This specially curated collection features five reviews of current and key research on vertical farming in horticulture. The first chapter describes and evaluates technologies and methods for growing edible plants indoors and presents a survey of selected commercial vertical farms currently operating that employ them. The second chapter explores the benefits of plant factories with artificial lighting (PFALs). The chapter assesses resource consumption, costs and performance of current PFALs, as well as methods for reducing resource consumption and production costs. The third chapter explores recent advances in the ornamentals industry, such as vertical propagation systems and LED technology, and how these can be implemented to meet the challenges of a changing marketplace and societal demands. The fourth chapter describes the advantages and disadvantages of hydroponics, along with the equipment and substrates used, and also examines soilless/hydroponic growing systems for vegetables. The final chapter describes the most recent innovation in hydroponic technologies for plant cultivation within cities and their adaptability to the urban fabric.

*Unique computer science approach, focusing on integrating algorithms and AI into media storytelling. *Takes a cross-media approach so is applicable across various mediums including TV, film, videogames, web and mobile. *Rich in pedagogical features, including custom built software to accompany the book and exercises and case studies throughout.

*Unique computer science approach, focusing on integrating algorithms and AI into media storytelling. *Takes a cross-media approach so is applicable across various mediums including TV, film, videogames, web and mobile. *Rich in pedagogical features, including custom built software to accompany the book and exercises and case studies throughout.

This collection features six peer-reviewed reviews on optimising rootstock health. The first chapter considers recent advances in irrigation techniques used in sustainable vegetable cultivation and reviews the performance and efficiency of these systems. The second chapter details the need to optimise precision in orchard irrigation management, focussing on matching water supply to plant demand as a means of achieving this. The third chapter assesses irrigation management systems for tomato production and how these can be optimised alongside nutrient management to ensure the production of safe and nutritious tomatoes. The fourth chapter summarises the common types of irrigation systems found in soilless culture production, as well as the emergence of new systems, including plant-based sensing and monitoring systems. The fifth chapter highlights the need for more sustainable water use in ornamental production systems and the methods which can be used to achieve this, such as reducing runoff volume. The final chapter considers recent advances in irrigation management in greenhouse cultivation, focussing on water balance, crop evapotranspiration techniques and irrigation scheduling.

Solve the DVA/FVA Overlap Issue and Effectively Manage Portfolio Credit Risk Counterparty Risk and Funding: A Tale of Two Puzzles explains how to study risk embedded in financial transactions between the bank and its counterparty. The authors provide an analytical basis for the quantitative methodology of dynamic valuation, mitigation, and hedging of bilateral counterparty risk on over-the-counter (OTC) derivative contracts under funding constraints. They explore credit, debt, funding, liquidity, and rating valuation adjustment (CVA, DVA, FVA, LVA, and RVA) as well as replacement cost (RC), wrong-way risk, multiple funding curves, and collateral. The first part of the book assesses today's financial landscape, including the current multi-curve reality of financial markets. In mathematical but model-free terms, the second part describes all the basic elements of the pricing and hedging framework. Taking a more practical slant, the third part introduces a reduced-form modeling approach in which the risk of default of the two parties only shows up through their default intensities. The fourth part addresses counterparty risk on credit derivatives through dynamic copula models. In the fifth part, the authors present a credit migrations model that allows you to account for rating-dependent credit support annex (CSA) clauses. They also touch on nonlinear FVA computations in credit portfolio models. The final part covers classical tools from stochastic analysis and gives a brief introduction to the theory of Markov copulas. The credit crisis and ongoing European sovereign debt crisis have shown the importance of the proper assessment and management of counterparty risk. This book focuses on the interaction and possible overlap between DVA and FVA terms. It also explores the particularly challenging issue of counterparty risk in portfolio credit modeling. Primarily for researchers and graduate students in financial mathematics, the book is also suitable for financial quants, managers in banks, CVA desks, and members of supervisory bodies.

Published in 1998, the aim of this text is to promote awareness of the evolution of Greek agriculture, as well as of the development of national strategies, in conformity with the Common Agricultural Policy provision - which is important for a successful confrontation of modern and prospective international challenges. It offers a case study developing integrated policies for unemployment, for prevention of diversification of rural areas and for provision of solutions to the problem of increasing competition, while enhancing environmental quality and making rational use of productive resources.

