"Empire forestry"-the broadly shared forest management practice that emerged in the West in the nineteenth century-may have originated in Europe, but it would eventually reshape the landscapes of colonies around the world. Melding the approaches of environmental history and political ecology, Colonial Seeds in African Soil unravels the complex ways this dynamic played out in twentieth-century colonial Sierra Leone. While giving careful attention to topics such as forest reservation and exploitation, the volume moves beyond conservation practices and discourses, attending to the overlapping social, economic, and political contexts that have shaped approaches to forest management over time.

The International Conference on Cognitive Modeling brings together researchers who develop computational models to explain and predict cognitive data. The core theme of the 2004 conference was "Integrating Computational Models," encompassing an integration of diverse data through models of coherent phenomena; integration across modeling approaches; and integration of teaching and modeling. This text presents the proceedings of that conference. The International Conference on Cognitive Modeling 2004 sought to grow the discipline of computational cognitive modeling by providing a sophisticated modeling audience for cutting-edge researchers, in addition to offering a forum for integrating insights across alternative modeling approaches in both basic research and applied settings, and a venue for planning the future growth of the discipline. The meeting included a careful peer-review process of 6-page paper submissions; poster-abstracts to include late-breaking work in the area; prizes for best papers; a doctoral consortium; and competitive modeling symposia that compare and contrast different approaches to the same phenomena.

The importance of good land governance to strengthen women s land rights, facilitate land-related investment, transfer land to better uses, use it as collateral, and allow effective decentralization through collection of property taxes has long been recognized. The challenges posed by recent global developments, especially urbanization, increased and more volatile food prices, and climate change have raised the profile of land and the need for countries to have appropriate land policies. However, efforts to improve country-level land governance are often frustrated by technical complexities, institutional fragmentation, vested interests, and lack of a shared vision on how to move towards good land governance and measure progress in concrete settings. Recent initiatives have recognized the important challenges this raises and the need for partners to act in a collaborative and coordinated fashion to address them. The breadth and depth of the papers included in this volume, all of which were presented at the World Bank s Annual Conference on Land Policy and Administration, illustrate the benefits from such collaboration. They are indicative not only of the diversity of issues related to land governance but, more importantly, highlight that, even though the topic is complex and politically challenging, there is a wealth of promising new approaches to improving land governance through innovative technologies, country-wide policy dialogue, and legal and administrative reforms. The publication is based on an on-going partnership between the World Bank, the International Federation of Surveyors, the Global Land Tool Network and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization provide tools that can help to address land governance in practice and at scale. It is our hope that this volume will be of use to increase awareness of and support to the successful implementation of innovative approaches that can help to not only improve land governance, but also thereby contribute to the well-being of the poorest and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals."

The International Conference on Cognitive Modeling brings together researchers who develop computational models to explain and predict cognitive data. The core theme of the 2004 conference was "Integrating Computational Models," encompassing an integration of diverse data through models of coherent phenomena; integration across modeling approaches; and integration of teaching and modeling. This text presents the proceedings of that conference. The International Conference on Cognitive Modeling 2004 sought to grow the discipline of computational cognitive modeling by providing a sophisticated modeling audience for cutting-edge researchers, in addition to offering a forum for integrating insights across alternative modeling approaches in both basic research and applied settings, and a venue for planning the future growth of the discipline. The meeting included a careful peer-review process of 6-page paper submissions; poster-abstracts to include late-breaking work in the area; prizes for best papers; a doctoral consortium; and competitive modeling symposia that compare and contrast different approaches to the same phenomena.