People, Pattern and Process

People, Pattern and Process PDF Author: Keith Chapman
Publisher: Hodder Education
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description

People, Pattern and Process

People, Pattern and Process PDF Author: Keith Chapman
Publisher: Hodder Education
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description


Pattern and Process in Macroecology

Pattern and Process in Macroecology PDF Author: Kevin Gaston
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470999586
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
Issues of scale have become increasingly important to ecologists. This book addresses the structure of regional (large-scale) ecological assemblages or communities, and the influence this has at a local (small-scale) level. This macroecological perspective is essential for the broader study of ecology because the structure and function of local communities cannot be properly understood without reference to the region in which they are situated. The book reviews and synthesizes the issues of current importance in macroecology, providing a balanced summary of the field that will be useful for biologists at advanced undergraduate level and above. These general issues are illustrated by frequent reference to specific well-studied local and regional assemblages -- an approach that serves to relate the macroecological perspective (which is perhaps often difficult to comprehend) to the everyday experience of local sites. Macroecology is an expanding and dynamic discipline. The broad aim of the book is to promote an understanding of why it is such an important part of the wider program of research into ecology. Summarises the current macroecological literature. Provides numerous examples of key patterns. Explicitly links local and regional scale processes. Exploits detailed knowledge of one species assemblage to explore broad issues in the structuring of biodiversity.

Landscape: Pattern, Perception and Process

Landscape: Pattern, Perception and Process PDF Author: Simon Bell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136318909
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
Landscapes develop and evolve through an interacting series of processes – climatic, geological, ecological and cultural – over varying periods of time. These processes shape the structure and character of the landscapes which we experience. Over time, distinctive patterns emerge – ranging in scale from the distribution of small plants to the sculptured sides of a huge canyon. Our perception of these patterns goes beyond just their visual appreciation – beautiful though they may be – into a richer understanding of how we experience our environment. By understanding this complex pattern–process interaction we can obtain a deeper awareness of landscape and our place in it – as inhabitants and as shapers. The book explores the nature of patterns and ways of classifying them before studying the nature of perception (primarily visual but including other senses), then proceeds to relate this perception to aesthetics and from there to the design process. From this point the main driving processes in landscape are introduced alongside the resulting patterns, these being climatic, landform, ecosystem and cultural aspects. It is this integrative approach of looking at landscape as a kind of self-organising system, overlaid by conscious human planning activities and the unity of pattern and process, which makes this book unique. Landscape draws from a wide range of neighbouring disciplines, of which the landscape planner or designer needs to be aware, but which are often taught as distinct elements. Bell binds these fundamentals together, which enables the landscape to be ‘read’, and this reading to be used as the basis for planning and design. This second edition updates and refreshes the original material with added sections and new photos, particularly making use of the developments in satellite photography. Featuring full colour throughout, this textbook is ideal for anyone studying landscape architecture or any of the disciplines which intersect with the landscape, and which affect it.

Pattern and Process in Cultural Evolution

Pattern and Process in Cultural Evolution PDF Author: Stephen Shennan
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520255999
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
This volume offers an integrative approach to the application of evolutionary theory in studies of cultural transmission and social evolution and reveals the enormous range of ways in which Darwinian ideas can lead to productive empirical research, the touchstone of any worthwhile theoretical perspective. While many recent works on cultural evolution adopt a specific theoretical framework, such as dual inheritance theory or human behavioral ecology, Pattern and Process in Cultural Evolution emphasizes empirical analysis and includes authors who employ a range of backgrounds and methods to address aspects of culture from an evolutionary perspective. Editor Stephen Shennan has assembled archaeologists, evolutionary theorists, and ethnographers, whose essays cover a broad range of time periods, localities, cultural groups, and artifacts.

Landscape

Landscape PDF Author: Simon Bell
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9780419203407
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
Providing a fresh approach to the theory of design, Landscape: Pattern, Perception and Process synthesizes planning, design and ecology and shows a new view of where design can develop. The book brings together the work and subject areas of a range of disciplines including psychologists, philosophers, geologists, ecologists, cultural geographers, foresters, urban planners and landscape architects and synthesizes all these together. Since many landscape and environmental problems require multi-disciplinary approaches for their solution, this book demonstrates how the best integration can be achieved. Highly illustrated, it contains examples from North America, Canada, Europe and Australasia. Glossary, references and further reading provide the reader with guidance and back-up resources.

