Impact investing is gaining global attention from society, governments and businesses. Increasingly, it is seen as a new paradigm to deal with the economic crisis and curtailed public budgets, an answer to the diversified needs of society. It now ranks high on the policy agenda of governments and international organizations, and private investors are searching for new investment opportunities to channel the liquidity available. This book is the first to look at impact investing as a "refocus" of venture capital to sustain the development of societal impact enterprises. Principles and Practice of Impact Investing collects chapters from international experts on the subject, discussing the foundations of the movement, analysing leading international cases and debating future trends in the field. It also includes interviews with some of the most influential stakeholders of impact investing across the world. The book is an inspirational and practical guide for actors and stakeholders to enable better understanding of impact investing. Taking an international perspective, the chapters primarily deal with mature economies, setting it apart from the existing literature focused on emerging countries. The book will be of interests to practitioners and executives, as well as researchers and MBA students.

Human impact on natural landscapes through urbanization and agricultural expansion are becoming more and more dramatic and are the cause of serious environmental problems. This volume examines the effect of landscape disturbance on plant and animal diversity in the five mediterranean-climate regions of the world. It begins with three introductory chapters broadly reviewing the issues of landscape degradation. Further contributions describe regional land use conflicts in each of the five regions. Landscape disturbance and plant diversity, and landscape disturbance and animal diversity are treated in separate chapters. Four contributions deal with demography and ecophysiology in vegetation succession following disturbance. The volume closes with a consideration of the future addressing aspects of environmental politics.

Solar Thermal Conversion Technologies for Industrial Process Heating presents a comprehensive look at the use of solar thermal energy in industrial applications, such as textiles, chemical processing, and food. The successful projects implemented in a variety of industries are shown in case studies, alongside performance assessment methodologies. The book will be useful for researchers, graduate students, and industry professionals with an aim to promote mutual understanding between sectors dealing with solar thermal energy. The book includes various solar thermal energy conversion technologies and new techniques and applications of solar collectors in industrial sectors. Features: Covers the key designs and novel technologies employed in the processing industries. Discusses challenges in the incorporation of the solar thermal system in industrial applications. Explores the techno-economic, environmental impact, and life cycle analysis, with government policies for promoting the system. Includes real-world case studies. Presents chapters written by global experts in the field. The book will be useful for researchers, graduate students, and industry professionals with an aim to promote mutual understanding between sectors dealing with solar thermal energy.

- spans the last fifty years of fisheries policy in Europe - the parting contribution and career spanning reflection from one of Europe’s most renowned social scientists working in this field - explains why the bold but deeply flawed Common Fisheries Policy persistently failed to deliver its basic goal of sustainable fisheries - a final section on Brexit focuses on the implications for the fisheries sector and the fateful final negotiations with the EU over the fisheries question - essential reading for students, scholars, professionals and policymakers working on fisheries, marine governance, natural resource management, environmental policy and the European Project

Features Introduces the physics of accelerators, lasers, and plasma in tandem with the industrial methodology of inventiveness. Outlines a path from idea to practical implementation of scientific and technological innovation. Contains more than 380 illustrations and numerous end-of-chapter exercises.

This fully revised and expanded new edition provides a short and accessible introduction to how climate change is governed by an increasingly diverse range of actors, from civil society and business actors to multilateral development banks, donors, and cities. The issue of global climate change has risen to the top of the international political agenda. Despite ongoing contestation about the science informing policy, the economic costs of action and the allocation of responsibility for addressing the issue within and between nations, it is clear that climate change will continue to be one of the most pressing and challenging issues facing humanity for many years to come. The book: Evaluates the role of states and non-state actors in governing climate change at multiple levels of political organization: local, national, and global Provides a discussion of theoretical debates on climate change governance, moving beyond analytical approaches focused solely on nation-states and international negotiations Examines a range of key topical issues in the politics of climate change Includes multiple examples from both the north and the global south Providing an inter-disciplinary perspective drawing on geography, politics, international relations, and development studies, this book is essential reading for all those concerned not only with the climate governance but with the future of the environment in general.

