Bücher veröffentlicht von Springer International Publishing

This book is about solar ponds for energy storage from various perspectives, including fundamentals, efficiencies, system designs, local applications and details about what have been done in the world in the field of solar ponds for generating energy and storage it for useful purposes.

This volume contains for the first time in English, Jan Patökäs seminal essay ¿The Phenomenology of Afterlife¿, as well as contributions surrounding and analyzing this text. In his essay, Patöka reflects on our relation to the dead and on how the departure of a loved one affects our continued existence. The premise of Patökäs investigation is that our existence always takes place by and through an originary and reciprocal ¿being for others¿.The contributors in the volume extend the field of inquiry into the wider phenomenological and post-phenomenological discussion of death by being cognizant of how works of literature can broaden our understanding of the care of death, grief, forgiveness and non-reciprocal love. Also included are reflections on issues of philosophical anthropology, community, collective memory, and the ecstatic nature of life ¿ issues that can all be related back to Patökäs initial reflections, but which nonetheless radiate intoa myriad of directions. This volume appeals to students and researchers in the field.

This textbook provides a first introduction to category theory, a powerful framework and tool for understanding mathematical structures. Designed for students with no previous knowledge of the subject, this book offers a gentle approach to mastering its fundamental principles.Unlike traditional category theory books, which can often be overwhelming for beginners, this book has been carefully crafted to offer a clear and concise introduction to the subject. It covers all the essential topics, including categories, functors, natural transformations, duality, equivalence, (co)limits, and adjunctions. Abundant fully-worked examples guide readers in understanding the core concepts, while complete proofs and instructive exercises reinforce comprehension and promote self-study. The author also provides background material and references, making the book suitable for those with a basic understanding of groups, rings, modules, topological spaces, and set theory.Based on the author's course at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, the book is perfectly suited for classroom use in a first introductory course in category theory. Its clear and concise style, coupled with its detailed coverage of key concepts, makes it equally suited for self-study.

This volume celebrates the 100th birthday of Professor Chen-Ning Frank Yang (Nobel 1957), one of the giants of modern science and a living legend. Starting with reminiscences of Yang's time at the research centre for theoretical physics at Stonybrook (now named C. N. Yang Institute) by his successor Peter van Nieuwenhuizen, the book is a collection of articles by world-renowned mathematicians and theoretical physicists. This emphasizes the Dialogue Between Physics and Mathematics that has been a central theme of Professor Yang's contributions to contemporary science. Fittingly, the contributions to this volume range from experimental physics to pure mathematics, via mathematical physics. On the physics side, the contributions are from Sir Anthony Leggett (Nobel 2003), Jian-Wei Pan (Willis E. Lamb Award 2018), Alexander Polyakov (Breakthrough Prize 2013), Gerard 't Hooft (Nobel 1999), Frank Wilczek (Nobel 2004), Qikun Xue (Fritz London Prize 2020), and Zhongxian Zhao (Bernd T. Matthias Prize 2015), covering an array of topics from superconductivity to the foundations of quantum mechanics. In mathematical physics there are contributions by Sir Roger Penrose (Nobel 2022) and Edward Witten (Fields Medal 1990) on quantum twistors and quantum field theory, respectively. On the mathematics side, the contributions by Vladimir Drinfeld (Fields Medal 1990), Louis Kauffman (Wiener Gold Medal 2014), and Yuri Manin (Cantor Medal 2002) offer novel ideas from knot theory to arithmetic geometry.Inspired by the original ideas of C. N. Yang, this unique collection of papers b masters of physics and mathematics provides, at the highest level, contemporary research directions for graduate students and experts alike.

This book sheds light on young New Zealander¿s social realities and lived experiences of their digital and sexual lives through an understanding of how they think about and engage with porn. Drawing on qualitative empirical data from interviews with 106 young New Zealanders, each chapter examines young people¿s creation of informal norms through an investigation of the broader issues associated with their engagement with porn, namely consent, gender, pleasure and ¿empowerment.¿ Following this, the book gives voice to young New Zealander¿s perceptions of the value of the sexuality education they receive. Finally, this text argues toward a co-constructed intersectional sexuality education.

This volume presents the proceedings of the 2nd International Conference of Geography and Geoinformatics for Sustainable Development (ICGGS), held in Phuket, Thailand, April 7-8, 2022. The collection focuses on the importance of spatial thinking and planning by applying geography concepts and geospatial technology innovations in solving global problems such as environmental degradation, urban pollution, and climate change. The proceedings consist of case studies on wide-ranging spatial issues in developing countries, addressing challenges in mainstreaming sustainable development paradigms into their economies to improve natural resource and environmental management.   One of the main goals of the volume is to share and exchange different points of view regarding global, regional, and local spatial issues and how to use geography and geoinformatics for building resilience in multiple sectors, e.g., water, ecosystems, agriculture, and health. It offers the opportunity to learn about how geospatial concepts and technologies can contribute to environmental sustainability, while advancing education and research related to geography and geoinformatics. It will be a useful resource for students and researchers to initiate research ideas related to geospatial topics in regional and local scales.

