Bücher veröffentlicht von Springer Nature Switzerland

This book assumes an ¿everyday life¿ perspective towards masking in public spaces in the UK during the Covid-19 pandemic. Facemasks are perhaps one of the most tangible ways in which the changes wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic were made visible. In the space of a few months in 2020, masking in the UK went from being almost non-existent in public to becoming widespread, both before and after the UK government mandated masking in most enclosed public spaces in July 2020. In this context, the speed and scale of the introduction of masking in public settings offers sociologists a rare chance to document the (contested) emergence of a new social practice. The authors argue that the nature of masking during the pandemic means that masking practices need to be understood through the entwinement of material, interactional, and moral dimensions. By developing a relational perspective to explore the relationship between the materiality and moral significance of masking, and how this translated into the development of masking practices in public spaces, the authors argue further that the specific context of masking during the pandemic provides sociologists with a unique lens to think through the nature of material, interactional, and moral practices in general.

This book examines the autobiographies and diaries of Soviet homosexual men who underwent psychotherapy during the period from 1970 to 1980 under the guidance of Yan Goland, a psychiatrist-sexopathologist from Gorky. The examination of these unique and little known documents contributes to our scant knowledge about the practices that many would call a Soviet proto-type of 'aversion therapy'. It also helps us understand the way homosexual people faced "queer dilemmas" of the self and how they sought to reconcile their queer desire with being Soviet.

This book collates important contributions from Engineering to Adapt (ETA2023). Eta, ¿, the 7th letter of the Greek alphabet, is scrupulously used to denote efficiency and this is what ETA2023 strives for. In context, efficiency, ¿, is about avoiding waste, may this be energy, time, money, or material, in accomplishing something useful. As such, ETA2023 aims at bringing experts and future leaders together to forge more efficient ways to engineer and live. In other words, ETA2023 strives to synergise and catalyse all stakeholders, enthusiasts, and experts from academia, industry, policy arenas, and the general public, to formulate novel ways to improve tomorrow.This symposium will disseminate recent progress and promote collaborations to maximize opportunities for innovative integrated solutions. Topics of interest include resource and energy efficiency, waste reduction, and eco-friendly agriculture, architecture, engineering, and living.

Every innovation starts its life as an idea. It is the systematic transformation of this idea, via its manifestation as an invention, to the final innovative material, device, process, method, service, etc. that is the subject of this practical step-by-step guide. It will be very useful to anyone who has a technological idea and wishes to commercialize it.The author describes a systematic transformational process in ten distinct stages, from the birth of the idea, through its technical validation and its economic viability validation, to the final market innovation. The author correlates this process with the ¿Technology Readiness Levels¿ which form the backbone of nearly all major R&D programs. In addition, the reader is introduced to the three critical milestones where crucial go/no-go decisions are made. A number of case studies have been added in this new edition and analyzed in some detail. This guide is based on many years of experience of the author in technology transfer activities both as a mentor and a senior consultant of the European Commission. The book includes a plethora of clear definitions and clarifications as well as valuable strategic advice and insights into many key aspects of the transformational process that will be useful to any inventor wishing to take their invention to its logical conclusion, that of a valuable product or service.

This book is an overview of latest successes and applications of fuzzy techniques¿techniques that use expert knowledge formulated by natural-language words like "small". Engineering applications deal with aerospace (control of spacecrafts and unmanned aerial vehicles, air traffic control, airport passenger flow predictions), materials (designing gold nano-structures for medicine, catalysis, and sensors), and robot navigation and manipulation. Other application areas include cosmology, demographics, finances, wine production, medicine (diagnostics, epidemics control), and predicting human behavior. In many cases, fuzzy techniques are combined with machine learning AI. Due to natural-language origin of fuzzy techniques, such combination adds explainability (X) to AI. This book is recommended to students and practitioners interested in the state-of-the-art fuzzy-related XAI and to researchers willing to take on numerous remaining challenges.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality, EuroXR 2023, held in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, during November 29-December 1, 2023.The 14 full papers presented together with 2 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 42 submissions.The papers are grouped into the following topics: Interaction in Virtual Reality; Designing XR Experiences; and Human Factors in VR: Performance, Acceptance, and Design.

This exploration of the crucially important role played by remorse in Iris Murdoch¿s philosophical, theological, and political thinking identifies it as a critical concept in her moral psychology and a recurrent theme in her art. Through engagement with Simone Weil, current theories of remorse, trauma theory and Holocaust studies, it offers fresh perspectives on Murdoch¿s fiction ¿ particularly the late novels, her radio play The One Alone, and her monograph Heidegger.

