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This book indicates the most optimal solutions for the growing civilization problem related to climate change that takes place more and more rapidly on our planet. It is divided into two parts: In the first part, the authors - based on the available analyses and reports on climate change taking place on Earth - present their own point of view in relation to the above issue, while trying to find answers to the following questions: · Why is it so difficult to admit that humans are responsible for the ongoing climate change? · Will climate change destroy life on Earth? · Can science and modern technologies stop this process? In the second part of the book, the authors propose a solution for the advancing climate change, regarding the reduction of CO2 emissions coming mainly from the energy sector. On the basis of scientific achievements and implementations of research institutions in Poland, especially the Institute of Fluid-Flow Machinery ofthe Polish Academy of Sciences in Gdansk, the book proposes directions of development of the energy transformation in Poland and other countries for which fossil fuels currently make a large contribution to the energy production process and are the main emitter of CO2 to the atmosphere. The book is addressed to citizens, ecologists, climatologists as well as politicians and experts responsible for shaping the climate and energy policy of the country level and also the world.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 17th Conference on Computability in Europe, CiE 2021, organized by the University of Ghent in July 2021. Due to COVID-19 pandemic the conference was held virtually.The 48 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 50 submissions. CiE promotes the development of computability-related science, ranging over mathematics, computer science and applications in various natural and engineering sciences, such as physics and biology, as well as related fields, such as philosophy and history of computing. CiE 2021 had as its motto Connecting with Computability, a clear acknowledgement of the connecting and interdisciplinary nature of the conference series which is all the more important in a time where people are more than ever disconnected from one another due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The present volume contains selected papers issued from the sixth edition of the International Conference'Numerical methods for hyperbolic problems'that took place in 2019 in Málaga (Spain). NumHyp conferences, which began in 2009, focus on recent developments and new directions in the field of numerical methods for hyperbolic partial differential equations (PDEs) and their applications. The 11 chapters of the book cover several state-of-the-art numerical techniques and applications, including the design of numerical methods with good properties (well-balanced, asymptotic-preserving, high-order accurate, domain invariant preserving, uncertainty quantification, etc.), applications to models issued from different fields (Euler equations of gas dynamics, Navier-Stokes equations, multilayer shallow-water systems, ideal magnetohydrodynamics or fluid models to simulate multiphase flow, sediment transport, turbulent deflagrations, etc.), and the development of new nonlinear dispersive shallow-water models. The volume is addressed to PhD students and researchers in Applied Mathematics, Fluid Mechanics, or Engineering whose investigation focuses on or uses numerical methods for hyperbolic systems. It may also be a useful tool for practitioners who look for state-of-the-art methods for flow simulation.

This book reports on theoretical and experimental research answering key questions in neuroscience, philosophy of mind, and cognitive research. It gives a special emphasis on findings achieved within the territory of the former U.S.S.R, which has remained largely unknown to an international readership. The volume gathers authoritative studies on cognitive development, consciousness, attention and perception. It covers research on eye movements, language, speech and semantics, emotion, as well as brain functional states, and a variety of decision-making processes. It also highlights important advances in cognitive robotics and artificial intelligence, discussing brain-computer interfaces and other practically-relevant technologies. It includes studies on human subjects, in both healthy and disease conditions, and investigations on the molecular mechanisms of cognition in animal models.Chapters are based on invited lectures and peer-reviewed contributions to the 9th International Conference on Cognitive Sciences, Intercognsci–2020, held on October 10-16, 2020, in Moscow. The conference was organized by the Interregional Association of Cognitive Studies, with the participation of the Pavlov Society for Neurophysiology and Higher Nervous Activity, and supported by the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and a number of the north eastern European research institutions. All in all, this book provides cognitive scientists around the world with a timely snapshot of interdisciplinary research and cutting-edge models, and a major source of inspiration for future collaborations in the areas of artificial intelligence and cognitive neuroscience.

This book presents the implementation of novel concepts and solutions, which allows to enhance the cyber security of administrative and industrial systems and the resilience of economies and societies to cyber and hybrid threats. This goal can be achieved by rigorous information sharing, enhanced situational awareness, advanced protection of industrial processes and critical infrastructures, and proper account of the human factor, as well as by adequate methods and tools for analysis of big data, including data from social networks, to find best ways to counter hybrid influence. The implementation of these methods and tools is examined here as part of the process of digital transformation through incorporation of advanced information technologies, knowledge management, training and testing environments, and organizational networking. The book is of benefit to practitioners and researchers in the field of cyber security and protection against hybrid threats, as well as to policymakers and senior managers with responsibilities in information and knowledge management, security policies, and human resource management and training.

The book focuses on original approaches intended to support the development of biologically inspired cognitive architectures. It bridges together different disciplines, from classical artificial intelligence to linguistics, from neuro- and social sciences to design and creativity, among others. The chapters, based on contributions presented at the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the BICA Society, held on November 10-14, 2020, in Natal, Brazil, discuss emerging methods, theories and ideas towards the realization of general-purpose humanlike artificial intelligence or fostering a better understanding of the ways the human mind works. All in all, the book provides engineers, mathematicians, psychologists, computer scientists and other experts with a timely snapshot of recent research and a source of inspiration for future developments in the broadly intended areas of artificial intelligence and biological inspiration.

