Books published by Springer Nature Singapore

This book aims to fill the literature gap on digital instruments and FinTech in enhancing green finance. Technological innovation can increase transparency, accountability, and speed, decentralize the financial system, improve risk management, increase competition, lower costs, improve efficiency, increase cross-sectoral collaboration and integration, and scale up green finance. Artificial intelligence (AI), distributed ledger technologies (DLT) or blockchain, peer-to-peer lending platforms, big data,  Internet-based and mobile-based payment platforms, Internet of Things (IoT), matchmaking platforms including crowdlending, tokenizing green assets are potential means to scale up the green finance for achieving the SDGs. The COVID-19 pandemic, the economic downturns, and the uncertainties shrank the new investments in renewable energy projects globally. Low investment in renewable energy projects could threaten the expansion of green energy needed to provide energy security and meet SDG7 and SDG13. Investments in renewable energy projects are scarce because of several risks and a low rate of return. Although several new green financing solutions such as green bonds, green banks, green credit guarantee, carbon taxation, carbon trade, village funds, and community trust funds have been established in different countries, these are insufficient, and alternative ways to finance projects are required. The book provides several high-quality studies on utilizing digitalization, FinTech, financial innovations, and other new technologies to fill the finance gap of green projects to meet the SDG goals. The chapters are written by scholars in diverse countries and regions and include practical policy recommendations.

This book is intended for theoretical and experimental researchers who are interested in ferroelectrics and advanced memory. After introducing readers to dielectric, perovskites, advanced memories, and ferroelectric, it explains quantum simulation. Then, using molecular orbital calculation results, it explains the ferroelectric mechanism in perovskite titanium oxides in concrete terms. Lastly, the book examines the materials designed for high-performance ferroelectrics and discusses the future of high-speed memory.

The Internet-of-Things (IoT) revolution has triggered the need of massive connectivity for billions of devices requiring a system capacity which is far beyond the current network designs that can be supported. This emerging requirement has reshaped the society and industry in pursuing efficient communication paradigm. In particular, massive machine-type communications (mMTC) will be a prime driver for enabling the vision of scalable IoT with heterogeneous applications, where the massive access is of paramount importance. This book discusses important massive IoT scenarios and the key technical requirements of the corresponding massive access. We review the state-of-the-art IoT standards and mMTC solutions, and summarize the limitations of the existing schemes from the perspectives of the network architecture, random access procedure, and multiple access techniques. Here, we specify the massive access challenges and reveal that the facilitation of MTC invokes a dramatically different access scheme from current ones mainly designed for human-centric communications. Moreover, we propose several promising massive access solutions to overcome the limitations, where sufficient theoretical model and algorithm design guidance are provided. Besides, detailed simulation and engineering implementation methods are also included.

This book brings together valuable insights about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the business environment from an Asian perspective. While some businesses in Asia have been swift to embrace the new normal, others have found the disruption to the traditional way of doing business challenging. Businesses are striving to respond, adapt, and thrive under the shadow of the unprecedented upheaval to the business environment that has forced them to rethink their strategies, processes, and operating models. There seems to be a consensus among business scholars and stakeholders that the continuous embrace of change and transformation of business models will assist businesses to sustain a long-term competitive advantage. The chapters in this book explore shifts in business innovation and strategies linked to the "e;new normal"e; of doing business during the pandemic, bringing to light issues, challenges, and opportunities that firms can expect to face in their need to ensure sustainability post-pandemic and beyond.

Cultural entrepreneurship uses culture as a way to understand innovative business ventures. Culture in this edited book involves the beliefs and values associated with certain forms of behaviour. This means the way individuals are involved in business ventures is based on their cultural ideas. This edited book focuses on how cultural entrepreneurship is an important way to understand how cultural products and services such as art, food, music and literature influence the development of business ventures. Thereby highlighting the interesting and unique way cultural ideas are embedded in entrepreneurial activities.

