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Weighting Methods and their Effects on Multi-Criteria Decision Making Model Outcomes in Water Resources Management
by Noorul Hassan Zardari Kamal Ahmed Sharif Moniruzzaman Shirazi Zulkifli Bin YusopThis book provides a systematic way of how to make better decisions in water resources management. The applications of three weighting methods namely rating, ranking, and ratio are discussed in this book. Additionally, data mining on keywords is presented using three popular scholarly databases: Science Direct, Scopus, and SciVerse. Four abbreviated keywords (MCDM, MCDA, MCA, MADM) representing multi-criteria decision-making were used and these three databases were searched for different popular weighting methods for a period of 13 years (2000-2012). The book provides also a review of weighting methods applied in various multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods and also presents survey results on priority ranking of watershed management criteria undertaken by 30 undergraduate and postgraduate students from the Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.
Weird But True: 200 Astounding, Outrageous, and Totally Off the Wall Facts
by Leslie Gilbert ElmanBizarre and fascinating facts for fans of science, nature, history, and more!The Earth is broadcasting a symphony of sound right now . . . Madagascar is home to enormous suicidal palm trees . . . Blacktip sharks can reproduce by virgin birth . . . In this fascinating book, weird, true facts like these reveal just how much freaky stuff really happens around the world.We’ve uncovered odd natural phenomena, super-strange historic occurrences, downright bizarre momentous discoveries, and totally peculiar coincidences that will blow your mind. From Biblical latrines to ultimate survivor microbes, if it’s weird—and true—you’ll find it here!
Weird Snowy Day: Book 4 (Weirdibeasts #4)
by Alan Gibbons Megan Gibbons Rachel GibbonsA full colour blue Early Reader story from million-copy-selling author Alan Gibbons writing with his daughters, Megan and Rachel.Early Readers are stepping stones from picture books to reading books perfect for building confidence in new readers and reluctant readers. A blue Early Reader is perfect for sharing and reading together. A red Early Reader is the next step on your reading journey.Katie Cat saw it first. It was a single white flake drifting down from the sky. It's a snowy day, and that means snowball fights and playing outside with friends. Even the littlest animals can have fun in the snow.A delightful new Weirdibeasts story from million-copy-selling author Alan Gibbons writing with his daughters, Megan and Rachel, and illustrated by Jane Porter.
Weird, Wild, Amazing!: Exploring The Incredible World Of Animals
by Tim FlanneryInternationally renowned author and scientist Tim Flannery’s first children’s book is a humorous, informed, and accessible deep-dive into the natural world. Are zombie jellyfish real? Do frogs like opera? What’s it like to wrestle a python? Tim Flannery has the answers. Introducing some of the most spectacular and unusual creatures on Earth, from water to sky and the forests and deserts in between, he offers in- depth and often bizarre facts on extraordinary animals that live in each habitat while incorporating concepts of climate change, evolution, conservation, and taxonomy. Did you know that lions once roamed North America, or that albatrosses sleep-fly? Have you ever heard a piranha bark, or ever wondered how the sloth got its name? Packed with vibrant illustrations and guided by real-life anecdotes from one of our greatest science communicators, Weird, Wild, Amazing! teaches readers to cherish and delight in our planet’s environment with Flannery’s signature mix of humor and wisdom.
Weird, Wild, Amazing! Desert: Exploring the World's Incredible Drylands
by Tim FlanneryInternationally renowned author and scientist Tim Flannery explores Earth’s deserts and grasslands and the extraordinary animals that live in them. Are zombie ants real? How high can an armadillo jump? What’s it like to wrestle a python? Tim Flannery has the answers. In this informed and accessible book, he introduces some of the most spectacular and unusual creatures in our planet’s deserts and grasslands with in-depth and often-bizarre facts. Flannery ties together concepts of climate change, evolution, conservation, and taxonomy throughout each animal’s profile, firmly connecting it to its environment while sparking wonder at its role in the natural world. Packed with vibrant illustrations and guided by real-life anecdotes from one of our greatest science communicators, Weird, Wild, Amazing! Desert teaches readers to cherish and delight in our planet’s ecosystems with Flannery’s signature mix of humor and wisdom.
