Books published by Springer Nature Singapore

This book contains best selected research papers presented at ICTCS 2022: Seventh International Conference on Information and Communication Technology for Competitive Strategies. The conference will be held in Chandigarh, India during 9 ¿ 10 December 2022. The book covers state-of-the-art as well as emerging topics pertaining to ICT and effective strategies for its implementation for engineering and managerial applications. This book contains papers mainly focused on ICT for computation, algorithms and data analytics and IT security. The work is presented in two volumes.

This book not only presents the state-of-the-art research on knowledge modelling, knowledge retrieval and knowledge reuse, but also elaborates the Collaborative Knowledge Management (CKM) paradigm and the architecture for the next generation of knowledge management systems. Although knowledge management has been extensively studied, particularly in the fields of business management and engineering design, there is a lack of systematic methodologies for addressing the integrated and collaborative dimension of knowledge management during the collaborative process of designing and developing complex systems, products, processes and services. The rapid development of information technologies, together with their applications in engineering and management, has laid the foundation for a Collaborative Knowledge Management (CKM) paradigm. The book specifically discusses this paradigm from a computational perspective.By exploring specific research findings underpinning further CKM research and applications and describing methods related to hot research topics and new research areas, the book appeals to professionals, researchers and graduate students who are interested in knowledge management and related topics and who have a basic understanding of information technologies, computational methods, and knowledge management.

This book characterizes the major pollution patterns of emerging contaminants, such as sources, emission effluents, temporal and spatial distributions, multi-media transportation and transformation processes, exposure pathways to ecosystems and humans, and ecological risks. Based on this, it establishes an urbanizing region management concept and highlights how urbanization and its regional ecology have evolved into a more integrated vision. It also decouples the relations between urbanization and emissions of emerging pollutants that are framed within a broad socio-ecological context considering institutions, policies, and governance. All the theory, methods, and case studies have been taken from the authors¿ publications, which have undergone rigorous international peer review. The book presents the spatial distribution, pathways, and flow diagrams of the pollutants as well as the interactions between urbanization and regional pollution and includes detailed figures and pictures. It also investigates ecological risk characterization and expression using maps based on geographic information systems to illustrate the general profile and the spatial variation of risks.The book is a valuable resource for postgraduates, researchers, academics, environmental NGOs, and regional managers such as urban planners, environmental agency staff, legal regulators, and decision makers. Bridging the gap between environmental science and policy, it offers interdisciplinary theory, approaches, and case studies that facilitate applications of frontier science in ecology and environmental science to regional social and economic development.

This book adopts a corpus-based critical discourse analysis approach and examines a corpus of newspaper articles from Pakistani and Indian publications to gain comparative insights into the ideological construction of Chinäs Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) within news discourses. This book contributes to the works on perceptions of BRI in English newspapers of India and Pakistan. A multi-billion-dollar project of BRI or the "One Belt One Road¿ (OBOR), CPEC symbolizes a vision for regional revival under China's economic leadership and clout. Propelled by the Chinese Premier¿s dream to revive the Chinese economy as well as to restructure and catalyze infrastructural development in Asia, BRI is aimed at connecting Asia via land and sea routes with Europe, Africa, and the Middle Eastern states.

This book presents a detailed analysis in relation to human health risk assessment of the main toxic chemical pollutants in urban stormwater generated from urban traffic and land use activities. The knowledge presented in this book was derived based on comprehensive experimental investigations including field sampling, laboratory testing, mathematical modelling, spatial analysis and multivariate and univariate statistical data analyses.The key highlights of the book include the quantitative assessment of the human health risk posed by key toxic chemical pollutants in urban stormwater and the development of linkages between risk and traffic and land use. Additionally, a suite of mathematical equations are presented to predict human health risk based on traffic and land use characteristics through mathematical modelling. These outcomes can significantly assist in effective stormwater risk management under changing traffic and land use in the urban environment. The knowledge presented is of particular interest to readers such as stormwater treatment design specialists, decision-makers and urban planners since these outcomes provide practical suggestions and recommendations for effective urban stormwater treatment design.

This book covers latest advancement of finger reconstruction caused by severe injury leading to finger defects, presenting amount of valuable clinical experience and research achievement. This book provides practical guidance for hand and foot surgeons, micro- and reconstructive surgeons, trauma surgeons, orthopedic surgeons, general practitioners as well as trainees.The book mainly contains two parts: Part 1 focuses on development of the history of finger reconstruction, applied anatomy of the extremities, commonly used equipment and materials, frequently used medicines, preoperative treatment, selection of anesthesia, fundamental skill for finger reconstruction, postoperative treatment and management and methods of functional recovery after finger reconstruction. It is not uncommon in clinical scenarios that severe traumas caused by high energy damage in hands leading to life-long disability. The initial injury management is crucial. Surgeons face the arduous task of attempting to repair and reconstruct the injuries, reduce the patient¿s disability and improve their quality of life. Part 2 demonstrates the concepts of different types of finger reconstruction with key points described by case presentations. Depending on the types and the severity of the lesions, accuracy of doctor¿s judgment and proficiency of surgery skill have vital significance during the treatment of hand trauma together with patients¿ compliance on functional rehabilitation.

This book comprehensively reviews current and novel treatment strategies against human parasites, including protozoans and helminths, using natural products. The initial chapters summarize the conventional treatment strategies and natural-product based therapeutics against these parasites. It discusses biochemical tools and techniques for the discovery of natural product based drugs against human parasites. The book also covers the ingenious and innovative mechanisms to achieve drug resistance by the protozoan parasites and strategies to overcome the resistance. It entails mechanistic insight into the modulation of host immune responses to delay or inhibit parasite clearance and explores host-pathogen interactions that mediate immunity against subsequent parasite challenge. In turn, the volume helps in understanding the immunobiology of the parasites and tools to identify candidate vaccine antigens and novel delivery systems against the protozoan parasites. Lastly, it explores the role of advanced methods, including nanotechnology, marine bioprospecting, and microorganisms-derived biochemicals against the protozoan parasites.This book is useful for students and researchers of pharmacology, parasitology, zoology and other allied fields.¿

This book provides an overview about the open challenges in software verification. Software verification is a branch of software engineering aiming at guaranteeing that software applications satisfy some requirements of interest. Over the years, the software verification community has proposed and considered several techniques: abstract interpretation, data-flow analysis, type systems, model checking are just a few examples. The theoretical advances have been always motivated by practical challenges that have led to an equal evolution of both these sides of software verification. Indeed, several verification tools have been proposed by the research community and any software application, in order to guarantee that certain software requirements are met, needs to integrate a verification phase in its life cycle, independently of the context of application or software size. This book is aimed at collecting contributions discussing recent advances in facing open challenges in software verification, relying on a broad spectrum of verification techniques. This book collects contributions ranging from theoretical to practical arguments, and it is aimed at both researchers in software verification and their practitioners.

