Books published by Springer

The link between modern lifestyles and increasing levels of chronic heart disease, obesity, stress and poor mental health is a concern across the world.

Modern information technology permeates and transforms our world-far more intensely than most of us realize. The book describes its origin, history, and essential drivers. It elaborates on the substantial importance the new world power of IT has gained for our social, economic, and political lives. It provides the reader with interesting, easily understandable, and balanced guidance on a complex topic. It highlights major development lines and explains concepts such as artificial intelligence, algorithms, and blockchains.Dr. Jürgen Müller studied history and political science in Trier, Vienna, and Rome, and then "accidentally" found his way into IT. He has spent more than 30 years there, primarily in Europe and the USA. In this book, he combines his extensive international experience in the computer industry with humanities-related questions, resulting in a very rare and worthwhile synthesis.The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence. A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content.This book is a translation of an original German edition. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation.

How do companies achieve the transformation into an agile, innovative, digital business and work environment? This question concerns not only IT managers but also strategic players, the enterprise architects. They must bridge the gap between strategic planning and dealing with increasing speed and growing uncertainty. Holistic enterprise development in the digital future means developing digital ecosystems and complex IT landscapes. This book presents methods and concepts from the agile world, semiotics, and neuropsychology that can help enterprise architects in their practical everyday work. Starting from a positive view of humanity, it is possible to harness the potential of individuals and teams for digital transformation with fundamental knowledge. The book is primarily aimed at IT managers, enterprise architects, and managers involved in large-scale software development processes.Many practical examples illustrate the theoretically presented connections and provide broader access to enterprise architecture management.

This book brings clarity to the new, often still opaque world of the Metaverse. It concisely shows how the business areas of sales and marketing can specifically unleash their potential within it. Develop a fundamental understanding of the key terms and tools of the Metaverse with this book, and learn how Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) can shape the future of your business ¿ and how you can optimally present and sell yourself in virtual worlds. With numerous use cases, strategies, and best practices, you will be well-equipped to help shape the Metaverse of tomorrow today.

This book analyzes the intricate relationship between football fans and clubs, presenting new approaches for those in charge to actively involve fans in club management¿a complex task often fraught with emotional tension. Fan communities are spaces for integration and identity formation, but also for exclusion and demarcation. Moreover, the author highlights the resistance of active soccer fan scene towards increasing commercialization of their sport and their skeptical view of powerful institutions. This book therefore emphasizes that the goal of club management should be to develop fans from stakeholders to stakeowners, so that they can take on responsibility as equal participants in club affairs. The author, Edeltraud Hanappi-Egger, introduces the fundamentals of the "fan" phenomenon and outlines paths towards greater transparency and integrity, as well as productive dialogue between clubs and fan communities.This book is targeted at academics, sports managers, and soccer enthusiasts interested in the intersection of fan culture, club management, and the socio-political dimensions of sports.

Dive into the fascinating world of digital disruption and discover the transformative power of open and digital ecosystems, which will constitute one-third of global trade by 2030. This book demonstrates how value creation occurs beyond organizational boundaries and places the consumer at the forefront. The convergence of industries and technologies drives the experience-oriented customer journey and accelerates digital transformation. Explore Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, the Internet of Things, Blockchain, Cloud, and Quantum Computing as key building blocks for innovation. The golden triangle of digital ecosystems - commerce, social media, and finance ¿ illustrates how companies like Alibaba, Tencent, NIO, Alphabet, Apple, Amazon, and Migros create unique customer experiences and integrate services with super-apps.Through in-depth analyses and practical case studies, you will learn how companies can thrive in this revolutionary model, achieving growth by sharing knowledge and resources, responding swiftly to market changes, and balancing the optimization of existing businesses with the exploration of new opportunities. Leadership in open and digital ecosystems demands a shift in mindset and the development of new dynamic capabilities. Emphasizing openness, agility, and ambidexterity as critical skills, this book is an indispensable guide for companies aiming to leverage open and digital ecosystems for sustainable growth and to build agile, resilient organizations.Gain a modern understanding of leadership and discover how it shapes the future of work in the era of digital ecosystems.