Weird, Wild, Amazing! Forest: Forest
by Tim FlanneryInternationally renowned author and scientist Tim Flannery explores our planet’s forests and the extraordinary animals that live in them. Can spiders fly? Are dire wolves real? Do chameleons practice magic? Tim Flannery has the answers. In this informed and accessible book, he introduces some of the most spectacular and unusual creatures in Earth’s forests with in-depth and often bizarre facts. Flannery ties together concepts of climate change, evolution, conservation, and taxonomy throughout each animal’s profile, firmly connecting the animal to its environment while sparking wonder at its role in the natural world. Packed with vibrant illustrations and guided by real-life anecdotes from one of our greatest science communicators, Weird, Wild, Amazing! Forest teaches readers to cherish and delight in our planet’s ecosystems with Tim Flannery’s signature mix of humor and wisdom.
Weird, Wild, Amazing! Sky: Exploring the Incredible World in the Clouds
by Tim FlanneryInternationally renowned author and scientist Tim Flannery takes readers to the skies to learn about the extraordinary animals that fly in them. Can owls swim? Do woodpeckers eat wood? Are vampire bats real? Tim Flannery has the answers. In this informed and accessible book, he introduces some of the most spectacular and unusual creatures soaring through Earth’s skies with in-depth and often-bizarre facts. Flannery ties together concepts of climate change, evolution, conservation, and taxonomy throughout each animal’s profile, firmly connecting it to its environment while sparking wonder at its role in the natural world. Packed with vibrant illustrations and guided by real-life anecdotes from one of our greatest science communicators, Weird, Wild, Amazing! Sky teaches readers to cherish and delight in our planet’s ecosystems with Flannery’s signature mix of humor and wisdom.
Weird, Wild, Amazing! Water: Water
by Tim FlanneryInternationally renowned author and scientist Tim Flannery explores our planet’s rivers and oceans and the extraordinary animals that live in them. Can jellyfish become zombies? Are narwhals unicorns? Can a turtle live in a tree? Tim Flannery has the answers. In this informed and accessible book, he introduces some of the most spectacular and unusual creatures in Earth’s waters with in-depth and often bizarre facts. Flannery ties together concepts of climate change, evolution, conservation, and taxonomy throughout each animal’s profile, firmly connecting it to its environment while sparking wonder at its role in the natural world. Packed with vibrant illustrations and guided by real-life anecdotes from one of our greatest science communicators, Weird, Wild, Amazing! Water teaches readers to cherish and delight in our planet’s ecosystems with Tim Flannery’s signature mix of humor and wisdom.
The Weirdo (Penguin Joint Venture Readers Ser.)
by Theodore TaylorChip Clewt, known simply as the weirdo, lives like a hermit in the Powhatan Swamp, a National Wildlife Refuge that is at the center of a heated controversy between local hunters and environmentalists. A hunting ban on the Powhatan is about to expire. The environmentalists want to protect the wildlife; the hunters are oiling their guns. Then someone completely unexpected comes forward to spearhead the conservation effort--the weirdo. Includes a reader's guide.
Welcome Flower Child: The Magic of Your Birth Flower
by Brigette BarragerA beautiful gift book that reveals the meaning of birth flowers for babies born each month of the year.Every child is a different kind of flower, and all together, make this world a beautiful garden.Welcome to this celebration of nature and babies from New York Times bestselling illustrator of Uni the Unicorn, Brigette Barrager. A gorgeous gift book reveals the qualities of babies born in each month of the year, and the accompanying flower that blooms in each birth month. This text is sweet, and soft, and everyone who opens it can find the special personality traits of individuals born in their month revealed.