This book offers insight into designerly ways of knowing from the perspectives of experts and professionals engaging in diverse forms of design in workplaces and other public domains. It also aids in the understanding of design practices from designers' viewpoints via case studies. By pursuing a reflective inquiry in their design epistemology (designerly ways of knowing), design praxiology (practices of design), or design phenomenology (forms of designs), self-studies of design practices, and presenting studies of designs, the authors of this book demonstrate how they influence the people and the object of inquiry or design. The case studies presented in this book also illustrate how designers develop their expertise, and provides inspiration for the incorporation of design-thinking and practice in education.

This book analyses and synthesises past and current approaches to STEM Education in the Early Years, particularly the role of digital technologies and play based pedagogies, and provides a look forward to a new way of conceiving STEM Education. It presents a literature review of existing best practice in STEM education, both in Australia and internationally. It also presents theoretical and pedagogical discussions that outlines a new approach to STEM Education, based on a four-year, longitudinal, Early Years project. It provides educational frameworks for educators' use to enhance student learning in STEM, both in formal school contexts and beyond. This book focuses on a number of core themes in the research literature, including STEM education policy (nationally and internationally); the economic, social and political implication of STEM Education; the nexus between digital technologies, STEM, and play based pedagogies; the confidence and competence of early childhood educators and their professional development requirements; STEM education beyond formal schooling; and a new pedagogical approach to STEM education. 

This book highlights future research directions and latent solutions by integrating AI and Blockchain 6G networks, comprising computation efficiency, algorithms robustness, hardware development and energy management. This book brings together leading researchers in Academia and industry from diverse backgrounds to deliver to the technical community an outline of emerging technologies, advanced architectures, challenges, open issues and future directions of 6G networks. This book is written for researchers, professionals and students to learn about the integration of technologies such as AI and Blockchain into 6G network and communications. This book addresses the topics such as consensus protocol, architecture, intelligent dynamic resource management, security and privacy in 6G to integrate AI and Blockchain and new real-time application with further research opportunities.

This book highlights the major institutional changes in the development of the Japanese retail industry after the bubble economy. The Japanese retail structure has been transformed from an abundance of small retail stores to chain stores by notable institutional changes with continuous variations in the post-1990s. It provides an insight into the impact of retail density on the household economy in the stagnant economy of Japan. The issues highlighted in this book include the background of the advent of 100-yen retail stores and strategic approach of the stores during the stagnant economy, a comparative analysis of Japanese 100-yen shops and dollar stores in United States, employment compliance of 100-yen shops and dollar stores in developing countries, factors that contributed to change the Japanese distribution channels after the 1990s, and determinants of retail density in Japan. The stagnant economy in the post-bubble period, along with changes in the large-scale retail store law, led consumers to shift from the most popular department stores to supermarkets and the cheapest retail alternatives. With its recent data and theories, this research work will be of interest to business and economics students and researchers in Japanese retailing and relevant areas.

This book examines agentic approaches by which teacher educators navigate a highly regulated environment. It investigates how teacher educators are responding to such regulation by employing approaches such as exploratory and case study research designs. This book analyzes qualitative and quantitative data to understand the diverse, innovative and critical perspectives of teacher educators who are guided by state and federal level initiatives to enhance the quality Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programs. Prominent educational theoretical perspectives are also used in this book to inform data analysis and to illuminate the empirically based findings.This book showcases research-informed insights for the global education community from leading researchers from across a number of teacher education institutions, locally and otherwise. By adopting an 'activist' approach, this book positions teacher educators' research and contribution to the field as agentive and pro-active.

This book highlights the tribological behavior of elastomers by investigating the effect of operating variables such as, the applied load and the abrasive particle size, and the materials' mechanical properties such as, tensile strength, elongation at break, hardness, and tear strength by the experimental, statistical and analytical methods. It is found that the wear mechanism is mostly friction wear, which is mixed with fatigue wear and abrading under higher applied loads or larger abrasives. The statistical method shows that the abrasive particle size has the highest contribution followed by the applied load on the wear process. Wear equation is developed to predict the wear rate considering the trends of the input variables.

