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      • Agriculture & farming
        January 2013

        Climate Change and Agricultural Food Production

        by Kibria, Golam et.al.

        The book ‘Climate Change and Agricultural Food Production: Impacts, Vulnerabilities and Remedies provides an overview of climate change impacts on all agricultural food producing sectors (agriculture, livestock and fisheries), food contamination, and food safety (microbial pathogens, toxic biological & toxic chemical contaminants), food security and climate change adaptation and mitigation measures to counteract or minimise or reduce the effects of climate change on agriculture, livestock and fisheries. It reviews and summarizes research results, data and information from the world including Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, North America, Polar Regions and Small Island Nations. The book has been structured as textbook, reference book and extension book and written in simple and plain English with key facts and acronyms and glossary provided in each with tables and figures to benefit a wide range of readeThe key data and information provided in each are highlighted below:

      • Agriculture & farming
        June 2007

        Aromatic Plants

        by Baby P. Skaria: et.al.

        This book contains seven chapters. Introductory on History, importance and scope of aromatic plants deals with the importance of aromatic crops and their close association with human health and beauty care from time immemorial. History of development of cultivation and aroma based industries in different regions of the world is described to emphasize their significance, scope and role in increasing the quality of human life. Classification of aromatic plants based on their climatic requirement, growth habit and floral morphology elaborated in succeeding will be of great interest to students, researchers and farmers. on Extraction of aroma principles describes traditional as well as modern techniques employed for efficient extraction of volatile oils and oleo-resins from different plants materials and equipments employed for the purpose. Quality of oil is found to vary significantly with ecotypes, season, time of collection, crop maturity and weather conditions prevailing during the growth period, extraction method and duration of extraction process. Conditions and duration of storage also have a bearing on quality of essential oil. This necessitates development and imposition of appropriate quality standards in trade. These aspects are covered in fourth on Quality assurance of essential oils. Aromatic oils & their derivatives and combinations occupy a covetable position in holistic medicines such as aromatherapy. on Aromatherapy details the use of essential oils in human health care, techniques employed, aromatherapy message, aromatic bath, facial care, hair care etc. Information on aromatic oils vide spread application to relieve stress and rejuvenate body are also included. Sixth and seventh s deal with major and other sources of aromatic oils. Under major sources, 17 aromatic crops and under other sources, 25 crops and discussed in detail. These s include the common name, botanical name and synonyms if any and family, vernacular names, importance and uses, habitat and distribution, agro technology, soil, climate, season, land preparation, planting, seed rate and spacing manurial and fertilizer recommendation, irrigation, weed control, pest control, harvest, propagation techniques, herbal yield, extraction and utilization, oil recovery, oil composition, properties of oil, storage requirements etc.

      • Adventure

        The Assassin The Grey Man and The Surgeon

        by D C Stansfield

        It was all going so well for Peter Lee’s drug empire.  He had a hold on the producers in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  His receiver network was increasing and the distribution was now being handled by four of the biggest gangs in London.  With business so good, he was starting to expand.  He was becoming very, very rich.The only small annoyance had come from a little old lady who owned of all things a corner shop.  She had refused to accept any of his special parcels and wanted to go to the police, so she’d been given two bullets, the ‘double tap’, both to shut her up and to send a message to everyone else in the network.Unknown to Lee she was married to a specialist, a man who, in a former life killed men for a living.  He had two friends, one a gatherer of information, the master in his field, one a breaker of men, who was so vicious that it was rumoured that each time he hit a man he cut him.  Each of these three men had spent thirty years and more playing the ‘great game’.  Inside the security company called ‘The Firm’ they were legends known only as The Assassin, The Grey Man and The Surgeon.Now living at the edge of the secret world and about to disappear into history, this atrocity had brought them back centre stage but the question is, do they still have what it takes to go up against today’s hard men?

