- the book provides a short and accessible introduction to AI for learners - it examines seven different educational roles and settings, from AI as a peer to AI as a tutor and AI as textbook, among others - it considers both opportunities and risks: technological developments as well as ethical considerations

Exploring roles critical to environmental toxicology, Modeling and Simulation in Ecotoxicology with Applications in MATLAB (R) and Simulink (R) covers the steps in modeling and simulation from problem conception to validation and simulation analysis. Using the MATLAB and Simulink programming languages, the book presents examples of mathematical functions and simulations, with special emphasis on how to develop mathematical models and run computer simulations of ecotoxicological processes. Designed for students and professionals with little or no experience in modeling, the book includes: General principles of modeling and simulation and an introduction to MATLAB and Simulink Stochastic modeling where variability and uncertainty are acknowledged by making parameters random variables Toxicological processes from the level of the individual organism, with worked examples of process models in either MATLAB or Simulink Toxicological processes at the level of populations, communities, and ecosystems Parameter estimation using least squares regression methods The design of simulation experiments similar to the experimental design applied to laboratory or field experiments Methods of postsimulation analysis, including stability analysis and sensitivity analysis Different levels of model validation and how they are related to the modeling purpose The book also provides three individual case studies. The first involves a model developed to assess the relative risk of mortality following exposure to insecticides in different avian species. The second explores the role of diving behavior on the inhalation and distribution of oil spill naphthalene in bottlenose dolphins. The final case study looks at the dynamics of mercury in Daphnia that are exposed to simulated thermal plumes from a hypothetical power plant cooling system. Presented in a rigorous yet accessible style, the methodology is versatile enough to be readily applicable not only to environmental toxicology but a range of other biological fields.

During the last 10 years, there has been a revolution' in ecosystem modelling. The generality and predictive power of our models have increased in a way that was inconceivable 10 years ago. This book describes a new generation of practically useful models that predict as well as one can measure - if one measures well. And yet, they are driven by readily available driving variables and have a general structure that applies to most types of pollutants in aquatic systems. The major reason for this development is, in fact, the Chernobyl accident. Large quantities of radiocesium were released in April/May 1986 as a pulse. To follow the pulse of radiocesium through ecosystem pathways has meant that important fluxes and mechanisms, i.e., ecosystem structures, have been revealed. It is important to stress that many of these new structures and equations are valid not just for radiocesium, but for most types of contaminants, e.g. for metals, nutrients and organics. This means that the models, methods (of building and testing models) and equations described in this book for lakes and coastal areas should be of great interest also to other ecosystem modellers. This book will be of considerable interest to: students in radioecology, geosciences and biology; environmental engineers; consultants; administrators and scientists interested in the spread, biouptake and ecosystem effects of chemical pollutants in aquatic ecosystems.

Recent scholarship on children 's literature displays a wide variety of interests in classic and contemporary children 's books. While environmental and ecological concerns have led to an interest in ecocriticism, as yet there is little on the significance of the ecological imagination and experience to both the authors and readers young and old of these texts. This edited collection brings together a set of original international research-based chapters to explore the role of children 's literature in learning about environments and places, with a focus on how children 's literature may inform and enrich our imagination, experiences and responses to environmental challenges and injustice. Contributions from Australia, Canada, USA and UK explore the diverse ways in which children 's literature can provide what are arguably some of the first and possibly most formative engagements that some children might have with nature . Chapters examine classic and new storybooks, mythic tales, and image-based and/or written texts read at home, in school and in the field. Contributors focus on exploring how children 's literature mediates and informs our imagination and understandings of diverse environments and places, and how it might open our eyes and lives to other presences, understandings and priorities through stories, their telling and re-telling, and their analysis.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Environmental Education Research.

