The Vegetation of the Iberian Peninsula

The Vegetation of the Iberian Peninsula

Author: Javier Loidi

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-09-18

Total Pages: 644

ISBN-13: 3319548670

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book provides a compact, up-to-date and detailed overview of the vegetation of the Iberian Peninsula, a highly diverse part of Europe in the Mediterranean area. Written by a group of experienced researchers, the volume includes a first section with general chapters discussing the climate, the biogeography and the flora, and a second section with detailed descriptions of the 14 regional sectors into which the peninsula and Balearic Islands have been divided. A third section explores special features, such as aquatic vegetation, gypsum and dolomite vegetation, coastal vegetation, mountain flora and vegetation, conservation issues and alien flora.


Climatic Variability in Sixteenth-Century Europe and Its Social Dimension

Climatic Variability in Sixteenth-Century Europe and Its Social Dimension

Author: Christian Pfister

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-03-14

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 9401592594

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A multidecadal cooling is known to have occurred in Europe in the final decades of the sixteenth-century. It is still open to debate as to what might have caused the underlying shifts in atmospheric circulation and how these changes affected societies. This book is the fruit of interdisciplinary cooperation among 37 scientists including climatologists, hydrologists, glaciologists, dendroclimatologists, and economic and cultural historians. The known documentary climatic evidence from six European countries is compared to results of tree-ring studies. Seasonal temperature and precipitation are estimated from this data and monthly mean surface pressure patterns in the European area are reconstructed for outstanding anomalies. Results are compared to fluctuations of Alpine glaciers and to changes in the frequency of severe floods and coastal storms. Moreover, the impact of climate change on grain prices and wine production is assessed. Finally, it is convincingly argued that witches at that time were burnt as scapegoats for climatic change.


The Reception of Darwinism in the Iberian World

The Reception of Darwinism in the Iberian World

Author: T.F Glick

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2012-09-17

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 9789401038850

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

I Twenty-five years ago, at the Conference on the Comparative Reception of Darwinism held at the University of Texas in 1972, only two countries of the Iberian world-Spain and Mexico-were represented.' At the time, it was apparent that the topic had attracted interest only as regarded the "mainstream" science countries of Western Europe, plus the United States. The Eurocentric bias of professional history of science was a fact. The sea change that subsequently occurred in the historiography of science makes 1972 appear something like the antediluvian era. Still, we would like to think that that meeting was prescient in looking beyond the mainstream science countries-as then perceived-in order to test the variation that ideas undergo as they pass from center to periphery. One thing that the comparative study of the reception of ideas makes abundantly clear, however, is the weakness of the center/periphery dichotomy from the perspective of the diffusion of scientific ideas. Catholics in mainstream countries, for example, did not handle evolution much better than did their corre1igionaries on the fringes. Conversely, Darwinians in Latin America were frequently better placed to advance Darwin's ideas in a social and political sense than were their fellow evolutionists on the Continent. The Texas meeting was also a marker in the comparative reception of scientific ideas, Darwinism aside. Although, by 1972, scientific institutions had been studied comparatively, there was no antecedent for the comparative history of scientific ideas.


Artificial Intelligence in Society

Artificial Intelligence in Society

Author: OECD

Publisher: OECD Publishing

Published: 2019-06-11

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 9264545190

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The artificial intelligence (AI) landscape has evolved significantly from 1950 when Alan Turing first posed the question of whether machines can think. Today, AI is transforming societies and economies. It promises to generate productivity gains, improve well-being and help address global challenges, such as climate change, resource scarcity and health crises.


Cultural Encounters

Cultural Encounters

Author: Mary Elizabeth Perry

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2024-07-26

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 0520414284

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

More than just an expression of religious authority or an instrument of social control, the Inquisition was an arena where cultures met and clashed on both shores of the Atlantic. This pioneering volume examines how cultural identities were maintained despite oppression. Persecuted groups were able to survive the Inquisition by means of diverse strategies—whether Christianized Jews in Spain preserving their experiences in literature, or native American folk healers practicing medical care. These investigations of social resistance and cultural persistence will reinforce the cultural significance of the Inquisition. Contributors: Jaime Contreras, Anne J. Cruz, Jesús M. De Bujanda, Richard E. Greenleaf, Stephen Haliczer, Stanley M. Hordes, Richard L. Kagan, J. Jorge Klor de Alva, Moshe Lazar, Angus I. K. MacKay, Geraldine McKendrick, Roberto Moreno de los Arcos, Mary Elizabeth Perry, Noemí Quezada, María Helena Sanchez Ortega, Joseph H. Silverman This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1995.


