The Coastal Everglades

The Coastal Everglades
Author: Daniel L. Childers
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2019
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0190869003

Introduction -- The Everglades as icon -- Water, sustainability, and survival -- Ecosystem fragmentation and connectivity : legacies and future implications of a restored everglades -- The life of P : a biogeochemical and socio-political challenge in the Everglades -- Carbon cycles in the Florida coastal Everglades social-ecological system across scales -- Exogenous drivers : what has disturbance taught us? -- Back to the future : rebuilding the Everglades -- Re-imagining ecology through an Everglades lens.

An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change

An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change
Author: Richard R. Nelson
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 456
Release: 1985-10-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780674041431

This book contains the most sustained and serious attack on mainstream, neoclassical economics in more than forty years. Nelson and Winter focus their critique on the basic question of how firms and industries change overtime. They marshal significant objections to the fundamental neoclassical assumptions of profit maximization and market equilibrium, which they find ineffective in the analysis of technological innovation and the dynamics of competition among firms. To replace these assumptions, they borrow from biology the concept of natural selection to construct a precise and detailed evolutionary theory of business behavior. They grant that films are motivated by profit and engage in search for ways of improving profits, but they do not consider them to be profit maximizing. Likewise, they emphasize the tendency for the more profitable firms to drive the less profitable ones out of business, but they do not focus their analysis on hypothetical states of industry equilibrium. The results of their new paradigm and analytical framework are impressive. Not only have they been able to develop more coherent and powerful models of competitive firm dynamics under conditions of growth and technological change, but their approach is compatible with findings in psychology and other social sciences. Finally, their work has important implications for welfare economics and for government policy toward industry.

The Power of Change

The Power of Change
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2016-09-30
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309371422

Electricity, supplied reliably and affordably, is foundational to the U.S. economy and is utterly indispensable to modern society. However, emissions resulting from many forms of electricity generation create environmental risks that could have significant negative economic, security, and human health consequences. Large-scale installation of cleaner power generation has been generally hampered because greener technologies are more expensive than the technologies that currently produce most of our power. Rather than trade affordability and reliability for low emissions, is there a way to balance all three? The Power of Change: Innovation for Development and Deployment of Increasingly Clean Energy Technologies considers how to speed up innovations that would dramatically improve the performance and lower the cost of currently available technologies while also developing new advanced cleaner energy technologies. According to this report, there is an opportunity for the United States to continue to lead in the pursuit of increasingly clean, more efficient electricity through innovation in advanced technologies. The Power of Change: Innovation for Development and Deployment of Increasingly Clean Energy Technologies makes the case that America's advantagesâ€"world-class universities and national laboratories, a vibrant private sector, and innovative states, cities, and regions that are free to experiment with a variety of public policy approachesâ€"position the United States to create and lead a new clean energy revolution. This study focuses on five paths to accelerate the market adoption of increasing clean energy and efficiency technologies: (1) expanding the portfolio of cleaner energy technology options; (2) leveraging the advantages of energy efficiency; (3) facilitating the development of increasing clean technologies, including renewables, nuclear, and cleaner fossil; (4) improving the existing technologies, systems, and infrastructure; and (5) leveling the playing field for cleaner energy technologies. The Power of Change: Innovation for Development and Deployment of Increasingly Clean Energy Technologies is a call for leadership to transform the United States energy sector in order to both mitigate the risks of greenhouse gas and other pollutants and to spur future economic growth. This study's focus on science, technology, and economic policy makes it a valuable resource to guide support that produces innovation to meet energy challenges now and for the future.

World Development Report 2011

World Development Report 2011
Author: World Bank
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2011-05-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0821384406

The 2011 WDR on Conflict, Security and Development underlines the devastating impact of persistent conflict on a country or region's development prospects - noting that the 1.5 billion people living in conflict-affected areas are twice as likely to be in poverty. Its goal is to contribute concrete, practical suggestions on conflict and fragility.

Advances in Fingerprint Technology

Advances in Fingerprint Technology
Author: Ashim K. Datta
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 457
Release: 2001-06-15
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1420041347

Fingerprints constitute one of the most important categories of physical evidence, and it is among the few that can be truly individualized. During the last two decades, many new and exciting developments have taken place in the field of fingerprint science, particularly in the realm of methods for developing latent prints and in the growth of imag

Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing
Author: Rajkumar Buyya
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 607
Release: 2010-12-17
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1118002202

The primary purpose of this book is to capture the state-of-the-art in Cloud Computing technologies and applications. The book will also aim to identify potential research directions and technologies that will facilitate creation a global market-place of cloud computing services supporting scientific, industrial, business, and consumer applications. We expect the book to serve as a reference for larger audience such as systems architects, practitioners, developers, new researchers and graduate level students. This area of research is relatively recent, and as such has no existing reference book that addresses it. This book will be a timely contribution to a field that is gaining considerable research interest, momentum, and is expected to be of increasing interest to commercial developers. The book is targeted for professional computer science developers and graduate students especially at Masters level. As Cloud Computing is recognized as one of the top five emerging technologies that will have a major impact on the quality of science and society over the next 20 years, its knowledge will help position our readers at the forefront of the field.