Science Communication in a Crisis: An Insider's Guide identifies the principal challenges that scientists face when communicating with different stakeholder groups and offers advice on how to navigate the maze of competing interests and deliver actionable science when the clock is ticking. If a scientist's goal is to deliver content and expertise to the people who need it, then other stakeholder groups-the media, the government, industry-need to be considered as partners to collaborate with in order to solve problems. Written by established scientist Christopher M. Reddy, who has been on the front lines of several environmental crisis events, the book highlights ten specific challenges and reflects on mistakes made and lessons learned. Reddy's aim is not to teach scientists how to ace an interview or craft a sound bite. Rather, through exploring several high-profile case studies, including the North Cape oil spill, Deepwater Horizon, and the 2021 Sri Lanka shipping disaster, he presents a clear pathway to effective and collaborative communication. This book will be a great resource for junior and established scientists who want to make an impact, as well as students in courses such as environmental and science communication.

In this third book of the Shingo Model series, Continuous Improvement focuses on five of the Shingo Guiding Principles: seek perfection, embrace scientific thinking, focus on process, assure quality at the source, and improve flow and pull. Each chapter in Continuous Improvement is designed to enhance your comprehension of one or more aspects of the Continuous Improvement dimension of the Shingo Model and to increase your understanding of how the dimension interrelates with and complements the other principles in the Shingo Model. Ultimately, this explanation grounds the technical science of continuous improvement with a powerful social science that focuses on people development. It is this combination that creates the opportunity for improvement to be truly continuous. Because tacit learning is critical to deepening your continuous improvement knowledge, "Reader Challenges" are included throughout the text to encourage you to apply what you have read within the context of your own organization. This hands-on practice is necessary to understand the interrelatedness of principles, systems, and tools that are inherent in the Shingo Model. The Shingo Institute recognizes that "the transformation from traditional philosophy and practices to organizational excellence does not occur without the courage, creativity, and persistence of everyone in the organization-from executives to managers to team members on the frontline."

* Features positive case studies, as well as 'lessons-learned'. * Highlights the importance of taking cultural differences into account. * Takes a transdisciplinary approach which considers findings from research fields including conceptual and empirical business ethics, behavioural economics, ecological economics, environmental ethics and philosophy of culture. * Weaves pedagogical features throughout, including key case studies, study questions and thought experiments.

This special issue of the Journal of Corporate Citizenship honours the voice of the Changemaker, Wayfinder, Edgewalker, and Intellectual Shaman in particular. It is contended that we can all become Shamans, Wayfinders, and Edgewalkers, if we open up to the possibility that our work, whatever it is, is part of the healing process. With contributions from North America, Europe, Africa and Australasia, this issue addresses the ideas of corporate citizenship from perspectives entirely removed from the mainstream.

The current policy for climate change prioritises mitigation over adaptation. The collected papers of Climate Change as Environmental and Economic Hazard argue that although efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are still vital, the new policy paradigm should shift the priority to adaptation, with a special focus on disaster risk reduction. It should also consider climate change not purely as a hazard and a challenge, but as a window of opportunity to shift to a new sustainable development policy model, which stresses the particular importance of communities' resilience. The papers in this volume explore the key issues linked to this shift, including: ' Increasing research into the Earth Sciences, climate reconstruction and forecasting in order to decrease the degree of uncertainty about the origin, development and implications of climate change; ' The introduction of more binding and comprehensive regulation of both greenhouse gas emissions and adaptation measures, like that in the United Kingdom; ' Matching climate policy with that for disasters and mainstreaming it into overall development strategies. The volume is a valuable addition to previous climate change research and considers a new policy approach to this new global challenge.

In 1969 the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) established the Committee on Challenges of Modern Society (CCMS). The subject of air pol- tion was from the start, one of the priority problems under study within the fra- work of various pilot studies undertaken by this committee. The organization of a periodic conference dealing with air pollution modeling and its application has become one of the main activities within the pilot study relating to air pollution. The first five international conferences were organized by the United States as the pilot country; the second five by the Federal Republic of Germany; the third five by Belgium; the next four by The Netherlands; and the next five by Denmark; and with this one, the last three by Portugal. th This volume contains the papers and posters presented at the 27 NATO/CCMS International Technical Meeting on Air Pollution Modeling and Its Application held in Banff, Canada, 24-29 October 2004. The key topics at this ITM included: Role of Atmospheric Models in Air Pollution Policy and Abatement Strategies; Integrated Regional Modeling; Effects of Climate Change on Air Quality; Aerosols as Atmospheric Contaminants; New Developments; and Model Assessment and Verification. 104 participants from North and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia attended th the 27 ITM. The conference was jointly organized by the University of Aveiro, Portugal (Pilot Country) and by The University of Calgary, Canada (Host Country). A total of 74 oral and 22 poster papers were presented during the conference.

