Coffee is a major commodity of export in developing countries. In India, it generates significant revenues besides providing employment to many. This book critically looks into various aspects of the coffee production and marketing industry and its potential for promoting sustainable development, poverty alleviation and providing decent work.The small-holder dominated coffee sector is under unprecedented crisis attributed to a host of factors like declining productivity, incidences...

Defect-Induced Magnetism in Oxide Semiconductors provides an overview of the latest advances in defect engineering to create new magnetic materials and enable new technological applications. First, the book introduces the mechanisms, behavior, and theory of magnetism in oxide semiconductors and reviews the methods of inducing magnetism in these materials. Then, strategies such as pulsed laser deposition and RF sputtering to grow oxide nanostructured materials with induced magnetism are dis...

This book provides an overview of the applications of ion beam techniques in oxide materials. Oxide materials exhibit defect-induced physical properties relevant to applications in sensing, optoelectronics and spintronics. Defects in these oxide materials also lead to magnetism in non-magnetic materials or to a change of magnetic ordering in magnetic materials. Thus, an understanding of defects is of immense importance. To date, ion beam tools are considered the most effective techniques f...

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was enacted in India with the multiple objectives of providing employment in a rights-based framework, addressing rural poverty, checking migration, and building rural infrastructure. As such, every year around 15–20 per cent of households in India overall and 30 per cent in rural India receive some form of employment share under the MGNREGA programme.This volume looks at various aspect of the scheme, its linkage ...

This volume examines the transitions in Indian agriculture since the 1980s, and emphasizes upon the role of neoliberal policies and their impact. The essays presented here deal with a range of pertinent and contemporary issues, including global food security, livelihoods of agricultural labourers, and public and private investment. These weave together glimpses of the impasse faced by petty commodity producers (marginal and small farmers) and their subsequent economic distress and social e...

This book discusses the important issue of the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of agricultural residue burning, common in agricultural practices in many parts of the world. In particular, it focuses on the pollution caused by rice residue burning using primary survey data from Punjab, India. It discusses emerging solutions to agricultural waste burning that are cost-effective in terms of both money and time. The burning of agricultural residue causes severe pollution in land, water...

Nanomaterials via Single-Source Precursors: Synthesis, Processing and Applications presents recent results and overviews of synthesis, processing, characterization and applications of advanced materials for energy, electronics, biomedicine, sensors and aerospace. A variety of processing methods (vapor, liquid and solid-state) are covered, along with materials, including metals, oxides, semiconductor, sulfides, selenides, nitrides, and carbon-based materials. Production of quantum dots, nan...

This book follows the 2002 edition of Catalysis by Ceria and Related Materials, which was the first book entirely devoted to ceria and its catalytic properties. In the ten years since the first edition a massive amount of work has been carried out in the field, and ceria has gained a prominent position in catalysis as one of the most valuable material for several applications. This second edition covers fundamental and applied aspects of the latest advances in ceria-based materials with a ...

Since its discovery in 2004, graphene has been a great sensation due to its unique structure and unusual properties, and it has only taken6 years for a Noble Prize to be awarded for the field of graphene research. This monograph gives a well-balanced overview on all areas ofscientific interest surrounding this fascinating nanocarbon. In one handy volume it offers comprehensive coverage of the topic, includingchemical, materials science, nanoscience, physics, engineerin...

This comprehensive handbook and ready reference details all the main achievements in the field of perovskite-based and related mixed-oxide materials. The authors discuss, in an unbiased manner, the potentials as well as the challenges related to their use, thus offering new perspectives for research and development on both an academic and industrial level.The first volume begins by summarizing the different synthesis routes from molten salts at high temperatures to colloidal crystal...

Second volume of a 40-volume series on nanoscience and nanotechnology, edited by the renowned scientist Challa S.S.R. Kumar. This handbook gives a comprehensive overview about UV-visible and photoluminescence spectroscopy for the characterization of nanomaterials. Modern applications and state-of-the-art techniques are covered and make this volume essential reading for research scientists in academia and industry in the related fields.

For the first time, this comprehensive handbook presents the emerging field of microwave technology for the synthesis of nanoparticles. Divided into three parts--fundamentals, methods, and applications--it covers topics including microwave theory, scale-up, microwave plasma synthesis, characterization, and more. This offers both an important volume for academic researchers, and a resource for those in industry exploring the applications of nanoparticles in semiconductors, electronics, cata...