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This book is about a particular set of geo-information technologies known as Planning Support Systems (PSS). It focuses on the adoption and application of PSS in practice. It aims to illustrate best practice and to demonstrate new methods that are being developed for creating the next generation of PSS for use in various public or private sector planning contexts. The book serves as a medium for the exchange of knowledge, insights and experiences, thereby preventing those working in this field from having to reinvent the wheel . It also serves to communicate details about PSS methodology and management to those less informed about contemporary developments. The book stimulates new and exciting applications of PSS in diverse planning situations. It provides planning practitioners, system developers and researchers with helpful insights into what planning support systems are, how they can be constructed and implemented, and in which situations they can provide valuable support for decision making.

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The conjoining of nonlinear dynamics and biology has brought about significant advances in both areas, with nonlinear dynamics providing a tool for understanding biological phenomena and biology stimulating developments in the theory of dynamical systems. This research monograph provides an introduction to the theory of nonautonomous semiflows with applications to population dynamics. It develops dynamical system approaches to various evolutionary equations such as difference, ordinary, functional, and partial differential equations, and pays more attention to periodic and almost periodic phenomena. The presentation includes persistence theory, monotone dynamics, periodic and almost periodicsemiflows, traveling waves, and global analysis of typical models in population biology. Research mathematicians working with nonlinear dynamics, particularly those interested in applications to biology, will find this book useful. It may also be used as a textbook or as supplementary reading for a graduate special topics course on the theory and applications of dynamical systems.

Dr. Xiao-Qiang Zhao is a professor in applied mathematics at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. His main research interests involve applied dynamical systems, nonlinear differential equations, and mathematical biology.He is the author of more than 40 papers and his research has played an important role in the development of the theory of periodic and almost periodic semiflows and their applications. ... Read more

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Global Positioning System is the first book to guide social scientists with little or no mapping or GPS experience through the process of collecting field data from start to finish.

• Takes readers step-by-step through the key stages of a GPS fieldwork project.
  
• Explains complex background topics in clear, easy-to-understand language.
  
• Provides simple guidelines for GPS equipment selection.
  
• Provides practical solutions for real GPS data collection issues.
  
• Offers a concise guide to using GPS-collected data within geographic information systems.

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Customer Reviews (1)

The implications of pushing buttons
Like any edited volume, the chapters are hit and miss.There's a great chapter by Peter Taylor and Ronald Johnston that indicts a data-led geography as having a corrupted practice of research.I recommend it to any person interested in a philosophy of geographic information technology. ... Read more

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Illustrated by a wide range of international case studies, this distinguished team of authors examine the issue of health inequalities in the developed world from a specifically geographical perspective. They prove that "place" is an important factor in health inequality and offer an original perspective on and insight into one of the major problems of the Western world.

The recently published Acheson Report re-emphasized the importance of this issue by showing that, in Britain at least, health inequalities between sub-groups of the population not only still exist, but that the health gap is widening between the better- and worse-off in society.While there has been growing recognition of the impact 'place' makes to the distribution of mortality and morbidity, this is the first volume which focuses specifically on this point. ... Read more

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Key metaphors in world-system analysis are profoundly spatial, but there have been few attempts to understand how space, location, and topography affect world-system organization and process. To fill this gap, this book examines case studies of the restructuring of space and transport in core, semiperipheral, and peripheral economies. It addresses such topics as the role of ocean transport in linking terrestrially based units of the capitalist world economy, the role of land transport systems in the construction and restructuring of relationships between raw materials peripheries and core economies, and the role of the airplane in transforming and representing changing spatial, economic, and social relations in the capitalist world economy. ... Read more

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This book synthesizes current knowledge of regional-global linkages in four regions to demonstrate that study of environmental change on a regional scale can enhance understanding of global-scale environmental changes. The atmospheric circulation over Southern Africa links regional nutrient and pollutant sources to distant sinks affecting both regional and global ecosystem functioning. Extended human modification of land cover in East Asia has altered the complex surface-atmosphere exchanges impacting the Asian monsoon system. Biogenic and anthropogenic emissions over South Asia are implicated in changes in global tropospheric ozone and oceanic biogeochemical balances. Economic globalization has negatively impacted regional environments of Southeast Asia. ... Read more

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This book presents a systematic introduction to a new generation of models for solving dynamic travel choice problems including traveler`s destination choice, mode choice, departure/arrival time choice and route choice. These models are expected to function as off-line travel forecasting and evaluation tools, and eventually as on-line prediction and control models in advanced traveler information and traffic management systems. In addition to a rich set of new formulations and solution algorithms, the book provides a summary of the necessary mathematical background and concludes with a discussion of the requirements for model implementation. ... Read more

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Land, Water and Development offers an up-to-date introduction to river basin systems and their contemporary management by assessing them within both physical and social frameworks. Tracing the evolution of river basin management and the history of applied hydrology, this book provides a systematic review of policy and practice and argues for a sustainable approach to the changing environment of the world's rivers.

In this fully revised and expanded second edition of his acclaimed book, Malcolm Newson explores in greater depth the meaning of sustainability in river basin development, highlighting the rapid evolution of practical concepts in many countries since the Rio Earth Summit. ... Read more

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The past ten years have seen local government in the UK facing two major challenges: to survive in the face of Thatcher government hostility, and to adapt to enormously powerful forces of economic restructuring which have also been encouraged by government policies.

The key aspects of these changing fortunes of British towns explored in this important new book is the ability of individual localities to exercise any control over their own growth and decline. Place, Policy and Politics examines local political initiatives seeking to influence economic and social development in seven sharply contrasting localities, ranging from the outer council estates of Merseyside to the boom towns of Cheltenham and Swindon. Throughout their analysis, the contributors, drawn from a wide range of social science disciplines, address the vital questions in the debate over local policy initiatives, including:

* To what extent are localities able to harness trends in the national and international economy to provide jobs and a better standard of living for their inhabitants?
* Why do local authorities vary in their capacity to initiate economic policy?
* To what extent do national urban and other policies inhibit or encourage their efforts?
* How might central government modify its policies to facilitate the prospering of localities?

