Books published by Springer Nature Singapore

This book explores the nature of marine conservation based on the case study of Hinase, a fishing village in Okayama, Japan. It focuses on the fishers' self-motivated eelgrass restoration activity which has been continued for more than 30 years. This activity in Hinase recently attracted international attention as a case under the name "e;Satoumi"e; and "e;Marine Protected Areas"e; in several governmental reports, but detailed information, such as the historical background and social structure of Hinase, has not yet been analyzed. This book, therefore, fulfills this gap by providing its ethnographic information. In addition, this book offers some points for critical thinking by concluding that marine conservation activities cannot always be evaluated or arranged under the standardized approach with limited time and space. This viewpoint reaffirms the importance of local initiative and highlights the value of qualitative research to seek the way forward for promising marine conservation. This book is suitable for an academic audience in the field of social sciences, such as applied anthropology, as well as ecologists, government officials, environmentalists, and citizens who are interested or engaged in environmental issues or natural resource management.

This book presents the best-selected research papers presented at the 3rd International Conference on Activity and Behavior Computing (ABC 2021), during 20-22 October 2021. The book includes works related to the field of vision- and sensor-based human action or activity and behavior analysis and recognition. It covers human activity recognition (HAR), action understanding, gait analysis, gesture recognition, behavior analysis, emotion, and affective computing, and related areas. The book addresses various challenges and aspects of human activity recognition-both in sensor-based and vision-based domains. It can be considered as an excellent treasury related to the human activity and behavior computing. 

This book discusses the emergence of diverse functional organizations in the visual pathway which could be spontaneously and solely initiated by the random feedforward wiring of neural circuits. It demonstrates that the structure of ON and OFF retinal ganglion cell (RGC) mosaics is projected onto V1 by retino-cortical feedforward mapping to induce higher cognitive functions. This book will be beneficial for both theoretical and experimental neuroscientists, as well as for researchers using brain-inspired neural network models.

This book covers all aspects and dimensions of tuberculosis affecting the spine, starting from its historical perspective to modern trends in early diagnosis, management, and rehabilitation. This book is a treatise fulfilling all the existing wide lacunae in suspicion, clinical examination, diagnosis, and management of this disease which still dwells as a mystery in modern medicine. It presents very easy to follow management plan algorithms and keynotes for easy and ready reference in each chapter. It describes the recent advances in diagnostic modalities and the treatment regimes, along with controversies, that have been elucidated and concluded with firm and sound references from evidence-based literature. This book also showcases the varied presentations of the disease as per varied socio-economic strata and in different geographic regions along with the different, principle-based approach to the disease spectrum shall be discussed at length. It also includes different clinical settings and scenarios in the concerned chapters. This book is a ready reference guide for postgraduate trainees, post-doctoral trainees, and faculty and consultants of orthopedics and neurosurgery.

This book offers insights into how higher educational institutions and educators have responded to the immense challenges of managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Written by global experts in the field of higher education, it offers a multidimensional overview of the digital transformation, governance, and social justice issues within higher education institutions during the pandemic. It provides theoretical insights and conceptual analysis of the emerging trends in global higher education, the challenges, and possible ways to address them to shape more sustainable, qualitative, and socially equitable higher education for future generations. The book appeals to academics and students engaged in the education community.

In the big data era, increasing information can be extracted from the same source object or scene. For instance, a person can be verified based on their fingerprint, palm print, or iris information, and a given image can be represented by various types of features, including its texture, color, shape, etc. These multiple types of data extracted from a single object are called multi-view, multi-modal or multi-feature data. Many works have demonstrated that the utilization of all available information at multiple abstraction levels (measurements, features, decisions) helps to obtain more complex, reliable and accurate information and to maximize performance in a range of applications.This book provides an overview of information fusion technologies, state-of-the-art techniques and their applications. It covers a variety of essential information fusion methods based on different techniques, including sparse/collaborative representation, kernel strategy, Bayesian models, metric learning, weight/classifier methods, and deep learning. The typical applications of these proposed fusion approaches are also presented, including image classification, domain adaptation, disease detection, image restoration, etc. This book will benefit all researchers, professionals and graduate students in the fields of computer vision, pattern recognition, biometrics applications, etc. Furthermore, it offers a valuable resource for interdisciplinary research.

