Book reviews

Books reviewed:
Hall, Peter. Cities in civilization. Culture, innovation, and urban order
Gottdiener, M., Collins, Claudia C. and Dickens, David R. Las Vegas: the social production of an all-American city
Duncan, James and Gregory Derek (eds) Writes of passage: reading travel writing     

Total energy budget and prey requirements of free-ranging coyotes in the Great Basin desert of the western United States

Estimates of energetic demands for carnivore species can be valuable for estimating their annual prey requirements and thus, their potential impact on prey populations. This is the case for the coyote (Canis latrans) which has a ubiquitous distribution and preys on a wide variety of wild and domestic prey species. We took data on daily activity of coyotes and with standard energy models, estimated the daily field metabolic rate (FMR) of adult male and female coyotes in the Great Basin desert of the western United States. We then calculated the total annual energy demand and from this, extrapolated annual prey needs for lagomorph and rodent-sized prey. Daily FMR of male coyotes in the Great Basin desert averaged 1170.1 kcal±29.1, S.E. (n=11) and was significantly higher than 988.6 kcal±44.3 (n=8) for females (p=0.002). The highest reproductive cost for females was lactation (1441.1 kcal/day above FMR). Males and females need to consume 192 and 162 lagomorphs, or 3681 and 3110 rodents/year, respectively. For reproduction, females should consume 37 more lagomorphs or 700 more rodents per year. We concluded that preference for lagomorphs by coyotes reflects the most reasonable energy return on their hunting investment.     

The Girls' Home, Bangkok, Thailand: Developing Thoughts on Democracy

This paper describes an exercise with children in the implementation of housing rights. Based on the argued opinion that housing rights cannot be exercised without participation and that participation without knowledge is pretence, a Kids and Architecture programme was initiated with a group of 40 children — displaced from homes in the Klong Toey slum in Bangkok — at a girls' home run by the Human Development Foundation (HDF). The programme, developed in two phases and involving students from the King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT), School of Architecture, set about to teach these children some of the elements of architecture so that they could participate in the design of their own housing. From this experiment a number of conclusions are drawn about the implementation of housing rights and about the teaching of architecture, both to children and architecture students.     

棉花耗水量和土壤水分指标研究

在进行５年的田间试验基础上，从水分利用效率的角度确定了棉花的适宜耗水量指标，根据棉花的蕾铃脱落率，气孔阻力，纤维品质以及产量结构等与土壤湿度的关系，确定了棉花生产的适宜水平指标和干旱指标。     

香港水资源特征和供需水量平衡研究

论述香港水资源特点与水量供需平衡问题,内容包括:(1)香港自然地理和水资源特点;(2)香港目前的供水来源;(3)香港目前总需水量及各行业、各地区需水量情况;(4)东深工程对香港的供水情况;(5)对未来香港供需水量的预估;(6)香港未来供水存在问题和建议。     

The material flow concept for materials

Mineral supply and demand data were used to track the flow of a material from its source through stages of production, processing, and fabrication into the consumption and postconsumption phases. In each stage prior to consumption, the quantity of material lost to the environment or recovered for reuse was determined. In the postconsumption stage, the quantity of material discarded was analyzed to determine how much was disposed to landfills, lost through incineration, or dispersed to the environment. Where the consumption stage involved releases to the environment, as in the use of fertilizer, this was noted also. The material flow studies also strived to determine the amount of recycling that was done in the preconsumption and postconsumption phases. Cumulative historical supply data were used to estimate the total inventory of the materials that have been put into service within the United States, and aggregated consumption data based on end use provided a basis for assessing the cumulative effect of those materials on the environment.Correspondence should be directed to Earle B. Amey, U.S. Geological Survey, National Center 983, Reston, Virginia 20192.     

基于农村宅基地使用权确权的数据库建设

针对农村宅基地使用权确权介绍了数据库建设的基本要求、技术路线、方法、数据库结构以及数据集成等。数据库建设基本分为属性数据库、图形数据库、档案数据库3个方面的创建,概述了在数据库建设中对数据的使用原则和检查处理过程,以及用数据库进行数据处理、数据汇总的基本流程,使宅基地使用权达到了数字化的管理和使用。