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This book constitutes selected papers presented during the two events: the First Forum, GranDGamesBR 2020, held in Recife, Brazil, in November 2020, and the Second Forum, GranDGamesBR 2021, held in Gramado, Brazi, in October 2021.The 12 papers presented were thoroughly reviewed and selected from 24 submissions. The topics included in this volume cover the following fields connected to games and entertainment computing: game design, educational games, games evaluation, game-based learning, player experience, human-computer interaction, games industry, business models, game software ecosystems, ethics, serious games, cyberdemocracy, emotional design, computer graphics, cognitive simulation, immersive entertainment, virtual/augmented/extended reality, gamification, and creative process.

This book addresses the problems of mathematical relations between global and classical coordinate references from the practical applications point of view. It presents a large cartographic and numerical information set, which provides great values for practical and academical use based on the classical Albanian coordinative reference (ALB1986/ALB1987). This information is reflected from the positional point of view in the new modern Albanian satellite reference ALBPOS (Albanian Positioning System) or ALBCORS (Albanian Continuous Operation Reference Stations System). The main purpose of this Monograph is to summarize coordinative references applied in Albania in different periods, both classical and modern. Relevant transformation models between traditional/classical reference ALB1986 / ALB1987 and GNSS satellite reference are presented. The book furthermore recommends the mathematical models of the relationship in plan and height, between the Albanian classical reference and the global/European coordinate references (ITRF, EUREF). It serves to professionals involved in fundamental geodetic works as well as all working with GNSS or developing GIS applications.

This book examines the interplay between cooperation on technical barriers to trade (TBT) in free trade agreements and the multilateral framework of the World Trade Organization. In recent years, TBT, especially differences in standards, have attracted increased interest and have been addressed as part of the WTO+ negotiated agenda in trade agreements. Because of a number of political and legal constraints, the process of further cooperation at the WTO have been stalled, which made free trade agreements a central pillar in setting the agenda of international trade governance. This leads us to rethinking the interrelation between the WTO and free trade agreements and to questioning the role of both fora in the future of trade. The book examines some TBT provisions in free trade agreements and highlights their positive and problematic aspects when it comes to the WTO-consistency and the ideas of open and inclusive trade. It also suggests that a more optimal way forward would be toincrease parallel work on TBT cooperation at the WTO, a more inclusive forum that could address issues of global significance, such as environmental protection and regulation of digital goods. The book explores the potential for trade agreements to advance the WTO agenda, but notes that the organization would need to adapt its institutional structure and governance in order to do so.Drawing on the example of the EU and US so-called ¿new generation¿ trade agreements, the book provides a detailed analysis of the various methods used to navigate TBT cooperation, and offers insight into how these agreements can serve as inspiration for future multilateral disciplines. This book is a valuable resource for trade law academics, policymakers, and anyone interested in the intersection of technical barriers to trade, regional trade agreements, and the WTO.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 24th International Conference, PAM 2023, held as a virtual event, March 21¿23, 2023.The 18 full papers and 9 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 80 submissions. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: VPNs and Infrastructure; TLS; Applications; Measurement Tools; Network Performance; Topology; Security and Privacy; DNS; and Web.

This book constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the workshops held at the 16th Asian Conference on Computer Vision, ACCV 2022, which took place in Macao, China, in December 2022. The 25 papers included in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 40 submissions. They have been organized in topical sections as follows: Learning with limited data for face analysis; adversarial machine learning towards advanced vision systems; computer vision for medical computing; machine learning and computing for visual semantic analysis; vision transformers theory and applications; and deep learning-based small object detection from images and videos.

The proceedings of the 2022 edition of the International Symposium of Robotics Research (ISRR) offer a series of peer-reviewed chapters that report on the most recent research results in robotics, in a variety of domains of robotics including robot design, control, robot vision, robot learning, planning, and integrated robot systems. The proceedings entail also invited contributions that offer provocative new ideas, open-ended themes, and new directions for robotics, written by some of the most renown international researchers in robotics. As one of the pioneering symposia in robotics, ISRR has established some of the most fundamental and lasting contributions in the field since 1983. ISRR promotes the development and dissemination of ground-breaking research and technological innovation in robotics useful to society by providing a lively, intimate, forward-looking forum for discussion and debate about the status and future trends of robotics, with emphasis on its potential role to benefit humans.

