Books published by Springer Nature Singapore

This book focuses on a single artefact, the Barochan Cross, a ninth century stone sculpture in Renfrewshire, Scotland. Exploring the changing stories, meanings, locations, uses and feelings of the sculpture, Tim Edensor adopts a broad temporal frame across twelve centuries that moves away from a periodisation that solely considers its original meanings and uses. Narrating the shifting ways in which the Barochan Cross has been moved, utilised, cared for, interpreted, encountered, sensed, copied and appropriated allows for a sophisticated yet highly accessible discussion about its changing relationships with the physical and conceptual landscapes in which it has been situated. This book thus expands the ways in which landscape might be conceptualised, revealing how artefacts can inform future critical thinking about heritage and bringing an important contribution to theories about material culture and landscape.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post conference papers of the 4th International Conference on Blockchain and Trustworthy Systems, Blocksys 2022, held in Chengdu, China, in August 2022.The 26 full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 56 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections: Trustworthy Systems; Blockchain; Private Computing.

This book constitutes refereed proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Logic and Applications 2022 held in Shanghai, China from August 26-28, 2022.The 20 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 27 submissions. The papers in the volume are organised according to the following topical headings: program logic; fuzzy logic;  applications;  author index.

This book aims to assess the roles of entrepreneurship and social innovation for socio-cultural changes. It also evaluates farmers' performance in disaster risk management at a community level toward sustainable regional development in a rural haor region of Bangladesh. To achieve the purpose of the research, both a qualitative method (Trajectory Equifinality Modeling, TEM) and a quantitative method (Structural Equation Modeling, SEM) are introduced, based on the results of case studies on local entrepreneurs, interview and focus group discussions with stakeholders, and questionnaire surveys of farm households.First, the results clarify that social capital is critically important both for male and female entrepreneurs in the haor region, and that education is more important to women for empowerment and technology adoption in the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the haor region of Bangladesh. In addition, it makes clear that the Common Interest Group approach plays a role for women's empowerment in the target region. Furthermore, it identifies the multi-causal relationships among the factors affecting farm households' performance in disaster risk management at the community level.This book helps readers to understand regional development through social and cultural transformation in a rural community where poverty and gender discrimination are path-dependent problems.

This book highlights the fabrication of orientation-controlled colloidal quantum well (nanoplatelet) thin films using liquid interface self-assembly. The book details methods for orientation-controlled deposition of CdSe core nanoplatelets for characterization of directional energy transfer in nanoplatelets and layer-by-layer construction of CdSe/CdZnS core/shell nanoplatelets to create optically active waveguides with precisely tunable thickness and excellent uniformity across device scale. It also provides a future outlook for construction of large-scale two- and three-dimensional nanoplatelet superstructures and their incorporation into device fabrication.

This book explores the application of data mining and machine learning techniques in studying the activity pattern, decision-making skills, misconducts, and actions resulting in the intervention of VAR in European soccer leagues referees. The game of soccer at the elite level is characterised by intense competitions, a high level of intensity, technical, and tactical skills coupled with a long duration of play. Referees are required to officiate the game and deliver correct and indisputable decisions throughout the duration of play. The increase in the spatial and temporal task demands of the game necessitates that the referees must respond and cope with the physiological and psychological loads inherent in the game. The referees are also required to deliver an accurate decision and uphold the rules and regulations of the game during a match. These demands and attributes make the work of referees highly complex. The increasing pace and complexity of the game resulted in the introduction of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) to assist and improve the decision-making of on-field referees. Despite the integration of VAR into the current refereeing system, the performances of the referees are yet to be error-free. Machine learning coupled with data mining techniques has shown to be vital in providing insights from a large dataset which could be used to draw important inferences that can aid decision-making for diagnostics purposes and overall performance improvement.A total of 6232 matches from 5 consecutive seasons officiated across the English Premier League, Spanish LaLiga, Italian Serie A as well as the German Bundesliga was studied. It is envisioned that the findings in this book could be useful in recognising the activity pattern of top-class referees, that is non-trivial for the stakeholders in devising strategies to further enhance the performances of referees as well as empower talent identification experts with pertinent information for mapping out future high-performance referees.