This book explores the concept of the "e;best-loved self"e; in teaching and teacher education, asserting that the best-loved self is foundational to the development of teacher identity, growth in context, and learning in community. Drawing on the work of Joseph Schwab, who was the first to name the "e;best-loved self,"e; the editors and their contributors extend this knowledge further through the collaboration of their group of teacher educators, known as the Faculty Academy, who have been involved in examining teacher education for over two decades.  

This book outlines the promise of the field of the Cognitive Internet of Things when it is applied to cognitive buildings. After an introduction, the authors discuss the goals of cognitive buildings such as operation in a more efficient, flexible, interactive, intuitive, and sustainable way. They go on to outline the benefits that these technologies promise to building owners, occupants, and their environments that range from reducing energy consumption and carbon footprint to promoting health, well-being, and productivity. The authors outline technologies that provide buildings and equipment with the ability to collect, aggregate, and analyze data and how this information can be collected by sensors and related to internal conditions and settings, energy consumption, user requests, and preferences to maintain comfort and save energy. This book is of interest to practitioners, researchers, students, and professors in IoT and smart cities.

This volume analyses democratic governance, the rule of law and development in Africa. It is unique and timely. First, the theme and sub-themes were carefully selected to solicit quality chapters from academics, practitioners and graduate students on topical and contemporary issues in constitutional law, human rights, and democratic governance in Africa. The chapters were subjected to a single-blind peer review by experts and scholars in the relevant fields to ensure that high quality submissions are included. Due to the dearth of knowledge and studies on the chosen thematic areas, the publication will remain relevant after several years due to the timeless themes it covers. In this regard, this edited volume audits the progress of democratic consolidation, rule of law and development in Ghana with selected case studies from other African countries. This book is intended for higher education institutions (universities, institutes and centres), public libraries, general academics, practitioners and students of law, democracy, human rights and political science, especially those interested in African affairs. 

The book is devoted to the qualitative study of differential equations defined by piecewise linear (PWL) vector fields, mainly continuous, and presenting two or three regions of linearity. The study focuses on the more common bifurcations that PWL differential systems can undergo, with emphasis on those leading to limit cycles. Similarities and differences with respect to their smooth counterparts are considered and highlighted. Regarding the dimensionality of the addressed problems, some general results in arbitrary dimensions are included. The manuscript mainly addresses specific aspects in PWL differential systems of dimensions 2 and 3, which are sufficinet for the analysis of basic electronic oscillators.The work is divided into three parts. The first part motivates the study of PWL differential systems as the natural next step towards dynamic complexity when starting from linear differential systems. The nomenclature and some general results for PWL systems in arbitrary dimensions are introduced. In particular, a minimal representation of PWL systems, called canonical form, is presented, as well as the closing equations, which are fundamental tools for the subsequent study of periodic orbits.The second part contains some results on PWL systems in dimension 2, both continuous and discontinuous, and both with two or three regions of linearity. In particular, the focus-center-limit cycle bifurcation and the Hopf-like bifurcation are completely described. The results obtained are then applied to the study of different electronic devices.In the third part, several results on PWL differential systems in dimension 3 are presented. In particular, the focus-center-limit cycle bifurcation is studied in systems with two and three linear regions, in the latter case with symmetry. Finally, the piecewise linear version of the Hopf-pitchfork bifurcation is introduced. The analysis also includes the study of degenerate situations. Again, the above results are applied to the study of different electronic oscillators.

This book showcases recent research advances in service science and related fields. Including selected papers from the 2022 INFORMS International Conference on Service Science, held in Shenzhen, China from July 2 to 4, 2022, the book presents new theories and empirical results in the emerging, interdisciplinary field of digital transformation and society. Incorporating research, education and practice alike, the respective chapters highlight a host of ways to approach these challenges in service science.

This book reinterprets C. P. Cavafy¿s historical and archaeological poetics by correlating his work to major cultural, political and sexualized receptions of antiquity that marked the turn of the 20th century. Focusing on selected poems which stage readings of Hellenistic and late ancient texts and material objects, this study probes the poet's personal library and archive to trace his scholarly sources and scrutinize their contribution to his creative practice. A new understanding of Cavafy's historicism emerges by comparing his poetics to a broad array of discourses and intellectual pursuits of his time; these range from antiquarianism, physiognomy and Egyptomania to cultural appropriations of the classics which sought to legitimate British colonial rule as well as homoerotic desire. As this volume demonstrates, Cavafy embraced antiquarianism as an empathetic and passionate way of relating to the past and shaped it into a method that allowed his poetry to render modern meanings to Hellenistic antiquities.