¿This book deals with the rise of mathematics in physical sciences, beginning with Galileo and Newton and extending to the present day. The book is divided into two parts. The first part gives a brief history of how mathematics was introduced into physics¿despite its "unreasonable effectiveness" as famously pointed out by a distinguished physicist¿and the criticisms it received from earlier thinkers. The second part takes a more philosophical approach and is intended to shed some light on that mysterious effectiveness. For this purpose, the author reviews the debate between classical philosophers on the existence of innate ideas that allow us to understand the world and also the philosophically based arguments for and against the use of mathematics in physical sciences. In this context, Schopenhauer¿s conceptions of causality and matter are very pertinent, and their validity is revisited in light of modern physics. The final question addressed is whether the effectiveness of mathematics can be explained by its ¿existence¿ in an independent platonic realm, as Gödel believed.The book aims at readers interested in the history and philosophy of physics. It is accessible to those with only a very basic (not professional) knowledge of physics.

This volume gathers the latest advances, innovations and applications in the field of efficiency and performance engineering, as presented by leading international researchers and engineers at the 2022 conference of the Efficiency and Performance Engineering Network (TEPEN), held in Beijing and Baotou, China on August 18-21, 2022. Topics include vibro-acoustics monitoring, condition-based maintenance, sensing and instrumentation, machine health monitoring, maintenance auditing and organization, non-destructive testing, reliability, asset management, condition monitoring, life-cycle cost optimisation, prognostics and health management, maintenance performance measurement, manufacturing process monitoring, and robot-based monitoring and diagnostics. The contributions, which were selected through a rigorous international peer-review process, share exciting ideas that will spur novel research directions and foster new multidisciplinary collaborations.

This book describes the first application at CMS of deep learning algorithms trained directly on low-level, ¿raw¿ detector data, or so-called end-to-end physics reconstruction. Growing interest in searches for exotic new physics in the CMS collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN has highlighted the need for a new generation of particle reconstruction algorithms. For many exotic physics searches, sensitivity is constrained not by the ability to extract information from particle-level data but by inefficiencies in the reconstruction of the particle-level quantities themselves. The technique achieves a breakthrough in the reconstruction of highly merged photon pairs that are completely unresolved in the CMS detector. This newfound ability is used to perform the first direct search for exotic Higgs boson decays to a pair of hypothetical light scalar particles H¿aa, each subsequently decaying to a pair of highly merged photons äyy, an analysis once thought impossible to perform. The book concludes with an outlook on potential new exotic searches made accessible by this new reconstruction paradigm.

This book presents the proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision (AICV¿2023) which will be held in Marrakesh, Morocco, during March 05¿07, 2023. This international conference, which highlighted essential research and developments in the fields of artificial intelligence and computer visions, was organized by the computer, Networks, Mobility and Modeling Laboratory (IR2M), Faculty of Sciences and Techniques, Hassan First University, Settat, Morocco, the Scientific Research Group in Egypt (SRGE), Cairo University, and the Automated Systems & Soft Computing Lab (ASSCL), Prince Sultan University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The book is divided into sections, covering the following topics: swarm-based optimization mining and data analysis, deep learning and applications, machine learning and applications, image processing and computer vision, sentiment analysis, and recommendation systems, and software-defined network and telecommunication.

This book provides a deep insight into recent achievements in synthesis, investigation, and applications of the low-dimensional chalcohalide nanomaterials. The large number of interesting phenomena occur in these compounds, including ferroelectric, piezoelectric, pyroelectric, electrocaloric, Seebeck, photovoltaic, and ferroelectric-photovoltaic effects. Furthermore, the outstanding photoelectrochemical, photocatalytic, and piezocatalytic properties of the chalcohalide nanomaterials have been revealed. Since many chalcohalide semiconductors possess both photoactive and ferroelectric properties, they are recognized as photoferroelectrics. It presents an overview of fabrication of chalcohalide nanomaterials using different methods: mechanical milling of bulk crystals, liquid-phase exfoliation, vapor phase growth, hydro/solvothermal methods, synthesis under ultrasonic irradiation, microwave synthesis, laser/heat-induced crystallization, electrospinning, successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction. The strategies of the chalcohalide nanomaterials processing for construction of functional devices are presented.The book describes solution processing for thin films preparation, spin-coating deposition of polymer composites, solution casting, films deposition via drop-casting, high pressure compression of nanowires into the bulk samples, pressure assisted sintering, and electric field assisted alignment of nanowires. The applications of the chalcohalide nanomaterials for mechanical/thermal energy harvesting and energy storage are presented. Major challenges and emerging trends in fabrication, characterization, and future applications of low-dimensional chalcohalide nanomaterials are discussed. A wealth of information for scholars, graduate students, and engineers involved in research of nanomaterials.

