Bøker utgitt av Springer Nature Singapore

This book focuses on the deep learning technologies and their applications in the catenary detection of high-speed railways. As the only source of power for high-speed trains, the catenary's service performance directly affects the safe operation of high-speed railways. This book systematically shows the latest research results of catenary detection in high-speed railways, especially the detection of catenary support component defect and fault. Some methods or algorithms have been adopted in practical engineering. These methods or algorithms provide important references and help the researcher, scholar, and engineer on pantograph and catenary technology in high-speed railways. Unlike traditional detection methods of catenary support component based on image processing, some advanced methods in the deep learning field, including convolutional neural network, reinforcement learning, generative adversarial network, etc., are adopted and improved in this book. The main contents include the overview of catenary detection of electrified railways, the introduction of some advance of deep learning theories, catenary support components and their characteristics in high-speed railways, the image reprocessing of catenary support components, the positioning of catenary support components, the detection of defect and fault, the detection based on 3D point cloud, etc.

This volume presents part of the proceedings of NERC 2022, with an emphasis on conservation of bio-diversity in North-east India. This is a highly challenging and involved topic due to regionally diverse physiographic, geographical and eco-climatic conditions. Henceforth, systemic and holistic frameworks are required to disseminate upon the potential of science and technology for the conservation of the region¿s bio-diversity. Notable among these frameworks refers to plant, microbial and animal bio-diversity conservation, value-added product development and sharing the benefits of such research for the perspective of bio-prospects, analysing critical environmental and climatic factors and their sensitivity upon urbanization strategies. Tools that are to be deployed for such insights involve plant, animal, and microbial bioscience and biotechnology, generalized rules for product design and development and survey based strategies. Addressing relevant competent methodologies and generic pedagogies, this volume on the bio-diversity conservation in North-eastern states of India aims to demonstrate the potential of pragmatic strategies that can be applied for the bio-diversity conservation in any region of world. Thereby, opportunities for nature linked livelihood security can be sought for the long term wellbeing of the humankind and ecology.

This treatise delves into the latest advancements in stochastic volatility models, highlighting the utilization of Markov chain Monte Carlo simulations for estimating model parameters and forecasting the volatility and quantiles of financial asset returns. The modeling of financial time series volatility constitutes a crucial aspect of finance, as it plays a vital role in predicting return distributions and managing risks. Among the various econometric models available, the stochastic volatility model has been a popular choice, particularly in comparison to other models, such as GARCH models, as it has demonstrated superior performance in previous empirical studies in terms of fit, forecasting volatility, and evaluating tail risk measures such as Value-at-Risk and Expected Shortfall. The book also explores an extension of the basic stochastic volatility model, incorporating a skewed return error distribution and a realized volatility measurement equation. The concept of realized volatility, a newly established estimator of volatility using intraday returns data, is introduced, and a comprehensive description of the resulting realized stochastic volatility model is provided. The text contains a thorough explanation of several efficient sampling algorithms for latent log volatilities, as well as an illustration of parameter estimation and volatility prediction through empirical studies utilizing various asset return data, including the yen/US dollar exchange rate, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the Nikkei 225 stock index. This publication is highly recommended for readers with an interest in the latest developments in stochastic volatility models and realized stochastic volatility models, particularly in regards to financial risk management.

The book covers all aspects of thyroid and parathyroid surgery, including history and examination, pre-operative workup, and how ancillary specialties like pathology, radiology, radiotherapy, and nuclear medicine impact the outcome of thyroid and parathyroid patients. It offers a step-by-step approach to help the readers manage their cases in their practice. It includes numerous color photographs, anatomical and operative line diagrams for easy understanding. Chapters include flow charts explaining the case management and the decision-making process. The book serves as a valuable resource to endocrine surgeons, general surgeons, endocrinologists, and internists. It also serves as reference material for the exit examination of masters of surgery and the super specialty entrance and exit exam for endocrine surgery. Additionally, it helps consultants and postgraduate students of radiology, pathology, nuclear medicine, and radiotherapy.

