Life's a Gas is a collection of over 1,000 true, funny happenings. You won't believe how people trip over their own tongues and take one step forward while taking two steps back and not even know it.

​​This book provides standards and guidelines for quantifying greenhouse gas emissions and removals in smallholder agricultural systems and comparing options for climate change mitigation based on emission reductions and livelihood trade-offs. Globally, agriculture is directly responsible for about 11% of annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and induces an additional 17% through land use change, mostly in developing countries. Farms in the developing countries of sub-Saharan Africa and Asia are predominately managed by smallholders, with 80% of land holdings smaller than ten hectares. However, little to no information exists on greenhouse gas emissions and mitigation potentials in smallholder agriculture. Greenhouse gas measurements in agriculture are expensive, time consuming, and error prone, challenges only exacerbated by the heterogeneity of smallholder systems and landscapes. Concerns over methodological rigor, measurement costs, and the diversity of approaches, coupled with the demand for robust information suggest it is germane for the scientific community to establish standards of measurements for quantifying GHG emissions from smallholder agriculture. Standard guidelines for use by scientists, development organizations will help generate reliable data on emissions baselines and allow rigorous comparisons of mitigation options. The guidelines described in this book, developed by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS) and partners, are intended to inform anyone conducting field measurements of agricultural greenhouse gas sources and sinks, especially to develop IPCC Tier 2 emission factors or to compare mitigation options in smallholder systems.

In the context of conducting research on the consequences of scientific and tech nological advance, the Europaische Akademie is also concerned with the support of scientists in the doctoral or post-doctoral phase who are working on topics or methods within its research spectrum. The first dissertation supported by the Europaische Akademie is published in this volume of the book series "Wissen schaftsethik und Technikfolgenbeurteilung". One of the research areas of the Europaische Akademie is the scientific investi gation of environmental consequences of new technologies. Energy conversion and transportation are thereby considered as important areas of technological advance. The dissertation follows this thread by comparing the impacts of natural gas vehicles on human health and the environment with those of reference vehi cles fueled by petrol and Diesel. This question is addressed within the framework of Life Cycle Assessment, which is one important instrument of environmental Technology Assessment. Within this framework, a new method for the assessment of impacts on human health is developed and applied. In this way, the dissertation contributes to the methodological research of the Europaische Akademie in the field of Technology Assessment. The book is addressed to researchers in the fields of alternative fuels, Techno logy Assessment, and Life Cycle Assessment in particular. It may also be of inter est to decisionmakers and the wider public concerned with environmental impacts of energy conversion and transportation. It was written in English in order to be accessible to an international audience.

This proceedings volume gathers selected contributions presented at two instances of the "JSPS/SAC Seminar: On Gas Kinetic/Dynamics and Life Science", held by the Chalmers University of Technology and University of Gothenburg, Sweden, on March 25-26, 2021 (virtual) and March 17-18, 2022 (virtual). Works in this book provide a concise approach to the theoretical and numerical analysis of kinetic type equations that arise, for example, in modeling industrial, medical, and environmental problems. Readers will find some of the most recent theoretical results, newly developed numerical methods in the field, and some open problems. Possible application areas encompass fission/fusion energy, electromagnetics, nuclear science and engineering, medical service, radiation oncology, and plants growth conditions, to name a few. The JSPS/SAC seminars are jointly organized by JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science)—Stockholm Office and the Department of Mathematical Sciences, Chalmers University of Technology & University of Gothenburg, Sweden. These seminars foster discussions on the mathematical theory, industrial and life science applications, and numerical analysis of non-linear hyperbolic partial differential equations modeling collision-less plasma and charged particles. Chapter 4 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com. Chapter 11 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book develops a model to evaluate and assess life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions based on typical Australian commercial building design options. It also draws comparisons between some of the many green building rating tools that have been developed worldwide to support sustainable development. These include: Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC), Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) by the Building Research Establishment, Comprehensive Assessment System for Building Environmental Efficiency (CASBEE) by the Japanese Sustainable Building Consortium, and Green Star Environmental Rating System by the Green Building Council of Australia. Life-cycle assessment (LCA), life-cycle energy consumption, and life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions form the three pillars of life-cycle studies, which have been used to evaluate environmental impacts of building construction. Assessment of the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of buildings is one of the significant obstacles in evaluating green building performance. This book explains the methodology for achieving points for the categories associated with reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the Australian Green Star rating system. The model for the assessment uses GaBi 8.7 platform along with Visual Basic in Microsoft Excel and shows the relationship between the building’s energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions released during the lifetime of the building. The data gathered in the book also illustrates that the green building design and specifications are becoming more popular and are being increasingly utilized in Australia. This book is important reading for anyone interested in sustainable construction, green design and buildings and LCA tools.