This book presents a novel approach to studying the groundwater dynamics of and characterising karst aquifers. The content is based on long-term monitoring of groundwater parameters in the epiphreatic caves of a selected karst aquifer: part of the classical recharge area of Ljubljanica River, Slovenia. The recorded data was analysed on the basis of the recharge to the system, which is controlled by outflow from the Planinsko Polje, and on the basis of the known and inferred geometry of the karst conduit system. The book presents numerically tested conceptual models of the observed conduit system, which offer new insights into its structure and function. In closing, the author stresses the importance of caves as groundwater monitoring sites and provides new tools for interpreting cave water level hydrographs. Although the book focuses on a specific site, the methodology introduced here can be applied to numerous other karst systems, lending it considerable practical relevance.

This book contains the contributions presented at the 7th international KES conference on Smart Education and e-Learning (KES SEEL-2020), which being held as a virtual conference on June 17-19, 2020. It contains fifty three high quality peer-reviewed papers that are grouped into several interconnected parts: Part 1 – Smart Education, Part 2 – Smart e-Learning, Part 3 – Smart Pedagogy, Part 4 - Smart Education: Systems and Technology, Part 5 – Smart Education: Case Studies and Research, Part 6 - Smart University Development: Organizational and Managerial Issues, Part 7 - Smart Education and Smart Universities and their Impact on Students with Disabilities, Part 8 - Mathematical Models in Smart Education and e-Learning, and Part 9 - Models of Professional Practice in Higher Education.Smart education and smart e-learning are emerging and rapidly growing areas with the potential to transform existing teaching strategies, learning environments, and educational activities and technology in the classroom. Smart education and smart e-learning focus on enabling instructors to develop new ways of achieving excellence in teaching in highly technological smart classrooms, and providing students with new opportunities to maximize their success and select the best options for their education, location and learning style, as well as the mode of content delivery. This book serves as a useful source of research data and valuable information on current research projects, best practices and case studies for faculty, scholars, Ph.D. students, administrators, and practitioners – all those who are interested in smart education and smart e-learning.

This book gathers the proceedings of the 30th Scientific-Experts Conference of Agriculture and Food Industry, held on September 26-27, 2019, in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It reports on the application of innovative technologies in food sciences and agriculture, and covers research in plant and animal production, agricultural economics and food production. Further, the book discusses key social and environmental issues, and proposes answers to current challenges. The conference was jointly organized by the Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences of the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Faculty of Agriculture of Ege University, Turkey, the Bosnia and Herzegovina Medical and Biological Engineering Society, and the Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Belgrade, Serbia. The proceedings offer a timely snapshot of cutting-edge, multidisciplinary research and developments in modern agriculture. As such, they address the needs of researchersand professionals, agricultural companies, food producers, and regulatory and food safety agencies.

This second edition of the multi-volume work goes beyond the comprehensive and systematic coverage of archaeology that appears in the first edition. The field of archaeology continues to grow and the collaborations between archaeologists and researchers in other areas - environmental studies, landscape studies, art history, demography, biomedicine, chemistry, museum specialists, etc. - continues to grow. This second edition builds on the massive collection of information and research from the first edition by adding new entries as well as updating the existing entries.The entries in this encyclopedia range from succinct summaries of specific sites and the scientific aspects of archaeological enquiry to detailed discussions of archaeological concepts, theories and methods, and from investigations into the social, ethical and political dimensions of archaeological practice to biographies of leading archaeologists from throughout the world. The different forms of archaeology are explored, along with the techniques used for each and the challenges, concerns and issues that face archaeologists today.This compendium is both a print reference and an online reference work. One of the encyclopedia's major innovations is that it harnesses the capabilities of an online environment, enhancing both the presentation and dissemination of information. Most particularly, the continuous updating allowed by an online environment should ensure that the Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology is a definitive reference work for archaeology and archaeologists.

This book presents cross-national insights into spatial fragmentation in post-socialist cities in Europe. Trying to rethink the heritage of the last 30 years of transformation and grasp current processes taking urban units of various categories as examples, the book exemplifies typical or unique causes of political, social and ethnic disintegration of cities in Central and Eastern Europe. Presenting spatial studies into different cases of conflict in a cross-national context, the authors apply concepts of contested and divided cities, urban geopolitics, cultural atavism, contested heritage, etc.The book is divided into four parts. The first part raises the issue of genesis, development and contemporary discrepancies of cities divided by political and state borders. The second part includes chapters which deal with the impact of ongoing geopolitical divisions, wars, and ideologies on the social and political tensions as well as their polarising effect on urban territory. The third part comprises reflections on controversial relations of ethnic and national culture with urban space. The fourth part deals with socio-economic transformation of post-socialist cities which went through transition of old patterns of spatial planning and attempts to establish more rational and justice spatial order.

