ALBERT

Description / Table of Contents: Introduction -- Repression, ignorance, and undone science -- The epistemic dimension of the political opportunity structure -- The politics of meaning: from frames to design conflicts -- The organizational forms of counterpublic knowledge -- Institutional change, industrial transitions, and regime resistance politics -- Contemporary change: liberalization and epistemic modernization -- Conclusion

Description / Table of Contents: Interpreting evaporite textures -- Depositional chemistry and hydrology -- Sabkhas, saline mudflats and pans -- Subaqueous salts: salinas and perennial lakes -- Ancient basins and stratigraphic evolution -- Flowing salt: Halokinesis -- Pointers to vanished evaporites: Karst, breccia, nodules and cement -- Hypersaline fluid evolution during burial and uplift -- Halotolerant life in feast or famine (a source of hydrocarbons and a fixer of metals) -- Hydrocarbons and evaporites -- Potash resources: Occurrences and controls -- Non-Potash Salts: Borates, Na-sulphates, Na-carbonate, lithium salts, gypsum, halite and zeolites -- Solution mining and salt cavern usage -- Meta-evaporites -- Lower temperature metals in evaporitic frameworks -- Magma-evaporite-hydrothermal metal associations

Description / Table of Contents: The monograph offers a comprehensive discussion of the role of evaporites in hydrocarbon generation and trapping, and new information on low temperature and high temperature ores. It also provides a wealth of information on exploitable salts, in a comprehensive volume has been assembled and organized to provide quick access to relevant information on all matters related to evaporites and associated brines. In addition, there are summaries of evaporite karst hazards, exploitative methods and problems that can arise in dealing with evaporites in conventional and solution mining. This second edition has been revised and extended, with three new chapters focusing on ore minerals in different temperature settings and a chapter on meta-evaporites. Written by a field specialist in research and exploration, the book presents a comprehensive overview of the realms of low- and high-temperature evaporite evolution. It is aimed at earth science professionals, sedimentologists, oil and gas explorers, mining geologists as well as environmental geologists

Description / Table of Contents: Wenn Beschleunigung das Problem ist, dann ist Resonanz vielleicht die Lösung. Dies ist, auf die kürzestmögliche Formel gebracht, die Kernthese des neuen Buches von Hartmut Rosa, das als Gründungsdokument einer Soziologie des guten Lebens gelesen werden kann. An seinem Anfang steht die Behauptung, dass sich die Qualität eines menschlichen Lebens nicht in der Währung von Ressourcen, Optionen und Glücksmomenten angeben lässt. Stattdessen müssen wir unseren Blick auf die Beziehung zur Welt richten, die dieses Leben prägt und die dann, wenn sie intakt ist, Ausdruck stabiler Resonanzverhältnisse ist. Um dies zu begründen, präsentiert Rosa zunächst das ganze Spektrum der Formen, in denen wir eine Beziehung zur Welt herstellen, vom Atmen bis hin zu kulturell ausdifferenzierten Weltbildern. Dann wendet er sich den konkreten Erfahrungs- und Handlungssphären zu – etwa Familie und Politik, Arbeit und Sport, Religion und Kunst –, in denen wir spätmodernen Subjekte Resonanz zwar suchen, aber immer seltener finden. Das hat maßgeblich mit der Steigerungslogik der Moderne zu tun, die sowohl Ursache als auch Folge einer gestörten Weltbeziehung ist, und zwar auf individueller wie kollektiver Ebene. Denn auch die großen Krisentendenzen der Gegenwartsgesellschaft – Ökokrise, Demokratiekrise, Psychokrise – lassen sich resonanztheoretisch analysieren, wie Rosa in seiner Soziologie der Weltbeziehung zeigt. Als eine umfassende Rekonstruktion der Moderne in Begriffen ihrer historisch realisierten Resonanzverhältnisse wagt sie den Versuch, den Rahmen für eine erneuerte Kritische Theorie abzustecken. „Warum haben wir immer zu wenig Zeit? Der Beschleunigungskritiker Hartmut Rosa wurde bekannt, weil er wissenschaftlich beschreibt, was viele fühlen. Jetzt hat der Soziologe ein Gegenprogramm zum gehetzten Leben entwickelt“ (Spiegel). Platz 2 der SZ/NDR-Sachbücher des Monats April 2016