This book contains extensive data about tandem wing aircraft. It includes a review of modern flying vehicles with four fixed wings, a review of analytical, numerical and experimental methods; results of the studies about aerodynamics; dependencies between geometrical parameters and aerodynamic characteristics, practical recommendations in development and optimizing of tandem wing aircraft to provide high lift-to-drag ratio, stability, and controllability. This is an ideal book for graduate students, researchers, and engineers working in fields of aerodynamics and conceptual design of the aircraft especially UAVs, ground-effect vehicles, and convertiplanes.

This book showcases the state of the art in the field of electronics, as presented by researchers and engineers at the 53rd Annual Meeting of the Italian Electronics Society (SIE), held in Rende (CS), Italy, on September 5-7, 2022. It covers a broad range of aspects, including: integrated circuits and systems, micro- and nano-electronic devices, microwave electronics, sensors and microsystems, optoelectronics and photonics, power electronics, electronic systems and applications.

The general scope of the book covers diverse areas of fuzzy systems, soft computing, AI tools such as uncertain computation, decision-making under imperfect information, deep learning, and others. The topics of the papers include theory and application of Soft Computing, Neuro-Fuzzy Technology, Intelligent Control, Deep Learning-Machine Learning, Fuzzy Logic in Data Analytics, Evolutionary Computing, Fuzzy logic and Artificial Intelligence in Engineering, Social Sciences, Business, Economics, Material Sciences, and others.This book presents the proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Applications of Fuzzy Systems, Soft Computing, and Artificial Intelligence Tools, ICAFS-2022, held in Budva, Montenegro, on August 26-27, 2022. This is a useful guide for academics, practitioners, and graduates in fields of fuzzy logic and soft computing. It allows for increasing of interest in development and applying of these paradigms in various real-life fields.

This open access book. provides a synthesis of six projects, across ten countries, each of which have been sustained for two or more decades, and which illustrate how success can be achieved regardless of systems of governance, of a nation¿s wealth, or of culture. Detailed narratives are presented on the key personalities that have conceived, conducted and concluded long-term projects: personal stories of vision, failure, frustration and persistence ultimately leading to success.The case studies vary widely in their geography and goals. The single-handed commitment to re-discover the last surviving populations of Giant Sable in the miombo woodlands of central Angola, through the capture, translocation and establishment of robust breeding herds of this magnificent antelope, contrasts with the massively funded, three-decade programme with over one hundred participants that reversed the annual loss to predation by feral cats of 455 000 seabirds from a sub-Antarctic island. Similarly, the foresight of Zimbabwean and Namibian ecologists to place rural communities at the centre of conservation programmes by giving value to wildlife populations and benefits to local people, transformed a land degradation problem to a socio-ecological solution. Across ten countries, building capacity in botanical collection, documentation and herbarium management expanded into a global project to place the knowledge base of Africäs flora onto an electronic data system accessible to researchers and conservation planners in even the most remote corners of the continent. None of these projects enjoyed immediate results. Each required leadership skills that combined vision, a generosity of spirit, fortuitous timing and the exploitation of unexpected opportunities.

This book presents the so-called Shuffled Shepherd Optimization Algorithm (SSOA), a recently developed meta-heuristic algorithm by authors. There is always limitations on the resources to be used in the construction. Some of the resources used in the buildings are also detrimental to the environment. For example, the cement utilized in making concrete emits carbon dioxide, which contributes to the global warming. Hence, the engineers should employ resources efficiently and avoid the waste. In the traditional optimal design methods, the number of trials and errors used by the designer is limited, so there is no guarantee that the optimal design can be found for structures. Hence, the deigning method should be changed, and the computational algorithms should be employed in the optimum design problems.The gradient-based method and meta-heuristic algorithms are the two different types of methods used to find the optimal solution. The gradient-based methods require gradientinformation. Also, these can easily be trapped in the local optima in the nonlinear and complex problems. Therefore, to overcome these issues, meta-heuristic algorithms are developed. These algorithms are simple and can get out of the local optimum by easy means. However, a single meta-heuristic algorithm cannot find the optimum results in all types of optimization problems. Thus, civil engineers develop different meta-heuristic algorithms for their optimization problems.Different applications of the SSOA are provided. The simplified and enhanced versions of the SSOA are also developed and efficiently applied to various optimization problems in structures. Another special feature of this book consists of the use of graph theoretical force method as analysis tool, in place of traditional displacement approach. This has reduced the computational time to a great extent, especially for those structures having smaller DSI compared to the DKI. New framework is also developed for reliability-based design of frame structures. The algorithms are clearly stated such that they can simply be implemented and utilized in practice and research.

