This ground-breaking book brings together scholars from the humanities and social and physical sciences to address the question of how recent work in the genetics, zoology, and epidemiology of plague's causative organism (Yersinia pestis) can allow a rethinking of the Black Death pandemic and its larger historical significance.
The objective of this report is to examine the extent to which countries in Latin America and the Caribbean participate in global value chains and what are the drivers of such participation. Production processes have been increasingly fragmented worldwide. For example, the production of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner involves 43 suppliers located in 135 locations around the globe. There are many ex…
This book reflects the current state of discussion about agricultural and rural finance in developing and transition countries. It provides insight into specific themes, such as commodity value chains, farm banking, risk management in agricultural banking, structured finance, crop insurance, mobile banking, and how to increase effectiveness in rural finance. Case studies illustrate various aspe…
This work contains updated and clinically relevant information about tuberculosis. It is aimed at providing a succinct overview of history and disease epidemiology, clinical presentation and the most recent scientific developments in the field of tuberculosis research, with an emphasis on diagnosis and treatment. It may serve as a practical resource for students, clinicians and researchers who…
This book presents theories and case studies for corporations in developed nations, including Japan, for designing strategies to maximize opportunities and minimize threats in business expansion into developing nations. The case studies featured here focus on Asia, including China and India, and use examples of Japanese manufacturers. Five case studies are provided, including Hitachi Construct…
This work focuses on the analysis and design of multiple element antennas (MEA) and their interaction with the propagation channel. In particular, attention is given to urban channels and how its information throughput, i.e. capacity, can be improved. With this in mind, this work extends an existing network model of the communication system in order to reduce computation time, investigates the …
This book covers seismic probabilistic risk assessment (S-PRA) and related studies which have become more important to increase the safety of nuclear facilities against earthquakes and tsunamis in the face of the many uncertainties after the Fukushima accident. The topics are (1) Active faults and active tectonics important for seismic hazard assessment of nuclear facilities,(2) Seismic source …
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. In the 21st century, the issue moves from how to si…
This book takes a look at fully automated, autonomous vehicles and discusses many open questions: How can autonomous vehicles be integrated into the current transportation system with diverse users and human drivers? Where do automated vehicles fall under current legal frameworks? What risks are associated with automation and how will society respond to these risks? How will the marketplace rea…
This volume focuses on the etiology and morphogenesis of congenital heart diseases. It reviews in detail the early development and differentiation of the heart, and later morphologic events of the cardiovascular system, covering a wide range of topics such as gene functions, growth factors, transcription factors and cellular interactions that are implicated in cardiac morphogenesis and congenit…