We are entering a new era in production agronomics. Agricultural scientists the world over call for the development of techniques that simultaneously increase soil carbon storage and reduce agriculture’s energy use. In response, site-specific or precision agriculture has become the focus and direction for the three motivating forces...

The SATA (Serial ATA) interface is intended to expand and eventually replace the parallel ATA interface that has been the standard connection for hard drives and CD-ROM/DVD drives in Personal Computers for nearly twenty years. SATA, a high-speed serial version of ATA, is designed to maintain compatibility with software written for the...

Within a scenario of globalised markets, where the capacity to efficiently cooperate with other firms starts to become essential in order to remain in the market in an economically, socially and environmentally cost-effective manner, it can be seen how the most innovative enterprises are beginning to redesign their business model to become...

Big data management is one of the major challenges facing business, industry, and not-for-profit organizations. Data sets such as customer transactions for a mega-retailer, weather patterns monitored by meteorologists, or social network activity can quickly...

This book presents the state of the art in parallel numerical algorithms, applications, architectures, and system software. The book examines various solutions for issues of concurrency, scale, energy efficiency, and programmability, which are discussed in the context of a diverse range of applications. Features: includes contributions from...

Digital communications technology has immeasurably enhanced our capacity to store, retrieve, and exchange information. But who controls our access to information, and who decides what others have a right to know about us? In Controlling Knowledge, author Lorna Stefanick offers a thought-provoking and eminently user-friendly overview of...

It has become clear to researchers in robotics and adaptive behaviour that current approaches are yielding systems with limited autonomy and capacity for self-improvement. To learn autonomously and in a cumulative fashion is one of the hallmarks of intelligence, and we know that higher mammals engage in exploratory activities that are not...

Pressure on space and changes in planning law mean that loft conversions are now at the forefront in the race to improve the performance of Britain's ageing housing stock. Since 1990, roof space conversions have increased UK housing capacity by more than 200 million square feet - a living area equivalent to a medium-sized city - without...