ALBERT

Description / Table of Contents: We have long moved on from a mere information age to the era of big data. Here, databases represent both the enormous potential for gaining knowledge of data collection and the alarming information excesses of digital culture. Furthermore, the term refers to concrete technologies and processes of gathering and accessing digital information. Media theory has to locate databases in between these very different conceptions. Marcus Burkhardt retraces the history of databases and asks how technical procedures of processing digital information determine what can be found how in databases and what knowledge can be gained through them. | Wir leben längst nicht mehr nur im Informationszeitalter, sondern in der Ära von Big Data. In dieser steht die Datenbank gleichzeitig für die riesigen Erkenntnispotenziale von Informationssammlungen wie für die bedrohlichen Informationsexzesse der digitalen Medienkultur. Zudem bezeichnet der Begriff konkrete Technologien und Verfahren der Sammlung und Bereitstellung von digitalen Informationen. Zwischen diesen sehr unterschiedlichen Auffassungen gilt es, Datenbanken medientheoretisch zu verorten. Marcus Burkhardt zeichnet die Geschichte der Datenbanken nach und fragt, wie technische Verfahren der Verwaltung digitaler Informationen bedingen, was auf welche Weise in Datenbanken gefunden und durch sie gewusst werden kann.

Description / Table of Contents: In the last several years, much has been written about growing economic challenges, increasing income inequality, and political polarization in the United States. Addressing these new realities in America’s metropolitan regions, this book argues that a few lessons are emerging: first, inequity is bad for economic growth; second, bringing together the concerns of equity and growth requires concerted local action; and third, the fundamental building block for doing this is the creation of diverse and dynamic epistemic (or knowledge) communities, which help to overcome political polarization and to address the challenges of economic restructuring and social divides.

