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Elsevier

Books in Agricultural and biological sciences

The Agricultural and Biological Sciences collection advances science-based knowledge for the improvement of animal and plant life and for secure food systems that produce nutritious, novel, sustainable foods with minimal environmental impact. Food Science titles include not only those products from agriculture but all other aspects from food production to nutrition, health and safety, chemistry to security, policy, law and regulation. Biological Sciences address animal behaviour and biodiversity, organismal and evolutionary biology, entomology, marine biology and aquaculture, plant science and forestry.

  • Windbreak Technology

    • 1st Edition
    • J.R. Brandle + 2 more
    • English
    This book contains a selection of papers presented at the first International Symposium on Windbreak Technology, summarising the available worldwide literature on windbreaks and the response, both positive and negative, to wind protection. State-of-the-art information is presented on general design criteria, and principles of planting and establishment for a wide range of conditions and objectives. It provides descriptive information of tree and shrub species for arid, semi-arid, temperate and tropical areas, and their use in windbreaks.

  • Pesticide Management and Insecticide Resistance

    • 1st Edition
    • David Watson
    • English
    Pesticide Management and Insecticide Resistance explores the problem of insect resistance to pesticides and reviews various approaches to pesticide management and safety. It looks at the environmental hazards of pesticide residues and their regulation, along with application techniques aimed at maximum efficiency against the pest and minimum waste to pollution, safety considerations in the development of pest control programs, and pesticide monitoring. Divided into eight parts encompassing 49 chapters, this volume begins with an overview of the global pesticide industry and the costs of commercializing pesticides relative to their profit potential. It then introduces the reader to the release of fluorohydrocarbon propellants in pesticidal aerosols and their hazards to the ozone layer, management of pests in urban environments, international plant protection, the current status of DDT, the importance of training pest-control personnel, and procedures of forest spraying. Other chapters focus on pesticide management safety from a medical perspective; pesticide safety as it relates to the manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution of pesticides; importance of pesticide application equipment and related field practices in developing countries; and the importance of pesticides in successful pest management programs. This book is a valuable resource for scientists, students, researchers, and policymakers who want to ensure the safety of consumers, applicators, and harvesters when using pesticides.

  • Mutagenic Effects of Environmental Contaminants

    • 1st Edition
    • H.E. Sutton
    • English
    Mutagenic Effects of Environmental Contaminants investigates the mutagenic consequences of environmental contaminants, such as pesticides, industrials, food additives, drugs, and biologicals, as well as the possible relationships between mutagenesis and carcinogenesis. It describes the monitoring of chemical mutagens in the environment and the ways that genetic mutations cause disease in humans. Organized into 14 chapters, this volume begins with an overview of the current burden of human genetic disease and the biochemical mechanisms of mutation. It then discusses practical and feasible methods that use a variety of organisms to screen potential mutagenic agents, increased mutation rates in human populations, mutagens that are currently used commercially, and the interrelationships between mutagenicity, carcinogenicity, and teratogenicity. The reader is also introduced to genetic toxicology, detection of chemically induced mutations in experimental animals, and chromosome and somatic mutations in humans. This book is a valuable resource for scientists, policymakers, and administrators of environmental programs.

  • A Territorial Antelope: The Uganda Waterbuck

    • 1st Edition
    • C Spinage
    • English
    A Territorial Antelope: The Uganda Waterbuck discusses anatomical, physiological, and behavioral organization from birth to death of waterbuck. Comprised of 12 chapters, the book focuses on the function and cause of the waterbuck’s territorial behavior. After an introduction to the classification, distribution, and origins of waterbuck, the book discusses the topography, geology, vegetation, fauna, and methods of evaluation of this species. The following chapters focus on the biological aspects of waterbuck, including its growth and senescence; reproduction and reproductive behavior; and parturition and maternal behavior. The book also deals with the role of food supply and habitat preference in population density and survival of waterbuck. Discussions on the activity rhythm, movement, reaction to predators, and relationships with other species of waterbuck are also included. The concluding chapters describe the diverse and complex social organization of this animal. These chapters also cover the territorial concepts and function, territorial boundaries, and repression of aggression behavior of waterbuck. This book is an invaluable source for biologists, researchers, teachers, and students who wish to gain insights on the mechanisms of territorial behavior.

