This open access book is about understanding the processes involved in the transformation of smallholder rice farming in the Lower Mekong Basin from a low-yielding subsistence activity to one producing the surpluses needed for national self-sufficiency and a high-value export industry. For centuries, farmers in the Basin have regarded rice as “white gold”, reflecting its centrality to their…
This open access book reflects on matters of social and ethical concern raised in the daily practices of those working in and around precision oncology. Each chapter addresses the experiences, concerns and issues at stake for people who work in settings where precision oncology is practiced, enacted, imagined or discussed. It subsequently discusses and analyses bioethical dilemmas, scientific c…
Consumers trust is a key factor in dealing with rising concerns about food safety and food quality, but only few studies have dealt with consumer attitudes and none of them has tried to model the process of consumer response. This book reports the main findings of an european project aimed at analysing trust along the food chain and its relationship with food risk communication. The papers coll…
Japan is quintessentially by geography a maritime country. Maritime surveillance capabilities – underwater, shore-based and airborne – are critical to its national defence posture. This book describes and assesses these capabilities, with particular respect to the underwater segment, about which there is little strategic analysis in publicly available literature. Since the end of the Col…
This book is a roadmap of the exact health disparities that burden the health of South Texas residents, especially Hispanics, compared to the rest of Texas and nation. This type of knowledge has the potential to fuel and motivate researchers and public health leaders to create and shape interventions to reverse those health disparities. Most notably, focus on obesity and diabetes prevention eff…
Should people hardwire computers into their brains, enabling their minds to directly access cyberspace? What advantages and risks would this represent? Would this create a new humanity? These questions have been considered and discussed in science fiction for decades, but technology is beginning to make such developments seem remarkably plausible. This book examines what is currently taking pla…
Diseases of Edible Oilseed Crops presents an unprecedentedly thorough collection of information on the diseases of cultivated annual oilseed crops, including peanut, rapeseed-mustard, sesame, soybean, sunflower, and safflower. Written by internationally recognized researchers, this book covers and integrates worldwide literature in the field up to 2014, setting it apart from other books that ar…
This open access book addresses self-care on sexual and reproductive health and rights and HIV prevention and treatment in the most marginalized and vulnerable communities. Case studies and personal narratives are used to share their perspectives and experiences, sources of information for self-care products, motivations for self-care, and challenges and outcomes. Self-care provides the way to …
This Open access book offers updated and revised information on vessel health and preservation (VHP), a model concept first published in poster form in 2008 and in JVA in 2012, which has received a great deal of attention, especially in the US, UK and Australia. The book presents a model and a new way of thinking applied to vascular access and administration of intravenous treatment, and …
This open access book uses smart grids to explore and better understand energy innovation, from a social science perspective. Understanding Energy Innovation has four core themes—networks, nodes, narratives and nostalgia—and each chapter tackles a theme, using case studies from Australia and Europe. Energy innovation is currently occurring at a rapid pace, in response to a host of problems …