In a VUCA world, which is becoming increasingly volatile, uncertain, and complex, companies, organizations, and states must respond promptly and adequately to the respective situations. Making decisions based on past experiences is less successful in these times than having an accurate understanding of current conditions. The importance of empirical sciences, continuous environmental observation, timely analysis of causal relationships, and deriving new insights from them is increasing. From this, it can be deduced which measures are likely to achieve one's goals with predictable probability, such as which price for an offer generates the desired demand or which marketing measure reaches the desired target group.Where classical statistics were once used for calculations and predictions, today free (open source) tools like R allow data in various formats and from any number of sources to be read in, processed, and analyzed using methods of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. The results can then be perfectly visualized so that decision-makers can benefit quickly and effectively.The age of Data Science has arrived. Digitalization is more than a buzzword or a promise; it is actionable and usable for everyone.This book teaches you, based on the latest version of R at the time of publication, how to use Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Industry 4.0.

This book, authored by three experts with the assistance of GPT, provides comprehensive insights into the applications of generative AI, such as GPT, in the financial sector of businesses. It offers background information, benefits, as well as the challenges and risks associated with implementation. In addition to general applications within companies, specific use cases are also presented, focusing on areas such as controlling, business intelligence, accounting, investor relations, internal audit and control systems, risk management, auditing, and data privacy. The book concludes with a discussion on strategies for utilizing GPT effectively.

The standard economic theory, despite its many advantages, has a significant weakness: it is only of limited applicability to the economic reality of practice. Therefore, the book presents a new economic theory that is completely oriented towards the reality of economic practice. In this new theory, human beings are not just actors but constitute the central element from which the theory and everything else derive: work, production, consumption, demand, supply, exchange, trade, markets, stock exchanges, money, state economics, and global economics with all their complexities. Unlike the standard model, the new theory employs a holistic approach in its methodology. With this new and differentiated economic perspective and mindset, the new theory is capable of initiating a paradigm shift in the discipline of economics.

The introductory book provides an overview of the current state of cultural psychology regarding theoretical approaches and methods. It also illustrates its strong presence in various fields of action. Cultural psychology is an interdisciplinary research area that aims less to explain human behavior and experience objectively and causally, but rather seeks to understand psychological phenomena in their socio-cultural context. It follows a theoretical understanding that conceives humans as actively acting beings. In comparison to the prevailing nomothetic psychology, it emphasizes different theoretical and methodological approaches, particularly highlighting intentionality, structuring of meaning, and the cultural aspects of human existence. Cultural psychology incorporates hermeneutic approaches from psychology, philosophy, sociology, and ethnology, as well as qualitative methods for studying human actions and experiences. The EditorsProf. Dr. Dr. Uwe Wolfradt is a professor at the Institute of Psychology at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and the 1. chairman of the Society for Cultural Psychology.Dr. phil. habil. Lars Allolio-Näcke is a lecturer in religious psychology and managing director as well as the scientific coordinator of the Central Institute "Anthropology of Religion(s)" at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg.Paul Sebastian Ruppel is a lecturer at the Faculty of Social Science, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology Section at Ruhr University Bochum and a research associate at Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences, Department of Applied Human Sciences, and a freelance associate at the Institute for Qualitative Research at the International Academy Berlin.The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence. A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content.This book is a translation of an original German edition. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation.

This book takes readers on a journey into the future of work. Following the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, working conditions have become more flexible than ever before. The freedoms granted within this framework continue to be demanded by many employees. There are also numerous companies that have had predominantly positive experiences with this change and would like to continue with it. Against this backdrop, it is to be expected that the shift away from a traditional working environment ¿ due to the four influencing factors of demographic change, skills shortages, digitalisation and artificial intelligence ¿ will accelerate in the future. This book provides an overview of the various design options for New Work and highlights their respective advantages and disadvantages. It also analyses new trends and forecasts relating to the future of work. In addition, the relevant legal framework is presented in a concise and easy-to-understand manner. This book provides you with the tools you need to actively shape the future of work in your company in a legally compliant manner.The editorsDr. Inka Knappertsbusch is a lawyer specializing in employment law and employee data protection at the international commercial law firm CMS Germany. She advises companies primarily on restructuring and works agreements, in particular on issues related to IT and new work. Her work also focuses on data protection and artificial intelligence in employment relationships. She is the co-editor of the book "Arbeitswelt und KI 2030".Dr. Gerlind Wisskirchen is a partner and lawyer at the international commercial law firm CMS Germany and advises multinational corporations in particular on restructuring, national and international employment law and compliance issues. She is also an expert on the digitalisation of the world of work, with experience as a keynote speaker, author and lecturer and is the editor of the report "Artificial Intelligence and Robotics and Their Impact on the Workplace" for the Global Employment Institute.The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence. A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content.

