Bücher veröffentlicht von Springer International Publishing

This handbook discusses the latest developments in biorefinery technologies for waste-to-energy conversion. The growing global population and the accompanying increase in consumption and waste production make it urgent to find the best possible use of our resources. A sustainable waste management under the biorefinery concept has great potential to support a sustainable circular economy and green energy production.This handbook is divided into four parts. First, the reader is introduced to the fundamentals and recent trends of waste-to-energy technologies. The second part describes in detail the current status, challenges, and potential of the different feedstocks used for waste-to-energy conversion. Here, municipal solid waste, sewage sludge, oils and greases generated during food preparation, industrial wastewaters, and agricultural wastes, to name a few, are introduced.  In the third part, numerous waste-to-energy technologies are discussed in detail, including anaerobic digestion, composting, gasification, plasma technology, thermal cracking, and others. Advantages and optimization potentials of these technologies for efficient residue management, quality and yield are highlighted.Finally, the handbook discusses social, environmental and economic aspects of waste-to-energy biorefinery technologies. Readers will learn more about the major bottlenecks and solutions in bioenergy commercialization, the logistics of biomass supply and the carbon footprint of waste biorefineries. The ideas and technologies presented in this book contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of "e;Affordable and Clean Energy"e;.This book is a useful reference for postgraduate students and researchers interested in biorefinery and biofuel technologies, both in academia- and commercial laboratories. Early career scientists can use it to fast track into the field. Advanced scientists will find it helpful in gaining a broader overview of the field beyond their area of specialization.

This book presents unique results of complex studies from the all-Russian longitudinal study "e;Grow with Russia"e;. In the framework of the cultural-historical concept, it focuses on the social situation of development, which is organized by adults, and its influence on cognitive and emotional development of children. It examines the role of the traditional play in children's development in modern conditions.The book explores the changes in social situation of development due to the digitalization of the world and its impact on child development, child groups and play development. The book searches for cognitive cultural tools as means of concept acquisition by preschool children in different domains as well as key factors that influence effectiveness of different cultural tools usage. This book provides international perspectives, making results from the study applicable to different cultural contexts.

The three-dimensional structure and function of molecules present many challenges and opportunities for developing an understanding of biological systems. With the increasing availability of molecular structures and the advancing accuracy of structure predictions and molecular simulations, the space for algorithmic advancement on many analytical and predictive problems is both broad and deep. To support this field, a rich set of methods and algorithms are available, addressing a variety of important problems such as protein-protein interactions, the effect of mutations on protein structure and function, and protein structure determination. Despite recent advancements in the field, in particular in protein folding with the development of AlphaFold, many problems still remain unsolved.In this book we focus on a number of topics in Structural Bioinformatics: Cryo-EM structural detection, protein conformational exploration, elucidation of molecular binding surface using geometry, the effect of mutations, insertions and deletions on protein structural stability, and protein-ligand binding.

Allergies are a significant health issue, yet few books exist on allergen tolerance of separation; here the author classifies allergen tolerance breakdown in specific types, according to the possibility that the autonomic breakdown of allergen tolerance in the unified airway depends on a deficit of pro-tolerogenic neurotransmitters at the local level. This paradigm, which explains the pathogenesis of allergic disorders, opens to new approaches to allergen-specific immunotherapy (AIT). While focusing on the new atopic disorders of the unified airway, such as local allergic rhinitis, "e;dual"e; allergic rhinitis, local allergic asthma, and local allergic conjunctivitis, the work combines clinical examples of allergic diseases and their treatment with their immunological background. The topics range from the specific immune-derived maintenance of allergen tolerance and the role of the neuroimmune network in allergic inflammation to conventional atopic diseases and more particular issues of local atopic disorders in the unified airway, oral tolerance, and its breakdown, and its translation in genitourinary aspects of allergic inflammation. Specific chapters are also devoted to allergen-specific immunotherapy (AIT) and anti-allergy treatments. Thought for upper graduate students, it will also be a valued resource for allergy practitioners, pulmonologists, ENT specialists, pediatricians, and translational researchers. Textbook of Allergen Tolerance includes classical didactic features such as abstracts, keywords, background notes, discussion points, and Q&A., as well as 20 audio files Text-to-Speech for the visually impaired, and 10 video to support the readers.

