This book provides new knowledge about the nutrition and metabolism, as well as the roles of nutrients in the immunity, health, and management of companion animals (dogs and cats). The domestic dog (facultative carnivore) and the domestic cat (obligate carnivore) have evolved differentially in their digestive tract, nutrition, metabolism, chemical sensing, and feeding behavior. These animals have been human companions for at least 12,000 and 9,000 years, respectively, and continue to contribute to the mental health and well-being of children, adolescents, and adults. Both dogs and cats have become increasingly popular in many countries and worldwide over the past decades. Comprehensive update about how the animals utilize dietary nutrients for optimum growth, development, and health is beneficial for their owners, as well as students and researchers.

This collection of essays covers a diverse set of topics related to household behavior and welfare. Prices play a key role in several of the essays, particularly the distributional implications of price movements, and the effects of changes in relative prices on inequality and poverty. This book shows the shift in the literature on prices from being an exclusively macro topic featuring the study of inflation and cross-country comparisons to one that is firmly rooted in micro theory-based analysis of household behavior. It also includes recent developments in the poverty measurement literature, documenting the shift from the exclusively money metric and unidimensional poverty measures to multidimensional poverty encompassing a wider view of deprivation. Largely, but not exclusively, focusing on India, the book also features global comparisons of welfare. Intra country spatial comparisons along with cross country comparisons of household behavior and welfare feature in several of the essays in this book. The book also compares the effects of selected public delivery schemes in India on the health of its children. It is a useful resource for researchers and serves as reading material for advanced graduate courses on development in India and elsewhere.

There has been a dramatic increase in theoretical and practical studies on insect natural enemies over the last decades. The appeal of insect predators and, in particular, parasitoids, as research animals derives from the relative ease with which many species may be cultured and experimented on in the laboratory, the simple life-cycles of most parasitoid species, and the increasing demand for biological pest control as a key component of the integrated pest management approach.