Books published by Springer Nature Switzerland AG

This collection brings together a range of case studies by both established and early career scholars to consider the nexus between business and development in post-colonial Africa. A number of contributors examine the involvement of European companies (most notably those of former colonial powers) in development in various African states at the end of empire and in the early post-colonial era. They explore how businesses were not just challenged by the new international landscape but benefited from the opportunities it offered, particularly those provided by development aid. Other contributors focus on the development agencies of the departing colonial powers to consider how far these served to promote the interests of European companies. Together these case studies constitute an important contribution to our understanding of both business and development in post-colonial Africa, redressing an imbalance in existing histories of both business and development whichfocus predominantly on the colonial period. This volume breaks new ground as one of the very first to bring the study of foreign companies and development aid into the same frame of analysis

This book constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the IFIP TC 3 Open Conference on Computers in Education, OCCE 2021, held in Tampere, Finland, in August 2021. The 22 full papers and 2 short papers included in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 44 submissions. The papers discuss key emerging topics and evolving practices in the area of educational computing research. They are organized in the following topical sections: Digital education across educational institutions; National policies and plans for digital competence; Learning with digital technologies; and Management issues.

This book gathers selected papers from the First International Symposium on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine. Issues related to medicine and health care constitute one of the grand challenges faces by the mankind, and this naturally implies a growing interest in these problems among both researchers and scholars, politicians and policymakers, as well as economist. The present values which gather selected papers from the First International Symposium on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine (BioInfoMed¿2020) is a recent response to this interests. In the subsequent sections and chapters, it covers a multitude of various topics related to bioinformatics, biomedicine, bioenginering, as well as a broadly perceives healthcare. Issues related to decision making in bioinformatics, biomedicine and health care, mathematical modelling in biomedicine and health care, artificial intelligence in biomedicine and health care, uncertainty and imprecision, notably intuitionistic fuzzy sets with applicationsin bioinformatics and biomedicine, biomedical approaches and applications, biomedical imaging and image processing, and excitable structures and motor activity are covered.

This book briefly reviews the basic concepts of type-2 fuzzy systems and then describes the proposed definitions for interval type-3 fuzzy sets and relations, also interval type-3 inference and systems. The use of type-2 fuzzy systems has become widespread in the leading economy sectors, especially in industrial and application areas, such as services, health, defense, and so on. However, recently the use of interval type-3 fuzzy systems has been receiving increasing attention and some successful applications have been developed in the last year. These issues were taken into consideration for this book, as we did realize that there was a need to offer the main theoretical concepts of type-3 fuzzy logic, as well as methods to design, develop and implement the type-3 fuzzy systems. A review of basic concepts and their use in the design and implementation of interval type-3 fuzzy systems, which are relatively new models of uncertainty and imprecision, are presented. The main focus of thiswork is based on the basic reasons of the need for interval type-3 fuzzy systems in different areas of application. In addition, we describe methods for designing interval type-3 fuzzy systems and illustrate this with some examples and simulations.

This book covers state-of-the-art development in microfluidics-enabled soft manufacturing (MESM), ranging from fundamentals to applications. The book addresses the long-standing challenge in the manufacture of simultaneously achieving both precise control over nano-/micro-scale structures and large-scale fabrication of materials for pragmatic use, with microfluidics-enabled soft manufacture to fill the gap between the widely-varied length scales involved. It offers a comprehensive insight into the microfluidic generation of fluid systems as liquid templates, such as droplets, bubbles, jets, emulsions, and foams, which are categorized into individual templates, one-dimensional arrays, and two-/three-dimensional assemblies for the modular fabrication of microparticles, microfibers, and porous materials, respectively. MESM enriches the compositional and structural diversity of engineered materials for well-tailored properties and functionalities, markedly broadening the application horizons across interdisciplinary fields, including engineering, environment, physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine. This book aims to systematize this emerging yet versatile and powerful technology, with the hope of aiding the realization of its full potential.Microfluidics-Enabled Soft Manufacture will be an invaluable reference for graduate students, postgraduates, researchers, and practitioners/professionals working in micro and nanofabrication, materials science, surface science, fluid dynamics, and engineering.