Economics still adheres entirely unreflectively to a mechanistic worldview and machine thinking. Epistemologically, it thus remains in the 19th century, and its assumptions and theories, methods, and models therefore stand in stark contradiction to the findings of all other social and natural sciences as well as a multitude of empirical facts.Through a discourse-analytical examination of sixteen basic concepts in economics, based on twelve standard economics textbooks, their ideahistorical origin and use are worked out and compared and related to the current state of knowledge of other disciplines. This reveals the structural, methodological, and content errors of economics in a clear manner.Especially for critical students, who have long been demanding an economics that is in line with the current state of research and faces the challenges of the 21st century, this opens up the possibility of a new approach to economics.The Content Discourse-analytical examination of fundamental assumptions and concepts of economics from "labor" to "wealth" Structural, methodological, and content critique of economic thinking from an epistemological perspective Critical examination of the use of empirical and statistical data, the method of gaining knowledge, and the model thinking in economics

This practical handbook provides a well-founded insight into the complex preparatory work for the realisation of eLearning projects. The book describes how project managers and media authors work as a team to create a script for eLearning that fulfils learning psychology criteria and current multimedia didactics. Tools for designing and writing scripts are presented and evaluated so that a needs-based selection is possible. The third edition has been revised and updated throughout. A new chapter on "Mobile Learning" shows the latest developments. The draft of instructional videos and the possibilities of the social web are explained in detail.Enriched with valuable tips for work organisation and an outline of the media author's job description, the handbook is aimed at project managers and specialists in companies, further education institutions and multimedia agencies as well as media authors and those who want to become one. Numerous checklists facilitate daily work, e.g. for checking a finished script - a quality assurance measure that helps save time and money. Written directly for everyday professional use, the book uses practical methods and work aids as well as tips and tricks to show how a strong draft and a carefully prepared script make a decisive contribution to the successful production of eLearning applications.

Why do you lean in a bend? Why does a sprinter slow down before the finish line? Why do golf balls have dimples? Why do you swim better slightly underwater? Why, on a bike, the faster you go, the more stable you are? Why shouldn¿t you rely on doping tests too much? Is there a law of evolution of records?These are some of the 40 questions that Amandine Aftalion answers in this book using simple physics and mathematics, and some humor. Not only will it allow you to improve yourself in sports, but it will also but it will also give way to understanding how champions do.An easy book to read and the must to have if you are a sports addict or if you watch sports on TV and ask yourself ¿why?¿.Amandine Aftalion is a French mathematician. She is a CNRS senior scientist and graduated from École normale supérieure in Paris. She has given talks all over the world, as a specialist of models coming from low temperature physics. She has written a book on vortices in Bose¿Einstein condensates. More recently, she has used energy minimization to study an optimal control problem coming from human energy: optimizing running. She has written papers on sports aimed at coaches. Part of her latest results have inspired the first chapter of this book. She is the producer and director of a French YouTube channel for the popularization of mathematics, Videodimath, elected as one of the 5 best French YouTube channels for popular mathematics.

Based on thoroughly researched texts and rare photographies this book describes the actual developments of international shipping and all the facets connected to overseas good flows.

This contributed volume presents the latest research on additive manufacturing (AM) or 3D printing, one of the key techniques of novel medical devices, which can process complicated or customized structures to match the properties of human tissues. AM allows for the fabrication of devices with optimal architectures, complicated morphologies, surface integrity, and regulated porosity and chemical composition. Various AM methods can now consistently fabricate dense products for a variety of materials, comprising steels, titanium alloys, Co-Cr alloys, metal-based composites, and nanocomposites. This book elucidates the chronology of various techniques that are categorized under additive manufacturing. Moreover, the futuristic techniques or advancements in this area are also described. The available literature focuses on the microstructure and various properties of 3D-printed alloys. However, the research on the wear characteristics, corrosion resistance, and biocompatibility of 3D-printedtechnology for biomedical applications is limited. This book comprises the helicopter view of different surface analysis trends of additive manufactured alloys. The book can be a valuable reference for beginners, researchers, and professionals interested in bioimplant manufacturing and allied fields.

