Bücher veröffentlicht von Springer International Publishing

This stimulating volume brings together an international team of emerging, mid-career, and senior scholars to investigate the relations between philosophical approaches to language and the language of literature. It has proven easy for philosophers of language to leave literary language to one side, just as it has proven easy for literary scholars to discuss questions of meaning separately from relevant issues in the philosophy of language. This volume brings the two together in mutually enlightening ways: considerations of literary meaning are deepened by adding philosophical approaches, just as philosophical issues are enriched by bringing them into contact or interweaving them with literary cases in all their subtlety.

This book is a treatise on cultural globalization and the global political economy. By introducing the transnational public domain in the study of Chinäs Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the book goes beyond existing theoretical frameworks involving both the ¿clash between civilizations¿ and the ¿time-worn division¿ of the world into North and South. It advances a new focus on the theoretical and empirical elements that canvass global cultural behaviours and reactionary attitudes to the expanding Chinese economic norms, cultures and values in different national contexts. Readers of political theory, global political economy, globalization, international relations, political sociology, cultural sociology, public policy and foreign policy analysis will find interest in the book. Whereas new nationalism couples with globalism, both concepts are rediscovered through various socio-economic contexts of BRI policy discourses, which produce conflicts, solidarities, new economic partnerships, and cooperation and resistance as types of contemporary nationalism. The new nationalism is approached as a dual-sided, relational, and dialectical phenomenon which readers will capture by paying particular attention to both the global and local scales of the social responses to the BRI.

In this publication, an ecological, relational framework to support practitioners i. e. Masters¿ level Psychologists/Social Workers/Health Professionals, Interns navigate 21st century challenges and opportunities in the provision of mental health care services at various institutions in developing countries such as South Africa is discussed. With an increased uptake of mental health care services in recent times and the advent of teletherapy to make these services more accessible, health care professionals have had to also reconcile working within institutional structures that place challenges and pressures. Psychologists and Health Professionals employed in various governmental institutions such as health and higher education have also been subject to multiple competing demands that increase the risk of compassion fatigue and burnout. Reference is made to research that has demonstrated that burnout arises from multiple institutional, professional and personal factors, including healthprofessional¿s belief¿s and coping.¿

Legal Positivism has been the dominant school of legal philosophy for much of the last century, despite its many critics. Its central tenet has long been that there is no necessary connection between law and morality. This book provides a broad but clear and jargon-free account of the central objections to the theory and why those objections are sufficient to show that legal positivism is no longer tenable. This includes a broad critique of the purported distinction method of legal positivism, the idea of ¿conceptual analysis,¿ as well as a detailed assessment of the most influential of all legal positivist theories, that of H.L.A. Hart. The book also provides a defense of the natural law school, which holds in contrast to legal positivism that the authority of law arises from its intrinsic connection to morality. The author demonstrates that most of the criticism of the natural law school arises from a caricatured account of that doctrine, for instance the idea that it requires substantive theological commitments or particular conceptions of human nature. In contrast, the author presents an account of natural law theory that is grounded in a commitment to moral truth, but not to any theological beliefs. The nature of law can only be understood in terms of its moral function, to provide a clear set of moral rules that are required for a society to function effectively.

This book concisely describes the technologies, human perception, and cognition issues relevant to autonomous vehicles. It also gives an insight in the changes bring about our future everyday lives.Autonomous vehicles are the future of the automobile industry. Automated driving (AD), also called self-driving, raises however several multiple questions, among them those of user safety and acceptation. Comprehensive HMI system design, with windshield display technics, will be necessary to deal with driving task delegations, bringing the use of VR or augmented reality (AR) technologies. In addition, the use of VR for all the vehicle interiors will progressively be proposed for entertainment, online business activities and for modified visual motion perception to alleviate car sickness, a form of motion sickness. Indeed, car sickness is already well known for many passengers, especially when reading or operating smartphones or other display devices. It is called to increase significantly with the introduction of autonomous vehicles where all users will be for long periods in various sitting positions. These two new trends, AD and VR, are already modifying our relationship with the world and the society. All together, they will change our way of life forever. The book will be of interest to professionals in the auto industry, researchers in automotive engineering and computer science and all those interested in the future of transport.