Description / Table of Contents: This book considers a relatively new metric in complex systems, transfer entropy, derived from a series of measurements, usually a time series. After a qualitative introduction and a chapter that explains the key ideas from statistics required to understand the text, the authors then present information theory and transfer entropy in depth. A key feature of the approach is the authors' work to show the relationship between information flow and complexity. The later chapters demonstrate information transfer in canonical systems, and applications, for example in neuroscience and in finance. The book will be of value to advanced undergraduate and graduate students and researchers in the areas of computer science, neuroscience, physics, and engineering

Description / Table of Contents: Mit diesem Grundkurs lernen Sie SAP kennen: Klick für Klick führt der Autor Sie durch die Software und zeigt Ihnen alle Funktionen, die Sie in Ihrer täglichen Arbeit benötigen. Auch die wichtigsten SAP-Module werden verständlich erklärt. Mit zahlreichen Übungen können Sie Ihr Wissen überprüfen und festigen. Das Buch ist bestens für den Einstieg in SAP sowie die Vorbereitung auf die Zertifizierung (Foundation Level) geeignet. Inkl. Video-Tutorials zu den wichtigsten Abläufen im System! Aus dem Inhalt: Am SAP-System an- und abmeldenIm SAP-System navigierenMit Transaktionen arbeitenSystem-Layout einstellenBenutzerdaten ändernArbeitsschritte automatisierenDruckenBerichte erstellenNachrichten versendenHilfe-Funktionen nutzenRollen und Berechtigungen verstehenInkl. Überblick über die wichtigsten Prozesse und Module (MM, SD, FI, CO, HR/HCM) Galileo Press heißt jetzt Rheinwerk Verlag.

Description / Table of Contents: Part 1 - Gravimetry and gravity networks -- Quality assessment of the new gravity control in Poland - first estimate -- Estimability in Strapdown Airborne Vector Gravimetr -- A First Traceable Gravimetric Calibration Line in the Swiss Alps -- Airborne gravimetry for geoid and GOCE -- Testing airborne gravity data in the large-scale area of Italy and adjacent seas -- The effect of helium emissions by a superconducting gravimeter on the rubidium frequency standards of absolute gravimeters -- Part 2 - Global geopotential models and vertical datum unification -- Wavelet multi-resolution analysis of recent GOCE/GRACE GGMs -- Evaluation of GOCE-based Global Geopotential Models Versus EGM2008 and GPS/Levelling Data in Northwest of Turkey -- Precise modelling of the static gravity field from the GOCE data using the method of fundamental solutions -- Towards a Vertical Reference Frame for South America in view of the GGOS specifications Andrea Galudht Santacruz Jaramillo, Sílvio Rogério Correia De Freitas, Laura Sánchez -- Ellipsoidal effects in high accuracy quasigeoid computations: verification of the apparatus Otakar Nesvadba, Petr Holota -- Evaluation of GOCE/GRACE GGMs over Attica and Thessaloniki, Greece, and Wo determination for height system unification -- The DTU13 MSS (Mean Sea Surface) and MDT (Mean Dynamic Topography) from 20 years of satellite altimetry -- Part 3 - Local geoid/gravity modeling -- A new gravimetric geoid model for the area of Sudan using the least squares collocation and a GOCE-based GGM -- Establishment of the Gravity Database AFRGDB V1.0 for the African Geoid -- Quasi-geoid model in the State of São Paulo -- Accurate Approximation of Vertical Gravity Gradient within the Earth’s External Gravity Field -- New geoid of Greenland, A case study of terrain and ice effects, GOCE and use of local sea level data -- Egyptian Geoid using Best Estimated Response of the Earth's Crust due to Topographic Loads -- Part 4 - Mass movements in the Earth system -- An investigation on the closure of the water budget methods over Volta Basin using multi-satellite data -- Application of Independent Component Analysis in GRACE- derived Water Storage Changes Interpretation, A case study of the Tibetan Plateau and its surrounding areas -- Mass variations in the Siberian permafrost region based on new GRACE results and auxiliary modeling -- Part 5 - Solid Earth Investigations -- Comparative study of the uniform and variable Moho density contrast in the Vening Meinesz-Moritz’s isostatic scheme for the gravimetric Moho recovery -- The New Method To Find The Anomalous Internal Structure Of Terrestrial Planets And Its Test On The Earth

