Smart Pop Preview 2013

Get a sneak peak at Smart Pop's 2013 titles with this preview volume of standalone essays and exclusive book extras! Volume includes: "Anne McCaffrey, Believer in Us" – David Brin From Dragonwriter: A Tribute to Anne McCaffrey and Pern, edited by Todd McCaffrey Exclusive Extra: "Painting the Dragonwriter Cover" - Michael Whelan Excerpts from "Munchkin: Hollywood" – Liam McIntyre From The Munchkin Book: The Official Companion, edited by James Lowder "Percy Jackson and the Gods of Death" – J&P Voelkel From Demigods and Monsters: Your Favorite Authors on Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians, edited by Rick Riordan "Why the Best Friend Never Gets the Girl" - Kami Garcia From Shadowhunters and Downworlders: A Mortal Instruments Reader, edited by Cassandra Clare "The Price of Our Inheritance" - Neal Shusterman From Ender's World: Fresh Perspectives on the SF Classic Ender's Game, edited by Orson Scott Card Exclusive Extra: Q&A with Orson Scott Card "The Architects of the Rebellion" - V. Arrow From The Panem Companion: An Unofficial Guide to Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games, From Mellark Bakery to Mockingjays Exclusive Extras: "A Grosser Power" – Ned Vizzini "Capitol or Katniss - Who Am I?" - Lili Wilkinson From the special e-book only content for The Girl Who Was on Fire - Movie Edition, edited by Leah Wilson "A Prehistory of Fanfiction" - Anne Jamison From Fic: Why Fanfiction is Taking Over the World Excerpts on Washington Commons, The Foundry, and AndrewAndrew From The Unofficial Girls Guide to New York: Inside the Cafes, Clubs, and Neighborhoods of HBO's Girls

Smart Food Industry: The Blockchain for Sustainable Engineering, Volume I - Fundamentals, Technologies, and Management is a comprehensive overview of the current state of knowledge about food engineering and processing, under sustainable engineering perspective. This book includes disruptive approaches that will potentially enable the food industry for the transition to sustainable production. Divided into four parts, the book explores (i) fundamentals of sustainable food, (ii) conventional technologies in the food industry, (iii) sustainabile emerging technologies in food industries, and (iv) sustainable management in food industries. The book is an invaluable reference resource for students, researchers, graduates, and professionals, in general, who wish to gain knowledge in the engineering and food processing area as well as about sustainable food industry practices.

Expanding Austenland: The Pride and Prejudice Fanfiction Archive explores Jane Austen’s reception in popular culture through an exploration of the ever-expanding terrain of online fanfiction, professionally published (profic) texts, and other intertextual reworkings inspired by the author’s most popular novel, Pride and Prejudice. The book argues that given its pervasiveness, Pride and Prejudice could be usefully considered not as a single novel, but as an entire ‘archive’ of interrelated texts, or as a portal that opens a ‘virtual world’ for readers to expand and explore. By examining the Pride and Prejudice archive of interrelated texts, this book analyses the process through which an individual novel can develop a virtual life, or afterlife. The evolving world that is opened by Pride and Prejudice, and extended and enriched through fanfiction, is conceptualised in the monograph as ‘Austenland’.

Agriculture and food systems, forestry, the marine and the bio-based sectors are at the very heart of the climate change crisis. Evidence on climate change reveals that it will affect farming first, through changes to rainfall regimes, rising temperatures, the variability and seasonality of the climate and the occurrence of more frequent extreme events (heatwaves, droughts, storms and floods). In addition to findings ways to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, farmers will need to develop farming systems resilient to fluctuating environmental and socioeconomic conditions. It is thus a great challenge to support ambitious climate targets while satisfying the needs for food, feed, bio-based products and energy for a global population projected to reach 10 billion by 2030. Few books on the market integrate environment studies and climate-smart food production. This book fills the knowledge gap by covering all the relevant aspects in one reference: starting with microclimate management, climate change and food systems, and resilience of mixed farming and agroforestry systems, chapters address agricultural soil management, integrated water management in small agricultural catchments, citizen-driven food system approaches in cities, and ICT-enabled agri-food systems. By focusing on the most recent advances in the field while analyzing the potential of already applied practices, this book can serve as a handbook for regulators and researchers looking to understand all aspects of food production and distribution in this changing environment.

This thought-provoking book questions the framework of the Horizon 2020 strategy and the policies of smart development. It aims to answer the following question: Is there any possibility for a policy of smart development and smart specialization in rural and peri-urban areas? Based on detailed analytical studies, empirical and econometric methods, as well as various European case studies, several conclusions are drawn. Smart development policies are well adapted to the developed or intermediate regions containing at the same time rural and urban areas, but do not really function for the more rural or more peripheral regions. The development policies of rural areas must be adapted to their particular characteristics, to the structure of their economies (agriculture, small firms), as well as in their diversity (distant regions, intermediate regions, rural areas near the urban areas). It appears interesting to exploit natural and cultural amenities, to develop the multifunctional character of the agriculture, to promote territorial innovation under all its forms, to favor the synergies between the various uses of land and space, and to develop the knowledge on the ecological, socioeconomic processes, as well as on the mechanisms of territorial governance. These results are very important because they question the validity of the H2020 policy and the smart development and smart specialization policies and their applicability to the whole European area, and not only for the most urban and rich areas. It will be valuable reading for students, researchers and policy-makers in regional development, rural studies, spatial planning and economic geography.

Sustainability in agriculture and associated primary industries, which are both energy-intensive, is crucial for the development of any country. Increasing scarcity and resulting high fossil fuel prices combined with the need to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, make the improvement of energy efficient farming and increased use of renewable energy essential. This book provides a technological and scientific endeavor to assist society and farming communities in different regions and scales to improve their productivity and sustainability. To fulfill future needs of a modern sustainable agriculture, this book addresses highly actual topics providing innovative, effective and more sustainable solutions for agriculture by using sustainable, environmentally friendly, renewable energy sources and modern energy efficient, cost-improved technologies. The book highlights new areas of research, and further R&D needs. It helps to improve food security for the rapidly growing world population and to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use in agriculture, which presently contributes 22% of the global carbon dioxide emissions. This book provides a source of information, stimuli and incentives for what and how new and energy efficient technologies can be applied as effective tools and solutions in agricultural production to satisfy the continually increasing demand for food and fibre in an economically sustainable way, while contributing to global climate change mitigation. It will be useful and inspiring to decision makers working in different authorities, professionals, agricultural engineers, researchers, and students concerned with agriculture and related primay industries, sustainable energy development and climate change mitigation projects.

This publication demonstrates the benefits of neglected and underutilized species, including amaranth, sorghum and cowpea, and their potential contribution to achieving Zero Hunger in South and Southeast Asia.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Smart Cities and Green ICT Systems, SMARTGREENS 2015, and the 1st International Conference on Vehicle Technology and Intelligent Transport Systems, VEHITS 2015, held in Lisbon, Portugal, in May 2015. The 15 full papers of SMARTGREENS 2015 presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 73 submissions. VEHITS 2015 received 27 paper submissions from which 3 papers were selected and published in this book. The papers reflect topics such as smart cities, energy-aware systems and technologies, sustainable computing and communications, sustainable transportation and smart mobility.