This book gives readers the tools to craft AI systems that don't just thrive today, but endure sustainably into the future. Whether a trailblazer or an aspiring innovator, this book enables readers to resonate with the ambitions of software developers, data scientists, and AI practitioners. The author covers the latest techniques and best practices for energy efficiency, reducing carbon footprints, and ensuring fair and ethical AI. The book also addresses important issues such as AI governance, managing risks, and ensuring transparency. Topics covered include understanding the relationship between AI and sustainable development, strategies for building efficient AI systems, and ethical considerations in AI development, among others. The author includes case studies of companies and organizations that have successfully implemented sustainable AI software development practices. Therefore, this book will be of interest to AI practitioners, academics, researchers, and lecturers in computer science, artificial intelligence, machine learning and data sciences.

This book focuses on the fields of neural networks, swarm optimization algorithms, clustering and fuzzy logic. This book describes a hybrid method with three different techniques of intelligence computation: neural networks, optimization algorithms and fuzzy logic. Within the neural network techniques, competitive neural networks (CNNs) are used, for the optimization algorithms technique, we used the fireworks algorithm (FWA), and in the area of fuzzy logic, the Type-1 Fuzzy Inference Systems (T1FIS) and the Interval Type-2 Fuzzy Inference Systems (IT2FIS) were used, with their variants of Mamdani and Sugeno type, respectively. FWA was adapted for data clustering with the goal to help of competitive neural network to find the optimal number of neurons. It is important to mention that two variants were applied to the FWA: dynamically adjust of parameters with Type-1 Fuzzy Logic (FFWA) as the first one and Interval Type-2 (F2FWA) as the second one. Subsequently, based on the outputs of the CNN and with the goal of classification data, we designed Type-1 and Interval Type-2 Fuzzy Inference Systems of Mamdani and Sugeno type. This book is intended to be a reference for scientists and engineers interested in applying a different metaheuristic or an artificial neural network in order to solve optimization and applied fuzzy logic techniques for solving problems in clustering and classification data. This book is also used as a reference for graduate courses like the following: soft computing, swarm optimization algorithms, clustering data, fuzzy classify and similar ones. We consider that this book can also be used to get novel ideas for new lines of research, new techniques of optimization or to continue the lines of the research proposed by the authors of the book.

This book provides an in-depth qualitative report on casualised academic staff in the UK, mapping shared experiences and strategies for resistance. Bringing together testimonial data spanning seven years, it offers evidence of how precarious labour conditions have persisted, shifted and intensified. The book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars in the fields of education, human resources management, labour studies and sociology, as well as trade unionists and university policymakers.

This book reviews alternative water sources for producing potable water, and offers a comprehensive overview of the latest research and technologies. Edited by experts at the forefront of water resource management, the book presents a paradigm shift in the quest for sustainable and efficient methods of producing potable water.The book commences with a perspective on the changing landscape in potable water production, setting the stage for a comprehensive analysis of cutting-edge techniques. Subsequent chapters offer a critical evaluation of potable rainwater harvesting system design and regulations and discuss the potential of utilizing urban runoff as a viable source for drinking water, highlighting both the possibilities and challenges that come with this approach. In this book, readers will also learn more about the sustainable reuse of wastewater, exploring innovative approaches on both building and city scales, and the complexities of producing potable water from saline waters. Particular attention is given to the latest advances in integrating renewable energy sources into the desalination process to produce potable water. In the final chapter of the book, readers will find an overview of the latest atmospheric water harvesting technologies, and an insightful discussion of the process, performance, energy efficiency, feasibility, and limitations of each.Given its breadth, this book is an important account for researchers, graduate-level students, and policymakers. It also serves as a roadmap for water resource engineers and planners tackling water scarcity and diverse water resources portfolios.

This book traces the full history of the Higher Education Act of 1965 in its entirety, to the present. The fifty-six-year history of this landmark legislation is analyzed as a genealogical phenomenon through multiple methodological and theoretical frameworks. This allows the researcher to study the Act not in a linear or single approach, rather the blend of lenses and methods creates a means to study policy-making as a site of ideological reproduction and results in the exposure of power dynamics that obfuscate the hidden agenda by those in positions of power.