This book is about the "benefits of inconvenience (BoI)", providing a new approach to designing innovative systems and opening an alternative viewpoint to readers for looking at the world. BoI says that convenient living has ¿black boxed¿ the processes we used to rely on, while BoI is about looking at the benefits that were originally provided by these actions that have been black-boxed. Consider the relationship between humans and artificial objects, or things, newly created by engineering technology. In the past, things were ¿extensions¿ of people, but before we knew it, things began to substitute for people. BoI can be a keyword for thinking about the relationship that should come after ¿substitution¿. It is a principle of systems design, one that requires time and effort rather than being convenient without any bother. Leading system scientists, technology creators, service producers, and product designers have contributed to this volume. In the first half of the book, manyresearchers describe their theory of BoI from the perspectives of systems engineers, value engineers, designers, and innovators. In the second half of the book, examples of implementing BoI are introduced in various fields, such as product design, service design, social robotics, tourism engineering, and human activity support systems. They will support innovations in systems or services. It is generally said that necessity is the mother of invention. In that belief, inconveniences should be eliminated, which can be a motive force for new technological development. On the other hand, this book shows that inconveniences are not something to be eliminated, but, on the contrary, are essential to obtain some benefit, and shows us how to create beneficial inconveniences.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 25th International Computer Symposium on New Trends in Computer Technologies and Applications, ICS 2022, which took place in Taoyuan, Taiwan, in December 2022. ICS is one of the largest joint international IT symposia held in Taiwan. Founded in 1973, it is intended to provide a forum for researchers, educators, and professionals to exchange their discoveries and practices, and to explore future trends and applications in computer technologies. The biannual symposium offers a great opportunity to share research experiences and to discuss potential new trends in the IT industry.The 58 full papers and one invited paper presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 137 submissions. The papers have been organized in the following topical sections: Invited Paper; Algorithms, Bioinformatics, and Computation Theory; Cloud Computing and Big Data; Computer Vision and Image Processing; Cryptographyand Information Security; Electronics and Information Technology; Mobile Computation and Wireless Communication; Ubiquitous Cybersecurity and Forensics.

This book aims to explore the construction of Chinese law, with an evolution that has been strongly inspired by international law that has functioned as a "pioneer of legal civilization" in China. Chinese law is a fluid sedimentation of traditional elements of Chinese culture and the internalization of external elements.The internal dimension of Chinese legal evolution therefore coincides with a progressive incursion also at the international level, questioning the traditional rules of international relations. The most relevant and comprehensive concept that has been proposed by China in recent years is certainly the idea of building a "community of shared future for mankind." This aspiration demonstrates a global and integral vocation of international law capable of embracing relations of a new type, towards a multi-polar democratization of international relations, which mark the need for the beginning of a new era.

This edited volume covers all aspects of microbes in consortia; their roles in the ecological balance of soil by mineralize soil nutrients, plant growth promotion, protecting plants from disease by acting as biocontrol agents etc. Step-by-step descriptions are provided to the development and designing strategies of microbial consortia of rhizobacteria, phytohormone producing with biocontrol; ACC-deaminase producing with siderophore producing; vice-versa, and many combinations of multifaceted bacteria. The development of microbial consortia into successful bioinoculant and biofertilizers is also included in various chapters. In addition, molecular mechanisms to study the synergistic behaviors of rhizobacteria, accompanied by numerous helpful schematic drawings. Using phylogeny to justify the molecular similarity among two different bacteria identifies the possibility of microbial synergism, fruitful to development of microbial consortium and establish them in the rhizosphere with consorted mechanisms. In addition, clear drawings are included in support of understanding the natural phenomenon of synergism in below-ground ecosystem.Essential information is provided on ecological management by consorted mechanisms of rhizobacteria that directly affect ¿agriculture sustainability¿ and an individual chapter is devoted to the understanding of future research, and addressing bottlenecks and successful steps. This book assists the academicians, researchers and NGOs in negotiating the steep learning curve involved in gaining the skills needed to perform design and development of microbial consortiums, preparation of PGPR-based fertilizers, which offers significant advantages in terms of pertaining novel knowledge on the groundbreaking research, still ongoing.

This book highlights the qualitative and quantitative sequential changes in microstructure of P91 steel under various stress and temperature conditions. The P91 alloy is an established material used under elevated temperature and stress in the components of thermal power plants. Temperature and stress levels for laboratory experimentation have been selected based on the true operating condition of a boiler. This book describes both full length as well as interrupted tests that were performed under given parameters. Subsequently, the microstructures, bulk hardness and NDE parameters (magnetic and non-linear ultrasonic) have been evaluated. For reliable data, the microstructures have been observed at different regions of creep exposed samples by different characterization techniques. This has been further followed by drawing co-relation between specific features like precipitate size variation with creep strain / creep time and so on. Given the contents, this book will be a useful reference for researchers and professionals working in the area of materials especially in thermal power plants.