Innovating with Concept Mapping

Innovating with Concept Mapping

Author: Alberto Cañas

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-08-20

Total Pages: 342

ISBN-13: 331945501X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Concept Mapping, CMC 2016, held in Tallinn, Estonia, in September 2016. The 25 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 135 submissions. The papers address issues such as facilitation of learning; eliciting, capturing, archiving, and using “expert” knowledge; planning instruction; assessment of “deep” understandings; research planning; collaborative knowledge modeling; creation of “knowledge portfolios”; curriculum design; eLearning, and administrative and strategic planning and monitoring.


Aquatic Oligochaete Biology VI

Aquatic Oligochaete Biology VI

Author: Kathryn A. Coates

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 940115452X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Recent studies on diverse aspects of the biology of clitellate works (oligochaetes and leeches) are found in the Proceedings of the most recent International Symposium on Aquatic Oligochaete Biology - from development to population dynamics and from ultrastructure to evolution. The majority of the contributions, which have a very broad geographic scope, are investigations of the biology and ecology of oligochaete works in natural and polluted waters.


Road of Stars to Santiago

Road of Stars to Santiago

Author: Edward F. Stanton

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 9780813126852

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Revelations of abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison and the U.S. detention camp at Guant‡namo Bay had repercussions extending beyond the worldwide media scandal that ensued. The controversy surrounding photos and descriptions of inhumane treatment of enemy prisoners of war, or EPWs, from the war on terror marked a watershed momentin the study of modern warfare and the treatment of prisoners of war. Amid allegations of human rights violations and war crimes, one question stands out among the rest: Was the treatment of America's most recent prisoners of war an isolated event or part of a troubling and complex issue that is deeply rooted in our nation's military history?Military expert Robert C. Doyle's The Enemy in Our Hands: America's Treatment of Prisoners of War from the Revolution to the War on Terror draws from diverse sources to answer this question. Historical as well as timely in its content, this work examines America's major wars and past conflicts -- among them, the American Revolution, the Civil War, World Wars I and II, and Vietnam -- to provide understanding of the UnitedStates' treatment of military and civilian prisoners. The Enemy in Our Hands offers a new perspective of U.S. military history on the subject of EPWs and suggests that the tactics employed to manage prisoners of war are unique and disparate from one conflict tothe next. In addition to other vital information, Doyle provides a cultural analysis and exploration of U.S. adherence to international standards of conduct, including the 1929 Geneva Convention in each war. Although wars are not won or lost on the basis of how EPWs are treated, the treatment of prisoners is one of the measures by which history's conquerors are judged.


Spectacle and Topophilia

Spectacle and Topophilia

Author: David R. Castillo

Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0826518168

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Significant places and spaces, from Granada and Catalonia to Buenos Aires and the Chicago Columbian Exposition


History of Geoscience

History of Geoscience

Author: W. Mayer

Publisher: Geological Society of London

Published: 2017-06-06

Total Pages: 443

ISBN-13: 1786202697

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The study of the Earth’s origin, its composition, the processes that changed and shaped it over time and the fossils preserved in rocks, have occupied enquiring minds from ancient times. The contributions in this volume trace the history of ideas and the research of scholars in a wide range of geological disciplines that have paved the way to our present-day understanding and knowledge of the physical nature of our planet and the diversity of life that inhabited it. To mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the International Commission on the History of Geology (INHIGEO), the book features contributions that give insights into its establishment and progress. In other sections authors reflect on the value of studying the history of the geosciences and provide accounts of early investigations in fields as diverse as tectonics, volcanology, geomorphology, vertebrate palaeontology and petroleum geology. Other papers discuss the establishment of geological surveys, the contribution of women to geology and biographical sketches of noted scholars in various fields of geoscience.