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This book challenges the definition of a new approach for integrating protection and enhancing the Chinese heritage category of “Traditional Villages”. By applying a specific case study in the Hancheng context, Shaanxi Province, which lacks sound studies, the book formulates new theoretical prerequisites for future re-searches, an in-depth knowledge path, and sound methodological principles. By working in a multiple scales approach, the object of preservation and enhancement is first of all redefined in its ontology as a unity formed by the courtyard type, the morphology of the village, and the related landscape structures. All these three levels of study have been deeply investigated, put into the relationship and resulting in a new methodology which overcomes the inadequacy and ineffectiveness of the notion of “setting” deriving from conservation Charters, to embrace the structural notion of “context” and a knowledge approach to rural settlements'form. The innovative and original features of this book are both in the reading villages in their landscape dimension, which in turn is studied as a context made of several interrelated structures. Another original feature of the book is the integration of Italian historic-structural and morphological methodologies with specific Chinese cultural aspects. The author's work dug deeply and interdisciplinary in all those dimensions to account for the complex issues that are related and embodied in both the physical and intangible meaning of human settlements, opening a novel scientific methodology for Chinese studies as a sound base to define three key integrated project actions: what, why, how to preserve, enhance, develop.

Chinese traders and explorers first visited the Maldives, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, in the early fourteenth century. The traveler Wang Dayuan “discovered” the island sultanate for the Chinese world, and merchants increasingly dealt in Maldivian goods such as coconuts, cowrie shells, and ambergris. Zheng He's fifteenth-century voyages ventured to the islands, by then a trading hub, and brought their envoys to Beijing. But the Maldives faded from Chinese records by the end of the sixteenth century, after the Ming state suddenly retreated from the Indian Ocean and shifted focus to Southeast Asia.Discovered but Forgotten is a pioneering examination of China's relations with the Maldives and Sino-Indian Ocean interactions, offering new ways to understand Chinese maritime exploration and the global history of the Indian Ocean. Drawing on a wide range of sources—including written records, Chinese and Jesuit maps, and archaeological analysis of shipwrecks—Bin Yang provides a comprehensive account of Chinese links to the Maldives and the Indian Ocean world from ancient times through the late Ming era. He scrutinizes Chinese understandings of the islands, emphasizing both seafaring material culture and textual knowledge production. Yang reconsiders the works of travelers such as Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta in light of Chinese explorations, and he opens a window onto a colorful world of intriguing commodities, port marriages, and voyages across the vast waters of maritime Asia. Transregional and interdisciplinary, Discovered but Forgotten reveals how a remote archipelago shaped the vast Chinese empire.

Sewage sludge is the product resulting from wastewater treatment plants and aquaculture systems. It is an abundant waste biomass, as its production keeps increasing due to population growth, particularly in developing countries and intensified wastewater treatment plants in the developed world due to industrialisation. Effective management and handling of sewage sludge in an environmentally friendly way has become a matter of increasing importance globally, due to the potential health risks on the environment. Importantly, sewage sludge contains large amounts of organic components and nutrients; hence, resource recovery from such an abundant biomass is necessary. This comprehensive book presents an assessment into the impact of sewage sludge on the environment and provides the various treatment options for converting the sludge into useful resources. Biochemical (or biological) and thermochemical (or thermal) methods of sewage sludge treatment are covered. Through contributions from experts in diverse fields, this book has been organized to suit a variety of readers, including professionals and students who are interested in sewage sludge treatment as well as resource recovery from sewage sludge by using different and innovative technologies.

This new book provides research summaries from a number of different focuses in this important field, as well as compiles biographical sketches of top professionals in the field of biochemistry research.

This book compiles research summaries from a number of different focuses in the important field of environment and agriculture.

Due to the rapid increase in world population and improving living standards, the global agriculture sector is confronting with challenges for the sustainability of agricultural production and of the environment. Intensive high-yield agriculture is typically dependent on addition of fertilizers (synthetic chemicals, animal manure, etc.). However, non-point nutrient losses from agricultural fields due to fertilization could adversely impact the environment. Increased knowledge on plant nutrient chemistry is required for improving utilization efficiency and minimizing loses from both inorganic and organic nutrient sources. For this purpose, the book is composed of 19 chapters that highlight recent research activities in applied nutrient chemistry geared toward sustainable agriculture and environment. Topics of interest include, but are not limited, to speciation, quantification, and interactions of various plant nutrients and relevant contributories in manure, soil, and plants. This book outlooks emerging researchable issues on alternative utilization and environmental monitoring of manure and other agricultural by products that may stimulate new research ideas and direction in the relevant fields.

This volume comprises the proceedings of the First International Rehovot Conference on Modem Agriculture and the Environment, held at the Rehovot Campus of the Faculty of Agriculture, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, 2-6 October 1994. The conference, first in a series intended to be convened in Rehovot at 4-5 year intervals to address various aspects of the interaction of agriculture and the environment, was initiated, organised and carried out under the auspices of the Faculty of Agriculture, the leading academic institution in agricultural and environmental studies in Israel. It featured four keynote addresses, 39 invited lectures, 40 submitted papers, and 62 posters. Of these, 51 articles, written by 122 contributing authors from 14 countries, were selected by the editors to be presented in this book. All through the twentieth century, and especially ever since the advent of the Green Revolution, modem agriCUlture has been striving to feed and clothe the ever­ increasing multitudes of the human species through improved technology, relying heavily on tremendous inputs of fertilisers, pesticides, and various other agrochemicals. Undoubtedly, this has been a great blessing to mankind, and enormous strides have indeed been made in the never-ending struggle against starvation, but these have been achieved at a very steep price of increased environmental deterioration. In fact, modem agriculture has become one of the major factors contributing to the degradation of the world's fragile biosphere.

'Animal manure is traditionally regarded as a valuable resource of plant nutrients. However, there is an increasing environmental concern associated with animal manure utilisation due to high and locally concentrated volumes of manure produced in modern intensified animal production. Although considerable research has been conducted on environmental impacts and best management practices, the environmental chemistry of animal manure has not developed accordingly. This book analyses the basic knowledge and latest research on the environmental chemistry of animal manure.'--Amazon.com.