Bücher veröffentlicht von Springer

This textbook provides a starter's guide to VHDL. This book can be used in conjunction with a one-semester course in Digital Systems Design or on its own for designers who only need an introduction to the language. This book is designed to provide a bottoms-up approach to learning the VHDL language. This design supports a course in which foundational knowledge is covered before moving into advanced topics. However, this design also supports use as a reference manual. The author has designed the presentation with learning goals and assessment at its core. Each section addresses a specific learning outcome that the student should be able to "do" after its completion. The concept checks and exercise problems provide a rich set of assessment tools to measure student performance on each outcome.

This edited book proposes a collection of recently undertaken technical work on topics from various aspects of power engineering, energy systems as well as integrated smart technologies and related challenges. The scientific nature of the topics to be discussed in this book ranges from novel concepts to innovative implementations of smart technologies for promoting sustainable economic growth and development. Furthermore, this book substantially contributes to the relevant literature¿s advancement and possibly serves as a platform for future research endeavors and publications. In addition, knowledge enrichment and expansion of power engineering and energy systems in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, such as to be portrayed in this book, fundamentally appeal to researchers, power system engineers, energy specialists, data scientists, decision-makers as well as professionals involved in the various sectors that constitute the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Modern science is divided into three parts: natural sciences, engineering sciences and humanities. Over the last millennia, natural and engineering sciences evolved a symbiotic relationship, but humanities still stand apart. Today, however, designing and building a talking robot is a comparatively new challenge for which all three branches are needed. Starting from the idea that designing a theory of computational cognition should be as complete as possible, and trying to answer questions such as "Which ontology is required for building a computational cognition?", the current book integrates interfaces, components, functional flows, data structure, database schema, and algorithms into a coherent system with an extensive range of cognitive functions, and constitutes the background to the book "Ontology of Communication" recently published by the author (Springer, 2023).Part I discusses ontological distinctions between a sign-based and an agent-based approach, and continues with explanations of the data structure, the content-addressable database schema; the time-linear derivations of the speak and the hear mode; resonating content; induction, deduction, and abduction in inferencing, and concludes with a reconstruction of eight classical syllogisms as a test suite for DBS inferencing in the think mode. Part II complements the literal use of language in the speak and hear mode with a reconstruction of syntactic mood adaptations and figurative use. The database schema of DBS is shown to lend itself not only to the tasks of traditional storage and retrieval, but also of reference, coreference, shadowing, coactivation of resonating content, and selective activation.Part III complements the treatment of individual topics in linguistics, philosophy, and cognitive psychology with an overall software structure in the form of three interacting main components, called the interface, the memory, and the production component.

This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Automated Deduction, CADE 29, which took place in Rome, Italy, during July 2023. The 28 full papers and 5 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 77 submissions. CADE is the major forum for the presentation of research in all aspects of automated deduction, including foundations, applications, implementations, and practical experience. The papers are organized in the following topics: Logical foundations; theory and principles; implementation and application; ATP and AI; and system descriptions.

This open access book focuses on of the impact of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) on human reproduction. It comprehensively discusses the three most important topics in the field: the basic biology of EDCs; the effects of EDCs on human reproduction and human reproductive systems; and potential interventions and practical advice for dealing with the problems caused by EDCs.Presenting a translational approach to endocrine disrupting chemicals research, spanning both basic biology and clinical applications, the book provides a critical link between laboratory investigations and clinical practice. Written by international experts in the field, it is a valuable reference resource for gynaecologists, obstetricians, endocrinologists and experts in reproductive medicine, and a useful tool for anyone interested in the impact of the environment on human reproduction.