This book is a guide to achieving optimal crop yield while ensuring the sustainable and efficient use of water resources. It delves into critical topics such as irrigation water management, global and regional climate variability and change, food security, water pollution, soil erosion, and fertility loss. With the growing stress on water resources, the emphasis needs to be on environmentally friendly alternatives, including cutting-edge solutions like AI-based approaches, sensor-driven automation systems, and the integration of IoT in irrigation automation. This book collates information and analyzes current challenges in agriculture but also proposes innovative solutions, particularly in the context of the interconnected factors of water, crops, and climate change. By offering insights and strategies, it aims to guide the development of a water-wise, sustainable agriculture system that ensures the safety and well-being of future generations. This book is a valuable resource for anyone involved in agriculture and related fields, providing knowledge and tools to create a resilient and efficient food system. The target audience is diverse, ranging from farmers and students to researchers, scientists, irrigation practitioners, decision-makers, professors, and policymakers.

Transfer learning is one of the most important technologies in the era of artificial intelligence and deep learning. It seeks to leverage existing knowledge by transferring it to another, new domain. Over the years, a number of relevant topics have attracted the interest of the research and application community: transfer learning, pre-training and fine-tuning, domain adaptation, domain generalization, and meta-learning. This book offers a comprehensive tutorial on an overview of transfer learning, introducing new researchers in this area to both classic and more recent algorithms. Most importantly, it takes a "student's" perspective to introduce all the concepts, theories, algorithms, and applications, allowing readers to quickly and easily enter this area. Accompanying the book, detailed code implementations are provided to better illustrate the core ideas of several important algorithms, presenting good examples for practice.

Verwaltung ist vielfältig, aber ihr Recht lässt sich anhand allgemeiner Grundsätze verständlich machen. Dieses Buch schlägt Schneisen durch das Vorschriftengeflecht und präsentiert das Allgemeine Verwaltungsrecht systematisch anhand der beteiligten Rechtsträger, der zu erwerbenden Rechtspositionen und der vorkommenden Rechtsakte. Zahlreiche Beispiele machen die Bedeutung der einzelnen Rechtsinstitute anschaulich. Durchgehend findet auch die Falllösungsperspektive Berücksichtigung. Das Buch ist somit sowohl für den Einstieg ins Verwaltungsrecht als auch zur Vertiefung geeignet.

Viel zu tun und kein Urlaub in Sicht? Wunderbar - dann ist jetzt genau die richtige Zeit für Erholung! Denn auch zwischen Videokonferenzen, langen Besprechungen und diversen anderen Verpflichtungen bleibt Zeit für kleine Auszeiten. Und das lohnt sich! Denn Erholung ist ein wahres Wundermittel, um uns gegen Stress zu wappnen. Und sicher die angenehmste Sache, sich etwas Gutes zu tun. Der Ratgeber einer erfahrenen Erholungsexpertin bietet das erforderliche Handwerkszeug, um sich im Alltag gut zu erholen und so den Herausforderungen der heutigen Arbeitswelt entgegentreten zu können. Dafür brauchen Sie weder (mehr) Urlaub noch viel Zeit, sondern Lust auf Alltagsabenteuer, Schaffensrausch und neue Routinen! Mit diesem Buch gelingt Ihnen Erholung vielleicht nicht immer perfekt, aber jeden Tag ein bisschen besser.

