Books published by Springer Nature Singapore

This book is a comprehensive, scholarly account of Hong Kong Public Budgeting, spanning from the pre-1997 British rule to the post-1997 Chinese rule. Transcending the existing comparative budgeting studies which are either central-government focused or symmetric local-government focused, this book presents Hong Kong Public Budgeting as a distinctive case of territorial autonomy. It offers historical and comparative analyses of Hong Kong Public Budgeting, tracing the evolution of budgetary institutions and budgetary decision-making and examining the critical issues of budget openness, budget oversight, and budget allocation. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of comparative budgeting studies. It will also be an excellent text for public budgeting instructors and students in East Asia and Hong Kong.

Neural networks as the commonly used machine learning algorithms, such as artificial neural networks (ANNs) and convolutional neural networks (CNNs), have been extensively used in the GIScience domain to explore the nonlinear and complex geographic phenomena. However, there are a few studies that investigate the parameter settings of neural networks in GIScience. Moreover, the model performance of neural networks often depends on the parameter setting for a given dataset. Meanwhile, adjusting the parameter configuration of neural networks will increase the overall running time. Therefore, an automated approach is necessary for addressing these limitations in current studies. This book proposes an automated spatially explicit hyperparameter optimization approach to identify optimal or near-optimal parameter settings for neural networks in the GIScience field. Also, the approach improves the computing performance at both model and computing levels. This book is written for researchers of the GIScience field as well as social science subjects.

This book presents an empirical study to develop and validate a proficiency scale of business English writing in the Chinese tertiary context. Through a mixture of intuitive, quantitative and qualitative methods, the book demonstrates how a pool of descriptors are collectively formulated, statistically calibrated and meticulously validated for the establishment of a proficiency scale of business English writing. The writing scale differs in significant ways from the existing language scales, most of which were constructed in English as L1 or L2 contexts and applied to English for General Purposes (EGP) domains. This book also provides important insights into the construct of business English writing as well as the methods for English for Specific Purposes (ESP) proficiency scale development and validation. It is of particular interest to those who work in the area of ESP teaching and assessment.

This book presents the select proceedings of the Virtual Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (VCDRR 2021). It provides insights on urban resilience and sustainable infrastructure. All the chapters in this volume are segregated into five clusters, e.g., Resilient infrastructure in construction, Innovative construction interventions, Waste Management and Disaster Risk Reduction, Urban Development and Sustainability, and Cross-cutting issues. Various topics covered in this book are risk assessment, prevention, mitigation, preparedness and response, renewable energy, waste management, resilient cities, and environmental management. This book is a comprehensive volume on disaster risk reduction (DRR) and its management for a sustainable built environment. This book will be useful for the students, researchers, policy makers and professionals working in the area of civil engineering, especially disaster management. 

This book examines contexts and possibilities in Aotearoa New Zealand education contexts arising from the international trend for open, flexible, innovative learning environments (ILE), specifically on the pedagogical load. The book responds to questions such as: What does it mean to teach, learn or lead in an innovative learning environment? What happens when teachers move form single cell learning spaces to open, collaborative ones?The chapters provide examples of how teaching in new spaces can be an exciting challenge for teachers and students where they try new ways of teaching and learning, and rethink the purposes of learning and the implications of societal change for learning and what is valued. Examples are drawn from pre-service teachers working in primary and secondary schools and in-service teachers learning to become professionals.The book offers insights into a variety of educational contexts where teachers and students learn and adapt to new learning spaces, and also how different teaching and learning partnerships may be conceived, and flourish. It focuses attention on a range of aspects that teachers, school leaders, and other educators, and researchers may find valuable when they embark on similar initiatives to consider issues pivotal to productive and effective innovative learning environment design, development and implementation.

This book discusses the connotation and function of social governance and elaborates on social governance thought in classical Marxism, Mao Zedong's social governance thought, and social governance thought in socialism with Chinese characteristics, especially in Xi Jinping's New Era. Together, these components constitute the basic theory of social governance in China. Moreover, the book clarifies ancient and modern social governance thought in China and analyzes institutional innovations, practices, and experiences of Chinese social governance. It depicts the evolution and reform of social governance in China both vertically and horizontally. In turn, it addresses the overall system, fundamental institutions, hierarchy, field, and mode of China's social governance, as well as its connection to national security. It discusses major issues and their causes, together with enhancing mechanisms. In closing, it outlines future trends in Chinese social governance, and its role in and effects on the global governance system.