This conference proceeding is a collection of the papers accepted by the CENet2022 - the 12th International Conference on Computer Engineering and Networks held on November 4-7, 2022 in Haikou, China. The topics focus but are not limited to Internet of Things and Smart Systems, Artificial Intelligence and Applications, Communication System Detection, Analysis and Application, and Medical Engineering and Information Systems. Each part can be used as an excellent reference by industry practitioners, university faculties, research fellows and undergraduates as well as graduate students who need to build a knowledge base of the most current advances and state-of-practice in the topics covered by this conference proceedings. This will enable them to produce, maintain, and manage systems with high levels of trustworthiness and complexity.

This book presents cutting-edge archaeological materials from Xinjiang, from the Bronze Age to the early Iron Age. Through a systematic topological study of major archaeological cemeteries and sites, it establishes chronologies and cultural sequences for three main regions in Xinjiang, namely the circum-Eastern Tianshan region, the circum-Dzungarian Basin region and the circum-Tarim Basin region. It also discusses the origins and local variants of prehistoric archaeological cultures in these regions and the mutual relationships between them and neighboring cultures.By doing so, the book offers a panoramic view of the socio-cultural changes that took place in prehistoric Xinjiang from pastoral-agricultural societies to the mobile nomadic-pastoralist states in the steppe regions and the agricultural states of the oasis, making it a must-read for researchers and general readers who are interested in the archaeology of Xinjiang.  

This volume constitutes the proceedings of the 20th Asian Simulation Conference, AsiaSim 2021, held as a virtual event in November 2021.The 9 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 23 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on simulation and visualization; modeling and simulation of systems.

This book adopts the rationalist research path to bring forward an innovative theory of foreign policy, and the central question is: How can we define the overall national interests of great powers appropriately and thus help states make consistent and rational grand strategies? The answer can't be found among existing Foreign Policy Analysis and other theoretical research. In this book, Positional Realism is proposed as a new theory to define the overall national interests from the power position and order position perspectives and specify the four kinds of positional interests of hegemonic states, contending states, potential contending states, and non-contending states. Different great powers have different positional power and order objectives. Based on these positional interests, Positional Realism brings different foreign policy hypotheses and suggestions. The book also examines the six great powers in the nineteenth century to verify these hypotheses and finds that Positional Realism can not only convincingly explain the success or failure of their acts, but also give useful and important directions for strategy making of great powers.

This textbook tackles the matter of contemporary learners' needs, and introduces modern learning, teaching, and assessment methods. It provides a deeper understanding of these methods so that the students and teachers can create teaching and learning opportunities for themselves and others. It explores the meaning of 'pedagogy', why it is essential, and how pedagogy has evolved to take 21st-century skills and learning into account. This textbook showcases various modern learning, teaching, and assessment methods for contemporary learners in an increasingly digital environment. Each chapter presents insights and case studies that show how such modern methods can be applied to classrooms, and how they can support the existing curriculum. It shows students, educators, and researchers alike how to effectively make sense of and use modern learning, teaching, and assessment methods in everyday practice.

This book presents applications of blockchain technologies to foster sustainable development in the textile and clothing supply chain. The concept of Textiles and Fashion Sustainability has grown to a wider extent today. Among the list of items to achieve Sustainability in Textiles and Fashion, the key element is the traceability of supply chains in terms of mapping and tracing the entire supply chain to ensure sustainable supply chain management. Reliable and transparent, efficient data is one of the crucial requirements for Textiles and Fashion Sustainability in today's advanced industrial context and this is possible in this advanced era by various technological advancements such as Block chain technologies. These days one can see a widespread application of blockchain technology in the Textiles and Clothing sector.  The core competencies of blockchain technology namely transparency, data auditability, privacy, value transfer, and process efficiency and automation are very much essential for achieving the multifold objectives under the theme Textiles and Fashion Sustainability.

This book provides insights into recent developments in the use of mulching in agroecosystems with emphasis on the major pros and cons. Increase in human population, climatic changes and agricultural intensification have put enormous pressure on soil and water resources. As a result, we are confronted with challenges to enhance nutrient and water use efficiencies and conserve soil organic matter without compromising crop yields and food security. Increasing the soil organic matter (SOM) via residue return increased nutrient availability and soil physical and biological properties. Management practices, such as straw mulching or incorporation, have significant effects on soil health. Straw addition also increases functionality related to carbon and N metabolism via increasing the microbes and thus greatly contributes to CO2 and N2O emissions. However, the co-use of organic and inorganic fertilizer reduces the N2O emission without compromising crop yield. Mulching has long been advocated to conserve soil moisture and increase the efficiency of macro- and micro-nutrients by improving soil physical, chemical, and biological properties. These effects of mulch are translated into better crop yields while improving soil health and quality in the long run. Therefore, the use of mulching techniques is on the rise in organic as well as conventional agriculture. The book is of great interest for researchers, academics, agriculture extensionists, soil and plant scientist, fertilizer industry, farmers, agro-industrial workers, farm managers, NGOs, and climate and civil society activists.

This book presents the selected papers presented at the 2nd World Conference on Byproducts of Palms and their Applications (ByPalma 2021), held as a virtual conference on September 28-30, 2021. The conference focused on the byproducts of palm plantations around the globe and their current and potential applications. It provided an interdisciplinary platform for leading academic scientists, researchers, artisans, entrepreneurs and industry professionals as well as palm growers to exchange recent developments, technologies, innovations, trends, concerns, challenges, and opportunities, related to palm by-products R&D, manufacturing, and crafts. As a reference, it will be of interest to students, scientists, engineers, government officials, and industrial practitioners.

The phase-locking of multiple spin-torque nano oscillators(STNOs) is considered the primary vehicle to achieve sufficient signal quality for applications. This book highlights the resonator's design and its need for feedback for phase locking of STNOs. STNOs can act as sources of tunable microwaves after being phase-locked together. External feedback from a coplanar waveguide placed above an STNO helps ensures coherent single domain oscillations. STNOs placed within magnonic crystal cavities also demonstrate coherent oscillations. Arrays of such cavities provide a route to scale power levels from such nano-oscillators. The book presents numerical and micromagnetics to validate the design.  

This book provides an archival forum for researchers, academics, practitioners, and industry professionals interested and/or engaged in the reform of the ways of teaching and learning through advancing current learning environments towards smart learning environments. It facilitates opportunities for discussions and constructive dialogue among various stakeholders on the limitations of existing learning environments, need for reform, innovative uses of emerging pedagogical approaches and technologies, and sharing and promotion of best practices, leading to the evolution, design and implementation of smart learning environments. This book also focus on the interplay of pedagogy, technology and their fusion towards the advancement of smart learning environments.  

This book introduces the changing patterns of schistosomiasis transmission in China at different stages. Arduous efforts have been made in the last 7 decades to control and eliminate schistosomiasis in China using various control strategies, such as snail control to reduce the intensity of the disease transmission, morbidity control to reduce disease prevalence, and integrated control strategies to block the disease transmission, supported by governments at different levels.This book also presents the scientific progresses which technically support the control and surveillance of schistosomiasis in the field. It summarizes the working mechanism and control strategies of multi-sectoral collaboration to promote the national control programme leading to schistosomiasis elimination eventually.

The authors' innovative research ideas in power plant control are presented in this book. This book focuses on 1) cognition and reconstruction of the temperature field; 2) intelligent setting and learning of power plants; 3) energy efficiency optimization and intelligent control for power plants, and so on, using historical power plant operation data and creative methods such as reconstruction of the combustion field, deep reinforcement learning, and networked collaborative control. It could help researchers, industrial engineers, and graduate students in the areas of signal detection, image processing, and control engineering.

This book provides comprehensive economic analyses on the paths to net-zero for China. It gives a detailed overview of issues and challenges related to carbon neutrality of the global largest emitter which have not been adequately addressed e.g., reduction costs and efficiency of existing actions, the multiple impacts of the newly established carbon market, and the potentials and costs of nature-based solutions such as biophysical sequestration, etc. Studies on China's carbon reduction have attracted scientists and policymakers from diverse backgrounds. Pursuing a holistic and systematic approach, the book establishes a fundamental framework for this topic, emphasizing the importance of integrated technical-economic-policy analysis. This book will not only be an essential reference to the carbon-neutral progress in China but also will be an outstanding text book on carbon-neutral management. Similarly, this book is expected to attract a great range of readership including undergraduate and postgraduate students, economic and climate specialists, researchers and policymakers in China as well as in overseas.

Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning have witnessed many successes in various disciplines including the healthcare sector. Innovations in intelligent medical systems have revolutionized the way in which healthcare services are provided, ranging from making clinical diagnosis, developing personalized treatment and drugs, assisting patient monitoring, to automating administrative tasks and reducing operational costs. In this book, the authors present key applications in the general area of health care, where AI has made significant successes. From the individual chapters, the readers will be provided with a range of examples to illustrate the wide plethora of application domains utilizing state-of-the-art AI techniques, proving credence to the versatility and effectiveness of an AI approach in health care and medicine. We envisage that this book is ideal for individuals new to the notion of AI in health care, equally, early career academics who wish to further expand on their knowledge in AI in medicine. What will be presented is in no means an exhaustive list of applications, but most definitely a varied one.

This book examines the history of the Victorian Cancer Registry (VCR) in Australia from its establishment in the late 1930s through to the present day. It sheds new light on the history of medicine and the broader social and cultural histories affected by advances in cancer control science, providing a historical account of cancer registration that is empirically grounded in new archival and oral sources. It addresses the obstacles that proponents of cancer registration faced, how governments came to support permanent registries, and the subsequent contributions of the VCR and other registries to cancer research. In charting this history, the book discusses some of the political, social, and cultural implications of registry-driven science, and the links between developments in scientific knowledge and campaigning for policy changes around cancer. 

This book highlights a collection of high-quality peer-reviewed research papers presented at the 7th International Conference on Information System Design and Intelligent Applications (INDIA 2022), held at BVRIT Hyderabad College of Engineering for Women, Hyderabad, Telangana, India, from February 25-26, 2022. It covers a wide range of topics in computer science and information technology, from wireless networks, social networks, wireless sensor networks, information and network security, to web security, Internet of Things, bioinformatics, geoinformatics, and computer networks.

This book discusses how American literary modernism and postmodernism interconnect memory and identity and if, and how, the intertwining of memory and identity has been related to the dominant socio-cultural trends in the United States or the specific historical contexts in the world. The book's opening chapter is the interrogation of the narrator's memories of Jay Gatsby and his life in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. The second chapter shows how in William Faulkner's Light in August memory impacts the search for identities in the storylines of the characters. The third chapter discusses the correlation between memory, self, and culture in Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire. Discussing Robert Coover's Gerald's Party, the fourth chapter reveals that memory and identity are contextualized and that cognitive processes, including memory, are grounded in the body's interaction with the environment, featuring dehumanized characters, whose identities appear as role-plays. The subsequent chapter is the analysis of how Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything Is Illuminated deals with the heritage of Holocaust memories and postmemories. The last chapter focuses on Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day, the reconstructive nature of memory, and the politics and production of identity in Southeastern Europe. 

This book presents collection of research papers presented at International Conference on Information and Communication Technology (ICICT 2021) organized by Department of Information Technology, Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology, Sikkim, India, during 23-24 December 2021. The book includes papers in the research area of communication networks, data science, healthcare informatics, bio-medical image processing, security of information including cryptography, machine learning applications, and AI applications.

This book is an elaborate account of the effects of abiotic stressors on cereals crops. It not only discusses the impacts of abiotic stress on the crops but also the physiological, biochemical, and molecular strategies applied in plant of cereal crops to alleviate the detrimental effects of abiotic stressors. The book also elaborates on various molecular response to the abiotic stress. It is a knowledgebase providing readers latest updates on development of high-performance diagnostics, stress induced responses, genomics, phenomics and metabolomics involved in abiotic stress tolerance of cereal food crops. The book is useful for plant scientists and research scholars. Post graduate students of agriculture sciences, plant physiology, botany and biochemistry also benefit from this compilation.

