Exactly fifty years after the conversations recorded by Italo Calvino in Le città invisibili, Marco Polo and the Emperor Kublai Khan meet once again, this time to discuss the weird and wacky ways in which the inhabitants of 26 cities communicate with strangers who arrive at their gates speaking an unknown language. With a few sad exceptions, each city has devised an almost perfect method for language sharing, using translation buckets or hypnosis, game theory or computation, sexual intercourse or divine inspiration, magic rivers or reflections, drawing on the arts of music, dance and painting, and on the wisdom of plants, birds and fish. It is for the reader to decide if this is a fabulous travelogue up and down the Silk Road from Xanadu to Venice, a treatise on translation in the form of a comic novel, an allegory of friendship between people and peoples, or a series of bedtime stories in which the cities themselves are like female characters out of The Arabian Nights. In any case, Intelligible Cities is a distant tribute to Italo Calvino from a writer resident in Aotearoa New Zealand, a linguist and a traveller, deeply versed in things Italian.
Headlines are made when a gold discovery that is claimed to be Lasseter’s legendary lost reef is made by the international company Krennerite Gold Corp. This is the most fabled lost gold reef in Australia’s long mining and exploration history, purported to have been discovered more than a century before. James Buchanan, a world-famous exploration geologist is intrigued because the region of the rediscovery is not known as a gold-bearing district but is frustrated in his efforts to access the discovery site to test his scepticism. Unexpectedly, James is approached by the Chinese chairman of the board of Krennerite, who is concerned about the veracity of the discovery and the damage to his reputation if any fraud is uncovered. He and James devise a plan which involves James and the chairman’s daughter Pearl posing as tourists in the Central Australian region near Alice Springs and Ayers Rock to remotely investigate the discovery site using a drone. How will they handle their contrasting western and Chinese cultures in the wild and dangerous Australian outback? Will conflict or romance evolve from their interaction? Will the reported discovery really represent Lasseter’s long-lost gold reef or are there more sinister motives and activities at play? Will rapidly evolving and challenging events played out in the Australian outback, in Western Australia, and China make positive or negative changes to the lives of those involved? Only time will tell!
This report describes an approach for planning under deep uncertainty, Robust Decision Making (RDM), and demonstrates its use by the El Dorado Irrigation District (EID). Using RDM, the authors and EID tested the robustness of current long-term water management plans and more robust alternatives across more than 50 futures reflecting different assumptions about future climate, urban growth, and the availability of important new supplies.
Report describes RAND contributions to Louisiana's Coastal Master Plan for policymakers in other coastal regions. It highlights the value of a solid technical foundation to support decision-making on strategies to protect and restore coastal regions.
Evaluating the cost-effectiveness of water-efficiency programs can be difficult, because not all the benefits are easily quantified. This report presents an economic framework based on two tools from the California Urban Water Conservation Council to estimate the avoided costs and environmental benefits of an agency's efficiency programs. The report evaluates the benefits of Denver Water efficiency programs and uses an exploratory modeling approach to accommodate the significant uncertainty in such estimations. The results of this study suggest that the inclusion of long-run avoided costs and environmental benefits is critical to fully recognizing the value of water-use efficiency programs. The authors find that evaluating only the short-run avoided costs leads to the conclusion that many water-efficiency projects already a part of Denver Water's 10-year conservation plan are not cost-effective. When long-run avoided costs and environmental and recreational benefits were factored in, all but two Denver Water programs were estimated to be cost-effective. The timing of projected water savings from efficiency programs is also critical. Water savings from programs that concentrate savings during summer months, when water is scarcer, should be valued higher than saving from programs that lead to more uniform water savings throughout the year, because these water savings reduce peak water needs." -- publisher's website.
