This book introduces new methods for measuring and analyzing residential segregation. It begins by placing all popular segregation indices in the "difference of group means" framework wherein index scores can be obtained as simple differences of group means on individual-level residential attainments scored from area racial composition. ...
This book presents an Empirical Model of Global Climate developed by the authors and uses that model to show that global warming will likely remain below 2ºC, relative to preindustrial, throughout this century provided: a) both the unconditional and conditional Paris INDC commitments are followed; b) the emission reductions needed to achieve the P...
This volume starts with an elementary introduction covering stem cell methodologies used to produce specific types of neurons, possibilities for their therapeutic use, and warnings of technical problems. In addition the authors report successes in achieving the derivation of a specific type of neuron. The dopamine neuron offers an important example...
This book focuses on the global cycles of energy, water and carbon, which are not only the essentials of our main energy carriers, the fossil fuels, but are also the building blocks of life. The book offers an overview of the basic scientific facts and relationships that are needed to understand today's energy generation and use, how they rela...
This book answers key questions about environment, people and their shared future in deltas. It develops a systematic and holistic approach for policy-orientated analysis for the future of these regions. It does so by focusing on ecosystem services in the world's largest, most populous and most iconic delta region, that of the Ganges-Brahmaput...
Machine learning techniques provide cost-effective alternatives to traditional methods for extracting underlying relationships between information and data and for predicting future events by processing existing information to train models. Efficient Learning Machines explores the major topics of machine learning, including knowledge discovery, cla...
The second volume in the SIRCA book series investigates the impact of information society initiatives by extending the boundaries of academic research into the realm of practice. Global in scope, it includes contributions and research projects from Asia, Africa and Latin America. The international scholarly community has taken a variety of approach...
This book presents Nils Petter Gleditsch, a staff member of the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO) since 1964, a former editor of the Journal for Peace Research (1983-2010), a former president of the International Studies Association (2008-2009) and the recipient of several academic awards as a pioneer in the scientific analysis of war and pea...
Turkey has witnessed significant social, cultural, and political change over the last decades. This transformation has manifested itself in all segments of society and resulted in the alteration of political ideologies and institutions. The twelve authors of this volume shed light on the complexities of a changing Turkey through an interdisciplinar...
This book is the first to develop explicit methods for evaluating evidence of mechanisms in the field of medicine. It explains why it can be important to make this evidence explicit, and describes how to take such evidence into account in the evidence appraisal process. In addition, it develops procedures for seeking evidence of mechanisms, for eva...
This book utilizes new data to thoroughly analyze the main factors currently shaping the African housing market. Some of these factors include the supply and demand for housing finance, land tenure security issues, construction cost conundrum, infrastructure provision, and low-cost housing alternatives. Through detailed analysis, the authors invest...
This book discusses the important issue of the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of agricultural residue burning, common in agricultural practices in many parts of the world. In particular, it focuses on the pollution caused by rice residue burning using primary survey data from Punjab, India. It discusses emerging solutions to agricultural w...
The overall aim of this book, an outcome of the European FP7 FET Open NESS project, is to contribute to the ongoing effort to put the quantitative social sciences on a proper footing for the 21st century. A key focus is economics, and its implications on policy making, where the still dominant traditional approach increasingly struggles to capture ...
Complexity science uses computation to explore the physical and social sciences. In Think Complexity, you'll use graphs, cellular automata, and agent-based models to study topics in physics, biology, and economics.
Whether you're an intermediate-level Python programmer or a student of computational modeling, you'll delve into exam...
If you know how to program, you have the skills to turn data into knowledge, using tools of probability and statistics. This concise introduction shows you how to perform statistical analysis computationally, rather than mathematically, with programs written in Python.
By working with a single case study throughout this thoroughly revised book, ...
This book provides a fresh, updated and science-based perspective on the current status and prospects of the diverse array of topics related to the potato, and was written by distinguished scientists with hands-on global experience in research aspects related to potato. The potato is the third most important global food crop in terms of consumption...
