Books published by Springer Nature Switzerland AG

Emerging contaminants are chemical and biological agents for which there is growing concern about their potential health and environmental effects. The threat lies in the fact that the sources, fate and toxicology of most of these compounds have not yet been studied. Emerging contaminants, therefore, include a large number of both recently discovered and well-known compounds such as rare earth elements, viruses, bacteria, nanomaterials, microplastics, pharmaceuticals, endocrine disruptors, hormones, personal care products, cosmetics, pesticides, surfactants and industrial chemicals. Emerging contaminants have been found in many daily products, and some of them accumulate in the food chain. Correlations have been observed between aquatic pollution by emerging contaminants and discharges from wastewater treatment plants. Most actual remediation methods are not effective at removing emerging contaminants. This second volume presents comprehensive knowledge on emerging contaminants with a focus on remediation.

This book provides the first comprehensive overview of the most important water-related issues that centre on Italy, analysed from several disciplinary perspectives ¿ such as hydrology, economics, law, sociology, environmental sciences and policy studies ¿ in order to promote full understanding of the challenges the country is facing and the ways it could best tackle them.Despite the misconception that Italy is a water-scarce country, is in fact quite rich in water resources. Such resources, however, are unevenly distributed over the Italian territory. Italy¿s northern regions rely on quite an abundant quantity of freshwater, whereas in the southern area water endowment is limited. Moreover, climatic differences between North and South contribute to widen the divide. This disparity has notable consequences of socio-economic character, some of which, in turn, feed back into the environmental conditions of Italian regions: pollution, floods, landslides and droughts are among the problems affecting the country. There are numerous features of water use and consumption that distinguish Italy from other comparable countries, such as the significant role played by agriculture (a water-intensive activity), a lead position in the consumption of bottled water, lower-than-average prices of water and a far-from-optimal efficiency of waterworks. All such aspects, and many others, make Italy an essential case study.

This book presents the state-of-the art in the analysis of animal movements in the past and its implications for human societies. It also addresses the importance of animal activity and mobility for understanding past human societies and past human-animal relationships through cases studies from different periods and areas. It is the first book to focus on the archaeology of animal movement on different scales ¿ from fine-tuned muscle movements of working animals to feeding behavior and to long-distance movements across landscapes and regions.With the recent development of fine-tuned methodologies such as stable isotope analysis and physical activity assessment, the potential to understand how animals moved about in the past has increased substantially. While the chapters in the volume utilize a wide range of archaeological methods, they are all united by an emphasis on understanding animal activity and mobility patterns as something that has a major impact on human societies and human-animal relationships. Chapters in this volume show that animal activity patterns provide information on multiple aspects of human-animal relationships, including analysis of animal management practices, transhumance, global and regional trade networks, and animal domestication. This volume is of interest to scholars working in zooarchaeology and early human societies.

This book offers a window into the mechanisms that drive events when countries with poor track records in environmental protection and low administrative capacity, join an organisation with ambitious environmental regulatory regimes, which include some of the highest environmental protections standards in the world.This book examines the institutional building capacity in Romania after two decades of the development of the EU's environmental policy on elaboration, transposition, implementation, monitoring and institutional building. The book examines how Romania has fared as one of the least environmentally friendly EU member states, and poses the following questions. What are the limits of Europeanisation in the area of public policies? What is the reason why, despite the overwhelming public interest in environmental issues, and widespread agreement that urgent action to protect the environment and prevent catastrophic climate change are paramount, the pace of achieving the goals is remains slow. Why do policies fail?This book brings together several case studies focusing on the evolution of environmental policies in Romania over the last twenty years, with a special focus on the post-accession period (2007 onwards). The book provides an analysis of policies, where progress is less than satisfactory, and examines why this is the case.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of the art of practical applications of neuroprosthesis based on functional electrical stimulation for restoration of motor functions lost by spinal cord injury and discusses the use of brain-computer interfaces for their control.The book covers numerous topics starting with basics about spinal cord injury, electrical stimulation, electrical brain signals and brain-computer interfaces. It continues with an overview of neuroprosthetic solutions for different purposes and non-invasive and invasive brain-computer interface implementations and presents clinical use cases and practical applications of BCIs. Finally, the authors give an outlook on cutting edge research with a high potential for clinical translation in the near future.All authors committed themselves to use easy-to-understand language and to avoid very specific information, focusing instead on the essential aspects. This makes this book an ideal choice not only for researchers and clinicians at all stages of their education interested in the topic of brain-computer interface-controlled neuroprostheses, but also for end users and their caregivers who want to inform themselves about the current technological possibilities to improve paralyzed motor functions.