Description / Table of Contents: The Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project: Phase I Activities by a Global Community of Science (Cynthia Rosenzweig, James W Jones, Jerry L Hatfield, John M Antle, Alexander C Ruane, and Carolyn Z Mutter) --- AgMIP's Transdisciplinary Agricultural Systems Approach to Regional Integrated Assessment of Climate Impacts, Vulnerability, and Adaptation (John M Antle, Roberto O Valdivia, Kenneth J Boote, Sander Janssen, James W Jones, Cheryl H Porter, Cynthia Rosenzweig, Alexander C Ruane, and Peter J Thorburn) --- AgMIP Climate Data and Scenarios for Integrated Assessment (Alexander C Ruane, Jonathan M Winter, Sonali P McDermid, and Nicholas I Hudson) --- Cropping Systems Modeling in AgMIP: A New Protocol-Driven Approach for Regional Integrated Assessments (Peter J Thorburn, Kenneth J Boote, John N G Hargreaves, Perry L Poulton, and James W Jones) --- Representative Agricultural Pathways and Scenarios for Regional Integrated Assessment of Climate Change Impacts, Vulnerability, and Adaptation (Roberto O Valdivia, John M Antle, Cynthia Rosenzweig, Alexander C Ruane, Joost Vervoort, Muhammad Ashfaq, Ibrahima Hathie, Sabine Homann-Kee Tui, Richard Mulwa, Charles Nhemachena, Paramasivam Ponnusamy, Herath Rasnayaka, and Harbir Singh) --- Data Interoperability Tools for Regional Integrated Assessments (Cheryl H Porter, Chris Villalobos, Dean Holzworth, Roger Nelson, Jefffrey W White, Ioannis N Athanasiadis, Meng Zhang, Sander Janssen, Rob Knapen, James W Jones, Kenneth J Boote, John Hargreaves, and John M Antle) --- The AgMIP GRIDded Crop Modeling Initiative (AgGRID) and the Global Gridded Crop Model Intercomparison (GGCMI) (Joshua Elliott and Christoph Müller) --- The AgMIP Coordinated Climate-Crop Modeling Project (C3MP): Methods and Protocols (Sonali P McDermid, Alexander C Ruane, Cynthia Rosenzweig, Nicholas I Hudson, Monica D Morales, Prabodha Agalawatte, Shakeel Ahmad, L R Ahuja, Istiqlal Amien, Saseendran S Anapalli, Jakarat Anothai, Senthold Asseng, Jody Biggs, Federico Bert, Patrick Bertuzzi, Virender S Bhatia, Marco Bindi, Ian Broad, Davide Cammarano, Ramiro Carretero, Ashfaq Ahmad Chattha, Uran Chung, Stephanie Debats, Paola Deligios, Giacomo De Sanctis, Thanda Dhliwayo, Benjamin Dumont, Lyndon Estes, Frank Ewert, Roberto Ferrise, Thomas Gaiser, Guillermo Garcia, Sika Gbegbelegbe, Vellingiri Geethalakshmi, Edward Gerardeaux, Richard Goldberg, Brian Grant, Edgardo Guevara, Jonathan Hickman, Holger Hoffmann, Huanping Huang, Jamshad Hussain, Flavio Barbosa Justino, Asha S Karunaratne, Ann-Kristin Koehler, Patrice K Kouakou, Soora Naresh Kumar, Arunachalam Lakshmanan, Mark Lieffering, Xiaomao Lin, Qunying Luo, Graciela Magrin, Marco Mancini, Fabio Ricardo Marin, Anna Dalla Marta, Yuji Masutomi, Theodoros Mavromatis, Greg McLean, Santiago Meira, Monoranjan Mohanty, Marco Moriondo, Wajid Nasim, Lamyaa Negm, Francesca Orlando, Simone Orlandini, Isik Ozturk, Helena Maria Soares Pinto, Guillermo Podesta, Zhiming Qi, Johanna Ramarohetra, Muhammad Habib ur Rahman, Helene Raynal, Gabriel Rodriguez, Reimund Rötter, Vaishali Sharda, Lu Shuo, Ward Smith, Val Snow, Afshin Soltani, K Srinivas, Benjamin Sultan, Dillip Kumar Swain, Fulu Tao, Kindie Tesfaye, Maria I Travasso, Giacomo Trombi, Alex Topaj, Eline Vanuytrecht, Federico E Viscarra, Syed Aftab Wajid, Enli Wang, Hong Wang, Jing Wang, Erandika Wijekoon, Lee Byun-Woo, Yang Xiaoguang, Ban Ho Young, Jin I Yun, Zhigan Zhao, and Lareef Zubair) --- Uncertainty in Agricultural Impact Assessment (Daniel Wallach, Linda O Mearns, Michael Rivington, John M Antle, and Alexander C Ruane) --- Uncertainties in Scaling-Up Crop Models for Large-Area Climate Change Impact Assessments (Frank Ewert, Lenny G J van Bussel, Gang Zhao, Holger Hoffmann, Thomas Gaiser, Xenia Specka, Claas Nendel, Kurt-Christian Kersebaum, Carmen Sosa, Elisabet Lewan, Jagadeesh Yeluripati, Matthias Kuhnert, Fulu Tao, Reimund Rötter, Julie Constantin, Helene Raynal, Daniel Wallach, Edmar Teixeira, Balasz Grosz, Michaela Bach, Luca Doro, Pier Paolo Roggero, Zhigan Zhao, Enli Wang, Ralf Kiese, Edwin Haas, Henrik Eckersten, Giacomo Trombi, Marco Bindi, Christian Klein, Christian Biernath, Florian Heinlein, Eckart Priesack, Davide Cammarano, Senthold Asseng, Joshua Elliott, Michael Glotter, Bruno Basso, Guillermo A Baigorria, Consuelo C Romero, and Marco Moriondo) --- Statistical Analysis of Large Simulated Yield Datasets for Studying Climate Change Effects (David Makowski, Senthold Asseng, Frank Ewert, Simona Bassu, Jean-Louis Durand, Pierre Martre, Myriam Adam, Pramod K Aggarwal, Carlos Angulo, Christian Baron, Bruno Basso, Patrick Bertuzzi, Christian Biernath, Hendrik Boogaard, Kenneth J Boote, Nadine Brisson, Davide Cammarano, Andrew J Challinor, Sjakk J G Conijn, Marc Corbeels, Delphine Deryng, Giacomo De Sanctis, Jordi Doltra, Sebastian Gayler, Richard Goldberg, Patricio Grassini, Jerry L Hatfield, Lee Heng, Steven