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Spacial Ecology elucidates processes and mechanisms which structure dynamics of real world systems; these include lakes, ponds, forests and rivers. Readers are introduced to contemporary models in ecological literature based on the author's research experience. The book starts by presenting an introduction to basic mechanisms of ecological processes. This is followed by chapters explaining these processes responsible for generating observed spatial patterns in detail. The book concludes with a chapter on water quality management and its relevance to the spatial setting in a wetland area

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose a method to support business process architecture and business process design, and present an application to the domain of public hospitals in Chile.Design/methodology/approachThis method is based on the formalization of generic architectures and their internal process structure, proposed in this work as architecture and process patterns, which have been developed at the Master in Business Engineering of the University of Chile and validated empirically in hundreds of Chilean firms from different industries.FindingsThe authors have found that the use of architecture and process patterns accelerates the design of such structures until the last level of detail, providing a good and timely basis for information system design and, in particular, were able to develop comprehensive generic process architecture for public hospitals in two months.Originality/valueThe authors' approach considers explicitly the relationships among the architecture elements and process components, providing a systemic view of the business structure and ensuring the alignment between its elements.

The notion of civilization has from the outset had a double meaning: unitary and pluralistic. Both aspects were important to the development of the social sciences, but attempts to theorize them at the level of basic concepts are of relatively recent date and the results still controversial. While the idea of civilization in the singular found its most seminal expression in Norbert Elias's analysis of the civilizing process, classical sociology did not go beyond inconclusive reflections on civilizations in the plural, and a more explicit frame of reference for comparative analyses has only begun to take shape in the last few decades (most importantly in the work of S. N. Eisenstadt). This article outlines a provisional model of civilizational patterns and suggests ways of linking it to the study of civilizing processes. The main structural components to be noted are cultural interpretations of the world (understood as latent problematics, compatible with a variety of articulations); institutional constellations, with particular reference to the frameworks for political and economic life; and representative ideologies, linked to canonical texts and embodied in the strategies and self-images of sociopolitical elites. The dynamics of these interconnected factors must be analysed in several contexts: on the level of civilizational complexes which encompass whole families of societies; in the historical dimension, stretching across successive generations of societies; and with reference to regional configurations and their distinctive historical patterns. This conception of civilizations provides a background to the analysis of intercivilizational encounters, and a better understanding of the latter theme - on the whole neglected by civilizational theorists, with the notable exception of Benjamin Nelson - will in turn serve to develop a more interactionist theory of civilizing processes.

The article is devoted to the problem of managing migration risks in the context of the transformation of the migration situation in the modern world space. The author, noting such transformation features as a reduction in the duration of migration movement, the emergence of "fluid" plastic forms of migration, substantiates the manifestation of migration risks and the need for new approaches to their minimization.

The article analyzes the evolution of cross-country migration processes, as well as the present situation in this sphere. The author comes to the conclusion that a critical mass of problems has been accumulated, which can not be effectively solved in the framework of existing national regulatory regimes. In this connection, to propose the transition to inter-state institutions of migration regulation, the author offers basic directions of concrete actions aimed at their formation.

1 Patterns and processes in helminth parasite communities: an overview -- 2 Host populations as resources defining parasite community organization -- 3 Spatial scale and the processes structuring a guild of larval trematode parasites -- 4 Guild structure of larval trematodes in molluscan hosts: prevalence, dominance and significance in competition -- 5 Helminth communities in marine fishes -- 6 Helminth communities in freshwater fish: structured communities of stochastic assemblages? -- 7 Helminth communities of amphibians and reptiles: comparative approaches to understanding patterns and processes -- 8 Helminth communities in avian hosts: determinants of pattern -- 9 Helminth community of mammalian hosts: concepts at the infracommunity, component and compound community levels -- 10 Models for multi-species parasite-host communities -- 11 Free-living communities and alimentary tract helminths: hypotheses and pattern analyses -- 12 Concluding remarks.

Spurred by major changes in the world economy and in local ecology, the contemporary migration of Africans, both within the continent and to various destinations in Europe and North America, has seriously affected thousands of lives and livelihoods. The contributors to this volume, reflecting a variety of disciplinary perspectives, examine the causes and consequences of this new migration. The essays cover topics such as rural-urban migration into African cities, transnational migration, and the experience of immigrants abroad, as well as the issues surrounding migrant identity and how Africans re-create community and strive to maintain ethnic, gender, national, and religious ties to their former homes.