This book systematically introduces the knowledge system and research results of fisheries forecasting. It is divided into four parts and seven chapters. The first part is the introduction, which mainly introduces the basic concepts, the nature of the subject, and the research contents, as well as the current status of research. The second part is about the basic knowledge of fisheries forecasting, including overview of the world marine environment, fish shoaling and migration distribution, the relationship between fish behavior and marine environment, and the basic theory of forming fishing ground. The third part is the focus of this book, including the basic principles and methods of fisheries forecasting, as well as the application of new techniques and methods in fisheries forecasting. The fourth part is the comprehensive application of fisheries forecasting, including the general situation of world marine fisheries, the impact of global marine environment changes on fisheries resources and fishing ground, and case studying of fisheries forecasting of important economic species, such as oceanic squid, jack mackerel, anchovy, and skipjack. The study of this book will help everyone to master the basic principles and methods of fisheries forecasting, as well as the application of new technologies and methods in important economic species, and lay a foundation for future work in the field of marine fisheries.

This book addresses three main issues in regional income inequality and development: meaning of regional inequality, measurement of regional inequality and the relationship between national economic development and regional income inequality. It provides analytical methods useful in exploring the determinants of regional inequality in income and productivity.  Some software commands in Stata (statistical software package) available for the measurement and analysis of income inequality are also introduced. Some researchers have argued that spatial concentration of population in and around major cities and the concurrent increase in regional inequality do not hinder national economic development, and may stimulate it. Nevertheless, many national governments seek to promote balanced regional economic development and reduce regional income inequality, because unbalanced development and higher levels of regional inequality may cause political or ethnic conflicts between different regions of the country. As the applications of the analytical methods introduced in the first part of the book, the second part presents four independent empirical studies on regional inequality and development in Indonesia. They offer very interesting case studies for the formulation of policies and programs to reduce regional inequalities, because as the world's largest archipelagic country with more than 13 thousand islands and 300 ethnic groups, Indonesia is spatially diverse in terms of its ecology, natural resource endowments, economy, ethnicity and culture.This book can be used as a textbook for undergraduate and graduate students who are interested in national economic development and regional income inequality. It is also beneficial for practitioners and policy makers who are in charge of the formulation, implementation and evaluation of development policies and programs.

This book contains the first complete translation of the first half of the Pedology of the Adolescent by the Soviet thinker, educator, and teacher L.S. Vygotsky. It was the longest work published in his lifetime and was a correspondence course written by Vygotsky for teachers across the Soviet Union. The book is a sustained argument about the borders of pedology, the nature of the transition between childhood and adulthood, and the concrete character of the distinction between the lower psychological functions that we largely share with animals and those that are specific to fully socialized humans. After an initial methodological introduction, three kinds of maturation-general anatomical, sexual, and sociocultural-are explored.  This book will be followed by a companion volume covering pedology of the transitional age as a psychological and social problem.

This book highlights the latest advances on the implementation and adaptation of blockchain technologies in real-world scientific, biomedical, and data applications. It presents rapid advancements in life sciences research and development by applying the unique capabilities inherent in distributed ledger technologies. The book unveils the current uses of blockchain in drug discovery, drug and device tracking, real-world data collection, and increased patient engagement used to unlock opportunities to advance life sciences research. This paradigm shift is explored from the perspectives of pharmaceutical professionals, biotechnology start-ups, regulatory agencies, ethical review boards, and blockchain developers. This book enlightens readers about the opportunities to empower and enable data in life sciences.

