The Politics of Global Governance: International Organizations in an Interdependent World

Customer Reviews:

IO.......2006-01-31

I had to get this book for a class, and it's a really interesting book. It highlights the many differences between international organizations and their various duties.

not for beginners.......2004-09-02

This book is a compilation of scholarly articles, grouped into seven sections, that cover theoretical and practical aspects of international organizations. The overall question these articles try to answer is whether IOs work or not, how well they work in different areas, and how well they have adjusted to changes in the international system since the end of the Cold War.

Although some of the articles are certainly interesting and well researched, I feel that overall they assume too much prior knowledge about international relations and even statistics to be of much use for either undergraduates or people who are not well-read in the field of political science. My students found the texts hard to understand and "much too dry". In addition, many of the articles are somewhat dated and a bit repetitive. In all fairness, I have to say that an audience of graduate students or scholars are much more likely to benefit from reading this volume.

On a positive note, the book addresses a wide range of issues, such as decision-making, peace and security, economics, social and humanitarian affairs. It also stands out because it addresses many practical concerns about IOs, in addition to theoretical approaches. In doing so, it covers a number of important IGOs and NGOs in great detail (e.g. UN, NATO, WTO, IMF, Amnesty International, etc.).

Overall, the book provides a fairly balanced view of the abilities of IOs today, although it does not provide an actual conclusion regarding the potential of IOs for global governance.

Book Description

The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) is an association of agricultural research centers that together represent an important force in genetic conservation of crops and their wild relatives. Under the CGIAR umbrella, the centers are collectively custodians of international genetic resource collections for crops that provide seventy-five percent of the world's food energy. This volume considers the status of the key collections, in each case providing details of the botany, distribution and agronomy of the species concerned, in addition to extensive information on germplasm conservation and use. The book presents a unique synthesis of knowledge drawn from the CGIAR centers, providing an invaluable source of reference for all those concerned with monitoring, maintaining and utilizing the biodiversity of our staple crop species.

Biodiversity in Trust: Conservation and Use of Plant Genetic Resources

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Biodiversity in Trust: Conservation and Use of Plant Genetic Resources
Dominic Fuccillo
Manufacturer: Fuccillo, Dominic, Linda Sears and Paul Stapleton (eds). Biodiversity in Trust: Conservation and Use of Plant Genetic Resources in CGIAR Centres. Cambridge University Press, 1997. Hardcover. 371pp. FIne condition.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000TAD3FU

Biotechnology and Plant Genetic Resources: Conservation and Use (Biotechnology in Agriculture Series)

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Biotechnology and Plant Genetic Resources: Conservation and Use (Biotechnology in Agriculture Series)

Manufacturer: CABI
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

Biotechnology | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

Agronomy | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0851991424

Book Description

The aim of this book is to illustrate the application of the newer applications of biotechnology in the various areas of plant genetic resources work and to evaluate their actual or potential impact. Written by authorities for the USA, Europe, Australia, Philippines, and Costa Rica, it is an indispensable volume for advanced students and research workers in plant biotechnology and genetics.

Cherry Descriptor List. Cherry Descriptors. International Board for Plant Genetic Resources. Commission of European Communities. Committee on Disease Resistance Breeding and Use of Genebanks. 1985 Edition. 33 pages

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Cherry Descriptor List. Cherry Descriptors. International Board for Plant Genetic Resources. Commission of European Communities. Committee on Disease Resistance Breeding and Use of Genebanks. 1985 Edition. 33 pages
edited by Schmidt et al
Manufacturer: CEC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000S2SKSY

New World Plants and Their Uses: A Guide to Selected Literature and Genetic Resources 1980-1993

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New World Plants and Their Uses: A Guide to Selected Literature and Genetic Resources 1980-1993
Joanne Meil
Manufacturer: Diane Books Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Biotechnology | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