Bones, Stones and Molecules provides some of the best evidence for resolving the debate between the two hypotheses of human origins. The debate between the 'Out of Africa' model and the 'Multiregional' hypothesis is examined through the functional and developmental processes associated with the evolution of the human skull and face and focuses on the significance of the Australian record. The book analyzes important new discoveries that have occurred recently and examines evidence that is not available elsewhere. Cameron and Groves argue that the existing evidence supports a recent origin for modern humans from Africa. They also specifically relate these two theories to interpretations of the origins of the first Australians. The book provides an up-to-date interpretation of the fossil, archaeological and the molecular evidence, specifically as it relates to Asia, and Australia in particular. Readily accessible to the layperson and professional Provides concise coverage of current scientific evidence Presents a robust computer-generated model of human speciation over the last 7 million years Well illustrated with figures and photographs of important fossil specimens Presents a synthesis of great ape and human evolution
This newly revised and greatly expanded edition of the popular Artech House book Principles of GNSS, Inertial, and Multisensor Integrated Navigation Systems offers you a current and comprehensive understanding of satellite navigation, inertial navigation, terrestrial radio navigation, dead reckoning, and environmental feature matching . It provides both an introduction to navigation systems and an in-depth treatment of INS/GNSS and multisensor integration. The second edition offers a wealth of added and updated material, including a brand new chapter on the principles of radio positioning and a chapter devoted to important applications in the field. Other updates include expanded treatments of map matching, image-based navigation, attitude determination, acoustic positioning, pedestrian navigation, advanced GNSS techniques, and several terrestrial and short-range radio positioning technologies .. The book shows you how satellite, inertial, and other navigation technologies work, and focuses on processing chains and error sources. In addition, you get a clear introduction to coordinate frames, multi-frame kinematics, Earth models, gravity, Kalman filtering, and nonlinear filtering. Providing solutions to common integration problems, the book describes and compares different integration architectures, and explains how to model different error sources. You get a broad and penetrating overview of current technology and are brought up to speed with the latest developments in the field, including context-dependent and cooperative positioning.
This classic text retains the superb scholarship of the first edition in a thoroughly revised and accessibly written new edition. With both new and updated essays by distinguished American and Canadian authors, the book provides a comprehensive historical overview of the formation and growth of North American regions from European exploration and colonization to the second half of the twentieth century. Collectively the contributors explore the key themes of acquisition of geographical knowledge, cultural transfer and acculturation, frontier expansion, spatial organization of society, resource exploitation, regional and national integration, and landscape change. With six new chapters, redrawn maps, a new introduction that explores scholarly trends in historical geography since publication of the first edition, and a new final chapter guiding students to the basic sources for historical geographic enquiry, North America will be an indispensable text in historical geography courses.
This book provides an essential introduction to the state-of the-art in interdisciplinary Mathematics Education. First, it begins with an outline of the field’s relevant historical, conceptual and theoretical backgrounds, what “discipline” means and how inter-, trans-, and meta-disciplinary activities can be understood. Relevant theoretical perspectives from Marx, Foucault and Vygotsky are explained, along with key ideas in theory, e.g. boundaries, discourses, identity, and the division of labour in practice. Second, the book reviews research findings of mainly empirical studies on interdisciplinary work involving mathematics in education, in all stages of education that have become disciplined. For example, it reports that a common theme in studies in middle and high schools is assessing the motivational benefits for the learner of subsuming disciplinary motives and even practices to extra-academic problem-solving activities; this is counter-balanced by the effort needed to overcome the disciplinary boundaries in academic institutions, and in professional identities. These disciplinary boundaries are less obviously limitations in middle and primary schools, and in some vocational courses. Third and finally, it explores selected case studies that illustrate these concepts and findings, both in terms of the motivational benefits for learners and the institutional and other boundaries involved.
