Showing papers by "Amazon.com published in 1995"

Secure method for communicating credit card data when placing an order on a non-secure network

Abstract: A method and system for placing an order charged to a credit card, over an unsecured network. The customer completing an order for goods or services enters information required for the order, such as the shipping and billing addresses and identification of the goods, but enters only a subset of the credit card account number to which the order is to be charged. The order is transmitted over the Internet or other network to a remote merchant location (32) from a customer's location (10). A computer (38) at the remote merchant location processes the order to extract the data provided by the customer for storage in a database (40). During a subsequent telephone call to the remote merchant location, the customer enters the complete credit card number, preferably on a touch-tone keypad (28). The touch-tone signals are processed by an automated attendant system (44) for input of the complete credit card number into the computer. Using the portion of the complete credit card number that corresponds to the subset entered by the customer on the order form, the computer identifies the order previously placed and inserts the complete credit card number in the order data stored on the database to finalize the order.

A Conservation Gap Analysis of Brazil's Amazonian Vegetation

Abstract: Vegetation types lacking protection in the existing conservation units of the nine states in the Brazilian Legal Amazon were identified, and locations were noted where these vegetation types could be protected Maps of vegetation, protected areas, and semi-protected areas, such as Amerindian and forestry reserves, were digitized and overlaid using a geographic information system There are 28 natural vegetation types in the Brazilian Legal Amazon Locations of new areas for protection were selected using a minimum criterion of protecting at least one example of each vegetation type in each state (here called "vegetation zones") There are 111 vegetation zones in the Legal Amazon, of which only 37 (33%) have some portion of their area protected There are few protected areas in the most heavily deforested states along the southeastern fringe of the forest In Maranhao, where 60% of the original forest had been lost by 1990, only one of 10 vegetation types is protected Negotiating agreements with indigenous tribes, and to a lesser extent with extractivists who harvest nontimber products from the forest, represents a major opportunity to increase significantly the area and representativeness of the conservation units Additional conservation units need to be established quickly before rapidly increasing deforestation and land prices preclude this opportunity; otherwise, some vegetation types may virtually disappear Un analisis de conservacion de la vegetacion Amazonica del Brasil

Global warming response options in Brazil's forest sector: Comparison of project-level costs and benefits

Abstract: A project-level assessment of monetary and carbon costs and benefits for five classes of global warming response options in the forest sector is attempted for typical Brazilian conditions. Options considered are: silvicultural plantations (for pulp, charcoal and sawlogs), sustainable timber management and reduction of deforestation. Comparison of pulpwood and sawlog plantations with the vegetation characteristic of deforested areas indicates a modest carbon benefit. Plantations for charcoal can produce a substantial carbon benefit through fossil fuel substitution, but much of this calculated benefit disappears if discount rates greater than zero are applied to carbon. Sustainable timber management, when compared with existing forest, represents a net carbon loss, accumulation of carbon in wood products being insufficient to compensate for biomass reduction over a 100 year time scale. Reduction of deforestation has great potential as a global warming response option, its per-hectare carbon benefits being approximately four times that of silvicultural plantation establishment for pulp and sawlogs over a 100 year period. The costs of reducing deforestation are difficult to assess, however, due to the importance of government policy changes such as removal of land speculation and land tenure establishment as motives for clearing. Although these changes would not cost money and would have tremendous carbon and other benefits, they have not yet occurred.

Wild squirrel monkey (Saimiri sciureus) "caregiver" calls: Contexts and acoustic structure.

Abstract: A field study of the vocal behavior of 22 wild adult female squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) in Parque Nacional del Manu, Peru, found that 21% of vocalizations were "caregiver" calls. Caregiver calls are brief, low frequency calls, often with numerous harmonics, that are addressed by caregivers to their own infants in three contexts: 1) prenurse, signalling the caregiver's location and willingness to nurse; 2) nurse, while nursing; and 3) end nurse, indicating the end of the nursing bout. Three measures (start, end, and peak frequency) of the acoustic structure of the fundamental frequency of the caregiver calls significantly differed across the contexts. Duration of caregiver calls, however, was not distinguished by context. Compared to other primate taxa, the specificity and importance of caregiver calls in squirrel monkey vocal behavior appears unusual, if not unique. That S. sciureus caregiver calls are highly developed and employed so extensively probably follows from an unusual combination of ecological and life history factors. These factors include delayed weaning and large infant body size, high levels of indirect foraging competition which encourages spatial separation, susceptibility to predation, and specialization on a densely foliated, branch-end microhabitat in which visual contact is often impeded. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.