Nature is all around us, in the beautiful but also in the unappealing and functional, and from the awe-inspiring to the mundane. It is vital that we learn to see the agency of the natural world in all things that make our lives possible, comfortable and profitable. The Ecology of Everyday Things pulls back the veil of our familiarity on a range of 'everyday things' that surround us, and which we perhaps take too much for granted. This key into the magic world of the everyday can enable us to take better account of our common natural inheritance. Professor James Longhurst, Assistant Vice Chancellor, University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) For many people, ecosystems may be a remote concept, yet we eat, drink, breathe and interface with them in every moment of our lives. In this engaging textbook, ecosystems scientist Dr. Mark Everard considers a diversity of 'everyday things', including fascinating facts about their ecological origins: from the tea we drink, to the things we wear, read and enjoy, to the ecology of communities and space flight, and the important roles played by germs and 'unappealing creatures' such as slugs and wasps. In today's society, we are so umbilically connected to ecosystems that we fail to notice them, and this oversight blinds us to the unsustainability of everyday life and the industries and policy environment that supports it. The Ecology of Everyday Things takes the reader on an enlightening, fascinating voyage of discovery, all the while soundly rooted in robust science. It will stimulate awareness about how connected we all are to the natural world and its processes, and how important it is to learn to better treat our environment. Ideal for use in undergraduate- and school-level teaching, it will also interest, educate, engage and enthuse a wide range of less technical audiences.

This book provides an in-depth analysis of nine weapons and explosive remnants of war, their uses in armed conflict and their deadly impact on the environment. Besides three weapons of mass destruction (Biological, Chemical and Nuclear), it also covers controversial weapons like Depleted Uranium, White Phosphorus, Cluster Munitions, and Anti-personnel Landmines, their military applications, and the health and environmental hazard posed by them. The book offers an impartial analysis of legal regimes, and their efficacy in minimising the damage these weapons wreak on humans and the environment. It then examines the principles and rules of international humanitarian law, which could be used by the international community to ban these weapons. The book concludes by making a few recommendations addressed to international organisations, the States and military commanders with a view to reducing the damage caused by these weapons to the earth's pristine environment.

As the world has entered the era of big data, there is a need to give a semantic perspective to the data to find unseen patterns, derive meaningful information, and make intelligent decisions. This 2-volume handbook set is a unique, comprehensive, and complete presentation of the current progress and future potential explorations in the field of data science and related topics. Handbook of Data Science with Semantic Technologies provides a roadmap for a new trend and future development of data science with semantic technologies. The first volume serves as an important guide towards applications of data science with semantic technologies for the upcoming generation and thus becomes a unique resource for both academic researchers and industry professionals. The second volume provides a roadmap for the deployment of semantic technologies in the field of data science that enables users to create intelligence through these technologies by exploring the opportunities while eradicating the current and future challenges. The set explores the optimal use of these technologies to provide the maximum benefit to the user under one comprehensive source. This set consisting of two separate volumes can be utilized independently or together as an invaluable resource for students, scholars, researchers, professionals, and practitioners in the field.

The perception, assessment and management of risk are increasingly important core principles for determining the development of both policy and strategic responses to civil and environmental catastrophes. Whereas these principles were once confined to some areas of activity i.e. financial and insurance, they are now widely used in civil and environmental engineering. Comprehensive and readable, Civil and Environmental Risk: Mitigation and Control, provides readers with the mathematical tools and quantitative methods for determining the probability of a catastrophic event and mitigating and controlling the aftermath. With this book engineers develop the required skills for accurately assessing risk and formulating appropriate response strategies. The two part treatment starts with a clear and rigorous exposition of the quantitative risk assessment process, followed by self-contained chapters concerning applications. One of the first books to address both natural and human generated disasters, topics include events such as pandemic diseases, climate changes, major hurricanes, super earthquakes, mega tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, industrial accidents and terrorist attacks. Case studies appear at the end of the book allowing engineers to see how these principles are applied to scenarios such as a super hurricane or mega tsunamis, a reactor core melt down in a nuclear plant, a terrorist attack on the national electric grid, and an abrupt climate change brought about by a change in the ocean currents in the North Atlantic. Written by the current Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, Environmental risk managers will find this reference a valuable and authoritative guide both in accurately calculating risk and its applications in their work.

Key Features
Mathematical tools for calculating and Controlling Catastrophic Risk
Presents a systematic method for ranking the importance of societal threats
Includes both Natural and Industrial Catastrophes
Case studies cover such events as pandemic diseases, climate changes, major hurricanes, super earthquakes, mega tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, industrial accidents, and terrorist attacks.

Environmental regulations provide protection to the public, workers and the environment. To protect themselves from long-term liabilities, however, companies have to do more than just comply with the basic responsibilities. This handbook is designed to introduce terminology, methodology, tools, procedures and practical guidance for incorporating efficient pollution prevention strategies into the overall business plan. It is a company s responsibility to protect and control its management of waste and pollution, and a company that fails to do so will ultimately inflict a negative impact on its bottom line, especially in financial performance. "Responsible Care" delivers critical guidelines and rules of thumb required for industrial managers to improve their companies profitability through waste reduction, cleaner production technologies and sound management practices."

