Agroenergy: Renewable and Sustainable Energy presents developments in agroenergy. With a particular focus on sustainability, each section of the book – crop productivity, biofuel production based on feedstock generation, and bioenergy production technologies – addresses different aspects of the agroenergetic production chain, identifying strategies for enhanced yields and reduced risks. Sample sections explain the theoretical and economic aspects related to crop productivity, along with issues related to circular economy, lifecycle assessments, and impacts of future climate scenarios. Other chapters discuss biofuel production based on feedstock generation, describe the valorization of biomass residues, address pretreatment issues, and more. This book will be of interest to scientists, researchers, engineers, industrial practitioners, graduate and postgraduate students, and anyone working in any agroenergy sector.

Handbook of Carbon-Based Nanomaterials provides a comprehensive overview of carbon-based nanomaterials and recent advances in these specialized materials. This book opens with a brief introduction to carbon, including the different forms of carbon and their range of uses. Each chapter systematically covers a different type of carbon-based nanomaterial, including its individual characteristics, synthesis techniques and applications in industry, biomedicine and research. This book offers a broad handbook on carbon-based nanomaterials, detailing the materials aspects, applications and recent advances of this expansive topic. With its global team of contributing authors, Handbook of Carbon-Based Nanomaterials collates specific technical expertise from around the world, for each type of carbon-based nanomaterial. Due to the broad nature of the coverage, this book will be useful to an interdisciplinary readership, including researchers in academia and industry in the fields of materials science, engineering, chemistry, energy and biomedical engineering.

Pharmaceuticals in Marine and Coastal Environments: Occurrence, Effects, and Challenges in a Changing World is divided into three sections that address a) coastal areas as the main entrance of pharmaceuticals into the ocean, b) the occurrence and distribution of pharmaceuticals in the environmental compartments of the ocean media, and c) the effects that such pollutants may cause to the exposed marine organisms. With its comprehensive discussions, the book provides a wide depiction of the current state-of-the-art on these topics in an effort to open new sources of investigation and find suitable solutions.

Everything there is to know about avocados is here: ancient origins, amazing health properties, restorative cosmetic uses, and a recipe collection far beyond the tried and true. This book features a fresh visual design aesthetic that reflects the creative sensibility of Mexican contemporary art, graphic design, atmospheric photography, and street style. Recipes cover everything from guacamole in many variations, salads, unusual sides, many permutations of avocado toast even toastless avocado sandwiches as well as less well-known and offbeat uses. The book also explores avocado butter and oil; detoxifying smoothies; rejuvenating cosmetic salves and masks, and much more. Practical matters are also addressed: an avocado overview by type; storage tips; preserving the brilliant green flesh from browning; ripening immature fruits; and safety tips for slicing and de-pitting. Avocados are grown in Mediterranean climates globally and dominate social media, hip restaurant menus, and health-based diets, but this is the first book paying tribute to the superfruit s deep roots as a native, Mexican heritage food.

Articles in this volume are based on presentations given at the IV Meeting of Mexican Mathematicians Abroad (IV Reunion de Matematicos Mexicanos en el Mundo), held from June 10-15, 2018, at Casa Matematica Oaxaca (CMO), Mexico. This meeting was the fourth in a series of ongoing biannual meetings bringing together Mexican mathematicians working abroad with their peers in Mexico. This book features surveys and research articles from five broad research areas: algebra, analysis, combinatorics, geometry, and topology. Their topics range from general relativity and mathematical physics to interactions between logic and ergodic theory. Several articles provide a panoramic view of the fields and problems on which the authors are currently working on, showcasing diverse research lines complementary to those currently pursued in Mexico. The research-oriented manuscripts provide either alternative approaches to well-known problems or new advances in active research fields. This book is published in cooperation with Sociedad Matematica Mexicana.

Quartic anharmonic oscillator with potential V(x)= x(2) + g(2)x4 was the first non-exactly-solvable problem tackled by the newly-written Schroedinger equation in 1926. Since that time thousands of articles have been published on the subject, mostly about the domain of small g(2) (weak coupling regime), although physics corresponds to g(2) ~ 1, and they were mostly about energies.This book is focused on studying eigenfunctions as a primary object for any g(2). Perturbation theory in g(2) for the logarithm of the wavefunction is matched to the true semiclassical expansion in powers of : it leads to locally-highly-accurate, uniform approximation valid for any g(2) [0, ) for eigenfunctions and even more accurate results for eigenvalues. This method of matching can be easily extended to the general anharmonic oscillator as well as to the radial oscillators. Quartic, sextic and cubic (for radial case) oscillators are considered in detail as well as quartic double-well potential.

This book presents a series of applications of different techniques found in Industry 4.0 with relation to productivity, continuous improvement, quality, decision systems, software development, and automation systems. The techniques used throughout this book allow the reader to replicate the results obtained towards different types of companies that wish to undertake in the new era of the digital industrial revolution. This book can also help students from different areas of engineering to understand how the use of new technologies is applied to solve current relevant problems and how they give the possibility of constant innovation in the different industrial sectors. This is accomplished through the analysis of illustrative case studies, descriptive methodologies and structured insights that are provided through the different considered techniques.

This open access book shows some of the highlights presented at the XV Ibero-American Congress of Mechanical Engineering. The papers explore the forefront of Mechanical Engineering, containing research into fluid mechanics, energy systems, tribology, materials science, robotics, mechatronics, biomechanics, instrumentation, thermodynamics, and mechanical sustainability.

Worldwide environmental crisis has become increasingly visible over the last few decades as the full scope of anthropogenic climate change manifests itself and large-scale natural resource extraction has expanded into formerly remote areas that seemed beyond the reach of industrialization. Scientists and popular culture alike have turned to the term "Anthropocene" to capture the global scale of environmental and even geological transformations that humans have carried out over the last two centuries. The chapters in Ecological Crisis and Cultural Representation in Latin America examine the dynamics and interplay between local cultures and the expansion of global capitalism in Latin America, emphasizing the role of art in bearing witness to and generating awareness of environmental and social crises, but also its possibilities for formulating solutions. They take particular care to draw out the ways in which local environmental crises in Latin American nations are witnessed and imagined as part of a global system, focusing on the problems of time, scale, and complexity as key terms in conceiving the dimensions of crisis. At the same time, they question the notion of the Anthropocene as a species-wide "human" historical project, making visible the coloniality of natural resource extraction in Latin America and its dire effects for local people, cultures, and environments. Taking an ecocritical approach to Latin American cultural production including literature, film, performance, and digital artwork, the chapters in this volume develop a notion of ecological crisis that captures not only its documentary sense in the representation of environmental destruction (the degradation of the oikos), but also the crisis in the modern worldview (logos) that the acknowledgment of crisis provokes. In this sense, crisis is also the promise of a turning point, of the possibilities for change. Latin American representations of ecological crisis thus create the conditions for projects that decolonize environments, developing new, sustainable ways of conceiving of and relating to our world or returning to old ones.

Worldwide environmental crisis has become increasingly visible over the last few decades as the full scope of anthropogenic climate change manifests itself and large-scale natural resource extraction has expanded into formerly remote areas that seemed beyond the reach of industrialization. Scientists and popular culture alike have turned to the term "Anthropocene" to capture the global scale of environmental and even geological transformations that humans have carried out over the last two centuries. The chapters in Ecological Crisis and Cultural Representation in Latin America examine the dynamics and interplay between local cultures and the expansion of global capitalism in Latin America, emphasizing the role of art in bearing witness to and generating awareness of environmental and social crises, but also its possibilities for formulating solutions. They take particular care to draw out the ways in which local environmental crises in Latin American nations are witnessed and imagined as part of a global system, focusing on the problems of time, scale, and complexity as key terms in conceiving the dimensions of crisis. At the same time, they question the notion of the Anthropocene as a species-wide "human" historical project, making visible the coloniality of natural resource extraction in Latin America and its dire effects for local people, cultures, and environments. Taking an ecocritical approach to Latin American cultural production including literature, film, performance, and digital artwork, the chapters in this volume develop a notion of ecological crisis that captures not only its documentary sense in the representation of environmental destruction (the degradation of the oikos), but also the crisis in the modern worldview (logos) that the acknowledgment of crisis provokes. In this sense, crisis is also the promise of a turning point, of the possibilities for change. Latin American representations of ecological crisis thus create the conditions for projects that decolonize environments, developing new, sustainable ways of conceiving of and relating to our world or returning to old ones.

This book illustrates the plethora of security concerns of the Americas in the 21st century. It presents the work of a number of prolific scholars and analysts in the continents of America. The book provides one of the only expansive applications of theory to a wide geographical area. It offers new perspectives and urges readers to take theory seriously through use. Within the Americas, we find a number of important issues that compose of this geographic security complex. Most important are the threats that supersede borders: drug trafficking, migration, health, and environment. These threats change our understanding of security and the state and region process of neutralizing or correcting these threats. This volume evaluates these threats within contemporary security discourse.

Reconceptualizing Security in the Americas in the Twenty-First Century illustrates the various security concerns in the Americas in the twenty-first century. It presents the work of a number of prolific scholars and analysts in the region. The book offers new theoretical and analytical perspectives. Within the Americas, we find a number of important issues security issues. Most important are the threats that supersede borders: drug trafficking, migration, health, and environmental. These threats change our understanding of security and the state and regional process of neutralizing or correcting these threats. This volume evaluates these threats within contemporary security discourse.

This book is written in honor of Prof. Francisco Rodriguez-Reinoso, who has made significant contributions in the area of porous materials such as active carbons and graphenes. It details the preparation of porous materials, including carbonaceous, zeolitic, and siliceous materials, MOFs, aerogels, and xerogels, describing the characterization techniques and the interpretation of the results, and highlighting common errors that can occur during the process. This book subsequently presents the use of modeling based on thermodynamics to describe the materials. Lastly, it illustrates a number of current environmental protection applications in the context of both water and air.

The Middle Ages is often viewed as a period of low intellectual achievement. The name itself refers to the time between the high philosophical and literary accomplishments of the Greco-Roman world and the technological advances that were achieved and philosophical and theological alternatives that were formulated in the modern world that followed. However, having produced such great philosophers as Anselm, Peter Abelard, John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Peter Lombard, and the towering Thomas Aquinas, it hardly seems fair to label the medieval period as such. Examining the influence of ancient Greek philosophy as well as of the Arabian and Hebrew scholars who transmitted it, The A to Z of Medieval Philosophy and Theology presents the philosophy of the Christian West from the 9th to the early 17th century. This is accomplished through a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on the philosophers, concepts, issues, institutions, and events, making this an important reference for the study of the progression of human thought.

Song & Social Change in Latin America offers seven essays from a diverse group of scholars on the topic of music as a reflection of the many social-political upheavals throughout Latin America from the 20th century to the present. Topics covered include: the Tropicalia movement in Brazil, the Nueva Cancion in Central America, Rock in Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Peru, the Vallenato in Colombia, Trova in Cuba, and urban music of Puerto Rico in the mid-20th century. The collection also includes five interviews from prominent and up-and-coming musicians -Ruben Blades, Roy Brown, Habana Abierta, Ana Tijoux, and Mare- representing a variety of musical genres and political issues in Central America, the Caribbean, South America, and Mexico.

NO TODO LO QUE SE ESCRIBE ES PORQUE SE SIENTE, NI TODO LO QUE SE SIENTE SE PUEDE ESCRIBIR. TODO LO VIVIDO NO PUEDE SER PLASMADO EN LETRAS, NI TODO LO ESCRITO ES PORQUE SE HA VIVIDO. LAS PALABRAS SON DE QUIEN LAS LEE, NO DE QUIEN LAS ESCRIBE, NO JUZGUES AL QUE ESCRIBIO POR SUS PALABRAS, JUZGATE A TI MISMO POR LO QUE INTERPRETAS

Through an array of theoretical approaches and empirical material, this comprehensive and accessible volume surveys private armed forces and directly challenges conventional stereotypes of security contractors. Private Armed Forces and Global Security: A Guide to the Issues is the first book to provide a comprehensive yet accessible survey of the private military groups involved in conflicts worldwide. Organized around four themes, it covers the history of private military forces since 1600, the main contemporary actors and their defining characteristics, the environments in which private armed forces operate, and provides an analysis of the logic behind privatizing security. This book goes beyond conventional knowledge, offering both a theoretical approach and a new, practical perspective to advance the understanding of the ongoing climate of global instability and relevant players within it. Numerous examples help the reader grasp the full range of real-world challenges and conceptual facets surrounding this fascinating, yet highly polarizing topic.