This edited book on South Asia is part of the book series "e;Managing the Post-colony."e; This series is co-edited by Nimruji Jammulamadaka and Gavin Jack and is focused on managing and organising within the historical and contemporary structures of colonization and imperialism within and across nation-states and social domains especially the economic and the cultural domain. This edited book on South Asia is committed to a presentation of indigenous understandings and knowledge around the organizing, religion, language and cultural production through the lens of anti, post and de-colonial thought. This book forces the reader to consider not just what we know but how and where we know and can be instrumental in identifying and challenging dominant modes of management knowledge production. The decolonial movement is closely associated with scholars like Walter Mignolo, Anibal Quijano and others who expose how Western rationality and science, emanating from the enlightenment project, are being used by colonial powers to consolidate their imperial projects. The authors in this book argue that a potent form of colonization is epistemic in nature. This book series seeks to present cutting-edge, critical, interdisciplinary, and geographically and culturally diverse perspectives on the contemporary nature, experience and theorization of managing and organizing in post-colonial location under conditions of coloniality. These conditions subsume ongoing and new forms of colonisation/imperialism, and complex resistances to them, and lives lived outside them, and may be drawn out and investigated in regard to a multiplicity of different business- and management-related topics.The power of domination is its ability to silence other ways of knowing, being and doing. Focus on South Asia: Ways of Managing, Organising and Living delivers a profound critique of Western management theory and its universalistic claims. But, it goes much further to advance other managements and ways of organising from the peoples and communities of South Asia.                                      Stella M. Nkomo, University of Pretoria, South Africa  I like very much the orientation and the composition of the volumeyou have a) the meaning of management in the West changed after the Industrial revolution and by 1900 became a political issue domestically in the US and before that colonial, as you show in the colonial context of South Asia; b) so the constitution of the settler management as you show with McCaulay, destituted all existing local form of organizing their praxis of living; c) the task now is the reconstitution of the destituted, the pluriversal human (and animals too) self-organization subjected to Western regulations to their own benefit, while materializing their rhetoric of racial destitution (incapable of organizing like us, impossible for them to be like, us we have to teach them civilization, etc.). Walter Mignolo,  William H. Wannamaker Professor of Literature and Romance Studies at Duke University, USA Very Impressive and Much NeededPushkala Prasad, Zankel Chair Professor, Skidmore College.

The book presents select proceedings of the International Conference on Materials, Design and Manufacturing (ICMDMSE 2022). The book covers recent trends in design and manufacturing practices relating to sustainability. Various topics covered in this book include materials design for sustainability, material characterization, tribology, finite element methods (FEM), computational fluid dynamics in designing materials, manufacturing techniques inclined to sustainability, additive manufacturing, energy, Industry 4.0, MEMS, green manufacturing, and optimization techniques. This book will be useful for researchers and professionals working in various fields of mechanical engineering. 

This book focuses on the topic of academic publishing. It discusses the mounting, serious problems that researchers, particularly new researchers, encounter when trying to publish their research. The book addresses the issues of publishing as well as the salient factors militating against academic publication and the mitigating factors encouraging academic publication. It provides potential solutions, suggestions, and strategies for overcoming some of these problems.Growing research output from Southeast Asia including Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and China reveals the struggles that many authors have to confront when attempting to publish their work in reputable journals. In both South Africa and other parts of Africa, academic researchers are beginning to show strong evidence of credible academic output. These researchers all need valid outlets for their work and the security that authentic peer review brings to the reviewing process. In the fields of education, social sciences, and professional practices, e.g., architecture and law, recent years have seen the emergence of new outlets for practitioners' research outputs in areas such as one's own practice, self-reflection, and narrative inquiry. These outlets are discussed in this book. The book also discusses the malign influence of predatory publications in detail.This book will be beneficial to university academics, postgraduate students, Ph.D. supervisors, and new researchers.

Therapeutic Spiral Model (TSM) psychodrama is an innovative three stage system of clinically modified psychodrama to treat trauma safely and effectively.  This book presents the theoretical evolution of the Therapeutic Spiral Model from a Western model of early trauma-informed therapy to the worldwide system of experiential change that it is today. This book demonstrates the anchor of classical psychodrama theory and methods modified by clinical observations and awareness of current theories about trauma and how it effects the brain, See the evolution from 1992 to its present structures. It provides an accessible practice manual of using TSM psychodrama to promote trauma recovery in many cultures, countries, languages and settings. It presents a unique clinical map for intra-psychic experiential trauma therapy connecting classical psychodrama to TSM psychodrama. It demonstrates psychological concepts like projective identification and information from neurobiology for trauma repair in individual and group settings with action methods. The book shows easy-to-understand visual images such as trauma bubbles, therapeutic spirals and the autonomous healing center to help communicate internal states of spontaneity. The authors draw on their own rich experiences teaching TSM psychodrama in the global community and share stories of people's recovery around the world. The audience for this publication includes trainers, practitioners, psychotherapists, trauma workers, and researchers working in a broad array of disciplines and human services.