This book provides readers with an overview of the fundamental definitions and features of Multiple-Valued Logic (MVL). The authors include a brief discussion of the historical development of MVL technologies, while the main goal of the book is to present a comprehensive review of different technologies that are being explored to implement multiple-valued or beyond-binary memory circuits and systems. The discussion includes the basic features, prospects, and challenges of each technology, while highlighting the significant works done on different branches of MVL memory architecture, such as sequential circuits, random access memory, Flash memory, etc.

This thesis investigates the detection efficiency of field-resolved measurements of ultrashort mid-infrared waves via electro-optic sampling for the first time. Employing high-power gate pulses and phase-matched upconversion in thick nonlinear crystals, unprecedented efficiencies are achieved for octave-spanning fields in this wavelength range. In combination with state-of-the art, high-power, ultrashort mid-infrared sources, this allows to demonstrate a new regime of linear detection dynamic range for field strengths from mV/cm to MV/cm-levels. These results crucially contribute to the development of field-resolved spectrometers for early disease detection, as fundamental vibrational modes of (bio-)molecules lie in the investigated spectral range.The results are discussed and compared with previous sensitivity records for electric-field measurements and reference is made to related implementations of the described characterization technique. Including a detailed theoretical description and simulation results, the work elucidates crucial scaling laws, characteristics and limitations. The thesis will thus serve as an educational introduction to the topic of field-resolved measurements using electro-optic sampling, giving detailed instructions on simulations and experimental implementations. At the same time, it showcases the state-of-the-art in terms of detection sensitivity for characterizing mid-infrared waves.

Given the uncertainties in future food and nutrition security due to climate change compounded with an increasing global population, sustainable development is essential for the survival of much of the world's population. Besides the conceptual evolution of food and nutrition security, exploration of new scientific areas aids in reshaping our knowledge of nutritional requirements, and innovation of novel technologies can be utilized to tackle production and security issues in sustainable ways. Emerging Solutions in Sustainable Food and Nutrition Security provides comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of the current problems and issues, emerging ideas, and pragmatic solutions in sustainable nutrition. The book is designed to promote an understanding of the fundamentals and changing landscapes of food systems, nutrition, and environmental sustainability. Emerging issues such as the growing importance of traditional foods in improving nutrition security, the exploration of biodiversity to promote food diversity, the sustainable management of current agroecosystems, the progress made in utilizing biotechnology to enhance crop production, the utilization of bio-fortification and food fortification as means of nutritional management, the latest research advancements in mineral research, and the functional foods are comprehensively addressed.For researchers seeking a deeper insight into sustainable nutrition security and the current technical developments, these chapters cover current technologies across the four pillars of food security, food availability, food accessibility, food utilization, and food stability, and provide a platform for critical scientific thinking in the field of food security, safety, and environmental sustainability in conjunction with Sustainable Development Goals such as Zero Hunger and Climate Action.

Estimating evapotranspiration (ET) has been one of the most critical research areas in agriculture because of water scarcity, the growing population, and climate change. The accurate estimation and mapping of ET are necessary for crop water management. Traditionally, researchers use water balance, soil moisture, weighing lysimeters, or an energy balance approach, such as Bowen ratio or eddy covariance towers to estimate ET. However, these ET methods are point-specific or area-weighted measurements and cannot be extended to a large scale. On the other hand, while remote sensing is able to provide spatially distributed measurements, the spatial resolution of multispectral satellite images is often not enough for crops with clumped canopy structures, such as trees and vines. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can mitigate these spatial and temporal limitations. Lightweight cameras and sensors can be mounted on the UAVs and take high-resolution images. Unlike satellite imagery, the spatial resolution of the UAV images can be at the centimeter-level. UAVs can also fly on-demand, which provides high temporal imagery. This book examines the different UAV-based approaches of ET estimation. Models and algorithms, such as mapping evapotranspiration at high resolution with internalized calibration (METRIC), the two-source energy balance (TSEB) model, and machine learning (ML) are discussed. It also covers the challenges and opportunities for UAVs in ET estimation, with the final chapters devoted to new ET estimation methods and their potential applications for future research.

This book is a comprehensive, all-in-one source on design of monolithic GaN power ICs. It is written in handbook style with systematic guidelines and includes implementation examples. It covers the full range from technology fundamentals to implementation details including design techniques specific for GaN technology. It provides a detailed loss analysis based on comparative measurements between silicon and GaN based converters to provide an understanding of the relations between design choices and results which can be transferred to other power converter systems.