This book presents computer programming as a key method for solving mathematical problems. This second edition of the well-received book has been extensively revised: All code is now written in Python version 3.6 (no longer version 2.7). In addition, the two first chapters of the previous edition have been extended and split up into five new chapte...
This book offers both conceptual and empirical descriptions of how to "frame" sustainability challenges. It defines "framing" in the context of sustainability science as the process of identifying subjects, setting boundaries, and defining problems. The chapters are grouped into two sections: a conceptual section and a case sect...
This free book provides the most in-depth study of capital punishment in Scotland between the mid-eighteenth and early nineteenth century to date. Based upon an extensive gathering and analysis of previously untapped resources, it takes the reader on a journey from the courtrooms of Scotland to the theatre of the gallows. It introduces them to seve...
This free book analyses the interplay of sustainable development and human rights from different perspectives including fight against poverty, health, gender equality, working conditions, climate change and the role of private actors. Each aspect is addressed from a more human rights-focused angle and a development-policy angle. This allows compari...
This free book focuses on family diversity from a legal, demographical and sociological perspective. It investigates what is at stake in the life of homosexuals in the field of family formation, parenting and parenthood, what it brings to everyday life, the support of the law, and what its absence implies. The book shows the paths leading to the ad...
This open access edited collection explores obstacles that impede, and potential pathways toward improving, the material and psychological well-being of youth in and from West Africa. Contributors range from researchers to practitioners, offering a transatlantic, transcontinental set of perspectives on the mounting evidence that, whether they resid...
To understand how the world's ecosystems are changing we need to understand cities, and to create better cities we need to understand the ecosystems they depend on. The failure of most markets, government policies and even urban studies to take these relations into account has put cities, and increasingly the whole world, in a difficult positi...
This open access volume presents a comprehensive account of all aspects of biological invasions in South Africa, where research has been conducted over more than three decades, and where bold initiatives have been implemented in attempts to control invasions and to reduce their ecological, economic and social effects. It covers a broad range of the...
This book is the product of a collaborative effort involving partners from Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America who were funded by the International Development Research Centre Programme on Women and Migration (2006-2011). The International Institute of Social Studies at Erasmus University Rotterdam spearheaded a project intended to distill and r...
This free book explores key issues and presents recent case studies in areas of importance for the transition to a circular model of development in emerging African countries that will minimize resource consumption and waste production. The topics covered include the development of sustainable housing models, energy and environmental issues in buil...
This book takes an in-depth look at Louisiana as a state which is ahead of the curve in terms of extreme weather events, both in frequency and magnitude, and in its responses to these challenges including recovery and enhancement of resiliency.Louisiana faced a major tropical catastrophe in the 21st century, and experiences the fastest rising sea l...
This book explores the question of who or what 'the public' is within 'public health' in post-war Britain. Drawing on historical research on the place of the public in public health in Britain from the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948, the book presents a new perspective on the relationship between state and ...
This free book summarizes the latest scientific findings regarding the biological effects of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FNPP) accident in 2011.
Various cases of changes in animals and organisms have been reported since the FNPP accident. However, it is often unknown whether they are actually due to radiation, since the dose or dos...
This open access book is based on "Spationomy – Spatial Exploration of Economic Data", an interdisciplinary and international project in the frame of ERASMUS+ funded by the European Union. The project aims to exchange interdisciplinary knowledge in the fields of economics and geomatics. For the newly introduced courses, interdisciplinar...
This free book explores questions such as why and how did the first biological cells appear? And then complex organisms, brains, societies and –now– connected human societies? Physicists have good models for describing the evolution of the universe since the Big Bang, but can we apply the same concepts to the evolution of aggregated matter –l...
This book focuses on the origins, consequences and aftermath of the 1995 and 1999 Western military interventions that led to the end of the most recent Balkan wars. Though challenging problems remain in Bosnia, Macedonia, Kosovo, and Serbia, the conflict prevention and state-building efforts thereafter were partly successful as countries of the reg...