The seventh international seminar on Vygotsky held in Geneva discussed a new French language translation of texts from ‘pedology,’ the now largely lost Soviet science developing child. In this introduction, guest editors touch three concepts development which coincide with elements Vygotsky’s best known idea, Zoped, or zone proximal development. each case, we find that pedological has potential...

introduction: playa is one of the most important landscapes in arid regions which covers about 1% of the world's total land area. study of playas is important from different points of view especially pedology, sedimentology, mineralogy, environmental geology, groundwater and surface water chemistry. more than 60 playas have been identified in iran. considering the fact that playas and surroundi...

Thermodynamic entropy was initially proposed by Clausius in 1865. Since then it has been implemented in the analysis of different systems, and is seen as a promising concept to understand the evolution of open systems in non-equilibrium conditions. Information entropy was proposed by Shannon in 1948, and has become an important concept to measure information in different systems. Both thermodyn...

• We conduct a multiproxy investigation of runoff system in Oman. understand formation processes, function, and soil/water management strategies. Runoff agriculture sustained small-scale farming from the 8th c BCE to mid-20th century. Data suggests farmers maximized orogenically-driven precipitation narrow catchments. Crop production specializes hydraulic technology diversifies after 9th CE. is...

We present an algorithm which efficiently segments very large categorical rasters based on patterns of their categories. It operates on a grid of motifels – square blocks of raster cells representing a local pattern. Our algorithm is based on the seeded region growing principle but it uses a novel grid topology and seeds stack with individual thresholds. It has a single free parameter – the spa...

This paper gives the dust emission inventory in the Northern China where the climate is very dry and large desert areas exist. Before calculating the distribution of fugitive dust emission factors (emission rates of particles smaller than 0.05 mm in diameter) from natural surfaces with a US EPA formula, Chinese data of pedology and climatology were processed so as to suit requirements of the fo...

Metagenomics commonly refers to the study of genetic materials directly derived from environments without culturing. Several ongoing large-scale metagenomics projects related to human and marine life, as well as pedology studies, have generated enormous amounts of data, posing a key challenge for efficient analysis, as we try to 1) understand microbial organism assemblage under different condit...

Forensic geoscience (geoforensics) is the application of earth sciences to receive reality. There is not enough knowledge about geoforensics in Iran, and so, in this paper the best applications are reviewed. Forensic geoscience can be divided to four major groups: pedology, mineralogy and petrology; geophysics; natural geography and geoscience; remote sensing, location data and Geographic infor...

PLANETARY SURFACE/SUBSURFACE RECONNAISSANCE FOR LIFE W. Fink, J.M. Dohm, M.A. Tarbell, T.M. Hare, V.R. Baker, D. Schulze-Makuch, R. Furfaro, A.G. Fairén, T.P.A. Ferré, H. Miyamoto, G. Komatsu, W.C. Mahaney, California Institute of Technology, Visual and Autonomous Exploration Systems Research Laboratory, Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy, Mail Code 103-33, Pasadena, CA 91125, wfink...

1. Soil Formation is a Global Natural Process 2. Factors of Soil Formation 3. Stages of Soil Formation 4. Processes of Soil Formation 5. Genesis of Soils under Different Ecologic Conditions 5.1. Genesis of Soils under Conditions of Cryogenesis 5.2. Genesis of Soils of Forest Landscapes in a Zone of Moderate Climate 5.3. Genesis of Soils in Landscapes of Steppes and Prairies 5.4. Genesis of Soil...