After being uprooted from her family home and sent to finishing school, Daisy learns of her sister's sudden and untimely death. With her world crashing down around her, very little brings her joy aside from gifts from a secret admirer. As the Winter Solstice Ball approaches, Daisy gets the opportunity to meet her secret admirer in person. He introduces her to the world of elemental forces and magic. She now must decide between duty to her family and the opportunity for adventure and possibly…love.
Here, Russ Marion discusses formal and social organizations from the perspectives of chaos and complexity theories. The book aims to offer a comprehensive overview of the new sciences of chaos and complexity.
The groundbreaking Encyclopedia of Ecology provides an authoritative and comprehensive coverage of the complete field of ecology, from general to applied. It includes over 500 detailed entries, structured to provide the user with complete coverage of the core knowledge, accessed as intuitively as possible, and heavily cross-referenced. Written by an international team of leading experts, this revolutionary encyclopedia will serve as a one-stop-shop to concise, stand-alone articles to be used as a point of entry for undergraduate students, or as a tool for active researchers looking for the latest information in the field. Entries cover a range of topics, including: Behavioral Ecology Ecological Processes Ecological Modeling Ecological Engineering Ecological Indicators Ecological Informatics Ecosystems Ecotoxicology Evolutionary Ecology General Ecology Global Ecology Human Ecology System Ecology The first reference work to cover all aspects of ecology, from basic to applied Over 500 concise, stand-alone articles are written by prominent leaders in the field Article text is supported by full-color photos, drawings, tables, and other visual material Fully indexed and cross referenced with detailed references for further study Writing level is suited to both the expert and non-expert Available electronically on ScienceDirect shortly upon publication
Advancing Developmental Science reviews the state-of-the-science in theoretical, methodological, and topical research, with a unique focus on the scholarship that developed within a process-relational framework.
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th IFIP TC 6 International Workshop on Self-Organizing Systems, IWSOS 2012, held in Delft, The Netherlands, in March 2012. The 5 revised full papers and 5 short papers presented together with 2 invited papers were carefully selected from 25 full paper and 8 short paper submissions. The papers address the following key topics: design and analysis of self-organizing and self-managing systems; inspiring models of self-organization in nature and society; structure, characteristics and dynamics of self-organizing networks; techniques and tools for modeling self-organizing systems; robustness and adaptation in self-organizing systems; self-organization in complex networks like peer-to-peer, sensor, ad-hoc, vehicular and social networks; control of self-organizing systems; decentralized power management in the smart grid; self-organizing group and pattern formation; self-organizing mechanisms for task allocation, coordination and resource allocation; self-organizing information dissemination and content search; and risks and limits of self-organization.
The term "artificial life" describes research into synthetic systems that possess some of the essential properties of life. This interdisciplinary field includes biologists, computer scientists, physicists, chemists, geneticists, and others. Artificial life may be viewed as an attempt to understand high-level behavior from low-level rules—for example, how the simple interactions between ants and their environment lead to complex trail-following behavior. An understanding of such relationships in particular systems can suggest novel solutions to complex real-world problems such as disease prevention, stock-market prediction, and data mining on the Internet. Since their inception in 1987, the Artificial Life meetings have grown from small workshops to truly international conferences, reflecting the field's increasing appeal to researchers in all areas of science.
A leading botanist and popular science writer examines the crucial role flowers have played in life's evolutionary scheme as a fundamental energy resource for most of the biosphere.
This comprehensive encyclopedia brings together flower essences gathered from all corners of the globe, from Hawaii and the Himalayas to America and the Australian Bush. It explains what flower remedies are, how they work and how to choose the right remedies for your clients' needs. The properties of 33 families of flower essences and the benefits of over 2,000 remedies, combinations, mists and creams are described. An easy-to-use ailment chart pinpoints remedies for a wide range of physical and psychological conditions, from stress to hormonal imbalance and from allergy to depression. The author provides instructions for prescribing, preparing and using flower remedies alongside illustrative patient case studies. This will be the definitive handbook for practitioners, therapists and students of complementary and alternative therapies working with flower essences and will be valuable reading for those wanting to learn more about how they can use flower essences in their practice.
This book provides comprehensive and concise knowledge about Diptera, an order of insects that has both useful and harmful aspects for humans, animals, plants, and the environment. Insects of this order act as agricultural pests as well as vectors of diseases and carriers of microorganisms. Chapters cover such topics as characteristics of different types of Dipteran insects including fruit flies, mosquitos, and midges, and strategies to control insect populations to combat the spread of human and animal diseases such as dengue, trypanosomosis, and others.