      • Sustainable agriculture
        February 2018

        Global tea science

        Current status and future needs

        by Dr VS Sharma and Dr Kumudini Gunasekare

        Tea is the most widely-consumed beverage in the world. Like other crops, tea cultivation faces a number of challenges. With the challenge of climate change and the competition for scarce resources, there is a need to make tea cultivation more efficient and sustainable. Cultivation needs also to be more resilient to biotic and abiotic stresses, whether it be pests or more extreme weather (e.g. drought) associated with global warming.Fortunately, there is a range of research addressing these challenges. Drawing on an international range of expertise, this collection summarises this research by focusing on ways of improving the cultivation of tea at each step in the value chain, from breeding through to harvest. Part 1 reviews advances in breeding. Part 2 discusses improvements in cultivation techniques. The book then discusses plant protection and chemistry before concluding with sustainability issues.As the need for more interdisciplinary and collaborative research increases, this collection will be a standard reference for the tea research community by summarising key research trends in each topic and putting them in the context of tea cultivation as a whole.

      • Health systems & services
        April 2013

        Interim Report of the Committee on Geographic Variation in Health Care Spending and Promotion of High-Value Care

        Preliminary Committee Observations

        by Joseph P. Newhouse, Alan M. Garber, Robin P. Graham, Margaret A. McCoy, Michelle Mancher, and Ashna Kibria, Editors; Committee on Geographic Variation in Health Care Spending and Promotion of High-Value Care; Board on Health Care Services; Institute of Medicine

        Interim Report of the Committee on Geographic Variation in Health Care Spending and Promotion of High-Value Health Care: Preliminary Committee Observations is designed to provide the committee's preliminary observations for the 113th Congress as it considers further Medicare reform. This report contains only key preliminary observations related primarily to the committee's commissioned analyses of Medicare Parts A (Hospital Insurance program), B (Supplementary Medical Insurance program) and D (outpatient prescription drug benefit), complemented by other empirical investigations. It does not contain any observations related to the committee's commissioned analyses of the commercial insurer population, Medicare Advantage, or Medicaid, which will be presented in the committee's final report after completion of quality-control activities. This interim report excludes conclusions or recommendations related to the committee's consideration of the geographic value index or other payment reforms designed to promote highvalue care. Additional analyses are forthcoming, which will influence the committee's deliberations. These analyses include an exploration of how Medicare Part C (Medicare Advantage) and commercial spending, utilization, and quality vary compared with, and possibly are influenced by, Medicare Parts A and B spending, utilization, and quality. The committee also is assessing potential biases that may be inherent to Medicare and commercial claims-based measures of health status. Based on this new evidence and continued review of the literature, the committee will confirm the accuracy of the observations presented in this interim report and develop final conclusions and recommendations, which will be published in the committee's final report.

      • Health systems & services
        November 2013

        Variation in Health Care Spending

        Target Decision Making, Not Geography

        by Joseph P. Newhouse, Alan M. Garber, Robin P. Graham, Margaret A. McCoy, Michelle Mancher, and Ashna Kibria, Editors; Committee on Geographic Variation in Health Care Spending and Promotion of High-Value Care; Board on Health Care Services; Institute of Medicine