  • Internal Anatomy and Physiological Regulation

    • 1st Edition
    • Linda Mantel
    • English
    The Biology of Crustacea, Volume 5: Internal Anatomy and Physiological Regulation is an eight-chapter book that begins with a discussion on the internal anatomy of Crustacea with emphasis on its major organ systems. This volume provides information on the regulation of the composition of hemolymph and provision of energy to tissues. Some chapters deal with the exchange and transport of gases, particularly, on ventilation, perfusion, and oxygen transport. Because this book contains vast background information and perspective on the subject matter, it will be a valuable source for zoologists, paleontologists, ecologists, physiologists, endocrinologists, morphologists, pathologists, and marine biologists. It will be an essential reference work for institutional libraries as well.

  • Subjective Equilibrium Theory of the Farm Household

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 3
    • C. Nakajima
    • English
    It is obvious that most of the agricultural production in the world is under the control of farm households (or family farms). This book aims to translate the characteristics of the farm household as an economic entity, into an economic theory. The book was originally written in Japanese, but various modifications have been made and new information added to the English version. The author defines the farm household as an economic entity which is a complex of the farm firm, the labourer's household and the consumer's household, and whose behavioural principle is utility maximization. The main purpose of the book is to construct a theoretical model of the decision-making behaviour of the farm household. For this purpose the method of subjective equilibrium analysis, which was used by J.R. Hicks for the consumer's household and the firm in Value and Capital, has been applied to the farm household. The major motif of the book may therefore be called ``Hicksian motif''. In analyzing the subjective equilibrium of the farm household, this book extends the Marshallian concepts of consumer's surplus and producer's surplus, by developing the three new concepts of labourer's surplus, self-employed producer's surplus and consumer's surplus. The analyses using the five concepts of economic surplus are the minor motif of the present book, which the author calls ``Marshallian motif''.Another important characteristic of this book lies in the presentation of newly developed theories of land rent. The author has tried to integrate the theory of leasehold tenancy (i.e. fixed rent tenancy) and that of share tenancy with subjective equilibrium theory of the farm household. In his foreword, John W. Longworth of the International Association of Agricultural Economists says ``From time-to-time an academic treatise appears which is truly different. This is one such book. It presents a self-contained normative theory of the farm household which is much more than just an elegant development of Hicksian and Marshallian ideas. Professor Nakajima introduces new concepts and develops a simple model of the farm household. He then extends this model in various ways to examine the subjective equilibrium of farm households under a wide range of economic circumstances. The exposition is clear and logic with each step in the argument explained in detail using both rigorous mathematical notation and easy to follow diagrams... With this book Nakajima is making his Life's Work available to non-Japanese Agricultural Economists. The international profession of Agricultural Economics will be richer for it.''

  • Seed Dispersal

    • 1st Edition
    • David R. Murray
    • English
    Seed Dispersal focuses on the mechanics and processes involved in seed dispersal, including its implications in ecology, animal behavior, plant and animal biogeography, speciation, and evolution. The selection first elaborates on the aerial motion of seeds, fruits, spores, and pollen and seed dispersal by water. Discussions focus on seed dispersal by rain, river, and flood, effective seed dispersal by ocean currents compared to other vectors, aerodynamic forces and their effects, and launching and release mechanisms. The text then takes a look at seed dispersal syndromes in Australian Acacia, including inference of dispersal syndromes, seed dispersal syndromes, ecological consequences of seed dispersal, and evolutionary derivation of dispersal syndromes. The publication ponders on seed dispersal by fruit-eating birds and mammals, rodents as seed consumers and dispersers, and seed dispersal in relation to fire. Topics include fire as a dispersal vector, long distance dispersal, granivorous rodents and the fates of seeds, determinants of the fate path, population ecology of seed dispersal, and foraging for fruits. The selection is a valuable reference for researchers interested in the factors involved in seed dispersal.