To date, processing of high-throughput Mass Spectrometry (MS) data is accomplished using serial algorithms. Developing new methods to process MS data is an active area of research but there is no single strategy that focuses on scalability of MS based methods.  Mass spectrometry is a diverse and versatile technology for high-throughput functional characterization of proteins, small molecules and metabolites in complex biological mixtures. In the recent years the technology has rapidly evolved and is now capable of generating increasingly large (multiple tera-bytes per experiment) and complex (multiple species/microbiome/high-dimensional) data sets. This rapid advance in MS instrumentation  must  be matched by equally fast and rapid evolution of scalable methods developed for analysis of these complex data sets. Ideally, the new methods should leverage the rich heterogeneous computational resources available in a ubiquitous fashion in the form of  multicore,  manycore,  CPU-GPU, CPU-FPGA, and IntelPhi architectures.  The absence of these high-performance computing algorithms now hinders scientific advancements for mass spectrometry research. In this book we illustrate the need for high-performance computing algorithms for MS based proteomics, and proteogenomics and showcase our progress in developing these high-performance algorithms.

This book traces the beginnings of literary (narrative) journalism in Australia. It contributes to evolving international definitions of the form, while providing a glimpse into Australiäs early press history and development as a nation. The book comprises two parts. The first examines the forerunners of literary journalism before and during the establishment of a free press, including the letters, diaries and journals of the early colonists, as well as sketches published in the first magazines and newspapers. The book asks if these were ¿reporting¿ when there was no thriving press until well into the 19th century -- many were written by women and convicts whose voices otherwise went unheard. The second part examines the first expressions of literary journalism in forms more recognisable today, covering topics as varied as homelessness in Melbourne, the Queensland trade in Pacific Islander labour, and Australiäs involvement in overseas wars, particularly the Boer War. The resulting cultural history reveals important milestones in the development of Australiäs press and literature, while demonstrating the concerns unveiled in colonial literary journalism still resonate in Australia in the 21st century.

This volume describes the thinking on sustainable development and a variety of initiatives across Europe, illustrating regional efforts to foster sustainable communities and ecological and social innovation. It contains various contributions which showcase examples of thinking, economic and social structures and in consumption and production patterns needed, to implement the SDGs.This book is part of the "100 papers to accelerate the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals initiative".

This book presents a comprehensive study covering the design and application of models and algorithms for assessing the joint device failures of telecommunication backbone networks caused by large-scale regional disasters. At first, failure models are developed to make use of the best data available; in turn, a set of fast algorithms for determining the resulting failure lists are described; further, a theoretical analysis of the complexity of the algorithms and the properties of the failure lists is presented, and relevant practical case studies are investigated. Merging concepts and tools from complexity theory, combinatorial and computational geometry, and probability theory, a comprehensive set of models is developed for translating the disaster hazard in informative yet concise data structures. The information available on the network topology and the disaster hazard is then used to calculate the possible (probabilistic) network failures. The resulting sets of resources that are expected to break down simultaneously are modeled as a collection of Shared Risk Link Groups (SRLGs), or Probabilistic SRLGs. Overall, this book presents improved theoretical methods that can help predicting disaster-caused network malfunctions, identifying vulnerable regions, and assessing precisely the availability of internet services, among other applications.

This book offers a detailed description of the main barbed pharyngoplasty techniques for the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea.  These innovative techniques have spread in recent years and are considered as a validated alternative to the classic respective techniques.The book covers the barbed pharyngoplasty selection criteria, the surgical technique, and discusses the post-operative results. It also includes some chapters on the experience of surgical sleep centers in various parts of the world.Written by leading experts in the field of sleep surgery, this book will be interesting for ENT specialists, oral surgeons, maxillo-facial surgeons, plastic surgeons, sleep doctors, neurologists and pneumologists.

This book covers the flux pinning mechanisms and properties and the electromagnetic phenomena caused by the flux pinning common for metallic, high-Tc and MgB2 superconductors. The condensation energy interaction known for normal precipitates or grain boundaries and the kinetic energy interaction proposed for artificial Nb pins in Nb-Ti, etc., are introduced for the pinning mechanism. Summation theories to derive the critical current density are discussed in detail. Irreversible magnetization and AC loss caused by the flux pinning are also discussed. The loss originally stems from the ohmic dissipation of normal electrons in the normal core driven by the electric field induced by the flux motion.The influence of the flux pinning on the vortex phase diagram in high Tc superconductors is discussed, and the dependencies of the irreversibility field are also described on other quantities such as anisotropy of superconductor, specimen size and electric field strength. Recent developments of critical current properties in various high-Tc superconductors and MgB2 are introduced.The 3rd edition has been thoroughly updated, with a new chapter on critical state model. The mechanism of irreversible properties is discussed in detail. The author provides calculations of pinning loss by the equation of motion of flux lines in the pinning potential and hysteresis loss. The readers will learn why the resultant loss is of hysteresis type in spite of such mechanism. This book aims for graduate students and researchers studying superconductivity as well as engineers working in electric utility industry.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are increasingly being deployed by marketing entities in connection with consumers' interactions. Thanks to machine learning (ML) and cognitive computing technologies, businesses can now analyse vast amounts of data on consumers, generate new knowledge, use it to optimize certain processes, and undertake tasks that were previously impossible.Against this background, this book analyses new algorithmic commercial practices, discusses their challenges for consumers, and measures such developments against the current EU legislative framework on consumer protection. The book adopts an interdisciplinary approach, building on empirical findings from AI applications in marketing and theoretical insights from marketing studies, and combining them with normative analysis of privacy and consumer protection in the EU.The content is divided into three parts. The first part analyses the phenomenon of algorithmic marketing practices and reviews the main AI and AI-related technologies used in marketing, e.g. Big data, ML and NLP. The second part describes new commercial practices, including the massive monitoring and profiling of consumers, the personalization of advertising and offers, the exploitation of psychological and emotional insights, and the use of human-like interfaces to trigger emotional responses. The third part provides a comprehensive analysis of current EU consumer protection laws and policies in the field of commercial practices. It focuses on two main legal concepts, their shortcomings, and potential refinements: vulnerability, understood as the conceptual benchmark for protecting consumers from unfair algorithmic practices; manipulation, the substantive legal measure for drawing the line between fair and unfair practices.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed conference proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Web and Internet Economics, WINE 2014, held in Beijing, China, in December 2014. The 32 regular and 13 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 107 submissions and cover results on incentives and computation in theoretical computer science, artificial intelligence, and microeconomics.