Description / Table of Contents: This volume contains the proceedings of 24 peer-reviewed papers presented at the 3rd International Gravity Field Service (IGFS) General Assembly, which was organized by the International Gravity Field Service (IGFS), Commission 2 of the International Association of Geodesy (IAG), and Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (SHAO), Chinese Academy of Sciences. The Assembly was successfully held in Shanghai, China from June 30th to July 6th, 2014 with over 130 participants from 25 countries. The focus of the Assembly is on methods for observing, estimating and interpreting the Earth gravity field as well as its applications, including 6 sessions: gravimetry and gravity networks, global geopotential models and vertical datum unification, local geoid/gravity modelling, satellite gravimetry, mass movements in the Earth system and solid Earth investigations

Description / Table of Contents: Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. China’s Arctic Policy -- Chapter 3. Japan’s Arctic Policy -- Chapter 4. Arctic Policy of South Korea (Republic of Korea) -- Chapter 5. Singapore’s Arctic Policy -- Chapter 6. India’s Arctic Policy -- Chapter 7. Conclusions

Description / Table of Contents: This book examines the growing interest by Asian states, which are normally considered as ‘outsiders’ in the Arctic governance system. Whilst existing research asserts that Asian states are mostly interested in the economic aspect of the changing Arctic, including its mineral and fossil sources and the opening up of new sea routes, the book argues that the relation between Asian states and the Arctic is much more complex and dynamic, grounded in their unique perspective on national security and the role of economic development in securing their national interests. Aki Tonami is Researcher at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. She received her Ph.D from Kyoto University, Japan, and has worked as Research Advisor for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. She has written extensively on East Asian environmental foreign policy, and her research interests include environmental governance, economic diplomacy, and the Polar Regions

Description / Table of Contents: Contents: 1. Introduction; Part I. Approach, Method and Concepts: 2. Explaining environmental performance; 3. Preferences in environmental politics; 4. The institutional settings in 21 OECD countries; Part II. Environmental Performance in 21 OECD Countries: 5. Measuring environmental performance; 6. Aggregating environmental performance data; Part III. Analysis: 7. Domestic politics; 8. International politics; 9. The nexus of domestic and international politics; 10. Conclusion

Description / Table of Contents: "As the world faces the prospect of climate change, nuclear disasters, and water scarcity, it is clear that environmental degradation is an increasingly serious challenge with economic and social consequences. In this book, Detlef Jahn analyzes political processes in a macro-comparative study in order to estimate the role of politics in the field of environmental performance in 21 OECD countries. His model demonstrates various styles of politics used to combat environmental degradation. He finds that economic and environmental performance are still closely linked, and that moving towards a service society does not by itself solve the environmental challenge. The close relationship of these areas was made strikingly clear in the economic crisis of the new millennium. He argues that economic globalization fosters environmental deterioration, and undermines efforts in domestic politics and international coordination to improve the environmental record"--

Description / Table of Contents: While researching for another film, filmmakers Tom Radford and Peter Raymont came across the story of Nugliak, an Inuvialuit man born just before the end of the 19th century who observed and wrote of the changes that occurred in the north during his lifetime on Herschel Island. Radford's film loosely follows the book, touching on much the same subjects, but using Nugliak's descendents as a link to the present.

Description / Table of Contents: It is easy to overlook Herschel Island - a tiny speck of land just off the Yukon coast - where the Inuvialuit hunter Nuligak once followed the great journeys of caribou, polar bears, and whales. The island lays silently on the margins of geography, entrapped in the footnotes of history, a forgotten place frozen in time. And yet just over a century ago Herschel Island was a frontier boomtown, branded "the Sodom of the Arctic" by some visitors at the time. A place cohabited by whalers, Inuit, missionaries, and police; a place of contact and conflict; a place where worlds collided and lives were changed forever. It was on Herschel Island that a young Inucialuit boy, Nuligak (later named Bob Cockney by the missionaries) came of age - fascinated by Herschel, but equally repelled by the excess of so-called civilization. Through Nuligak's touching yet tragic life-story expressed through his writings and echoed by his grandchildren's poignant return to the Island - we are offered a unique view into an often troubling past and a potentially hopeful future.