The book is an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the case of language in education reform and language policy controversies of Hong Kong over the initial two decades after 1997. It is a scholarly monograph of conscientious educators and researchers who have been active during the education reform, collaborating with different parties on school development and classroom teaching experiments. This book provides a multiple-perspective investigation into the education and language matters. Besides socio-political perspectives, this book also emphasizes the frontline educational and practical perspectives. The book explores the benefits and effective methods of mother-tongue and multi-lingual teaching that have emerged in the period.  Based on the problematic experience of language purism and bifurcation in the reform, the book argues for an inclusive multilingual education policy with mother-tongue as the core. This book provides potential solutions and good practices to tackle the complex issues brought about by medium of instruction policy reforms in post-colonial times.

This book features selected papers from the International Conference on Communication and Applied Technologies (ICOMTA 2021), jointly organized by Universidad del Rosario (Bogota, Colombia); the University of Vigo (Galicia, Spain); the University of Santiago de Compostela-Equipo de Investigaciones Politicas (Galicia, Spain); the University of A Coruna (Galicia, Spain); and the Information and Technology Management Association (ITMA), during September 2021. It covers recent advances in the field of digital communication and processes digital social media, software, big data, data mining, and intelligent systems.

This book focuses on understanding the shoreline dynamics, nearshore processes and sediment transport around Rameswaram Island and the cities of Dhanushkodi and Arichamunai. Rameswaram Island is located between the Gulf of Mannar on the south and Palk Bay on the north, between the southern tip of India and Sri Lanka, and is unique in terms of physical, chemical and biological processes. The Gulf of Mannar is established as a marine biodiversity conservation area by its richness of variety and variability of marine species such as corals, finfish, shellfish and other fishes. The island is predominantly influenced by four seasons: northeast monsoon, post-monsoon, summer and southwest monsoon; and the sedimentological and hydrodynamic conditions significantly change seasonally, resulting in the island's responding in a different manner with each season. It also explains the physical forces and their impacts around these areas. Rameswaram Island has existed naturally for a long period of time even under the influence of different water masses of the Gulf of Mannar and Palk Bay. Understanding the regional natural phenomena is the only solution to carry out the best management practices to develop coastal constructions and modifications.

This book aims to address emerging challenges in the field of agriculture and natural resource management using the principles and applications of data science (DS). The book is organized in three sections, and it has fourteen chapters dealing with specialized areas.  The chapters are written by experts sharing their experiences very lucidly through case studies, suitable illustrations and tables. The contents have been designed to fulfil the needs of geospatial, data science, agricultural, natural resources and environmental sciences of traditional universities, agricultural universities, technological universities, research institutes and academic colleges worldwide. It will help the planners, policymakers and extension scientists in planning and sustainable management of agriculture and natural resources. The authors believe that with its uniqueness the book is one of the important efforts in the contemporary cyber-physical systems.

This book presents the results of a novel investigation into building deterioration and defects in Malaysia's public schools. It sets forth an in-depth theoretical and empirical underpinning the maintenance management of public schools with the view to develop a building deterioration prediction model of building condition based on factors contributing to building defects for school buildings. The approach adopted is mixed method encompassing archived documentation, questionnaire survey and interview of sampled schools in Malaysia. It presents a number of useful tables, graphs and statistical analysis which are useful in understanding the factors contributing to building defects under reference. The prediction model assists the decision making of maintenance management to be more efficient with comprehensive budgeting as well as optimal maintenance and repair work. The book is of relevance to school managers, maintenance management practitioners and academics towards measuring and improving the building condition in schools.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of universal health coverage in India. It starts by setting the historical context and politics of the debates around universal health coverage (UHC) in India and proceeds to analyze the present crisis of public health in the country. The book examines the present policies on the pharmaceutical industry, missing links in universalizing health, and the importance of social determinants of health. It is divided into five sections, and some of the topics covered include the difference between comprehensive primary health care and universal health care, public health and medical care, health service, and health system.  The chapters are contributed by scholars and practitioners based on historical, interdisciplinary, empirical, and policy research. The book is insightful to academics, public health administrators, policymakers, practitioners, and students interested in health care and organization, looking to transform theory into policy and practice.