This Open access book provides a survey of the economic, health, and somatic progress of Baltic countries during the period 1918-2018, framed by the outline of the historical-sociological theory of modern social restorations, as originally conceived by the Austrian-American comparative historian Robert A. Kann. The author reworks Kann's theory to analyse post-communist transformations in the Baltic region. The book argues that the purpose of modern social restorations is to make restoration societies safe against a recurrence of revolution. There were two waves of modern social restorations: post-Napoleonic and post-communist. Most post-Napoleonic restorations were brief, because they failed to economically and socially outperform the pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary systems. It considers Baltic restorations as laboratory cases of second-wave modern social restorations, because they encompass a triple restoration of the nation-state, capitalism, and democracy. The book assesses the performance success of Baltic restorations by comparing economic and social progress of Baltic countries during the periods of original independence (1918-1940), foreign-imposed state socialism (1940-1990), and restored independence (since 1990). It then elaborates the criteria to assess the ultimate performance success of these restorations by 2040, when restored Baltic states may endure longer than their ancestors in 1918-1940 and the complete foreign occupations era (1940-1990). The author, an expert in historical sociology, uses extensive historical-statistical data in cross-time comparisons to develop his analysis and create future projections. This book is of wide interest to sociologists, social demographers, political scientists, and economists studying the Baltic region. This is an open access book.

Digital systems are an important part of modern life. This book introduces the basic building blocks of digital systems and how these blocks can be used to design a digital system. It can be used as a laboratory manual for courses such as Digital Logic and Digital Electronics. All of the experiments in this book can be done in a simulation environment like: Proteus(R) or NI(R) MultiSim(R) or on the breadboard in a real laboratory environment.

This book gathers research and best-practices concerning the achievement of sustainable development goals in both community generation and business growth. It highlights the organizational aspects relating to the realization of green innovation. It covers models for optimizing the use of both natural and human resources. It reports on assessment methods and advanced models to analyze community and business performance in the context of sustainable development. Further, it proposes solutions to reduce the effects of environmental pollution, increase energy efficiency, and managing resources and waste, to foster sustainable development. Gathering the proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Sustainable, Circular Management and Environmental Engineering (ISCMEE 2022), held on October 19-20, 2022, as a hybrid event from ¿zmir, Turkey, this book offers a timely snapshot on circular business management knowledge and methods for both researchers and professionals in the field of engineering management, business and economics, and energy and environment.

This book offers timely insights into research on numerical and experimental fluid mechanics and aerodynamics, mainly for (but not limited to) aerospace applications. It reports on findings by members of the Deutsche Strömungsmechanische Arbeitsgemeinschaft, STAB (German Aerodynamics/Fluid Mechanics Association) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Luft- und Raumfahrt - Lilienthal Oberth e.V., DGLR (German Society for Aeronautics and Astronautics) and covers both nationally and EC-funded projects. Continuing on the tradition of the previous volumes, the book highlights innovative solutions, promoting translation from fundamental research to industrial applications. It addresses academics and professionals in the field of aeronautics, astronautics, ground transportation, and energy alike.

This book gathers the latest advances, innovations, and applications in the field of information technology in civil and building engineering, presented at the 19th International Conference on Computing in Civil and Building Engineering (ICCCBE), held in Cape Town, South Africa on October 26-28, 2022. It covers highly diverse topics such as BIM, construction information modeling, knowledge management, GIS, GPS, laser scanning, sensors, monitoring, VR/AR, computer-aided construction, product and process modeling, big data and IoT, cooperative design, mobile computing, simulation, structural health monitoring, computer-aided structural control and analysis, ICT in geotechnical engineering, computational mechanics, asset management, maintenance, urban planning, facility management, and smart cities. Written by leading researchers and engineers, and selected by means of a rigorous international peer-review process, the contributions highlight numerous exciting ideas thatwill spur novel research directions and foster multidisciplinary collaborations.