This book describes various crisis situations in transitional China, and by analyzing the unique characteristics and backgrounds of emergencies and crisis, it argues that crisis management has become a major challenge for the Chinese governments. It then discusses the chronology of crisis, organizational behaviors and the decision-making processes to construct a modern crisis management system in detail, to shed light on the creation of a strategic design and institutional framework of crisis management in China. In so doing, it provides not only insights into the dynamics of crisis decision-making and communication, but also solutions for possible problems specific to a transitional political regime in China.

This book features a collection of articles on comparative literature from a translational perspective, with a special reference to translation of contemporary Chinese literature. Issues of translation, dissemination, and reception of translated literature in the context of world literature are the foci of the book. Given its scope, the book appeals particularly to teachers and students of Chinese literature, translation, and Sinology. 

This edited compilation explores role of climate change in plant stresses, their mitigators, their role, mode of action and, application. The book discusses molecular and physiological mechanisms involved in plant stress physiology and the working mechanism of stress mitigators. It collates information from latest research conducted on plant stress mitigators, and highlights new strategies related to beneficial microorganisms that support plants under various stresses.These mitigators have gained attention of both farmers and industry for their application in organic farming. Plant stress mitigators have a huge global market. They follow different action mechanism for enhancing plant growth and stress tolerance capacity including nutrient solubilizing and mobilizing, bicontrol activity against plant pathogens, phytohormone production, soil conditioning and many more unrevealed mechanisms. This book elaborates stress alleviation action of different plant stress mitigators on crops grown under optimal and sub-optimal growing conditions. It addresses mainly three subthemes -- (1) Climate change impacts on plant and soil health (2) Microbe mediated plant stress mitigation and (3) Advances in plant stress mitigation. The book is a relevant reading for Post graduate students, researchers in the field of plant stress physiology, Plant-microbe interaction, biochemistry and plant molecular biology and industries related to seed production, biofertilizer and biopesticides.

This book comprises select papers presented at the conference on Technology Innovation in Mechanical Engineering (TIME-2021). The book discusses the latest innovation and advanced research in the diverse field of Mechanical Engineering such as materials, manufacturing processes, evaluation of materials properties for the application in automotive, aerospace, marine, locomotive and energy sectors. The topics covered include  advanced metal forming, Energy Efficient systems, Material Characterization, Advanced metal forming, bending, welding & casting techniques, Composite and Polymer Manufacturing, Intermetallics, Future generation materials, Laser Based Manufacturing, High-Energy Beam Processing, Nano materials, Smart Material, Super Alloys, Powder Metallurgy and Ceramic Forming, Aerodynamics, Biological Heat & Mass Transfer, Combustion & Propulsion, Cryogenics, Fire Dynamics, Refrigeration & Air Conditioning, Sensors and Transducers, Turbulent Flows, Reactive Flows, Numerical Heat Transfer, Phase Change Materials, Micro- and Nano-scale Transport, Multi-phase Flows, Nuclear & Space Applications, Flexible Manufacturing Technology & System, Non-Traditional Machining processes, Structural Strength and Robustness, Vibration, Noise Analysis and Control, Tribology. In addition, it discusses industrial applications and cover theoretical and analytical methods, numerical simulations and experimental techniques in the area of Mechanical Engineering. The book will be helpful for academics, including graduate students and researchers, as well as professionals interested in interdisciplinary topics in the areas of materials, manufacturing, and energy sectors.

This book discusses the sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands from the perspectives of Ryukyu and Okinawa. Written in chronological order, the book has 13 chapters featuring 121 documents and maps. The first 12 chapters explain, based on detailed historical facts on the Diaoyu Islands, the rise and decline of the Ryukyu Kingdom and the historical roles of China, Japan, and the United States in the history of the kingdom. The final chapter is an overview of the Sino-Ryukyuan, Japan-Ryukyuan and US-Ryukyuan relations, and further clarifies the issue of ownership of the Diaoyu Islands and their strategic position. The book demonstrates that Ryukyu did not have sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands, refutes Japan's claim that these islands were a part of the Ryukyu Kingdom, and reveals the causes and consequences of the Sino-Japanese conflicts created by the United States. The book examines the 500-year friendship between China and Ryukyu, recounting moving stories. Lastly, citing ancient documents and more, the books proves that the Ryukyus never owned the Diaoyu Islands and that these islands belong to China.

This book Food in a Planetary Emergency is a timely overview of the current food systems and the required transformations to respond to the challenges of climate change, population pressures, biodiversity loss and use of natural resources, such as soils, water and phosphorus. This book takes a planetary health perspective which explores the links between natural systems and human wellbeing implying that there is need for united actions to achieve important environmental and population health co-benefits.This book outlines that the foundation of planetary health is sustainability. It addresses environment and climate change emergency as a global agenda, however, emphasises the urgency of the sustainability perspective which integrates a wide spectrum of issues that require integrated solutions to offer better prospects for humanity. This book drives this argument further through the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) where food is not just SDG2 but transcends all 17 goals.This book tackles the problems of food production and consumption at a global, industry and individual level linking it to topics related to the natural environment, climate change, waste, marketing, new ways of producing food and providing alternative proteins, mitigating non-communicable diseases, flexitarianism and the role of Generation Z in the emerging dietary choices.This book benefits readers with understanding the importance and intricacy of their dietary choices at a point in time when our planet is facing an emergency triggered by long-term dependence on fossil fuels and artificial fertilisers but also by the ways we have provided food. However, this book also delivers the message that safeguarding and sustaining planetary health is possible.

This book deals with teacher training for vocational education and training. In individual chapters next to the positions of relevant international organizations, donors and development banks, it also covers selected countries in their ways of shaping of Technical Vocational Education and Training and teacher training. The structure of the book aims at two objectives: To outline positions of important stakeholders of the international Technical Vocational Education and Training policies and international cooperation in TVET teacher training.To discuss the current status of Technical Vocational Education and Training and teacher training in selected countries, from developing countries, countries with emerging economies to industrialized countries.The book is meant to create a platform that supports a reference concept within international cooperation for the further development of Technical Vocational Education and Training and teacher training up to a higher quality and performance.

This volume explains the recent findings on the mutualistic plant-microbe interactions and how they can be utilized for sustainable agriculture practices including land reclamation. The book covers mainly plant growth promoting microorganisms (PGPMs) including both the symbiotic bacteria and fungi and their role in mobilization of nutrients, providing protection to the crops from phytopathogens and abiotic stresses. PGPMs play important roles in survival and health of the plant. These useful microorganisms provide plants with nutrients, protect them from pathogens and help them combat abiotic stresses. It is important that these mutualistic interactions between plant and soil microbes are well understood so as to develop reliable products in the form of biostimulants and biopesticides, as well as managing biotic and abiotic stresses in crops. Apart from enhancing crop productivity plant-microbe interactions can also perform activities such as reclamation of degraded lands, degradation of pollutants and remediation of saline or marginal lands.This book is of interest to teachers, researchers, plant scientists and microbiologists. Also, the book serves as additional reading material for undergraduate and graduate students of agriculture, microbiology, biotechnology, ecology, soil science and environmental sciences. 

This book discusses different approaches for successful pest-management through biotechnological interventions. Pest management is directly associated with the agricultural productivity. The book introduces the reader to various kinds of biopesticides that have been developed and are being developed for field application. Chemical pesticides have been widely used to control pests, and these induce pesticide resistance as well as other environmental problems. This book discusses the necessity to develop alternate pest control strategies, especially environment-friendly and target-specific biopesticides against destructive pests. The book describes important aspects such as microbial biopesticides, plant-based biopesticides, natural products that act against pests and the various other biotechnological advances and limitations of these biopesticides. It provides an in-depth knowledge of the latest research and development in the area of biopesticides.This informative book is meant for students and researchers in the fields of biotechnology, agriculture and applied microbiology.

This book provides a simple, step-by-step guide to the identification and sequential management of vascular lesions in the body. Since most vascular lesions occur in the head and neck area, the surgical interventions present challenges with regard to facial growth, airway management and reconstruction options. This book explores the treatment of head and neck vascular malformations and tumors from the perspectives of various specialties, such as otolaryngology, and pediatric, maxillofacial and plastic surgery. It covers surgical anatomy, pathophysiology, molecular basis, medical treatment, current embolization guidelines and surgical resection and reconstruction options for each type of tumor. It also discusses interventional and diagnostic radiological techniques. Written by leading international specialists, the book is a valuable resource for craniofacial, pediatric, maxillofacial, head and neck, and plastic surgeons as well as pediatricians and otolaryngologists.