This reference work provides a comprehensive review of cell and tissue differentiation and its role in the formation of specific secondary metabolites. Divided into five sections, this book covers the main cellular processes involved in the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites. Chapters from expert contributors offer specific case studies of cell and tissue differentiation, examines secondary metabolites in shoot and root cultures, and present new scientific insights and original technologies with applications in medicinal plants and in plant biotechnology. Students, scholars and researchers with an interest in the fields of botany, agriculture, pharmacy, biotechnology and phytochemistry will find this book an important account. This book will also engage professionals working in plant-based industry.

This book provides the first comprehensive assessment of ecosystem services (ES) for the territory of the Slovak Republic. Although the ES approach is widely used for the evaluation of the benefits of natural capital and biodiversity for people, this book has a unique character. It provides an assessment of 18 individual ES, which are divided into three main groups - provisioning, regulatory/supporting and cultural ES. For each of ES, a brief theoretical and methodological overview is given, followed by spatial assessment based on own original methodology and dataset of 40 map layers. Besides, an evaluation of main ES groups and overall ES assessment is realized. This book emphasizes the key role of nature protection areas, large areas of forest ecosystems and mountain and sub-mountain areas, for the preservation of the various functions of the healthy landscape and ecosystems. The complexity of the book guarantees its usefulness - not only as the knowledge base for the territory of Slovakia but also as the methodological tool for worldwide researchers.

This book presents the latest advances in karstology by researchers at the ZRC SAZU Karst Research Institute, Slovenia – home of Classical Karst. It features interdisciplinary investigations carried out on the karst surface, subsurface, caves, and associated waters.It covers various topics, such as analysis of karst processes, including the mineralogical and lithological characteristics of sediments and carbonate rocks; structural geological mapping; detecting the old traces of paleokarst; the formation of karst surfaces in a variety of types of rock and conditions; and the evolution of karst, which can aid in dating sediments, and in tracing aquifers using artificial and natural tracers. In addition, the book provides detailed information on the use and development of various research methods, ranging from comprehensive field research, long-term measurements, and laboratory analyses to computer and laboratory modeling. Integrating karst geology, geomorphology, hydrology, ecology, speleobiology, and microbiology research, these methods provide readers with a far deeper understanding of karst terrains.

Revealing essential roles of the tumor microenvironment in cancer progression, this book focuses on the role of hematopoietic components of the tumor microenvironment. Further, it teaches readers about the roles of distinct constituents of the tumor microenvironment and how they affect cancer development. Topics include neutrophils, basophils, T helper cells, cytotoxic lymphocytes, fibrocytes, and myeloid-derived suppressor cells, and more.Taken alongside its companion volumes, these books update us on what we know about various aspects of the tumor microenvironment as well as future directions. Tumor Microenvironment: Hematopoietic Cells – Part A is essential reading for advanced cell biology and cancer biology students as well as researchers seeking an update on research in the tumor microenvironment.

This book examines key methodological and organizational questions with regard to assessing the quality of internal audits. By studying the status quo of these audits in the public sector, including municipalities, it identifies relevant weaknesses, loopholes and issues. In addition, the book assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the approved control system to explain the reasons why, and conditions under which, internal audits are ineffective, and proposes new metric and non-metric indicators to improve the quality of internal auditing. Given its scope, the book offers a valuable guide for anyone responsible for financial controls and internal audits, and will appeal to students and financial practitioners alike.

This book presents state-of-the-art, essential methods and tools for flood risk assessment and management. The costs of damage caused by extreme weather events, among which floods are a major category, are rapidly rising, both globally and across Europe. The scope and scale of flood episodes point to the need for comprehensive proposals, including the implementation of flood protection measures in areas exposed to flood risk. This book is dedicated to flood damage assessment, and addresses the management of social, economic and environmental damage. It develops a general methodology for flood risk assessment and presents a range of effective flood protection methods in keeping with the objectives of flood risk management. As such, it offers a valuable resource for young researchers, academics, lecturers and water management practitioners alike.

This book covers pattern recognition techniques applied to various areas of biomedicine, including disease diagnosis and prognosis, and several problems of classification, with a special focus on—but not limited to—pattern recognition modeling of biomedical signals and images. Multidisciplinary by definition, the book's topic blends computing, mathematics and other technical sciences towards the development of computational tools and methodologies that can be applied to pattern recognition processes. In this work, the efficacy of such methods and techniques for processing medical information is analyzed and compared, and auxiliary criteria for determining the correct diagnosis and treatment strategies are recommended and applied. Researchers in applied mathematics, the computer sciences, engineering and related fields with a focus on medical applications will benefit from this book, as well as professionals witha special interest in state-of-the-art pattern recognition techniques as applied to biomedicine.

This book offers fascinating insights into the lives of our ancestors and investigates the dynamic processes that led to the establishment of complex human societies. It provides a holistic view of human history and social evolution by drawing on the latest evidence from a wide range of disciplines and proposes new hypotheses on the origins of human behaviour. After exploration of the encounters of Homo sapiens with other human species, diverse aspects of life in emerging societies are examined, including clothing, work, leisure, learning, diet, disease, and the role of women. Attention is drawn to the key role of self-domestication – the process of reducing natural aggression and increasing playfulness – in enabling survival. Another focus is Homo oeconomicus. The significance of symbolic thought for the emergence of surpluses in goods and services is highlighted, with analysis of how this led to private accumulation of wealth and development of the first hierarchical societies. Finally, the discussion turns to humans of the future and the potential risks posed by artificial intelligence. The aim is to unveil the deep roots of our social behaviour and how it is going to intertwine with the development of digital technologies and social networks.

