Oil redefined Texas in the twentieth century. During the nineteenth century, Texans had won their independence from Mexico, joined fellow Southerners in losing the Civil War, and made a great economic recovery with cattle and cotton. All of that provided more than enough history to give Texas a distinct image in the eyes of many observers. Then Spindletop exploded in 1901, flooding the surrounding landscape with barrels of black gold. Other drillers found glory and profit in the Lone Star State, and by 1927 Texas led the United States in oil production. Texans also profited greatly from natural gas, refining, pipelines, petrochemicals, and other oil-related enterprises, all of which redefined not just the Texas economy, but also its politics and society. This can clearly be seen in articles that have appeared in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly, the oldest continuously published academic journal in the United States. This volume includes seventeen selections on oil and gas history from the Quarterly, providing a broad perspective on its evolution and impact.

As nuclear energy experiences renewed global interest amid climate concerns and energy security challenges, understanding the social foundations of nuclear governance becomes increasingly critical for policymakers, industry leaders, and civil society organisations. This book explores the complex dynamics of trust, mistrust, and distrust in European nuclear energy and radioactive waste management through rigorous transnational, comparative, and historical analysis.

Drawing on empirical cases from eight European countries-Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and the UK-the contributors apply a sophisticated conceptual framework that distinguishes between trust, mistrust, and distrust across social, institutional, and ideological dimensions. The collection reveals how excessive trust can be as problematic as outright distrust, whilst demonstrating the democratic virtues of prudent scepticism and mistrustful civic vigilance in high-risk technological governance. It addresses critical gaps in social science scholarship by exploring when constructive mistrust transforms into dysfunctional distrust, examining trust dynamics in non-democratic contexts, and analysing the complex interactions between interpersonal, institutional, and ideological trust dimensions. Contributors provide context-sensitive analyses of nuclear waste governance, transboundary nuclear risks, and the evolution of civic engagement in nuclear policymaking.

This volume will be essential reading for scholars of science and technology studies, public policy researchers, nuclear industry professionals, and policymakers seeking evidence-based approaches to participatory governance in high-risk industries. This book was originally published as a special issue of Journal of Risk Research.

Focusing on the life and works of Wang Li, one of the founding figures of modern Chinese linguistics, this book offers a comprehensive introduction to his scholarship. It presents Wang Li as a pioneering linguist whose research ranged across grammar, phonology and phonetics, historical linguistics, dialectology, pedagogy, and prosody, and shows how he integrated traditional Chinese philology with modern linguistic science.

The book first sketches Wang Li's life through a concise biography from his birth in 1900 to his passing in 1986, highlighting key moments in his intellectual development and professional career. It then introduces his major contributions across different research areas, explaining their significance to the study of the Chinese language.

This volume is an essential resource for students and researchers of Chinese linguistics, as well as for readers seeking an accessible entry point to one of the most influential linguists of the 20th century.

As agricultural systems bear the brunt of global population growth, the world faces an unprecedented challenge: meeting rising food demands while mitigating environmental degradation and climate change. The agricultural intensification methods pioneered since the 1960s have exacted a significant environmental toll in the form of diminishing biodiversity, reducing carbon storage capacity, depleting water resources, degrading soil quality, and increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

This comprehensive monograph presents innovative solutions for transforming agroecosystems from environmental liabilities into powerful climate mitigation tools. The authors examine cutting-edge agrotechnical treatments, environmental engineering technologies, and circular economy principles that enable agricultural waste to serve as effective soil improvers and fertilizers. Particular emphasis is placed on the physicochemical properties of biochar and its critical role in carbon sequestration, offering readers both theoretical foundations and practical applications.

This is a valuable resource for agricultural scientists, environmental engineers, sustainability professionals, policymakers, graduate students in environmental sciences, and anyone committed to understanding and addressing the intersection of food security and climate change.

The city of Austin consistently leads lists of fastest-growing and most-desirable places to live-a simultaneous source of pride and anxiety for residents. In The Cost of Cool: Austin's Tech Growth and the People Left Behind, author Jon Roberts and his contributors investigate Austin's evolving identity and tackle a question posed repeatedly by community and business leaders nationally: How did Austin, Texas, become a global tech leader? More broadly, this book focuses on economic development and policy dilemmas faced by growing cities while maintaining both social equity and the elusive qualities of "place" that attract creative and innovative talent.

Echoing themes raised by other urbanist scholars, Roberts and his collaborators do not shy away from the sometimes-unsavory aspects of tax incentives, environmental issues, cultural loss, and economic exclusion. While tackling the problems raised by unbridled growth, they also address concerns of younger workers who are increasingly prioritizing "place" over "job."

