Tropical forests are an undervalued asset in meeting the greatest global challenges of our time—averting climate change and promoting development. Despite their importance, tropical forests and their ecosystems are being destroyed at a high and even increasing rate in most forest-rich countries. The good news is that the science, economics, and politics are aligned to support a major international effort over the next five years to reverse tropical deforestation. Why Forests? Why Now? synthesizes the latest evidence on the importance of tropical forests in a way that is accessible to anyone interested in climate change and development and to readers already familiar with the problem of deforestation. It makes the case to decisionmakers in rich countries that rewarding developing countries for protecting their forests is urgent, affordable, and achievable.
Biological invasion, an issue of growing importance due to the significant increase in international transportation and trade, can disturb the balance of local ecosystems and even destroy them. This collection of papers presented at the International Conference on Assessment and Control of Biological Invasion Risks held in August 2004 at Yokohama National University discusses risk assessment, risk management and eradication. It also includes contributions reporting on the current status of invasion and the properties of alien species in East Asia.
A NEW AND ESSENTIAL RESOURCE FOR THE PRACTICE OF EPIDEMIOLOGY AND PUBLIC HEALTH The CDC Field Epidemiology Manual is a definitive guide to investigating acute public health events on the ground and in real time. Assembled and written by experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as other leading public health agencies, it offers current and field-tested guidance for every stage of an outbreak investigation -- from identification to intervention and other core considerations along the way. Modeled after Michael Gregg's seminal book Field Epidemiology, this CDC manual ushers investigators through the core elements of field work, including many of the challenges inherent to outbreaks: working with multiple state and federal agencies or multinational organizations; legal considerations; and effective utilization of an incident-management approach. Additional coverage includes: � Updated guidance for new tools in field investigations, including the latest technologies for data collection and incorporating data from geographic information systems (GIS) � Tips for investigations in unique settings, including healthcare and community-congregate sites � Advice for responding to different types of outbreaks, including acute enteric disease; suspected biologic or toxic agents; and outbreaks of violence, suicide, and other forms of injury For the ever-changing public health landscape, The CDC Field Epidemiology Manual offers a new, authoritative resource for effective outbreak response to acute and emerging threats. *** Oxford University Press will donate a portion of the proceeds from this book to the CDC Foundation, an independent nonprofit and the sole entity created by Congress to mobilize philanthropic and private-sector resources to support the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's critical health protection work. To learn more about the CDC Foundation, visit www.cdcfoundation.org.
This is the first book to deal with automatic diatom identification. It provides the necessary background information concerning diatom research, useful for both diatomists and non-diatomists. It deals with the development of electronic databases, image preprocessing, automatic contour extraction, the application of existing contour and ornamentation features and the development of new ones, as well as the application of different classifiers (neural networks, decision trees, etc.). These are tested using two image sets: (i) a very difficult set of Sellaphora pupula with 6 demes and 120 images; (ii) a mixed genera set with 37 taxa and approximately 800 images. The results are excellent, and recognition rates well above 90% have been achieved on both sets. The results are compared with identification rates obtained by human experts. One chapter of the book deals with automatic image capture, i.e. microscope slide scanning at different resolutions using a motorized microscope stage, autofocusing, multifocus fusion, and particle screening to select only diatoms and to reject debris. This book is the final scientific report of the European ADIAC project (Automatic Diatom Identification and Classification), and it lists the web-sites with the created public databases and an identification demo.
Biology, medicine and biochemistry have become data-centric fields for which Deep Learning methods are delivering groundbreaking results. Addressing high impact challenges, Deep Learning in Biology and Medicine provides an accessible and organic collection of Deep Learning essays on bioinformatics and medicine. It caters for a wide readership, ranging from machine learning practitioners and data scientists seeking methodological knowledge to address biomedical applications, to life science specialists in search of a gentle reference for advanced data analytics.With contributions from internationally renowned experts, the book covers foundational methodologies in a wide spectrum of life sciences applications, including electronic health record processing, diagnostic imaging, text processing, as well as omics-data processing. This survey of consolidated problems is complemented by a selection of advanced applications, including cheminformatics and biomedical interaction network analysis. A modern and mindful approach to the use of data-driven methodologies in the life sciences also requires careful consideration of the associated societal, ethical, legal and transparency challenges, which are covered in the concluding chapters of this book.
This textbook, now in its second edition, provides a broad introduction to both continuous and discrete dynamical systems, the theory of which is motivated by examples from a wide range of disciplines. It emphasizes applications and simulation utilizing MATLAB®, Simulink®, the Image Processing Toolbox® and the Symbolic Math toolbox®, including MuPAD. Features new to the second edition include · sections on series solutions of ordinary differential equations, perturbation methods, normal forms, Gröbner bases, and chaos synchronization; · chapters on image processing and binary oscillator computing; · hundreds of new illustrations, examples, and exercises with solutions; and · over eighty up-to-date MATLAB program files and Simulink model files available online. These files were voted MATLAB Central Pick of the Week in July 2013. The hands-on approach of Dynamical Systems with Applications using MATLAB, Second Edition, has minimal prerequisites, only requiring familiarity with ordinary differential equations. It will appeal to advanced undergraduate and graduate students, applied mathematicians, engineers, and researchers in a broad range of disciplines such as population dynamics, biology, chemistry, computing, economics, nonlinear optics, neural networks, and physics. Praise for the first edition Summing up, it can be said that this text allows the reader to have an easy and quick start to the huge field of dynamical systems theory. MATLAB/SIMULINK facilitate this approach under the aspect of learning by doing. —OR News/Operations Research Spectrum The MATLAB programs are kept as simple as possible and the author's experience has shown that this method of teaching using MATLAB works well with computer laboratory classes of small sizes.... I recommend ‘Dynamical Systems with Applications using MATLAB’ as a good handbook for a diverse readership: graduates and professionals in mathematics, physics, science and engineering. —Mathematica
This book moves systematically through the topic of applied probability from an introductory chapter to such topics as random variables and vectors, stochastic processes, estimation, testing and regression. The topics are well chosen and the presentation is enriched by many examples from real life. Each chapter concludes with many original, solved and unsolved problems and hundreds of multiple choice questions, enabling those unfamiliar with the topics to master them. Additionally appealing are historical notes on the mathematicians mentioned throughout, and a useful bibliography. A distinguishing character of the book is its thorough and succinct handling of the varied topics.
The Behavior and Ecology of Pacific Salmon and Trout explains the patterns of mate choice, the competition for nest sites, and the fate of the salmon after their death. It describes the lives of offspring during the months they spend incubating in gravel, growing in fresh water, and migrating out to sea to mature. This thorough, up-to-date survey should be on the shelf of everyone with a professional or personal interest in Pacific salmon and trout. Written in a technically accurate but engaging style, it will appeal to a wide range of readers, including students, anglers, biologists, conservationists, legislators, and armchair naturalists.
Offender profiling has been developing slowly as a possible investigative tool since 1841 and the publication of Edgar Allen Poe's The Murder in the Rue Morgue. In this book, detective C. Auguste Dupin demonstrates the ability to follow the thought patterns of a companion while they stroll through Paris for 15 minutes without speaking a word. Today