 This book gathers the proceedings of the 7th International Conference and Exhibition on Sustainable Energy and Advanced Materials (ICE-SEAM), held on November 2021, a virtual conference organized in Melaka, Malaysia. It focuses on two relatively broad areas-advanced materials and sustainable energy-and a diverse range of subtopics:Advanced materials and related technologies: liquid crystals, semiconductors, superconductors, optics, lasers, sensors, mesoporous materials, nanomaterials, smart ferrous materials, amorphous materials, crystalline materials, biomaterials, metamaterials, composites, polymers, design, analysis, development, manufacturing, processing and testing for advanced materials.Sustainable energy and related technologies: energy management, storage, conservation, industrial energy efficiency, energy-efficient buildings, energy-efficient traffic systems, energy distribution, energy modeling, hybrid and integrated energy systems, fossil energy, nuclear energy, bioenergy, biogas, biomass geothermal power, non-fossil energies, wind energy, hydropower, solar photovoltaic, fuel cells, electrification, and electrical power systems and controls.

This book describes the importance of heat transfer in heat exchangers, and fluids properties play a vital role to increase heat transfer rate translating the size of the equipment and cuts in the capital and running cost in the long term. Nanofluids applications in heat exchangers will help to improve the thermophysical properties of the fluid and therefore heat transfer. And, this book explains the enhancing mechanisms of heat transfer by employing nanofluids in heat exchangers. A critical discussion will enable to estimate the pros and cons of such fluids in different types of heat exchangers. Prevailing working conditions for short- and long-term implementation of various types of nanofluids will be discussed and introduced to the readers. This book helps the researchers, scientist and academicians working in the domain to be able to get a comprehensive knowledge at one place regarding the preparation, properties, measurements, data reduction, characteristics and applications of nanofluids in heat exchangers.

This volume explores the discourse of disaster and women in the existing social settings and state disaster-related affairs in coastal Bangladesh. It covers various issues ranging from disproportionate vulnerability, coping and adaptation mechanisms for women, limitations for promoting participation and involvement of women in the decision-making process both in family and community and changes in the role and responsibilities of women for reducing disaster risk and vulnerability. It contributes to the deconstruction of gender-based identity by addressing women's changing practices and roles in the coastal area in terms of the involvement of women with the development process, earning/income generation activities, decision-making process, access and entitlements to resources. This book presents the most current and inclusive circumstances of disaster and women of the coastal area in Bangladesh. The insights obtained through the eyes of a sociologist from a holistic perspective make this book different and unique. The book is of interest to researchers, academics, policymakers and professionals engaged in the social understanding of disaster studies, as well as to researchers and practitioners in interdisciplinary domains, including sociology, gender studies, social work, environmental studies, and development studies.

This book aims to develop a conceptual framework upon which to draw for analysis of new and existing national reforms in Australia. Due to growth in the volume and complexity of national uniform legislation, law reform agencies, the Commonwealth, state and territory governments and policy institutions have more, rather than less, to do. This book explores how they are required to respond to debates among actors from divergent geographical, commercial and ideological backgrounds, who sometimes demonstrate irreconcilable differences in values and perspectives.From a policy implication perspective, this book summarises a vast quantity of original and complex data so that it can be applied in the field-among policymakers, reformers, legislative drafters, students and the wider audience of legal practitioners working with harmonised legislation in federations. This book acknowledges that uniform legislation is not a panacea for all legal challenges currently faced by federations. However, this book takes a step towards demystifying the many confusing factors that have obscured the underlying general principles. A working theory of 'federal harmonisation' enables 'the art of the impossible' to become a practical reality. This book condenses data on legislation in models. The models enable transparent, evidence-based decisions in the process of a federation's harmonisation to progress regulatory best practices and achieve more reliable, sustainable results.

This book explores the dynamics of the socio-cultural baggage that Indian indentured migrants took with them to the Caribbean island of Trinidad and how they have since become a vibrant diaspora community, namely the Indo-Trinidadians. It combines social history with first-hand fieldwork data to portray human ingenuity in terms of social reconstitution and community building in a hostile socio-cultural environment. Furthermore, it addresses key social institutions-religion, caste, and family-and cultural elements-language, foodways, and ethnicity. Its analytical framework is guided by the concept of metamorphosis; it steers clear of the persistence versus change hypotheses. Given its focus, it will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology, social anthropology, history, and migration and diaspora studies.

