Shares the key academic framework supporting the basic foundation as a prerequisite to truly understanding the organization’s dynamics Through numerous case studies the book presents actual experiential guidance in dealing with engineering organizations from the new hire’s point of view Offers a method on how to extend these insights listed in the book and turn them into a valuable personal model, valid throughout the engineer’s career

Speaks directly and exclusively to an unserved group of new engineers joining their first professional technical or engineering organization Provides a basic foundation to understanding the engineering organization and covering the first critical steps to learning how to operate within it Shares the key academic framework supporting the basic foundation as a prerequisite to truly understanding the organization’s dynamics Through numerous case studies the book presents actual experiential guidance in dealing with engineering organizations from the new hire’s point of view Offers a method on how to extend these insights listed in the book and turn them into a valuable personal model, valid throughout the engineer’s career

Relevant examination of the interrelationship of environment, economics, and individual and communal happiness and sustainability Constructive reconceptualization of labor, consumption, and human happiness Crisp, clear, and accessible for students and general readers

This book offers a focused and practical guide to integrating the relationship between media and the environment-ecomedia-into media education. It enables media teachers to "green" their pedagogy by providing essential tools and approaches that can be applied in the classroom. Media are essential features of our planetary ecosystem emergency, contributing to both the problem of and solution to climate chaos, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, deforestation, water contamination, and so on. Offering a clear theoretical framework and suggested curriculum guide, the book provides key resources that will enable media educators to apply ecomedia concepts to their curricula. By reconceptualizing media education, this book connects ecology, environmental communication, ecomedia studies, environmental humanities, and ecoliteracy to bridge media literacy and education for sustainability. Ecomedia Literacy is an essential read for educators and scholars in the areas of media literacy, media and communication, media and cultural studies, environmental humanities, and environmental studies.

This book provides an updated and detailed overview on the recent developments of bioethanol technology. It looks at the historical perspectives, chemistry, sources and production of ethanol and discusses biotechnology breakthroughs and promising developments, its uses, advantages, problems, environmental effects and characteristics. In addition, it presents information about ethanol in different parts of the world and also highlights the challenges and future of ethanol. The first edition of this book was published as a SpringerBriefs in 2013. Since then, many new developments have taken place in the last six years. This new edition will highlight the evolution in bioethanol development from first-generation production to the futuristic fourth-generation bioethanol production, the various constraints and challenges involved, and the scope for development. This book caters to the audience who are interested in alternative transportation fuels which are both biodegradable and sustainable to the environment.

This book presents the proceedings of the First National Conference on "Sustainable Management of Environment & Natural Resource through Innovation in Science and Technology" (SMTST2020). The book highlights the latest development and innovations in the fields of sustainability, natural resource management, ecology and its environmental fields, geosciences and geology, atmospheric sciences, sustainability, climate change, and extreme weather, global warming, and global change, the effect of climate change on the ecosystem, environment, and pollution, as well as putting a strong emphasis on the multidisciplinary studies.

Fracking and the Rhetoric of Place investigates the rhetorical strategies of speakers at public hearings on hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") in order to understand how places shape and are shaped by citizens as they engage in their democracy. As an important argumentative resource in environmental controversy, the rhetoric of place helps citizens situate themselves within local contexts and raise their voices in times of social conflict. Justin Mando uses rhetorical analysis, discourse analysis, and corpus analysis to offer scholars of place-based rhetoric and environmental communication a heuristic approach to studying their own sites. This approach reveals that place-based arguments are a ubiquitous rhetorical resource in the dispute over hydraulic fracturing that shapes how the issue is perceived. Pro-frackers and anti-frackers use rhetoric of place in striking ways that reveal their values, motivations, strengths, and weaknesses. Place functions as an interface of potential common ground that connects the local to the global, what is here to what is there. Scholars and students of rhetoric, communication, and environmental studies will find this book particularly interesting.

This book carefully considers hydrological models which are essential for predicting floods, droughts, soil moisture estimation, land use change detection, geomorphology and water structures. The book highlights recent advances in the area of hydrological modelling in the Ganga Basin and other internationally important river basins. The impact of climate change on water resources is a global concern. Water resources in many countries are already stressed, and climate change along with burgeoning population, rising standard of living and increasing demand are adding to the stress. Furthermore, river basins are becoming less resilient to climatic vagaries. Fundamental to addressing these issues is hydrological modelling which is covered in this book. Integrated water resources management is vital to ensure water and food security. Integral to the management is groundwater and solute transport, and this book encompasses tools that will be useful to mitigate the adverse consequences of natural disasters.

With a rigorous and comprehensive coverage, the second edition of Compliant Mechanisms: Design of Flexure Hinges provides practical answers to the design and analysis of devices that incorporate flexible hinges. Complex-shaped flexible-hinge mechanisms are generated from basic elastic segments by means of a bottom-up compliance (flexibility) approach. The same compliance method and the classical finite element analysis are utilized to study the quasi-static and dynamic performances of these compliant mechanisms. This book offers easy-to-use mathematical tools to investigate a wealth of flexible-hinge configurations and two- or three-dimensional compliant mechanism applications. FEATURES Introduces a bottom-up compliance-based approach to characterize the flexibility of new and existing flexible hinges of straight- and curvilinear-axis configurations Develops a consistent linear lumped-parameter compliance model to thoroughly describe the quasi-static and dynamic behavior of planar/spatial, serial/parallel flexible-hinge mechanisms Utilizes the finite element method to analyze the quasi-statics and dynamics of compliant mechanisms by means of straight- and curvilinear-axis flexible-hinge elements Covers miscellaneous topics such as stress concentration, yielding and related maximum load, precision of rotation of straight- and circular-axis flexible hinges, temperature effects on compliances, layered flexible hinges and piezoelectric actuation/sensing Offers multiple solved examples of flexible hinges and flexible-hinge mechanisms. This book should serve as a reference to students, researchers, academics and anyone interested to investigate precision flexible-hinge mechanisms by linear model-based methods in various areas of mechanical, aerospace or biomedical engineering, as well as in robotics and micro-/nanosystems.