This book presents an analysis tracing the operation of biopolitical mode of power in the global field of drug control. Through a series of theoretically framed investigations that relate current drug control policies to the broader frame of ¿vital politics,¿ it attends to the relationship of drug control, democracy and authoritarianism and showcases these pressures on the case of the evolution of drug policy in the Czech Republic. Then, it turns attention to the relationship of power and knowledge, with a particular focus on ¿evidence-based¿ policy that tends to more often sustain, rather than challenge coercive and punitive drug control policies. Last but not least, it looks at how the global drug control dispositif shapes those lives on one of Europe¿s (internal) periphery, the Spanish Southern border. These investigations are intended to illuminate elements of the operation of the drug control dispositif and its far reaching (bio-)political effects in order to maintain and expand the space for thinking political alternatives.

This book links world-literary studies with anthropology and ethnography. It shows how ethnographic narratives can represent a compelling point of departure for world-literary explorations. The volume compares the travel writing and fiction of Robert Louis Stevenson and Rudyard Kipling as colonial ethnographic narratives; the militant writings of Carlo Levi and Mahasweta Devi; and the travelogues and ethnographic fiction of Amitav Ghosh and the literary journalism of Frank Westerman. Each of these readings focuses on a set of social, political and historical circumstances and relies on a dialogue with anthropological theory and history. This book demonstrates how imperialism, colonialism, capitalism and ecology are interdependent, and contributes to methodological debates within both anthropology and world-literary studies.

This volume provides alternatives for tackling existing empirical, methodological, and analytical challenges. It does so by providing a broad overview of less established, as well as emerging methods, which are of great relevance for current research on professional learning and development. As such, it offers a comprehensive collection of state-of-the-art methodologies and future directions within the workplace learning and professional development research. By describing these novel approaches and providing empirical illustrations, the book promotes innovative methodologies for investigating professional learning and development. It also supports scholars to understand upcoming empirical research and methods and encourages novice as well as established researchers to adopt new empirical strategies beyond traditional ones that have the potential to enrich a better understanding of professional learning and development. 

This book presents the most relevant articles selected from the annals of the symposium. In the last few years, Brazilian Geomorphology has experienced a series of epistemological and methodological innovations expressed by the incorporation of the complexity paradigm, by the progressive break with the climate paradigm, by the emergency role of new theories, and by the advances in methodological fields favored by the adherence to geochronological techniques and in function of the increasingly widespread use of geotechnologies. Furthermore, the Anthropocene/Technogene emerge claims to be more than only a temporal cuts, but as conceptions of a science engaged with social and environmental issues. The National Symposium of Geomorphology, in the maturity of its 13th edition, constitutes a portrait and an important sample of Brazilian geomorphological production, aggregating works carried out in the most diverse types of landscapes of Brazil. The book provides an overview of the current scientific production of Brazilian Geomorphology, highlighting the diversity of landscapes and geoheritage in Brazil, the complexity of the morphogenetic and morphodynamic processes responsible for shaping its surface, and the various abundant methodologies used in geomorphological studies in tropical areas.

This volume presents advanced quantitative methods and applications in economics with special interest in macroeconomics, microeconomics, financial economics, international economics, agricultural economics, and marketing and management. Featuring selected contributions from the 2021 International Conference of Applied Economics (ICOAE 2021) held in Heraklion Crete, Greece, this book provides country specific studies with potential applications in economic policy.