The Handbook of Human-Machine Interaction features 20 original chapters and a conclusion focusing on human-machine interaction (HMI) from analysis, design and evaluation perspectives. It offers a comprehensive range of principles, methods, techniques and tools to provide the reader with a clear knowledge of the current academic and industry practice and debate that define the field. The text considers physical, cognitive, social and emotional aspects and is illustrated by key application domains such as aerospace, automotive, medicine and defence. Above all, this volume is designed as a research guide that will both inform readers on the basics of human-machine interaction from academic and industrial perspectives and also provide a view ahead at the means through which human-centered designers, including engineers and human factors specialists, will attempt to design and develop human-machine systems.

In the world of transportation, fatigue is a silent killer that can affect us all. Understanding fatigue, including how to manage it to minimize safety risk, is of great importance. However, while it is one thing to recognize that fatigue is a critical safety issue, it is quite another to set up a successful, scientifically informed fatigue risk management programme. This book is here to help. It has been carefully designed as a comprehensive reference point, bringing together international expertise from leaders in fatigue science, and showcasing valuable insights from transportation industry practitioners. The 40 authored chapters are divided into six sections, to better understand fatigue science, the consequences of fatigue in transportation, contributors to fatigue, managing fatigue and promoting alertness, real world case studies of fatigue management in practice, and future perspectives. While it is possible to read each chapter in isolation, most will be gained by reading the book as a whole. Each chapter starts with an abstract overview and concludes with summary bullet points, creating a handy "quick check" for key points. This accessible text is for those who are interested in supporting alert and safe transportation operations. It is suitable for professionals, transport managers, government advisors, policy makers, students, academics, and anyone who wants to learn more. All transport modes (road, rail, maritime and aviation) are considered. For anyone waking up to the complex challenge of fatigue management, this handbook is a must.

This book is Open Access. A digital copy can be downloaded for free from Wiley Online Library. Exploring the links between Large Igneous Provinces and dramatic environmental impact An emerging consensus suggests that Large Igneous Provinces (LIPs) and Silicic LIPs (SLIPs) are a significant driver of dramatic global environmental and biological changes, including mass extinctions. Environmental changes caused by LIPs and SLIPs include rapid global warming, global cooling ('Snowball Earth'), oceanic anoxia events, mercury poisoning, atmospheric and oceanic acidification, and sea level changes. Continued research to characterize the effects of these extremely large and typically short duration igneous events on atmospheric and oceanic chemistry through Earth history can provide lessons for understanding and mitigating modern climate change. Large Igneous Provinces: A Driver of Global Environmental and Biotic Changes describes the interactions between the effects of LIPs and other drivers of climatic change, the limits of the LIP effect, and the atmospheric and oceanic consequences of LIPs in significant environmental events. Volume highlights include: Temporal record of large igneous provinces (LIPs) Environmental impacts of LIP emplacement Precambrian, Proterozoic, and Phanerozoic case histories Links between geochemical proxies and the LIP record Alternative causes for environmental change Key parameters related to LIPs and SLIPs for use in environmental change modelling Role of LIPs in Permo-Triassic, Triassic-Jurassic, and other mass extinction events The American Geophysical Union promotes discovery in Earth and space science for the benefit of humanity. Its publications disseminate scientific knowledge and provide resources for researchers, students, and professionals.

Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems (GDEs) frequently exhibit rich biological diversity and can provide enormous economic wealth. In recent years, GDEs in many industrialized countries have shown signs of serious degradation, primarily the result of groundwater abstraction and pollution. Many such systems, including a number of well documented cases in Eastern Europe, are no longer sustainable. As a consequence, the conservation and sustainable management of GDEs has emerged as one of the most urgent environmental research priorities of our time. A large percentage of the world's population lives in cities and either depends on, or is affected in some way, by groundwater. Moreover, groundwater has become a very important and complex issue that attracts the interest of many diverse stakeholders. Many problems related to groundwater and ecosystems are shared by countries throughout the world...

Savvy managers no longer look at contracts and the law reactively but use them proactively to reduce their costs, minimize their risks, secure key talent, collaborate to innovate, protect intellectual property, and create value for their customers that is superior to that offered by competitors. To achieve competitive advantage in this way managers need a plan. Proactive Law for Managers provides this plan; The Manager's Legal PlanTM. George Siedel and Helena Haapio first discuss the traditional, reactive approach used by many managers when confronted with the law, then contrast it with a proactive approach that enables the law and managers' legal capabilities to be used to prevent problems, promote successful business, and achieve competitive advantage. Proactive Law for Managers shows how to use contracts and the law to create new value and innovate in often neglected areas - and implement ideas in a profitable manner.