        Health care in the United States is more expensive than in other developed countries, costing $2.7 trillion in 2011, or 17.9 percent of the national gross domestic product. Increasing costs strain budgets at all levels of government and threaten the solvency of Medicare, the nation's largest health insurer. At the same time, despite advances in biomedical science, medicine, and public health, health care quality remains inconsistent. In fact, underuse, misuse, and overuse of various services often put patients in danger. Many efforts to improve this situation are focused on Medicare, which mainly pays practitioners on a fee-for-service basis and hospitals on a diagnoses-related group basis, which is a fee for a group of services related to a particular diagnosis. Research has long shown that Medicare spending varies greatly in different regions of the country even when expenditures are adjusted for variation in the costs of doing business, meaning that certain regions have much higher volume and/or intensity of services than others. Further, regions that deliver more services do not appear to achieve better health outcomes than those that deliver less. Variation in Health Care Spending investigates geographic variation in health care spending and quality for Medicare beneficiaries as well as other populations, and analyzes Medicare payment policies that could encourage high-value care. This report concludes that regional differences in Medicare and commercial health care spending and use are real and persist over time. Furthermore, there is much variation within geographic areas, no matter how broadly or narrowly these areas are defined. The report recommends against adoption of a geographically based value index for Medicare payments, because the majority of health care decisions are made at the provider or health care organization level, not by geographic units. Rather, to promote high value services from all providers, Medicare and Medicaid Services should continue to test payment reforms that offer incentives to providers to share clinical data, coordinate patient care, and assume some financial risk for the care of their patients. Medicare covers more than 47 million Americans, including 39 million people age 65 and older and 8 million people with disabilities. Medicare payment reform has the potential to improve health, promote efficiency in the U.S. health care system, and reorient competition in the health care market around the value of services rather than the volume of services provided. The recommendations of Variation in Health Care Spending are designed to help Medicare and Medicaid Services encourage providers to efficiently manage the full range of care for their patients, thereby increasing the value of health care in the United States.

      • Agriculture & farming
        November 2022

        Plant Biosecurity and Biosafety

        by N.G. Ravichandra

        The major objective of this book is to provide recent developments and updated comprehensive information on various aspects of Plant Biosecurity and Biosafety. This book fulfils the need for a comprehensive book on the fundamental and advanced aspects of Plant Biosecurity and Biosafety. The book explicates essential aspects related to Plant Biosecurity and Biosafety and is conveniently divided into sixteen unique chapters, covering all the updated information and latest developments. The chapters covered include Introduction ; Invasive Alien Species ; Biowarfare, Bioterrorism and Bioethics; Early Warning and Forecasting System ; Emerging Resurgence of Pests and Diseases ; National Regulatory Mechanism and International Agreements Conventions; International Standards for Phytosanitary Measures ; Pest Risk Analysis, Risk Management Models and Pest Information System ; Global Positioning System and Geographic Information System for Plant Biosecurity ; Pest, Disease and Epidemic Management ; Agroterrorism and Biosecurity ; Mitigation Planning and Integrated Approach for Biosecurity ; Biosafety, History, Policies and Regulatory Mechanism ; Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and Its Implications ; Issues related to the Genetically Modified Crops ; Operational Biosafety Practices and Procedures. In addition, Glossary of terms is also furnished to present a list of frequently terms used in Plant Biosecurity and Biosafety. The contents of this book, reflecting an extensive literature search, will be useful particularly for the students, teaching & research faculty and extension personnel in Agricultural and Horticultural Universities, the State Departments of Agriculture, Horticulture, Forestry, Sericulture & Fisheries, Plant Protection Organizations, Plant Quarantine Units, Administrators & Policy makers and all those who are interested and concerned with plant biosecurity and biosafety.