Welcome Home, Bear: A Book of Animal Habitats
by Il Sung NaFollow Bear as he visits animal habitats around the world--and comes to appreciate his own home--in this new offering from the creator of A Book of Sleep and A Book of Babies. Bear is tired of waking up every morning in the same green forest, so he decides to search for a new place to live. He visits the birds in the trees, a mole underground, a camel in the hot desert sand, puffins in the cold arctic snow . . . only to realize his own home is the perfect place for him after all. Welcome Home, Bear offers rich illustrations, bright colors, and a simple, spare text--all wrapped up in a beautiful, kid-friendly package. Readers meet animals in their habitats around the world--and return with Bear to the one place he is truly happy.
Welcome to Camp Nightmare (Goosebumps #9)
by R. L. StineNext Summer you'll stay at home. . . if you survive! The food isn't great. The counselors are a little strange. And the camp director, Uncle Al, seems sort of demented. Okay, so Billy can handle all that. But then his fellow campers start to disappear. What's going on? Why won't his parents answer his letters? What's lurking out there after dark? Camp Nightmoon is turning into Camp Nightmare! And Billy might be next. . . .
Welcome to Subirdia
by Jack Delap John M. MarzluffWelcome to Subirdia presents a surprising discovery: the suburbs of many large cities support incredible biological diversity. Populations and communities of a great variety of birds, as well as other creatures, are adapting to the conditions of our increasingly developed world. In this fascinating and optimistic book, John Marzluff reveals how our own actions affect the birds and animals that live in our cities and towns, and he provides ten specific strategies everyone can use to make human environments friendlier for our natural neighbors. Over many years of research and fieldwork, Marzluff and student assistants have closely followed the lives of thousands of tagged birds seeking food, mates, and shelter in cities and surrounding areas. From tiny Pacific wrens to grand pileated woodpeckers, diverse species now compatibly share human surroundings. By practicing careful stewardship with the biological riches in our cities and towns, Marzluff explains, we can foster a new relationship between humans and other living creatures-one that honors and enhances our mutual destiny.
Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North
by Blair BravermanA rich and revelatory memoir of a young woman reclaiming her courage in the stark landscapes of the north.By the time Blair Braverman was eighteen, she had left her home in California, moved to arctic Norway to learn to drive sled dogs, and found work as a tour guide on a glacier in Alaska. Determined to carve out a life as a “tough girl”—a young woman who confronts danger without apology—she slowly developed the strength and resilience the landscape demanded of her. By turns funny and sobering, bold and tender, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube brilliantly recounts Braverman’s adventures in Norway and Alaska. Settling into her new surroundings, Braverman was often terrified that she would lose control of her dog team and crash her sled, or be attacked by a polar bear, or get lost on the tundra. Above all, she worried that, unlike the other, gutsier people alongside her, she wasn’t cut out for life on the frontier. But no matter how out of place she felt, one thing was clear: she was hooked on the North. On the brink of adulthood, Braverman was determined to prove that her fears did not define her—and so she resolved to embrace the wilderness and make it her own. Assured, honest, and lyrical, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube paints a powerful portrait of self-reliance in the face of extraordinary circumstance. Braverman endures physical exhaustion, survives being buried alive in an ice cave, and drives her dogs through a whiteout blizzard to escape crooked police. Through it all, she grapples with love and violence—navigating a grievous relationship with a fellow musher, and adapting to the expectations of her Norwegian neighbors—as she negotiates the complex demands of being a young woman in a man’s land.Weaving fast-paced adventure writing and ethnographic journalism with elegantly wrought reflections on identity, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube captures the triumphs and the perils of Braverman’s journey to self-discovery and independence in a landscape that is as beautiful as it is unforgiving.