The WEB of Transport Corridors in South Asia

The WEB of Transport Corridors in South Asia
Author: Asian Development Bank;JICA;UKAID;World Bank
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 403
Release: 2018-03-19
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1464812160

The WEB of Transport Corridors in South Asia develops a holistic appraisal methodology to ensure that economic benefits of investments in transport corridors are amplified and more widely spread, and possible negative impacts such as congestion, environmental degradation, and other unintended consequences are minimized. It focuses on South Asia—not only as one of the world’s most populous and poorest regions—but as a hinge between East Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. The book is aimed at politicians, technocrats, civil society organizations, and businesses. It presents case studies of past and recent corridor initiatives, provides rigorous analysis of the literature on the spatial impact of corridors, and offers assessments of corridor investment projects supported by international development organizations. A series of spotlights examines such issues as private sector co-investment; the impacts of corridors on small enterprises and women; and issues with implementing cross-border corridors. The 'WEB' in the title stands for both the wider economic benefits (WEB) that transport corridors are expected to generate and the complex web of transport corridors that has been proposed. The appraisal methodology introduced in this book shows how the web of interconnected elements around corridors can be disentangled and the most promising corridor proposals—the ones with the greatest wider economic benefits—can be selected.

Irrigation in Southern and Eastern Asia in Figures

Irrigation in Southern and Eastern Asia in Figures
Author: Karen Frenken
Publisher: Fao Inter-Departmental Working Group
Total Pages: 512
Release: 2012
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

The AQUASTAT Programme was initiated with a view to presenting a comprehensive picture of water resources and irrigation in the countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean and providing systematic, up-to-date and reliable information on water for agriculture and rural development. This report presents the results of the most recent survey carried out in the 22 countries of the Southern and Eastern Asia region, and it analyzes the changes that have occurred in the ten years since the first survey. Following the AQUASTAT methodology, the survey relied as much as possible on country-based statistics and information.

Veterans Health Care

Veterans Health Care
Author: U. s. Government Accountability Office
Publisher: CreateSpace
Total Pages: 42
Release: 2013-07-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781491007570

VHA's logistics program is responsible for the management of medical supplies and equipment in VAMCs' inventories and the standardization of such items throughout VHA. Previous reports have pointed to deficiencies in VHA's logistics program. GAO assessed (1) the extent to which VAMCs and networks have complied with new VHA requirements to remedy known deficiencies in its logistics program and (2) VHA's progress in enhancing its logistics program. GAO reviewed documents and interviewed officials to identify new requirements affecting VHA's logistics program. GAO then visited a nongeneralizable sample of five VAMCs and verified the extent to which the VAMCs and corresponding networks, which oversee VAMCs, were complying with VHA's new requirements. GAO also reviewed documentation of VHA's plans for funding, implementing, and evaluating efforts it is undertaking to enhance its logistics program, examined the extent to which VHA was on track to execute those plans, and assessed VHA's efforts against criteria in GAO's standards for internal control in the federal government. To address deficiencies in its logistics program, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) issued new requirements in 2011 regarding the management of medical supplies and equipment in Veterans Affairs medical centers' (VAMC) inventories, the standardization of these items, and the monitoring of VAMCs' logistics programs. These requirements, some of which apply to VAMCs and some of which apply to networks, are designed to improve veterans' safety and the cost-effective use of resources. GAO found that the five VAMCs GAO visited and their corresponding networks have partially complied with VHA's new requirements. Specifically, as of December 2012, none of the VAMCs GAO visited fully complied with all of VHA's new requirements for managing inventories; one VAMC GAO visited and two networks fully complied with VHA's new standardization requirements, and the remaining four VAMCs and three networks partially complied; and four of the five VAMCs GAO visited and three of the five corresponding networks fully complied with the new monitoring requirements. Because VAMCs GAO visited and the associated networks have only partially complied with these requirements, potential risks to patient safety and the inefficient use of resources remain. In addition to the new VAMC and network requirements, VHA has other efforts underway that—according to officials—will further improve the management and tracking of medical supplies and equipment in VAMC inventories and the standardization of such items across VHA. However, there are substantive uncertainties relating to implementation, funding, and operational issues that may impede their success, if not appropriately addressed. Specifically: VHA is piloting a new inventory management system that is intended to replace VHA's existing systems for managing medical supply and equipment inventories. However, VHA has not fully funded the pilot, staffing resources to implement it at VAMCs are limited, and VHA has yet to resolve technical issues to ensure that this new system can interface with legacy systems. Furthermore, VHA has yet to develop criteria and collect corresponding data to evaluate the performance of the pilot. VHA is also implementing a system for electronically tracking the location of certain medical supplies and equipment in VAMCs. However, there are uncertainties with respect to interoperability issues with other inventory management systems and resources to implement the system. Lastly, VHA is establishing a program executive office that will provide logistics support and manage the standardization of medical supplies and equipment VHA-wide. However, the office has not been fully staffed and uncertainty exists about its continued implementation, because VHA's efforts to hire additional staff are on hold pending its evaluation of the effectiveness of this office. GAO-13-336