Böcker utgivna av Springer Nature Singapore

This Handbook offers an overview of the thriving and diverse field of anthropological studies of technology. It features 39 original chapters, each reviewing the state of the art of current research and enlivening the field of study through ethnographic analysis of human-technology interfaces, forms of social organisation, technological practices and/or systems of belief and meaning in different parts of the world.The Handbook is organised around some of the most important characteristics of anthropological studies of technology today: the diverse knowledge practices that technologies involve and on which they depend; the communities, collectives, and categories that emerge around technologies; anthropology¿s contribution to proliferating debates on ethics, values, and morality in relation to technology; and infrastructures that highlight how all technologies are embedded in broader political economies and socio-historical processes that shape and often reinforce inequality and discrimination while also generating diversity. All chapters share a commitment to human experiences, embodiments, practices, and materialities in the daily lives of those people and institutions involved in the development, manufacturing, deployment, and/or use of particular technologies.Chapters 11 and 31 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book presents the future development of Malaysia. It puts together building blocks to achieve a better future. These blocks are poverty and income inequality, population, demography and urbanization, growth and technological progress, education, human capital and skills, finance, labor, the environment, and health care. It examines the reasons for the decline in the agricultural sector with an emphasis on food security. It discusses Malaysiäs economic growth and structural change compared to some of the Northeast East Asian and Southeast Asian countries. It explains the projections of population and demographic change and its bearing on government policies. It evaluates the country¿s education sector and discusses the strategies to improve its role in the country further. It argues for replacing ethnic-based approaches with a needs-based system for the future direction to build a plural Malaysia. This insightful book is of interest across several fields, includingdemography, economic development, and urbanization.

This book, the third in the series Behavior of Radionuclides in the Environment, is dedicated to Fukushima. Major findings from research since 2011 are reviewed concerning the behavior of radionuclides released into the environment due to the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident, including atmospheric transport and fallout of radionuclides, their fate, and transport in the soil-water environment, behavior in freshwater, coastal and marine environment, transfer in the terrestrial and agricultural environment. Volume III discusses not only radionuclides dynamics in the environment in the short- and mid-term, but also modeling and prediction of long-term time changes.Along with reviews, the book contains original data and results not published previously. It was spearheaded by the authors from the Institute of Environmental Radioactivity at Fukushima University, established two years after the Fukushima accident, with their collaborators from Japan, Russia, and Ukraine. The knowledge emerging from the studies of the environmental behavior of Fukushima-derived radionuclides enables us to move forward in understanding mechanisms of environmental contamination and leads to better modeling and prediction of long-term pollution effects in general. 

This book records the history of Japan¿s international cooperation in education from the 1950s to 2020. It provides a crucial overview of the nearly 70 years since Japan began engaging in international cooperation in education in order to record and document these efforts that range from basic to higher education to technical and vocational education and training, and the large numbers of people involved in their respective areas of activity and specialization. The book provides useful indicators for exploring new forms of education cooperation in this age of global governance and beyond. The authors include not only researchers but also field practitioners, such as personnel from the Japan International Cooperation Agency and NGOs.Chapters 1, 3, 5, 9, 12 and 15 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book, the second volume of Crime Scene Management in Forensic Sciences, reviews the role and impact of forensic evidence in criminal investigations. It also addresses the importance of post mortem examination in criminal cases.The book investigates the use of insects and arthropods to estimate post mortem intervals during forensic investigations. Further, it discusses the physiological effects of xenobiotics at the time of death, based on their concentration and distribution in the body at autopsy. Importantly, it also discusses digital forensic investigation, which can be used for the analysis of digital evidence produced at a court of law. Lastly, it defines the structure and legal framework of these forensic evidences for the effective administration of the criminal justice system. It is an excellent source of information for forensics scientists and legal professionals.

This book presents the select proceedings of the International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure Development: Innovations and Advances (SIDIA 2020). The book addresses the issues of optimal resource allocation and utilization, construction cost minimization, budget optimization for infrastructure development in hilly terrain as well as plains, to ensure quality and safety with minimal environmental impact. The topics covered include planning, design and construction of sustainable infrastructure projects, policy and practices to be considered for the comprehensive development which is socially inclusive specifically in developing nations, transportation engineering and management which is performance-based and emerging economical models for partnerships, environment engineering and management for ascertaining the best methods for environmental impacts assessment to capture the true indirect costs of a infrastructure project, geotechnical and water resource engineering using new developments, and utilizing the various technological impacts for ensuring disaster preparedness of any region. This book can prove to be useful for beginners, researchers, and professionals interested in the latest advances and innovations in sustainable infrastructure development.