Nanotechnology is gaining importance in every field of science and technology. Green synthesis of nanomaterials involves the use of microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi, viruses; and different lower and higher plants. Green synthesis of nanomaterials from plant extracts becoming popular in comparison to synthesis using microorganisms. Plant based-nanomaterials synthesis is easy, have no need to bring back from the culture medium, and is safe. Additionally, plant-based nanomaterials are eco-friendly, in comparison to physical and chemical modes of synthesis. Several lower and higher plants are rich in terms of secondary metabolites. These metabolites have been used as medicine in crude extract form or with some other formulations. They have been also used to isolate the bioactive compounds in modern medicine as well as in herbal medicine systems. Thus, phytochemicals present in the plant and their parts play an important role in nanomaterials synthesis, mainly due to the presence of a significant number of secondary metabolites, for instance, alkaloids, flavonoids, saponins, steroids, tannins, etc. Further, essential and aromatic oils have been also explored for nanomaterials synthesis, and they are also equally useful in terms of their various biological applications. These organic ingredients come from a wide range of plant components, such as leaves, stems, roots, shoots, flowers, bark, and seeds. Globally, the presence of different plants has shown a capability to produce huge and diverse groups of secondary metabolites. The functional groups present in the plant extract acts as capping and stabilizing agent. Most of the time, pure isolated bioactive compounds are more biologically active; hence scholars are focusing their research on the synthesis of nanomaterials using some particular class of secondary metabolites. Investigations have shown that the green synthesized nanomaterials were found to be more biologically active in comparison to chemicallysynthesized nanomaterials. These nanomaterials and or nanocomposites found different applications especially in drug delivery, detection and cure of cancer cells, diagnosis of a genetic disorder, photoimaging, and angiogenesis detection. They have also shown several applications in agricultural, horticultural as well as forestry sectors. The book in hand covers a wide range of topics as mentioned above. It incorporates chapters that the authors have skilfully crafted with clarity and precision, reviewing up-to-date literature with lucid illustrations. The book would cater to the need of graduate students as a textbook and simultaneously be useful for both novices and experienced scientists and or researchers working in the discipline of nanotechnology, nanomedicine, medicinal plants, plant science, economic botany, chemistry, biotechnology, pharmacognosy, pharmaceuticals, industrial chemistry, and many other interdisciplinary subjects. It should also inspire industrialists and policy makers associated with plant-based nano products.

This textbook covers the framework of first-principles analysis applied to materials using density functional theory (DFT). It provides a set of hands-on tutorials using the Quantum ESPRESSO package, an open-source software for DFT. The tutorials are well chosen, designed for maximum effectiveness while requiring a minimum of the reader¿s time, and the book describes how the essential components are combined to create the practical applications based on the idea of modeling practical problems of materials. The book carefully explains how to prepare the platform to run the tutorials assisted by free software. This textbook is useful for students in experimental laboratories, for industrial researchers, and for those not majoring in theoretical studies but learning individually.

This book is a collection of the papers accepted by the ICIVIS 2022¿The International Conference on Image, Vision and Intelligent Systems, held on August 15¿17, 2022, in Jinan, China. The topics focus but are not limited to image, vision and intelligent systems. Each part can be used as an excellent reference by industry practitioners, university faculties, research fellows and undergraduates as well as graduate students who need to build a knowledge base of the most current advances and state of practice in the topics covered by this conference proceedings.

The contents of this book was created by the authors as a simultaneous generalization of Witten zeta-functions, Mordell¿Tornheim multiple zeta-functions, and Euler¿Zagier multiple zeta-functions. Zeta-functions of root systems are defined by certain multiple series, given in terms of root systems. Therefore, they intrinsically have the action of associated Weyl groups. The exposition begins with a brief introduction to the theory of Lie algebras and root systems and then provides the definition of zeta-functions of root systems, explicit examples associated with various simple Lie algebras, meromorphic continuation and recursive analytic structure described by Dynkin diagrams, special values at integer points, functional relations, and the background given by the action of Weyl groups. In particular, an explicit form of Witten¿s volume formula is provided. It is shown that various relations among special values of Euler¿Zagier multiple zeta-functions¿which usually are called multiple zeta values (MZVs) and are quite important in connection with Zagier¿s conjecture¿are just special cases of various functional relations among zeta-functions of root systems. The authors further provide other applications to the theory of MZVs and also introduce generalizations with Dirichlet characters, and with certain congruence conditions. The book concludes with a brief description of other relevant topics.