Welcome to the Jungle
by Matt LondonWHAT IF YOU BUILT A CONTINENT OF YOUR OWN? AND WHAT IF IT WAS ON A COLLISION COURSE WITH AUSTRALIA?Rick and Evie Lane have finally converted the Great Pacific Garbage Patch into an eighth continent. But their dream of a new homeland for their family turns out to be short-lived. Because when robots from the villainous Condo Corp crash into their continent, a fatal oversight in the building process is revealed: the land mass was never anchored to the ocean floor!Now, the eighth continent is sent barreling toward the coast of Australia, thrusting Rick and Evie's dreams, 23 million people, and countless plants and animals into jeopardy. If Rick and Evie are ever to get their family back together and have a continent to run--and not run after--they must find a way to root their beloved paradise to the Earth's crust. Or else everything that they built will go pow like Pangaea!BUILD IT - RUN IT - RULE ITat 8thContinentBooks.com
Well-being, Sustainability and Social Development: The Netherlands 1850–2050
by John Grin Jan-Pieter Smits Frank Veraart Harry LintsenThis open access book examines more than two centuries of societal development using novel historical and statistical approaches. It applies the well-being monitor developed by Statistics Netherlands that has been endorsed by a significant part of the international, statistical community. It features The Netherlands as a case study, which is an especially interesting example; although it was one of the world’s richest countries around 1850, extreme poverty and inequality were significant problems of well-being at the time. Monitors of 1850, 1910, 1970 and 2015 depict the changes in three dimensions of well-being: the quality of life 'here and now', 'later' and 'elsewhere'. The analysis of two centuries shows the solutions to the extreme poverty problem and the appearance of new sustainability problems, especially in domestic and foreign ecological systems. The study also reveals the importance of natural capital: soil, air, water and subsoil resources, showing their relation with the social structure of the ‘here and now´. Treatment and trade of natural resources also impacted on the quality of life ‘later’ and ‘elsewhere.’ Further, the book illustrates the role of natural capital by dividing the capital into three types of raw materials and concomitant material flows: bio-raw materials, mineral and fossil subsoil resources. Additionally, the analysis of the institutional context identifies the key roles of social groups in well-being development. The book ends with an assessment of the solutions and barriers offered by the historical anchoring of the well-being and sustainability issues. This unique analysis of well-being and sustainability and its institutional analysis appeals to historians, statisticians and policy makers.
The Well-Chosen Garden
by Christopher LloydThe perfect book on how to make your garden the best it can be.'Essential reading' Country Life'Funny, encouraging, informative' Sunday TimesWould your garden, small or large, in town or country, win a prize? Is there room for improvement? Everybody has favourite plants, but the ability to put them all together to ensure a splendid show throughout the year is a skill that must be acquired. THE WELL-CHOSEN GARDEN will guide you to making the most of your available space, help you avoid untimely gaps, colour clashes and many other pitfalls of garden planning.The perfect book for new and experienced gardeners alike.
The Well-Chosen Garden
by Christopher LloydThe perfect book on how to make your garden the best it can be.'Essential reading' Country Life'Funny, encouraging, informative' Sunday TimesWould your garden, small or large, in town or country, win a prize? Is there room for improvement? Everybody has favourite plants, but the ability to put them all together to ensure a splendid show throughout the year is a skill that must be acquired. THE WELL-CHOSEN GARDEN will guide you to making the most of your available space, help you avoid untimely gaps, colour clashes and many other pitfalls of garden planning.The perfect book for new and experienced gardeners alike.