This book contains selected articles from the Second International Conference on Geotechnical Engineering-Iraq (ICGE-Iraq) held in Akre/Duhok/Iraq from June 22 to 23, 2021, to discuss the challenges, opportunities, and problems of geotechnical engineering in projects. Also, the conference includes modern applications in structural engineering, materials of construction, construction management, planning and design of structures, and remote sensing and surveying engineering. The ICGE-Iraq organized by the Iraqi Scientific Society of Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering (ISSSMFE) in cooperation with Akre Technical Institute / Duhok Polytechnic University, College of Engineering /University of Baghdad, and Civil Engineering Department/University of Technology. The book covers a wide spectrum of themes in civil engineering, including but not limited to sustainability and environmental-friendly applications. The contributing authors are academic and researchers in their respective fields from several countries. This book will provide a valuable resource for practicing engineers and researchers in the field of geotechnical engineering, structural engineering, and construction and management of projects.

Urolithiasis is a common and ever-increasing problem all over the world. During the last few decades, percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL) has become the preferred treatment method for moderate and large volume upper tract urinary calculi. In recent years, there have been groundbreaking advances in the field of percutaneous renal surgery in the form of minimally invasive percutaneous nephrolithotomy. Various techniques have been described over the years in the area, which have improved the results of percutaneous nephrolithotomy surgery while reducing the complication rate and morbidity.  This book provides a broad, state-of-the-art review in the field of minimally-invasive percutaneous nephrolithotomy. It serves as a valuable resource for Urologists, endourology fellows, and researchers interested in mini-percutaneous nephrolithotomy. The book reviews the latest data about percutaneous management of Urolithiasis from the world over, various classification systems for mini-percutaneous nephrolithotomy, armamentarium, different techniques, and multiple advances, plus the results including complications. This book serves as a valuable resource for urologists dealing with and interested in learning the newer advances in percutaneous renal surgery. It delivers a comprehensive summary of the current status of minimally-invasive percutaneous nephrolithotomy in the management of Urolithiasis. All the chapters have been written by experts in minimally invasive percutaneous nephrolithotomy and present the most recent scientific data. 

The book covers the recent developments in various aspects of minimal access surgery (laparoscopic and robotic surgery), which is fairly a new branch of surgery that has advanced tremendously in last few years. This is the first volume of the set of books on recent concepts in minimal access surgery. It provides step-by-step descriptions accompanied by numerous helpful photographs and anatomical drawings. It also includes the controversies and gives a cumulative opinion on the recent changes developing in minimal access surgery (MAS). It includes system wise topics and separate chapters on the different topics within the system with the meta-analysis of recent topic or their controversies.The book is useful for practitioners and young faculties as well as residents, trainees and fellows of surgery and minimal access surgery.

This book explores cultural polarization resultant decline in social cohesion in society and how information and communication technologies exacerbate the cultural polarization through phenomenon such as "e;echo chambers"e; of information that damage the quality of online discourse. This book examines the nature of the information that is shared. Further this book identifies how the quality of online discourse and polarization induced through it leads to offline harm and negative outcomes in our society.This book discusses how wide-ranging information exchange on digital media can lead to two scenarios, namely, the formation of the public sphere or the formation of echo chambers. While the public sphere, which promotes greater diversity, is a well-researched domain, substantially less research has been conducted on echo chambers in relation to sociocultural activities, products or services. This book states that polarization induced by the formation and evolution of echo chambers in sociocultural realm such as around epidemic outbreaks, vaccination, healthcare, education, and climate change is an emerging avenue of research due to its enormous impact in the shaping of our society. Therefore, this book argues that understanding the characteristics of sociocultural products related controversies is critical and valuable in developing interventions to reduce unhealthy societal and organizational polarisations.The development of systematic knowledge is required to understand and address such a large scale and complex societal challenge so as to facilitate a deeper understanding and offer solutions to the growing issue of polarization in sociocultural context driven primarily through echo chambers. This book examines how technology enabled social media usage increases, and the complex structural outcomes such as echo chambers are likely to have an increasingly important role in shaping public opinion.  This book appeals to readers with interest in developing a deeper and broader understanding of issues and initiatives related to the polarization of opinions on cultural products. These include readers and scholars from various disciplines, along with engaged organizational leaders, activists, policy makers, and common citizens. 