Description / Table of Contents: "The world's polar regions are attracting more interest than ever before. Once regarded as barren, inhospitable places where only explorers go, the north and south polar regions have been transformed into high profile tourism destinations, increasingly visited by cruise ships as well as becoming accessible with direct flights. Tourism is seen as one of the few economic opportunities in these regions but at the same time the polar regions are being opened up to tourism development they are being affected by a number of new factors that are interconnected to travel and tourism. Climate change, landscape and species loss, increasing interest in energy resources and minerals, social changes in indigenous societies, and a new polar geopolitics all bring into question the sustainability of polar regions and the place of tourism within them

Description / Table of Contents: At last, the first systematic guide to the growing jungle of citation indices and other bibliometric indicators. Written with the aim of providing a complete and unbiased overview of all available statistical measures for scientific productivity, the core of this reference is an alphabetical dictionary of indices and other algorithms used to evaluate the importance and impact of researchers and their institutions. In 150 major articles, the authors describe all indices in strictly mathematical terms without passing judgement on their relative merit. From widely used measures, such as the journal impact factor or the h-index, to highly specialized indices, all indicators currently in use in the sciences and humanities are described, and their application explained. The introductory section and the appendix contain a wealth of valuable supporting information on data sources, tools and techniques for bibliometric and scientometric analysis - for individual researchers as well as their funders and publishers. Roberto Todeschini is full professor of chemometrics at the Department of Environmental Sciences of the University of Milano-Bicocca (Milano, Italy), where he constituted the Milano Chemometrics and QSAR Research Group. His main research activities concern chemometrics in all its aspects, QSAR, molecular descriptors, multicriteria decision making and software development. President of the International Academy of Mathematical Chemistry from 2008 to 2014, president of the Italian Chemometric Society and 'ad honorem' professor of the University of Azuay (Cuenca, Ecuador), he is author of more than 170 publications on international journals and books. The latest is 'Molecular Descriptors for Chemoinformatics' R. Todeschini and V. Consonni; Wiley-VCH, 2009. Alberto Baccini is professor of Economics at the Department of Economics and Statistics of the University of Siena (Italy). He started his research activities by working on various aspects of applied economics and of the history of economic thought. He focused his attention on the history of the theory of choice under uncertainty, becoming an expert of the works of the British economist Francis Y. Edgeworth. More recently, he has been working on application of network analysis techniques to the study of scientometric data, and on topics at the boundaries between scientometrics, statistics and economics, such as the statistical properties of scientometric indicators; researchers' productivity and research evaluation.

Description / Table of Contents: Das maßgebliche Nachschlagewerk für alle Sammler, für Steine- und Mineralienhandlungen, Juweliere und Goldschmiede. Über 600 Einzelstücke in Originalgröße: Mineralien, Erze, Edelsteine, Gesteine, Meteorite. Konkurrenzlos vollständig, mit brillanten Fotos und besonders übersichtlich.

Description / Table of Contents: Donna J. Haraway refigures our current epoch, moving away from the Anthropocene toward the Chthulucene: an epoch in which we stay with the trouble of living and dying on a damaged earth while living with and understanding the nonhuman in complex ways conducive to building more livable futures.

Description / Table of Contents: Die Frage ist nicht, ob fossile Energieträger (insbesondere das Erdöl) endlich sind, sondern wie bald die Quellen endgültig versiegen. 3 Jahre nach seinem beachtlichen Debüt "Öko-Realismus" (BA 2/03), das Gründinger (geboren 1984) als Oberstufenschüler vorgelegt hatte, beschäftigt sich der Student der Politikwissenschaften und Mitglied von Youth for Intergenerational Justice und Sustainability - Europe (YOIS) eingehend mit der brisanten Energiefrage. Die "pyromane" Menschheit verbrenne sich selbst, sei durch die Abhängigkeit von der "schwarzen Droge Öl" in eine bedrohliche Falle geraten, aus der sie sich kaum befreien könne. Sein Abgesang auf die fossil-atomare Energieversorgung, die kritische Analyse des gegenwärtigen Energiesystems und sein propagierter "Weg in ein Industrielles Solarzeitalter" (Energie-Revolution) speisen sich aus einem breiten Fundus an aktuellen Daten und Fakten aus Fachliteratur, aber auch geheimgehaltenen Dokumenten. Mit Bibliografie. Wie H. Scheer: "Energieautonomie" (BA 10/05) ein wichtiger, kompetenter Beitrag zum Thema, diesmal der jüngeren Generation. Sehr empfohlen. (2) (Helga Lüdtke)

Description / Table of Contents: Abgesang auf die fossil-atomare Energieversorgung, kritische Analyse des gegenwärtigen Energiesystems und propagierter "Weg in ein Industrielles Solarzeitalter" (Energie-Revolution) eines Umweltaktivisten der jüngeren Generation. (Helga Lüdtke)