Microbial bioremediation and biodegradation in environmental monitoring offers an environmentally friendly approach for the monitoring and effective removal of contaminants. Various aspects of microbial-mediated bioremediation take advantage of the microorganisms' ability to transform noxious compounds into utilizable intermediates and value-added products. Different microbial metabolites such as enzymes, biosurfactants, emulsifiers, organic acids, and solvents play significant roles in the decontamination of radioactive and heavy metals, chemical pesticides, and organic contaminants such as dyes and hydrocarbons in environmentally safe manners. Recent advancements in biochemical engineering, OMICS and genetic modification, and synthetic-biology pave ways for identifying indicator microbial strains, mechanisms of remediation, and the development of tailor-made microbe-metabolites for future applications. Microbial biotechnology in environmental monitoring and bioremediation thus represent a new way to rehabilitate and reconstruct "e;damaged"e; ecosystems.This work summarizes the latest research in the field of environmental bioremediation and offers fascinating insights on the behaviours of these unique microorganisms. It also presents exciting, new perspectives for the application of microbes in environmental protection. It is suitable for students, scholars, researchers and organizations involved in environmental protection.

This book explains the basic concepts, theory and applications of neural networks in a simple unified approach with clear examples and simulations in the MATLAB programming language. The scripts herein are coded for general purposes to be easily extended to a variety of problems in different areas of application. They are vectorized and optimized to run faster and be applicable to high-dimensional engineering problems. This book will serve as a main reference for graduate and undergraduate courses in neural networks and applications. This book will also serve as a main basis for researchers dealing with complex problems that require neural networks for finding good solutions in areas, such as time series prediction, intelligent control and identification. In addition, the problem of designing neural network by using metaheuristics, such as the genetic algorithms and particle swarm optimization, with one objective and with multiple objectives, is presented.

This innovative book focuses on potential, limitations, and recommendations for the digital mental health landscape. Authors synthesize existing literature on the validity of digital health technologies, including smartphones apps, sensors, chatbots and telepsychiatry for mental health disorders. They also note that collecting real-time biological information is usually better than just collect filled-in forms, and that will also mitigate problems related to recall bias in clinical appointments. Limitations such as confidentiality, engagement and retention rates are moreover discussed. Presented in fifteen chapters, the work addresses the following questions: may smartphones and sensors provide more accurate information about patients¿ symptoms between clinical appointments, which in turn avoid recall bias? Is there evidence that digital phenotyping could help in clinical decisions in mental health? Is there scientific evidence to support the use of mobile interventions in mental health? Digital Mental Health will help clinicians and researchers, especially psychiatrists and psychologists, to define measures and to determine how to test apps or usefulness, feasibility and efficacy in order to develop a consensus about reliability. These professionals will be armed with the latest evidence as well as prepared to a new age of mental health.

This book explores the triangular dynamics of securitisation and desecuritisation that underpin the EU's approach to trafficking in women for sexual exploitation. That is, the progressive securitisation of trafficking in women for sexual exploitation within the EU's anti-trafficking policies and the existence of two distinct and competing approaches that coexist among feminist struggles against such trend and that largely follow the two opposing views that structure feminist debates on prostitution: a neo-abolitionist approach, on the one hand, that is increasingly defended from within EU institutions, and has therefore become increasingly entangled with the securitisation of trafficking in women; and a sex work approach, on the other hand, that has been largely relegated to the domains of academia and civil society. As such, this book addresses the intersection of security and feminist neo-abolitionism within the EU's anti-trafficking policies, as well as the de-securitising potential of the anti-trafficking advocacy of both neo-abolitionist and sex worker organisations operating at EU level. This book is unique in that it unprecedentedly brings together three bodies of literature that rarely interact: Critical Security Studies, EU Gender Studies and the feminist literature on prostitution and trafficking in women and demonstrates their fruitful interaction in an extensive empirical analysis of the EU's internal security, violence against women and anti-trafficking policies.  

This practical, insightful title is a must read for anyone interested in or recently appointed to a leadership role in an academic medical center. Taking the Lead: A Guide for Emerging Leaders in Academic Medical Centers represents the highly accomplished authors¿ more than 60 years of collective insights about leadership and leading effectively in an academic medical center environment. The authors present creative and highly applicable themes synthesized from their knowledge, career experiences, unique reflections, practice, mistakes, and observations of successful (and not so successful) leaders. The result is a book of leadership wisdom ¿ a wealth of ideas, concepts, and insights to inform the reader¿s career journey and to become the best leader they can be. Organized in five parts, this work examines the successful leadership transition in the unique (and sometimes perplexing) academic medical center environment. Informal, conversational in tone, and often engagingly humorous, Taking the Lead: A Guide for Emerging Leaders in Academic Medical Centers represents a concise and invaluable introductory read for the next generation of leaders, as well as a helpful resource for experienced healthcare leaders.