This book includes original, peer-reviewed research papers from the 12th China Academic Conference on Printing and Packaging (CACPP 2021), held in Beijing, China on November 12-14, 2021. The proceedings cover the recent findings in color science and technology, image processing technology, digital media technology, mechanical and electronic engineering and numerical control, materials and detection, digital process management technology in printing and packaging, and other technologies. As such, the book is of interest to university researchers, R&D engineers and graduate students in the field of graphic arts, packaging, color science, image science, material science, computer science, digital media, network technology, and smart manufacturing technology.

In this book, computational optical phase imaging techniques are presented along with Matlab codes that allow the reader to run their own simulations and gain a thorough understanding of the current state-of-the-art. The book focuses on modern applications of computational optical phase imaging in engineering measurements and biomedical imaging. Additionally, it discusses the future of computational optical phase imaging, especially in terms of system miniaturization and deep learning-based phase retrieval.

This book deals with analysis techniques for TCP, UDP, Web, and SOAP data transmission performance on the IoT cloud side, CSMA-type, and multi-hop data transmission performance on the IoT edge side, as well as gateway receives buffer and transmit packet assembly data transmission performance.As mathematical tools for the analysis of communication performance, universal analysis methods such as stochastic processes, queues, Markov processes, and communication traffic simulators are applied to actual examples, and their usage is described in detail. This book aims to provide lifelong skills for analyzing communication performance that will serve as the basis for the future evolution of the IoT.

This volume discusses a combination of topics dealing with the wide variety of urban planning, authored by well reputed scholars in India mastering disciplines such as architecture, urban design, transportation planning, public policy, urban planning, urban engineering and civil engineering. It focuses on contemporary problems in metro cities like New Delhi, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, etc. This book also highlights critical aspects of urban developments while considering the aspects of mega infrastructure projects especially related to water, waste water treatment and environmental issues.

This proceedings volume explores the disruptive effect of COVID19 pandemic on business leaders and managers. It covers the sweeping changes experienced by all sectors of work and business along with core functional verticals. As organizations institutionalize lessons learned through trial and error, an effort is required to document these efforts. The volume is an amalgamation of papers presented papers at the International Management Conference, 2021 hosted at KIIT University, India in February 2021. The thrust of this conference was to gather a holistic picture of the lessons derived during the pandemic hardship. Selected papers provide readers with an idea of the new normal in various domains of management across industries and organizations. Research papers, from each functional areas of business management, give focus on experiences and best practices.

This book focuses on a Pentecostal-Evangelical Kenyah community in central Borneo, a region that crosses the border between Malaysia and Indonesia. The book argues that the Pentecostal-Evangelical (P/e) mode of religious authority and organization has the capacity to adapt to both the pre-existing hierarchical traditional institution such as Adat and modern egalitarian social forms. It has been necessary within the context of Kenyah's experience of religious change as it enabled many actors from various social classes to obtain and perceive religious authority in a specific local and regional political-religious situation while promoting their identity as egalitarian and autonomous modern subjects. In contrast with other studies on the P/e church that emphasize its egalitarian spirit as a factor that supports its impressive growth, the book contends that its adaptive structural characteristics have enabled the development of this specific Christian denomination to expand rapidly and play a dominant position in contemporary social life in various parts of the world. The book thus provides novel findings in the study of religious change in Southeast Asia by enriching the discussion of historical transformation in the region, and analyzing the articulation of global and regional Christian movements, with the socio-political characteristics of Bornean society.

This book studies impact of "Overseas Leadership Development Programmes for Chinese University Leaders in the Central and Western Regions of China," a research project funded by National Office for Education Sciences Planning (No. CIA170270), China. It is intended to enhance university leaders' professionalism and to achieve impact on both the individual and institutional levels. The empirical data was collected using a mixed-methods approach including policy documents, learning diaries, a quantitative survey, and individual interviews. From the standpoint of transnational education, the book scrutinizes the context of the Chinese higher education governance system, the provision of overseas leadership development programmes, the needs of Chinese university leaders, the leadership development impact on the university leaders' personal views regarding leadership, and its impact on institutional development and change. The book also addresses the challenges faced by these leaders when implementing the changes after their leadership development sections, explaining how these leadership development sections met or failed to meet the national goals of promoting innovation and social justice in university leaders' work.The findings presented here will greatly enrich readers' knowledge concerning Chinese university leaders' professionalism and professional development. Further, the respective chapters provide evidence-based recommendations for educational practitioners, policymakers, overseas trainers, and researchers who are interested in developing university leaders' professionalism through targeted leadership development, making the book a valuable resource for leadership development, policymaking, and further educational research.

