Books published by Springer Verlag, Singapore

"This book provides the first book-lengthy study focusing on Artificial Intelligence (AI) with Chinese characteristics, in line with China's open ambition of becoming an AI superpower by 2030. China's unique domestic politics has developed distinct characteristics for its AI approach. By analysing national strategy, security and governance aspects of AI in China, this book argues that China's AI approach is sophisticated and multifaceted, and it has brought about both considerable benefits and challenges to China. First, many characterize China's AI approach as a nationally concerted top-down geopolitical strategy to advance Beijing's unified objective. This book argues that this view is mistaken. It shows that China's AI politics is largely shaped by economically rather than geopolitically motivated domestic stakeholders. In addition, China's national AI plan is an upgrade of existing local AI initiatives to the national level, reflecting a bottom-up development. Thus, China's AI strategy is more of a political manifesto rather than a concrete policy plan. The second part of the book discusses how the Chinese central government has been securitizing AI in order to mobilize local states, market actors, intellectuals and the general public. This security discourse is built on China's historical anxieties about technology, regime security needs and the growing tension caused by great power competition. Despite its help in convincing domestic actors, however, this securitization trend may undermine key AI objectives. The third part of the book studies the Chinese governance approach to the use of AI. It argues that China's bold AI practices are part of its broad and incoherent adaptation strategy to governance by digital means. AI is part of a digital technology package that the Chinese authoritarian regime has actively employed not only to improve public services but also to strengthen its authoritarian governance. While China's AI progress benefits from its unique political and social environment, its ambitious AI plan contains considerable risks. China's approach is gambling on its success in (a) delivering a booming AI economy, (b) ensuring a smooth social transformation to the age of AI, and (c) proving ideological superiority of its authoritarian and communist values. This book suggests that a more accurate understanding of AI with Chinese characteristics is essential in order to inform the debate regarding what lessons can be learnt from China's AI approach and how to respond to China's rise as the AI leader if not superpower."

This book advocates for a radical change in music teaching and learning methods, allowing for a break from the traditional conservatory model still in use in many classrooms. The product of twenty years of interdisciplinary work by musicians, music teachers, and psychologists, the book proposes to place the focus of music education on the students themselves and on their mental and physical activity, with the aim of helping them to manage their own goals and emotions. This alternative is based on a new theoretical framework, as well as numerous real, concrete examples of how to put it into practice with students of different ages and in different environments. This book focuses primarily on teaching instrumental music, but its content will be useful for any teacher, student, musician, or researcher interested in improving music education in any environment, whether formal or informal, in which it takes placeChapters 3, 4, 6 and 18 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book puts forth a call to engagement for educators at all levels of education and in all subject areas, with a focus on language education. Through using a grounded theory approach, it features semi-structured interviews, in a qualitative approach, with educators who embody community engaged education.

This book collects the latest advances, innovations, and applications in the field of environmental science and sustainable development, which were presented by scholars and researchers at the 2021 6th Asia Conference on Environment and Sustainable Development, held in Phuket, Thailand, November 6¿8, 2021. The book covers highly diverse topics, including environmental dynamics, global environmental change and ecosystems management, environmental restoration and ecological engineering, water treatment and reclamation, environmental sustainability, health and the environment, wastewater and sludge treatment, solid waste management, air pollution and control. The contributions, which were selected in a rigorous international peer-review process, highlight numerous exciting ideas that will spur novel research directions and foster multidisciplinary collaborations.

This book introduces the work of Yoshihiko Uchida (1913¿1989), one of the most prominent Japanese thinkers on the topic of civil society in the post-World War II era. The distinctive features of Uchidäs approach to civil society are his view of the metabolic relationship between human beings and nature and his call for a social science rooted in the experiences and inquiries of ordinary citizens. This original approach did not develop in a straight line from Uchidäs early work to his mature period, and this book follows the twists and turns in its formation through his reflections on the relationships between ¿the civil¿ and ¿the capitalistic,¿ ¿the modern¿ and ¿the pre-modern,¿ ¿the historical¿ and ¿the trans-historical,¿ and ¿science by specialists¿ and ¿inquiry by laypeople.¿ As a historian of economic thought, Uchida pursued these topical themes by examining figures such as Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and Hajime Kawakami, a prominent thinker in Japan. By casting a light on these inquiries, this book offers the first depiction of Uchidäs body of work as a whole and in doing so illuminates the emergence of original democratic thought in post-war Japan.