This book provides readers with a comprehensive, state-of-the-art reference to the design automation aspects of quantum computers.  Given roadmaps calling for quantum computers with 2000 qubits in a few years, readers will benefit from the practical implementation aspects covered in this book. The authors discuss real hardware to the extent possible.Provides an up-to-date, single-source reference to design automation aspects of quantum computers;Presentation is not just theoretical, but substantiated with real quantum hardware;Covers multi-faceted aspects of quantum computers, providing readers with valuable information, no matter the direction in which technology moves.

This book comparatively assesses the China and India's soft power strategy in Iran. By employing Joseph S. Nye's "e;Soft Power"e; theory and forming the new concept of "e;Power of Bonding"e;, this book formulated China and India's soft power narratives and applied it through the empirical analysis in Iran. Based on this theory, this book seeks explanations for the question of "e;How China and India respectively, strategically and comparatively use the soft power strategy in Iran?"e;. To reach the find-out, this book compares the understanding, resources, strategies, influences and uses of China and India's soft power in Iran under three thematic areas, including "e;power of bonding through cultural attractions, and attributions"e;; political and diplomatic engagement"e; and "e;economic partnerships"e;. By analysing China and India's soft power strategy in Iran, this book seeks to contribute to the soft power literature through a theoretical replication based on non-Western soft power strategy, the concept and its empirical application in China and India.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the fundamental concepts and principles of microeconomics. It introduces students to the models, assumptions, and empirical applications of modern microeconomics, as well as to the necessary mathematical tools. It covers topics such as economic behavior, consumer theory, theory of the firm, partial and general equilibrium theory, industrial organization, bargaining theory, and Pareto optimality. Students learn not only about economic outcomes at a given point of equilibrium, but also about dynamic economics, which includes both equilibrium and disequilibrium.This book is intended for undergraduate and graduate students in economics and related fields who are interested in the basic theories and applications of microeconomics.

This book investigates applicability of various emerging strategies to improve important properties and features of metal oxide materials that can be used further to advance their photocatalytic and photoelectrochemical performances. The range of discussed strategies includes introduction of intrinsic and extrinsic deficiencies, fabrication of heterojunction and utilizing of metal nanoparticles in the form of deposited or embedded formations. Each of them is addressed as separate case in order to reach full and comprehensive assessment of their most fundamental principles and basics as well as accessing pivotal advantages and disadvantages. Furthermore, additional discussion is dedicated to achieving thorough awareness over methods and experimental protocols that are used to realize them and also probing changes which they induce in electronic and geometrical configurations of metal oxide materials. It is believed that this book might become a valuable addition to extend further current knowledge about photocatalysis and material processing.

This book presents fixed point theory, one of the crucial tools in applied mathematics, functional analysis, and topology, which has been used to solve distinct real-world problems in computer science, engineering, and physics. The authors begin with an overview of the extension of metric spaces. Readers are introduced to general fixed-point theorems while comparing and contrasting important and insignificant metric spaces. The book is intended to be self-contained and serves as a unique resource for researchers in various disciplines.

This edited volume explores and deconstructs the possibilities of higher education beyond its initial purpose. The book contextualizes and argues for a more robust interrogation of persistent patterns of campus inequality driven by rapid demographic change, reduced public spending in higher education, and an increasingly polarized political landscape. It offers contemporary views and critiques ideas and practices such as micro-aggressions, implicit and explicit bias, and their consequences in reifying racial and gender-based inequalities on members of nondominant groups. The book also highlights coping mechanisms and resistance strategies that have enabled members of nondominant groups to contest primarily racial- and gender- based inequity. In doing so, it identifies new ways higher education can do what it professes to do better, in all ways, from providing real benefit to students and communities, while also setting a bar for society to more effectively realize its stated purpose and creed.

This book brings together from four years of study on Nigerian contemporary art's internationalization. The monograph integrates voices of African (Nigerian) artists and art market players into the growing discourse on the emerging art markets in the global South. It explores the logic of competition and dynamics of power relations in the global markets, focusing on the internationalization of contemporary art forms from peripheral regions. The book confirms that the internationalization of contemporary art form from Nigeria is limited due to systematic marginalization in the artistic field, which in this case based on postcolonialism, and debilitating socio-economic factors such as outmoded art education, unstructured support system and weak mechanism for local validation, and an inefficient political framework for art governance.It will therefore be useful to students and researchers in the sociology of art, art market studies, art history and culture polity.