Italian writer and filmmaker Gianni Celati's 1989 philosophical travelogue Towards the River's Mouth explores perception, memory, place and space as it recounts a series of journeys across the Po River Valley in northern Italy. The book seeks to document the "new Italian landscape" where divisions between the urban and rural were being blurred into what Celati terms "a new variety of countryside where one breathes an air of urban solitude." Celati traveled by train, by bus, and on foot, at times with photographer Luigi Ghirri, at others exploring on his own without predetermined itineraries, taking notes on the places he encountered, watching and listening to people in stations, fields, bars, houses, squares, and hotels. In this way the book took shape as Celati traveled and wrote, gathering and rewriting his notes into "stories of observation" (9). Celati attempts to find meaning by seeking the uncertain limits of our ability to discern everyday surroundings. "Every observation," as he puts it, "needs liberate itself from the familiar codes it carries, to go adrift in the middle of all things not understood, in order to arrive at an outlet, where it must feel lost." At the forefront of the then-nascent spatial turn in the humanities, Towards the River's Mouth is a key text of what in recent years has been variously termed literary cartography, literary geography, and spatial poetics. Its call to carefully and affectionately examine our surroundings while attempting to step back from habitual ways of perceiving and moving through space, has resonated as much with literary scholars and other writers as with geographers and architects. By now a classic of twentieth-century Italian literature, it has in recent years garnered increasing attention, especially with the growth of ecocriticism and new materialism within the environmental humanities. This edition, translated into English for the first time, features an introduction that places Towards the River's Mouth in the context of Celati's other work, and a selection of ten scholarly essays by prominent figures in comparative literature and Italian studies.

This book is a collection of selected papers presented at the International Conference of Marketing and Management Sciences held from 23 to 25 May 2008 in Athens, Greece. The papers focus on how globalization has had significant impact on companies, societies and individuals alike. They discuss the need for new strategies and practices that can help cope with changes that arise due to globalization. Written in a simple manner, this book will be of interest to academics studying and teaching marketing and management courses and to managers dealing with strategies to cope with changes due to globalization.

Published in 1998, the aim of this text is to promote awareness of the evolution of Greek agriculture, as well as of the development of national strategies, in conformity with the Common Agricultural Policy provision - which is important for a successful confrontation of modern and prospective international challenges. It offers a case study developing integrated policies for unemployment, for prevention of diversification of rural areas and for provision of solutions to the problem of increasing competition, while enhancing environmental quality and making rational use of productive resources.

The textbook provides both beginner and experienced CAD users with the math behind the CAD. The geometry tools introduced here help the reader exploit commercial CAD software to its fullest extent. In fact, the book enables the reader to go beyond what CAD software packages offer in their menus. Chapter 1 summarizes the basic Linear and Vector Algebra pertinent to vectors in 3D, with some novelties: the 2D form of the vector product and the manipulation of "larger" matrices and vectors by means of block-partitioning of larger arrays. In chapter 2 the relations among points, lines and curves in the plane are revised accordingly; the difference between curves representing functions and their geometric counterparts is emphasized. Geometric objects in 3D, namely, points, planes, lines and surfaces are the subject of chapter 3; of the latter, only quadrics are studied, to keep the discussion at an elementary level, but the interested reader is guided to the literature on splines. The concept of affine transformations, at the core of CAD software, is introduced in chapter 4, which includes applications of these transformations to the synthesis of curves and surfaces that would be extremely cumbersome to produce otherwise. The book, catering to various disciplines such as engineering, graphic design, animation and architecture, is kept discipline-independent, while including examples of interest to the various disciplines. Furthermore, the book can be an invaluable complement to undergraduate lectures on CAD.

Drawing inspiration from the story of Noah, Shorty's Ark names and pictures a wild variety of species to inform and engage an equal variety of young minds with the diversity that can be found around this great planet of ours. The flood stands as metaphor for current impending changes in our planet, and the story works as a springboard for understanding concepts of interdependency, diversity and extinction. Colourfully illustrating as many creatures and their places as possible, Shorty's Ark is an earth-affirmative vision meant to stimulate the curiosity and passion of those who encounter it.