This book successfully connects archaeology and archaeometallurgy with geoscience and metallurgy. It addresses topics concerning ore deposits, archaeological field evidence of early metal production, and basic chemical-physical principles, as well as experimental ethnographic works on a low handicraft base and artisanal metal production to help readers better understand what happened in antiquity. The book is chiefly intended for scholars and students engaged in interdisciplinary work.

This second edition of the classic textbook, The Archaeologist's Laboratory, is a substantially revised work that offers updated information on the archaeological work that follows fieldwork, such as the processing and analysis of artifacts and other evidence. An overarching theme of this edition is the quality and validity of archaeological arguments and the data we use to support them. The book introduces many of the laboratory activities that archaeologists carry out and the ways we can present research results, including graphs and artifact illustrations. Part I introduces general topics concerning measurement error, data quality, research design, typology, probability and databases. It also includes data presentation, basic artifact conservation, and laboratory safety. Part II offers brief surveys of the analysis of lithics and ground stone, pottery, metal artifacts, bone and shell artifacts, animal and plant remains, and sediments, as well as dating by stratigraphy, seriation and chronometric methods. It concludes with a chapter on archaeological illustration and publication. A new feature of the book is illustration of concepts through case studies from around the world and from the Palaeolithic to historical archaeology.The text is appropriate for senior undergraduate students and will also serve as a useful reference for graduate students and professional archaeologists.

In a world where habitats are constantly changing and the impact of anthropization on the environment is increasingly intense, interactions between human and wildlife are becoming more and more complex. Some species pose problems for human activities while many others need to be helped in order to continue to exist. This book follows the first volume called'Problematic Wildlife', edited by F.M. Angelici and published by Springer in 2016, which has had considerable success with readers and critics. The volume includes 21 chapters divided into 7 parts devoted specific topics which are approached in a multidisciplinary way. There are both review chapters and specific cases, always bearing in mind the interest for an international audience. The book is useful both for scientists, wildlife specialists, conservationists, zoologists, ecologists, university students, nature managers, and for those who live in contact with wildlife and its problems, such as farmers, shepherds, hunters, urban planners, and staff of parks and nature reserves. Its ultimate goal is to offer scientific and pragmatic approaches to manage each categories of problematic species.

This book presents selected papers from the 23rd Eurasia Business and Economics Society (EBES) Conference, held in Madrid, Spain. While the theoretical and empirical papers presented cover diverse areas of economics and finance in different geographic regions, the main focus is on the latest research concerning international trade, public economics, and regional studies. The book also includes studies on the economics of innovation, inequality and tourism.

This book discusses significant research findings in the field of mathematical modelling, with particular emphasis on important applied-sciences, health, and social issues. It includes topics such as model on viral immunology, stochastic models for the dynamics of influenza, model describing the transmission of dengue, model for human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, prostate cancer model, realization of economic growth by goal programming, modelling of grazing periodic solutions in discontinuous systems, modelling of predation system, fractional epidemiological model for computer viruses, and nonlinear ecological models. A unique addition in the proposed areas of research and education, this book is a valuable resource for graduate students, researchers and educators associated with the study of mathematical modelling of health, social and applied-sciences issues. Readers interested in applied mathematics should also find this book valuable.

The publication delivers numerous valuable guidelines, particularly useful when making decisions related in the subject matter to road and rail nodes located in dense transport networks. The know-how displayed while discussing practical examples as well as the decision making support systems described in the publication will certainly attract the interest of those who daily face the challenge of seeking solutions to the operational and functional problems of transport nodes in contemporary transport networks and systems. This publication is dedicated to local authorities involved in planning and preparation of development strategies for specific transport-related issues (in both urban and regional areas) as well as to representatives of business and industry, being those who participate directly in the implementation of traffic engineering solutions. The guidelines provided in individual chapters of the publication will make it possible to address the given problem in an advanced manner and simplify the choice of appropriate strategies (including those related to synchronisation of road traffic streams, improving the capacity, road traffic safety analysis, evaluation of changes in drivers'behaviour on account of introducing countdown timers at signal-controlled intersections using UAV data, the influence of the type of traffic organisation on the behaviour of pedestrians at tram line crossings). On the other hand, since the publication also concerns the new approach to theoretical models (including potential places of integration of public transport with the railway network or the speed adviser for pedestrians enabling them to choose the optimal path at signal-controlled intersections), it should also attract the attention of researches and scientists studying this body of problems. The publication entitled'Nodes in transport networks - research, data analysis and modelling'contains selected papers submitted to and presented at the 16th ”Transport Systems. Theory and Practice” Scientific and Technical Conference organized by the Department of Transport Systems and Traffic Engineering at the Faculty of Transport of the Silesian University of Technology. The conference was held on 16-18 September 2019 in Katowice (Poland).