This book reviews the geochemical and petrological characteristics of potassic igneous rock complexes, and investigates the various tectonic settings in which these rocks occur. The authors provide an overview and classification of these rocks and elucidate the geochemical differences between barren and mineralized potassic igneous complexes. High-K rocks are genetically associated with a number of epithermal gold and porphyry copper-gold deposits. In recent years, there has also been growing recognition of an association of such rocks with iron-oxide copper-gold (IOCG) deposits, intrusion-related gold deposits (IRGDs) and Carlin-type gold deposits. This fifth updated and expanded edition incorporates new data and references from world-class copper and gold deposits worldwide. It also includes the latest publications on the petrogenesis of high-K magmatism and related mineral deposits. Numerous new representative ore photographs of the mineral deposits described are also included in the new edition. As such, the book offers a valuable guide not only for academic petrologists working on alkaline rocks, but also for exploration geologists prospecting for epithermal gold and/or porphyry copper-gold deposits in modern and ancient terrains.
Mineral Systems, Earth Evolution, and Global Metallogeny provides insights into the critical parameters of Earth’s evolution, particularly in terms of thermal state, tectonics, and the atmosphere-hydrosphere-biosphere system, that control the metallogeny of the planet. World-class to giant mineral systems are described and interpreted in terms of their relationship to critical periods of change in tectonic regimes within the supercontinent cycle and evolution of the mantle lithosphere. Specific times of formation of highly anomalous giant mineral systems, such as the so-called Boring Billion, are discussed together with specific tectonic environments, such as craton edges and thick lithosphere margins. Mineral Systems, Earth Evolution, and Global Metallogeny provides an overview of how the evolution of Earth has dictated the nature and distribution of its mineral resources that are the foundation of our modern industries and provides insights into critical parameters for conceptual exploration targeting. Researchers, academicians, undergraduate and graduate students, and geologists in the fields of economic geology, geologic exploration, mineral systems, and earth evolution will find this to be a helpful textbook in understanding the timing and distribution of the world’s major mineral deposits are related to critical parameters controlling earth evolution. Draws together aspects of each book section through summary tables Synthesizes data in each book section using summary diagrams/figures Provides continuity between related sections of the book by providing end-of-chapter bullet-point conclusions
This book is a novel based around a plot to bring down the US economy, lower the dollar and raise the price of gold prior to announcement of a major gold discovery. A series of modern day plagues are orchestrated on the US, creating a media frenzy and an increasingly concerned President and population.
A computer-based decision-support tool, called the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) Planning Tool, provided technical analysis that supported the development of Louisiana's Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast through CPRA and community-based deliberations. This document seeks to provide an accessible technical description of the Planning Tool and associated analyses used to develop the Master Plan.
Metallic Mineral Resources: The Critical Components for a Sustainable Earth serves the increasing interest in metal resources, especially the critical and strategic metals which are essential commodities for the green energy transition. The opening chapters introduce the heterogeneous distribution of metal resources as well as the industrial use of metals. The main chapters then work systematically through abundant metal systems, scarce critical metal systems, rare critical metal systems, trace critical metal systems, and precious metal systems. The book wraps with a close examination of temporal distribution of mineral resources and an insightful discussion of the future of mineral resources. Researchers and engineers in economic geology and mining and exploration industries will find themselves returning to this key reference for years to come. • Describes how mineable and economic metal concentrations form and are preserved in the Earth's upper crust • Explores how they are discovered by systematic mineral exploration at a variety of scales • Discusses how to educate the public on the scarcity of natural metal resources and the issues concerning the nexus between the energy transition and potential exhaustion of critical metals
Tecnológico de Monterrey and RAND Corporation researchers help develop an adaptive water management strategy for Mexico's third-largest metropolitan area, Monterrey, using RAND's Robust Decision Making (RDM) methods.
Shoot for the moon and prepare for interstellar adventure with Pathfinder Player Companion: People of the Stars! Along with new, out-of-this-world character options like feats, spells, and magic items, this sourcebook gives players all the information they need to explore Golarion's solar system and beyond. This volume is a perfect companion to the Iron Gods Adventure Path and Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Distant Worlds. With People of the Stars, your success as an interstellar adventurer really is written in the stars!
Offers coverage of all the Psychology GCSE syllabuses. The clear, dynamic text design incorporates activities to encourage students to think critically. Includes key studies and short answer questions to consolidate learning. Features extensive illustrations, photographs and diagrams.
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