Nitrogen is one of the most critical elements for all life forms. In agricultural systems it is essential for the production of crops for feed, food, and fiber. The ever-increasing world population requires increasing use of nitrogen in agriculture to supply human needs for dietary protein. Worldwide demand for nitrogen will increase as a direct response to increasing population.
Nitrogen in the Environment provides a wholistic perspective and comprehensive treatment of nitrogen. The scope of this book is diverse covering a range of topics and issues related to furthering our understanding of nitrogen in the environment at farm and national levels. Issues of nitrogen from its effects on crops and human nutrition to nitrogen in ground water, watersheds, streams, rivers, and coastal marine environments are discussed to provide a broad view of the problem and support scientists, researchers, and engineers in formulating comprehensive solutions.
* The only source which presents an international, wholistic perspective of the effects of nitrogen in the environment with worldwide mitigation practices
* Provides details on how to improve the quality of the environment by analyzing the development of emerging technologies
* Develops strategies to be used by soil scientists, agronomists, hydrologists, and geophysicists for broad scale improvement of nitrogen efficiency

As the Earth's oil supply runs out, and the effects of climate change threaten nations and their populations, the search for carbon-neutral sources of energy becomes more important and increasingly urgent. This book focuses on solutions to the energy problem, and not just the problem itself. It describes the major energy-generation technologies currently under development, and provides an authoritative summary of the current status of each one. It stresses the need for a balanced portfolio of alternative energy technologies. Certain solutions will be more appropriate than others in particular locations, due to the differences in availability of natural resources such as solar, wind, wave, tidal and geothermal. In addition, nuclear options (both fission and fusion), as well as technologies such as fuel cells, photovoltaics, artificial photosynthesis and hydrogen (as an energy carrier), all have a potential role to play. A state-of-the-art critique of energy efficiency in building design is also included. Each chapter is written by an acknowledged international expert and provides a non-technical overview of the competing and complementary approaches to energy generation.
Broad in scope and comprehensive in treatment, Energy..beyond Oil provides an authoritative synthesis of the scientific and technological issues which are essential to the survival of the human race in the near future. The book will be of interest and use to graduate students and researchers in all areas of energy studies, and will also be highly useful for policy-makers and professionals in the environmental sector as well as a more general readership who wish to learn more about this extremely topical subject.

Who Needs Nuclear Power challenges conventional thinking about the role of civil nuclear power in a rapidly changing energy context, where new energy carriers are penetrating markets around the world. Against the backdrop of a global energy transition and the defining issue of Climate Change, Chris Anastasi assesses new nuclear build in a fast-moving sector in which new technologies and practices are rapidly emerging. He considers various countries at different stages of nuclear industry development, and discusses their political, legal and technical institutions that provide the framework for both existing nuclear facilities and new build, as well as a country's technical capability. He also highlights the critical issue of nuclear safety culture, exploring how organisations go about instilling it and maintaining it in their operations and encouraging it in their supply chains; the critical role played by independent regulators and international institutions in ensuring the integrity of the industry is also highlighted. This book provides a balanced and holistic view of nuclear power for both an expert and non-expert audience, and a realistic assessment of the potential for this technology over the critical period to 2050 and beyond.

The subject of Discrete Signals and Systems is broad and deserves a single book devoted to it. The objective of this textbook is to present all the required material that an undergraduate student will need to master this subject matter and the use of MATLAB. This book is primarily intended for electrical and computer engineering students, and especially for use by juniors or seniors in these undergraduate engineering disciplines. It can also be very useful to practicing engineers. It is detailed, broad, based on mathematical basic principles, focused, and it also contains many solved problems using analytical tools as well as MATLAB. The book is ideal for a one-semester course in the area of discrete linear systems or digital signal processing, where the instructor can cover all chapters with ease. Numerous examples are presented within each chapter to illustrate each concept when and where it is presented. Most of the worked-out examples are first solved analytically and then solved using MATLAB in a clear and understandable fashion.

This book offers an intuitive approach to random processes and educates the reader on how to interpret and predict their behavior. Premised on the idea that new techniques are best introduced by specific, low-dimensional examples, the mathematical exposition is easier to comprehend and more enjoyable, and it motivates the subsequent generalizations. It distinguishes between the science of extracting statistical information from raw data--e.g., a time series about which nothing is known a priori--and that of analyzing specific statistical models, such as Bernoulli trials, Poisson queues, ARMA, and Markov processes. The former motivates the concepts of statistical spectral analysis (such as the Wiener-Khintchine theory), and the latter applies and interprets them in specific physical contexts. The formidable Kalman filter is introduced in a simple scalar context, where its basic strategy is transparent, and gradually extended to the full-blown iterative matrix form.