This book presents a summary of the topic of supercooling during crystallization in condensed films. While recent findings are mainly published in English, the foundational classical results were originally published in Russian, with limited accessibility to general readers. The present work is based on a 2019 Ukrainian monograph, "Temperature Stability of the Supercooled Liquid Phase in Condensed Films," which has been extensively revised and expanded.The book includes a detailed analysis of the thermodynamics of supercooled fluids, with updated and expanded sections. Additionally, new results on the supercooling of indium-lead (In-Pb) alloys in contact with amorphous molybdenum and fusible metals in contact with nanocrystalline layers are presented. These layers occupy a middle ground between amorphous (carbon, molybdenum, as-deposited germanium films) and polycrystalline (copper, silver, aluminum) substrates. The book gives particular attention to the peculiarities of contracted geometry conditions, which are natural for multilayered structures and can occur through fusible component segregation at grain boundaries.The analysis of new data has prompted a rethinking of the role of the more refractory layer's microstructure on the crystallization processes of metastable melts. The book includes a thorough discussion of these findings, highlighting the crucial role of the microstructure in the crystallization process. This book is a valuable resource for researchers and students interested in crystallization in thin-film metallic systems. This comprehensive study provides a detailed and authoritative analysis of the thermodynamics of supercooled fluids, and the impact of microstructure on the crystallization processes of metastable melts, making it an essential addition to any academic library.

This edited collection deals with the structure-property relationships and biomedical applications of carboxymethyl chitosan derivatives in different fields. Readers will detailed overview of the preparatory methods involved in the derivatives of carboxymethyl chitosan and its interaction with metal ions.The chapters provide a detailed overview of the different types of carboxymethyl chitosan derivatives, including the preparatory methods involved, the interactions with metal ions, and the antimicrobial activities. These different forms of carboxymethyl chitosan derivatives are found to be potentially used in food packaging, in enhancing saltiness, as biosensors, and also as wound dressing. Chapters are also devoted to the fabrication and biomedical applications of carboxymethyl chitosan derivatives-based nanofibers as well as the interaction of carboxymethyl chitosan with blood in blood clotting and the underlying mechanism. Contributing authors additionally explore topicsrelated to carboxymethyl chitosan-based hydrogels, films, scaffolds, fibers, and composites. Finally, this volume presents the current challenges in developing biomedical products based on carboxymethyl chitosan derivatives. This book will be of interest not only to chemists, but to all scientists working in the fields of material/environmental science, biological science, and biomaterials. These chapters are great resources for any researcher who works with structure-property relationships, biological interactions, and the applications of carboxymethyl chitosan derivatives in different biomedical fields.

This book comprehensively discusses the methods and practices for evaluating geochemical processes in aquifer groundwater. Possible occurrence and mechanisms of rock-water interaction, trace metal mobilization, thermodynamic explanation, actions of aquifer CO2, pollution sources, geogenic influencing factors, and isotope dilution methods are the primary areas of focus. These water quality variables are analyzed using a variety of logical/theoretical explanations, statistical techniques, and experimental procedures to determine the suitability of groundwater for drinking, irrigation, and other industrial purposes. The work is an important addition to hydrogeochemical literature since many existing indexing methods for the assessment of water quality are very old and have some degree of limitation. The book will be a useful resource for students, lecturers, and researchers working in the fields of hydrogeochemistry, hydrology, water pollution, and groundwater quality.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the First International Workshop on Machine Learning for Multimodal Healthcare Date, ML4MHD 2023, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, in July 2023. The 18 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 30 submissions. The workshop's primary objective was to bring together experts from diverse fields such as medicine, pathology, biology, and machine learning. With the aim to present novel methods and solutions that address healthcare challenges, especially those that arise from the complexity and heterogeneity of patient data.

This book explores how religious doctrines influence launching a new venture. It examines 16 Christian denominations and 9 world religions and how they would reasonably be expected to apply more than 20 distinct doctrines each to entrepreneurship. It is not an examination of doctrinal veracity because adherents have confidence in their beliefs. Rather, it examines how they will evaluate the attractiveness of entrepreneurship through the lenses of their beliefs, assuming they receive what they expect. More than 100 years ago, Max Weber pitted Protestantism against Hinduism in a single hypothesis. The current study is a multifactorial examination that covers the world¿s major religions, as well as most of their doctrines. It is the first comprehensive examination of how entrepreneurs view the world through the lenses of their religious doctrines, which represent the formalization of their most deeply held beliefs.

