This book is a collection of papers presented at the 'Forum "Math-for-Industry" 2016 ' (FMfl2016), held at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, on November 21–23, 2016. The theme for this unique and important event was “Agriculture as a Metaphor for Creativity in All Human Endeavors”, and it brought together leading international mathematicians and active researchers from universities and industry to discuss current challenging topics and to promote interactive collaborations between mathematics and industry. The success of agricultural practice relies fundamentally on its interconnections with and dependence on biology and the environment. Both play essential roles, including the biological adaption to cope with environmental challenges of biotic and abiotic stress and global warming. The book highlights the development of mathematics within this framework that successful agricultural practice depends upon and exploits.

“This edited volume of invited chapters honours the four decades of fundamental research by archaeologist Glenn Summerhayes into the human prehistory of the islands of the western Pacific, especially New Guinea and its offshore islands. This area helped to shape and direct many ancient dispersal events associated with Homo sapiens, initially from Africa more than 50,000 years ago, through the lower latitudes of Asia, into Australia, New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, and possibly the Solomon Islands. Around 3000 years ago, coastal regions of northern and eastern New Guinea, and the islands of Melanesia beyond, played a major role in the Oceanic migrations of Austronesian-speaking peoples from southern China and Southeast Asia, migrations that have recently attained new levels of genetic complexity through the analysis of ancient DNA from human remains. For the first time, humans of both Southeast Asian and New Guinea/Bismarck genetic origin reached the islands of Remote Oceania, beyond the Solomons. Many of the chapters in this book deal with archaeological aspects of this Austronesian maritime expansion (which never seriously impacted the populations of the New Guinea Highlands), especially as revealed through the analysis of Lapita pottery and associated artefacts. Other chapters offer archaeological perspectives on trade and exchange, and on related topics that extend into the ethnographic era. The research of Glenn Summerhayes stands centrally amongst all these offerings, ranging from the discovery of some of the oldest traces of Pleistocene human settlement in Papua New Guinea to documentation of the remarkable phenomenon of Lapita expansion through Melanesia into western Polynesia around 3000 years ago. This volume is a fitting celebration of a remarkable career in western Pacific archaeology and population history.” ­— Emeritus Professor Peter Bellwood, The Australian National University

This book is a collection of papers presented at the 'Forum "Math-for-Industry" 2016 ' (FMfl2016), held at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, on November 21–23, 2016. The theme for this unique and important event was “Agriculture as a Metaphor for Creativity in All Human Endeavors”, and it brought together leading international mathematicians and active researchers from universities and industry to discuss current challenging topics and to promote interactive collaborations between mathematics and industry. The success of agricultural practice relies fundamentally on its interconnections with and dependence on biology and the environment. Both play essential roles, including the biological adaption to cope with environmental challenges of biotic and abiotic stress and global warming. The book highlights the development of mathematics within this framework that successful agricultural practice depends upon and exploits.

With a focus on educational computing, this book examines how technological practices align with or subvert existing forms of dominance. Examines the important question: Is the enormous financial investment school districts are making in computing technology a good idea?