This book discusses the remarkable plant diversity of the Maltese Archipelago. Despite its relatively small area and long-term human exploitation, many different plant communities occur in this territory. The book presents phytosociological investigations, together with taxonomical studies, which have been conducted over more than forty years, highlighting the unique features of this central Mediterranean insular ecosystem. It also describes the phytosociological role played by several narrow endemic or phytogeographically relevant taxa and introduces many phytocoenoses exclusively growing in the archipelago. The study integrates the palaeogeographic issues linked to the ancient and intriguing history of the different civilizations that succeeded on the islands for thousands of years. The book also focuses on the N2000 habitats.

This book covers solar energy and the use of solar radiation in connection with lighting. It provides a detailed introduction to solar energy, photovoltaic (PV) solar energy conversion, and solar lighting technologies, while also discussing all of these elements in the context of the Balkan Peninsula. In the context of solar energy, the book covers a range of elements, from the structure of the sun, to PV solar plants. It subsequently addresses the status quo of solar technologies in Bulgaria, Serbia and the Republika Srpska and analyses the development of these technologies over the years, including their economic status, and how these aspects have shaped their current status. Undergraduate and graduate students, researchers and professionals, particularly those based in the Balkans, will find this book both informative and interesting.

This book examines regional responses to marginality by highlighting social innovation, local capacity and new path formations in what are often seen as economically weak regions where policy and institutional considerations play a key role. Divided into three parts, it covers a wide range of topics related to geographical marginality from various angles, on both regional and local scales. The first part focuses on the role of social innovation and illustrates the themes of social innovation and new localism, local revitalization and social entrepreneurship. The second part then addresses the issues of economic responses, valorization, resource use and local action in response to marginalization. Lastly, the third part explores various policies and measures taken to respond to marginality and intensify regional development in marginal areas.

The book presents new data on the IR spectra of minerals and on the Raman spectra of more than 2000 mineral species. It also includes examples of IR spectroscopy applications to investigate minerals, and discusses the most important potential applications of Raman spectroscopy in mineralogical research. The book serves as a reference resource and a methodological guide for mineralogists, petrologists and technologists working in the field of inorganic materials.

The proceedings set LNCS 12396 and 12397 constitute the proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, ICANN 2020, held in Bratislava, Slovakia, in September 2020.•The total of 139 full papers presented in these proceedings was carefully reviewed and selected from 249 submissions. They were organized in 2 volumes focusing on topics such as adversarial machine learning, bioinformatics and biosignal analysis, cognitive models, neural network theory and information theoretic learning, and robotics and neural models of perception and action. •The conference was postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This volume brings together diverse contributions from leading archaeologists and paleoanthropologists, covering various spatial and temporal periods to distinguish convergent evolution from cultural transmission in order to see if we can discover ancient human populations. With a focus on lithic technology, the book analyzes ancient materials and cultures to systematically explore the theoretical and physical aspects of culture, convergence, and populations in human evolution and prehistory. The book will be of interest to academics, students and researchers in archaeology, paleoanthropology, genetics, and paleontology. The book begins by addressing early prehistory, discussing the convergent evolution of behaviors and the diverse ecological conditions driving the success of different evolutionary paths. Chapters discuss these topics and technology in the context of the Lower Paleolithic/Earlier Stone age and Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age. The book then moves towards a focuson the prehistory of our species over the last 40,000 years. Topics covered include the human evolutionary and dispersal consequences of the Middle-Upper Paleolithic Transition in Western Eurasia. Readers will also learn about the cultural convergences, and divergences, that occurred during the Terminal Pleistocene and Holocene, such as the budding of human societies in the Americas. The book concludes by integrating these various perspectives and theories, and explores different methods of analysis to link technological developments and cultural convergence.

This book presents human factors research focused on achieving and assessing sustainability in the built environment and architecture. It reports on advanced engineering methods for architecture and design, and on assessments of the social, environmental, and economic impacts of various designs and projects. The book covers a broad range of practical studies relating to ergonomic design and assessment of public and private places, urban ecological constructions, and urban planning for smart city. Further topics include green area planning, environmentally-responsive architecture, and conservation and adaptation of vernacular architectures in modern design. Based on the AHFE 2020 Virtual Conference on Human Factors in Architecture, Sustainable Urban Planning and Infrastructure, held on July 16–20, 2020, this book offers a wealth of perspectives on sustainability and ergonomics in architecture and urban planning. As such, it represents a timely source of inspiration for designers, architects, urban planners, as well as civil and environmental engineers, and other professionals, including policy-makers, seeking for developing sustainable buildings and infrastructure.

This book summarizes the research being pursued as part of the Erasmus+ CBHE KA2 project entitled'Development of master curricula for natural disasters risk management in Western Balkan countries” (NatRisk), which aims to educate experts on the prevention and management of natural disasters in the Western Balkan region in line with national and EU policies. The project has successfully developed and implemented master curricula and educational training in the field of natural disasters risk management, and a methodology for the identification and prevention of natural disasters. Consisting of 11 chapters, the book analyzes and discusses topics such as risk assessment tools and quality methods, the different approaches for civil-military collaboration, natural disasters risk management in Bosnia and Herzegovina, leadership models for managing crises resulting from natural disasters, natural disasters in industrial areas, natural risk management in geotechnics, flood risk modeling, adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference models for flood prediction, collapse prediction of masonry arches, an algorithm for fire truck dispatch in emergency situations, and processing drought data in a GIS environment.