Hoek, Josh Hooker, Tony L A Hunt, Joachim Ingwersen, Cesar Izaurralde, Raymond E E Jongschaap, James W Jones, Armen R Kemanian, Christian Kersebaum, Soo-Hyung Kim, Jon Lizaso, Christoph Müller, Naresh S Kumar, Claas Nendel, Garry J O'Leary, Jorgen E Olesen, Tom M Osborne, Taru Palosuo, Maria V Pravia, Eckart Priesack, Dominique Ripoche, Cynthia Rosenzweig, Alexander C Ruane, Fredirico Sau, Mickhail A Semenov, Iurii Shcherbak, Pasquale Steduto, Claudio Stöckle, Pierre Stratonovitch, Thilo Streck, Iwan Supit, Fulu Tao, Edmar I Teixeira, Peter Thorburn, Denis Timlin, Maria Travasso, Reimund Rötter, Katharina Waha, Daniel Wallach, Jeffrey W White, Jimmy R Williams, and Joost Wolf) --- Crop Diseases and Climate Change in the AgMIP Framework (Ariena H C van Bruggen, James W Jones, Jose Mauricio C Fernandes, Karen Garrett, and Kenneth J Boote) --- Perspectives on Climate Effects on Agriculture: The International Efforts of AgMIP in Sub-Saharan Africa (Job Kihara, Dilys S MacCarthy, Andre Bationo, Saidou Koala, Jonathan Hickman, Jawoo Koo, Charles Vanya, Samuel Adiku, Yacob Beletse, Patricia Masikate, Karuturi P C Rao, Carolyn Z Mutter, Cynthia Rosenzweig, and James W Jones) --- Climate Change Impacts on West African Agriculture: An Integrated Regional Assessment (CIWARA) (Samuel G K Adiku, Dilys S MacCarthy, Ibrahima Hathie, Madina Diancoumba, Bright S Freduah, Joseph Amikuzuno, P C Sibiry Traore, Seydou Traore, Eric Koomson, Alhassane Agali, Jon I Lizaso, Dougbedji Fatondji, Myriam Adams, Lodoun Tigana, Daouda Z Diarra, Ousmane N'diaye, and Roberto O Valdivia) --- Impacts of Climate Variability and Change on Agricultural Systems in East Africa (Karuturi P C Rao, Gummadi Sridhar, Richard M Mulwa, Mary N Kilavi, Anthony Esilaba, Ioannis N Athanasiadis, and Roberto O Valdivia) --- Projected Impacts of Climate Change Scenarios on the Production of Maize in Southern Africa: An Integrated Assessment Case Study of the Bethlehem District, Central Free State, South Africa (Yacob G Beletse, Wiltrud Durand, Charles Nhemachena, Olivier Crespo, Weldemichael A Tesfuhuney, Matthew R Jones, Mogos Y Teweldemedhin, Sunshine M Gamedze, Pontsho M Bonolo, Syanda Jonas, SueWalker, Patrick Gwimbi, Thembeka N Mpuisang, Davide Cammarano, and Roberto O Valdivia) --- Crop-Livestock Intensification in the Face of Climate Change: Exploring Opportunities to Reduce Risk and Increase Resilience in Southern Africa by Using an Integrated Multi-modeling Approach (Patricia Masikati, Sabine Homann-Kee Tui, Katrien Descheemaeker, Olivier Crespo, Sue Walker, Christopher J Lennard, Lieven Claessens, Arthur C Gama, Sebastiao Famba, Andre F van Rooyen, and Roberto O Valdivia) --- Integrated Assessments of the Impacts of Climate Change on Agriculture: An Overview of AgMIP Regional Research in South Asia (Sonali P McDermid, Guntuku Dileepkumar, K M Dakshina Murthy, S Nedumaran, Piara Singh, Chukka Srinivasa, B Gangwar, N Subash, Ashfaq Ahmad, Lareef Zubair, and S P Nissanka) --- Impact of Climate Change on the Rice–Wheat Cropping System of Pakistan (Ashfaq Ahmad, Muhammad Ashfaq, Ghulam Rasul, Syed Aftab Wajid, Tasneem Khaliq, Fahd Rasul, Umer Saeed, Muhammad Habib ur Rahman, Jamshad Hussain, Irfan Ahmad Baig, Syed Asif Ali Naqvi, Syed Ahsan Ali Bokhari, Shakeel Ahmad, Wajid Naseem, Gerrit Hoogenboom, and Roberto O Valdivia) --- Integrated Climate Change Assessment through Linking Crop Simulation with Economic Modeling — Results from the Indo-Gangetic Basin (Nataraja Subash, Babooji Gangwar, Harbir Singh, Guillermo Baigorria, Alok Kumar Sikka, and Roberto O Valdivia) --- Integrated Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on Maize Farms and Farm Household Incomes in South India: A Case Study from Tamil Nadu (Paramasivam Ponnusamy, Geethalakshmi Vellingiri, Raji Reddy Danda, Lakshmanan Arunachalam, Dakshina Murthy, Sunandini Prema, Sreenivas Gade, Sonali P McDermid, and Roberto O Valdivia) --- Climate Change Impacts on Rice Farming Systems in Northwestern Sri Lanka (Lareef Zubair, Sarath P Nissanka, W M W Weerakoon, Dumindu I Herath, Asha S Karunaratne, A S M Prabodha, M B Agalawatte, Rasnayaka M Herath, S Zeenas Yahiya, B V R Punyawardene, Janan Vishwanathan, Punya Delpitiya, A Erandika N Wijekoon, Janaka Gunaratna, Sewwandhi S K Chandrasekara, P Wickramagamage, K D N Weerasinghe, Champa M Navaratne, Ruchika S Perera, Asela I Gunesekara, G M Pradeep Kumara, Daniel Wallach, Roberto O Valdivia, and Sonali P McDermid) --- AgMIP Regional Activities in a Global Framework: The Brazil Experience (Eduardo D Assad, Fábio R Marin, Roberto O Valdivia, and Cynthia Rosenzweig) --- AgMIP Regional Activities in a Global Framework: The China Experience (Fulu Tao and Erda Lin) --- AgMIP Training in Multiple Crop Models and Tools (Kenneth J Boote, Cheryl H Porter, John Hargreaves, Gerrit Hoogenboom, Peter Thorburn, and Carolyn Mutter) --- Major Findings and Future Activities (Cynthia Rosenzweig and Daniel Hillel)

