Böcker utgivna av Springer Verlag, Singapore

The answers to the questions of why and how people live where they live as well as how they maintain and integrate with one another are fundamental human settlement issues rooted in history and culture. Human settlements are historically linked to resource availability, fortification, and the mythos of civilizations. Cities play a central role in redefining the interface between human beings and nature. They have revolutionized the human experience by taming natural surroundings and building environments that are human-centric¿often narrowing human life outside the experience of wilderness or the untamed. This book is divided into three parts, it examines urban development trends, explores perspectives in energy efficiency and agriculture security, and considers policy development and future scenarios in human-nature relations. It is a compendium of multidisciplinary work that challenges the directions of modernity and offers reference to alternatives. Authors come from a diverse background and international context to address common overarching theories facing current geography-specific problems. An interconnected overtone of the book attempts to link accelerated urbanization and settlement location to how societies are maintained and integrated. Human settlements are shaped by human ecology and the relationship between humans and their interaction with their environment. Two sectors central to human survival are specifically explored: energy and agriculture. Cutting-edge, smart development looks at the latest findings that reflect the on-going debate facing these sectors. A human settlement metric is envisioned in terms of the past, present, and future. This book is a unique attempt to combine a rethinking about human settlements for scientists, policy-makers, public officials, and people committed to improving urban life, society-wide. Possible agents to resolving human settlement problems include international cooperation and various mechanisms that interlace the international community. Methodological and applied aspects of sustainable management focus on topics such as adaptive knowledge sharing, renewable energy, climate change, agricultural planning, and policy development. An emphasis on scientific and technological advancement, from a bottom-up mapping of society, elucidates a better understanding of the role of knowledgeable societies in which need is considered alongside how such need can be sustained¿advancing towards a more promising future.

This book firstly analyzes the status and characteristics of rural long tail public service and its unbalance in detail. In all, based on the long tail theory, mechanism design theory and resource dependence theory, this book makes an empirical study and basic judgment on the matching of supply and demand of rural long tail public services in China and explores the mechanism of the efficiency of supply and demand affecting the imbalance. This book presents a correction mechanism of rural long tail public demand based on the division of different response subjects and puts forward corresponding policy suggestions. By putting the rural public demand in the ¿embedded¿ economic and social system and the development process, this book analyzes its future trend and response path.Then, based on the difference of governance efficiency, this book analyzes the general causes of the unbalance of supply and demand of rural long tail public service. Especially for the representative field of rural public service (e.g., special education, old-age caring, medical care), this book carries out empirical studies (seemingly unrelated regression) to analyze the factors, internal mechanism and basic path of the imbalance of rural long tail public service. Thirdly, through the construction of the imbalance index of rural long tail public service, this book makes an empirical calculation of the severity of this imbalance. This book further puts forward the design of the correction mechanism for the imbalance of rural long tail public service and carries on the reasonable and orderly division for different supply subjects. In the end, this book puts forward the balanced ¿Internet + NGO¿ model for rural long tail public service and takes JD.com as an example to expound the operation of the network platform of the correction mechanism.

This book focuses on the mechanical properties and permeability of coal, and the gas flow in coal seams. Based on coal permeability models, it establishes different models for coal seam gas, from the linear flow model to the gas¿solid coupling flow model. It also provides the theoretical basis for the exploitation and safe production of coal as well as coal seam gas resources. As such, it is a valuable reference for researchers, advanced students and practitioners working in mining engineering and coalbed methane engineering.

This book is a collection of papers presented at XIV International Scientific Conference ¿INTERAGROMASH 2021¿, held at Don State Technical University, Rostov-on-Don, Russia, during 24¿26 February 2021. The research results presented in this book cover applications of unmanned aerial systems, satellite-based applications for precision agriculture, proximal and remote sensing of soil and crop, spatial analysis, variable-rate technology, embedded sensing systems, drainage optimization and variable rate irrigation, wireless sensor networks, Internet of things, robotics, guidance and automation, software and mobile apps for precision agriculture, decision support for precision agriculture and data mining for precision agriculture.

The book presents high quality research papers presented at International Conference on Computational Intelligence (ICCI 2020) held at Indian Institute of Information Technology, Pune, India during 12¿13 December, 2020. The topics covered are artificial intelligence, neural network, deep learning techniques, fuzzy theory and systems, rough sets, self-organizing maps, machine learning, chaotic systems, multi-agent systems, computational optimization ensemble classifiers, reinforcement learning, decision trees, support vector machines, hybrid learning, statistical learning. metaheuristics algorithms: evolutionary and swarm-based algorithms like genetic algorithms, genetic programming, differential evolution, particle swarm optimization, whale optimization, spider monkey optimization, firefly algorithm, memetic algorithms. And also machine vision, Internet of Things, image processing, image segmentation, data clustering, sentiment analysis, big data, computer networks, signal processing, supply chain management, web and text mining, distributed systems, bioinformatics, embedded systems, expert system, forecasting, pattern recognition, planning and scheduling, time series analysis, human-computer interaction, web mining, natural language processing, multimedia systems, and quantum computing.

