This collection summarises key advances in crop modelling, with a focus on developing the next generation of crop and whole-farm models to improve decision making and support for farmers. Chapters in Part 1 review advances in modelling individual components of agricultural systems, such as plant responses to environmental conditions, crop growth stage prediction, nutrient and water cycling as well as pest/disease dynamics. Building on topics previously discussed in Part 1, Part 2 addresses the challenges of combining modular sub-systems into whole farm system, landscape and regional models. Chapters cover topics such as integration of rotations and livestock, as well as landscape models such as agroecological zone (AEZ) models. Chapters also review the performance of specific models such as APSIM and DSSAT and the challenges of developing decision support systems (DSS) linked with such models. The final part of the book reviews wider issues in improving model reliability such as data sharing and the supply of real-time data, as well as crop model inter-comparison. With its distinguished editor and range of experienced and expert chapter authors, this collection will be a standard reference for crop modellers and developers of decision support systems to improve the efficiency and sustainability of farming.

Soil Physical Chemistry, Second Edition takes up where the last edition left off. With comprehensive and contemporary discussions on equilibrium and kinetic aspects of major soil chemical process and reactions this excellent text/reference presents new chapters on precipitation/dissolution, modeling of adsorption reactions at the mineral/water interface, and the chemistry of humic substances. An emphasis is placed on understanding soil chemical reactions from a microscopic point of view and rigorous theoretical developments such as the use of modern in situ surface chemical probes such as x-ray adsorption fine structure (XAFS), Fournier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopies, and scanning probe microscopies (SPM) are discussed.

Economic growth is directly impacted by a multitude of different industries; in recent years, the service industry has emerged has a significant contributor to the global economy. As such, the effective management of this sector has become a widely studied topic. The Handbook of Research on Promotional Strategies and Consumer Influence in the Service Sector is an authoritative reference source for the latest research on emerging methods for innovative service design and delivery, examining how growing customer expectations and global competition has influenced this industry. Featuring quality factors, marketing tools, and the effects of consumer behavior, this publication is ideally suited for researchers, professionals, and academicians actively involved in the service industry.

Cosemeceuticals, cosmetic formulations developed for pharmaceutical purposes, has attracted attention of researchers across the globe in recent years. Despite of extensive armamentarium available to treat UV rays associated skin damage and subsequent photo-ageing, search for a suitable alternative still remains elusive. This book explicitly explains a representative study to formulate and evaluate cosmeceutical formulation containing multi-photoprotectants for effective protection from harmful effects due to chronic exposure to sun rays. It is an attempt to provide experimental insights in to the process and intricacies of pharmaceutical product development, optimization and pre-clinical efficacy studies in simplified manner for easy understanding to serve as a start-up guide to scientific fraternity involved in the field of cosmeceuticals.

This book explores the knowledge of health care professionals on role of health communication for the integral growth of health care management. This book is useful for all health care professionals those are involved in health care and its management. Today the communities around the world are taking advantage of the communication methods to improve people's lives. They are using new information and communication technologies to help and create social and economic changes in areas as diverse as health, education, culture, and democratic engagement. The expansion of communication channels and health issues on the public agenda increases competition for people's time and attention; at the same time, people have more opportunities to select information based on their personal interests and preferences. Health communication is therefore an important area of communication. The study reveals that Health Communication is very important in health care management and the various methods used are effective and are capable of making behavioral changes.

Asthma is the most common chronic disease of childhood. Its incidence is the highest in primary school children and it is the principal cause of school absenteeism. Prevalence of childhood asthma in India is increasing day by day. It is important for teachers and staff to be aware of the symptoms, triggers and the management of asthma in the school environment. School teacher could be a useful source of health information for students, but they themselves would have to possess adequate and accurate knowledge regarding asthma. The study revealed that the existing knowledge of teachers on asthma among school children is moderate but practices are very low. The enhancement in both knowledge and practice is very much required. This research study is useful to read by health personnel's, teachers, doctors, nurses and school administrators, health administrators, persons involved in care of sick children for gaining the knowledge on issue and better handling & management of children with asthma.

Modern data processing techniques based on the concepts of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), which works on the analogy of human brain, has emerged as one of the most powerful alternative perspectives for complex geo-data analysis. ANN based techniques are robust and have many advantages to handle large amount of data sets. The main goal of the present book is to develop, apply and compare various ANN based algorithms to construct subsurface resistivity structure using the Schlumberger resistivity sounding data. This book presents important results of ANN modeling of geoelectrical sounding data from some of the crucial tectonic and geologically important regions such as Barmer District of Rajasthan and Puga Valley of Jammu & Kashmir. These modelling results are important for ground water exploration and geothermal resources.