Description / Table of Contents: Humanity’s ability to produce enough food is mostly due to adoption of new methods and technologies by the agricultural industries as they became available. New information, communication and high speed processing and precision agriculture technologies have the potential to transform the agricultural industry. These technologies incorporate radio-frequency and microwave radiation into their systems. This book presents an overview of how these technologies are being used in agricultural systems. The main purpose of the book is to provide a glimpse of what is possible and encourage practitioners in the engineering and agricultural industries to explore how radio-frequency and microwave systems might further enhance the agricultural industry. The authors have extensive experience in agricultural and microwave engineering, instrumentation and communication systems.

Description / Table of Contents: This edited book, Toxicity and Hazard of Agrochemicals, is intended to provide an overview of toxicology that examines the hazardous effects of common agrochemicals employed every day in our agricultural practices. Furthermore, it is hoped that the information in the present book will be of value to those directly engaged in the handling and use of agrochemicals and that this book will continue to meet the expectations and needs of all interested in the different aspects of human and environmental risk toxicities.

Description / Table of Contents: Issue Mapping for an Ageing Europe is a seminal guide to mapping social and political issues with digital methods. The issue at stake concerns the imminent crisis of an ageing Europe and its impact on the contemporary welfare state. The book brings together three leading approaches to issue mapping: Bruno Latour's social cartography, Ulrich Beck's risk cartography and Jeremy Crampton's critical neo-cartography. These modes of inquiry are put into practice with digital methods for mapping the ageing agenda, including debates surrounding so-called 'old age', cultural philosophies of ageing, itinerant care workers, not to mention European anti-ageing cuisine. Issue Mapping for an Ageing Europe addresses an urgent social issue with new media research tools.