The book covers computational statistics, its methodologies and applications for IoT device. It includes the details in the areas of computational arithmetic and its influence on computational statistics, numerical algorithms in statistical application software, basics of computer systems, statistical techniques, linear algebra and its role in optimization techniques, evolution of optimization techniques, optimal utilization of computer resources, and statistical graphics role in data analysis. It also explores computational inferencing and computer model's role in design of experiments, Bayesian analysis, survival analysis and data mining in computational statistics.

The book provides fault detection and diagnosis approaches from the perspective of filtering analysis. In order to design fault detection filters, it uses set-membership principles to deal with the unknown but bounded noise term. Some regular geometric spaces are introduced, such as the ellipsoid, polyhedron, interval, to describe the feasible parameter sets of the given system. Both principles and engineering practice have been addressed, with more weight placed on engineering practice. Some typical application cases are studied for fault detection and diagnosis in detail, which are power converter, permanent magnet synchronous motor, pitch system of wind turbine. Given its scope, the book offers a valuable guide for students, teachers, engineers and researchers in the field of fault detection and diagnosis.

This book is intended for textile designers, fashion designers, and for those interested in the integration of graphic design with textile surface printing. The book discusses how abstract graphic designs with intense color palette range work on different types of fabrics, will be beneficial for designers. The book provides beautiful illustrations of abstract designs that can be used directly for textile printing and also acts as inspiration (or motivation) for development of new designs. Abstract designs represent an accurate depiction of a visual reality and uses shapes, colors and forms to achieve its effect. This book provides illustrations that show the importance of color and color combinations with bright, warm and dull colors. The book presents flawless illustrations with great harmony between the diverse shapes and overall color combinations. All the illustrations in this book are explained briefly. The illustrations can also be used in other areas like wall paper design, packaging design, ceramic design and many more.

The main focus of this book is presenting practical procedures for improving learning effectiveness using note taking activities during e-learning courses.Although presentation of e-learning activities recently has been spreading to various education sectors, some practical problems have been discussed such as evaluation of learning performance and encouragement of students. The authors introduce note taking activity as a conventional learning tool in order to promote individual learning activity and learning efficacy. The effectiveness of note taking has been measured in practical teaching in a Japanese university using techniques of learning analytics, and the results are shown here.The relationships between note taking activity and students' characteristics, the possibility of predicting the final learning performance using metrics of students' note taking, and the effectiveness for individual emotional learning factors are evaluated. Some differences between blended learning and fully online learning courses are also discussed. The authors provide novel analytical procedures and ideas to manage e-learning courses. In particular, the assessment of note taking activity may help to track individual learning progress and to encourage learning motivation.

This book highlights the advances and trends in the safety analysis of sodium-cooled fast reactors, especially from the perspective of particle bed-related phenomena during core disruptive accidents. A sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) is an optimized candidate of the next-generation nuclear reactor systems. Its safety is a critical issue during its R&D process. The book elaborates on research progresses in particle bed-related phenomena in terms of the molten-pool mobility, the molten-pool sloshing motion, the debris bed formation behavior, and the debris bed self-leveling behavior. The book serves as a good reference for researchers, professionals, and postgraduate students interested in sodium-cooled fast reactors. Knowledge provided is also useful for those who are engaging in severe accident analysis for lead-cooled fast reactors and light water reactors.

This book discusses advancements in the applications of nanoparticles in tissue engineering. It examines the applications of nanobiomaterials in hard tissue regeneration, fabrication, and characterization. The book also analyzes the implication of three-dimensional and four-dimensional fabrication techniques for the production of the scaffold in tissue engineering and their advantages over conventional scaffold production techniques. Further, it presents smart materials used in making 4-D scaffolds that imitate the dynamic response of tissue against natural stimuli and adapt to the microenvironment by changing their conformation or other properties. It also summarizes the growing field of biomolecular detection and biosensors in tissue engineering and the increasing prominence of nanoparticles in the biosensors. Further, it provides the future outlook and associated challenges of the application of nanomaterials in tissue engineering.