      • Natural disasters
        August 2015

        Droughts in Agricultural Production

        Monitoring & Management

        by G.G.S.N. Rao

        Drought is considered to be a normal feature of climate especially in tropical countries where occurrence of periods of dry weather during rainy season is common. Virtually droughts can occur in all climates and they can also be witnessed when the air temperatures are higher than the normal for a longer period that increases both evaporation and water deficit. 1. The first deals with the introduction to the topic, historical evidences of drought and famines in India. 2. The definition of droughts, criteria for classification of droughts, drought indices based on rainfall, climate derivatives and remote sensing are covered under two. 3. Information on climate change with respects to climate trends, projections on temperature and rainfall at global as well at national level, consequences of climate change on droughts are presented in there. 4. Approaches on drought monitoring, adopted by various countries, international cooperation in drought monitoring and drought monitoring mechanism in India are presented in four. Decision Support Systems and applications of GIS for drought monitoring are also covered in this . 5. World food production and its variability, the impact of phenomenal drought during 2009 on food grain production in different countries, impacts of droughts on livestock, milk and fisheries production are covered under five. 6. Global surface waters, availability of surface waters in India, influence of drought on fauna and flora of surface waters and global warming on water resources at global and national level is discussed in – six. 7. Drought management strategies, drought planning and preparedness action plans at global as well at national level, indigenous knowledge on drought management, astrological techniques in weather forecasting and traditional wisdom on management of droughts in different nomadic communities in Asia and Africa are covered in seven. eight carries the conclusion of the entire book. Book will be useful to the students and research scholars of Agrometeorology, Meteorology and Geography and all Research Scientists dealing with NRM.

      • Agriculture & farming
        January 2006

        Air Pollution and It's Impacts on Plant Growth

        by Shilpa Shyam, H. N. Verma & S.K. Bhargava

        Rapid urbanization and industrialization has led to continuous deterioration of air quality which i a major environmental problem in many urban centers in both the developed and developing countries. Air pollution is characterized by high concentration of suspended particulates matter, oxides of Sulphur and nitrogen primarily from increased use of vehicles. The book provided information on rational basis for air quality management and green belt development in urban areas.

      • Agriculture & farming
        March 2017

        Geomatics in Energy and Water Resources

        by SM. Ramasamy & S.Thillai Govindarajan

        Due to unprecedented growth in population and the resultant massive mining of energy resources, especially the non-renewable resources and also water resources, these resources have gradually become scarce commodities. Hence the geoscientists and the technocrats from all over the world have embarked into many fold research programmes for locating newer reservoirs of these resources and also to develop models to conserve and sustainably exploit them. remoAs this involves the total understanding of the rock types, tectonic architecture, geomorphology and reservoir conditions, the Geomatics technology comprising Remote Sensing, Geographic Information System (GIS), etc have been found to be vital tools in the inventory and management of these resources; While the former due to its synoptivity, multispectral nature and repeativity and the latter by virtue of its capability to store, manipulate and model huge volume of spatial and non-spatial data. Divergent geological provinces and processes are brought out deserving concepts and methods on geology, 3D visualization of subsurface lineaments, SRTM based lineament mapping, spatio-linear modeling of hard rock aquifer systems, 3D visualization of oil bearing structures, etc., both as field geologists and as researchers.

      • Natural disasters
        December 2006

        Geomatics in Tsunami

        by SM. Ramasamy, C.J.Kumanan, BRIG. R.Sivakumar & Bhoop Singh

        The Asian "Mega Tsunami" (2004) has struck most of the territorial nations of South Asia including the East Coast of India. The NRDMS Division, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, New Delhi, has conceived and executed on All India Co-ordinated Programme on "Tsunami Disaster Assessment and Mitigation" through various institutions of expertise on Geomatics in Earth System Dynamics and the related natural disasters. The Geomatics technology which includes Arial Photography, Photogrammetry, Satellite Remote Sensing, Digital Image Processing, GPS Surveys, GIS modeling etc. was used in this programme, geo-spatial data bases were created on Tsunami disasters over Natural, Physical and Human Resources and futuristic mitigation strategies were evolved there from. The book illuminates the results of the studies carried out along the Indian Coast and a birds eye view on the tsunami studies in Norway. In addition, some special papers on the role of mangroves as Tsunami mitigator, Impacts o Tsunami over marine water quality, coral ecosystem etc; the administrators experience over the tsunami crisis management, NGOs perspective, certain societal issues triggered by the killer Tsunami and citizens perspective, etc. also find a place in this volume.

