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July 2024The Untold Stories of African Agriculture
Lessons from Ethiopia
by Tsedeke Abate
This landmark volume presents the results of a comprehensive and coherent in-depth assessment of Ethiopian agriculture and draws lessons from it to generate actionable recommendations that will inform policy decisions and priority setting for agricultural transformation across Africa. Policy makers in Africa are faced with the challenges of ensuring food and nutrition security and the economic wellbeing of their rapidly growing populations while at the same time maintaining the integrity of their natural resource base. Between 2000 and 2021, 74% of the growth in overall crop production on the continent was derived from increases in land area expansion, while increases in yield contributed only 26% of the growth. This unchecked expansion of land use puts the sustainability of the natural resource base under severe pressure. Even though some countries have made substantial increases in their farm productivity over the last two decades, the overall performance for Africa is far behind other regions. For the most part, in Africa, agriculture is not fulfilling its expected functions of food and nutrition security, increased export earnings, import substitution, and raw material supply for local industries. Attempts have been made to transform African agriculture over the years, but few countries have succeeded in achieving sustainable change. Using examples from Ethiopia this book identifies the major factors for success and the root causes of underperformance, and offers evidence-based recommendations for future decision making, policy change and the creation of growth. This book: · Draws on a unique set of case studies from Ethiopia described and told from a truly African perspective. · Emphasises to policy makers in Africa that development cannot be outsourced and there are no shortcuts; it is only through consistent effort and sustained support for their agricultural research and development that positive change can be brought about. · States that past agricultural development efforts by the international community have not properly included a strong African voice, and that therefore, all future academic research, policies and strategies dealing with the continent's agriculture and food security should be formulated by Africa's own leading thinkers and experts. · Is not a polemic; its arguments are knowledge and evidence based, building a compelling picture of how agricultural development can be sustained for the future.
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Biology, life sciencesDecember 2015Analytical Techniques for Natural Product Research
by Satyanshu Kumar
Plants are important source of lead molecules for drug discovery. These lead molecules serve as starting materials for laboratory synthesis of drug as well a model for production of biologically active compounds. Phytochemical processing of raw plant materials is essentially required to optimize the concentration of known constituents and also to maintain their activities. Extraction techniques and analytical techniques have played critical roles in phytochemical processing of raw materials. Extraction technologies from conventional extraction to green extraction as well as analytical techniques from single technique to hyphenated/coupled techniques most frequently used in phytochemistry laboratories are covered in the book.
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Health & Personal DevelopmentThe Tender Path of Grief & Loss
by Robert Jackman
This title, written by board certified psychotherapist and Reiki masterRobert Jackman, offers wise advice for the healing journey throughoutour life, loves and losses. In The Tender Path of Grief & Loss, if you're seeking expert guidanceon healing losses you feel deep inside, this book is for you. RobertJackman invites you to acknowledge and honor your grief instead ofpushing it away. Accessible and relatable, this book offers practicalwisdom to guide you on your journey through pain and into hope. Itshares heartfelt, encouraging stories of those who discovered their innerstrength in times of overwhelming loss, offering practical advice to helpyou move forward.
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Children's & YA2009Broken Heart
by Alexander Asatiani
Cracked Heart tells the entire life story of a heart-shaped jewel box that becomes more and more precious for the reader, the older it gets. Even though it breaks and loses some of its external beauty, it gains a different kind of aesthetic when it’s put back together.
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Literature & Literary StudiesJanuary 2023Objects of affection
The book and the household in late medieval England
by Myra Seaman
Objects of affection recovers the emotional attraction of the medieval book through an engagement with a fifteenth-century literary collection known as Oxford, Bodleian Library Manuscript Ashmole 61. Exploring how the inhabitants of the book's pages - human and nonhuman, tangible and intangible - collaborate with its readers then and now, this book addresses the manuscript's material appeal in the ways it binds itself to different cultural, historical and material environments. In doing so it traces the affective literacy training that the manuscript provided its late-medieval English household, whose diverse inhabitants are incorporated into the ecology of the book itself as it fashions spiritually generous and socially mindful household members.
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Veterinary medicineMarch 2013Animal Machines
by Ruth Harrison, Marian Stamp-Dawkins
Ruth Harrison's Animal Machines now a unique historical classic, had a profound impact on public opinion and the quality of life of farmed animals when it was published in 1964. * Reprinted in its entirety, gives an accurate, and sometimes shocking, account of intensive farming in the 1960's, still current in large parts of the world today. * Harrison's work greatly increased public awareness of animal welfare and led to legal reforms, shaping our closer understanding of farm conditions today. * Provides a fascinating insight into the system we continue to live with as the global population increases. * Includes foreword by Rachel Carson and new chapters by international experts in animal welfare including Marion Stamp Dawkins, discussing the book's significant legacy and impact today.
