Papers presented at the 20th meeting of the International Ornithological Congress held in New Zealand, December 1990 emphasizing New Zealand and the southern Pacific Ocean. Topics include: a summary of ornithological work in New Zealand, enemy recognition and response, parasitism and sexual selectio

This volume provides insight into gibbon diet and community ecology, the mating system and reproduction, and conservation biology, all topics which represent areas of substantial progress in understanding socio-ecological flexibility and conservation needs of the hylobatid family. This work analyzes hylobatid evolution by synthesizing recent and ongoing studies of molecular phylogeny, morphology, and cognition in a framework of gibbon and siamang evolution. With its clearly different perspective, this book is written to be read, referenced, and added to the bookshelves of scientists, librarians, and the interested public.

Production of food to meet the demands of an ever-increasing human population in the world is the major task and challenge to agriculture today. The conventional methods of plant breeding alone can no longer cope with the situation. The success of any crop improvement program depends on the extent of genetic variability in the base population, but due to denuding of forests and agricultural land, the naturally occurring pool of germplasm is being depleted. An urgent need is therefore ap parent to create new variability and increase the genetic base of agricul tural crops. Agricultural biotechnology has progressed to a stage in the produc tion of plants where specific characteristics to improve their yield, ap pearance, disease-resistance, nutritional quality and adaptation to ad verse soil conditions can be built into the seed. This concept of built-in quality implies a continuous scientific endeavour to improve plant char acters using a wide range of possibilities, and it also implies a scrutiny of the materials and methods available in the world today."

This text contains proceedings of the Federation of European Microbiological Societies Symposium, held at Copenhagen, Denmark, during 4-8 August 1985.

This book presents cutting edge methods that provide insights into the pathways by which salt and water traverse cell membranes and flow in an orchestrated fashion amongst the many compartments of the body. It focuses on a number of molecular, cellular and whole animal studies that involve multiple physiological systems and shows how the internal milieu is regulated by multifactorial gene regulation, molecular signaling, and cell and organ architecture. Topics covered include: water channels, the urinary concentrating mechanism, angiotensin, the endothelin system, miRNAs and MicroRNA in osmoregulation, desert-adapted mammals, the giraffe kidney, mosquito Malpighian tubules, and circadian rhythms. The book highlights how different approaches to explaining the same physiological processes greatly increase our understanding of these fundamental processes. Greater integration of comparative, evolutionary and genetic animal models in basic science and medical science will improve our overall grasp of the mechanisms of sodium and water balance.

In Human Behavior in the Social Environment from an African American Perspective, leading black scholars come together to discuss complex human behavior problems faced by African Americans and to force the abandonment of conceptualization theories made without consideration of the Black experience. Challenging you to engage in different thinking and develop new theories for addressing the needs of African Americans, this book highlights the assets of black individuals, families, and communities and guides you through program interventions and public policies that strengthen and empower African Americans. You will learn to enhance your clients'coping strategies and resilience by factoring in their strengths rather than focusing on their weaknesses.Human Behavior in the Social Environment from an African American Perspective contextualizes community behavior patterns, gender roles, and changing contemporary identities to challenge your assumptions about African American culture and communities and convince you to rethink your intervention strategies and methods. To further help you fine-tune your service delivery, this book leads you through discussions on: help-seeking behaviors of young street males the association of sociocultural risk factors with suicides the use of emotive behavior therapy to help African Americans cope with the prospect of imminent death advocating for changes in institutions and systems which negatively impact the lives of the poor and the oppressed how social work has ignored one segment of the African American community--young girls in urban settings psychological consequences of coming of age in a hostile environmentSocial workers, community-based groups, policymakers, and other helping professionals owe it to their clients to shrug off culturally incompetent services and care. Using Human Behavior in the Social Environment from an African American Perspective as a guide, you will learn to redress your programs and policies with a sensitivity to the factors and mechanisms that maximize the buoyancy of disadvantaged groups over various stages of their life development.

Italy, the birthplace of opera in the late sixteenth century, has in recent decades seen remarkable and vital musical growth, with composers as diverse as Luciano Berio and Nino Rota, Luigi Nono and Sylvano Bussotti, Giacomo Manzoni, Bruno Maderna and Salvatore Sciarrino. The musical theatre has figured prominently in the work of Italian composers during this period, ranging from operas conceived in a traditional mode to works of a Music Theatre variety, and in style from popular to avant-garde.
In this book Raymond Fearn surveys this Italian musico-theatrical phenomenon in the period since the Second World War, examining a wide range of works such as Nono's "Intolleranza" and "Al Gran Sole Carico d'Amore," Berio's "Passaggio" and "Un re in ascolto," Manzoni's "Atomtod" and "La Sentenza" and Castiglioni's "Oberon and The King's" "Masque," and places these developments within a cultural and theatrical context. Illustrated by numerous musical examples and producti