During the 2015 and 2016 refugee crisis the EU called on the Member States to engage in protection burden-sharing. This proposal found strong opposition from some of the Visegrad Group countries, including Poland, which expressed their reluctance to the relocation scheme securitizing the political narrative towards refugees. On the contrary, in 2022, during the Russian military aggression against Ukraine, Poland strengthened an ¿open door policy¿, showing a humanitarian approach towards Ukrainian refugees.This book uses a public goods theoretical framework to examine the various public goods characteristics of refugee protection in such scenarios. It is argued that the publicness and character of refugee protection is socially shaped by norms and identities. States perceive refugee protection, including benefits and costs, in different ways. The author focuses his analysis on the security/humanitarian dichotomy in states¿ perceptions of refugees to investigate the accompanying vision of the inherent costs and benefits. The conceptual part of the book provides conclusive support of an alternative constructivist mode in public goods theory for understanding refugee protection burden-sharing.

This book is devoted to the study of multivariate discrete q-distributions, which is greatly facilitated by existing multivariate q-sequences and q-functions. Classical multivariate discrete distributions are defined on a sequence of independent and identically distributed Bernoulli trials, with either being a success of a certain rank (level) or a failure. The author relaxes the assumption that the probability of success of a trial is constant by assuming that it varies geometrically with the number of trials and/or the number of successes. The latter is advantageous in the sense that it permits incorporating the experience gained from the previous trials and/or successes, which leads to multivariate discrete q-distributions. Furthermore, q-multinomial and negative q-multinomial formulae are obtained. Next, the book addresses q-multinomial and negative q-multinomial distributions of the first and second kind. The author also examines multiple q-Polya urn model, multivariate q-Polya and inverse q-Polya distributions. Presents definitions and theorems that highlight key concepts and worked examples to illustrate the various applicationsContains numerous exercises at varying levels of difficulty that consolidate the presented concepts and resultsIncludes hints and answers to all exercises via the appendix and is supplemented with an Instructor's Solution Manual

Dynamic Environments Testing, Volume 7: Proceedings of the 41st IMAC, A Conference and Exposition on Structural Dynamics, 2023, the seventh volume of ten from the Conference brings together contributions to this important area of research and engineering. The collection presents early findings and case studies on fundamental and applied aspects Dynamic Environments Testing including papers on:Vibration Testing Shock TestingMulti-Axis Shaker Testing Test Fixture Design Dynamic Environment Definition Specifications for Acceptance Testing

The goal of this book is to convey the rich perspectives, principles, and enchantment of ecology to a broad audience of students and lifelong learners. The book is based on the belief that the science of ecology is best understood by examining familiar ecosystems from the natural world and weaving fresh insights and ecological concepts into an ecosystems framework to reveal the patterns, processes, and interactions that are the foundation of sustainable living systems in our biosphere. In the spirit of that teaching philosophy, the core of this book focuses on specific ecosystems that are familiar to most of us (e.g., forests, wetlands, streams, lakes, and the like).Taken as a whole, the chapters of this text are intended to provide a conceptual framework and an intellectual pathway for understanding and interpreting the ecology of the biosphere using elements of population, community, ecosystem, and landscape ecology. Equipped with this toolkit of ecological literacy, readers and students will hopefully be better prepared to make personal, business, and civic or governmental decisions that are consistent with a healthy and sustainable Earth.

Aspects of the 2017 Final Report of the South African Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL) have drawn strong criticism, particularly from South African scholars, politicians and the public. The criticism is largely regarding the constitutionality of its recommendation, which calls for regulation of the Religion to combat its abuse and commercialization. Scholars have criticized the CRL Rights Commission for hastening its investigation and releasing the final report without having a substantive understanding of what is meant by the commercialization of religion, and consequently the unconstitutional implications of the recommendation, to regulate religion. A close reading of this critique has pointed to the urgent need to assemble a cumulative body of research that examines and advances understanding of what is meant by the commercialization of religion. Accordingly, this book gathers scholarly contributionswhich offer valuable insights into the basics of what is meant by the commercialization of religion. Contributors examine this phenomenon from the historical roots to the manifestation in the contemporary world, particularly in South Africa.