The fourth International Symposium of the International Society for Environmental Biotechnology was held on the campus of Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, on June 20-25, 1998, with an attendance of several hundred people. This meeting included technical presentations of state-of-the-art research which were integrated with tutorials and workshops by practising technologists in the broad field of environmental biotechnology. The meeting was designed to be, in every respect, truly global. For example, presentations were heard from technical workers in Southeast Asia, Iran, China, many countries in Europe, India, and the United States. By having these selected presenters, as well as experienced tutors with focused workshops, all participants benefited from this interactive symposium, and from an informal exchange of ideas, discussions of technical problems, and exploration of new applications. Environmental biotechnology is an emerging field of scientific and technological investigations that is truly global. Furthermore, popular recognition is high for the environmental problems being faced and solved by biotechnology methods. The papers in this book cover the following topics: (i) Metals: Mine Drainage, Removal, Toxicity; (ii) Waste Treatment/Monitoring; (iii) Integrated Systems; (iv) Bioremediation: In situ/Reactors/Basic Studies; (v) Water Quality; (vi) Biodegradation; (vii) Local/National/International Issues.

Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology attempts to provide concise, critical reviews of timely advances, philosophy, and significant areas of accomplished or needed endeavor in the total field of xenobiotics, in any segment of the environment, as well as toxicological implications.

Grounded in the user-centered design movement, this book offers a broad consideration of how our civilization has evolved its technical infrastructure for human purpose to help us make sense of the contemporary world of information infrastructure and online existence. The author incorporates historical, cultural and aesthetic approaches to situating information and its underlying technologies across time in the collective, lived experiences of humanity. In today's digital information world, user experience is vital to the success of any product or service. Yet as the user population expands to include us all, designing for people who vary in skills, abilities, preferences and backgrounds is challenging. This book provides an integrated understanding of users, and the methods that have evolved to identify usability challenges, that can facilitate cohesive and earlier solutions. The book treats information creation and use as a core human behavior based on acts of representation and recording that humans have always practiced. It suggests that the traditional ways of studying information use, with their origins in the distinct layers of social science theories and models is limiting our understanding of what it means to be an information user and hampers our efforts at being truly user-centric in design. Instead, the book offers a way of integrating the knowledge base to support a richer view of use and users in design education and evaluation. Understanding Users is aimed at those studying or practicing user-centered design and anyone interested in learning how people might be better integrated in the design of new technologies to augment human capabilities and experiences.

Computer vision-based crack-like object detection has many useful applications, such as pavement surface inspection, underground pipeline inspection, bridge cracking monitoring, railway track assessment, etc. However, in most contexts, cracks appear as thin, irregular long-narrow objects, and often are buried into complex, textured background with high diversity which make the crack detection very challenging. During the past a few years, the deep learning technique has achieved great success and has been utilized for solving a variety of object detection problems. However, using deep learning for accurate crack localization is non-trivial. This book discusses crack-like object detection problem in a comprehensive way. It starts by discussing traditional image processing approaches for solving this problem, and then introduces deep learning-based methods. The book provides a comprehensive review of object detection problems and focuses on the most challenging problem, crack-like object detection, to dig deep into the deep learning method. It includes examples of real-world problems, which are easy to understand and could be a good tutorial for introducing computer vision and machine learning.

Gives a holistic approach to machine learning and data science applications, from design to deployment and quality assurance, as an overarching cyclical process; Bridges machine learning and software engineering to build a shared set of best practices useful to both academia and the industry; Discusses deployment options for different types of models and data to help practitioners reason and make informed choices. Emphasizes the role of coding standards and software architecture alongside statistical rigor to implement reproducible and scalable machine learning models Key Features: A complete guide to software engineering for machine learning and data science applications, from choosing the right hardware to analysing algorithms and designing scalable architectures. Surveys the state of the art of the software and frameworks used to build and run machine learning applications, comparing and contrasting their trade-offs. Comes with a complete case study in natural language understanding which illustrates the principles and the tools covered in the book. Code available from GitHub. Provides a multi-disciplinary view of how traditional software learning practices can be integrated with the workflows of domain experts and the unique characteristics of software in which data play a central role.