Well Connected: Everyday Water Practices in Cairo (Water and Society)
by Tessa FarmerHow a community in Cairo, Egypt, has adapted the many systems required for clean water.Who is responsible for ensuring access to clean potable water? In an urbanizing planet beset by climate change, cities are facing increasingly arid conditions and a precarious water future. In Well Connected, anthropologist Tessa Farmer details how one community in Cairo, Egypt, has worked collaboratively to adapt the many systems required to facilitate clean water in their homes and neighborhoods.As a community that was originally not included in Cairo's municipal systems, the residents of Ezbet Khairallah built their own potable water and wastewater infrastructure. But when the city initiated a piped sewage removal system, local residents soon found themselves with little to no power over their own water supply or wastewater removal. Throughout this transition, residents worked together to collect water at the right times to drink, bathe, do laundry, cook, and clean homes. These everyday practices had deep implications for the health of community members, as they struggled to remain hydrated, rid their children of endemic intestinal worms, avoid consuming water contaminated with sewage, and mediate the impact of fluctuating water quality. Farmer examines how the people of Cairo interact with one another, with the government, and with social structures in order to navigate the water systems (and lack thereof) that affect their day-to-day lives. Farmer's extensive ethnographic fieldwork during the implementation of the Governorate of Cairo's septic system shines through in the compelling stories of community members. Well Connected taps into the inherent sociality of water through social contacts, moral ideology, interpersonal relationships, domestic rhythms, and the everyday labor of connecting.
The Well-Gardened Mind: The Restorative Power of Nature
by Sue Stuart-SmithA distinguished psychiatrist and avid gardener offers an inspiring and consoling work about the healing effects of gardening and its ability to decrease stress and foster mental well-being in our everyday lives.The garden is often seen as a refuge, a place to forget worldly cares, removed from the &“real&” life that lies outside. But when we get our hands in the earth we connect with the cycle of life in nature through which destruction and decay are followed by regrowth and renewal. Gardening is one of the quintessential nurturing activities and yet we understand so little about it. The Well-Gardened Mind provides a new perspective on the power of gardening to change people&’s lives. Here, Sue Stuart-Smith investigates the many ways in which mind and garden can interact and explores how the process of tending a plot can be a way of sustaining an innermost self. Stuart-Smith&’s own love of gardening developed as she studied to become a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. From her grandfather&’s return from World War I to Freud&’s obsession with flowers to case histories with her own patients to progressive gardening programs in such places as Rikers Island prison in New York City, Stuart-Smith weaves thoughtful yet powerful examples to argue that gardening is much more important to our cognition than we think. Recent research is showing how green nature has direct antidepressant effects on humans. Essential and pragmatic, The Well-Gardened Mind is a book for gardeners and the perfect read for people seeking healthier mental lives.
The Well-Tempered Garden: A New Edition Of The Gardening Classic
by Christopher LloydA timeless gardening classic by Christopher Lloyd, one of Britain's most highly respected plantsmen, updated for the 21st century. With a new foreword by Anna Pavord.This is a classic work by a gardener who combines a passionate love of his subject with a critical intelligence and a good helping of wit. THE WELL-TEMPERED GARDEN is packed with the sort of information keen gardeners crave - from planting, weeding and the pleasures of propagation to annuals, water lilies and vegetables. Hailed as a masterpiece when it was first published, THE WELL-TEMPERED GARDEN is as fresh, enlightening and necessary for gardeners in the 21st century as it was when it first appeared more than 40 years ago.
Wellbeing, Justice and Development Ethics
by Severine DeneulinThe question of the meaning of progress and development is back on the political agenda. How to frame this discontent and search for new alternatives when either Marxism or liberalism no longer provides a satisfactory framework? This book introduces in an accessible way the capability approach, first articulated by Amartya Sen in the early 1980s. Written for an international audience, but rooted in the Latin American reality - a region with a history of movements for social justice - the book argues that the capability approach provides to date, the most encompassing and compelling ethical framework with which to construct action for improving people’s wellbeing and reducing injustices in the world. This book outlines in a clear and concrete way what the capability approach is and its significance for the social sciences and policy. It describes the distinctiveness of the approach as an ethical framework for action and aims to stimulate critical reflection on current economic and social practices as well as providing a language with which to modify them within human wellbeing concerns. Comprehensive, practical and nuanced in its treatment of the capability approach, this highly original volume gives students, researchers and professionals in the field of development an innovative framing of the capability approach as a 'language' for action and provides specific examples of how it has made a difference.