This book explores the lived experiences of people who interact with needle and syringe program services in Western Sydney, Australia, including participants and industry workers. It locates the research within the wider context of harm reduction and drug policies. It addresses the question "what do needle and syringe programs do?" and seeks to unpack the agency of human and non-human factors to consider the ¿more than human¿ effects of these programmes. Alongside a critical materialist perspective used to interpret the empirical findings, the book demonstrates that needle and syringe programs create new possibilities for engaging with the world by changing the material conditions of illicit drug consumption. It draws on the conceptual contributions of post-humanist thinking from assemblage theory, actor-network theory, and cognate scholarship. Consideration is given to transferable findings and insights for international contexts. The book speaks to scholars andpostgraduate students in the areas such as sociology, criminology, social work, critical public health, cultural studies, and related fields.

¿This book is an exploration of energy and its unique role to date as one of the fundamental enabling and controlling factors in human development and progress at the scale of global civilization, and how it will be fundamental to the type of future that collective humanity is likely to experience. The first section provides a contextual overview of energy and human civilization through a chronological description of how human energy use has evolved over time and led to the current ¿energy bind¿. The second section explores what this energy bind might mean for our future energy choices when trying to meet the various challenges of dwindling resources, costs, and climate change, through exploration of three broad systems-based scenarios for the human ¿energy future¿. The final section draws conclusions as to which scenario is most achievable and desirable, and what this might mean for longer-term human prospects.

This book covers new technologies and methods related to models for short-term forecasting of electricity imbalances in the IPS of Ukraine, taking into account the impact of forecasts of energy production from renewable sources on the accuracy of the imbalance forecast. The book proposed architecture and mathematical model of an artificial neural network for deep learning forecasting of short-term electricity imbalances using hourly data. Using a model to aggregate data with an hourly resolution followed by forecasting to reduce forecast error, the quasi-dynamic modeling method was used to analyze the impact of periodic generation on the network. The application of quasi-dynamic modeling also allows taking into account the system load curve, generation profile, storage system, as well as renewable energy sources (RES) operation in this area. The use of models makes it possible to achieve realistic estimates of generation for the required period. The book considers a local hybrid renewable energy system (HRES) based on different types of RES, which is more efficient than a system with one type of source.

The book explores cost-effective and efficient supply chain management to achieve resilience in the post-COVID environment. Qualitative, quantitative, case studies, and systematic literature reviews are made in the book. The book follows a didactic approach through which it informs global researchers and practitioners to deal with the most significant insights on future supply chains with a more in-depth analysis of post-COVID opportunities and challenges. In particular, this book provides an in-depth assessment of disruptive supply chain management in certain industrial contexts and explores various Industry 4.0 and Industry 5.0 technologies to achieve resilience.The book is used as a supplemental textbook for study within university level programs, at late undergraduate and graduate levels, in faculties of business and management, engineering systems, information systems, education, and computing.

This unique and timely book offers a synthesis, analysis, and evaluation of education-related rulings of the US Supreme Court from 2005 to the present. Throughout the course of the twentieth century into the twenty-first century, the Supreme Court issued rulings, which frequently vacillate based on the political composition of the justices who sit on the bench. Chapters will cover both an overview of the role of Supreme Court rulings in school policy and the court¿s transformation in the late twentieth century into the present day. These themes will be converted into robust chapters which will provide a legal analysis of the Roberts Court years, and an evaluation of the jurisprudence and its practical effect on public schools.

With the rapid advancements in satellite technology, earth remote sensing has become an indispensable tool for a wide range of applications, from environmental monitoring to disaster management. However, the vast amount of data generated by these satellites can be overwhelming for many researchers and practitioners who lack the necessary skills and tools to process and analyze it. This is where QGIS comes in. QGIS is a powerful, open-source Geographic Information System (GIS) software that has been extensively used in the field of earth remote sensing. It provides a user-friendly platform for processing, analyzing, and visualizing satellite imagery, enabling users to unlock the full potential of earth remote sensing data. The purpose of this book is to help researchers and practitioners who lack the necessary skills and tools to process and analyze satellite imagery using QGIS.There are several books that cover the use of QGIS for earth remote sensing, but most of them areeither too technical or too general. This book fills this gap by providing a comprehensive and user-friendly guide to using QGIS for earth remote sensing applications. It includes a range of real-world case studies that demonstrate the power and versatility of QGIS for solving complex problems in earth remote sensing. This will provide readers with practical examples of how to use QGIS for earth remote sensing and inspire them to explore new applications and possibilities. The book is intended for GIS professionals, students (undergraduate and graduate), and researchers who are interested in using QGIS for earth remote sensing applications. It will be particularly useful for those who are new to QGIS or who want to expand their knowledge of the software for remote sensing purposes.