Developed from the author's course on advanced mechanics of composite materials, Finite Element Analysis of Composite Materials with Abaqus (R) shows how powerful finite element tools tackle practical problems in the structural analysis of composites. This Second Edition includes two new chapters on "Fatigue" and "Abaqus Programmable Features" as well as a major update of chapter 10 "Delaminations" and significant updates throughout the remaining chapters. Furthermore, it updates all examples, sample code, and problems to Abaqus 2020. Unlike other texts, this one takes theory to a hands-on level by actually solving problems. It explains the concepts involved in the detailed analysis of composites, the mechanics needed to translate those concepts into a mathematical representation of the physical reality, and the solution of the resulting boundary value problems using Abaqus. The reader can follow a process to recreate every example using Abaqus graphical user interface (CAE) by following step-by-step directions in the form of pseudo-code or watching the solutions on YouTube. The first seven chapters provide material ideal for a one-semester course. Along with offering an introduction to finite element analysis for readers without prior knowledge of the finite element method (FEM), these chapters cover the elasticity and strength of laminates, buckling analysis, free edge stresses, computational micromechanics, and viscoelastic models for composites. Emphasizing hereditary phenomena, the book goes on to discuss continuum and discrete damage mechanics as well as delaminations and fatigue. The text also shows readers how to extend the capabilities of Abaqus via "user subroutines" and Python scripting. Aimed at advanced students and professional engineers, this textbook features 62 fully developed examples interspersed with the theory, 82 end-of-chapter exercises, and 50+ separate pieces of Abaqus pseudo-code that illustrate the solution of example problems. The author's website offers the relevant Abaqus and MATLAB model files available for download, enabling readers to easily reproduce the examples and complete the exercises. Video recording of solutions to examples are available on YouTube with multilingual captions.

Luxury products are now seen by a growing number of global consumers as an important and more widely available way of expressing personal aspirations and values. Most consumers of luxury products and services use them as status symbols and symbols of success. However, the definition of success - and the way it is perceived by others - is changing. Many of these successful consumers now want the brands they use to reflect their concerns and aspirations. Such products come with a heavy social and environmental cost. Sustainable luxury is about rediscovering the old meaning of luxury - a considered purchase of a beautifully crafted object with built-in social and environmental value.The social entrepreneurs documented in this book highlight the relationship between personal values and sustainability, entrepreneurship and innovation in developing and marketing luxury products. The pioneers outline how they have developed inclusive supply chains with poor and vulnerable communities. Their stories prove that luxury need not be a destructive force. Instead, this book opens a window on a world where entrepreneurial pioneers can change the rules of the game.

How do preprocessing steps such as tokenization, stemming, and removing stop words affect predictive models? Build beginning-to-end workflows for predictive modeling using text as features Compare traditional machine learning methods and deep learning methods for text data

Challenges us to think about our relationship with the environment, as individuals and as a speciesDraws together ideas from business, religion, academia and philosophyHighly accessible, and applicable to all, from students to CEOs

The book is concerned with contemporary methodologies used for automatic text summarization. It proposes interesting approaches to solve well-known problems on text-summarization using computational intelligence (CI) techniques including cognitive approaches. A better understanding of the cognitive basis of the summarization task is still an open research issue, an extent of its use in text summarization is highlighted for further exploration. With the ever-growing text and people on research has little time to spare for extensive reading, where, summarized information helps for a better understanding of the context at a shorter time. This book helps students and researchers to automatically summarize the text documents in an efficient and effective way. The computational approaches and the research techniques presented guides to achieve text summarization at ease. The summarized text generated supports readers to learn the context or the domain at a quicker pace. The book is presented with reasonable amount of illustrations and examples convenient for the readers to understand and implement for their use. The book is not to make readers understand what text summarization is, but for people to perform text summarization using various approaches. This also describes measures that can help to evaluate, determine and explore the best possibilities for text summarization to analyse and use for any specific purpose. The illustration is based on social media and healthcare domain, which shows the possibilities to work with any domain for summarization. The new approach for text summarization based on cognitive intelligence is presented for further exploration in the field.