This edited book aims to provide a new perspective on the identification and interpretation of short-term occupations in Paleolithic Archaeology. The volume includes contributions with a particular focus on the definition and identification of short-term occupations in Paleolithic contexts, aiming to improve our current knowledge on the topic, both methodologically and interpretatively. The set of chapters coming from a broad spectrum of geographies and chronologies will contribute to the debate on the definition of short-term occupations but also to a better understanding on how past hunter-gatherers communities adapted and moved in different environmental contexts across time. The in-depth examinations of short-term occupations in different chronologies and environments will shed light on an aspect of the behavioral trajectories of the human species in the management of the territory.

This book presents an overview and knowledgeable on water resources management in Balkan countries – Slovenia, North Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Greece, and Bulgaria.The book shows the state of the art and also the latest research findings of the different aspects of water resources management in Balkan countries with case studies that reveal the best practice in water resources management, development, and protection. Researchers and scientists from the Balkan countries present their experiences and expertise on a wide range of water resources topics.Therefore, the book is of particular interest to decisions planners/makers and stakeholders. Also, the book will be useful to experts, professionals, researchers, scientists, practitioners, academics working in the field of water resources management in Balkan countries and analogous regions.

This proceedings book gathers the latest achievements and trends in research and development in educational robotics from the 10th International Conference on Robotics in Education (RiE), held in Vienna, Austria, on April 10–12, 2019. It offers valuable methodologies and tools for robotics in education that encourage learning in the fields of science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) through the design, creation and programming of tangible artifacts for creating personally meaningful objects and addressing real-world societal needs. It also discusses the introduction of technologies ranging from robotics platforms to programming environments and languages and presents extensive evaluations that highlight the impact of robotics on students'interests and competence development. The approaches included cover the entire educative range, from the elementary school to the university level in both formal and informal settings.

This book is the first to give a comprehensive and detailed overview of the complete geography of Slovenia in English. Only very few countries, even considerably larger ones, can boast the landscape diversity found in Slovenia since the Alps, the Pannonian Basin, the Dinaric Alps, and the Mediterranean meet and interweave in this small corner of Central Europe, as do Germanic, Hungarian, Slavic, and Romance cultural influences. The book provides a systematical overview of physical and human geographical elements of Slovenia from landforms to cultural characteristics. Special attention is given to landscape diversity, to the presentation of Slovene landscape types and regions, to some particularities and interesting facts of Slovenia, and to the position of Slovenia in the World. The book also illustrates some other important geographical phenomena, processes and interactions between nature and society in nowadays Slovenia. This volume appeals to researchers as well as students in the field of regional geography. It can also serve as a source for complete background information as well as a field guide for Slovenia.

Dieses nahezu vollständig überarbeitete und um zwei gänzlich neue Kapitel erweiterte Werk ist weit mehr als nur eine 2. Auflage. Denn in den letzten 20 Jahren haben Herausgeber und Mitautoren viel Neues und Verblüffendes über das Mittelmeer erfahren. Eine neue Wissenschaft hat sich formiert, die multidisziplinäre Mediterranistik, die dank Historikern neue Einsichten zum Verständnis dieses Raums ermöglicht. Doch auch die Umweltforschung machte große Fortschritte und fördert Beunruhigendes an den Tag: Die negativen Veränderungen im Mittelmeer und im mediterranen Raum laufen heute in einer Geschwindigkeit ab, die es in der Erdgeschichte bisher wahrscheinlich noch nie gegeben hat. Dieses erweiterte Wissen hat Einzug in das Buch gefunden.Der Leser erhält einen weit gefassten Überblick über die Erdgeschichte der mediterranen Region, aber auch über die Rolle unserer Vorfahren darin, den Hominini. Das aktuelle Wissen zum mediterranen Raum ist hier zusammengefasst –von der Biodiversität bis zur wirtschaftlichen Nutzung der marinen Ressourcen, von den klimatischen Verhältnissen, den Wasserströmungen und Winden bis zu den komplexen Nahrungsnetzen und ökologischen Abhängigkeiten innerhalb der Pflanzen- und Tierwelt des Mittelmeeres. Die enorme Bandbreite der Themen soll Liebhabern der Mittelmeerregion ebenso entgegenkommen wie Meeresschützern, Tauchern, Forschern, Seglern und Reisenden – jedem, der über das Mittelmeer etwas wissen will. Hunderte von eigens für dieses Werk entwickelten Grafiken veranschaulichen die in zwölf Kapiteln besprochenen Phänomene, Prozesse und Konzepte. Zahlreiche Tabellen fassen die Ergebnisse umfangreicher Recherchen zusammen. Farblich hervorgehobene Exkurse beleuchten spannende Einzelaspekte der Natur- und Kulturgeschichte des Mittelmeeres. Eindrucksvolle Farbfotos der mediterranen Lebensräume und ihrer Lebewesen begleiten die informativen Texte. Die Fülle der in diesem Werk verarbeiteten Informationen, die Klarheit der Darstellung und die ansprechende Gestaltung machen Das Mittelmeer zu einem unentbehrlichen Nachschlagewerk und außergewöhnlichen Lesevergnügen zugleich. Der Rat der Autoren: „Tun Sie für die Umwelt mehr als Sie müssen!“