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, The Cost of Cool emphasizes the centrality of vision: for growth (as Austin's population doubles every twenty years); for openness (often driven by the influence of the South by Southwest conference and Austin's music scene); and for the future of the tech industry (including the implications of forty years of commitment to semiconductors, software, and social media). The Cost of Cool informs the ongoing debate over how to foster economic growth without degrading the quality-of-life characteristics that help make it possible.

As we advance through the 21st century, the architecture of global power and influence is undergoing transformative shifts. The BRICS coalition-comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa-has emerged as a formidable force, challenging entrenched paradigms and reshaping the contours of the geopolitical and economic landscape of the modern world. This new volume explores the coalition's emergence as a formidable force that is challenging traditional power structures and advocates for a multipolar world order.

The book examines the historical context, economic synergies, political alignments, and cultural diversity that bind these nations, while also addressing the complexities of their collaboration amidst differing national priorities. It highlights key achievements in trade, sustainable development, technological innovation, and global governance reform, as well as the challenges BRICS faces in ensuring unity and influence on the world stage.

Each chapter explores how these countries navigate their individual and collective challenges while simultaneously contributing to a multipolar world order that resists singular hegemonic dominance. The author describes not only the intricate strategic interactions within BRICS but also the broader influence of this coalition on key global issues, such as sustainable development, technological innovation, and geopolitical equilibrium.

This handbook provides a comprehensive and authoritative overview of pastoralism, combining major theoretical debates with an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective on pastoral systems across the world.

Approaching pastoralism as a social-ecological system, this volume synthesizes current knowledge about how pastoralists make a living and organize social life while managing herds in diverse and often highly variable environments. Understanding pastoralism in this holistic way requires an approach that bridges disciplines: not only anthropology but also rangeland ecology, animal science, agricultural economics, veterinary epidemiology, and related fields. This handbook's chapters are organized into eight parts that examine the emergence of pastoralism; its biophysical foundations; the economics of pastoral production; adaptive strategies; social and political organization; new methodological and analytical approaches; development and policy perspectives; and possible futures for pastoral systems. Together, these contributions advance the field by offering both a state-of-the-art guide and a source of inspiration for future research. This volume is designed to serve as a reference for scholars seeking to launch innovative, impactful studies, as well as for policymakers and practitioners working to design effective interventions that support pastoral livelihoods.

This handbook is an indispensable resource on pastoralism for students, researchers, and professionals.

Chapters 1, 3, 7, 13, 17, 28 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

The emergence of ChatGPT (a publicly available tool developed by Open AI), along with its underlying technology, generative pretrained transformer (GPT), is leading to a significant expansion of generative AI and is unleashing the possibilities for unimaginable transformations across different business domains. This new volume looks at how AI, and ChatGPT in particular, is revolutionizing the business of business, finance, economics, and marketing, exploring its transformative impact and considering its hands-on practical implications.

The chapters look at the broad implications in the different domains and provide illustrations and hands-on practice examples that help to evaluate the merits and demerits of ChatGPT, its inherent constraints, its distinctive traits, and its potential utility for researchers and scholars.

In finance, the book offers empirical insight into how an investor can employ ChatGPT and make money with AI and ChatGPT-themed equity investments. The authors also look at AI-enabled detection fraud tools that are revolutionizing security and resource protection of financial institutions, contributing to their integrity and overall financial stability. The book also shows how ChatGPT can provide enhanced information analysis for business startup valuation and profitability.

In the economic realm, ChatGPT can offer real-time insights into economic trends, such as forecasting crude oil prices, etc. The volume also looks at the ethical and legal concerns of ChatGPT in marketing communication, how ChatGPT can augment consumer behavior analysis, the use of chatbots and virtual assistants, and more. The book also explores public sentiment of Chat-GPT on platforms such as Twitter, how ChatGPT is changing management education, and more.

In business practices, the volume looks at AI integration for firms seeking to remain competitive in the ever-changing corporate world. It explores the applications of AI in human resources and how it is automating and augmenting workplace practices by streamlining many business aspects, including recruitment processes and employee engagement, to name two areas. Also considered is ChatGPT role in shaping AI policies and the regulatory landscape that underscores the importance of ethical and responsible use.

The applications and value of ChatGPT in marketing is also looked at, such as the ethical and legal concerns of Chat-GPT in marketing communication, using Chat-GPT to analyze customer behavior, using chatbots and virtual assistants for customer service and support services, and more.

Highlighting the excellent performance and summary analysis capabilities of ChatGPT, this book presents a compelling synthesis of theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence along with actual examples of successful integration of ChatGPT in marketing, economics, business, and finance.

Observances, Feasts, and Scripts is the first monograph written in English to offer a comprehensive analysis of the varieties of zhai, a multifaceted term with deep historical and religious significance in Chinese Buddhism. Drawing on a wide array of sources-including canonical texts, apocryphal writings, hagiographies, and ritual documents-this book unveils zhai as a ritual complex encompassing temporary observances, communal feasts, and modes of interaction between the seen and unseen realms. These practices, rooted in both lay and monastic traditions, illustrate the intricate interplay between food, community, and ritual in Indian and Chinese Buddhism.