The main objective of this research is to investigate the governing processes and characteristics that drive morphodynamic evolution in alluvial estuaries by application of a process-based numerical model (Delft3D). It is of utmost importance to understand estuarine processes so that impact of human interference (like dredging and land reclamation) and long-term changes (like sea level rise) can be evaluated. The research addresses a number of cases ranging from an rectangular basins to real estuaries like the Western Scheldt in the Netherlands or San Pablo Bay in California. The more schematized approach allow to study morphodynamic evolution over several millennia under constant forcing and answers more fundamental questions related to conditions of equilibrium and related time scales. The more realistic cases give insight into the skill of the approach in predicting decadal morphodynamic developments. More processes are included to mimic realistic conditions and model results are compared to bathymetric measurements over the last century. The research shows that the modeling approach is good capable of describing stable morphodynamic calculations over a timescale of millennia with patterns similar to patterns observed in reality. Additionally, the approach shows that it is possible to predict decadal morphodynamic developments in real estuaries with significant skill.

The marine environment is one of our most precious yet fragile natural resources. It provides a wide range of essential goods and services, including food, regulation of climate and nutrient cycling, as well as a setting for transport, recreation and tourism. This environment is however extremely complex and very sensitive to development pressures and other forms of human influence. Planning and management of the sea are similarly complicated, reflecting intricate legal, institutional and ownerships patterns. This creates a situation where marine ecosystems are vulnerable to over-exploitation or neglect. The Ecosystem Approach to Marine Planning and Management describes how growing concern about the state of our seas is resulting in the development of new approaches to marine planning and management. For example, the United Nations Environment Programme has called for the widespread introduction of Marine Spatial Planning (MSP), and the European Union has recently been consulting on a new European Maritime Policy designed to stimulate economic growth but at the same time protect the resource base. Within the United Kingdom, the 2010 Marine Act draws upon the experience of town and country planning and brings into being a new system of Marine Spatial Planning. The authors show that a common feature of all these developments is an appreciation that more integrated forms of planning and management are required for our seas and that new arrangements must draw together understanding from natural science, social science and many other perspectives. Adopting such a trans-disciplinary and holistic (or 'ecosystems') approach, the book distils the expertise of these different disciplines and seeks to promote a broader understanding of the origins and practicalities of new approaches to marine planning and management.

The performance of irrigation schemes that carry sediment laden water is often poor. Modern irrigation schemes are increasingly demand based, which means that the water flow in the canals is determined by the crop water requirements. Accordingly the flow in the canal network is not constant as the crop water requirement changes with the climate and the growing stages. Also the inflow of the sediment is not constant throughout the irrigation season. Such schemes, particularly having unlined canals in alluvial soils, are difficult to design and to manage without compromising the flexibility or maintenance cost. This research has made an in-depth assessment on the role of sediment in the design and management of an irrigation scheme by using the data of Sunsari Morang Irrigation Scheme, Nepal. An analysis of the velocity and shear stress distribution across a non-wide trapezoidal canal has been made to derive the correction factor for the sediment transport predictors.

This timely book provides effective methods and authentic examples of teaching about climate change through digital and multimodal media production in the English Language Arts classroom. The chapters in this edited volume demonstrate the benefits of addressing climate change in the classroom through innovative media production and cover a range of different types of media, including video/digital storytelling, social media, art, music, and writing, with rich resources for instruction in every chapter. Through the engaging ideas and strategies, the contributors equip educators with the critical tools for supporting students’ media production. In so doing, they offer new perspectives on how students can employ media and production techniques to critique the status quo, call for change, and acquire new literacy skills. As the effects of the climate crisis become increasingly visible to the youth population, this book helps foster and support youth agency and activism. Youth Media Creation on the Climate Change Crisis: Hear Our Voices is a necessary text for students, preservice teachers, and educators in literacy education, media studies, social and environmental studies, and STEM education. The eBook+ version of the text features embedded audio and video components as well as interactive links to reflect the multimodal nature of students’ work, spotlighting how youth media production supports the development of students’ critical literacy skills and shapes their voices and identities.

