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Books in Information and uncertainty

  • Digital Asset Valuation and Cyber Risk Measurement

    Principles of Cybernomics
    • 1st Edition
    • May 29, 2019
    • Keyun Ruan
    • English
    Digital Asset Valuation and Cyber Risk Measurement: Principles of Cybernomics is a book about the future of risk and the future of value. It examines the indispensable role of economic modeling in the future of digitization, thus providing industry professionals with the tools they need to optimize the management of financial risks associated with this megatrend. The book addresses three problem areas: the valuation of digital assets, measurement of risk exposures of digital valuables, and economic modeling for the management of such risks. Employing a pair of novel cyber risk measurement units, bitmort and hekla, the book covers areas of value, risk, control, and return, each of which are viewed from the perspective of entity (e.g., individual, organization, business), portfolio (e.g., industry sector, nation-state), and global ramifications. Establishing adequate, holistic, and statistically robust data points on the entity, portfolio, and global levels for the development of a cybernomics databank is essential for the resilience of our shared digital future. This book also argues existing economic value theories no longer apply to the digital era due to the unique characteristics of digital assets. It introduces six laws of digital theory of value, with the aim to adapt economic value theories to the digital and machine era.
  • Health Care and Environmental Contamination

    • 1st Edition
    • February 10, 2018
    • English
    Health Care and Environmental Contamination provides a comprehensive explanation of new and evolving topics in the field, including discussions on emissions from pharmaceutical manufacturing, disposal of medical wastes, inputs from sewerage systems, effects on aquatic organisms and wildlife, indirect effects on human health, antibiotic resistance, stewardship, and treatment. These important issues affect the natural environment, making this first book on the topic a must have for comprehensive, broad, and up-to-date coverage of these issues.
  • Subsistence and Survival

    Rural Ecology in the Pacific
    • 1st Edition
    • January 26, 2016
    • Timothy P. Bayliss-Smith
    • English
    Subsistence and Survival: Rural Ecology in the Pacific covers the ecology of man's environment, man's use and perception of biological resources, and the physiology and health of the human organism itself. The geographical range of this text extends from the glaciated uplands of Papua New Guinea, through the montane forests and grasslands of the Highlands, into the coastal jungles, and across to the smaller islands and atolls of the South West Pacific. This book is organized into five parts encompassing 14 chapters. The first part deals with the theory and applications of human ecology. The next part considers first the International Biological Program in New Guinea concerning the link between human ecology and biomedical research. This part also explores the nutritional adaptation among the Enga and in Melanesia, and then introduces the principles of environmental health engineering as human ecology. The subsequent two parts highlight the impact of human activities on the environment, with an emphasis on the association between environmental exploitation and human subsistence. The final part discusses the relevance of self-subsistence communities for world ecosystem management. This book will be of great value to anthropologists, geographers, human biologists, nutritionists, botanists, and public health engineers.
  • Science of Mind

    The Quest for Psychological Reality
    • 1st Edition
    • January 26, 2016
    • Bozzano G Luisa
    • English
    This book explains the social factors that shape the nature of theory and research traditions in psychology. It presents a broad treatment of the construction of theory and knowledge in science and philosophy with particular emphasis on psychological thinking. Du Preez, emphasizing the "evolution of knowledge," discusses theory and research across behaviorism, psychoanalysis, phenomenology, cognitive psychology, and many other psychological areas, placing them in their socio-philosophical contexts.
  • Global Mobility of Research Scientists

    The Economics of Who Goes Where and Why
    • 1st Edition
    • August 3, 2015
    • Aldo Geuna
    • English
    Global Mobility of Research Scientists: The Economics of Who Goes Where and Why brings together information on how the localization and mobility of academic researchers contributes to the production of knowledge. The text answers several questions, including "what characterizes nationally and internationally mobile researchers?" and "what are the individual and social implications of increased mobility of research scientists?" Eight independent, but coordinated chapters address these and other questions, drawing on a set of newly developed databases covering 30 countries, including the US, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and China, among others.
  • Fracture Mechanics of Rock