Wellness Architecture and Urban Design
by Phillip James Tabb Lahra TatrieleWellness is a contemporary concept with deep ancient roots promoting preventative and holistic activities, lifestyle choices, and salient architecture and urban design practices. Wellness Architecture and Urban Design presents definitions, an analysis of the wellness literature, and a brief history of the wellness movement. Specific planning and design strategies are presented citing examples worldwide and emphasizing the importance of wellness considerations at all scales of the built environment from rooms to cities. Both case studies offer fully integrated and comprehensive wellness design approaches creating resilient and life-enhancing wellness through each of the architecture and urban design scales. The book will be of interest to practitioners and students working in urban design, landscape architecture, architecture, planning, and affiliated fields.
Wendell Berry: Life and Work (Culture of the Land #Cull)
by Jason PetersA portrait of an American thinker with contributions by Barbara Kingsolver, Bill McKibben, Sven Birkerts, Wes Jackson, and more: “A masterful collection.” —Charlotte ObserverEssayist, social critic, poet, “mad farmer,” novelist, teacher, and prophet: Wendell Berry has been called many things, but the broad sweep of his contemporary relevance and influence defies facile labels. With a unique perspective and far-reaching vision, Berry poses complex questions about humankind and our relationship to the land and offers simple but profound solutions. Berry’s writings give voice to a provocative but consistent philosophy that extends far beyond its agrarian core to include elements of sociology, the natural sciences, politics, religion, philosophy, linguistics, agriculture, and other seemingly incompatible fields of study.Wendell Berry: Life and Work examines this wise, original thinker, appraising his written work and exploring his influence as an activist and artist. Each of the contributors—including Hayden Carruth, Sven Birkerts, Barbara Kingsolver, Stanley Hauerwas, Donald Hall, Ed McClanahan, Bill McKibben, Scott Russell Sanders, Norman Wirzba, Wes Jackson, and Eric T. Freyfogle—examines an aspect of Berry’s varied yet cohesive body of work. Also included are highly personal glimpses of Berry: his career, academic influence, and unconventional lifestyle.These deft sketches show the purity of Berry’s agrarian lifestyle and demonstrate that there is nothing simple about the life to which he’s devoted himself. He embraces a life that sustains him not by easy purchase and haste but by physical labor and patience, not by mindless acquiescence to a centralized economy but by attention to local ways and wisdom. This book combines biographical sketches, personal accounts, literary criticism, and social commentary. The result is a rich portrait of one of America’s most profound and honest thinkers.
Wendell Berry: Essays, 1969-1990 (Library of America Wendell Berry Edition #2)
by Wendell BerryThe first volume of the Library of America's definitive two-volume selection of the nonfiction writings of our greatest living advocate for sustainable culture.Writing with elegance and clarity, Wendell Berry is a compassionate and compelling voice for our time of political and cultural distrust and division, whether expounding the joys and wisdom of nonindustrial agriculture, relishing the pleasure of eating food produced locally by people you know, or giving voice to a righteous contempt for hollow innovation. He is our most important writer on the cultural crisis posed by industrialization and mass consumerism, and the vital role of rural, sustainable farming in preserving the planet as well as our national character. Now, in celebration of Berry's extraordinary six-decade-long career, Library of America presents a two-volume selection of his nonfiction writings prepared in close consultation with the author. This first volume collects thirty-three essays from nine different books, including his first, The Long-Legged House (1969), What are People For? (1990), with its still provocative essay "Why I am Not Going to Buy a Computer," and the complete text of his now classic The Unsettling of America (1975), whose argument about the enormous ecological, economic, and human costs of industrial agriculture has, as the author notes, "not had the happy fate of being proved wrong."Berry's essays remain timely, even urgent today, and will resonate with anyone interested in our relationship to the natural world and especially with a younger, politically engaged generation invested in the future welfare of the planet.INCLUDES: The Unsettling of America AND SELECTIONS FROM The Long-Legged House The Hidden Wound A Continuous Harmony Recollected Essays The Gift of Good Land Standing by Words Home Economics What Are People For?LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.