This book collects original peer-reviewed contributions to the conferences organised by the international research network ¿Minimal surfaces: Integrable Systems and Visualization¿ financed by the Leverhulme Trust. The conferences took place in Cork, Granada, Munich and Leicester between 2016 and 2019. Within the theme of the network, the presented articles cover a broad range of topics and explore exciting links between problems related to the mean curvature of surfaces in homogeneous 3-manifolds, like minimal surfaces, CMC surfaces and mean curvature flows, integrable systems and visualisation. Combining research and overview articles by prominent international researchers, the book offers a valuable resource for both researchers and students who are interested in this research area.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) have been implicated in almost every human disease phenotype, without much, if any, therapeutic consequence foremost exemplified by the failure of the so-called anti-oxidants. This book is a game changer for the field and many clinical areas such as cardiology and neurology. The term ¿oxidative stress¿ is abandoned and replaced with a systems medicine and network pharmacology-based mechanistic approach to disease. The ROS-related drugs discussed here target either ROS- forming or ROS -modifying enzymes for which there is strong clinical evidence. In addition, ROS targets are included as they jointly participate in causal mechanisms of disease. This approach is transforming the ROS field and represents a breakthrough in redox medicine indicating a path to patient benefit. In the coming years more targets and drugs may be discovered, but the approach will remain the same and this book will thus become, and for many years remain, the leading reference for ROSopathies and their treatment by network pharmacology. Chapter "Soluble Guanylate Cyclase Stimulators and Activators" is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book presents the state of art of the several advanced approaches to beneficiation of coal. The influence of recent technology attains the advantages of processing coal, purification studies, rheological behavior, and the mineral beneficiation. The experts collected in this volume have contributed significantly to the enrichment in the in depth knowledge not only in context of working knowledge, but also future prospects of clean coal technology.

This book gives its readers a unique opportunity to get acquainted with new aspects of the fruitful interactions between Analysis, Geometry, Quantum Mechanics and Number Theory. The present book contains a number of contributions by specialists in these areas as an homage to the memory of the mathematician Erik Balslev and, at the same time, advancing a fascinating interdisciplinary area still full of potential. Erik Balslev has made original and important contributions to several areas of Mathematics and its applications. He belongs to the founders of complex scaling, one of the most important methods in the mathematical and physical study of eigenvalues and resonances of Schrödinger operators, which has been very essential in advancing the solution of fundamental problems in Quantum Mechanics and related areas. He was also a pioneer in making available and developing spectral methods in the study of important problems in Analytic Number Theory.

This book brings together technical expertise, best practices, case studies and ground-level application of the ideas for empowering the rural population of the world to live economically prosperous, environmentally sustainable, and socially progressive lives, on par or comparable with the quality of life enjoyed by the global urban population. The idea of Smart Villages takes on greater urgency in light of the investments made in this millennium on ¿Smart Cities¿, taking advantage of the technological advances, particularly in digital connectivity. These investments have and will continue to expand the urban-rural divide, unless similar investments are made in the villages as well. The book provides a much-needed guide for a holistic development of a Smart Village, by defining the need, developing the framework, and describing the delivery, complete with successful case studies. Contributors to the book, from Canada, USA, Africa and India bring years of academic, industry and governmental experience, including organization of several Smart Village conferences. The knowledge base in the book will be of great value to anyone interested in or active in rural planning, including governmental and non-governmental organizations, industrial solution providers, public healthcare professionals, public policy professionals and students, as well as rural communities around the world. Consolidates all the aspects of creating/developing a Smart Village;Delivers an effective tool-kit for practitioners in the area of Smart Villages;Provides a policy-based framework for the development of an ideal Smart Village;Illustrates, through case studies, the fulfillment of key requirements of a Smart Village;Brings together experts from around the world to share their vision of a Smart Village;Highlights the importance of balancing development with social/gender equity and cultural traditions.

This monograph gives a comprehensive but in-depth analysis of the territorial development of Croatia and historical processes of significant spatial impact. It covers the millennial time span ¿ from prehistory till the present, through relevant periods, e.g., prehistory, antiquity, Middle Ages, period of Ottoman progression and retreat, Post-Ottoman period of development of the Central European railway network, the period of South Slavic political associations (old and new Yugoslavia), and the post-Yugoslav period of independent Croatia. The book is highly illustrated with maps and figures. It is written by scholars from the region, based on the original research and the vast body of literature. It is one of the only books in English that interprets the overall development of the territory and cultural landscape of Croatia. Its scientific but comprehensive approach makes it of use to scholars, students and anyone interested in historical and geographical processes and features of Croatia and the Balkan region.

This book studies the link between differential beamforming and differential equations which in turn enables the study of fundamental theory and methods of beamforming from a different perspective, leading to new insights into the problem and new methods to solve the problem. The book first presents a brief overview of the problems and methods for beamforming and some performance measures popularly used either to evaluate beamformers or to derive optimal beamformers. Then, first-order, second-order, and general high-order linear difference equations are discussed, based on which the authors show how to formulate the beamforming problem and derive different beamforming methods, including fixed and adaptive ones. Furthermore, the authors show how to apply the theory of difference equations to the general problem of speech enhancement, and deduce a number of noise reduction filters, including the maximum SNR filter, the Wiener filter, the MVDR filter, etc. Also covered in the book are thedifference equations and differential beamforming from the spectral graph perspective.Presents basic concepts, fundamental principles, and methods for beamforming from the perspective of linear difference equations;Provides formulation and methods of conventional beamforming, and first-order, second-order, and general high-order linear difference equations for beamforming;Includes the applications of linear difference equations to the problem of noise reduction;Explains beamforming based on difference equations with graphs.