This book provides an original cross-thematic and wide scope review of crime prevention processes in urban areas that are explicitly based on the cooperation between different scientific and professional fields. Focusing primarily on environmental and community-based crime prevention, this book compiles a peer-reviewed collection of papers and prospective essays that explore how, and to what extent, multi-disciplinarity can be used as a cornerstone for achieving safer cities.Relying on the input from specialists, researchers, decision-makers, and practitioners from around the world, it covers the various stages from theory to implementation, by discussing theoretical stances, interpreting policy and planning guidelines, uncovering unique educational experiences, and narrating insights and lessons learned from innovative research and practice. Hence, it provides vivid discussions and invaluable insights into processes of partnership building, planning, and management, oriented towards establishing successful mechanism for preventing crime and reducing feelings of insecurity in urban areas.

In this hyperconnected, dynamic world we live in, permeated by profound challenges and transformations, the awareness of complexity is unequivocally on the rise. This monograph argues that it is high time that our educational institutions and pedagogical approaches come to mirror this growing awareness, to assist and inspire humanity to embrace complexity, to learn to move within it with increasing sensitivity and wisdom. Doing so is necessary, for if there is one thing that the years behind us bear witness of, it is that the tendency and attempt to simplify, separate, control, and indeed exploit has - as the dark side of the advancements of modern life - brought upon us unprecedented ecological and humanitarian crises. Schools, notably, are not closed spaces separated from society but open places within society, and as such they are inevitably complicit in the (re)shaping of our shared world. This book, therefore, proposes an ambitious pedagogical agenda. Specifically, it explores the relational ontological premise of entanglement in the context of pedagogical theory, raising the question of how, as teachers, we might meaningfully and responsibly engage with the myriad ways in which students are simultaneously shaped-by and shapers-of contemporary societal challenges. In close collaboration with twelve teachers as co-researchers, the book offers six ''helpful perspectives'' for teachers seeking to embrace such complexity in their own practices, referred to as: (1) entanglement-orientedness, (2) entanglement-awareness, (3) hopeful action, (4) inquiry within entangled phenomena, (5) practicing perceptiveness, and (6) practicing integrity.

This edited book explores and illustrates successful practices for online assessment and community-building, based on the authors' own classroom practice during and in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic. The authors argue that what has happened during the coronavirus pandemic has fundamentally changed perspectives on language education, and that if the importance of using online teaching tools in the classroom was dimly understood before the crisis, the language teaching establishment has now fully realized their potential and must continue exploring this further, even as the option to return to in-person teaching becomes widespread. Ranging from online activities to course design, the volume presents a comprehensive outlook at distance learning in modern foreign languages. It does so by focusing on those two aspects that, within an emergency scenario, have proven most challenging, namely: how to assess students in a non-controlled environment and how to foster a sense of community from the confinement of our isolated learning spaces. This book will be of interest to academics and practitioners in Language Education, as well as teachers and teacher trainees.

This book examines subjectivity and neoliberalism in Latin America. The chapters, first published in the journal Subjectivity, cover a range of topics, from work to childcare to violence to university education In the Introduction, Julian Medina Zarate and Flavia Uchoa point out the complex history of the arrival and take-up of neoliberalism across the continent, the deep-seated role of colonial and post-colonial violence, thus the specificity of modes of governance in the complex relationship between the North and the South. The chapter by Antar Martinez Guzman considers the role of neoliberalism in the huge rise in male violence across the country, exploring hyper-violent masculinities in the context of social precarity. Antonio Stecher and Alvaro Soto Roy discuss the transformations in work identities and thus the consequences for subjectivity for workers in three kinds of employment in neoliberal Chile. Fabio d'Oliviera studies phsychologists operating in an increasingly precarised service sector in public assistance programmes in Brazil. Hernan Pulido Martinez explores the role of artefacts in the introduction of discourses and practices related to quality within a university in Colombia. Ana Vergara discusses parent-child relations in the context of neoliberal Chile.

This book presents the state of the art on the topic of recycling of plastic building materials, comprising a synthetic market analysis, and presenting the latest developments in plastic recycling technologies. The book also makes recommendations to optimize the success of recycling and encourage the circular economy, while acknowledging the environmental and sustainability implications of plastic recycling for building construction. The distinctive features of this book are the variety of topics covered on sustainable plastic recycling, the discussion of advances in plastic recycling technology, detailed illustrations, and summarized descriptions of separation processes. This book is a guide for both technical and non-technical readers, and for anyone involved in plastic waste or recycling, including researchers and students in plastics engineering, polymer science, polymer chemistry, environmental science, and sustainable materials.