Description / Table of Contents: ‘Landscape Biographies’ explores the long and complex histories of landscapes from personal and social perspectives. As an essential part of human life-worlds, landscapes have the potential to absorb something of people's lives, works, and thoughts. But landscapes also shape their own life-histories at different timescales, transcending human life-cycles and generating their own temporalities and rhythms. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that the co-scripting of landscapes and people figures prominently in the (auto-)biographical works of writers and attracts the interest of geographers, archaeologists, historians, and anthropologists. This has even resulted in a new genre in landscape research, rapidly gaining in popularity, under the heading of 'landscape biography'. In ‘Landscape Biographies’, twenty geographers, archaeologists, historians, and anthropologists investigate the diverse ways in which landscapes and monuments have been constructed, transmitted, and transformed from prehistory up to the present, from Manhattan to Shanghai, from Iceland to Portugal, and from England to Estonia. Among the authors are distinguished scholars like Gísli Pálsson, Cornelius Holtorf, Joshua Pollard, and Mark Gillings.

Description / Table of Contents: Questo volume è l’esito del confronto e delle riflessioni sviluppate durante il II Workshop “AIIG Giovani” organizzato a Roma nell’aprile del 2013. Nasce da un desiderio, quello di presentare l’importanza della combinazione tra metodi d’indagine tradizionali e nuovi per costruire sapere geografico, e da una passione, sostenuta dall’intreccio di relazioni umane che si evolvono nel tempo. Per chiarire quale possa essere il contributo della geografia alla comprensione del mondo contemporaneo, sempre più complesso, gli autori presentano le principali metodologie geografiche in quattro sezioni: “Territori della tecnologia”, “Identità, spazi, luoghi”, “Nodi della rete” e “Approcci sperimentali nella scuola che cambia”. Emerge dal lavoro un quadro multifocale che rispecchia la poliedricità e la trasversalità della geografia contemporanea, ancorato al comune bisogno di sviluppare strumenti interpretativi e d’azione. Ci si muove nell’ambito di una geografia critica e della complessità in grado di fornire ai cittadini globali differenti strumenti di interpretazione e comprensione del mondo, nuove metafore a partire dalle quali costruire e sperimentare forme alternative di cittadinanza consapevole ed attiva. Qui la geografia ritrova lo slancio di una disciplina fertile capace non solo di descrivere la Terra, ma anche di immaginare e creare nuovi mondi possibili. L’approdo naturale di questo percorso è la realtà scolastica dove è possibile sperimentare nuove forme di sapere e azione per rispondere alla sfida educativa contemporanea.

Description / Table of Contents: Nous assistons actuellement au peuplement des zones périurbaines de la planète par des centaines de millions d’individus. Cette évolution pose de redoutables problèmes et des difficultés inédites pour les politiques publiques. Si les effets de la périurbanisation sont relativement bien connus dans les pays du Nord, les analyses dédiées aux pays du Sud sont bien moins développées. L’ouvrage « Territoires périurbains : développement, enjeux et perspectives dans les pays du Sud » permet de lever un coin du voile sur cette problématique et sur les grands défis que la périurbanisation pose pour le Sud en général et pour l’Afrique centrale en particulier. L’ouvrage débute en cherchant à clarifier ce qu’il faut exactement entendre par « territoire périurbain ». À la suite de cette mise en contexte, il se poursuit par cinq parties organisées autour des problématiques des ressources naturelles, de la sécurité alimentaire, de la santé publique, des services publics et de l’aménagement des territoires. Pour chacune de ces problématiques, des chercheurs spécialisés issus de disciplines variées apportent des contributions qui, tout en soulignant l’ampleur des défis, permettent la mise en avant de solutions innovantes pour améliorer la gouvernance et le bien-être des populations. Cet ouvrage s’adresse d’abord aux chercheurs préoccupés par les défis du développement. En parallèle, par les pistes pour l’action publique qu’il esquisse, il ne manquera pas d’également intéresser les décideurs et les praticiens qui opèrent dans le contexte des territoires périurbains des pays du Sud.