A Pattern Language

A Pattern Language PDF Author: Christopher Alexander
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190050357
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 1216

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Book Description
You can use this book to design a house for yourself with your family; you can use it to work with your neighbors to improve your town and neighborhood; you can use it to design an office, or a workshop, or a public building. And you can use it to guide you in the actual process of construction. After a ten-year silence, Christopher Alexander and his colleagues at the Center for Environmental Structure are now publishing a major statement in the form of three books which will, in their words, "lay the basis for an entirely new approach to architecture, building and planning, which will we hope replace existing ideas and practices entirely." The three books are The Timeless Way of Building, The Oregon Experiment, and this book, A Pattern Language. At the core of these books is the idea that people should design for themselves their own houses, streets, and communities. This idea may be radical (it implies a radical transformation of the architectural profession) but it comes simply from the observation that most of the wonderful places of the world were not made by architects but by the people. At the core of the books, too, is the point that in designing their environments people always rely on certain "languages," which, like the languages we speak, allow them to articulate and communicate an infinite variety of designs within a forma system which gives them coherence. This book provides a language of this kind. It will enable a person to make a design for almost any kind of building, or any part of the built environment. "Patterns," the units of this language, are answers to design problems (How high should a window sill be? How many stories should a building have? How much space in a neighborhood should be devoted to grass and trees?). More than 250 of the patterns in this pattern language are given: each consists of a problem statement, a discussion of the problem with an illustration, and a solution. As the authors say in their introduction, many of the patterns are archetypal, so deeply rooted in the nature of things that it seemly likely that they will be a part of human nature, and human action, as much in five hundred years as they are today.

From Pattern and Process to People and Action

From Pattern and Process to People and Action PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Landscape Ecology in Theory and Practice

Landscape Ecology in Theory and Practice PDF Author: Monica G. Turner
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387216944
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
An ideal text for students taking a course in landscape ecology. The book has been written by very well-known practitioners and pioneers in the new field of ecological analysis. Landscape ecology has emerged during the past two decades as a new and exciting level of ecological study. Environmental problems such as global climate change, land use change, habitat fragmentation and loss of biodiversity have required ecologists to expand their traditional spatial and temporal scales and the widespread availability of remote imagery, geographic information systems, and desk top computing has permitted the development of spatially explicit analyses. In this new text book this new field of landscape ecology is given the first fully integrated treatment suitable for the student. Throughout, the theoretical developments, modeling approaches and results, and empirical data are merged together, so as not to introduce barriers to the synthesis of the various approaches that constitute an effective ecological synthesis. The book also emphasizes selected topic areas in which landscape ecology has made the most contributions to our understanding of ecological processes, as well as identifying areas where its contributions have been limited. Each chapter features questions for discussion as well as recommended reading.

The Permaculture City

The Permaculture City PDF Author: Toby Hemenway
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603585273
Category : House & Home
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Permaculture is more than just the latest buzzword; it offers positive solutions for many of the environmental and social challenges confronting us. And nowhere are those remedies more needed and desired than in our cities. The Permaculture City provides a new way of thinking about urban living, with practical examples for creating abundant food, energy security, close-knit communities, local and meaningful livelihoods, and sustainable policies in our cities and towns. The same nature-based approach that works so beautifully for growing food—connecting the pieces of the landscape together in harmonious ways—applies perfectly to many of our other needs. Toby Hemenway, one of the leading practitioners and teachers of permaculture design, illuminates a new way forward through examples of edge-pushing innovations, along with a deeply holistic conceptual framework for our cities, towns, and suburbs. The Permaculture City begins in the garden but takes what we have learned there and applies it to a much broader range of human experience; we’re not just gardening plants but people, neighborhoods, and even cultures. Hemenway lays out how permaculture design can help towndwellers solve the challenges of meeting our needs for food, water, shelter, energy, community, and livelihood in sustainable, resilient ways. Readers will find new information on designing the urban home garden and strategies for gardening in community, rethinking our water and energy systems, learning the difference between a “job” and a “livelihood,” and the importance of placemaking and an empowered community. This important book documents the rise of a new sophistication, depth, and diversity in the approaches and thinking of permaculture designers and practitioners. Understanding nature can do more than improve how we grow, make, or consume things; it can also teach us how to cooperate, make decisions, and arrive at good solutions.

Human Biodiversity

Human Biodiversity PDF Author: Jonathan M. Marks
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 0202366561
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Are humans unique? This simple question, at the very heart of the hybrid field of biological anthropology, poses one of the false of dichotomies--with a stereotypical humanist answering in the affirmative and a stereotypical scientist answering in the negative. The "study "of human biology is different from the study of the biology of other species. In the simplest terms, people's lives and welfare may depend upon it, in a sense that they may not depend on the study of other scientific subjects. Where science is used to validate ideas--four out of five scientists preferring a brand of cigarettes or toothpaste--there is a tendency to accept the judgment as authoritative without asking the kinds of questions we might ask of other citizens' pronouncements. In "Human Biodiversity, "Marks has attempted to distill from a centuries-long debate what has been learned and remains to be learned about the biological differences within and among human groups. His is the first such attempt by an anthropologist in years, for genetics has undermined the fundamental assumptions of racial taxonomy. The history of those assumptions from Linnaeus to the recent past--the history of other, more useful assumptions that derive from Buffon and have reemerged to account for genetic variation--are the poles of Marks's exploration.