Phosphorus in Environmental Technology: Principles and Applications, provides a definitive and detailed presentation of state-of-the-art knowledge on the environmental behaviour of phosphorus and its applications to the treatment of waters and soils. Special attention is given to phosphorus removal for recovery technologies, a concept that has emerged over the past 5-6 years. The book features an all-encompassing approach: the fundamental science of phosphorus (chemistry, geochemistry, mineralogy, biology), key aspects of its environmental behaviour and mobility, industrial applications (treatment, removal, recovery) and the principles behind such applications, novel biotechnologies and, importantly, it also addresses socio-economic issues which often influence implementation and the ultimate success of any new technology. A detailed subject index helps the reader to find their way through the different scientific and technological aspects covered, making it an invaluable reference work for students, professionals and consultants dealing with phosphorus-related environmental technologies. State-of-the-art knowledge on the behaviour of phosphorus and its applications to environmental science and technology. Covers all aspects of phosphorus in the environment, engineered and biological systems; an interdisciplinary text.

This book offers a practical guide to Agent Based economic modeling, adopting a “learning by doing” approach to help the reader master the fundamental tools needed to create and analyze Agent Based models. After providing them with a basic “toolkit” for Agent Based modeling, it present and discusses didactic models of real financial and economic systems in detail. While stressing the main features and advantages of the bottom-up perspective inherent to this approach, the book also highlights the logic and practical steps that characterize the model building procedure. A detailed description of the underlying codes, developed using R and C, is also provided. In addition, each didactic model is accompanied by exercises and applications designed to promote active learning on the part of the reader. Following the same approach, the book also presents several complementary tools required for the analysis and validation of the models, such as sensitivity experiments, calibration exercises, economic network and statistical distributions analysis. By the end of the book, the reader will have gained a deeper understanding of the Agent Based methodology and be prepared to use the fundamental techniques required to start developing their own economic models. Accordingly, “Economics with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents” will be of particular interest to graduate and postgraduate students, as well as to academic institutions and lecturers interested in including an overview of the AB approach to economic modeling in their courses.

bookdown: Authoring Books and Technical Documents with R Markdown presents a much easier way to write books and technical publications than traditional tools such as LaTeX and Word. The bookdown package inherits the simplicity of syntax and flexibility for data analysis from R Markdown, and extends R Markdown for technical writing, so that you can make better use of document elements such as figures, tables, equations, theorems, citations, and references. Similar to LaTeX, you can number and cross-reference these elements with bookdown. Your document can even include live examples so readers can interact with them while reading the book. The book can be rendered to multiple output formats, including LaTeX/PDF, HTML, EPUB, and Word, thus making it easy to put your documents online. The style and theme of these output formats can be customized. We used books and R primarily for examples in this book, but bookdown is not only for books or R. Most features introduced in this book also apply to other types of publications: journal papers, reports, dissertations, course handouts, study notes, and even novels. You do not have to use R, either. Other choices of computing languages include Python, C, C++, SQL, Bash, Stan, JavaScript, and so on, although R is best supported. You can also leave out computing, for example, to write a fiction. This book itself is an example of publishing with bookdown and R Markdown, and its source is fully available on GitHub.

This open access book is the first to systematically introduce the principles of urban informatics and its application to every aspect of the city that involves its functioning, control, management, and future planning. It introduces new models and tools being developed to understand and implement these technologies that enable cities to function more efficiently – to become ‘smart’ and ‘sustainable’. The smart city has quickly emerged as computers have become ever smaller to the point where they can be embedded into the very fabric of the city, as well as being central to new ways in which the population can communicate and act. When cities are wired in this way, they have the potential to become sentient and responsive, generating massive streams of ‘big’ data in real time as well as providing immense opportunities for extracting new forms of urban data through crowdsourcing. This book offers a comprehensive review of the methods that form the core of urban informatics from various kinds of urban remote sensing to new approaches to machine learning and statistical modelling. It provides a detailed technical introduction to the wide array of tools information scientists need to develop the key urban analytics that are fundamental to learning about the smart city, and it outlines ways in which these tools can be used to inform design and policy so that cities can become more efficient with a greater concern for environment and equity.

This book reviews the need for marine conservation, summarizes general measures for ocean and coastal conservation, and explains the rationale for establishing marine protected areas. The second half of the book is essentially a guideline for designing and implementing protected areas in order to make them viable and long-lasting in their effectiveness.

How we can invent—but not predict—the future of cities. We cannot predict future cities, but we can invent them. Cities are largely unpredictable because they are complex systems that are more like organisms than machines. Neither the laws of economics nor the laws of mechanics apply; cities are the product of countless individual and collective decisions that do not conform to any grand plan. They are the product of our inventions; they evolve. In Inventing Future Cities, Michael Batty explores what we need to understand about cities in order to invent their future. Batty outlines certain themes—principles—that apply to all cities. He investigates not the invention of artifacts but inventive processes. Today form is becoming ever more divorced from function; information networks now shape the traditional functions of cities as places of exchange and innovation. By the end of this century, most of the world's population will live in cities, large or small, sometimes contiguous, and always connected; in an urbanized world, it will be increasingly difficult to define a city by its physical boundaries. Batty discusses the coming great transition from a world with few cities to a world of all cities; argues that future cities will be defined as clusters in a hierarchy; describes the future “high-frequency,” real-time streaming city; considers urban sprawl and urban renewal; and maps the waves of technological change, which grow ever more intense and lead to continuous innovation—an unending process of creative destruction out of which future cities will emerge.

Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL offers backgrounds in information studies, computer science, and sociology. This book is divided into three parts: analyzing social media, NodeXL tutorial, and social-media network analysis case studies. Part I provides background in the history and concepts of social media and social networks. Also included here is social network analysis, which flows from measuring, to mapping, and modeling collections of connections. The next part focuses on the detailed operation of the free and open-source NodeXL extension of Microsoft Excel, which is used in all exercises throughout this book. In the final part, each chapter presents one form of social media, such as e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and Youtube. In addition, there are descriptions of each system, the nature of networks when people interact, and types of analysis for identifying people, documents, groups, and events. - Walks you through NodeXL, while explaining the theory and development behind each step, providing takeaways that can apply to any SNA - Demonstrates how visual analytics research can be applied to SNA tools for the mass market - Includes case studies from researchers who use NodeXL on popular networks like email, Facebook, Twitter, and wikis - Download companion materials and resources at https://nodexl.codeplex.com/documentation