Description / Table of Contents: PREFACE The characteristics of natural disasters in modern mega-cities have been complicated and diversified since the end of 20th century and originated not only from geo-physical and global changes of natural hazards, such as earthquakes, tsunami, floods, storms, landslides, and drought, but also from the recent structural changes of our post-industrial societies. In fact, the Japanese urban area has become more and more vulnerable to newly emerging risks of low probability but high consequence type (LPHC type), which have been induced technologically and socially in modern society. For example, the estimated damage exposed by the floods has increased five times during the past 20 years in terms of unit-exposed space (inundated area in the case of flooding). This is due to the high concentration of both population and social infrastructures in residential districts, in spite of the success in decreasing the total number of human casualties of flood disasters, thanks to the tremendous amount of investment in constructing such physical structural facilities as dams, dikes, banks, etc. In return, we unfortunately face the soaring marginal cost of reducing disaster risk up to an acceptable level. In addition, we have such a new type of multi-disasters in modern mega-cities that a single small-scale hazard episode in an urban area might trigger a series of "catastrophic disasters" in a cascading manner under current interwoven and complicated urban water systems, such as from a small-scale river channel up to a large-scale river embankment. There seems to be many cases in which "natural disasters with totally different characteristics may happen before people forget about the previous disasters", in contrast with the famous expression "natural disasters occur when people are not thinking about them". Until very recently, people used to take precautionary steps against storms and/or inundation disasters at their homes in accordance with the amount of rainfall or the rise of water in adjacent rivers, and would listen to radio or TV news reports that predicted the routes of typhoons, and would standby at their homes or work places. Nowadays, such self-help practices to reduce possible damage of disasters have waned, reflecting a public relience on the remarkable improvements in basic social infrastructure to prevent disasters. Our country seems to have been transformed into a "hands-off society of leaving the management responsibility to regulatory authorities" in which people wait until they receive warning information or evacuation orders from the local government who are specialized in disaster prevention. However, when we face unexpected or surprise conditions, ordinary citizens become unable to understand the nature of risks, partly due to the complex processes of the regulatory management systems specialized in current disaster prevention schemes. They stop making their own choices regarding proactive responses to the emerging risks that have been so-called socio-technologically or socioculturally constructed in our post-industrial society. In fact, newcomers who have migrated and settled in newly developed lowland areas that used to be flood plains tend to be unable to inherit past disaster experiences. They tend to claim more and more "safety measures of intensified structural facilities" as well as an expansion of the "disaster relief measures" in cases where local residents become victims. But they prefer to leave management judgment regarding distinction between "safety and danger" to governmental institutions, as indicated in our recent case studies on a series of catastrophic flood disasters, such as the 2000 Tokai Floods in Nagoya and the 2004 Niigata-Fukui Floods. This also leads to another management issue of the increase in social costs to deal with the unexpected nature of risks, even by taking a proper combination of both structural and non-structural measures depending on which level of risks the community and residents may accept in long-term. Moreover, we are concerned about this kind of emerging disaster risks growing larger and continuing to increase, as suggested by the recent IPCC reports of global and regional climate changes. Here appears an integrated risk management approach to deal with natural disasters as social risk phenomena in terms of enhancing a variety of proactive or participatory ways that governmental institutions, communities, and residents could jointly carry out proper risk management against newly emerging disaster risks. To make our modern societies sustainable in terms of our lives, socio-cultural assets, and environmental resources in this risk society, it is vital to create a kind of societal governance system resilient to unexpected or surprise disasters not only by promoting a proper understanding of the nature of "risks" in their community but also by strengthening their preparedness to "risks" in the whole cycle of disaster prevention, from the normal, emergency, and recovery phases . Japan's National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NIED) has launched a five-year research project (2001-2005) with the aim of making modern societies resilient, not only to a traditional flood but also to possible catastrophic disasters of low probability but high consequence (LPHC). The approach that NIED has tried to explore is necessarily a new type of integrated risk management that should be tailored to the emerging disaster