Old forms of governance in both public and private sectors are becoming increasingly irrelevant because of rapidly changing conditions. Because of these changes, both governance processes and the scope of the institutions through which power is exercised throughout society may have to undergo a radical break with the past and prevailing models of governance. Water sector is an integral part of the global system. Consequently, its governance processes and the institutions responsible for its management must change as well in order to cope with the current challenges and potential future changes. Because of these current and future changes, water governance may have to change more during the next 20 years compared to the past 2000 years, if societal expectations are to be successfully met. All these changes will make water governance more complex than ever before witnessed in human history. Improving water governance will require good and objective analyses of case studies from different parts of the world as to what has worked, why and the enabling environments under which good governance has been possible. The present volume analyses case studies of good water governance from different parts of the world, and for different water use sectors. It concludes with an analysis of the critical issues that should be considered for water governance and a priority research agenda for improving water governance in the future. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of Water Resources Development.

The challenge of water scarcity as a result of insufficient seasonal rainfall and dry spell occurrences during cropping seasons is compounded by inefficient agricultural practices by smallholder farmers where insignificant soil and water conservation efforts are applied. The hypothesis of this research is that many of the past research efforts have taken a fragmented approach to deal with the challenges facing subsistence farmers in rainfed systems. The research has been conducted in the semi-arid Makanya catchment of northern Tanzania and has successfully applied different analytical techniques to better understand soil and water interactions at field scale. It has been demonstrated that there is indeed scope to increase crop water productivity provided the local farmers adopt more efficient cultivation techniques. Substantial yield increases occur as a result of diverting runoff and these further improve when other techniques such as ripping, application of manure and cover cropping are introduced. This confirms that no single solution exists to solve the problem of low yields in rainfed farming systems. However, even with these promising results, the research has shown that there is room to further improve the efficiency of crop water use through improvement in research approaches and exploration of better techniques.

Proceedings of the ISPRA Course held at Ispra, Italy, October 22-26, 1979

This book is testimony to the emergent nature of human security as an idea, as a useful construct and as an operational strategy. The aim is to showcase new directions that may enrich the human security agenda. Some human security discourse is still rooted in the traditional language of the aid-agency/UN development/economic growth models, often hostile to the corporate and business sector, and sometimes negligent of sustainability and climate change issues. Another limited and outmoded approach is an exaggerated focus on Western interventions, especially military ones, as a "solution" to problems in poor or conflict-prone areas. "Human Security" was introduced as a construct by the UNDP in 1994. The inherent combination of law-enforcement and people-centred humanitarianism has strived to provide an umbrella to both protect people from threats while empowering them to control their destinies. But with accelerating economic globalization and information flows there is a need to revisit the concept. A new paradigm of Sustainable Human Security is required. This book argues that proponents of a human security approach should welcome efforts to remove the barriers between enterprise, corporations, aid and development agencies, government agencies, citizen groups and the UN; and work towards multi-stakeholder approaches and solutions for vulnerable populations. Such an approach is clearly vital in responding to the imperatives of concerted action on issues such as climate change, HIV, terrorism, organised crime and poverty. The agenda may have changed, but it remains true that almost all human tragedies are avoidable. This book examines a number of global problems through the lens of human security and the needs of the individual: global governance; health; the environment and the exploitation of natural resources; peace and reconciliation; the responsibility to protect; and economic development and prosperity. In the latter case, the role of business in the human security pantheon is promulgated. There are many reasons why businesses may want to engage with the needs of vulnerable populations - not least the fact that companies cannot function without secure trading environments. In addition, there are growing demands for corporate responsibility and citizenship from markets, customers, shareholders, employees and, critically, communities. This book throws new light on the human security agenda. It will be essential reading for anyone involved in the debates on human security as well as for practitioners and scholars in international affairs, global governance, peace studies, climate change and the environment, healthcare, responsibility to protect and corporate responsibility.