This book explores norm diffusion in non-Western contexts. It analyzes how norms transfer and what mechanisms or sources of leverage facilitate their diffusion. The individual chapters follow an interdisciplinary framework that analyzes social norms beyond the theoretical tradition of international relations, and focus on particular cases of diffusion¿both successful and unsuccessful¿across the non-Western world. In this way, the book challenges existing perspectives and advances critical norm research that diversifies the agency of norm entrepreneurs beyond processes of norm localization. It makes a twofold contribution¿by deepening our theoretical understanding of norms and their dynamics and by broadening the geographical scope of norms research.

This open access volume compiles student reports from the 2022 Simula Summer School in Computational Physiology. The reports provide an overview of some tools available to model physiology in excitable tissues across scales and scientific questions. In 2022, Simula held the eighth annual Summer School in Computational Physiology in collaboration with the University of Oslo (UiO) and the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Each year, the course focuses on modeling excitable tissues, with a special interest in cardiac physiology and neuroscience. Group research projects conducted by graduate students from around the world result in reports addressing problems of physiological importance. Reports may not necessarily represent new scientific results; rather, they can reproduce or supplement earlier studies.Reports from seven of the summer projects are included as separate chapters. The topics represented include multiscale mechanics, electrophysiology, pharmacology, and machine learning.

This thesis works on the topic of fiber-reinforced plastics and discusses the measurement of strain with embedded sensors. Embedding sensors into a structure fundamentally poses challenges arising from the differences in mechanical properties of sensor and structure. This thesis works on the research area of Self-Sensing, where these challenges are overcome by using carbon fibers for both load-carrying and strain-sensing functions. Starting with a literature review, this thesis proposes three research hypotheses, which are targeted to describe the Self-Sensing properties of unidirectional carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRPs) for strain measurements. These hypotheses assume, that the electric anisotropy of the material results in a complex voltage distribution within a Self-Sensing specimen. In order to discuss this point further, a two-dimensional piezoresistivity model based on the Laplace equation is introduced. The developed model newly allows to quantify the electricpotential changes in specimens with arbitrary geometrical dimensions and electric anisotropy.Furthermore, this thesis discusses a set of experimental results on the piezoresistive properties of unidirectional CFRP made with the pultrusion process. Overall, the results of the experiments indicate that the most repeatable results are obtained for specimens with electric contacts at their cut-end. This approach allows to manufacture Self-Strain-Sensing rods with a gauge factor of approximately 1.9 that can be used in a multifunctional manner for both load-carrying and strain-sensing purposes. Furthermore, a novel measurement setup is developed, which allows to acquire the electric potential distribution on the surface of electrical conductors with very high spacial resolution. This experimental setup newly reveals that the current flow in specimens can be more complex than assumed in a two-dimensional model.

This book examines the latest manifestations of resource competition. The energy transition and the digitalization of the global economy are both accelerating even as geopolitics driven by Sino-American hyper-competition become increasingly contentious. The volume brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars, policy makers, institutional stakeholders, and industry experts to analyze not only the transition itself, but also the implications that the need for uninterrupted access to unprecedented levels of raw materials generates. By framing the challenges ahead for global society, governance, industry, international power politics, and the environment, the book asks hard questions about the choices that need to be made to reach net zero by mid-century. Moreover, it sheds light on different facets of the growing risks to what have been global interdependent supply chains in a way that is nuanced, balanced, and practical, thus pushing back on some of the most sensational headlines that breed confusion and may lead policymakers to make more narrow and less effective decisions. The volume is an outcome of ¿Rich Rocks, the Climate Crisis and the Tech-imperium¿ a Summer Institute at Caltech and the Huntington that took place in July 2021.

