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A synthesis of tropical freshwater systems which illustrates the basic theory of freshwater biology.

Hydrology is vital to human civilisations as well as to natural ecosystems, yet it has only emerged as a distinct scientific discipline during the last 50 years or so. This book reviews the development of modern hydrology primarily through the experiences of the multidisciplinary team of scientists and engineers at Wallingford, near Oxford, who have been at the forefront of many of the developments in UK hydrological research. These topics include: • The development of basic understanding through the collection of data with specialised instrumentation in experimental basins • The study of extreme flows – both floods and droughts • The role moisture in the soil • Studies of the processes controlling evaporation • Water resource studies • Modelling and prediction of the extremes of flow improved • Understanding of water quality issues • A widening recognition of the importance of an ecosystem approach • Meeting the challenges of climate change, • Data handling • Future developments in hydrology and the pressures which generate them. Readership: hydrologists in both academia and a wide range of applied fields such as civil engineering, meteorology, geography and physics, as well as advanced students in earth science, environmental science and physical geography programmes worldwide.

This book discusses the photosynthesis for ecosystem models, in particular the strengths and limitations of four methods used for predicting photosynthesis. The methods usage depends upon the purpose of the prediction to be made, as well as improvements in associated techniques that seem to revolutionize the methodology. Therefore comparisons between methods are valuable justifying this state of the art review for all photosynthetic scientists.

In The Progressive Poetics of Confusion in the French Enlightenment, John C. O'Neal draws largely on the etymological meaning of the word confusion as the action of mixing or blending in order to trace the development of this project which, he claims, aimed to reject dogmatic thinking in all of its forms and recognized the need to embrace complexity. Eighteenth-century thinkers used the notion of confusion in a progressive way to reorganize social classes, literary forms, metaphysical substances, scientific methods, and cultural categories such as taste and gender. In this new work, O'Neal explores some of the paradoxes of the Enlightenment's theories of knowledge. Each of the chapters in this book attempts to address the questions raised by the eighteenth century's particular approach to confusion as a paradoxical reorganizing principle for the period's progressive agenda. Perhaps the most paradoxical thinker of his times, Diderot occupies a central place in this study of confusion. Other authors include Marivaux, CrZbillon, Voltaire, and Pinel, among others. Rousseau and Sade serve as counterexamples to this kind of enlightenment but ultimately do not so much oppose the period's poetics of confusion as they complement it. The final chapter on Sade combines contemporary discussions of politics, society, culture, philosophy, and science in an encyclopedic way that at once reflects the entire period's tendencies and establishes important differences between Sade's thinking and that of the mainstream philosophes. Ultimately, confusion serves, O'Neal argues, as an overarching positive notion for the Enlightenment and its progressive ideals.

In 2016, South African film audiences were mesmerised by the film Noem My Skollie, which was written by – and based on the life of – John W. Fredericks. In this book Fredericks tells the full story on which the film was based. Growing up in a dusty township on the Cape Flats, Fredericks formed a gang with his friends, and at the age of seventeen he was arrested for robbery and sentenced to two years in Pollsmoor prison. A number gangs vied to initiate him into their ranks, but he resisted their advances, offering instead to help them push their time by telling stories. And so he became the prison ‘cinema’, drawing on his storytelling abilities and cementing his ambition to become a writer. Life after prison became a nightmare when he was arrested for a murder he hadn’t committed, his childhood friends were sentenced to die on the gallows, and a gang boss tried to kill him. Slowly he turned his life around, getting a job and building a family, but society kept judging him as a gangster. Struggling to deal with his past, he turned to storytelling again, and painstakingly learnt the art of scriptwriting. The result was Noem My Skollie, which was watched by almost 90 000 people and won numerous awards. Written in a powerful and authentic voice, Skollie is a gripping memoir of life on the Cape Flats, of prison and gangs, and of one man’s struggle to survive all this by telling stories.

This book by one of the leaders in adaptive optics covers the fundamental theory and then describes in detail how this technology can be applied to large ground-based telescopes to compensate for the effects of atmospheric turbulence. It includes information on basic adaptive optics components and technology, and has chapters devoted to atmospheric turbulence, optical image structure, laser beacons, and overall system design. The chapter on system design is particularly detailed and includes performance estimation and optimization. Combining a clear discussion of physical principles with numerous real-world examples, this book will be a valuable resource for all graduate students and researchers in astronomy and optics.

Upon the 2018 death of George H. W. Bush, pundits and politicians mourned the passing of an exemplar of the statesmanship and bipartisan ethos of an earlier day. The judgment, though sound, would have shocked observers of the 1988 election that put Bush in the White House. From a scholar who played a small role in that long-ago election, After Reagan provides an eye-opening look at a presidential campaign that few suspected marked the end of an era—or the rise of forces roiling our political landscape today. Willie Horton. “Read my lips: No new taxes.” Michael Dukakis in a helmet, in a tank. Though these are remembered as pivotal moments in a presidential campaign recalled as whisker-close, in his book John J. Pitney Jr. reminds us how large Bush’s victory actually was, and how much it depended on social conditions and political dynamics that would change dramatically in the coming years. A turning point toward the post–Cold War, hyper-partisan, culturally divided politics of our time, the election of 1988 took place in a very different world. After Reagan captures a moment when campaigns were funded from the federal Treasury; when Republicans had a lock on the presidency and Democrats controlled Congress; when the electorate was considerably whiter and less educated than today’s; and when the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union—and the subsequent rise of globalization—were virtually unimaginable. Many books tell us that elections have consequences. Pitney’s explains how campaigns are consequential—the 1988 campaign more than most. From the perspective of the last thirty years, After Reagan shows us the 1988 election in a truly new light—one that, in turn, reveals the links between the campaign of 1988 and the politics of the twenty-first century.