risks of the LPHC type. This includes (1) shifting the management strategy from "disaster prevention with zero risk" to "disaster reduction with an acceptable risk", (2) integrating both structure and non-structure measures (hard and soft measures), and (3) creating a social platform to call for a wide range of stakeholders (governments, communities, residents, corporations, local groups, and NPOs) in planning, designing and implementing an integrated risk management plan resilient to LPHC disasters in both short- and long-term perspectives. In order to tackle these urgent tasks, a new team was formed on the basis of social and human sciences by adding fellows and guest researchers, unlike the conventional team of disaster scientists at the NIED. Then, the team began operations through close cooperation with outside research institutions such as the Disaster Prevention Research Institute of Kyoto University. Our research group has been developing such a participatory platform of disaster risk communication, called the Participatory Flood Risk Communication Support System (Pafrics), that can facilitate community-based participation in planning, designing and implementing processes for a better integrated flood risk management. Pafrics has been particularly developed by taking a number of research outcomes based on the social scientific studies concerning local people's flood risk perception and disaster prevention activities in their community through questionnaire surveys conducted by NIED. Currently, we believe that Pafrics has been developed to such a sufficient level as to be released on the Web, but it is still being repeatedly modified through trials and experiences with new aspects and episodes in new areas. This book intends to provide outcomes of those studies in three parts. The first part expresses some of the important conceptual and methodological issues associated with the "integrated approach of disaster risk management" toward resilient society to emerging disaster risks in mega-cities in Japan. Four types of "integration" are taken into consideration in most of the papers. They are (1) integration of hard (structural control facilities) and soft (institutions and information) measures for shifting the concept of "zero risk" to "an acceptable level of risk", (2) integration of precaution and emergency relief measures, (3) integration of governmental and local community activities toward residents' informed choice of disaster risks, and (4) integration of individual risk management programs towards handling multiple sources of hazards. All papers focus on both the natural and socio-cultural factors of integrated risk management and their uncertainties involved in our modern society, reflecting the recent inter disciplinary development in "risk analysis", "disaster sciences", "resource economics", and "public policy analysis". In the second part, all contributed papers are more or less associated with outcomes of case studies or the social surveys which NIED conducted since the start of the project. Those involved include the 2000 Tokai flood disaster, 2004 Fukui, Niigata Typhoon 23 disasters in Japan, as well as the 2005 Hurricane Catrena in the USA. Many important research topics are addressed in terms of public understanding or perception of disaster risks, public preparedness for reducing risks, attitude of local government officers engaging in disaster prevention, the role of volunteers in disaster prevention or relief activities, based on social scientific disciplines in relation to social psychology, disaster sociology, and disaster insurance and economics, etc. Those contributions are particularly important for the NIED project to look forward to making modern societies resilient to disasters of LPHC type by facilitating residents' participation to risk governance in local communities towards the informed choice of disaster risks. The final part presents a set of papers which illustrate the development of "Pafrics", and some of the lessons we learned from several trials of using Pafrics in workshops, meetings, and lectures. In order to disseminate our model of "Pafrics", several internet-accessible versions are already open on theWeb (http://www.pafrics.org), which is in Japanese for local residents, but a short English version is also available at the same Web site. Finally, we should stress again that all contributions in this book are, more or less, the outcome of joint efforts conducted by all members of the project. However, final responsibility of the views expressed in these chapters lies with the individual authors themselves. We are very grateful for a number of invaluable comments and suggestions provided by the members of advisory body to our project; Dr. Sachio Kubo (Pasco Corporation), Mr. Nobuyuki Kurita (NPO: Rescue Stock Yard), Dr. Kimio Meguro (Tokyo University), Mr. Yukiji Nishida (NPO: Rescue Stock Yard), Dr. Norio Okada (Kyoto University), Dr. Yugo Ono (Hokkaido University), Dr. Isao Takagi (Keio University), and Dr. Kentaro Yoshida (Tsukuba University). We also express our deep gratitude forMs. Reiko Shibakami, Ms. Reiko Kawamura, and other assistants for their sincere and endless effort to support our studies and preparation of these manuscripts during period of the project. We should be very pleased if this book could make a valuable contribution towards a new perspective of "integrated disaster risk management" and "disaster risk governance" in the future.