This book examines some issues involving climate change, human trafficking, and other serious world challenges made worse by climate change. Climate change increases the risk of natural disasters and thus creates poverty and can cause situations of conflict and instability. Displacement can occur giving traffickers an opportunity to exploit affected people. In the fuzzy graph theory part of the book, the relatively new concepts of fuzzy soft semigraphs and graph structures are used to study human trafficking, as well as its time intuitionistic fuzzy sets that have been introduced to model forest fires. The notion of legal and illegal incidence strength is used to analyze immigration to the USA. The examination of return refugees to their origin countries is undertaken. The neighborhood connectivity index is determined for trafficking in various regions in the world. The cycle connectivity measure for the directed graph of the flow from South Americato the USA is calculated. It is determined that there is a need for improvement in government response by countries. Outside the area of fuzzy graph theory, a new approach to examine climate change is introduced. Social network theory is used to study feedback processes that effect climate forcing. Tipping points in climate change are considered. The relationship between terrorism and climate change is examined. Ethical issues concerning the obligation of business organizations to reduce carbon emissions are also considered. Nonstandard analysis is a possible new area that could be used by scholars of mathematics of uncertainty. A foundation is laid to aid the researcher in the understanding of nonstandard analysis. In order to accomplish this, a discussion of some basic concepts from first-order logic is presented as some concepts of mathematics of uncertainty. An application to the theory of relativity is presented.

This book includes the proceedings of the fourth workshop on recommender systems in fashion and retail (2022), and it aims to present a state-of-the-art view of the advancements within the field of recommendation systems with focused application to e-commerce, retail, and fashion by presenting readers with chapters covering contributions from academic as well as industrial researchers active within this emerging new field. Recommender systems are often used to solve different complex problems in this scenario, such as product recommendations, size and fit recommendations, and social media-influenced recommendations (outfits worn by influencers).

This book provides a collection of key papers about migration, focusing on multiple aspects of international and internal migration in various times and places. Because migration has been such an important part of global peopling, the book contains synopses of major geographic movements from ancient and early history as well as the present. It includes material from anthropology, archaeology, criminology, demography, economics, ethnic studies, geography, health sciences, history, law, public policy, political science, psychology, and sociology. By providing a treatment of migration that is multifaceted, comparative, and multi-disciplinary, it offers not only a basis for conceptualizing broad features of migration and their changes, but also one for discerning the formal and informal policy auspices that have influenced migration. The book thus constitutes a significant resource for students, teachers, practitioners, scholars, and researchers interested in or working on aspectsof migration in any field. It should be particularly useful for people seeking information and knowledge about migration from fields other than their own.

The book introduces readers to the heritage of St. Petersburg, sharing the geological history of a unique city, a world heritage site, and part of the UNESCO list. It also explains the role of small towns and fortresses near St. Petersburg, whose stone decoration played an essential role in the city¿s evolution and was key in the history of neighboring cultures. The book also describes the main architectural symbols of St. Petersburg, such as the Alexander Column, the Bronze Horseman, the Peter and Paul Fortress and more. In addition to five guided tours of the city center, it offers descriptions of historic quarries, some of which are now open-air museums.

The book deals with the most striking landscapes and landforms of Nigeria. Attention is paid to the diversity of geomorphic features found in the country, from the coast to the extreme north, approached geographically at the national, regional and local scales, with a view to highlight the combined influence of geological, climatic, biotic and anthropogenic influences, as well as geoheritage potentials. The topics and sites described range from the mainly depositional coastal lagoons and inlets, the most prominent of which is the oil rich Niger Delta, characterized by the mangrove and rain forest, both of which have been seriously modified by human impact; through the coastal lowlands and associated hill country, with derived, deciduous and dry forest vegetation; the very prominent Niger/Benue Trough and associated features; the savanna-semi desert covered high plains of the north and the Chad Basin, each of which features spectacular landscapes and landforms, including human-made forms such as cities and cityscapes. The book provides the readers with the opportunity to explore the variety of Nigerian landscapes and landforms through informative texts illustrated with color maps and photos: it will be relevant to scientists/scholars as well as others interested in the geology, physical geography, geomorphology, landscape, tourism and other geoheritage-related information about the country.