This book provides a holistic and practical approach to Japanese concepts of lean management throughout the business value chain. It explains principles like Kaizen, Kata or Keiretsu in a pragmatic and logical way with many industry examples and case studies. The authors describe comprehensively how lean management enables companies to concentrate on value-adding activities and processes to achieve a long-term, sustainable competitive advantage. Moreover, the book shows how lean management principles are ultimately applied in industries like aviation, civil engineering, automotive, healthcare, education and other industries.

This book critically reviews transnational banking regulations that specifically impact consumer lending in Africa's largest economy. It provides a comprehensive analysis on the politics and economics of financial sector consolidation in an emerging market in West Africa, also covering law, consumer credit, and consumer policy along with a discussion of banking sector reforms heavily influenced by the neoliberal economics paradigm. There have been several developments since the publication of the existing books especially in the area of regulatory theory and social protection that are captured in this book, which will be of interest to researchers, students, and scholars of banking regulation, development economics, and international finance.

This book explores the rapidly growing subspecialty of regenerative medicine in pain management. It provides concise guidelines and instruction for healthcare providers interested in implementing this novel therapy. The book contains three sections and begins with a thorough introduction to the field. Additionally, section one examines various therapies such as stem cell collection, allograft therapies, and bone marrow aspirations. Section two then delves into the medical diagnosis and procedural guidance methods, including ultrasound imaging, discography, local anesthetics, and anticoagulation medications. Following this, section three concludes the book with numerous discussions on standardized treatment paradigms. A unique, first-of-its-kind book, Regenerative Medicine seeks to inspire medical practitioners to integrate this subspecialty into pain management therapies and treatments.

This edited collection presents the first critical and historical overview of photography in Portuguese colonial Africa to an English-speaking audience. Photography in Portuguese Colonial Africa, 1860¿1975 brings together sixteen scholars from interdisciplinary fields as varied as history, anthropology, art history, visual culture and museum studies, to consider some of the key aspects in the visual representation of the longest-lasting European colonial empire in the African continent. The chapters span over two centuries and cover five formerly colonial territories ¿ Angola, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe ¿ deploying a range of methodologies to explore the multiple meanings and the contested uses of the photographic image across the realms of politics, science, culture and war. This book responds to a marked surge of international interest in the relationship between photography and colonialism, which has hitherto largely overlooked the Portuguese imperial context, by delivering the most recent scholarly findings to a broad readership.

This book brings together a group of leading scholars on international relations to develop and apply the concept of polarity on past and present international relations and discuss its applicability and usefulness in the future. Despite a comprehensive debate on a global power shift, often discussed in terms of the decline of the United States, the crisis in the liberal international order, and the rise of China, IR¿s main concept of power, ¿polarity¿, remains undertheorized and understudied. The great powers and their importance for dynamics and processes in the international system are central to current debates on international order, but these debates too often suffer from a combination of politicized empirical analysis and reliance on old theoretical debates and conceptualizations, typically originating in the Cold War security environment. In order to meet these challenges, this book updates, conceptualizes, applies and critically debates the concepts of unipolarity, bipolarity, multipolarity and non-polarity in order to understand the current world order.

This book summarizes more than four decades of research on imitation in infancy and its relation to early learning and sociocognitive development in typically and atypically developing children. The studies were carried out in a Scandinavian context and thus provide important cultural validation of the central developmental processes. The book is divided into three parts: Part one focuses on the social and cognitive aspects of imitation, discussing links to early parent-infant interaction, and developmental meaning. It addresses evidence for an imitative capacity at birth for typical and atypical infants. Also covered are early individual differences in imitation, the role of imitation as a social and cognitive learning mechanism in early development, and possible links between imitation and temperament. Part two presents unique longitudinal studies on early memory development using deferred imitation as the key method. It discusses the biological basis of memory and explores the idea that deferred imitation is an indicator of an infant's ability to understand intentions. Part three focuses on imitation in young children with autism and with Down syndrome. It examines the role of imitation as a "e;deficit"e; as well as a vehicle for change when used interactively in early interventions for children with autism.  Imitation from Infancy Through Early Childhood is an essential resource for researchers, professors, and graduate students as well as clinicians and other professionals in developmental psychology, cognitive development, psycholinguistics, child psychiatry, and developmental neuroscience.

This volume conceptualizes and distinguishes storying from narrative and storytelling to establish itself as a method. It theorizes that storying pertains to ones¿ identity, to the unique positions of who one is, how they came to be, and why they came to be (Raj, 2019). Building upon foundational work from Freire, Greene, and Clandinin & Connelly, this book elucidates storying through a new concept ¿emotional truth¿--a deeply personal and authentic experience that builds a tangible connection from teller to listener. Such an involved conception of Storying could have the potential to anchor storying as research methodology and as valid pedagogical practice. Further, the chapters in this book establish storying as a concept, method, and as pedagogical practice.