Increasing customer demands and innovations in digital sales require targeted management and flexible organisation of multiple sales channels. Multi-channel marketing can be used to achieve outstanding competitive advantages. This book provides a comprehensive and systematic overview of the fundamentals and management of multi-channel marketing. The book understands multi-channel marketing as an integrative marketing system with special consideration of digital technologies. "Multi-Channel-Marketing is with increasing frequency a key success factor for companies in competition for customers. Bernd Wirtz' textbook provides a clearly patterned, incorporated and theoretically funded overview for this purpose. The author excellently succeeded in illustrating in a descriptive way the considerable complexity and breadth of applicability and contemporaneously establishing a high practical relevance." Dr. Rainer Hillebrand, Deputy Executive Board Chairman of Otto Group "Wirtz examines the whole path down from theoretical basic knowledge of Multi-Channel-Marketing right up to the practical realization. This book is a needed approach which is at the same time a reference book for specific issues. 'The Wirtz' is essential for everyone who is concerned with this highly topical subject in his studies or in practice already." Dr. Arno Mahlert, Chief Executive Officer Tchibo Holding AG (2004-2009), Member of the Board of Directors Peek&Cloppenburg KG and maxingvest AG

Based on a cooperation between science and minority self-organizations, the book offers for the first time comprehensive data on the national minority of German Sinti and Roma and immigrant Roma in Germany. The social and educational situation of Sinti and Roma in Germany is examined using an innovative sampling strategy with interviewers from the minority. An international team of renowned authors from minority and majority analyzes the connections between discrimination, expectations and developments in school and training qualifications.

This textbook provides an overview of the fundamentals of game theory and its applications in various fields. It introduces game theory as an established toolkit for the mathematical analysis and evaluation of strategic decisions. Through applied exercises, it introduces the basic concepts of game theory and offers students from various disciplines the opportunity to practice the concepts through in-depth training. The textbook addresses advanced students of economics, business administration, and related disciplines, university graduates with basic mathematical training as well as interested readers from all fields. For this, it provides student-friendly explanations, a variety of exercises and problems, and useful references to further reading. The book is divided into a beginner-friendly theory section, in which the most important aspects are presented in a compact and clear manner, and an application-oriented problem section, in which the readers can directly check what they have learned and find many application examples. The latter can also be used as a source of inspiration for instructors.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the MICCAI 2023 Challenge, FLARE 2023, held in Conjunction with MICCAI 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada, on October 8, 2023. The 27 full papers presented in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 37 submissions. The papers present research and results for abdominal organ segmentation which has many important clinical applications, such as organ quantification, surgical planning, and disease diagnosis.

This book presents the managed aquifer recharge, also called MAR, as state of the art in the Middle East and North Africa. Renewable groundwater resources are scarce in the majority of the MENA countries. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) area is often regarded as the world's most water-scarce region. The MENA region consists of eighteen countries covering an area of approximately 12 million km2. The population of MENA countries is around 6% of the world's population, but its water resources are four times lower. Aquifer recharge plays an essential role in adequately allocating recovered water into the groundwater storage capacity, recovering overexploited groundwater, and improving groundwater quality. MAR may help minimize flood mitigation and flood hazard by harvesting floodwater using storage dams, which allows it to replenish the underlying groundwater aquifer while simultaneously lowering flood risks to downstream areas. MAR has the potential to be a crucial water management strategy to promote groundwater storage in arid and semiarid regions as MENA region. This book explores several themes, including the status of the applications of the MAR in MENA countries, strategies for the MAR in MENA countries, MAR methods and assessments, the economics of using MAR in the MENA region, sustainability of the MAR in MENA countries, environmental risk management, and relevant applications of remote sensing and GIS techniques for the managed aquifer recharge. This book presents various strategies for the managed aquifer recharge in the MENA countries to help them achieve their sustainability agenda 2030.

This book addresses the transformation of primary education in the former Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) after the fall of the communist regime in 1989. It follows the overall transformation of education and school policy and offers original insights into the everyday life of the schools at that time. It also provides a unique perspective on the whole transformation process. The work discusses the school environment in the context of specific local characteristics, such as parents, community, regional institutions, and national and international contexts. The book specifically focuses on the changes in primary school management in terms of economics, organization, and personnel. The processes of pedagogical change are an essential theme of the book. They cover how teachers proceeded through the changes in their work at the time of the transformation and the reasons for their resistance to change, including the challenges that the transformation introduced into their work and personal lives. The book also monitors how the teachers navigated the selection and use of new textbooks and tools, such as digital tools. The work originates in historical-pedagogical research, based primarily on the oral history method and complemented by the study of contemporary documents.