This book focuses on building air conditioning demand response and power storage batteries as the resources that make up the virtual power plant. The research and its outcomes presented in this book provide an overview of virtual power plant technology. The contents focus on both fundamentals and advanced topics such as role of central power supply control office, battery charge and discharge control system, power system simulation, system design for practical application, etc. This is a highly informative and carefully presented book, providing insight to students, engineers, and researchers in the field of power systems

This book provides a comprehensive and systematic overview of the latest advances in nanomaterials for proteomics, both theoretical and practical. Consisting of seven chapters, it first covers the synthesis methods, characterization, principles, and performance of functional nanomaterials in various branches of proteomics in detail. This is followed by the applications of nanomaterials for the separation and analysis of various proteins and peptides. Given its scope, the book appeals to a broad readership, including those active in proteomics and materials science; it can also serve as a reference book for students majoring in proteomics analysis.

This book provides significant information regarding the policies and provisions for early childhood teacher education programs in universities in fourteen different countries. Early childhood education and care (ECEC) is expanding rapidly across the globe with unprecedented numbers of children attending EC centres, requiring the investment in educators to provide good quality ECEC. Yet, there is an inconsistent approach to early childhood teacher preparation and the quality of existing programs is not known.Each country's contributing author/s is/are well known in their field for their in-depth knowledge of early childhood teacher education programs including content, structure, and professional experience that works within the scope of policy and registration agencies. The chapters address the current situation of staffing-shortage or oversupply-of early childhood teachers in their country. The book informs policy regarding content of early childhood teacher preparation programs and provides evidence of current courses across many under-represented countries throughout the world. It makes a significant contribution to understanding the environment for early childhood teacher programs.

This book is about skateboard video and experimental ways of thinking about cities. It makes a provocative argument to consider skate video as an archive of the city from below. Here 'below' has a dual meaning. First, below refers to an unofficial archive, a subaltern history of urban space. Second, below refers to the angle from which skateboarders and filmers gaze upon, capture, and consume the city-from the ground up. Since taking to the streets in the early 1980s, skateboarding has been captured on film, video tape and digital memory cards, edited into consumable forms and circulated around the world. Videos are objects amenable to ethnographic analysis while also archiving exercises in urban ethnography by their creators. I advocate for taking skate video seriously as a (fragile) archive of the urban backstage, collective memory across time and space, creative urban practice, urban encounters (people-to-people and people-to-object/s), and the globalization of a subculture at once delinquent and magnificent.

This edited book demonstrates a new multidimensional comprehension of the relationship between war, the military and civil society by exploring the global rise of paramilitary culture. Moving beyond binary understandings that inform the militarization of culture thesis and examining various national and cultural contexts, the collection outlines ways in which a process of paramilitarization is shaping the world through the promotion of new warrior archetypes. It is argued that while the paramilitary hero is associated with military themes, their character is in tension with the central principals of modern military organization, something that often challenges the state's perceived monopoly on violence. As such paramilitization has profound implications for institutional military identity, the influence of paramilitary organizations and broadly how organised violence is popularly understood

This book presents the kinematic earthquake rupture studies from moment tenor to spatial-temporal rupture imaging. For real-time seismic hazard monitoring, the new stable automatic moment tensor (AutoBATS) algorithm is developed and implemented for the real-time MT reports by the Taiwan Earthquake Science Information System (TESIS). In order to understand the rupture behavior of the 2013 Mw 8.3 Okhotsk deep earthquake sequence, the 3D MUltiple SIgnal Classification Back Projection (MUSIC BP) with P and pP phases is applied. The combined P- and pP-wave BP imaging of the mainshock shows two stages of anti-parallel ruptures along two depths separating for about 10~15 km. Unusual super-shear ruptures are observed through the 3D BP images of two Mw 6.7 aftershocks. In last two chapters, the 3D BP imaging reveals similar rupture properties of two shallow catastrophic earthquakes (Mw=6.4) in southwestern Taiwan. Both the 2010 Jiashian and 2016 Meinong earthquakes ruptured westward with similar velocity of ~2.5 km/s along a NE-ward shallow dipping blind fault. The rupture similarities of the doublet suggest two parallel elongate asperities along the causative fault. After several decades of seismic quiescence, the 2010 Jiashian event initiated the rupture at the deeper asperity and triggered the shallower asperity which caused catastrophes six years later.