This book highlights interdisciplinary insights, latest research results, and technological trends in Business Intelligence and Modelling in fields such as: Business Intelligence, Business Transformation, Knowledge Dissemination & Implementation, Modeling for Logistics, Business Informatics, Business Model Innovation, Simulation Modelling, E-Business, Enterprise & Conceptual Modelling, etc. The book is divided into eight sections, grouping emerging marketing technologies together in a close examination of practices, problems and trends. The chapters have been written by researchers and practitioners that demonstrate a special orientation in Strategic Marketing and Business Intelligence. This volume shares their recent contributions to the field and showcases their exchange of insights.

This book highlights interdisciplinary insights, latest research results, and technological trends in Business Intelligence and Modelling in fields such as: Business Intelligence, Business Transformation, Knowledge Dissemination & Implementation, Modeling for Logistics, Business Informatics, Business Model Innovation, Simulation Modelling, E-Business, Enterprise & Conceptual Modelling, etc. The book is divided into eight sections, grouping emerging marketing technologies together in a close examination of practices, problems and trends. The chapters have been written by researchers and practitioners that demonstrate a special orientation in Strategic Marketing and Business Intelligence. This volume shares their recent contributions to the field and showcases their exchange of insights.

This open access edited volume offers an analysis of the entangled histories of education and development in twentieth-century Africa. It deals with the plurality of actors that competed and collaborated to formulate educational and developmental paradigms and projects: debating their utility and purpose, pondering their necessity and risk, and evaluating their intended and unintended consequences in colonial and postcolonial moments. Since the late nineteenth century, the "educability" of the native was the subject of several debates and experiments: numerous voices, arguments, and agendas emerged, involving multiple institutions and experts, governmental and non-governmental, religious and laic, operating from the corridors of international organizations to the towns and rural villages of Africa. This plurality of expressions of political, social, cultural, and economic imagination of education and development is at the core of this collective work.

Beyond Language (Oltre il Linguaggio) is one of Italian philosopher Emmanuele Severino’s major works, wrestling with whether it’s possible to think meaningfully outside of the restrictions of language. Increasingly recognised as a truly foundational thinker in the formation of contemporary theory, Severino’s ideas around self-expression, forms of communication and the limitations of language continue are brought to the fore in this book. Beyond Language specifically opens the door to the themes that Severino developed in his later works, including the concrete meaning of self-being and the decline of language. The depth and breadth of Severino’s philosophical insight is as profound today as it was when first penned in 1992, making this first English translation of a key work in the history of continental philosophy crucial reading for those engaged with contemporary theory.

Situated at the intersection of animal studies and literary theory, this book explores the remarkable and subtly pervasive web of animal imagery, metaphors, and concepts in the work of the Jewish-Italian writer, chemist, and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi (1919-1987). Relatively unexamined by scholars, the complex and extensive animal imagery Levi employed in his literary works offers new insights into the aesthetical and ethical function of testimony, as well as an original perspective on contemporary debates surrounding human-animal relationships and posthumanism. The three main sections that compose the book mirror Levi's approach to non-human animals and animality: from an unquestionable bio-ethical origin ("Suffering"); through an investigation of the relationships between writing, technology, and animality ("Techne"); to a creative intellectual project in which literary animals both counterbalance the inevitable suffering of all creatures, and suggest a transformative image of interspecific community ("Creation").

This proceedings volume presents the latest on the theoretical approach of the contemporary issues evolved in strategic marketing and the integration of theory and practice. It highlights strategic research and innovative activities in marketing. The contributed chapters are concerned with using modern qualitative and quantitative techniques based on information technology used to manage and analyze business data, to discover hidden knowledge and to introduce intelligence into marketing processes. This allows for a focus on innovative applications in all aspects of marketing, of computerized technologies related to data analytics, predictive analytics and modeling, business intelligence and knowledge engineering, in order to demonstrate new ways of uncovering hidden knowledge and supporting marketing decisions with evidence-based intelligent tools. The chapters from the proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Strategic Innovative Marketing 2016 cover areas such as social media marketing innovation, sustainable marketing, customer satisfaction strategies, customer relationship management, marketing research and analytics. The papers have been written by scientists, researchers, practitioners and students that demonstrate a special orientation in strategic marketing, all of whom aspire to be ahead of the curve based on the pillars of innovation. This proceedings volume shares their recent contributions to the field and showcases their exchange of insights on strategic issues in the science of innovation marketing.