This book provides different perspectives on the concept of children¿s rights, including policy, educational, and children¿s perspectives. It examines how the crucial ideas of the Convention on the Rights of the Child are respected and implemented in 14 countries in five regions of the world. It looks at early childhood education, children¿s participatory rights, and at how these rights are promoted and guaranteed in different countries. It explores the professional practice of education and its complexities, challenges and dilemmas, as well as the role of play, and of listening and participation. The book advocates children¿s rights today, arguing for its vital importance, in the best interests of the children. In doing so, it furthers the understanding of children¿s rights and spreads knowledge about the Convention, as a means of celebrating its 30th anniversary. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) comprises the potential to change the lives of children to the very best. It may exalt children from the position of marginalized citizens to the centre of policies all over the world. Even though the concept of children¿s rights is omnipresent, the respect for children¿s rights must be discussed. While the Convention brings the new perspective of children as citizens to the world, there are still challenges in its application. The book interrogates challenges in understanding and applying children rights and offers possible answers to these challenges. The ratification process itself, does not guarantee that children¿s rights are respected. While all adults should take responsibility for implementing the UNCRC in everyday life, Early Childhood Education should give opportunities for children to learn and live their rights.

This book reviews the latest developments and applications of nanozymes in environmental science. Protection of the environment is essential because pollution has become a global problem with many adverse effects on life and ecosystems. For that, remediation strategies and techniques have been designed, yet they are limited. Here, the recent development of nanotechnology opens a new vista for environmental remediation. In particular, nanomaterials displaying enzyme-like activities, named ¿nanozymes¿, appear very promising for environmental monitoring, contaminant detection, microbial management, and degradation of organic pollutants. Nanomaterials including metallic, metal oxides and carbon-based nanoparticles with nanozymes activities have been synthesized. These nanozymes have similar activities as natural peroxidase, oxidase, superoxide dismutase and catalase enzymes. Nanozymes have several advantages, yet they suffer from several limitations such as low catalytic efficiency, less substrate selectivity, biocompatibility, and lack of engineering of the active sites.

Third edition of International Conference on Intelligent Computing and Optimization and as a premium fruit, this book, pursue to gather research leaders, experts and scientists on Intelligent Computing and Optimization to share knowledge, experience and current research achievements. Conference and book provide a unique opportunity for the global community to interact and share novel research results, explorations and innovations among colleagues and friends. This book is published by SPRINGER, Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing. Ca. 100 authors submitted full papers to ICO¿2020. That global representation demonstrates the growing interest of the research community here. The book covers innovative and creative research on sustainability, smart cities, meta-heuristics optimization, cyber-security, block chain, big data analytics, IoTs, renewable energy, artificial intelligence, Industry 4.0, modeling and simulation. We editors thankall authors and reviewers for their important service. Best high-quality papers have been selected by the International PC for our premium series with SPRINGER.

This book offers a scientific whistleblower¿s perspective on current implementation of federal research misconduct regulations. It provides a narrative of general interest that relates current cases of research ethics to philosophical, historical and sociological accounts of fraud in scientific research. The evidence presented suggests that the problems of falsification and fabrication remain as great as ever, but hidden because the current system puts universities in charge of investigations and permits them to use confidentiality regulations to hide the outcomes of investigations. The book documents the significant conflict of interest that arises because federal regulation gives universities the responsibility to conduct investigations of their own faculty with severely limited oversight. The book is intended for young research scientists or anyone who wishes to understand the challenges faced by scientists in the workplace today. The central thread in the book is an exclusive account of an experienced research scientist who was the first to expose the facts that led to the longest running research misconduct investigation in the history of the National Science Foundation.

This edited book summarizes numerous research studies on remote sensing and GIS of natural resource management for the Himalaya region done by Indian Institutions and Universities over the last decade. It gives an overview of hydrometeorological studies on Himalayan water resources and addresses concerns in the development of water resources in this region, which is dealing with an increased pressure in population, industrialization and economic development. While the source of some of the major rivers of India are found in the Himalayas, the glaciers and water bodies in the region are continuously shrinking leading to a depletion of water and deterioration of water quality. This is affecting a population of up to 2.5 billion people. The ecosystems have been under threat due to deforestation, loss of biodiversity, expansion of agriculture and settlement, overexploitation of natural resources, habitat loss and fragmentation, poaching, mining, construction of roads and large dams, and unplanned tourism. Spaceborne remote sensing with its ability to provide synoptic and repetitive coverage has emerged as a powerful tool for assessment and monitoring of the Himalayan resources and phenomena. This work serves as a resource to students, researchers, scientists, professionals, and policy makers both in India and on a global level.