This book encompasses the macro-factors pertaining to the overall development in logistics technologies and facilities, region-specific policies and plans, industry-wide transformation in transport, manufacturing, commerce, and agriculture in China. Specifically, it describes policies and practices in China's high-quality development of logistics, China's business environment construction in logistics, and progress of port logistics in China. It also highlights the applications and prospects of blockchain technology in China's logistics industry in the year 2019. The expositions on and analyses of these subjects are based on the latest available sources and statistical data. As with the previous volumes, the ultimate aim of this book is to present a timely portrait of the rapid growth of China's logistics market and the status quo of its logistics industry. In so doing, the book offers an in-depth analysis of critical issues involved in the ongoing dynamic and multi-faceted development and provides a valuable reference resource for interested readers in the academic and professional fields.

This book explores how entrepreneurial networks provide the basis for individuals and firms to compete based on knowledge asymmetries. This book states that this is crucial in the increasingly interdependent world where social capital influences potential market performance. This edited book focuses on future trends regarding entrepreneurial networks in terms of social, cultural and market connections thereby bridging the entrepreneurship, strategy and network literature. This book provides a practical way to capture market changes as networks evolve to a more digital format. The impact of innovation and strategy on these market developments will be discussed in each chapter as a way to understand performance. 

This book provides fair and acceptable solutions to hardship issues in long-term relational supply contracts. This book uses an approach to strike a balance between the traditional approach underlying classical contract law which emphasises the almost absolute prevalence of the principle of pacta sunt servanda and a flexible approach that is based on the principle of clausula rebus sic stantibus. This book argues for an emerging principle of pacta sunt servanda bona fide on the basis of the relational contract theory. Additionally, this book demonstrates how good faith can serve as a foundation for imposing a duty to renegotiate on the parties. The aim of this book is rather to propose how relational contract theory can be applied to the analysis of specific legal rules in general.  Lastly, this boos highlights how the duty to renegotiate and the power to adapt a contract can be further developed upon the occurrence of hardship, based on good faith and the relational nature and characteristics of a long-term relational supply contract. This book explores and enriches the existing research on relational contract theory concentrates primarily on its application in domestic contract laws, particularly in the regulation of long-term contracts in American contract law. As an outcome this book provides a more feasible and satisfactory approach for courts or arbitral tribunals to undertake when facing hardship issues in international contract disputes. Overall, hardship themes, long-term relational supply contracts and good faith are examined extensively. 

This book focuses on green mine evaluation. It includes green mine evaluation methods, evaluation content, evaluation indicators, etc. The "e;Green Mine Evaluation Index"e; has been issued by the Ministry of Natural Resources of China. In order to promote mining enterprises, green mine consulting service agencies, third-party evaluation agencies and mining administration personnel to better understand and practice the provisions of green mine evaluation indicators, the authors wrote this "e;Interpretation of Green Mine Evaluation Index"e;. The content of this book specifically includes introduction, prerequisites for green mine selection, score sheet of green mine construction, related knowledge, as well as introduction of specific green mine evaluation items, including mining area environment, resource development methods, comprehensive utilization of ore resources, energy saving and emission reduction, technological innovation and smart mines, corporate management and corporate image, etc. The relevant concepts, relevant laws and policies, implementation measures, inspection points, and materials that enterprises should provide, have been vividly expounded based on the actual situation and specific cases of green mine construction. This book is useful as a reference for managers, engineering and technical personnels, teachers and students from mining enterprises, government departments, consulting services and evaluation agencies, colleges and secondary professional schools.  

This reference book, which is the second volume of Targeting Oxidative Stress in Cancer, explores oxidative stress as the potential therapeutic target for cancer therapy. The initial chapters discuss the molecular mechanisms of oxidative stress and its effects on different signaling pathways. Subsequently, the sections examine the impact of redox signaling on tumor cell proliferation and consider the therapeutic potential of dietary phytochemicals and nutraceuticals in reactive oxygen species (ROS)-induced cancer. In turn, it examines the evidence supporting the use of Vitamin C in cancer management, before presenting various synthetic and natural compounds that have therapeutic implications for oxidative stress-induced cancer. It also explores the correlation between non-coding RNA and oxidative stress. Furthermore, the book summarizes the role of stem cells in ROS-induced cancer therapy and reviews the therapeutic applications of nanoparticles to alter redox haemostasis in cancer cells. Lastly, it explores heat-shock proteins, ubiquitin ligases, and probiotics as potential therapeutic agents in ROS-mediated cancer. This book is a useful resource for basic and translational scientists as well as clinicians interested in the field of oxidative stress and cancer therapy.