This book presents the outcomes of the annual “Engineering Economics Week – 2020,” organized by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, the Institute of Management and the Institute of Market Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), the South-Russian State Polytechnic University and Samara State University of Economics, and held in online format in May 2020. Focusing on the following topics: - the globalized economy and Russian industrial enterprises: development specifics and international co-operation;- state support for the real sector of the economy;- decisions in production and project management in the context of the digital economy;- big data and big challenges in production networks and systems ; and- economic and social aspects of the innovation management: decision-making and control this book will appeal to scientists, teachers and students (bachelor's, master's and postgraduate) at higher education institutions, economists, specialists at research centers, managers of industrial enterprises, business professionals, and those at media centers, and development fund and consulting organizations.

This book addresses sustainability thinking and the bigger picture, by taking into consideration how and from where contemporary schools of thought emerged approximately a quarter-century ago. Evidence from the literature illustrates a number of key concepts and techniques that have been tested and continue to be tested, within various multi-disciplinary fields, on societal functionality. Research into sustainable societies needs to be sound, ethical, and creative. A cross-sectoral, interdisciplinary examination of challenges and strategies is used to interlink sustainability thinking and human-nature relations. With an ever-growing number of people now concentrated within urban areas, providing not only environmental quality and livable space, but also security and resilient urban systems, is becoming increasingly important. This urbanization trend has overlapped with environmental degradation, consumption of natural resources, habitat loss, and overall ecosystem change. Consequently, the goal is for cleaner, safer societies – with higher standards of living – to excel in support of current and future generational communities. The book tackles these challenges by integrating environmental scholarship, economic evaluation, and urban strategies under one umbrella of thought. The relational paradigms presented include examples that correlate developed and developing countries, socioeconomics and community development, and governance of knowledge and education. As such, the book argues, furthering of knowhow should be accessible and shared in order to achieve maximum innovation and benefit. Sustainability thinking, after all, is a metric for intrinsic human-nature relations in terms of past performance, present development, and future goals. This book discusses this metric and offers novel approaches to growing societies and what we can do next.

This book discusses the Lagoa Santa Karst, which has been internationally known since the pioneering studies of the Danish naturalist Peter Lund in the early 1800s. It covers the speleogenesis, geology, vegetation, fauna, hydrogeology, geomorphology, and anthropogenic use of the Lagoa Santa Karst and is the first English-language book on this major karst area. The area, which has been at the heart of the debate on the origin and age of human colonization in the Americas, is characterized by a classical and scenic karst landscape with limestone cliffs, karst lakes and karst plains, in addition to numerous solution dolines. More than 1,000 caves have been documented in the area, many with significant archeological and paleontological value. Despite its great importance, the Lagoa Santa Karst faces severe environmental threats due to limestone mining and the expansion of the metropolis of Belo Horizonte and its surrounding towns. The growing recognition of the area's remarkable significance has led to increasing concern, and a number of protected areas have now been established, improving the conservation status of this landmark karst area.

This book explores various aspects of data engineering and information processing. In this second volume, the authors assess the challenges and opportunities involved in doing business with information. Their contributions on business information processing and management reflect diverse viewpoints – not only technological, but also business and social. As the global marketplace grows more and more complex due to the increasing availability of data, the information business is steadily gaining popularity and has a huge impact on modern society. Thus, there is a growing need for consensus on how business information can be created, accessed, used and managed.

Teucrium species are an intersting object of research in the various aspects of science with multiple applications. With more than 300 species, Teucrium is one of the largest and well distributed genera of the Lamiaceae family. Known medicinal Teucrium species have a long traditional use as well as different potential applications in pharmacy, food and beverage industry. Teucrium species are very rich in a variety of secondary metabolites with significant biological activities. Based on that, the book contains 15 chapters which discusses recent advances in exploring the unique features of Teucrium species including morphology, systematics, taxonomy, biogeography, ethnobotany, phytochemistry, biological activity such as genotoxic, antioxidant, antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, anticancer, anticholinesterase, antidiabetic and anti-inflammatory activity of secondary metabolites as well as applications includingcurrent challenges and further perspectives. Some medicinal Teucrium species in excessive use can cause certain consequences. This phenomenon and precaution is also described. Whilst this book is primarily aimed at scientists, researchers, beginners in the investigations of Teucrium species, graduate and post-graduate students in biology, botany, biotechnology, agriculture, and pharmacy, as well as science enthusiasts and practitioners involved in medicinal plants applications. Book provides complete Teucrium species list, color photographs of selected Teucrium species on natural habitats, as well as up-to-date bibliography related to Teucrium genus.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Language and Automata Theory and Applications, LATA 2020, which was planned to be held in Milan, Italy, in March 2020. Due to the corona pandemic, the actual conference was postponed and will be held together with LATA 2021.The 26 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 59 submissions. They were organized in topical sections named: algebraic structures; automata; complexity; grammars; languages; trees and graphs; and words and codes. The book also contains 6 invited papers in full-paper length.