This book employs an abstract kernel fractional calculus with applications to Prabhakar and non-singular kernel fractional calculi. The results are univariate and bivariate. In the univariate case, abstract fractional monotone approximation by polynomials and splines is presented. In the bivariate case, the abstract fractional monotone constrained approximation by bivariate pseudo-polynomials and polynomials is given. This book¿s results are expected to find applications in many areas of pure and applied mathematics, especially in fractional approximation and fractional differential equations. Other interesting applications are applied in sciences like geophysics, physics, chemistry, economics, and engineering. This book is appropriate for researchers, graduate students, practitioners, and seminars of the above disciplines.

This book provides an integrated approach to cognitive-linguistic mediation, with aims toward the efficiency of knowledge transfer and acquisition. Problems are approached through the prism of cognitive modelling, and mapped to such fields as intercultural and interdisciplinary communication, and second language teaching. The novelty lies in the synergies between linguistics, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, culture, and industry. These fields come together through ontological and metaphorical modelling and the attempts to automate such.This text provides a theoretical background for research on mediation, covering cognitive and communicative perspectives, metaphoricity of terms, and the ontologization of human knowledge. It includes detailed descriptions of methods for different types of cognitive modelling and is intended for students and researchers concerned with terminology, cognitive linguistics, applied linguistics, pragmatics, computational linguistics, literature studies, morphology, syntaxis, and semantics.

This book introduces the readers to possible aspects of the rainwater harvesting system against urbanization to plan, design, and implement. Practical applications of rainwater harvesting to supplement potable water, stormwater management, greywater reuse, and managed aquifer recharge are included. Along with conventional practices, advanced technologies for conceptualizing, data collection and processing, test procedures, and design principles are provided to illustrate the theory. This book is a pathway to a water smart city, example problems reflect the solutions for harvested water quantity and/or quality and afterward. Socio-economic assessments are incorporated to explore comprehensive knowledge. The book covers an interdisciplinary field, thus, suitable for students, researchers, and professionals associated with rainwater harvesting system development and management

This open access book includes a series of relevant policy research articles, elaborared in the framework of the ¿Quality in higher education: internationalisation and databases to enhance the Romanian education system¿ project, implemented by the Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding (UEFISCDI), together with the Ministry of Education. The project aims to develop and implement systemic measures at tertiary education level, leading to an increased quality of the overall higher education system and universities better prepared for labour market requirements and international standards. The book focuses on areas of interest for Romanian higher education, such as systemic measures to improve access, participation and completion for (vulnerable) students, better promotion of the Romanian higher education to attract students, as well as instruments for a more efficient use of data at higher education level. Each article includes evidence-based policy proposals that could support new strategic initiatives in higher education, including new legislation. Additionally, the collection of articles tells a comprehensive story about the audacity of a higher education system which went through significant challenges to align itself with both European and international trends, as well as respond to national imperatives.Over the last three decades, since the fall of the Iron Curtain, Romanian higher education has undergone significant transformations, aiming to align itself to the latest developments and trends at European and international level. The National Law on Education no. 1/2011 has set the stage for a full implementation of the Bologna Process action lines, taking into account that Romania was already a part of the largest European intergovernmental process ¿ currently the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) ¿ as a founding member.However, since the adoption of this normative framework, the law suffered numerous amendments, making it challenging to observe and achieve coherence in its implementation. Furthermore, Romania is also currently redesigning the strategy for the alocation of European structural funds 2021-2027, based on two strategic documents - the new Education and Employment Operational Programme and the National Recovery and Resilience Plan which highlight the reform and investment priorities at a national level.At the same time, 2021 is a good time to analyze the level of implementation for the objectives and measures included in the National Strategy for Tertiary Education 2015-2020, the Europe 2020 Strategy, and the Bologna Process action lines in the 2010 ¿ 2020 timeframe. Therefore, the present moment may be an important time to assess the impact of strategic documents and actions in the last decade and, possibly, to draft a new National Education Law, better adapted to current realities, starting from the recent initiative by the President of Romania ¿ theEducated Romania strategic vision which was also politically assumed by the Romanian Government.