Participatory Approaches to the Conservation and Use of Plant Genetic Resources

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Participatory Approaches to the Conservation and Use of Plant Genetic Resources
editors Esbern Friis-Hansen and Bhuwon Sthapit
Manufacturer: International Plant Genetics Research Institute
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Genetics | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

Plant Genetic Resources: An Introduction to Their Conservation and Use

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Plant Genetic Resources: An Introduction to Their Conservation and Use
Jackson Ford-Llyod
Manufacturer: Edward Arnold
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

General | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Conservation | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0713129336

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Plant Genetic Resources: An Introduction to their Conservation and Use
Brian V. Ford-Lloyd , and Michael Jackson
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Conservation | Environment | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books

Seeds and Sovereignty: Debate Over the Use and Control of Plant Genetic Resources

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Seeds and Sovereignty: Debate Over the Use and Control of Plant Genetic Resources
Jack R. Jr. Kloppenburg
Manufacturer: Duke University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

Genetics | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

Agronomy | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

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The Use of Plant Genetic Resources

Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Genetics | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

Agronomy | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0521368863

Book Description

Relates how the pool of plant genetic resources provides vital raw material for producing new and improved crops, and serves as source material for experimental biologists. The first four sections provide a detailed survey of the role of plants, guidance on the size and structure of plant collections, and, finally, the principles and strategies for evaluation. The last two sections look at wild relatives of crops and the impact of new technology. The volume will be of great use to plant breeders, crop scientists, conservationists and plant biologists.

Book Description

Bioconductor is a widely used open source and open development software project for the analysis and comprehension of data arising from high-throughput experimentation in genomics and molecular biology. Bioconductor is rooted in the open source statistical computing environment R.

This volume's coverage is broad and ranges across most of the key capabilities of the Bioconductor project, including importation and preprocessing of high-throughput data from microarray, proteomic, and flow cytometry platforms:

Curation and delivery of biological metadata for use in statistical modeling and interpretation

Statistical analysis of high-throughput data, including machine learning and visualization

Modeling and visualization of graphs and networks

The developers of the software, who are in many cases leading academic researchers, jointly authored chapters. All methods are illustrated with publicly available data, and a major section of the book is devoted to exposition of fully worked case studies.

This book is more than a static collection of descriptive text, figures, and code examples that were run by the authors to produce the text; it is a dynamic document. Code underlying all of the computations that are shown is made available on a companion website, and readers can reproduce every number, figure, and table on their own computers.

Customer Reviews:

technically accurate but pedagogically flawed.......2007-02-09

If you're like me, you came upon this book because you decided to use R for analysis of microarray data, but you're mired in its gory and frustrating details.

Yes, you need a reference book. But not this one, and certainly not this edition. Better documentation can be found elsewhere (dare I say online?).

The code examples given are technically accurate and run as advertised, but they are of the "monkey see, monkey do" variety. They provide little intuition for how to use R for oneself, outside the covers of this text. For example, Chapter 23 discusses linear models for microarray data (using the "limma" package), and several code examples contain the parameter 'adjust = "fdr"'. The reader is never enlightened that this refers to a "false discovery rate" adjustment.

In other cases, example code is simply missing. Chapter 21 covers the Rgraphviz graphing library, with a figure showing the three common graphical layouts -- but no example code for producing these graphs is given (I had to find it outside the book).

For those trying to use R for computational biology, I recommend getting an overview of the R programming language first (Venables and Ripley's book "Modern Applied Statistics with S" is a great text), and only then wading into references such as this one, if at all.

Book contains many chapters to help get you started.......2006-06-30

I purchased this book to learn specific details and look at applications for the functions present in bioconductor. I have had trouble applying some of the chapters to custom data because they are written for specific microarray/data formats. Overall, this book is a good value because it contains examples of how bioconductor can be used to aid in hypothesis testing, but I struggle to apply what I have read to the different types of data I have. The section on Statistical analysis for genomic experiments and the section on gaphs and networks should be the reason you purchase this book. They are very helpful and interesting. The case studies were not very helpful in my opinion.

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