Congruences are ubiquitous in computer science, engineering, mathematics, and related areas. Developing techniques for finding (the number of) solutions of congruences is an important problem. But there are many scenarios in which we are interested in only a subset of the solutions; in other words, there are some restrictions. What do we know about these restricted congruences, their solutions, and applications? This book introduces the tools that are needed when working on restricted congruences and then systematically studies a variety of restricted congruences. Restricted Congruences in Computing defines several types of restricted congruence, obtains explicit formulae for the number of their solutions using a wide range of tools and techniques, and discusses their applications in cryptography, information security, information theory, coding theory, string theory, quantum field theory, parallel computing, artificial intelligence, computational biology, discrete mathematics, number theory, and more. This is the first book devoted to restricted congruences and their applications. It will be of interest to graduate students and researchers across computer science, electrical engineering, and mathematics.

The effect of manmade activities is primarily local but can extend far away from the location of intervention. This underlines the importance of establishing coastal zone management plans covering large stretches of coastlines.
In recent years, interest in Low Crested Structures (coastal defense structures with a low-crest) has been growing together with awareness of the sensitivity to environmental impacts produced by coastal defenses.
The relation between wave climate, beach erosion, beach defence means, habitat changes and beach value, which clearly exists based on EC research results, suggests the necessity of an integrated approach when designing coastal protection schemes. In accordance with this need, the present design guidelines cover structure stability and construction problems, hydro and morphodynamic effects, environmental effects (colonisation of the structure and water quality), societal and economic impacts (recreational benefits, swimming safety, beach quality).
Environmental Design Guidelines for Low Crested Coastal Structures is specifically dedicated to Low Crested Structures, and provides methodological tools both for the engineering design of structures and for the prediction of performance and environmental impacts of such structures. A briefing of current best practice for local and national planning authorities, statutory agencies and other stakeholders in the coastal zone is also covered.
Presented in a generic way, this book is appropriate throughout the European Union, taking into account current European Commission policy and directives for the promotion of sustainable development and integrated coastal zone management.
* Fills the gap between engineering and ecology in coastal defense planning
* Shows the reader how to perform an integrated design of coastal defense schemes
* Presents latest insights on hydro-morphodynamics induced by structures
* Provides directly applicable tools for the design of low crested structures
* Highlights socio-economic perspectives in coastal defense design

From an environmental point of view, mountains are particularly sensitive and important for monitoring the state of health of our planet. Only through distribution of meteoclimatic and atmospheric composition monitoring points in mountain regions, coupled with modelling simulations, will we be able to thoroughly analyze complex pollutant transport mechanisms and better understand imminent global changes. The Himalayan-Karakoram range. For its elevation and geographic location, represents one of the ideal places for studying long-range pollutant transport systems on a regional scale and for monitoring changes index by mechanisms that act on global scale through monsoon circulation.
The Ev-K2-CNR committee with this book reached its objective of creating a unique opportunity for dialogue between major environmental scientists and experts, highlighting the close relationship between diverse themes with a common underlying thread: in-depth comprehension of the environmental phenomena which are determining the health of our planet.

Authored by world-class scientists and scholars, the Handbook of Natural Resources, Second Edition, is an excellent reference for understanding the consequences of changing natural resources to the degradation of ecological integrity and the sustainability of life. Based on the content of the bestselling and CHOICE awarded Encyclopedia of Natural Resources, this new edition demonstrates the major challenges that the society is facing for the sustainability of all wellbeing on planet Earth. The experience, evidence, methods, and models used in studying natural resources are presented in six stand-alone volumes, arranged along the main systems: land, water, and air. It reviews state-of-the-art knowledge, highlights advances made in different areas, and provides guidance for the appropriate use of remote sensing data in the study of natural resources on a global scale. The six volumes in this set cover: Terrestrial Ecosystems and Biodiversity; Landscape and Land Capacity; Wetlands and Habitats; Fresh Water and Watersheds; Coastal and Marine Environments; and finally Atmosphere and Climate. Written in an easy-to-reference manner, the Handbook of Natural Resources, Second Edition, as a complete set, is essential for anyone looking for a deeper understanding of the science and management of natural resources. Public and private libraries, educational and research institutions, scientists, scholars, and resource managers will benefit enormously from this set. Individual volumes and chapters can also be used in a wide variety of both graduate and undergraduate courses in environmental science and natural science courses at different levels and disciplines, such as biology, geography, Earth system science, ecology, etc.

A New Ecology presents an ecosystem theory based on the following ecosystem properties: physical openness, ontic openness, directionality, connectivity, a complex dynamic for growth and development, and a complex dynamic response to disturbances. Each of these properties is developed in detail to show that these basic and characteristic properties can be applied to explain a wide spectrum of ecological obsevations and convections. It is also shown that the properties have application for environmental management and for assessment of ecosystem health.
* Demonstrates an ecosystem theory that can be applied to explain ecological observations and rules
* Presents an ecosystem theory based upon a systems approach
* Discusses an ecosystem theory that is based on a few basic properties that are characteristic for ecosystmes