This book highlights the theories and applications of quantum acoustical imaging which can be considered as a part of quantum technology. It starts with the theories and background principles of this new field in depth.The examples of some present forms of available acoustical imaging which can be considered as quantum acoustical imaging are given such as ultrasonics in the terahertz range with the use of optical transducers for producing terahertz ultrasound and the theory of sound amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (SASER) and principles based on terahertz ultrasound. The SASER transducer is described, followed by the applications of SASER.Other examples of quantum acoustical imaging are the atomic force acoustic microscope (AFAM) and the ultrasonic force microscope. The author's personal inventions of quantum acoustical imaging are a system based on phonons entanglement based on the quantum property of phonons entanglement and the quantum ultrasound diffraction tomography system.The advantage of quantum acoustical imaging is the defeat of the classical Rayleigh image resolution limit. An unique feature of this book is that it has gone in depth into the quantum theories of acoustical imaging such as phonons entanglement,,superposition principle and the application of transport theory.Quantum microphones and quantum transducers are also introduced with a final chapter on quantum image processing.

This book discusses human rights law, focusing on Chinese contributions to international human rights viewed from a perspective of global governance. The original research presented here integrates a variety of research methods: inter-disciplinary approaches, historical and comparative methods, documentary research and so on. The research findings can be described briefly as follows: In global governance, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) serves as a historic cross-cultural heritage, while Pengchun Chang, the Chinese representative, made great contributions to the establishment of the international human rights system. After examining the characteristics of the Chinese discourse on human rights in global governance, the book suggests fundamental principles for improving human rights standards in China. In addition, it explores Chinese concepts of human dignity concerning the Declaration on Human Dignity for everyone, everywhere. The target readers areglobal scholars and students of law, politics, philosophy, international relations, human rights law, religion and culture. The book will provide these readers a vivid picture of Chinäs contributions to international human rights, and a better understanding of the significance of traditional Chinese culture and wisdom.

This book investigates Turkey¿s departure from a ¿flawed democracy¿ under Kemalist secularism, and its transitioning into Islamist authoritarian Erdöanism, through the lenses of informal law, legal pluralism, and legal hybridity. In doing so, it examines the attempts of Turkey¿s ruling party (AKP) at social engineering and gradual Islamisation of the Turkish state and society, by using informal Islamist laws.To that end, the book argues that the AKP has paved the way for Islamist legal hybridity where society, state, and law, are being gradually Islamised on an ad hoc basis. Informal law and legal pluralism in Turkey have had a non-state characteristic which have permitted Muslims to solve disputes by seeking the opinions of religio-legal scholars. Yet under the AKP rule, this informal legal system has become increasingly dominated by conservatives, sometimes radical Islamists, which the governing party has taken advantage of by either formalizing some partsof the informal Islamist law, or using it informally to mobilize its supporters against the opposition.

This book features a collection of 10 interviews with Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen, who is a key figure in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and has collaborated closely with M.A.K. Halliday since the 1980s. As noted by Professor Chang Chenguang, Editor of the M.A.K. Halliday Library Functional Linguistics Series, ¿this collection of interviews serves as an important reference for scholars and students of SFL. It provides a unique perspective on the theoretical development and future outlooks of SFL, as well as Matthiessen¿s own interpretations of the theory. It also enriches our understanding of SFL and is a very useful addition to the series.¿ Written in an engaging dialogic format, the book paints a vivid picture of SFL thriving among the landscape of general linguistics and of SFL as an important tool now being applied in various areas.