      • Agronomy & crop production
        August 2019

        Crop Improvement,Nursery and Rootstock Management

        by Sachin Tyagi

        Horticulture plays an important part in todays agriculture and there are new avenues that are being achieved by horticulture. The subject has transformed from only being about vegetables, fruits, flowers and postharvest technology and has moved towards disease, breeding, pathology, physiology, greenhouse technologies and other areas which were never heard for. The book series: Hi-Tech Horticulture has been worked out keeping the above mentioned issues in mind with contribution by eminent professors and scientists.

      • Geographical information systems (GIS) & remote sensing
        January 2009

        Hyperspectral Remote Sensing and Spectral Signature Applications

        by S. Rajendran, S.Aravindran, T.Jeyavel Rajakumar, R. Sivakumar & K.R. Murali Mohan

        Hyperspectral imaging is an emerging modern technique in modern remote sensing that expands and removes capability of multispectral image analysis. It takes advantage of hundreds of continuous spectral channels to uncover materials that usually cannot be resolved by multispectral sensoThis book is a collection of research papers of Indian scientist working in the field of hyperspectral remote sensing and spectral signature applications. This has been organized in a way that all the s are logically connected and can be referred back and the forth one another for more details. The title of hyperspectral remote sensing and spectral signature applications is use to reflect its focus on spectral techniques, i.e. non-literal techniques that are especially designed and developed for hyperspectral imagery rather than multispectral imagery.

      • Humanities & Social Sciences
        June 2014

        Environment,People and Development

        Experiences From Desert Ecosystems

        by Mahesh Kumar Gaur & Pratap Chandra Moharana

        Desert Regions are Familiar faces in many of History of the world. The Earliest civilizations and two of the worlds major Religions were born here. This publication Environment, People and Development: Experiences from Desert Ecosystems Highlights some of the Basic and technologically refined information from many parts of the Desert Ecosystems of the world.

      • August 2019

        Commercial Entomology

        by Anil Kumar, Nagendra Kumar & Hari Chand

        Commercial entomology is a specialized field of attraction under entomology. In spite of the fact that insect and their products are known since ages, much literature is not available on commercial entomology. Authors of the chapters of the book have profound knowledge of different aspects of biology and management of insects especially in their field of contribution. So, their inputs are valuable for the development of commercial entomology in India. Importance has been given to Apis spp., silk worm, lack insect etc. while planning the chapters. The chapters of the book start from the honey bees and their management by Dr. Suday Prasad. Production technology for bee products and pests of honeybees and bee poisoning has been explained by Dr. Hari Chand and Mr. Beer Bahadur Singh in the 2nd and 3rd chapter, respectively. These chapters describe different valuable bee hive products, processing, uses and their composition for promotion of beekeeping development. The chapters on sericulture, lac culture, biological control, insect pests of medical importance, insect pests of cattle and poultry etc. have also been included in this book.

      • Agriculture & farming
        January 2012

        Microbial Diversity and Functions

        by D. Joseph Bagyara ,K.V.B.R. Tilak & H.K.Kheri

        The book contains 31 articles written by distinguished scientists of the country having expertise in dealing with the microbes and exploiting their potential for the benefits of mankind. The articles included in the book are thought provocating and deals with: o the topics of Taxonomy, Diversity and Applications of VAM fungi in different Ecosystems o Applications of Microbial Technology for Treatment of effluents of a Gelatine Factory, Biodiversity of Mycotoxigenic Fungi and Trichoderma, o Useful microbes of Mangrove Ecosystem, Extremophiles, PGPRs, Phytotoxins, Litter decomposition, Biopesticides, Botanical Pesticides, biofertilizers and so many others including major concerns about the Evolution and Conservation of Microbial Biodiversity. o All the articles written by the authors are original, timely and appropriate.

      • Botany & plant sciences
        September 2018

        Abiotic and Biotic Stress Management in Plants

        Volume 01: Abiotic Stress

        by Bhav Kumar Sinha & Reena

        This book deals with an array of topics in the broad area of abiotic stress responses in plants focusing problems and their management by selecting some of the widely investigated themes.

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