This book comprises the select proceedings of the International Conference in Power, Energy, Control, Signals and Systems (IPECS) 2022. The book focuses on intelligent solutions for smart grids and smart cities. The content of this book is designed to develop many innovative ideas for an energy-efficient and sustainable future. It focuses on recent technological advances and challenges in the field of grid integration of renewable energy resources, AI/ML in power and energy systems, security enhancement of power systems/electronics using advanced ML techniques for integration of renewable energies, electric vehicle-energy storage, and battery charging technologies, etc. The book also covers the latest advances especially in instrumentation and control in smart grid applications ¿Internet of Things and cyber-physical systems, power semiconductor device technology leading to improvements in power losses for power electronic systems, economic and sustainable design of smart cities-security and data privacy in smart cities, lighting, and illumination. This book proves to be a valuable resource for those in academia and industry.

This book is a companion to Political Debasement: Incivility, Contempt, and Humiliation in Parliamentary and Public Discourse. It brings together interdisciplinary contributions to provide a comprehensive and detailed exploration of the nature, function, and effect of debasement language used by selected political leaders in Western and non-Western countries. Among them are Donald Trump (in the USA), Recep Tayyip Erdöan (Turkey), Rodrigo Roa Duterte (Philippines), Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil), Abe Shinzô (Japan), Pauline Hanson (Australia), Kyriakos Mitsotakis (Greece), Geert Wilders (the Netherlands), Beppe Grillo (Italy), and Santiago Abascal (Spain). Chapters focus specifically on the language of these leaders while examining debasement discourse from narrow and broad perspectives. The former includes the use of crude or abusive language (e.g., curses, obscenity, and swearing) to demean, humiliate, mock, insult, or belittle, based on the actual or perceived object or entity (e.g., race, religion, national, gender identity, or sexual orientation); the latter includes the use of devious or indirect irony, sarcasm, cynicism, ridicule, subtlety, and understatement to degrade and discredit other individuals or groups. The book represents the collective wisdom of scholars and researchers, experts in fields such as communication, political science, international relations, and social and political psychology. Cumulatively, the authors develop a global analysis of debasement discourse in societies from West to East and offer a cutting-edge approach to expand a framework assessing the role and effect of such rhetoric in contemporary politics.

Higher education has undergone a massive transformation in teaching and learning in a very short period of time since the onset of Covid-19. Students, teachers and universities have had to adopt online and blended learning, often with little or no experience or models of good practice to draw upon. It is clear that blended and online learning are here to stay. This book draws on research from universities that have adopted online and blended learning to facilitate the expansion and diversification of their intake; which resulted in considerable experience and expertise in online and blended teaching. The book describes a model, tested with qualitative and quantitative data, which shows how teachers can support the retention and success of online and blended learners with four high-quality pedagogical elements: bite-sized videos of interest and relevance; learning materials that are well organised and provide a clear learning roadmap; discussion forums which are set up and moderatedso as to result in lively student-student and student-teacher interaction; and, online teachers being approachable and responsive to communication with individual students through email, phone and online communication platforms. This model is explained and profusely illustrated with examples from the teaching of award-winning teachers. This book introduces the concept of a spectrum from traditional to contemporary models of admission and course delivery in higher education. It explains how universities which have adopted a contemporary model, with high levels of blended and online learning, have been able to expand their intake and markedly diversify the student body. It discusses how to support the retention and success of online and blended learners. Student support services are examined from the perspectives of service providers and online and blended learners and the case is made for support services being aligned with student needs. The book has a discussion of university management systems which utilise feedback at all levels to improve alignment between support service provision and student needs.

This book is intended for researchers interested in using computational methods and tools to engage with music, dance and theatre. The chapters have evolved out of presentations and deliberations at an international workshop entitled Computer Assisted Music and Dramatics: Possibilities and Challenges organized by University of Mumbai in honour of Professor Hari Sahasrabuddhe, a renowned educator and a pioneering computational musicologist (CM) of Indian classical music.The workshop included contributions from CM as well as musicians with a special focus on South Asian arts. The case studies and reflective essays here are based on analyses of genres, practices and theoretical constructs modelled computationally. They offer a balanced and complementary perspective to help innovation in the synthesis of music by extracting information from recorded performances. This material would be of interest to scholars of the sciences and humanities and facilitate exchanges and generation of ideas.