This book presents select proceedings of the International Conference on Energy Conversion and Thermo-fluid Systems (i-CONECTS 2021). It covers the latest trends in the areas of energy conversion and thermofluid systems. The topics covered include enhanced heat transfer, multi-phase flows, power generation technologies, fluid-structure interaction, alternative fuels, micro- and-nano-scale heat and mass transfer, energy, emissions control technologies, etc. The book will be a valuable reference for the researchers and professionals interested in the energy conversion technologies and allied fields.

This book explores the possibility and feasibility of building a new model of major-country relations between China and the United States, which is of great significance to the sound interaction between the two countries and the preservation of peace and stability of the world. In early June 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama reached a consensus on building a new model of major-country relations at the historical Sunny lands meeting in California. In the years that followed, the two leaders were committed to that goal despite the different interpretations in its substance. How is the new model of major-country relations conceptualized and developed? What renders it possible? Is the major-country conflict inevitable? These are the basic issues addressed in this book. Now, China-US relations are at a critical juncture. The international community is watching the world's two largest economies and is quite concerned about the future of one of the world's most complicated bilateral relationships. This timely publication of Professor Tao Wenzhao provides us with a realistic approach to managing this vital relationship in a candid and balanced way.

This book presents the select proceedings of the first International Conference on Energy and Materials Technologies (ICEMT) 2021, organized by the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sri Sivasubramaniya Nadar College of Engineering, Kalavakkam, India. It covers the recent technologies in two broad thematic areas: energy and materials. Various topics covered in this book include hybrid energy, advanced energy systems, energy management, energy policy, geothermal, nuclear energy, bio-energy, waste to energy, power plants, and automotives. The book will be useful for students, researchers, and professionals in the area of mechanical engineering, especially various domains of energy.

The book presents select proceedings of the International Conference on Mechanical Engineering (INCOME 2021). It presents the topics related to thermal and fluid mechanics including various sources of energy. The topics covered include theoretical and practical aspects of thermal and fluid systems and thermal design of the related equipment. The book also includes latest topics such as solar energy, computational techniques, enhancement of energy storage capacity, fluid solid interaction, and hybrid energy systems. The book will be a valuable reference for beginners, researchers, and professionals interested in research, design and development in thermal and fluid sciences.

This book focuses on how supply chain finance serves and improves industrial supply chain and financial activities of SMEs in China from innovative perspective. How does supply chain finance empower SMEs? What is the basis for granting credit to SMEs? What kind of supply chain finance model can most effectively support SMEs? To address the above questions, this book adopts positivism, uses an inductive method and carries out case studies through qualitative analysis. At the end of book, the author concludes although many successful cases of supply chain finance could be found, it needs further testing and revision in practice for more enterprises due to its limits.

This book offers a wealth of knowledge and information about the fundamental and practical aspects of flexible organic light-emitting diode (OLED) devices. The book provides an overview of these devices by considering their merits and business potential, the history of their research and development, the fundamental technology, and required properties for materials, devices, processes, and future trends of flexible OLED devices. The practical sections describe novel, cutting-edge expertise for flexible substrates, gas barriers, encapsulation, novel  electrodes, and on-demand patterning for OLED devices.  Applications of the technologies of ultra-thin glass, stainless steel foil, and barrier films are described as flexible substrates. The book also explains features such as dry-barrier layers, wet-barrier layers, multi-layer barrier structures, dam-fill encapsulation, thin film encapsulation (TFE), and laminating encapsulation. In addition, there are explanations of novel electrodes and on-demand ink-jet patterning, both of which are applicable to flexible OLED devices. As the novel electrodes, transparent conducting polymer, silver nanowire (AgNW), metal-mesh and roll-to-roll (R2R) process technologies are included.  The know-how that is described here is applicable to flexible devices, not only for OLEDs, OPVs, OTFTs, and others but also for sensors, wearable devices, robots, and healthcare devices. The information contained in this valuable book is useful for all scientists, engineers, and managers who are interested in the field of flexible devices.