This book brings together selected revised papers representing a multidisciplinary approach to language, music, and gesture, as well as their interaction. Among the number of multidisciplinary and comparative studies of the structure and organization of language and music, the presented book broadens the scope with the inclusion of gesture problems in the analyzed spectrum. A unique feature of the presented collection is that the papers, compiled in one volume, allow readers to see similarities and differences in gesture as an element of non-verbal communication and gesture as the main element of dance. In addition to enhancing the analysis, the data on the perception and comprehension of speech, music, and dance in regard to both their functioning in a natural situation and their reflection in various forms of performing arts makes this collection extremely useful for those who are interested in human cognitive abilities and performing skills. The book begins with a philosophical overview of recent neurophysiological studies reflecting the complexity of higher cognitive functions, which references the idea of the baroque style in art being neither linear nor stable. The following papers are allocated into 5 sections. The papers of the section ¿Language-Music-Gesture As Semiotic Systems¿ discuss the issues of symbolic and semiotic aspects of language, music, and gesture, including from the perspective of their notation. This is followed by the issues of "Language-Music-Gesture Onstage" and interaction within the idea of the "World as a Text." The papers of ¿Teaching Language and Music¿ present new teaching methods that take into account the interaction of all the cognitive systems examined. The papers of the last two sections focus on issues related primarily to language: The section "Verbalization Of Music And Gesture" considers the problem of describing musical text and non-verbal behavior with language, and papers in the final section "Emotions In Linguistics And Ai-Communication Systems¿ analyze the ways of expressing emotions in speech and the problems of organizing emotional communication with computer agents.

This book addresses the dilemma that firms face in engaging in corporate social responsibility (CSR) while maintaining a financially sustainable business model in the era of digital transformation. Several strategies that firms have taken to integrate CSR within the business model are also highlighted. To explicate the problems involved, the book primarily focuses on entrepreneurial ventures, given their nascent business model that best illustrates how business leaders can embed the social mission in the firm at the beginning of organizational founding. In this age, sustainability is an innovation¿s new frontier. For sustainable competitive advantage, the book argues for how companies can build more sustainable products, processes, and practices that benefit the firm and society through maintaining an entrepreneurial philosophy.The target readership consists of academics, students, and practitioners in the areas of entrepreneurship, organizational behavior, organizational theory, and strategic management. This book clarifies the critical practices of sustainability-oriented innovative firms and creative small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).Through a review of recent trends in CSR, the authors emphasize that CSR is no longer a ¿bolt-on¿ or some kind of window-dressing to satisfy public relations (PR) needs. Credible CSR is critical to business legitimacy and sustainability. Aware of the public¿s increasing scrutiny, companies are increasingly ramping up their focus on social responsibility, whether by championing women's rights, protecting the environment, or attempting to obliterate poverty, on local, national, or global levels. Simultaneously, more firms face accusations of ¿greenwashing¿ ¿ backlash due to consumer mistrust in the intentions behind their CSR practices.While numerous works have highlighted this dilemma and how companies fall short in their prosocial goals or financial objectives (or both), there is a lack of understanding of the ingredients and crucial processes required for the successful implementation of CSR in entrepreneurial enterprises. This book serves to fill that gap.

The book provides a collection of recent applications of nature inspired optimization in industrial fields. Different optimization techniques have been deployed, and different problems have been effectively analyzed. The valuable contributions from researchers focus on three ultimate goals (i) improving the accuracy of these techniques, (ii) achieving higher speed and lower computational complexity, and (iii) working on their proposed applications. The book is helpful for active researchers and practitioners in the field.

This book contains selected papers from the KES-IDT-2021 conference, being held as a virtual conference in June 14¿16, 2021. The KES-IDT is an interdisciplinary conference with opportunities for the presentation of new research results and discussion about them under the common title "Intelligent Decision Technologies". The conference has been creating for years a platform for knowledge transfer and the generation of new ideas in the field of intelligent decision making.The range of topics discussed during the conference covered methods of classification, prediction, data analysis, big data, decision support, knowledge engineering, modeling, social networks and many more in areas such as finance, economy, management and transportation. The discussed topics covered also decision making for problems regarding the electric vehicle industry.The book contains also several sections devoted to specific topics, such asAdvances in intelligent data processing and its applicationsMulti-criteria decision analysis methodsKnowledge engineering in large-scale systemsHigh-dimensional data analysisSpatial data analysis and sparse estimationInnovative technologies and applications in computer intelligenceIntelligent diagnosis and monitoring of systemsDecision making theory for economics.

This book project poses a major challenge to Japanese science education researchers in order to disseminate research findings on and to work towards maintaining the strength and nature of Japanese science education. It also presents a unique opportunity to initiate change and/or develop science education research in Japan. It provides some historical reasons essential to Japanese students¿ success in international science tests such as TIMSS and PISA. Also, it helps to tap the potential of younger generation of science education researchers by introducing them to methods and designs in the research practice.

This book highlights recently discovered aspects of ¿middle-size molecules,¿ focusing on (1) their unique bio-functions on the basis of derivatives and conjugates of natural products, saccharides, peptides, and nucleotides; (2) the synthesis of structurally complex natural products; (3) special synthetic methods for ¿-conjugated functional molecules; and (4) novel synthetic methods using flow chemistry. Given its scope, the book is of interest to industrial researchers and graduate students in the fields of organic chemistry, medicinal chemistry, and materials science.

This book is a collection of high-quality research papers presented at the International Conference on Smart and Intelligent Systems (SIS 2021), which will be held in Velagapudi Ramakrishna Siddhartha Engineering College (VRSEC), Andhra Pradesh, India, during February 25¿26, 2021, in virtual mode. It highlights how recent informatics intelligent systems have successfully been used to develop innovative smart techniques and infrastructure in the field of modern engineering and technology. The book will also be of interest to those working in the field of computational intelligence, smart computer network and security analysis, control and automation system, cloud computing, fog computing and IoT, smart grid communication, smart cities, solar cell synthesis and their performance, green technology, and many more. The contents of this book prove useful to researchers and professionals.