    • 1st Edition
    • May 11, 2015
    • Barry Kean Atkinson
    • English
    The analysis of crack problems through fracture mechanics has been applied to the study of materials such as glass, metals and ceramics because relatively simple fracture criteria describe the failure of these materials. The increased attention paid to experimental rock fracture mechanics has led to major contributions to the solving of geophysical problems.The text presents a concise treatment of the physics and mathematics of a representative selection of problems from areas such as earthquake mechanics and prediction, hydraulic fracturing, hot dry rock geothermal energy, fault mechanics, and dynamic fragmentation.
  • The Economics of Screening and Risk Sharing in Higher Education

    Human Capital Formation, Income Inequality, and Welfare
    • 1st Edition
    • April 21, 2015
    • Bernhard Eckwert + 1 more
    • English
    The Economics of Screening and Risk Sharing in Higher Education explores advances in information technologies and in statistical and social sciences that have significantly improved the reliability of techniques for screening large populations. These advances are important for higher education worldwide because they affect many of the mechanisms commonly used for rationing the available supply of educational services. Using a single framework to study several independent questions, the authors provide a comprehensive theory in an empirically-driven field. Their answers to questions about funding structures for investments in higher education, students’ attitudes towards risk, and the availability of arrangements for sharing individual talent risks are important for understanding the theoretical underpinnings of information and uncertainty on human capital formation.
  • Adaptive Responses of Native Amazonians

    • 1st Edition
    • June 28, 2014
    • Raymond B. Hames
    • English
    Adaptive Responses of Native Amazonians investigates the adaptive responses of the aborigines of Amazonia from the ecological perspective within anthropology. The discussions are organized around the major modes of Amazonian subsistence (cultivation, hunting and fishing), nutrition, and settlement pattern. Comprised of 15 chapters, this volume begins with an overview of Amazonian ecosystems, citing environmental models of Amazonian adaptive behavior and sociocultural evolution as well as the problematic definition or measure of the concept of adaptation. The reader is then introduced to shifting cultivation among the Machiguenga, Native American inhabitants of the tropical rainforest of the Upper Amazon, and the Kuikuru, one of three Carib-speaking villages located at the headwaters of the Xingú River. Subsequent chapters focus on the adaptive strategies of the Wakuénai people to the oligotrophic rainforest of the Rio Negro Basin; neotropical hunting among the Aché of Eastern Paraguay; trekking by the Mekranoti-Kayapó Indians of Central Brazil in lowland South America; and fishing patterns among the Cocamilla Indians of Achual Tipishca in the Huallaga River Basin in northeastern Peru. The book also considers nutrition and settlement patterns among native Amazonians. This monograph will be a useful resource for anthropologists, scholars, specialists, and others who are interested in the general fields of human ecology, South American ethnology, and tropical studies.
  • Computational Vision

    • 1st Edition
    • June 28, 2014
    • Harry Wechsler
    • English
    The book is suitable for advanced courses in computer vision and image processing. In addition to providing an overall view of computational vision, it contains extensive material on topics that are not usually covered in computer vision texts (including parallel distributed processing and neural networks) and considers many real applications.
  • Maya Subsistence

    Studies in Memory of Dennis E. Puleston
    • 1st Edition
    • June 28, 2014
    • Kent V. Flannery
    • English
    Maya Subsistence: Studies in Memory of Dennis E. Puleston presents studies on the history and development of Maya subsistence in honor of Maya archaeologist Dennis E. Puleston (1940-1978). The discussions are organized around four themes: ecological models for early Maya adaptations; archaeological investigations of Pre-classic and classic Maya subsistence; contributions of geography and soil science to an understanding of ancient Maya subsistence; and Maya subsistence in the post-classic, colonial, and modern eras. Comprised of 15 chapters, this book begins with an analysis of Puleston's career and a review of the history of inquiry into Maya subsistence. Maya subsistence from the earliest Pre-classic period up to the present day is then examined, with emphasis on agriculture, hunting, wild plant collecting, animal husbandry, and trade. In particular, cultural development in the Valley of Guatemala from 1500 B.C. to the Spanish Conquest is discussed, along with the resources of the tropical lowlands and actual prehistoric cornfields miraculously preserved by volcanic ashfall in El Salvador. The book also presents evidence for Maya soil and water conservation over the entire area from Yucatan to Chiapas and central Guatemala, and looks at the traditional role of women and animals in lowland Maya economy. This monograph will be of interest to archaeologists and anthropologists.