This book offers fresh critical insights to the field of children's literature translation studies by applying the concept of transcreation, established in the creative industries of the globalized world, to bring to the fore the transformative, transgressional and creative aspects of rewriting for children and young audiences. This socially situated and culturally dependent practice involves ongoing complex negotiations between creativity and normativity, balancing text-related problems and genre conventions with readers'expectations, constraints imposed by established, canonical translations and publishers'demands. Focussing on the translator's strategies and decision-making process, the book investigates phenomena where transcreation is especially at play in children's literature, such as dual address, ambiguity, nonsense, humour, play on words and other creative language use; these also involve genre-specific requirements, for example, rhyme and rhythm in poetry. The book draws on a wide range of mostly Anglophone texts for children and their translations into languages of limited diffusion to demonstrate the numerous ways in which information, meaning and emotions are transferred to new linguistic and cultural contexts. While focussing mostly on interlingual transfer, the volume analyses a variety of translation types from established, canonical renditions by celebrity translators to non-professional translations and intralingual rewritings. It also examines iconotextual dynamics of text and image. The book employs a number of innovative methodologies, from cognitive linguistics and ethnolinguistics to semiotics and autoethnographic approaches, going beyond text analysis to include empirical research on children's reactions to translation strategies. Highlighting the complex dynamics at work in the process of transcreating for children, this volume is essential reading for students and researchers in translation studies, children's fiction and adaptation studies.

Understanding the current state and dynamics of any forest is extremely difficult - if not impossible - without recognizing its history. Białowieża Primeval Forest (BPF), located on the border between Poland and Belarus, is one of the best preserved European lowland forests and a subject of myriads of works focusing on countless aspects of its biology, ecology, management. BPF was protected for centuries (15th-18th century) as a game reserve of Polish kings and Lithuanian grand dukes. Being, at that time, a part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, BPF was subject to long-lasting traditional, multi-functional utilisation characteristic for this part of Europe, including haymaking on forest meadows, traditional bee-keeping and fishing in rivers flowing through forest. This traditional model of management came to an abrupt end due to political change in 1795, when Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania ceased to exist in effect of partitioning by neighbouring countries, and the territory ofBPF was taken over by the Russian Empire. The new Russian administration, influenced by the German trends in forestry, attempted at introducing the new, science-based forestry model in the BPF throughout the 19th century. The entire 19th century in the history of BPF is a story of struggle between new trends and concepts brought and implemented by new rulers of the land, and the traditional perception of the forest and forest uses, culturally rooted in this area and originating from mediaeval (or older) practices.The book will show the historical background and the outcome of this struggle: the forest's history in the long 19th century focusing on tracking all cultural imprints, both material (artificial landscapes, introduced alien species, human-induced processes) and immaterial (traditional knowledge of forest and use of forest resources, the political and cultural significance of the forest) that shaped the forest's current state and picture. Our book will deliver a pictureof a crucial moment in forest history, relevant not only to the Central Europe, but to the continent in general. Moment of transition between a royal hunting ground, traditional type of use widespread throughout Europe, to a modern, managed forest. Looking at main obstacles in the management shift, the essential difference in perceptions of the forest and goods it provides in both modes of management, and the implications of the management change for the state of BPF in the long 19th century could help in better understanding the changes that European forests underwent in general.

Organisiert im Hinblick auf das Internationale Geologische Korrelationsprogramm (IGCP)

This two-volume set LNCS 10305 and LNCS 10306 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Work-Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, IWANN 2019, held at Gran Canaria, Spain, in June 2019.The 150 revised full papers presented in this two-volume set were carefully reviewed and selected from 210 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on machine learning in weather observation and forecasting; computational intelligence methods for time series; human activity recognition; new and future tendencies in brain-computer interface systems; random-weights neural networks; pattern recognition; deep learning and natural language processing; software testing and intelligent systems; data-driven intelligent transportation systems; deep learning models in healthcare and biomedicine; deep learning beyond convolution; artificial neural network for biomedical image processing; machine learning in vision and robotics; system identification, process control,and manufacturing; image and signal processing; soft computing; mathematics for neural networks; internet modeling, communication and networking; expert systems; evolutionary and genetic algorithms; advances in computational intelligence; computational biology and bioinformatics.

This book is the latest and most comprehensive reference to the regional geography of Spain, taking into account emergent issues such as biodiversity, climate change and nationalism. It appeals to scientists as well as to students and instructors and all fields of geography, regional, environmental and cultural studies, and business related disciplines. It covers the whole range of topics from the physical to the human geography of Spain and provides detailed insights into all 17 autonomous communities. Dozens of GIS maps and hundreds of photographs and images including remote sensing imagery make this volume a must have for every geography department.