This book gathers the latest advances, innovations, and applications in the field of computational engineering, as presented by leading international researchers and engineers at the 29th International Conference on Computational & Experimental Engineering and Sciences (ICCES), held in Shenzhen, China on May 26-29, 2023. ICCES covers all aspects of applied sciences and engineering: theoretical, analytical, computational, and experimental studies and solutions of problems in the physical, chemical, biological, mechanical, electrical, and mathematical sciences. As such, the book discusses highly diverse topics, including composites; bioengineering & biomechanics; geotechnical engineering; offshore & arctic engineering; multi-scale & multi-physics fluid engineering; structural integrity & longevity; materials design & simulation; and computer modeling methods in engineering. The contributions, which were selected by means of a rigorous international peer-review process, highlight numerous exciting ideas that will spur novel research directions and foster multidisciplinary collaborations.

In both Islamic and non-Islamic countries many population groups worldwide, such as vegetarians and people of the Jewish faith, consumers do not eat pork. Amongst these groups consumers are concerned about importing processed food which may contain or has been contaminated with pork or swine-derived products. This is especially true of halal foods in Muslim communities where the foods may be prepared or processed utilizing one of more non-halal ingredients. Halal and kosher foodstuff play an incredibly important role in the Muslim and Jewish diet, economy and health. This makes halal and kosher food product quality, safety and shelf life preservation a major topic in these communities and for the manufacturers of halal and kosher food products. Halal and Kosher Food: Integration of Quality and Safety for Global Market Trends covers a wide range of important topics in halal foods including quality, standards, safety of food additives, antimicrobial andveterinary drug residues, aflatoxin in feedstuff, application of Hazards Analysis and critical Control Points (HACCP). Important data regarding halal and kosher food similarities and differences are covered in full. Best practices in halal food product manufacturing are covered, plus the importance of halal food safety for consumer health. Written by elite international halal food experts, this work differs from other books on the subject which focus on history, legislation and certification. Readers can utilize this book as an orientation and practical guidebook to recognize the quality and safety of halal food products.

This book presents select papers from 3rd EAI International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Communications (CICom 2022). The papers reveal recent advances in the broader domains of Computational Intelligence including (1) automation, control, and intelligent transportation system, (2) big data, internet of things, and smart cities, (3) wireless communication systems and cyber security and (4) human/brain-computer interfaces, and image and pattern recognition. The book demonstrates complex real-world problems in which mathematical or traditional modellings are not the preferred solution, hence alternative solutions are needed. This collection of applications demonstrates the important advances in computational intelligence. The book chapters' present various ideas that will benefit researchers, graduate students and engineers in this domain.

This book delves into the world of hybrid photocatalyst nanomaterials and their diverse applications. With a focus on interdisciplinary research, this book highlights the importance of these materials in addressing critical challenges in various fields. The book begins by introducing the significance of multifunctional hybrid photocatalyst nanomaterials and their potential impact on interdisciplinary research. It explores the synthesis techniques employed to create these advanced materials, emphasizing the integration of multiple components to enhance their photocatalytic performance. The applications of hybrid photocatalyst nanomaterials are thoroughly examined throughout the book. From wastewater treatment and energy production to environmental sensing and virus degradation, the diverse range of practical uses is explored in detail. The book also covers recent developments in semiconductor nanomaterials as sensors, screen printing techniques using hybrid nanomaterials, and the use of 2D and 3D printing in sensing applications.

This open access book gathers original contributions focused on the transition of the European steel industry to Industry 4.0. It not only investigates how Industry 4.0 can enhance productivity, cost-saving, and sustainability in the steel industry but also helps to comprehend its broad consequences on employment, education and training, human resources, economic resilience and decarbonisation. The content engages with the international debate on Industry 4.0 through the lens of the steel industry from a multidisciplinary perspective. It encourages a scientifically grounded critical approach and includes contributions from humanities and technical disciplines, with a focus on the social dimensions of the phenomenon. This book draws strength from up-to-date international research projects and adopts a strong industry-based perspective, providing a thorough description and analysis of the state of the art of the European steel industry. It also analyzes the trends, outcomes, opportunities, and criticalities arising with the transition to the Industry 4.0 paradigm. The book is primarily based on the results of the European Steel Skills Agenda (ESSA) skills alliance project co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union and supported by the European Steel Technology Platform (ESTEP). This is an open access book.

This book provides a single-source reference to the state-of-the-art in emerging computer systems. The authors address the technological contributions and developments at various hardware levels of new systems that compute under novel operational paradigms such as stochastic, probabilistic/inexact, neuromorphic, spintronic, bio-inspired and in-memory computing. Coverage includes the entire stack, i.e., from circuit, architecture, up to system level. This book includes tutorials, reviews and surveys of current theoretical/experimental results, design methodologies and a range of applications.

This book of Advances in Intelligent and Soft Computing contains accepted papers presented at SOCO 2023 conference held in the beautiful and historic city of Salamanca (Spain) in September 2023.Soft computing represents a collection or set of computational techniques in machine learning, computer science, and some engineering disciplines, which investigate, simulate, and analyze very complex issues and phenomena.After a through peer-review process, the 18th SOCO 2023 International Program Committee selected 61 papers which are published in these conference proceedings and represents an acceptance rate of 60%. In this relevant edition, a particular emphasis was put on the organization of special sessions. Seven special sessions were organized related to relevant topics such as: Time Series Forecasting in Industrial and Environmental Applications, Technological Foundations and Advanced Applications of Drone Systems, Soft Computing Methods in Manufacturing and Management Systems, Efficiency and Explainability in Machine Learning and Soft Computing, Machine Learning and Computer Vision in Industry 4.0, Genetic and Evolutionary Computation in Real World and Industry, and Soft Computing and Hard Computing for a Data Science Process Model. The selection of papers was extremely rigorous to maintain the high quality of the conference. We want to thank the members of the Program Committees for their hard work during the reviewing process. This is a crucial process for creating a high-standard conference; the SOCO conference would not exist without their help.

In this exciting update, readers will learn how feeding direct-fed microbials (including eubiotics, postbiotics, prebiotics, and synbiotics) is becoming increasingly widespread during food animal production. Animal production must improve efficiency of growth, and the use of direct-fed microbial and prebiotic additives to domestic animals has become widely accepted and utilized. The benefits of probiotic-type approaches in cattle, pigs, fish, and poultry, include improved general animal health, reduced foodborne pathogen populations, increased growth rate and feed efficiency, improved milk and egg production, and have been reported world-wide. Successes from probiotic approaches in multiple species have ensured their adoption; however, several fundamental questions remain. Early establishment and retention of an ecological balance in the gastrointestinal tract is an important first step for an external biological additive to be effective in young animals, suggesting that some of the benefits of direct-fed microbials may be due to an early establishment of a "normal" native gut microbial population. Research has indicated that the establishment of a normal population can enhance gut epithelial integrity, preventing inflammation and improving animal health. Thus, it is important that we understand the key processes that occur during the establishment of the gut microbial population that can impact gastrointestinal fermentation and provide protection against pathogens of the animals and of human consumers. Knowing how these processes work and how they impact animal energy and protein expenditures can guide further improvements of available and future commercial products. Exciting research opportunities are discussed in this book, examining different characteristics of DFMs that are fed to animals to meet different production demands in different production scenarios (e.g., beef versus dairy versus swine versusfin fish). The advent of molecular and next-generation sequencing offers methods of developing tailored DFMs, and of early detection of successful DFM establishment in the gut. These techniques will further deepen our insight into understanding the microbial population of the gut and how these populations impact animal health, food safety, and sustainability of animal-derived protein production.

This groundbreaking book transcends traditional machine learning approaches by introducing information measurement methodologies that revolutionize the field. Stemming from a UC Berkeley seminar on experimental design for machine learning tasks, these techniques aim to overcome the 'black box' approach of machine learning by reducing conjectures such as magic numbers (hyper-parameters) or model-type bias. Information-based machine learning enables data quality measurements, a priori task complexity estimations, and reproducible design of data science experiments. The benefits include significant size reduction, increased explainability, and enhanced resilience of models, all contributing to advancing the discipline's robustness and credibility. While bridging the gap between machine learning and disciplines such as physics, information theory, and computer engineering, this textbook maintains an accessible and comprehensive style, making complex topics digestible fora broad readership. Information-Driven Machine Learning explores the synergistic harmony among these disciplines to enhance our understanding of data science modeling. Instead of solely focusing on the "how," this text provides answers to the "why" questions that permeate the field, shedding light on the underlying principles of machine learning processes and their practical implications. By advocating for systematic methodologies grounded in fundamental principles, this book challenges industry practices that have often evolved from ideologic or profit-driven motivations. It addresses a range of topics, including deep learning, data drift, and MLOps, using fundamental principles such as entropy, capacity, and high dimensionality. Ideal for both academia and industry professionals, this textbook serves as a valuable tool for those seeking to deepen their understanding of data science as an engineering discipline. Its thought-provoking content stimulates intellectual curiosity and caters to readers who desire more than just code or ready-made formulas. The text invites readers to explore beyond conventional viewpoints, offering an alternative perspective that promotes a big-picture view for integrating theory with practice. Suitable for upper undergraduate or graduate-level courses, this book can also benefit practicing engineers and scientists in various disciplines by enhancing their understanding of modeling and improving data measurement effectively.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Computational Collective Intelligence, ICCCI 2023, held in Budapest, Hungary, during September 27-29, 2023.The 63 full papers included in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 218 submissions. They are organized in topical sections as follows: collective intelligence and collective decision-making; deep learning techniques; natural language processing; data mining and machine learning; social networks and intelligent systems; cybersecurity, blockchain technology and Internet of Things; cooperative strategies for decision making and optimization; computational intelligence for digital content understanding; knowledge engineering and application for Industry 4.0; computational intelligence in medical applications; and ensemble models and data fusion.

Chilean Patagonia, located at the southwestern tip of South America, is one of the last regions on earth where highly intact environments predominate. With a coastline that extends along some 100,000 km of fjords, channels, and islands, it has one of the world´s most extensive marine-terrestrial interfaces. Local place-based and Indigenous cultures and management practices are a vital presence across the region, while the long and rich history of conservation efforts have resulted in officially protected areas covering over 50% of the land and 41% of the coastal-marine area. However, Chilean Patagonia is increasingly facing anthropogenic pressures associated with increased infrastructure and access, salmon aquaculture, extractive industries, and the spread of invasive exotic species. Despite widespread recognition that Chilean Patagonia represents a unique global reservoir of socio-natural heritage, to date there has been no region-wide assessment of the scientific evidence of the conservation status of its ecosystems or the priorities for their effective conservation.Conservation in Chilean Patagonia: Assessing the state of knowledge, opportunities, and challenges is the first book to gather and synthesize the available scientific and socio-environmental information related to Patagonian conservation. It presents the collaborative work of 68 researchers and local experts, representing a range of specialties and perspectives, including: biology, ecology, socio-ecology, fisheries, aquaculture, anthropology, economics, geography, tourism, cryosphere, oceanography, climate and global change. The book's 18 chapters focus on the status of key ecosystems and conservation tools, and provide recommendations toward the construction of a renewed, inclusive, and integrated conservation agenda for the Chilean Patagonian region. It provides an essential primer for anyone interested in the future of this ecologically vital region, as well as lessons on interdisciplinary collaboration and integrated analysis of conservation issues useful for conservation practitioners and scholars.This is an open access book.

The scientific theme of the book is "Virtualisation - a multifaceted key enabler of Industry 4.0 from holonic to cloud manufacturing" which is addressed in the framework of cyber-physical system development. The book approaches cyber-physical systems for manufacturing with emergent digital technologies: Internet of Things, digital twins (based on the virtualization of production models embedded in the design, virtual commissioning, optimization and resilience of processes and fault tolerance of resources), big data, cloud control and computing, machine learning and cobots, that are applied in the book's chapters to industry and service sectors such as manufacturing, energy, logistics, construction and health care. The novelty of this approach consists in interpreting and applying the characteristics of RAMI4.0-the reference architecture model of the Industry 4.0 framework-as combinations of virtualized cyber-physical system elements and IT components in life cycle value stream models. The general scope of the book is to foster innovation in smart and sustainable manufacturing and logistics systems and in this context to promote concepts, methods and solutions for the digital transformation of manufacturing through service orientation in holonic and agent-based control with distributed intelligence. The book's readership is comprised by researchers and engineers working in the manufacturing value chain area who develop and use digital control solutions in the "Industry of the Future" vision. The book also addresses to master's and Ph.D. students enrolled in Engineering Sciences programs.

This book provides an overview of Educational Robotics and includes information that reflects the current status of the field, research activity, experiences, and new tools. It compiles the contributions presented at the 14th International Conference on Robotics in Education (RiE2023). Beyond insights into theoretical aspects, practical projects and syllabus activities exemplify the concepts and provide implementation ideas, which span the whole educational system from kindergarten to the university level. The relevance to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is highlighted by teaching the topics in a unified framework. The book constitutes a valuable resource for educators, researchers, scientists, and engineers interested in robotics. It covers topics including school teaching curricula, educational methodologies and pedagogy, projects, competitions, hardware, simulations, programming, machine learning, and artificial intelligence in education.

This book describes unified image-based measurement methods (theories, numerical methods, and algorithms) to determine the important physical quantities of complex flows in engineering and natural systems, including velocity, pressure, temperature, heat transfer, and skin friction. It presents a systematical study of the inverse problems in global flow diagnostics in a unified framework of the variational formulations. The authors further illustrate the main physical quantities in fluid mechanics, including velocity, pressure, skin friction and surface heat flux, extracted from flow visualization images obtained in experiments and observations. The developed methods are applicable in various image-based flow measurements in diverse disciplines ranging from fluid mechanics/aerodynamics to plenary sciences.

This book constitutes the second part of the proceedings of the 15th Asian Conference on Intelligent Information and Database Systems, ACIIDS 2023, held in Phuket, Thailand, during July 24-26, 2023. The 50 full papers included in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 224 submissions. They were organized in topical sections as follows: Computer Vision, Cybersecurity and Fraud Detection, Data Analysis, Modeling, and Processing, Data Mining and Machine Learning, Forecasting and Optimization Techniques, Healthcare and Medical Applications, Speech and Text Processing.

The book contains 35 chapters, in which you can find various examples of the development of methods and/or systems supporting medical diagnostics and therapy, related to biomedical imaging, signal and image processing, biomaterials and artificial organs, modelling of biomedical systems, which were presented as current research topics at the 23rd Polish Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering Conference, held at the Institute of Electronics, Lodz University of Technology in September 2023. The ongoing and dynamic development of AI-based data processing and analysis methods plays an increasingly important role in medicine. This book addresses these issues by presenting applications of such methods in various areas, such as disease diagnosis and prediction, particularly through the use of image data analysis algorithms. Other topics covered include personalized medicine, where multimodal patient data is acquired and analyzed, as well as robotic surgery and clinical decision support.The book is of interest to an advanced and broad readership, including researchers and engineers representing both medical, biological, and engineering viewpoints. Its readers may also be graduate and postgraduate students in various fields such as biomedical engineering, artificial intelligence, biomaterials, and medical electronics, as well as software developers in R&D departments working in the field of intelligent healthcare engineering.

What do we mean by semiotic perception? Why should the concepts of perception and expressivity be reinterpreted within the encompassing framework of a dynamic theory of semiotic fields and forms? Can we redeploy the concept of form in such a way as to make explicit such a native solidarity ('chiasmatic' would have said Merleau-Ponty) between perception, praxis and expression -- and first and foremost in the activity of language, right to the heart of the life of the social and speaking animal that we are? What then would be the epistemological and ontological consequences, and how might this affect the way we describe semiolinguistic forms? This book aims to provide answers to these questions by opening up avenues of research on how to understand the linguistic and semiotic dimensions at work in the constitution of experience, both individual and collective.

Across three different centuries, the American Jewish Year Book has provided insight into major trends among Jews primarily in North America. Part I of the current volume contains two chapters: One is a critical assessment of the major American Jewish Population Surveys over the past fifty years (1970-2020). The second chapter is an assessment of the media coverage of Israel in the American Press. Subsequent chapters address recent domestic and international events as they affect the American Jewish community, and the demography and geography of the US, Canada, and World Jewish populations. Part II provides lists of Jewish institutions, including federations, community centers, social service agencies, national organizations, camps, museums, and Israeli consulates. The final chapters present lists of Jewish periodicals and broadcast media, Jewish Studies programs, books, journals, articles, websites, research libraries, and academic conferences as well as lists of major events in the past year, Jewish honorees, and obituaries. This volume employs an accessible style, making it of interest to public officials, Jewish professional and lay leaders, as well as the general public and academic researchers.The American Jewish Year Book is a tremendously useful resource for scholars, Jewish community professionals, pundits, clergy, and policy makers. For over a century, it has offered comprehensive insight into North American Jewish demography, sociology, and culture. It remains a vital source for comprehending the complexities of American and Canadian Jewish life. Robin Judd, Associate Professor of History and Director of the Hoffman Program for Leaders and Leadership in History, The Ohio State UniversityThe American Jewish Year Book is the first draft of history, documenting the trends and topics of interest for such an organizedcommunity. Looking through the 100+ volumes, we can track how discussions have changed over time, which concerns have returned, and how we arrived at the current point in time. It is a valuable tool for anyone interested in trends in American Jewish life. David Manchester, Director of the Berman Jewish DataBank and Director of Community Data and Research Development at The Jewish Federations of North America

This book tells the story of the Lebanese Shi¿a and their development from a marginalized, discriminated minority to a highly politicized community that has given birth to Hezbollah, one of the most powerful paramilitary forces in the contemporary Middle East. It explores the Arab-Israeli conflict through the lens of Shi¿a intellectuals and scholars from South Lebanon, and chronologically reflects on trending perceptions of Palestine, the Zionist movement, and the Jewish community in Lebanon.The monograph illustrates how Zionism and the establishment of Israel played a decisive role in the intellectual revival of early Muslim perceptions of Jews. It demonstrates how political conflicts after 1948 have impacted the work of scholars such as Musa as-Sadr and Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, and have triggered the formation of social and Islamist movements. It also shows how Hezbollah¿s leaders have used religious sources and Western anti-Jewish narratives to construct a deep-rooted ideology to support their struggle for South Lebanon and Palestine. The combination of social needs, religious beliefs and political interests forms the core of the analysis. This text appeals to students and researchers working within the convergence of politics and Middle Eastern religions.

This book gathers the peer-reviewed papers presented at the 13th International Conference on Structural Analysis of Historical Constructions (SAHC), held in Kyoto, Japan, on September 12-15, 2023. It highlights the latest advances and innovations in the field of conservation and restoration of historical and heritage structures. The conference topics encompass history of construction and building technology, theory and practice of conservation, inspection methods, non-destructive techniques and laboratory testing, numerical modeling and structural analysis, management of heritage structures and conservation strategies, structural health monitoring, repair and strengthening strategies and techniques, vernacular constructions, seismic analysis and retrofit, vulnerability and risk analysis, resilience of historic areas to climate change and hazard events, durability, and sustainability. As such the book represents an invaluable, up-to-the-minute tool, providing an essential overview of conservation of historical constructions, and offers an important platform to engineers, architects, archeologists, and geophysicists.Chapter The Challenges of the Conservation of Earthen Sites in Seismic Areas, Chapter Performance Evaluation of Patch Repairs on Historic Concrete Structures (PEPS): Preliminary Results from Two English Case Studies are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.