Description / Table of Contents: Widespread landscape changes are presently observed in the Arctic and are most likely to accelerate in the future, in particular in permafrost regions which are sensitive to climate warming. To assess current and future developments, it is crucial to understand past environmental dynamics in these landscapes. Causes and interactions of environmental variability can hardly be resolved by instrumental records covering modern time scales. However, long-term environmental variability is recorded in paleoenvironmental archives. Lake sediments are important archives that allow reconstruction of local limnogeological processes as well as past environmental changes driven directly or indirectly by climate dynamics. This study aims at reconstructing Late Quaternary permafrost and thermokarst dynamics in central-eastern Beringia, the terrestrial land mass connecting Eurasia and North America during glacial sea-level low stands. In order to investigate development, processes and influence of thermokarst dynamics, several sediment cores from extant lakes and drained lake basins were analyzed to answer the following research questions: 1. When did permafrost degradation and thermokarst lake development take place and what were enhancing and inhibiting environmental factors? 2. What are the dominant processes during thermokarst lake development and how are they reflected in proxy records? 3. How did, and still do, thermokarst dynamics contribute to the inventory and properties of organic matter in sediments and the carbon cycle? Methods applied in this study are based upon a multi-proxy approach combining sedimentological, geochemical, geochronological, and micropaleontological analyses, as well as analyses of stable isotopes and hydrochemistry of pore-water and ice. Modern field observations of water quality and basin morphometrics complete the environmental investigations. The investigated sediment cores reveal permafrost degradation and thermokarst dynamics on different time scales. The analysis of a sediment core from GG basin on the northern Seward Peninsula (Alaska) shows prevalent terrestrial accumulation of yedoma throughout the Early to Mid Wisconsin with intermediate wet conditions at around 44.5 to 41.5 ka BP. This first wetland development was terminated by the accumulation of a 1-meter-thick airfall tephra most likely originating from the South Killeak Maar eruption at 42 ka BP. A depositional hiatus between 22.5 and 0.23 ka BP may indicate thermokarst lake formation in the surrounding of the site which forms a yedoma upland till today. The thermokarst lake forming GG basin initiated 230 ± 30 cal a BP and drained in Spring 2005 AD. Four years after drainage the lake talik was still unfrozen below 268 cm depth. A permafrost core from Mama Rhonda basin on the northern Seward Peninsula preserved a full lacustrine record including several lake phases. The first lake generation developed at 11.8 cal ka BP during the Lateglacial-Early Holocene transition; its old basin (Grandma Rhonda) is still partially preserved at the southern margin of the study basin. Around 9.0 cal ka BP a shallow and more dynamic thermokarst lake developed with actively eroding shorelines and potentially intermediate shallow water or wetland phases (Mama Rhonda). Mama Rhonda lake drainage at 1.1 cal ka BP was followed by gradual accumulation of terrestrial peat and top-down refreezing of the lake talik. A significant lower organic carbon content was measured in Grandma Rhonda deposits (mean TOC of 2.5 wt%) than in Mama Rhonda deposits (mean TOC of 7.9 wt%) highlighting the impact of thermokarst dynamics on biogeochemical cycling in different lake generations by thawing and mobilization of organic carbon into the lake system. Proximal and distal sediment cores from Peatball Lake on the Arctic Coastal Plain of Alaska revealed young thermokarst dynamics since about 1,400 years along a depositional gradient based on reconstructions from shoreline expansion rates and absolute dating results. After its initiation as a remnant pond of a previous drained lake basin, a rapidly deepening lake with increasing oxygenation of the water column is evident from laminated sediments, and higher Fe/Ti and Fe/S ratios in the sediment. The sediment record archived characterizing shifts in depositional regimes and sediment sources from upland deposits and re-deposited sediments from drained thaw lake basins depending on the gradually changing shoreline configuration. These changes are evident from alternating organic inputs into the lake system which highlights the potential for thermokarst lakes to recycle old carbon from degrading permafrost deposits of its catchment. The lake sediment record from Herschel Island in the Yukon (Canada) covers the full Holocene period. After its initiation as a thermokarst lake at 11.7 cal ka BP and intense thermokarst activity until 10.0 cal ka BP, the steady sedimentation was interrupted by a depositional hiatus at 1.6 cal ka BP which likely resulted from lake drainage or allochthonous slumping due to collapsing shore lines. The specific setting of the lake on a push moraine composed of marine deposits is reflected in the sedimentary record. Freshening of the maturing lake is indicated by decreasing electrical conductivity in pore-water. Alternation of marine to freshwater ostracods and foraminifera confirms decreasing salinity as well but also reflects episodical re-deposition of allochthonous marine sediments. Based on permafrost and lacustrine sediment records, this thesis shows examples of the Late Quaternary evolution of typical Arctic permafrost landscapes in central-eastern Beringia and the complex interaction of local disturbance processes, regional environmental dynamics and global climate patterns. This study confirms that thermokarst lakes are important agents of organic matter recycling in complex and continuously changing landscapes.