Understanding finance and accounting principles is important in interfacing and conducting business with accountants, financial analysts, and members of upper management. In a relatively simple and easy-to-understand manner, this book familiarizes professionals with decision making skills founded on financial calculations and quantitative analysis. It covers finance and accounting ratios and other metrics; income statements, balance sheets, cash flow, and working capital concepts; inventory concepts; life cycle, period, direct, and indirect costs; and energy performance contracting. Each chapter concludes with a list of questions or problems for self-assessment and knowledge affirmation purposes. Answers to the questions are at the back of the book.

A NATO workshop was held in September 2007 under the Security through Science framework to consider the current challenges in regulation of the nuclear legacy. The overall objective was to share East-West competence and experience in radiation protection and nuclear safety supervision of installations built during the cold war, particularly in relation to regulatory strategies for safe decommissioning of unique or unusual nuclear facilities and remediation activities.

There were over 60 participants from 8 countries as well as representatives from the International Commission on Radiological Protection, the International Atomic Energy Agency and NATO. The organisations involved included regulatory authorities, operators and technical support organizations.

The new Russian Federation Unified State Programme for Handling Spent Fuel and Radioactive Waste was introduced and the steps necessary to set this up as a comprehensive programme of activities were described. Some waste management sites are in a poor state. Legacy management experience was provided from the UK, France and the USA. Information was provided on methods for site characterisation and separation of wastes into exempt, low-level and intermediate level waste, and the complication of dealing at the same time with chemical hazards, such as beryllium. Strategies for contaminated site management were also explained and the associated risk assessment methods outlined.

The Russian Federation has responsibility to manage its own nuclear legacy. But it is also one of several countries in the global network of nuclear activities. Harmonisation of approaches is valuable in building future cooperation, but local conditions may influence the best local solution. Accordingly, future exchanges, such as those provided for by this workshop, should be encouraged.

There are many complex issues to be addressed and they cannot all be solved at once. Clear recognition of the major threats, as well as weakness in regulatory processes, can be useful in directing future resources. However, at this stage it is clear that there are specific regulatory issues to address as well as a need to maintain development of an enhanced overall safety culture.

Such guidance needs to be thoroughly based on the best use of scientific and technical information. At the same time, part of the solution relates to policy issues and value judgements, and so broader interaction among regulators, operators and other stakeholders is to be encouraged.

Features * Offers a hands-on tutorial on interactive dynamic-system modeling and simulation * Includes examples from physics, aerospace engineering, population dynamics, and physiology * Contains hints for selecting integration rules and step size * Provides a complete, industrial-strength simulation program package on an accompanying CD-ROM New to This Edition * Introduces a new vectorizing compiler for fast vector operations and parameter-influence studies * Incorporates a new treatment of the difference equation programs for modeling sampled-data control systems with digital controllers * Presents improved versions of several classical simulation programs to illustrate useful programming tricks Summary Showing you how to use personal computers for modeling and simulation, Interactive Dynamic-System Simulation, Second Edition provides a practical tutorial on interactive dynamic-system modeling and simulation. It discusses how to effectively simulate dynamical systems, such as aerospace vehicles, power plants, chemical processes, control systems, and physiological systems. Written by a pioneer in simulation, the book introduces dynamic-system models and explains how software for solving differential equations works. After demonstrating real simulation programs with simple examples, the author integrates a new treatment of the difference equation programs needed to model sampled-data control systems with digital controllers. Subsequent chapters provide detailed programming know-how. These chapters cover library, table-lookup, user-definable, limiter, switching, and noise functions; an experiment-protocol scripting language; powerful vector and matrix operations; and classical simulation programs that illustrate a number of useful programming tricks. The final chapter shows how experiment-protocol scripts and compiled DYNAMIC program segments can quickly solve mathematical problems, including fast graph plotting, Fourier transforms