This book highlights recent advancements in such an important topic, through contribution from experts demonstrating different applications in 'day-to-day' life, both existing and newly emerging non-biological technologies, and thought provoking approaches from different parts of the world, potential future prospects associated with some frontier development in non-conventional energy sources. It covers different types of natural energy sources such as: Ocean, Tidal and Wave energy; Nuclear energy; Solar cells; Geothermal energy; Hydrogen Fuel; Photovoltaic modules; Gas hydrates; Hydrate-based Desalination Technology; and Hydrothermal Liquefaction of Kraft Lignin/ Lignocellulosic Biomass to Fuels and Chemicals. This book is a comprehensive and informative compilation for international readers, especially undergraduate and post graduate students and researchers.

This book outlines comprehensive information on the global trends, policies, research priorities and frontier innovations made in the research domain of breeding, biotechnology, biofortification and quality enhancement of wheat and barley. With contributions by international group of leading wheat and barley researchers, this book offers data-based insights along with a holistic view of the subject and serve as a vital resource of information for scientists engaged in breeding future high-yielding biofortified varieties.  It catalogs both conventional as well as modern tools for gene identification and genome editing interventions for enhancing the yield, grain quality, disease and pest resistance, nutrient-use efficiency and abiotic stress tolerance. The prospects of processing high quality wheat end-products with long term storage and high nutritional quality are also discussed. This book is of interest to teachers, researchers, molecular breeders, cereal biochemists and biotechnologist, policymakers and professionals working in the area of wheat and barley research, food and cereal industry. Also, the book serves as an additional reading material for the undergraduate and graduate students of agriculture and food sciences. National and international agricultural scientists, policy makers will also find this book to be a useful read.Volume 2 of New Horizons in Wheat and Barley Research covers topics in crop protection and resource management. 

This edited book unpacks the nature of Central Asian migration to East Asia. This book uses the case of Uzbekistan, the most populous country of Central Asia, and demonstrates the migration channels and adaptation strategies of migrants to the realities of Japan. What are the foreign policy engagements of Japan in Central Asia? How do they relate to the intensifying educational mobility and labour migration from Central Asia (in particular, Uzbekistan) to Japan? By answering these two questions, this book aims to detail the social factors that play important roles in localizing foreign policy engagements and narrating them in terms easily understood by the public.

This book describes the growing clinical and healthcare relevance of nano-therapeutics in treating respiratory diseases. It begins with a brief introduction on the different types of nanoparticles in respiratory disease conditions. It further discusses the current trends in understanding the disease pathology using different in vitro and in vivo models, which are important towards the onsite clinical applications and development of new therapeutics. The book includes exciting topics such as formulation of these nanoparticles, targeting various organelles etc. It also describes the future prospects and challenges in the field. Different chapters are written by researchers actively working in the area of pulmonary diseases. This book is designed to address the requirements of both beginners and specialized scientists involved in pulmonary research. The contents include basic concepts followed by advanced state-of-art monitoring and treatment of diseases. The book is meant for researchers and industry experts in nanotechnology, pharmaceutical sciences and drug design.

This book aims to provide a comprehensive analysis on social, economic, and political issues to understand why forests in the Demacratic People's Repblican of Korean have been so severely deforested. Deforestation and forest degradation issues in the DPRK has been highlighted as an important international political issue, which has been intervening with food security issues and energy issues, and it's hard to discover the way out. The DPRK provides a unique case to international community that illustrate why the forests issue is so complex, illuminating the issues of declining forest coverage that beset developing nations around the world. This book will interest political scientists, conservation ecologists, and journalists.

This book coherently presents advances in design principles, processes, and methods in healthcare product design. It captures the implications of technological advances on designing healthcare products especially when market and societal needs pull each other in opposite directions. The contents focus on innovative design thinking processes and methods in developing healthcare products, applications of digital technologies in healthcare product design, amalgamation of artificial intelligence and design thinking for healthcare product design and quality, sustainability, and regulatory aspects in the design process. This book is a useful reference for those in the industry and academia.