Innovating Construction Law: Towards the Digital Age takes a speculative look at current and emerging technologies and examines how legal practice in the construction industry can best engage with the landscape they represent. The book builds the case for a legal approach based on transparency, traceability and collaboration in order to seize the opportunities presented by technologies such as smart contracts, blockchain, artificial intelligence, big data and building information modelling. The benefits these initiatives bring to the construction sector have the potential to provide economic, societal and environmental benefits as well as reducing the incidence of disputes. The author uses a mixture of black letter law and socio-legal commentary to facilitate the discourse around procurement, law and technology. The sections of the book cover the AS IS position, the TO BE future position as predicted and the STEPS INBETWEEN, which can enable a real change in the industry. The rationale for this approach lies in ensuring that the developments are congruent with the existing frameworks provided by the law. The book proposes various steps that the industry should seriously consider taking from the current position to shape the future of the sector and ultimately create a better, more productive and sustainable construction industry. This book is a readable and engaging guide for students and practitioners looking to learn more about construction law and its relationship with technology and for those seeking a platform for graduate studies in this area.

Discover New Methods for Dealing with High-Dimensional Data A sparse statistical model has only a small number of nonzero parameters or weights; therefore, it is much easier to estimate and interpret than a dense model. Statistical Learning with Sparsity: The Lasso and Generalizations presents methods that exploit sparsity to help recover the underlying signal in a set of data. Top experts in this rapidly evolving field, the authors describe the lasso for linear regression and a simple coordinate descent algorithm for its computation. They discuss the application of 1 penalties to generalized linear models and support vector machines, cover generalized penalties such as the elastic net and group lasso, and review numerical methods for optimization. They also present statistical inference methods for fitted (lasso) models, including the bootstrap, Bayesian methods, and recently developed approaches. In addition, the book examines matrix decomposition, sparse multivariate analysis, graphical models, and compressed sensing. It concludes with a survey of theoretical results for the lasso. In this age of big data, the number of features measured on a person or object can be large and might be larger than the number of observations. This book shows how the sparsity assumption allows us to tackle these problems and extract useful and reproducible patterns from big datasets. Data analysts, computer scientists, and theorists will appreciate this thorough and up-to-date treatment of sparse statistical modeling.

Fundamental Considerations in Technology Mediated Language Assessment aims to address issues such as how the forced integration of technology into second language assessment has shaped our understanding of key traditional concepts like validity, reliability, washback, authenticity, ethics, fairness, test security, and more. Although computer assisted language testing has been around for more than two decades in the context of high-stakes proficiency testing, much of language testing worldwide has shifted to 'at home' mode, and relies heavily on the mediation of digital technology, making its widespread application in classroom settings in response to the COVID-19 outbreak as unprecedented. Integration of technology into language assessment has brought with it countless affordances and at the same time challenges, both theoretically and practically. One major theoretical consideration requiring attention is the way technology has contributed to a re-conceptualisation of major assessment concepts/constructs. There is very limited literature available on theoretical underpinnings of technology mediated language assessment. This book aims to fill this gap. This book will appeal to academic specialists, practitioners or professionals in the field of language assessment, advanced and/or graduate students, and a range of scholars or professionals in disciplines like educational technology, applied linguistics and TESOL.

The text discusses needs, problems in the implementation of the 5G mobile communication system in the healthcare sector. It covers the issues related to advanced modulation schemes, telehealth, and remote diagnosis. It discusses important topics including virtual healthcare monitoring, spectrum sensing techniques, the role of 5G in medical applications, the role of nano-communication in healthcare informatics, and remote diagnosis. The text will be useful for graduate students, academic researchers, and professionals in the fields of electrical, and electronics and communication engineering, and allied health care. The book- Discusses novel architecture to manage the allocation of resources, interference issue among the existed and advanced radios. Provides focuse to estimate the performance, cost and accommodation of the next generation technologies design for IoT, modern health- care, and education. Covers advanced technologies and its role in health care. Discusses key topics including spectrum access, advanced waveforms, which can help in standardization of 5G based smart hospital. Explores impact of telemedicine in smart health care. This reference text covers the latest advances in the field of 5G Mobile Communication for healthcare informatics, addressing both original algorithm development and new applications of 5G mobile Communications.

-- Covers the most relevant production and distribution channels of aquafeed and the ingredients used commonly as sources of proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates. This will help the industry understand how to position itself to meet the challenge of securing aquafeed to sustain aquaculture. -- 20 chapters cover different aspects of aquafeeds, from the market to cutting-edge technologies, including nutritional aspects and the impact of aquafeeds on climate change. This enables aquafeeds to be approached from different perspectives. -- Up until now, aquafeed-related issues were addressed as secondary subjects in undergraduate textbooks, being part of books covering a broad spectrum of subjects. Other book focus on processing techniques with aquafeed products mentioned in a tangential manner. This means a book focused on aquafeeds, covering different aspects of their production and commercialization chain, is a real necessity. -- Interdisciplinary chapters, with collaborations between academic researchers and industry professionals, cover not only technical aspects but also market analysis.