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At a time when issues concerning migration and the formation of diasporic communities have come to be critical for all European legal systems, this volume reflects, discusses and analyzes the questions raised by diasporas who have established themselves in Europe over more than fifty years of immigration and the challenges faced by legal systems in the light of continued migration.

Contributors from a broad range of backgrounds address prominent issues ranging from legal pluralism among minorities, pressures on EU accession states, irregular migration, state control of family reunification and formation in light of human rights laws, challenges for citizenship and nationality laws and the implementation of visa rules and juxtaposed control zones. Besides the EU as a supranational legal order, the book contains discussion of conditions in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco, Greece, Turkey and Lithuania.

This volume accompanies The Challenge of Asylum to Legal Systems and is the second book to emerge from the W.G Hart Legal Workshop held in 2004 at London's Institute for Advanced Legal Studies.

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Community Operational Research: OR and Systems Thinking forCommunity Development sets out the current concerns ofCommunity Operational Research (Community OR for short) and exploresnew possibilities for its development. Leading Community OR writers,international reputations in operational research and systems, havecontributed chapters that illuminate different aspects of Community ORtheory and practice. Following a introductory chapter by the editors on Community OR, thebook is presented in three sections:+ Section One presents "The History and Development of CommunityOR". Exploring the institutional development of Community OR andpeople's motivations for engaging in it. Methodological issues arealso discussed. + Section Two covers "Local Action for Community Development".Even though the emphasis is on dealing with local issues, all theauthors use methods and techniques to support widely informed decisionmaking. In every case, the impacts of a complex variety of phenomenaare taken into account. Even when authors are not using a systemsmethodology, the ideal of comprehensiveness (one of the hallmarks ofsystems thinking) is plain to see. + Section Three is entitled "Dealing Locally with Global Issues".Here, the themes of community development are taken one stage further.This includes authors who are explicitly seeking to address globalissues (e.g., environmental problems and the international dimensionsof poverty) through widely informed local action. + Finally, Section Four, "The Politics of Systemic Intervention",discusses two themes; the political nature of Community OR practice;and the value of systems thinking to community development. ... Read more

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Spatial Planning Systems of Britain and France brings together a wide selection of comparative essays to highlight the fundamental similarities and differences between the spatial planning in Great Britain and France: two countries that are near neighbours and yet have developed very different modes of planning in terms of their structure, practical application and underlying philosophies.

Drawing on the outcomes of the Franco-British Planning Study Group and with a foreword by Vincent Renard of the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, the book offers a comparative investigation of the basic contexts for planning in both countries, including its administrative, economic, financial and legal implications, and then move on to illustrate themes such as urban policy and transport planning through detailed analysis and case studies.

From these investigations the book brings together planning concepts from both a national and European perspective, looking particularly at two current issues: the effects of urban growth on small market towns and the use of Public-Private partnerships to implement development projects.

Spatial Planning Systems of Britain and France will prove invaluable to policy makers and practitioners in both countries at a time when national policy is beginning to look towards practice in other countries.

The book is published simultaneously in English and French opening up a wider debate between the English-speaking and francophone worlds.

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An innovative text for students, Placing Latin America takes a thematic approach to the study of the diverse human geographies of Latin America. Avoiding pre-defined ideas about this rapidly globalizing region, this volume focuses on the dynamic connections between people and places. Fifteen chapters written by a diverse group of contributors provide a well-rounded and accessible introduction to many dimensions of human geography, including discussions of migration in the context of transnationalism and globalization; the relations between urbanization, employment change, and the material and environmental landscapes of cities; and the connections between economic development and political change at different scales. Particularly exciting are the chapters on themes not typically found in other textbooks on the region, such as geographic analysis of the drug trade, tourism landscapes, and Latin American cinema. Jackiewicz and Bosco also include chapters on current problems of border and migration between the United States, Mexico, and the rest of Latin America. The book is well organized for the classroom-each theme chapter is illustrated by specific examples from different places in the region and includes suggested reading resources. Students and general readers alike will enjoy and learn from the connections that are drawn between different themes and contemporary concepts and important theories in critical human geography such as scale, place, and spatiality. ... Read more

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No matter how advanced the technology, there is always the human factor involved - the power behind the technology. Interpreting Remote Sensing Imagery: Human Factors draws together leading psychologists, remote sensing scientists, and government and industry scientists to consider the factors involved in expertise and perceptual skill.This book covers the cognitive issues of learning, perception, and expertise, the applied issues of display design, interface design, software design, and mental workload issues, and the practitioner's issues of workstation design, human performance, and training. It tackles the intangibles of data interpretation, based on information from experts who do the job. You will learn:Information and perceptionWhat do experts perceive in remote sensing and cartographic displays? Reasoning and perceptionHow do experts "see through" the data displayto understand its meaning and significance?Human-computer interactionHow do experts work with their displays and what happens when the "fiddle" with them? Learning and trainingWhat are the milestones in training development from novice to expert image interpreter?Interpreting Remote Sensing Imagery: Human Factors breaks down the mystery of what experts do when they interpret data, how they learn, and what individual factors speed or impede training. Even more importantly, it gives you the tools to train efficiently and understand how the human factor impacts data interpretation. ... Read more

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A rewritten and updated text which now covers the main topics at Key Stage 4 and the new syllabuses, offering a thematic approach to GCSE Human Geography. Includes suggestions for group and individual work ... Read more