This book presents an overview on ten years of rich experience and innovative development of scientific research around pedagogy, didactics and educative technologies at Cadi Ayyad University. From active learning in traditional teaching to technology enhanced learning, many efforts have been done so far by both researchers and PhD students making from Science Education an essential pillar that should bring innovative solutions and improve quality in teaching and learning in classes. 13 different topics have been selected and converted to chapters summarizing a decennia of active and open research works at the university. The selected chapters are a compilation of initiatives of research that Cadi Ayyad University team's are developing and experimenting among students. This compilation is unique in the field and country, so that it provides a innovative view on how some key topics are addressed in Higher Education.

This edited book brings out a comprehensive account of the faunal diversity in Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve which is part of the Sundaland Biodiversity hotspot. The main focus of this volume is to address the ecological and economic significance of the biodiversity of this region. The book provides latest information on the faunal diversity of Great Nicobar Biosphere. It focuses on various faunal communities of this regions such as Floral diversity, Butterflies, Moths, Dragonflies & Damselflies, Termites, Hymenoptera, Coleoptera, Scorpion, Spiders, Turtle, Nicobar megapode. Chapters in this volume also covers Reptiles & Amphibians, Fishes, Mammals, Land and freshwater Mollusca. Marine animals such as Opisthobranchs, Sponges, Scleractinian Corals and Soft corals, Sea Anemones, Polyclads, Marine Molluscs, Echinoderms are also discussed. It is of interest for the researchers, teachers, scientists, capacity builders, policy makers. Also serve as reading materials for graduate and post graduate students e.g., Wildlife Biology, Forestry, Environmental Science, Wildlife Ecology, Zoology, Life sciences, Parks/Sanctuaries managers, National and International scientists, policy makers will also find this to be a useful document.

This book highlights the principles, research advances, and applications of plasmonic photocatalysis. As a new class of catalysts, plasmonic nanostructures with the unique ability to harvest solar energy across the entire visible spectrum and produce effective photocatalysis are viewed as a promising pathway for the energy crisis. Although plasmonic catalysis has been widely reported, the excitation mechanism and energy transfer pathway are still controversial. Meanwhile, the latest discovery of catalysis on nanomaterials is less reported. This book outlines the basics of plasmonic photocatalysis, including the electromagnetic properties of metal materials and surface plasmon, and discusses the catalytic mechanisms including the nearfield enhancements, hot electron, and thermal effects. In addition, the measurement methods and current advances on molecules and nanocrystals are presented in detail. Suitable for graduate students and researchers in physics, optics and optical engineering, and materials science, the book will deepen readers' understanding of the interaction between light and nanomaterials and expand their knowledge of the principles and applications of nanophotonics.

This book illustrates the design, development, and evaluation of personalized intelligent tutoring systems that emulate human cognitive intelligence by incorporating artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is an advanced field of research. It is particularly used in the field of education to increase the effectiveness of teaching and learning techniques. With the advancement of internet technology, there is a rapid growth in web based distance learning modality. This mode of learning is better known as the e-learning system. These systems present low intelligence because they offer a pre-identified learning frame to their learners. The advantage of these systems is to offer to learn anytime and anyplace without putting emphasis on a learner's needs, competency level, and previous knowledge. Every learner has different grasping levels, previous knowledge, and preferred mode of learning, and hence, the learning process of one individual may significantly vary from other individuals. This book provides a complete reference for students, researchers, and industry practitioners interested in keeping abreast of recent advancements in this field. It encompasses cognitive intelligence and artificial intelligence which are very important for deriving a roadmap for future research on intelligent systems.  

This book addresses the need for a technical guided thought on production, consumption, and waste management of plastic and polymers in the African continent. Issues such as resource availability, processing technologies, plastic policies, and much more are covered in the book. While Africa is made up of several different countries which might be different from each other in many ways, these countries within the African continent have some commonalities such as region, some shared history, resources, and some shared policies through organizations such as the African Union, African Free trade Zone, and ECOWAS. With a population of over a billion, the African continent has become an attractive market for various businesses. Several publications in recent years have pushed for the advancement of the African continent toward increased manufacturing as a road to development. This inevitably includes the plastics and other polymers industry. Careful consideration must be taken to ensure that this growth will focus on more sustainable and greener manufacturing; otherwise, this anticipated growth in the plastics and polymer industry will only spell increased pollution and worsening of the environment.