Situated at the intersection of animal studies and literary theory, this book explores the remarkable and subtly pervasive web of animal imagery, metaphors, and concepts in the work of the Jewish-Italian writer, chemist, and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi (1919-1987). Relatively unexamined by scholars, the complex and extensive animal imagery Levi employed in his literary works offers new insights into the aesthetical and ethical function of testimony, as well as an original perspective on contemporary debates surrounding human-animal relationships and posthumanism. The three main sections that compose the book mirror Levi's approach to non-human animals and animality: from an unquestionable bio-ethical origin ("Suffering"); through an investigation of the relationships between writing, technology, and animality ("Techne"); to a creative intellectual project in which literary animals both counterbalance the inevitable suffering of all creatures, and suggest a transformative image of interspecific community ("Creation").

This book presents the latest on the theoretical approach of the contemporary issues evolved in strategic marketing and the integration of theory and practice. It seeks to make advancements in the discipline by promoting strategic research and innovative activities in marketing. The book highlights the use of data analytics, intelligence and knowledge-based systems in this area. In the era of knowledge-based economy, marketing has a lot to gain from collecting and analyzing data associated with customers, business processes, market economics or even data related to social activities. The contributed chapters are concerned with using modern qualitative and quantitative techniques based on information technology used to manage and analyze business data, to discover hidden knowledge and to introduce intelligence into marketing processes. This allows for a focus on innovative applications in all aspects of marketing, of computerized technologies related to data analytics, predictive analytics and modeling, business intelligence and knowledge engineering, in order to demonstrate new ways of uncovering hidden knowledge and supporting marketing decisions with evidence-based intelligent tools. Among the topics covered include innovative tourism marketing strategies, marketing communications in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the use of business modeling, as well as reflecting on the marketing trends and outlook for all transportation industry segments. The papers in this proceedings has been written by scientists, researchers, practitioners and students that demonstrate a special orientation in strategic marketing, all of whom aspire to be ahead of the curve based on the pillars of innovation. This proceedings volume compiles their contributions to the field, highlighting the exchange of insights on strategic issues in the science of innovation marketing.

This thesis reports on novel methods for gain-scheduling and fault tolerant control (FTC). It begins by analyzing the connection between the linear parameter varying (LPV) and Takagi-Sugeno (TS) paradigms. This is then followed by a detailed description of the design of robust and shifting state-feedback controllers for these systems. Furthermore, it presents two approaches to fault-tolerant control: the first is based on a robust polytopic controller design, while the second involves a reconfiguration of the reference model and the addition of virtual actuators into the loop. Inaddition the thesis offers a thorough review of the state-of-the art in gain scheduling and fault-tolerant control, with a special emphasis on LPV and TS systems.

This proceedings volume presents the latest on the theoretical approach of the contemporary issues evolved in strategic marketing and the integration of theory and practice. It highlights strategic research and innovative activities in marketing. The contributed chapters are concerned with using modern qualitative and quantitative techniques based on information technology used to manage and analyze business data, to discover hidden knowledge and to introduce intelligence into marketing processes. This allows for a focus on innovative applications in all aspects of marketing, of computerized technologies related to data analytics, predictive analytics and modeling, business intelligence and knowledge engineering, in order to demonstrate new ways of uncovering hidden knowledge and supporting marketing decisions with evidence-based intelligent tools. The chapters from the proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Strategic Innovative Marketing 2016 cover areas such as social media marketing innovation, sustainable marketing, customer satisfaction strategies, customer relationship management, marketing research and analytics. The papers have been written by scientists, researchers, practitioners and students that demonstrate a special orientation in strategic marketing, all of whom aspire to be ahead of the curve based on the pillars of innovation. This proceedings volume shares their recent contributions to the field and showcases their exchange of insights on strategic issues in the science of innovation marketing.