This open book focuses on the dimensions of the discourse of 'The World Class University', its alleged characteristics, and its policy expressions. It offers a broad overview of the historical background and current trajectory of the world-class-university construct. It also deepens the theoretical discussion, and points a way forward out...
This open handbook brings together the latest research from a wide range of internationally influential scholars to analyze educational policy research from international, historical and interdisciplinary perspectives. By effectively breaking through the boundaries between countries and disciplines, it presents new theories, techniques and methods ...
Little did Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and other 'gentlemen scientists' know, when they were making their scientific discoveries, that some centuries later they would inspire a new field of scientific practice and innovation, called citizen science. The current growth and availability of citizen science projects and relevant applications...
There is virtually nowhere on Earth today that remains untouched by plastic and ecosystems are evolving to adapt to this new context. While plastics have revolutionized our modern world, new and often unforeseen effects of plastic and its production are continually being discovered. Plastics are entangled in multiple ecological and social crises, f...
In a modern global historical context, scholars have often regarded piracy as an essentially European concept which was inappropriately applied by the expanding European powers to the rest of the world, mainly for the purpose of furthering colonial forms of domination in the economic, political, military, legal and cultural spheres. By contrast, th...
The first of its kind, this Open Report is a first step in assessing the state of the humanities worldwide. Based on an extensive literature review and enlightening interviews the book discusses the value of the humanities, the nature of humanities research and the relation between humanities and politics, amongst other issues....
This book outlines the challenges of supporting the health and wellbeing of older adults around the world and offers examples of solutions designed by stakeholders, healthcare providers, and public, private and nonprofit organizations in the United States. The solutions presented address challenges including: providing person-centered long-term car...
This book focuses on central themes related to the conservation of bats. It details their response to land-use change and management practices, intensified urbanization and roost disturbance and loss. Increasing interactions between humans and bats as a result of hunting, disease relationships, occupation of human dwellings, and conflict over fruit...
'Transgovernance: Advancing Sustainability Governance' analyses what implications recent and ongoing changes in the relations between politics, science and media – together characterized as the emergence of a knowledge democracy – may have for governance for sustainable development, on global and other levels of societal decision mak...
This book offers a devastating look at deeply flawed development processes driven by international finance, African governments and the global consulting industry. It examines major river basin development underway in the semi-arid borderlands of Ethiopia, Kenya and South Sudan and its disastrous human rights consequences for a half-million indigen...
This book presents good practices in Asia and ASEAN countries for effectively promoting advances in response to climate change, which can help to achieve sustainable development in Asia and around the world. As a proposal, the aim is to influence the discussions at COP 21 by providing a positive agenda with concrete actions from an Asian perspectiv...
In the current crisis of the capitalist world system, elites promote fear of crime and terrorism to keep and expand their privileges and control the masses. This book offers an analysis of the crisis and strategies for rebellion....
This book describes how man-made litter, primarily plastic, has spread into the remotest parts of the oceans and covers all aspects of this pollution problem from the impacts on wildlife and human health to socio-economic and political issues. Marine litter is a prime threat to marine wildlife, habitats and food webs worldwide.The book illustrates ...
This volume presents new insights on marginality, i.e. the situation of people living on the edge of socio-economic and ecological systems. The marginality concept leads to different development policies. While the prevalence of poverty declined by about 50 percent in the past two decades, any further reduction of poverty will be more difficult, be...
Arising from a scientific conference marking the 100th anniversary of her birth, this book honors the life and work of the social scientist and diplomat Ester Boserup, who blazed new trails in her interdisciplinary approach to development and sustainability. The contents are organized in three sections reflecting important focal points of Boserup&...
This book is open access under a Creative Commons license.This authoritative book presents the ever progressing state of the art in evaluating climate change strategies and action. It builds upon a selection of relevant and practical papers and presentations given at the 2nd International Conference on Evaluating Climate Change and Development held...