This book investigates in detail cutting-edge technologies of underactuated manipulator control, which is a frontier topic in robotics that possesses great significance in energy conservation as well as fault tolerance for industrial applications. It is also the crucial technology associated with systems in special environments, including underwater or aerospace environments. So far, the topic of underactuated manipulator control has attracted engineers and scientists from various disciplines, such as applied physics, material, automation and robotics. Pursuing a holistic approach, the book establishes a fundamental framework for this topic, while emphasizing the importance of design and optimization in the control of underactuated manipulators. Chapters of the book cover a wide variety of manipulator systems, including vertical underactuated manipulator, planar underactuated manipulator with first-order nonholonomic constraint, planar underactuated manipulator with second-order nonholonomic constraint and flexible underactuated manipulator. The book is intended for undergraduate and graduate students that are interested in underactuated manipulators, researchers that investigate the design and optimization for controllers of underactuated manipulators and engineers working with underactuated systems.

This book aims to interpret Chinäs property-rights reform since 1978 on theory level. Property-rights reform is no doubt the essential for economic system reform, which led to Chinäs economic miracle in the past 40 years. Neither modern property-rights theory nor Marxism can explain all issues around Chinese complex economic system reform. The book sheds light on the theory development through comparative study and China-focused research.

This book gathers a selection of peer-reviewed papers presented at the 4th Big Data Analytics for Cyber-Physical System in Smart City (BDCPS 2022) conference, held in Bangkok, Thailand, on December 16¿17. The contributions, prepared by an international team of scientists and engineers, cover the latest advances and challenges made in the field of big data analytics methods and approaches for the data-driven co-design of communication, computing, and control for smart cities. Given its scope, it offers a valuable resource for all researchers and professionals interested in big data, smart cities, and cyber-physical systems.

This book presents peer-reviewed articles from the 1st International Conference on New Energy (ICNE 2022), held on 1¿2 December at Sarawak in Malaysia. This book highlights the current trends/studies on fundamental of hydrogen technologies and the application of hydrogen as the new sustainable renewable energy. Topics included but not limited to are: hydrogen production, its storage and transportation, and hydrogen utilization. This book contributes in making green hydrogen competitive and ready for a scale up in the 2030s, towards the objective of reaching net zero emissions by 2050

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 19th International Forum on Digital Multimedia Communication, IFTC 2022, held in Shanghai, China, December 8¿9, 2022.The 40 full papers included in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 112 submissions. They were organized in topical sections as follows: Computer Vision; Image Analysis; Quality Assessment; Video Processing; Machine Learning; and Big data.

This book helps us to understand the importance of the microbiome associated with finfish and shellfish inhabiting different locations and varied environmental and biological situations. It covers modern molecular tools for identifying microbiome composition and their precise identification at the species level. The book also covers the molecular structural composition of individual microbes, metabolite resources from microbiome species, their functional properties, and production aspects. Notable, the book covers the microbiome applications in the gut systems of finfish and shellfish to the digestion, nutrition, growth, reproduction, immune system, and vulnerability of the host to diseases. It also reviews diversity and functional properties, relationships with diseases, health status, data on species-specific metagenomics, and probiotic research. It highlights the relevance of microbial communities for the development of new and innovative bio-products to build bio and pharmaceuticalindustries, including aquaculture. This book is an invaluable source for researchers and professionals involved in fishery science, fisheries and aquaculture, fish biotechnology, and fish microbiology and pathology

This book is a survey of the field of development studies from a political economy perspective. It first reviews the academic literature on development and highlights the fundamental importance of institutions and social values, over and above other alternative theories, as determinants in long-run development. In this context, the book draws from the works of Nobel Laureates Douglass North, F.A. Hayek and Elinor Ostrom, and argues that the ingredients of property rights, the rule of law, and market freedoms are essential in generating socio-economic progress. Successful reforms however are not simply a function of constructing formal institutions, but must cohere with the social values, norms, and cultural commitments of local communities. It is in this spirit that the book theorises on the oft-neglected role that political entrepreneurs play in driving endogenous institutional change. Specifically, this book integrates the theoretical discussion on market-driven development with a range of case studies from around the world, featuring the bottom-up efforts of local change agents to pursue institutional reforms and changes in social opinion.