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Humanities & Social SciencesAugust 2018Flight MH17, Ukraine and the new Cold War
by Kees van der Pijl, Radhika Desai, Alan Freeman
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The ArtsRepresentative Works of Chinese Woodblock New Year Paintings
by Feng Jicai
Woodblock new year painting is an old handicraft of China, going back thousands of years. People celebrate the Spring Festival by posting up woodblock new year paintings, praying for their good wishes. Chief edited by the contemporary Chinese author, artist, and cultural scholar Feng Jicai, the Representative Works of Chinese Woodblock New Year Paintings is a collection of the masterpieces selected out of over ten thousand woodblock new year paintings. It has two volumes, the Northern and the Southern, from which one can see the differences in the custom of the two regions. The book has received support from scholars and institutions worldwide, among which the Japanese museums' collections of Gusu woodblock new year paintings in the early Qing Dynasty and the Russian museums' collections of late Qing and early Republic China are disclosed to the world for the first time. So the book is not only a historical art collection, but also of high cultural heritage significance.
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July 2019The King of Trash
by Donald Willerton
The plague of homelessness runs through it like a pulsing vein. There is murder―and bodies galore. There is unhesitating genocide. There is an escape from certain death that will haunt you.And yet The King of Trash is a story of tenderness, of ethical struggle, and of deeply bonded humanity.In his latest novel―and his first to move beyond the highly successful Mogi Franklin middle-reader mysteries―author Don Willerton intertwines modern-day themes of transcendent importance through a unique and intriguing tale of mystery, adventure, and courage.Early readers have sometimes had nightmares, but yet The King of Trash is ultimately redeemed by its heart. It begins with a newspaper reporter setting out to interview a former school mate who's now become one of the world greatest scientists―and one of its richest men. Before long, though, we are enmeshed in a web of awful and expedient “facts” building to a twenty-first-century morality tale in which no one can escape the hard and bitter decisions of the “real” world. And yet at the end, we learn, is the one central truth, the only remnant left to sustain Willerton's fascinating and vivid characters―and all the rest of us alive on Earth as well.
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Literature & Literary StudiesMarch 2021Objects of affection
by Myra Seaman, Anke Bernau, David Matthews, James Paz
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Children's & YAHeart of Mist
by Katrin Lange
A girl torn between two brothers. Regardless of which one she falls in love with it will be disastrous for the other. Christopher and Adrian have sworn that no girl will ever come between them again, because there is a sleeping monster inside Adrian, just waiting to hurt his brother. But then Jessa comes to High Moor Grange… Jessa would do anything to find her sister Alice, who has been registered as missing for five years. High Moor Grange is the first clue she has been given after all this time – but apart from a ruin shrouded in mist, all she finds there are the owners of this dilapidated manor house. Jessa suspects that they both know more about Alice’s disappearance than they admit. Christopher wants nothing more than to be rid of her, and constantly gets on her nerves with his arrogance – and even his warm-hearted brother Adrian seems to be harbouring some secrets. Jessica knows that she ought to stay away from the twin brothers, because instead of finding answers at High Moor Grange, she finds herself in danger of losing her heart in a battle against a 200-year-old curse. Dark, irresistible and deeply romantic – a modern Beauty and the Beast story by the queen of emotions!
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Literature: history & criticismMarch 2010Reading, writing and the influence of Harold Bloom
by Alan Rawes and Jonathon Shears
Reading, writing and the influence of Harold Bloom takes the work of the world's best-known living literary critic and discovers what it is like to read 'with', 'against' and 'beyond' his ideas. The editors, Alan Rawes and Jonathon Shears, introduce the collection by assessing the impact of Bloom's brand of agonistic criticism on literary critics and its ongoing relevance to a discipline attempting to redefine and settle on its collective goals. Firmly grounded in, though not confined to, Bloom's first specialism of Romantic Studies, the volume contains essays that examine Bloom's debts to high Romanticism, his quarrels with feminism, his resistance to historicism, the tensions with the 'Yale School' and his recent work on Shakespeare and genius. Crucially, chapters are also devoted to putting Bloom's anxiety-themed ratios into practice on the poetry of Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats and D. H. Lawrence, amongst others. The Harold Bloom that emerges from this collection is by turns divisive and unifying, marginalised and central, radical and conservative.
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October 2017New Development of Marxist Jurisprudence in Contemporary China
by Jiang Chuanguang
Through an examination of the process of Sinicization of Maxism, Sinicization of Marxist legal theories with its theoretical gains is expounded and the connotation of Marxist jurisprudence’s new development in contemporary China is put forward, which provides vital directive values for building a socialist country under the rule of law and strengthens citizens’ legal sense.
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Humanities & Social SciencesOctober 2024Plagues of the heart
Crisis and covenanting in a seventeenth-century Scottish town
by Michelle D. Brock
Using a wide range of archival material, Plagues of the heart provides a fresh understanding of religion and identity not only in seventeenth-century Scotland, but in protestant communities across the early modern world grappling with a range of interrelated crises. By examining the 'culture of covenanting' in the southwestern port-city of Ayr between the British civil wars and the Revolution of 1688, this book reveals how adherence to the National Covenant of 1638 and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643 informed the identities and lived experiences of a generation of Scots. This is the compelling story of one Scottish town and its remarkable minister, but it demonstrates how in the early modern period, especially when it came to matters of faith, the local was imbedded rather than isolated, engaged rather than insular.
