Water-Wise Cities and Sustainable Water Systems


Book Description

Building water-wise cities is a pressing need nowadays in both developed and developing countries. This is mainly due to the limitation of the available water resources and aging infrastructure to meet the needs of adapting to social and environmental changes and for urban liveability. This is the first book to provide comprehensive insights into theoretical, systematic, and engineering aspects of water-wise cities with a broad coverage of global issues. The book aims to (1) provide a theoretical framework of water-wise cities and associated sustainable water systems including key concepts and principles, (2) provide a brand-new thinking on the design and management of sustainable urban water systems of various scales towards a paradigm shift under the resource and environmental constraints, and (3) provide a technological perspective with successful case studies of technology selection, integration, and optimization on the “fit-for-purpose” basis.




Nonlinear Dynamics in Geosciences


Book Description

This work comprises the proceedings of a conference held last year in Rhodes, Greece, to assess developments during the last 20 years in the field of nonlinear dynamics in geosciences. The volume has its own authority as part of the Aegean Conferences cycle, but it also brings together the most up-to-date research from the atmospheric sciences, hydrology, geology, and other areas of geosciences, and discusses the advances made and the future directions of nonlinear dynamics.




Trends and Changes in Hydroclimatic Variables


Book Description

Trends and Changes in Hydroclimatic Variables: Links to Climate Variability and Change discusses the change detection and trend analysis methods used to assess hydroclimatic variables in a changing climate. Changes and trends in hydroclimatic variables are assessed using state-of-the-art methods, such as non-linear trend estimation (including spline smoothing and local regression) and handling persistence (or serial auto-correlation in data) for assessing trends in different hydroclimatic variables (e.g. pre-whitening methods). This book offers a variety of real-life case studies and problem-solving techniques for a field that is rapidly evolving. Users will find methods to evaluate points where time series characteristics change and non-homogeneity in time series. In addition, it covers the subject of climate variability and change in an immense level of detail, including changes on precipitation, streamflow and sea levels. - Examines statistical methods for trend analysis, providing an excellent reference book for scholars, scientists, students and professionals - Offers an exhaustive treatment of several hydroclimatic variables in one book, providing readers with a comprehensive understanding of changes in hydroclimatic variables over time and space - Presents case studies dealing with changes in hydroclimatic variables in different geographical regions of the world - Focuses on climate variability and change, including an extensive assessment of trends and their associated links to climate variability and change




Ergonomics and Human Factors


Book Description

And Applications To The Human-Computer Interface Michael E. Fotta AT&T Communications 16th FIr. Atrium II, Cincinnati, OH 45202 Artificial intelligence (AI) programs represent knowledge in a fashion similar to human knowledge and the activities of an AI system are closer to human behavior than that of traditional systems. Thus, AI enables the computer to act more like a human instead of making the human think and act more like a computer. This capability combined with applying human factors concepts to the interface can greatly improve the human-computer interface. This paper provides an intro duction to artificial intelligence and then proposes a number of methods for using AI to improve the human-machine inter action. AN INTRODUCTION TO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Definition There are many definitions of artificial intelligence (AI) running from the very general to the very detailed. Perhaps the most well accepted general definition is that by Elaine Rich: "Artificial intelligence is the study of how to make computers do things at which, at the moment, people are better", (Rich, 1983). A good example of a detailed definition is provided by the Brattle Research Corporation; "In simplified terms, artificial intelligence works with pattern matching methods which attempt to describe objects, events or pro cesses in terms of their qualitative features and logical and compu tational relationships," (Mishkoff, 1985).




Climate Analysis


Book Description

Explains how climatologists have come to understand current climate variability and trends through analysis of observations, datasets and models.