This book gathers selected high-quality research papers presented at International Conference on Mobile Computing and Sustainable Informatics (ICMCSI 2022) organized by Pulchowk Campus, Institute of Engineering, Tribhuvan University, Nepal, during 27-28 January 2022. The book discusses recent developments in mobile communication technologies ranging from mobile edge computing devices, to personalized, embedded and sustainable applications. The book covers vital topics like mobile networks, computing models, algorithms, sustainable models and advanced informatics that supports the symbiosis of mobile computing and sustainable informatics.

This book gathers high-quality papers presented at the Sixth International Conference on Smart Trends in Computing and Communications (SmartCom 2022), organized by Global Knowledge Research Foundation (GR Foundation) in partnership with IFIP InterYIT during January 11-12, 2022. It covers the state of the art and emerging topics in information, computer communications, and effective strategies for their use in engineering and managerial applications. It also explores and discusses the latest technological advances in, and future directions for, information and knowledge computing and its applications.

This book is the first volume of the bioacoustics series published by the Society for Bioacoustics. This volume provides an overview of the advances and recent topics in acoustic communication in various animals. Most animals produce vibrations and sounds by moving their body parts, including vocal organs. These sounds can be research targets of bioacoustics studies. How animals use these sounds, especially in inter-individual relationships, is the focus of this volume, ¿Acoustic Communication in Animals¿. The authors¿ expertise varies from molecular biology, neurobiology to psychology, and human brain imaging. Their research subjects range from invertebrates to humans. Despite the variety of topics, chapters are developed under the consideration of ethology and evolution. Readers will recognize the profundity of the topics in each chapter. In addition, the view and understanding of natural sound sequences produced by animals can vary among different cultures. Research fromJapan and regions that have been underrepresented in previous literature can offer new ideas and unique perspectives in the study of bioacoustics.Readers can grasp the progress of this research field in a broad range of species in one book. The book presents multi- and interdisciplinary topics and appeals to researchers and students in fields including psychology, physiology, zoology, ethology, and neurosciences.

This book presents the select proceedings of the International conference of Sustainability in Environmental Engineering and Science (SEES) 2021. It presents the latest developments in civil engineering that cover all aspects and challenges in civil engineering, environmental engineering and environmental science. Various topics covered in this book include construction and structural mechanics, building materials, concrete, steel and timber structures, geotechnical engineering, earthquake engineering, and coastal engineering. The volume will be useful for beginners, researchers, and professionals working in the areas of sustainable civil engineering and related fields.

This textbook provides an overview of the fundamental concepts in continuum mechanics for application in real material behavior analysis. The contents cover basic topics such as Kinematics¿the motion of any material point representing a material body using the Lagrangian and Eulerian approaches; stress tensors¿stress analysis of material bodies experiencing small deformations; mathematical modeling of material properties in continuum mechanics; balance principles¿transfer of specific mechanical properties from a system to its environment or vice-versa through the system boundary. The textbook also contains pedagogical elements such as worked examples and end-of-chapter exercises which are derived from typical engineering problems, and the solution manual so that students can solve computational problems by running simulations on Matlab or Python on their own. This benefits engineering students understand the concept of continuum mechanics for future analysis using finite-element analysis, boundary element method or any other computational methods.

This book draws together international scholarship on school-university partnerships challenging thinking about purpose and sustainability as well as the power of collaboration in transcending organisational and contextual boundaries. Moving beyond transactional arrangements, the book showcase various models of school-university partnerships, and explores the role of policy, research, and practice, across the life cycle of partnerships. This edited collection presents a strong body of evidence with global significance, providing valuable insights into catalysts for partnerships, the drivers for transformational change, and generative growth resulting from authentic collaboration. An important reference for all teacher education providers, schools, and educational stakeholders, this book showcases global examples of the power of partnerships in an era necessitating cross sectoral collaboration to address contemporary societal challenges.