New Releases by Wade Davis

This study focuses on selected Florida Southern Baptist churches that have successfully facilitated the transfer of primary church leadership from lay boards or committees to the church''s pastoral staff. Each of the eight churches selected fro this study was identified by the Florida Baptist Convention as a "Tier 8" church, averaging between 1001 and 3000 in weekly worship attendance. The minimum tenure for each church''s senior pastor was five years. The eight pastors were interviewed about the transfer process, and statistics were compiled for each congregation.

This manuscript consists of three papers which formulate novel wavelet-based methodologies. In Chapter 1, we present a procedure for estimating the time-varying scaling function H (t) for a series that exhibits locally self-similar behavior. The procedure utilizes the discrete wavelet transformation (DWT) of the series, exploiting an approximate log-linear relationship between the scale and the energy content. Based on this relationship, we propose methods for constructing both pointwise confidence intervals and overall confidence bands. The effectiveness of the procedures for estimating H (t) and assigning error bounds is examined via simulations. In Chapter 2, we propose and investigate a discriminant procedure for classifying a series of unknown origin that arises as a function corrupted by noise. No assumption is made regarding the form of the underlying function, but it is assumed that the noise process is a stationary Gaussian process with mean zero. The discriminant is developed using the distributional properties of the DWT coefficients of the series, and involves the coefficients as well as parameters representing the underlying populations. The denoising and decorrelating properties of the DWT make the procedure very robust, while the multiscale nature of the decomposition allows for a flexible formulation. We present simulation results that evaluate the performance of the discriminant in a variety of settings using split-sample validation. Our method appears to be effective even when the training set is very small and the noise levels are high. In Chapter 3, we propose and investigate two additional discriminant procedures developed using Kullback information measures and the DWT. The first is designed for classifying stationary processes and is a natural competitor to more traditional spectral-based methods. The second is developed for categorizing nonstationary processes. Extensive simulations evaluate the performance of both discriminants in a variety of settings.

Canadian anthropologist Wade Davis is both an old-fashioned explorer and a modern scientist. Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society, he''s written many popular books, and traveled the world from Haiti to Borneo researching how sacred plants are used in native cultures. In this two-part series, Wade Davis speaks with IDEAS producer Philip Coulter about how indigenous peoples can teach us lessons about the riches found in both the spirit and material worlds.

Wade Davis has been called "a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet and passionate defender of all of life''s diversity." Driven by the desire to discover new plants for healing and visions, as well as to learn about other ways of knowing the wild, Davis journeys from the rain forests of Borneo to the mountains of Tibet, from the ice floes of the Arctic to the sands of the Sahara. Along the way, he samples the first hallucinogen from the animal kingdom, searches for the legendary clouded leopard and reveals the dimensions of a potential worldwide economic disaster involving rubber, "the white blood of the forest?'' With passion and insight, he describes Vodoun priests, Inuit narwhal hunters and jaguar shaman who journey beyond the Milky Way. From his travels, he returns with captivating stories of unusual individuals, ancient shamanic wisdom about healing and a deeper understanding of the connections between traditional peoples and their homelands.

A collection of essays by scientist Wade Davis that analyze the interactions between human societies and the natural world.

With their towering spruces and cedars, verdant groundcover and cloaks of mist, the temperate rainforests of North America have long been a source of wonder and awe. Extending from northern California to southern Alaska, these immense and mysterious forests are home to a constellation of life that is unique on this planet. In this magnificent photographic collection, Graham Osborne''s breathtaking images depict the many guises of the rainforest gnarled tree trunks dripping with moss, the spires of Douglas firs reaching into the sky, waterfalls tumbling over time-worn rocks, ice-encased fern fronds in winter, scarlet maple leaves littering the ground in autumn, a burst of wildflowers along a river bank in spring. Other photographs depict a tidepool rich with sea life, the Coast Mountains at sunset and sea stacks off the coast capped with old-growth trees. In his eloquent text, Wade Davis describes the scale and abundance of these rainforests, where redwoods reach nearly 120 metres and red cedars can be 6 metres or more across at the base. These and other giant conifers form the basis of one of the richest ecosystems in the world, where salmon and eagles proliferate, tiny seabirds lay their eggs in underground nests among the roots of ancient cedars, lungless salamanders in forest streams absorb oxygen through their skin, and creatures live on dew in the canopy of the forest and never touch the ground. Davis also discusses the role of the rainforest in Native culture and mourns the loss of much of this ancient forest through overcutting and other shortsighted forestry practices.

The Penan, one of the few remaining nomadic peoples of the rain forest, live in a place of indescribable beauty -- and all around them the forest is coming down at an alarming pace. In their East Malaysian state of Sarawak, the rate of timber cut is among the highest the world has ever known. This timely book addresses in words (both narrative and quotations) and unforgettable pictures the plight of the Penan. The majority of the photographs and quotations were collected during many field trips the authors made into the interior of Sarawak. Dramatic. -- The Los Angeles Times

Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie