Bücher veröffentlicht von WSPC

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has seen rapid advancements in recent years, particularly in the areas of deep learning and the ability to generalize from concrete objects to abstract concepts. Meanwhile, in the study of machine consciousness, a universally agreed definition among scientists and philosophers is still lacking.This book raises a number of issues surrounding the nature and implications of conscious artificial intelligence:How might concepts developed through research in machine consciousness enhance the functionality of AI systems, making them fully autonomous?If self-explanatory information is related to qualia, does this imply that machines using self-explanatory information are conscious?How is the interpretation of intelligence related to a system's ability to generate accurate predictions?Is machine consciousness ultimately possible? And how might it be examined from an ethical standpoint?This edited volume consists of 10 chapters that highlight the prospects of machine consciousness and study the subject from several perspectives. The issues are wide-ranging and include topics such as the metaverse, a computational approach to pain and suffering, universal cognitive intelligence, intentional action, the categorization of conscious machines, and more. The volume is designed as a reference guide for researchers, practitioners, and students interested in the intersection of AI and consciousness.

The book is a research monograph. An asymptotically exact solution of the many-body scattering problem is given under the assumption a ¿ d ¿ ¿, where a is the characteristic size of a small particle, d is the smallest distance between particles and ¿ is the wavelength in the medium in which the particles are embedded. Scattering of scalar and electromagnetic waves is considered. Heat transfer theory in the medium in which many small bodies are embedded is developed. Quantum-mechanical theory of scattering by many potentials with small support is constructed.On the basis of these theoretical results, important applications are presented. First, a method for creating materials with a desired refraction coefficient is given. Secondly, a method for creating wave-focusing materials is developed. Technological problems to be solved for practical usage of these applied results are discussed.This book contains the contents of the author's earlier monograph, published in 2013. New appendices, based on the author's review papers published after 2013, are added.

With a strategic and geopolitical view on China's financial system, this book explores a number of roles that it plays in the world's second largest economy. The first key mission has been the financing of the domestic economy. The second one has been the financing of infrastructures (transportation, energy, and telecommunication) to offer companies a conducive environment to develop manufacturing facilities. Thirdly, it supports Chinese foreign investment. The final and most recent role is the active use of technology in finance and investment to collect big data.The book supports three theses. The first thesis argues that finance and investment are not only the product of market forces but also other dimensions like regulations, geopolitics, technology and internal governance. Another thesis is that the State Council is metaphorically the conductor, and financial and economic actors are the performers who must imperatively follow the conductor. Last but not least, the third thesis is that the sino-centric perspective adopted by the Chinese authorities impedes foreign entry. Contrary to industries opened to foreign companies, the Chinese government left ajar the door to banking industry - characterizing foreign banks as marginal actors in the system.

This book serves as an introduction to linear algebra for undergraduate students in data science, statistics, computer science, economics, and engineering. The book presents all the essentials in rigorous (proof-based) manner, describes the intuition behind the results, while discussing some applications to data science along the way.The book comes with two parts, one on vectors, the other on matrices. The former consists of four chapters: vector algebra, linear independence and linear subspaces, orthonormal bases and the Gram-Schmidt process, linear functions. The latter comes with eight chapters: matrices and matrix operations, invertible matrices and matrix inversion, projections and regression, determinants, eigensystems and diagonalizability, symmetric matrices, singular value decomposition, and stochastic matrices. The book ends with the solution of exercises which appear throughout its twelve chapters.

As industrialized nations look into emerging new technologies focusing on renewable or efficient energy use - along with the move towards Sustainable Development Goals - challenges related to achieving low carbon economy projects have gained much attention. This book explores various initiatives and potential methods to achieve net-zero carbon targets and issues.Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) will play an important role as an effective and comprehensive method to analyze potential greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts of a technology or system. LCA is a holistic and system-wide scientific method that can be used to quantify impact metrics chosen to evaluate any emerging Net-Zero Carbon technologies of interest, and reveal environmental trade-offs or further research opportunities that are required for balancing CO2 emissions. LCA perspectives of Net-Zero Carbon Technologies can also be used to outline decision-making strategies for a nation's shift towards low carbon economic development.

Zakat, being the third pillar of Islam, is an act of worship fulfilled by Muslims. As an obligatory means of alms- giving expected of Muslims, it also helps to alleviate poverty in society by assisting such individuals to achieve a state of financial independence. It is maintained by Muslims that the principles of zakat derived from the Sharia are expected to remain unchanged with passing time. However, in order to achieve efficiency in the administration of zakat, innovation and technology can be used even within the parameters of Sharia. The objective of this textbook is to provide the opportunity to learn the basics of zakat and its contemporary application by highlighting the innovative practices of zakat with issues and challenges.

Semi-arid regions are ecological security barriers that prevent arid regions from expanding and turning into deserts. The expansion of arid regions and desertification seriously threaten ecological security, and human society cannot achieve sustainable development in an insecure ecological environment. As the transitional zone between arid and humid regions, semi-arid regions lay the foundation of ecological safety for the development of human society.This book provides an overview of processes and mechanisms that characterize semi-arid climate change both regionally and globally. It explains systematically theoretical concepts , including land-atmosphere interactions, ocean-atmosphere interactions, and factors that contribute to climate change, including the impact of human activities. A summary of recent progress in the research in the field and the future of semi-arid regions are also discussed.This book is a specialized monograph and textbook for graduate students of Earth sciences. It is also suitable for undergraduate or graduate students in related majors such as those engaged in atmospheric science, climate change studies, and Earth sciences.

This book advances the study of Chinese folk songs through theoretical innovation in literature-based folk songs and methodological innovation in multidisciplinary cross-interaction. It describes the historical development of folk songs, makes an in-depth study of the intersection and integration of folk songs with other literature and art, as well as the relationship with merchants, folk customs and regional culture, and analyses the literature of folk songs in previous dynasties. It is not only significant for the preservation of cultural heritage, but also to the promotion of folk song research and related fields. This book is applicable to scholars and researchers who have in-depth research on Chinese folk songs.

This book provides scientific evidence, both theoretically and empirically, on the understudied field of women entrepreneurs across North Africa. It provides insights on the domain of women entrepreneurship, undertaking critical assessment of overall historical frameworks, ecosystems and future perspectives of the region.Women entrepreneurship is among the most important and unexploited sources of economic growth in the developing world. Yet, despite much progress in socioeconomic aspects such as health, life expectancy and education, the gender economic gap remains unchanged. More needs to be done to understand the underlying forces and factors in the region to challenge the current status quo.

This book directly focuses on finding optimal trading strategies in the real world and supports that with a well-defined theoretical foundation that allows trading strategy problems to be solved. Critically, it also delivers a menu of actual solutions that can be applied by traders with various risk profiles and objectives in markets that exhibit substantial tail risk. It shows how the Markowitz approach leads to excessive risk taking, and trader underperformance, in the real world. It summarizes the key features of Utility Theory, the deficiencies of the Sharpe Ratio as a statistic, and develops an optimal decision theory with fully developed examples for both "Normal" and leptokurtotic distributions.

The unique compendium teaches beginners how to perform nonlinear finite element (FE) analysis by following a series of step-by-step examples and basic programming method using OpenSees. The scope of the book includes nonlinear FE analyses of reinforced concrete frame shear wall structures, liquefiable soils, soil-structure interaction systems, fluid-solid coupling systems, high-speed railway systems, as well as introduces the sensitivity, reliability, optimization, peridynamic (PD) analysis, and the integration of OpenSees with other softwares. This must-have reference also teaches users how to program by adding simple material and element models, as well as PD algorithms in OpenSees.

This data book of scientific information is an essential guide for all STEM researchers, teachers and students. It comprises six sections on astronomy, meteorology, physics/chemistry, earth science, biology, and environmental science.The book is useful not only for researchers and engineers, but also for science writers, as it covers carefully selected and important data that have been reviewed by experts from diverse fields for over 90 years.

Marketing and communications are ever-evolving areas, with trends and issues quickly emerging, and often fading just as fast. An evergreen issue that continues to gain more and more traction is that of socially responsible and ethical marketing.The text discusses the increasing importance of socially responsible and ethical marketing and communication in today's world, where social media and social marketing have a wide reach. With practical applications and case studies for marketing and management practitioners to implement socially responsible and ethical communication campaigns, the book provides a tool kit for marketing and management practitioners to implement socially responsible and ethical communication campaigns. It is a must-read for researchers in social and ethical marketing, as well as educators in marketing, communication, social responsibility, sustainability, and ethics.

This book depicts the fascinating life story of Wu Wenjun, a renowned mathematician who made significant contribution in the field of topology, ancient Chinese mathematics, and mathematics mechanization. He was a recipient of the Highest Science and Technology Award, the highest scientific award in China, as well as the Shaw Prize in Mathematics.Through vivid illustrations and eloquent writing, this book recounts rarely known anecdotes and significant events from Wu Wenjun's life through his childhood, education, and scientific career, offering insights into his life values.

This volume aims to return to the starting point of the fields of infinite dimensional analysis and quantum probability, fields that are growing rapidly at present, and to seriously attempt mutual interaction between the two, with a view to enumerating and solving the many fundamental problems they entail. For such a purpose, we look for interdisciplinary bridges in mathematics including classical probability and to different branches of physics, in particular, research for new paradigms for information science on the basis of quantum theory.

This book explores the exciting and evolving world of plasma physics in materials manufacturing and processing. From ionized discharges to non-thermal equilibrium plasmas, new phenomena in physics are constantly emerging. Written, organized, and edited by internationally recognized experts, the various chapters delve into diverse issues in plasma science, including new applications at the nanoscale to the development of diagnostic tools and simulations. The interactions between the plasma state and matter, both surface and bulk, as well as gases and liquids, are explored. As electric discharges in plasmas continue to expand towards new horizons, anyone interested in this fascinating field would benefit from this book as an up-to-date and essential resource.

If you want to understand the regulations and practices of financial accounting and reporting, this is the book for you! The authors of this book have developed a unique set of material on corporate financial reporting based on their collective years of teaching experience. In this book, they explain, in non-technical language, the financial information that companies are required to provide.What are companies? Why are they formed? Companies are not charities but are formed to provide a good income to their shareholders by selling us goods and services. Large companies in the UK are mostly known as Public Limited Companies (PLCs). There are about 2,000 PLCs in the London Stock Exchange. But do we understand these companies' objectives and activities? We can do so by examining the financial information they provide publicly in their annual financial reports.To be able to examine the financial statements issued by companies, you need to understand the regulations issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). This book explains the requirements of Financial Reporting Standards. Guidance on the disclosure requirements and examples from companies' financial reports are also provided and explained.Many of these company names are synonymous with our everyday lives. Think about Cadbury Chocolate, Unilever, Diageo, Shell, Boots. It is difficult to conceive our lives without their products and services. The explanation and guidance provided in this book will allow you to understand fully the operations of such companies. This is vital knowledge if you intend to do business with the companies, buy their products and services or find employment with them.

This book is devoted on recent developments of linear and nonlinear fractional Riemann-Liouville and Caputo integral inequalities on time scales. The book is intended for the use in the field of fractional dynamic calculus on time scales and fractional dynamic equations on time scales. It is also suitable for graduate courses in the above fields, and contains ten chapters. The aim of this book is to present a clear and well-organized treatment of the concept behind the development of mathematics as well as solution techniques. The text material of this book is presented in a readable and mathematically solid format.

This book contains the Proceedings of the Ninth Meeting on CPT and Lorentz Symmetry, held at Indiana University in Bloomington May 17-26, 2022. The Meeting focused on tests of these fundamental symmetries and on related theoretical issues, including scenarios for possible violations. Experimental topics covered at the meeting include astrophysical observations of neutrinos, photons, cosmic rays, pulsars, and gravitational waves; investigations at accelerators and storage rings involving neutral mesons, muons, quarks, and flavor-changing processes; gravity tests in the laboratory and in the solar system; spectroscopic studies of ions, atoms, molecules, and exotic atoms; measurements involving spin motion; comparative tests between matter and antimatter; lasers and masers; measurements involving neutrons; investigations with cavities, oscillators, and resonators; neutrino oscillations, propagation, and endpoint measurements.Theoretical and phenomenological topics discussed involved the identification of signatures for CPT and Lorentz violation in particle physics, electromagnetism, and gravity; mechanisms and toy models for spacetime-symmetry breakdown; studies in field theory, gravitation, and particle physics; and condensed-matter applications.

According to string theory, our universe exists in a 10- or 11-dimensional space. However, the idea the space beyond 3 dimensions seems hard to grasp for beginners. This book presents a way to understand four-dimensional space and beyond: with knots! Beginners can see high dimensional space although they have not seen it.With visual illustrations, we present the manipulation of figures in high dimensional space, examples of which are high dimensional knots and n-spheres embedded in the (n+2)-sphere, and generalize results on relations between local moves and knot invariants into high dimensional space.Local moves on knots, circles embedded in the 3-space, are very important to research in knot theory. It is well known that crossing changes are connected with the Alexander polynomial, the Jones polynomial, HOMFLYPT polynomial, Khovanov homology, Floer homology, Khovanov homotopy type, etc. We show several results on relations between local moves on high dimensional knots and their invariants.The following related topics are also introduced: projections of knots, knot products, slice knots and slice links, an open question: can the Jones polynomial be defined for links in all 3-manifolds? and Khovanov-Lipshitz-Sarkar stable homotopy type. Slice knots exist in the 3-space but are much related to the 4-dimensional space. The slice problem is connected with many exciting topics: Khovanov homology, Khovanv-Lipshits-Sarkar stable homotopy type, gauge theory, Floer homology, etc. Among them, the Khovanov-Lipshitz-Sarkar stable homotopy type is one of the exciting new areas; it is defined for links in the 3-sphere, but it is a high dimensional CW complex in general.Much of the book will be accessible to freshmen and sophomores with some basic knowledge of topology.

This book grew out of an idea to study properties of small subsystems of a large reservoir. Observations were at the time not explainable with standard thermodynamics. But the theory of Hill on thermodynamics of small systems provided the systematic procedure needed to address the problem. Following Hill, thermodynamics can be formulated for the nanoscale!The purpose of this book is to expand and demonstrate Hill's theory. The theory adds a new term to the fundamental Gibbs equation, that is specific for systems at the nanoscale. The properties that follow may be counter intuitive. The equation of state for a small system, for instance, is not given once and for all. We shall see that it changes with the environmental variables that control the small system. The statistical mechanical machinery remains as before, however.The world of small systems challenges the standard knowledge; that the number of particles in a system must be very large for thermodynamic equations to apply. We shall see that thermodynamic equations apply perfectly well also for small particle numbers, provided that small-system effects are accounted for correctly. In the world where size and shape are central, we shall find that equations of state can be used down to one particle in a box! There are scaling laws, which help us determine and understand the large system limit better!In the first part, the authors highlight the basic idea of the theory and provide a more systematic method, than used before. In the second part, the authors demonstrate the power of the theory in a set of central applications of nanoscience in and away from equilibrium, for other scientists to be inspired for further use.

Technology transfer studies are usually framed through Economics and Management Sciences, but this volume Geography of Technology Transfer in China seeks to reveal the mechanism of technology transfer from the geographical perspective. It not only depicts the spatial evolution laws of glocal technology transfer networks, but also uses regression models to uncover the two-way effects between the networks and innovative capacity. In addition, this book highlights the integration and interaction of networks on both the global and local scales. A theoretical framework on glocal networks of technology transfer is established based on a series of economic geography bases in order to depict the spatial differences and coupling mechanism among multi-scaled networks in China.This book consists of 5 parts and 10 chapters, which illustrate the background, theoretical basis, spatial evolution, dual-way influences, and policy implications of technology transfer in China, presenting a clear structure both theoretically and empirically. The book begins with the "what", "why", and "how" questions behind geographical studies on technology transfer to clarify the purpose of the book and its differentiation from present technology transfer studies. Thereafter, it discusses the "holy trinity" framework of glocal technology transfer networks consisting of cultural, territorial, and networked subsystems. To this end, the spatial evolution of the technology transfer is highlighted through soical network analysis, which aims at depicting the geographical rules of China's technology transfer networks at global, domestic, and regional scales. Based on these discoveries, the next part of the book further analyzes, through a series of regression models such as ERGM and NBRM, the kinds of determinants which have influenced the network size and how the network has in turn affected local innovation capacity . Lastly, the policy implications connect the findings of empirical studies with the operability of the national innovation system. On the whole, this book extensively covers the theoretical, empirical, and practical applications of the geography of technology transfer in China.

Russo-Ukrainian War: Implications for the Asia Pacific explores the implications of the Russo-Ukrainian war for American and Chinese engagement in the Asia Pacific. It interprets Russia's invasion of Ukraine which began on February 24, 2022 as part of a complex double game where the Kremlin and Washington simultaneously spar, bluffing for high stakes despite catastrophic risks in the name of lofty ideals, while pursuing expedient default agendas. Both sides champion virtuous global orders compatible with their tastes and objectives. Washington seeks to compel Moscow to abide by its rules and vice-versa.The immediate impact of the Russo-Ukrainian War on the Asia Pacific has been to confirm Chinese President Xi Jinping's perception that Washington is committed to low-cost, regime-changing Cold War with China to preserve its status as the world's preeminent superpower. Washington is willing to increase hard power defense spending modestly to tackle the Taiwan and South China Sea issues, but will not compete with China in an arms race, curtail productivity stifling government over-regulation and social spending or curb China's abusive state trading.Emboldened by what Washington considers America's successes in the Russo-Ukrainian proxy war, American President Joe Biden plans to reinforce military spending with attitude management campaigns, moral suasion and coalitions of the willing including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization - efforts to spark Chinese color revolution and regime change. Biden diplomatically calls his policy Cold Peace, but his actions bespeak Cold War.Amid the power contestation among the United States, Russia and China, it is naïve in the contemporary world to suppose that the three major powers can permanently subjugate each other. Wise leadership requires satisficing for the attainable good rather than striving for the delusional best.

This book deals with the role played by symmetry in the understanding of the physical world, beginning with the notion of geometric symmetries of the ancient Greek philosophers and mathematicians. The recognition of the existence of symmetries led to the notion of transformations, which led from one state of the system to another. It was then realized that such transformations, under the operation of multiplication, constitute an interesting set, whose study led to the branch of mathematics known as Group Theory. With the emergence of quantum mechanics, this theory became much more interesting and led to some additional applications. The theory got another boost with the need for of the internal degrees of freedom in describing physical systems. This way the notion of symmetry is no longer purely geometric and evolved into a useful tool in the study of all physical sciences.For practical reasons as well as pedagogical reasons, group theory is usually split into two parts. The first deals with discrete groups, with the group elements being countable, usually finite in number, while the second deals with continuous groups, whose elements depend on continuous parameters. This volumefocuses the discussion on discrete groups.Given that group theory should be presented from a unified perspective, involving not only the mathematical rigor and beauty of symmetries, but also the ability to use it as a tool for applications, either currently popular or expected to become so in the future, this approach will surely be more beneficial to the dedicated reader. It is not intended for those who would like to just look up a formula or use the results of a table, without understanding their derivation.