This book introduces a research method called 'auto-teach(er)/ing-focused research,' a research process that aims to document understandings generated by, and for the teacher when that teacher teaches or re-teaches a course. It demonstrates how this method is applied by the author/researcher within the pedagogical space that is the teaching of a course, one that has been taught numerous times by the author/researcher over many years. This book documents understandings about learning and teaching that have emerged within the pedagogical space that is the teaching of a course, and the pedagogical space that is the writing of a book. It explores the notion that pedagogical spaces are complex, and that subjects navigate and are produced within them in a multiplicity of ways. This book applies a research method that generates a knowledge product that research practitioners in a variety of settings might find useful to adopt or adapt.

This book highlights recent advancements and innovations in trenchless technology via the adoption of combined micro-tunnelling and pipe-jacking techniques. This technique is more environmentally friendly, cost effective, less time-consuming and less disruptive compared to conventional open trench excavations for urban construction and urban infrastructure renewal projects. Pipe jacking is a non-destructive technique used in the installation of underground pipelines using a tunnel boring machine (TBM) and thrust forces derived from the hydraulic jack set-up in a deep jacking shaft. It is popular and commonly used worldwide for the installation of sewer and common services cable tunnels as well as for oil and gas pipelines.

This book explores how stretching stories through posthuman and autoethnographic perspectives can produce new stories that decolon(ial)ize traditional thinking and approaches to Early Childhood Education (ECE). It demonstrates how stories can provide a different way of knowing, and a way of knowing differently: a way of decolon(ial)izing current discourses of early childhood education within educational institutions.The book uses research and practice in ECE to act as a canvas, a context with which to explore how autoethnography can become other when viewed through a posthumanist lens. As a consequence the chapters and stories within allow for an interplay between the posthumanist and the autoethnographic, an interplay that allows for a very specific type of meaning to emerge; a meaning that traffics in numerous and disruptive possibilities rather than settled certainties. In so doing, authors rethink and perturb the notion of child-centered approaches to knowing, be(com)ing, and doing within the Early Childhood Education context.

The book is aimed to foster knowledge based on Blockchain technology highlighting on the framework basics, operating principles and different incarnations. The fundamental problems encountered in existing blockchain architectures and means for removing those would be covered. It would also touch upon blockchain based IoT systems and applications. The book covers applications and use cases of blockchain technology for industrial IoT systems. In addition, methods for inducing computational intelligence into existing blockchain frameworks thereby thwarting most of the limitations are also discussed. The readers would benefit from the rich technical content in this rapidly emerging field thereby enabling a skilled workforce for the future.

This book encapsulates recent applications of CI methods in the field of computational oncology, especially cancer diagnosis, prognosis, and its optimized therapeutics.The cancer has been known as a heterogeneous disease categorized in several different subtypes. According to WHO's recent report, cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for over 10 million deaths in the year 2020. Therefore, its early diagnosis, prognosis, and classification to a subtype have become necessary as it facilitates the subsequent clinical management and therapeutics plan. Computational intelligence (CI) methods, including artificial neural networks (ANNs), fuzzy logic, evolutionary computations, various machine learning and deep learning, and nature-inspired algorithms, have been widely utilized in various aspects of oncology research, viz. diagnosis, prognosis, therapeutics, and optimized clinical management. Appreciable progress has been made toward the understanding the hallmarks of cancer development, progression, and its effective therapeutics. However, notwithstanding the extrinsic and intrinsic factors which lead to drastic increment in incidence cases, the detection, diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutics remain an apex challenge for the medical fraternity. With the advent in CI-based approaches, including nature-inspired techniques, and availability of clinical data from various high-throughput experiments, medical consultants, researchers, and oncologists have seen a hope to devise and employ CI in various aspects of oncology. The main aim of the book is to occupy state-of-the-art applications of CI methods which have been derived from core computer sciences to back medical oncology. This edited book covers artificial neural networks, fuzzy logic and fuzzy inference systems, evolutionary algorithms, various nature-inspired algorithms, and hybrid intelligent systems which are widely appreciated for the diagnosis, prognosis, and optimization of therapeutics of various cancers. Besides, this book also covers multi-omics exploration, gene expression analysis, gene signature identification of cancers, genomic characterization of tumors, anti-cancer drug design and discovery, drug response prediction by means of CI, and applications of IoT, IoMT, and blockchain technology in cancer research.