This book provides a new model to explore discoverability and enhance the meaning of information. The authors have coined the term epidata, which includes items and circumstances that impact the expression of the data in a document, but are not part of the ordinary process of retrieval systems.  Epidata affords pathways and points to details that cast light on proximities that might otherwise go unknown.  In addition, epidata are clues to mis-and dis-information discernment.  There are many ways to find needed information; however, finding the most useable information is not an easy task.  The book explores the uses of proximity and the concept of epidata that increases the probability of  finding functional information.  The authors sketch a constellation of proximities, present examples of attempts to accomplish proximity, and provoke a discussion of the role of proximity in the field. In addition, the authors suggest that proximity is a thread between retrieval constructs based on known topics, predictable relations, and types of information seeking that lie outside constructs such as browsing, stumbling, encountering, detective work, art making, and translation.

The Standard Model of elementary particle physics was tentatively outlined in the early 1970s. The concepts of quarks, leptons, neutrinos, gauge symmetries, chiral interactions, Higgs boson, strong force, weak force, and electromagnetism were all put together to form a unifying theory of elementary particles. Furthermore, the model was developed within the context of relativistic quantum field theory, making it compatible with all of the laws of Einstein's Special Relativity. The successes of the Standard Model over the years have been tremendous and enduring, leading up to the recent discovery and continuing study of the Higgs boson.      This book is a comprehensive and technical introduction to Standard Model physics. Martin and Wells provide readers who have no prior knowledge of quantum field theory or particle physics a firm foundation into the fundamentals of both. The emphasis is on obtaining practical knowledge of how to calculate cross-sections and decay rates. There is no better way to understand the necessary abstract knowledge and solidify its meaning than to learn how to apply it to the computation of observables that can be measured in a laboratory.Beginning graduate students, both experimental and theoretical, and advanced undergraduate students interested in particle physics, will find this to be an ideal one-semester textbook to begin their technical learning of elementary particle physics.

This textbook provides an introduction to methods for solving nonlinear partial differential equations (NLPDEs). After the introduction of several PDEs drawn from science and engineering, readers are introduced to techniques to obtain exact solutions of NLPDEs. The chapters include the following topics: Nonlinear PDEs are Everywhere; Differential Substitutions; Point and Contact Transformations; First Integrals; and Functional Separability. Readers are guided through these chapters and are provided with several detailed examples. Each chapter ends with a series of exercises illustrating the material presented in each chapter. This Second Edition includes a new method of generating contact transformations and focuses on a solution method (parametric Legendre transformations) to solve a particular class of two nonlinear PDEs.

This book focusses on additive manufacturing including many aspects, like vacuum assisted high pressure die casting, semi-solid metal casting, compressive and tensile forming processes, micro and nano machining, nanocomposite manufacturing, adhesive bonding, laser cutting and joining. Subtopics like modelling and optimization of manufacture processes, design for manufacturing strategies, development of new manufacturing technologies, design of novel manufacturing equipment, comparative case studies, cost and quality analysis, ecological aspects and destructive and non-destructive testing of manufactured components are also presented.The book provides a state of the art of engineering manufacture and also serves as a reference volume for researchers and graduate students using technological processes.This volume gathers selected contributions of the 1st International Conference on Engineering Manufacture 2022, held in Porto, Portugal, on May 5-6, 2022. 

This work prepares current and future managers and consultants focused on health care delivery systems to improve the efficiency of processes that deliver care. This material will help you manage capacity, improve patient flow, estimate process costs, and conduct experiments that lead to process improvement. Essential tools covered include process mapping and measurement, data collection and analysis, and the use of discrete event simulation as a tool for virtual experimentation and improvement. Tools are introduced with no assumption of prior training. Many examples of settings, problems, and solutions are presented, along with a generalized approach to process improvement that is specifically tailored to health care settings. Readings, exercises, and cases suitable for discussion or end-course projects are also provided. Writing is based on a decade of experience teaching at the MBA and MS levels, managing dozens of improvement processes, and a host of our prior scholarly publications, book chapters, and case studies.