Part I traces how Indian Buddhist temporary observances were adapted, debated, and reimagined in the Chinese context. Part II explains the sponsored feast as a mechanism for lay-monastic interaction and merit-making. It also examines how Buddhists engaged with deities and spirit saints through remote invitations and ritual offerings. Part III focuses on "scripts" used for receiving the Eightfold Observance and conducting sponsored feasts, thus revealing their evolution from simple master-disciple interactions to complex communal events.

Observances, Feasts, and Scripts is an essential resource for scholars interested in food-related religious practices and the history of Buddhism. Through its meticulous examination of Chinese, Pali, Sanskrit, and Tibetan materials, the book offers a fresh perspective on Chinese Buddhism as an intercultural endeavor. It sheds light on relevant scholastic debates, the creation of apocrypha, translation strategies, and ritual innovations in medieval China. By moving beyond teleological frameworks such as Sinicization, it emphasizes the agency of cultural, doctrinal, and social factors in shaping these practices. Additionally, it engages with the cognitive dimensions of ritual and highlights ritual logic as a cross-cultural analytical lens.

Unravels the complexity of pervasive mistrust across the primary medical sectors of Niger

Negotiating Mistrust examines a wide diversity of patients and healers-and interactions between them-in Niamey, Niger through the analytical prism of mistrust. It offers a holistic study of the medical landscape in Niamey by focusing on the intersections between three medical sectors: traditional, Islamic, and biomedical.

Scott M. Youngstedt asserts that nuanced analysis of the interplay between mistrust and trust is key to understanding the decisions that health-seeking Nigeriens make among the multiple options available to them, while recognizing that in one of the world's very poorest countries, many forms of biomedical care-and some traditional and Islamic medicine-are unaffordable to most people. He demonstrates that mistrust and trust are not mutually exclusive, usually not absolute but exist on a fluid continuum, involve cognitive and affective dimensions, and are shaped by shifting historical, contemporary, and personal contexts. Medical mistrust often functions as a pragmatic, defensive attitude of engagement with uncertainty and risk. Mistrust complicates medical decision-making, but Nigeriens are not paralyzed by it. Despite pervasive mistrust of medical systems and institutions, medicines, and healers of all sectors for diverse historical reasons, tens of thousands of Nigeriens consult with and purchase medicines from healers daily on the streets of Niamey because their determination to get well helps them overcome their skepticism. Since people in Niamey are often mistrustful of medical care of all three sectors, practitioners must exert enormous energy earning potential patients' trust. Negotiating Mistrust focuses on the careers of generalist practitioners-healers who treat thirty or more conditions ranging from everyday annoyances to life-threatening problems-of all three sectors who work on the street and in roadside boutiques.

Medical mistrust in various forms is widespread, possibly even universal. This focused study of the medical mistrust-trust dynamic in Niger yields important insights into health care interactions and medical decision-making worldwide.

This book discusses the sustainability challenges of small-scale fisheries in the Sundarbans, examining the socioecological dynamics and management approaches in this complex transboundary ecosystem shared between India and Bangladesh. Integrating oceanographic, ecological, and socioeconomic perspectives, it provides a multiscale analysis of artisanal fisheries in deltaic environments under anthropogenic climate stress.

Employing multidimensional vulnerability frameworks, the work analyzes ecological risks-climatic threats, oceanographic shifts, pollution dynamics-alongside the gender-disaggregated livelihood in fishing communities and the socioeconomic constraints creating poverty traps. The narrative moves beyond the Sundarbans to explore mangrove fisheries across Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America, identifying cross-regional sustainability patterns and innovative solutions. Resilience-based adaptive management frameworks are presented to help combat these issues, and the authors explore policy innovation and governance design frameworks for empowering small-scale fisheries at the intersection of ecological stewardship and socioeconomic equity.

This book is beneficial for postgraduates, undergraduates, professionals, researchers, fishery managers, policy makers, and academic scholars in fisheries science, environmental engineering, environmental management, sustainable development, and social ecology.

Philosophical Perspectives: Essays on Reality, Knowledge, and Morality is a collection of essays on foundational questions that shape our lives as rational creatures and moral agents. Promising a fresh alternative to the academic specialization and consequent fragmentation dominating current scholarship, the essays here offer philosophical breadth without sacrificing analytical depth. The result is a scholarly initiative demonstrating the richness of philosophy with the clarity of an analyst, the depth of a specialist, and the range of a generalist.