This book comprehensively and systematically discusses in situ aluminum matrix composites, from their system design, material development, and preparation technology, to their solidification structure, plastic processing, and properties. As a new type of metal matrix composite, it not only provides a technical framework for the low-cost, large-scale development of high-performance compliant materials, but also provides important technical support for the promotion of the aluminum industry. The book appeals to researchers and industrial practitioners in the area of materials development for in situ aluminum matrix composites.

This book provides an overview on the latest technology and applications of bio-based fiber composite materials. It covers the mechanical and thermal properties of bio-fibers for polymeric resins and explains the different pre-treatment methods used by the researchers for the enhancement. In addition, this book also presents a complete analysis on the tribological behavior of bio-fiber reinforced polymer composites to appreciate the friction and wear behavior. This book would be a handy to the industrial practitioners and researchers in the direction of achieving optimum design for the components made of natural fiber based polymer matrix composites.

This book develops a progressive program of engagement with issues, problems and critical thinking which helps universities and students understand and engage with some of the key issues of our time. It focuses on curriculum concerns, and presents a sustained and critical analysis and dialogue about knowledge, culture and ways of seeing important issues. This book provides critical and analytical insights into the importance of the emergence of mass higher education into public awareness. It explores what is termed 'contested knowledge' as part of modern students' experiences and expectations. By broadcasting some of the future prospects for a democratic university, especially in relation to its communities, it highlights the need to grasp the significance of global change and instability in teaching and learning, and how an adequate curriculum in higher education can be constructed to address the issues that arise.

This book approaches Silk Road studies from within the microcosm of China's Southwest avant-garde arts sector in order to approach the macrocosm of China's cultural heritage and creative industry influence worldwide. While reading China's cultural hegemony and its attendant ideologies as 'shaping' memory and history throughout New Silk Road regions, the book includes new regional research from within China's borders, as well as throughout New Silk Road regions. With twenty years of experience in China, Sophia G. Kidd fills a void in discussions of the New Silk Roads (NSR) which fail to underscore the importance of the initiative's people-to-people component. Cultural diplomacy aids cooperation between New Silk Road Regions by reducing 'cultural discount' of Chinese cultural exports, i.e., ideas and values, creating a shift of geo-cultural thinking to come. This book will prove illuminating for students of the arts and soft power in greater China.

The book includes select proceedings of the International Conference on Computational Intelligence in Machine Learning (ICCIML 2021). The book constitutes peer-reviewed papers on machine learning, computational intelligence, the internet of things, and smart city applications emphasizing multi-disciplinary research in artificial intelligence and cyber-physical systems. This book addresses the comprehensive nature of computational intelligence, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning to emphasize its character in modeling, identification, optimization, prediction, forecasting, and control of future intelligent systems. The book will be useful for researchers, research scholars, and students to formulate their research ideas and find future directions in these areas. It will help the readers to solve a diverse range of problems in industries and their real-world applications.

This book addresses a special topic in the field of nonlinear dynamical systems, develops a new research direction of surface chaos and surface bifurcation. It provides a clear watershed for original nonlinear chaos and bifurcation research. The novel content of this book makes nonlinear system research more systematical and personalized.This book introduces the chaos and bifurcation behavior of surface dynamics in the sense of Li Yorke, the basic properties, Lyapunov exponent and Feigenbaum constant of nonlinear behavior of surface, and obtained the wave behavior of chaotic process in surface motion, the control of surface chaos and bifurcation, and the wide application of surface chaos in engineering technology.Through this book, readers can obtain more abundant and novel contents about surface chaos and surface bifurcation than the existing mixed fitting bifurcation of plane curve and space curve, which can also expand the realm and vision of research.

This book demonstrates fatigue crack growth under random loading graphically. This state-of-the-art monograph introduces an expert system for crack growth predictions, particularly based on crack closure. The system is developed after years of research by the authors by using the Math-type software consisting of 5 parts. This system is unique as it is fundamentally different from previous systems as it focuses on fatigue crack growth predictions based on fatigue crack closure. This book can be a useful guide for practicing engineers, researchers, and students in the fields of mechanical, aerospace, or civil engineering.