All biological systems with vision move about their environments and successfully perform many tasks. The same capabilities are needed in the world of robots. To that end, recent results in empirical fields that study insects and primates, as well as in theoretical and applied disciplines that design robots, have uncovered a number of the principles of navigation. To offer a unifying approach to the situation, this book brings together ideas from zoology, psychology, neurobiology, mathematics, geometry, computer science, and engineering. It contains theoretical developments that will be essential in future research on the topic -- especially new representations of space with less complexity than Euclidean representations possess. These representations allow biological and artificial systems to compute from images in order to successfully deal with their environments.
In this book, the barriers between different disciplines have been smoothed and the workings of vision systems of biological organisms are made clear in computational terms to computer scientists and engineers. At the same time, fundamental principles arising from computational considerations are made clear both to empirical scientists and engineers. Empiricists can generate a number of hypotheses that they could then study through various experiments. Engineers can gain insight for designing robotic systems that perceive aspects of their environment.
For the first time, readers will find:
* the insect vision system presented in a way that can be understood by computational scientists working in computer vision and engineering;
* three complete, working robotic navigation systems presented with all the issues related to their design analyzed in detail;
* the beginning of a computational theory of direct perception, as advocated by Gibson, presented in detail with applications for a variety of problems; and
* the idea that vision systems could compute space representations different from perfect metric descriptions -- and be used in robotic tasks -- advanced for both artificial and biological systems.

Microbial Growth Kinetics opens with a critical review of the history of microbial kinetics from the 19th century to the present day. The results of original investigations into the growth of soil microbes in both laboratory and natural environments are summarised. The book emphasises the analysis of complex dynamic behaviour of microorganism populations. Non-steady states and unbalanced growth, multiple limitation, survival under starvation, differentiation, morphological variability, colony and biofilm growth, mixed cultures and microbial population dynamics in soil are all examined. Mathematical models are proposed which give mechanistic explanations to many features of microbial growth. The book takes general kinetic principles and their ecological applications and presents them in a way specifically designed for the microbiologist. This in itself is unusual but taken with the book's fascinating historical overview and the many fresh and sometimes controversial ideas expressed, this book is a must for all advanced students of microbiology and researchers in microbial ecology and growth.

American trypanosomiasis, or Chagas disease, is caused by the protozoan parasite, Trypanosoma cruzi. Sixteen to eighteen million people are currently infected with this organism, and 45,000 deaths are attributed to the disease each year. Infection with T. cruzi is life-long, and 10-30% of persons who harbor the parasite chronically develop cardiac and gastrointestinal problems associated with the parasitosis. Although major progress has been made in recent years in reducing vector-borne and transfusion-associated transmission of T. cruzi, the burden of disability and death in persons chronically infected with the organism continues to be enormous. Eight to ten million persons born in countries in which Chagas disease is endemic currently reside in the United States, and epidemiologic and census data suggest that 50,000-100,000 are chronically infected with T. cruzi. The presence of these infected persons poses a risk of transmission of the parasite in the USA through blood transfusion and organ transplantation and several such cases have now been documented.

American Trypanosomiasis, volume seven of World Class Parasites is written for students of tropical medicine, parasitology and public health, for researchers and practitioners alike who wish to bring themselves abreast of the status quo with respect to this disease. It is intended to supplement formal textbooks, in order to broaden and illuminate current areas of scientific and public health concern. Uniquely for T. cruzi, this book addresses parasite, vector and host biology, the pathogenesis of Chagas disease and current and prospective therapeutics and control strategies in a single volume.

Symbiotic associations are of great importance in agriculture and forestry, especially in plant nutrition and plant cultivation. This book provides an up-to-date and lucid introduction to the subject. The emphasis is on describing the variety of symbiotic relationships and their agricultural and environmental applications.

Following the two meetings on Lactoferrin Structure and Function that were held in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1993 and 1995, the Third International Conference on Lactoferrin Structure and Function was held in Le Touquet, France, and has successfully reinforced and diversified the previously created bridges between biochemists, clinicians, and companies. In fact, scientists, physicians, and people of industry from different domains have brought a wealth of recent information concerning biochemistry and technical advances in the identification of lactoferrin-derived compounds as well as cell biology, molecular biol ogy, pathology, and medical applications of lactoferrin and lactoferrin-derived com pounds. We were so delighted with the rapid growth of knowledge concerning many biologi cal and immunological functions of lactoferrins and the relationships between their struc ture and function, we wanted to share our pleasure with the readers interested in this field. The present book. which represents a review of some of the most exciting contributions, is intended to reflect the status of our knowledge and transmit our hopes for the future devel opment of in vivo applications of natural and recombinant lactoferrins. We would like to express our gratitude to the sponsors who contributed to the or ganization of the meeting in such a pleasant place and allowed the participation of several young researchers. We would also like to thank all the participants who have answered with enthusiasm our invitation and to every one of the Laboratoire de Chimie Biologique for the constant and efficient help."