  • A New Look at Mechanisms In Bioenergetics

    • 1st Edition
    • Efraim Racker
    • English
    A New Look at Mechanisms in Bioenergetics features eight lectures based on the Robbins Lectures given at Pomona College in April 1973. These lectures are based mainly on the author's own laboratory work and are intended for students of biology and biochemistry who want to devote their lives to research. Lecture 1 presents some of the general lessons learned from research in the field of bioenergetics. It also discusses methods for measuring oxidative phosphorylation and the resolution of soluble multienzyme systems. Lecture 2 explains the biochemical approach to the problem of photophosphorylation... Lecture 3 considers the intersection of oxidative phosphorylation and membranology. Lecture 4 discusses the coupling device and its partial reactions. Lecture 5 focuses on the oxidation chain in mitochondria. Lecture 6 discusses the resolution and reconstitution of oxidative phosphorylation. Lecture 7 examines the reconstitution of ion pumps. Finally, Lecture 8 covers oxidation control in glycolysis; the high aerobic glycolysis of tumor cells; ATPases in tumor cells; and the repair of ion pumps in tumor cells.

  • Principles of Biological Regulation

    An Introduction to Feedback Systems
    • 1st Edition
    • Richard Jones
    • English
    Principles of Biological Regulation: An Introduction to Feedback Systems presents some understanding of control, regulatory, and feedback mechanisms in biological systems. This book discusses concepts related to the dynamic behavior of both individual biological processes and systems of processes that make up an organism. Comprised of 10 chapters, the book also describes the characteristics of biological feedback systems, focusing on the physical concepts. After briefly dealing with involved regulatory processes in biological systems, the book goes on discussing the flow or transport of material through a series of processes in the steady-state. Next chapter uses superposition principle to explain the changes that biological systems undergo following a disturbance or under dynamic behavior. The subsequent chapters cover the fundamental principles of negative biological feedback and to the effects it produces both under steady-state and dynamic behavior. Other chapters describe the effect of sinusoid signals on biological processes and present some stability criteria applied to technological systems and also their value in the study of homeostatic processes. The book also discusses some aspects of homeostats that seem to distinguish them from technological feedback systems. These features include not only the components themselves and their organization, but also the experimental problems involved in their study. The concluding chapters describe nonlinear behavior with great relevance to homeostatic systems and rate processes (production or destruction) for which the roles of stimulus and initial conditions are different. Mathematical relations developed from the conservation of mass and the mass action for chemical reactions are also presented. The book is an invaluable resource for life scientists and researchers.

  • mechanistic studies of DNA replication and genetic recombination

    • 1st Edition
    • Bruce Alberts
    • English
    Mechanistic Studies of DNA Replication and Genetic Recombination emerged from a symposium on DNA replication and genetic recombination held from March 16-21, 1980 in Keystone, Colorado. The event featured 30 plenary session talks, 13 workshop discussion groups, and the 210 poster sessions. The studies described in this book are paving the way for the elucidation of other basic genetic mechanisms, including ""new"" areas in molecular genetics such as those of eukaryotic gene expression and the transposition of mobile genetic elements. This book is divided into 10 parts: summaries of workshop discussion groups (Part I); studies on eukaryotic model systems for DNA replication (Part II); studies on bacterial replication origins (Part III); studies on replication origins of bacterial phages and plasmids (Part IV); studies on eukaryotic replication origins (Part V); studies on prokaryotic replication enzymology (Part VI); studies on eukaryotic replication enzymology (Part VII); studies on the fidelity of DNA replication (Part VIII); studies on DNA topoisomerases (Part IX); and studies of genetic recombination mechanisms (Part X).

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