Presenting rigorous and original research, this volume offers key insights into the historical, cultural, social, economic and political forces at play in the creation of world-class ICT innovations in Kenya. Following the arrival of fiber-optic cables in 2009, Digital Kenya examines why the initial entrepreneurial spirit and digital revolution has...
This book presents 18 case studies that explore current scientific and technological efforts to address global development issues, such as poverty, from a holistic and interdisciplinary point of view, putting actual impacts at the centre of its analysis. It illustrates the use of technologies for development in various fields of research, such as h...
This book investigates child poverty from a philosophical perspective. It identifies the injustices of child poverty, relates them to the well-being of children, and discusses who has a moral responsibility to secure social justice for children....
This open access volume is the first comprehensive assessment of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region. It comprises important scientific research on the social, economic, and environmental pillars of sustainable mountain development and will serve as a basis for evidence-based decision-making to safeguard the environment and advance people's w...
This edited collection focuses on theories, language and migration in relation to multiculturalism in Japan and the Asia-Pacific. Each chapter aims to provide alternative understandings to current conflicts that have arisen due to immigration and policies related to education, politics, language, work, citizenship and identity....
This volume contains peer-reviewed papers from the Fourth World Landslide Forum organized by the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL), the Global Promotion Committee of the International Programme on Landslides (IPL), University of Ljubljana (UL) and Geological Survey of Slovenia in Ljubljana, Slovenia from May 29 to June 2, 2017. The compl...
This book asks just how climate-smart our food really is. It follows an average day's worth of food and drink to see where it comes from, how far it travels, and the carbon price we all pay for it. From our breakfast tea and toast, through breaktime chocolate bar, to take-away supper, Dave Reay explores the weather extremes the world's fa...
This book discusses Rotterdam as clear example of a superdiverse city that is only reluctantly coming to terms with this new reality. Rotterdam, as is true for many post-industrial cities, has seen a considerable backlash against migration and diversity: the populist party Leefbaar Rotterdam of the late Pim Fortuyn is already for many years the lar...
This book presents a comprehensive analysis of biofuel use strategies from an interdisciplinary perspective using sustainability science. This interdisciplinary perspective (social science-natural science) means that the strategies and policy options proposed will have significant impacts on the economy and society alike. Biofuels are expected to c...
This book is a must-have for anyone serious about rendering in real time. With the announcement of new ray tracing APIs and hardware to support them, developers can easily create real-time applications with ray tracing as a core component. As ray tracing on the GPU becomes faster, it will play a more central role in real-time rendering. Ray Tracing...
This book provides original, up-to-date case studies of "ethics dumping" that were largely facilitated by loopholes in the ethics governance of low and middle-income countries. It is instructive even to experienced researchers since it provides a voice to vulnerable populations from the forementioned countries. Ensuring the ethical conduc...
This book examines how China can increase the share of natural gas in its energy system. China's energy strategy has global ramifications and impact, and central to this strategy is the country's transition from coal to gas. The book presents the culmination of a two-year collaboration between the Development Research Center of the State ...
What are the challenges and action points for agricultural sustainability in Sub-Saharan Africa? This collection of papers offers technical analyses, policy recommendations and an overview of success stories to date. Each carefully selected paper provides valuable insights for improved policy making and defines relevant strategic priorities on Afri...
This book explores if and how Russian policies towards the Far East region of the country – and East Asia more broadly – have changed since the onset of the Ukraine crisis and Russia's annexation of Crimea. Following the 2014 annexation and the subsequent enactment of a sanctions regime against the country, the Kremlin has emphasized the e...
Computer Vision Metrics provides an extensive survey and analysis of over 100 current and historical feature description and machine vision methods, with a detailed taxonomy for local, regional and global features. This book provides necessary background to develop intuition about why interest point detectors and feature descriptors actually work, ...
The aim of this book is to document for the first time the dimensions and requirements of effective integrated groundwater management (IGM). Groundwater management is a formidable challenge, one that remains one of humanity's foremost priorities. It has become a largely non-renewable resource that is overexploited in many parts of the world. I...