The collection has three integrated objectives: (1) to carve out a flexible yet structured pathway through interconnected domains of philosophical exploration, thereby providing a practical resource for researchers, instructors, and students; (2) to expose the unitary coherence of a philosophical trajectory spanning years of inquiry, with each essay contributing distinctive insights of its own while stitching together defining moments in the author's evolving thought; and (3) to consolidate a body of work that has until now been scattered across specialized journals and edited volumes, thus making it accessible even beyond well-resourced academic institutions.

This book will appeal to scholars and students alike interested in philosophy and the history of philosophy.

Computational Intelligence for Patient Care: Blockchain, AI, and ML in Healthcare explores the revolutionizing applications of blockchain, artificial intelligence, and machine learning in healthcare systems. The book attempts to close the gap between cutting-edge computational approaches and real-world healthcare applications by discussing the latest innovations in the field.

The book is divided into ten chapters, each of which focuses on a crucial area of healthcare-related computational intelligence. The book first provides an overview of blockchain technology and its uses in the healthcare industry, highlighting its potential for clinical research, medical fraud detection, and electronic health records (EHRs). It further explores the use of blockchain technology in the creation of digital healthcare systems, emphasizing the benefits of combining big data with blockchain technology while also going over institutional considerations and security issues.

The book goes on to discusses the use of AI in healthcare, covering topics such as the development of telemedicine, AI-assisted remote monitoring, and smart health monitoring systems. Additionally, the book explores AI's inclusive approach to disease management, management of chronic illnesses, accuracy of diagnoses, and personalized therapy. It also covers the development of AI and ML in CNS drug discovery, emphasizing novel uses of these technologies in the development of pharmaceuticals for neurological disorders. It also discusses the problems and duties of regulators in regulating the integration of AI in healthcare, providing insights into future regulatory policies.

The book will be an invaluable resource for those looking to use technology to improve patient care and healthcare outcomes, showing computational intelligence's transformative potential in this field.

This book presents the first comprehensive introduction to Korean Buddhism through twenty-five key primary texts spanning the seventh to twenty-first centuries. All have been expertly translated by leading scholars in the field.

The volume introduction provides an overview of major themes that illuminates the diverse sources that follow. The texts, each prefaced by a brief introduction and list of recommended reading, delve into core Buddhist teachings, meditation practice, pilgrimage, intercultural exchanges, and interreligious conflict. Several touch on contemporary concerns, such as social engagement, colonialism, moral psychology, conflict resolution, and Buddhism's contribution to women's liberation and engagement with marginalized communities. Others present insights into the ways in which Buddhism becomes distinctly Korean and the effects of modernity and colonialism on Korean Buddhism, in addition to overarching concerns like the nature of reality and embodying truth in our lives.

Accessible and wide-ranging, Korean Buddhism: Selected Readings from Primary Texts serves not only students and those relatively new to the subject, but also scholars interested in the intersection of Korean religious thought and global philosophy. It is an essential resource for Korean religious studies, Buddhist studies, and spiritual exploration alike.

Bridge the gap between academic theory and industrial reality with this case-driven guide, featuring real-world applications to help master the future of finance and insurance.

Blockchain technology has rapidly evolved from a theoretical innovation underpinning cryptocurrencies to a foundational tool reshaping financial systems, governance models, and digital infrastructure. Its core attributes, decentralization, transparency, immutability, and security, position it as a transformative force across industries, especially in finance and insurance. In recent years, banks and financial institutions have increasingly adopted blockchain to streamline operations, reduce fraud, and enhance transactional trust. This book explores the practical implementation of blockchain technology across finance, insurance, and sustainable development sectors. Unlike theory-heavy texts, this book takes a case-driven approach-presenting real-world applications from leading institutions such as ICICI Bank, Tata Consultancy Services, and Ernst and Young.

Divided into three parts, the book covers the foundations of blockchain in financial systems, innovations in the insurance industry, and emerging uses in sustainability and policy frameworks. It also examines AI-powered tools, privacy-enhancing protocols, and governance transformations. Ideal for students, professionals, and decision-makers, this volume offers a bridge between academic rigor and practical relevance, equipping readers with both knowledge and real-life examples to understand the evolving role of blockchain in the global economy.

Readers will find the volume:

• Uses in-depth case studies of blockchain implementations for finance, healthcare, supply chain, and more, showcasing tangible outcomes and lessons learned;
• Provides insights from industry leaders and innovators, including strategies, challenges, and best practices for leveraging blockchain technology in diverse sectors;
• Introduces predictions, emerging trends, and expert perspectives on the evolving landscape of blockchain and digital finance;
• Explores the potential of blockchain with inspirational stories of transformative projects, empowering entrepreneurs, investors, and technologists to drive positive change.

Audience

Finance professionals, blockchain developers, fintech entrepreneurs, academic researchers, policy analysts, and graduate students in business, law, and technology, particularly those involved in digital finance, banking innovation, insurance technology, and sustainable development initiatives.