This book addresses the crucial issue of how we value and deploy the idea of "freedom" that underlies contemporary curriculum studies. Whether we are conventional curriculum thinkers who value knowledge development or favor a Deweyan, individualist orientation toward curriculum or are a critical social justice curriculum thinker, at the heart of all these orientations and theorizing is the value of "freedom." The book addresses "freedom" through novel sources: the work of Martin Buber on education, Julia Kristeva on the uses of imagination and the female/male dialectic, Emmanuel Levinas' unique approach to ethics, and more. Readers will find new ways to understand freedom and the world of ethical life as informing curriculum thinking. It provides a more ecumenical vision that can draw our differences together. It helps readers to reconsider ourselves in fruitful ways that can bring more relevance and substance to the field.

This book illustrates the role of randomness and noise in living organisms. Traditionally, the randomness and noise have been used in understanding signal processing in communications. This book is divided into two sections, the first of which introduces readers to the various types and sources of noise and the constructive role of noise in non-linear dynamics. It also analyses the importance of randomness and noise in a variety of science and engineering applications. In turn, the second section discusses in detail the functional role of noise in biological processes for example, in case of brain function at the level of ion channel, synaptic level and even at cognitive level. These are described in various chapters. One of the challenging issue finding the neuronal correlates of various meditative states is to understand how brain controls various types of noise so as to reach a state of synchronized oscillatory state of the brain corresponding to the state of Samadhi. This is described in details in one chapter called Noise, Coherence and meditation. The concept of noise and the role of randomness in living organism raise lot of controversy for last few decades. This is discussed in a separate chapter. Finally, the epistemic and ontic nature of randomness as discussed in physical science are investigated in the context of living organism.

This second volume of the book series shows R-calculus is a combination of one monotonic tableau proof system and one non-monotonic one. The R-calculus is a Gentzen-type deduction system which is non-monotonic, and is a concrete belief revision operator which is proved to satisfy the AGM postulates and the DP postulates. It discusses the algebraical and logical properties of tableau proof systems and R-calculi in many-valued logics. This book offers a rich blend of theory and practice. It is suitable for students, researchers and practitioners in the field of logic. Also it is very useful for all those who are interested in data, digitization and correctness and consistency of information, in modal logics, non monotonic logics, decidable/undecidable logics, logic programming, description logics, default logics and semantic inheritance networks.

This book aims to cover the applications of nanotechnology against human infectious diseases. The chapters of the book discuss the role of nanotechnology in the efficient diagnosis and treatment of these diseases. It explicitly provides an overview of nanodiagnostics for infectious diseases from nanoparticles-based, nanodevice-based, and point-of-care platforms. The book also covers the state-of-the-art review of recent progress in biomimetic and bioengineered nanotherapies to treat infectious diseases. It also presents a nano carrier-based CRISPR/Cas9 delivery system for gene editing and its applications for developing interventional approaches against communicable diseases. Further, it reviews the recent developments in nanotechnology to engineer nanoparticles with desired physicochemical properties as a line of defense against multi-drug resistance micro-organisms. Cutting across the disciplines, this book serves as a guide for researchers in biotechnology, parasitology, and nanotechnology.

This edited volume documents attempts to conduct systematic and prodigious research using multilevel analysis in educational settings, and present their findings and identify future research directions. It showcases the versatility of multilevel analysis, and elucidates the unique advantages in examining complex and wide-ranging educational issues. This book brings together leading experts around the world to share their works in the field, highlighting recent advances, creative and unique approaches, and innovative methods using multilevel modeling and theoretical and practical aspects of multilevel analysis in culturally and linguistically-diverse educational contexts.

This book includes the concept, general summary and the equipment of the visual electrophysiological examination. It also covers the clinical application scope, diagnosis protocol, standardized operation steps, clinical report samples, and the key points of reading reports, etc. of visual evoked potential (VEP), electroretinogram (ERG), electrooculogram (EOG), multifocal VEP, multifocal ERG and other commonly used visual electrophysiological examinations. Typical clinical report examples of normal and abnormal waveforms are specially added, which is a highlight of this book and can help clinical technicians quickly grasp the key points of electrophysiological report reading.