This book examines social inequalities in Europe, especially those caused by economic factors. It starts with the paradox of European inequality, where on the one hand, even total income inequality in Europe is significantly lower than in most parts of the world; but on the other, Europe is also characterised by profound and durable inequalities within the continent. It discusses inequalities caused by the exclusion of marginalised groups from the labour market, with considerable and sometimes increasing differences between central and peripheral regions, pronounced wealth and labour market inequalities, and significant rates of persistent poverty, deprivation, educational poverty, low wages and unemployment. The book also discusses broader territorial inequalities, which are the basis for divisions between Northern and Southern Europe, East and West, between qualified and unqualified employees, younger and older people, men and women, and migrants and non-migrants. The book raises questions about the winners and losers of the social transformations linked to the introduction of the Euro, the Eastern enlargement of the EU, and the financial and Eurozone crises. It is based on a comprehensive analysis of a European-wide microdata set on income and living conditions (EU-SILC). The empirical research material, which is the first to deploy this data in a comprehensive manner, consists of detailed empirical analyses of social divisions and Europeanisation processes in 30 European countries. It analyses and explains the transformation of the previously dominant national spaces into a European social space.This topical book is of interest to academics and students in the fields of sociology and comparative social sciences, along with those studying European regional geography, anthropology, international relations, and international politics.

The term victim refers to a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action. Victimology focuses on the victimization in terms of psychological effects, impact on criminal justice system and new policies and it is a major aspect in the area of forensic field. Victimization can occur due to abuse, assault, maltreatment, war, terrorism, crimes and it can happen in different settings like home, school, and public. In the past, more emphasis was given to perpetrators and various theories tried explain the behavior of perpetrator and their offences. Recently, researchers started focusing different aspects of victimology and explored risk factors for becoming victim, reasons for repeated victimization, and forensic, psychological and social dimensions of victims and consequences of victimization. But there is a need for new theories and researches to have more thorough understanding of victimization. The field of criminology dealt with crimes and various theories has developed to explain why crime occurs and more focused on perpetrators. A crime involves perpetrator and victim and not much attention has been given to the victim until recently. What happens to a victim, what are the psychological and social consequences of a harmful act to a victim, vulnerabilities to become a victim are getting serious attention now a days and started influencing the criminal justice system. The psychological and social impacts of victimization may be a short or long duration but the impacts cannot be ignored. The legal remedies and psychological healings are important aspects of victimization. While considering these factors, the book would be focusing on origin and scope of victimology, different types of victimization such as sexual abuse, domestic violence, maltreatment, cyber crimes, war and terrorism, natural calamities, victimization at school and work place, human trafficking, crime against persons, crime against property, white collar crime, elder abuse, victim with disabilities, secondary victim and re-victimization and its psychological impacts and related issues. The book would also focus on victimology and forensic factors and its influence on criminal justice system in addition to the psychological management of victimization.

The North American Wildlife Conservation Model (NAM) is the driver of a strong anthropocentric stance, which has legalized an ongoing, annual exploitation of hundreds of millions of wild animals, who are killed in the United States through trapping, hunting and other lethal practices. Increasingly, the American public opposes the killing of wild animals for recreation, trophies and profit but has little-if any-knowledge of the Model. The purpose of this book is to empower the public with knowledge about the NAM's insufficiencies and to help expedite the shift from lethal to compassionate conservation, an endeavour urgently needed particularly under the threats of climate change, human population growth and accelerating plant and animal species extinctions.With a focus on trapping, this book exposes the NAM's belief in human supremacy and its consequences for wild animals and their ecosystems, the same value that is driving the ongoing global destruction of nature and accelerating species extinction. Motivated by a deep concern for wild animals who suffer and whose lives are extinguished each year by 'sportsmen and women', this book exposes the violent treatment of wild animals inherent in governmental-promoted hunting and trapping programs, while emphasizing the importance of empathy and compassion for other animals in conservation and in our lives.

Keratoconus is a progressive disease of the cornea which can lead to blindness as irregular astigmatism increases. The study of the ectasic diseases of the cornea has evolved considerably in the last several years and this has brought new tools for the keratoconus diagnosis and treatment. A better understanding of treatment options can enhance visual rehabilitation and prevent blindness in these patients.This book provides the reader deeply and updated information on keratoconus treatment. Written by experts from worldwide, the book presents clinical, genetic, metabolic and biomechanical aspects in the development of the disease, the proper intervention time, the imaging tests used for diagnosis and keratoconus monitoring, as well as details on new surgical procedures (as contact lenses and laser technologies) using modern methods with wide technological application. Two pioneers in the keratoconus treatment bring their valuable contribution in specific chapters.Ophthalmologists will find a practical and useful approach of new technologies to get the best results for their patients. This book will really impact changes in the therapeutic conduct of corneal surgeons.