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Fiction2022Rejoice, My Heart
by Alawiya Sobh
Ghassan, a musician and Oud player, leaves for New York, fleeing the Lebanese civil war after his extremist bother, Afif, murdered his older and pacifist brother Jamal, who sought to open the door to Muslim-Christian dialogue. In New York, Ghassan struggles to erase all his memories but his thoughts would always bring him back to his hometown, Dar El Ezz, as it was long before the war. ///Soon, he falls in love with and marries Kristin, becomes more emotionally stable, and embraces American culture. But when he must return to Lebanon for his father’s funeral, nostalgia for his homeland and a series of events force Ghassan to face a convergence of two cultures. ///“Efrah Ya Qalbi” (Rejoice, My Heart!) is a novel about love, music, identity, one’s sense of belonging, brotherly conflicts, and the diaspora. It dives into the lives, troubles, and dilemmas of the characters. ///The stories intertwine amid a fascinating narrative, thus revealing the turmoil and troubles of the Lebanese community torn by wars and outbursts. The novel also addresses the relationship between the East and the West, where struggling and cracked identities are silenced and offers a new vision through analysis and narration.
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Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)2016Happy Naked People
by Kateryna Babkina
"Happy Naked People" is a thematically united cycle of stories about happiness or rather about what precedes happiness. These are stories about the generation of Ukrainians who had a chance to see the last days of the Soviet Union and the recession that followed it, about those who grew up and became the strogest versions of themselves, in spite of everything that happened to them. It is about how these people live now and interact with the world, in which there is war, and love, and emigration, and Hanoi, and New York, and the dead, and the living, and the blind, and the unwise; and, most importantly, how to be happy with this all.
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January 2022The Fruit Fly Fauna (Diptera : Tephritidae : Dacinae) of Papua New Guinea, Indonesian Papua, Associated Islands and Bougainville
by Richard A I Drew, Meredith C Romig
The book is a taxonomic treatise of the tropical fruit flies of Papua New Guinea, Indonesian Papua, associated islands and Bougainville, the region of the world where speciation in the sub-family Dacinae has been most prolific. The book aims to provide readers with an updated record of all known species of Dacinae that occur in this geographic area including descriptions of 65 new species out of an entire list of 296 known species covered. It provides a discussion on the evolutionary origins of the Dacinae and a key to the genera and sub-genera recorded in the Australian-Pacific Region. Further, the major pest species and their biosecurity risks to other countries are discussed. Extensive field research by the authors and colleagues over many years has resulted in the accumulation of advanced knowledge of the tropical fruit flies in this region. - Records 296 known species - Descriptions and artwork of 65 new species - Discusses the evolutionary origins of the Dacinae - Provides a key to the genera and sub-genera in the Australian-Pacific A key reference for researchers of taxonomy, ecology and pest management in the family Tephritidae worldwide. Useful for biosecurity and horticulture workers in Agriculture Departments within government administration and universities around the world.
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Children's & YARoyal Horses (1). Crown Heart
by Jana Hoch
His world is that of the Royals – full of scandals and secrets. Falling in love with him was never part of her plan. Their paths cross at the royal stud farm... Greta just wants to get away: away from her school and away from the friends who have so endlessly disappointed her. The holiday job at the royal stud farm comes at just the right time for her. She might not have any interest in horses – and even less in princes and princesses – but the royal family’s palace still makes her heart beat faster. But on the very first day she quarrels with Edward, the horse trainer. He guesses that she is hiding a secret and wants to do whatever it takes to bring it out in the open. When, shortly afterwards, Prince Tristan appears at the stud farm, Greta’s life is completely turned upside down. She notices all too late that she is in the process of falling in love – and specifically with the boy that she actually wants to stay away from. Humorous and romantic, glamorous and exciting: ‘Royal Horses’ is the perfect love story for all readers from 12 to 99 years-old. Greta and Edward‘s story continues! Volume 2, ‘Crown Dream’ will be out in autumn 2020.
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Humanities & Social SciencesApril 2023New Zealand's empire
by Katie Pickles, Catharine Coleborne
This edited collection investigates New Zealand's history as an imperial power, and its evolving place within the British Empire. It revises and expands the history of empire within, to and from New Zealand by looking at the country's spheres of internal imperialism, its relationship with Australia, its Pacific empire and its outreach to Antarctica. The book critically revises our understanding of the range of ways that New Zealand has played a role as an imperial power, including the cultural histories of New Zealand inside the British Empire, engagements with imperial practices and notions of imperialism, the special significance of New Zealand in the Pacific region, and the circulation of ideas of empire both through and inside New Zealand over time. The essays in this volume span social, cultural, political and economic history, and in testing the concept of New Zealand's empire, the contributors take new directions in both historiographical and empirical research.
