Search results for ""Springer International Publishing AG""

This textbook on knowledge management draws on the authors’ more than twenty years of research, teaching and consulting experience. The first edition of this book brought together European, Asian and American perspectives on knowledge-based value creation; this second edition features substantial updates to all chapters, reflecting the implications of the digital transformation on knowledge work and knowledge management. It also addresses three new topics: the impact of knowledge management practices on performance; knowledge management in the public sector; and an introduction to ISO 9001:2015 as an implementation framework.The book is intended not only for academic education but also as an essential guide for managers, consultants, trainers, coaches, and all those engaged in business, public administration or non-profit work who are interested in learning about organizations in a knowledge economy. Given its wealth of case studies, examples, questions, exercises and easy-to-use knowledge management tools, it offers a true compendium for learning about and implementing knowledge management initiatives.

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This book is a useful reference in the field of urbanism. It explains how the contemporary city and landscape have been shaped by certain twentieth century visions that have carried over into the twenty-first century. Aimed at both students and professionals, this collection of essays on diverse subjects and cases does not attempt to establish universal interpretations; it rather highlights some outstanding episodes that help us understand why the planning culture has given way to other forms of urbanism, from urban design to strategic urbanism or landscape urbanism. Compared with global interpretations of urbanism based on socioeconomic history or architectural historiography, Urban Visions. From Planning Culture to Landscape Urbanism, aims to present the discipline couched in international contemporary debate and adopt a historic and comparative perspective. The book’s contents pertain equally to other related disciplines, such as architecture, urban history, urban design, landscape architecture and geography.Foreword by Rafael Moneo.

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A concise guide for ophthalmologists detailing tuberculosis, which can cause disease in multiple organs throughout the body, including the eye. Tuberculosis is an infection caused by mycobacterium tuberculosis, which can cause disease in multiple organs throughout the body, including the eye. This can also affect any part of the eye (intraocular, superficial, or surrounding the eye), with or without systemic involvement and Ocular Tuberculosis is a text devoted to in-depth coverage of this topic.Written and edited by international leaders in the field, discussing detailed and practical information on everything from clinical features, ocular imaging studies, and pathology, to investigations, treatment, and surgical management of this disease, Ocular Tuberculosis is a truly comprehensive text.

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This book examines how digital technology is being used to assist the artists and designers. The computer is able to store data and reproduce designs, thus facilitating the speed-up of the iterative process towards a final design which meets the objectives of the designer and the requirements of the user. Collaborative design enables the sharing of information across digital networks to produce designed objects in virtual spaces. Augmented and virtual reality techniques can be used to preview designs before they are finalized and implemented. Art and design have shaped the values, social structures, communications, and the culture of communities and civilisations. The direct involvement of artists and designers with their creative works has left a legacy enabling subsequent generations to understand more about their skills, their motivations, and their relationship to the wider world, and to see it from a variety of perspectives. This in turn causes the viewers of their works to reflect upon their meaning for today and the lasting value and implications of what has been created. Art installations are harnessing modern technology to process information and to display it. Such environments have also proved useful in engaging users and visitors with real-time images and interactive art.

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This book introduces readers to additive technology and its application in different business sectors. It explores the fundamental impact additive has on technology, particularly on operations, innovation, supply chains, the environment and customer relations. Subsequently, on the basis of a broad survey of the best technology adopters, it offers advice on how to enhance business value by implementing the technology in different industrial and commercial environments.Additive manufacturing (AM) is a new area of manufacturing that has already brought about phenomenal changes to industry and business models. It affects nearly all aspects of the managerial and organizational thinking that was applied to conventional manufacturing. Currently, the technology is being adopted in manufacturing areas that involve high-value products with complex geometries, and small to medium production volumes. It boosts the productivity of new product development processes by slashing costs, reducing time and promoting creativity and innovativeness. Further, it shrinks supply chains by bringing firms closer to their customers. This unique book offers abundant empirical and practical evidence confirming the value of this new technology.

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This book provides details and collective information on working principle, process mechanism, salient features, and unique applications of various advanced manufacturing techniques and processes belong. The book is divided in three sessions covering modern machining methods, advanced repair and joining techniques and, finally, sustainable manufacturing. The latest trends and research aspects of those fields are highlighted.

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This textbook on computational statistics presents tools and concepts of univariate and multivariate statistical data analysis with a strong focus on applications and implementations in the statistical software R. It covers mathematical, statistical as well as programming problems in computational statistics and contains a wide variety of practical examples. In addition to the numerous R sniplets presented in the text, all computer programs (quantlets) and data sets to the book are available on GitHub and referred to in the book. This enables the reader to fully reproduce as well as modify and adjust all examples to their needs.The book is intended for advanced undergraduate and first-year graduate students as well as for data analysts new to the job who would like a tour of the various statistical tools in a data analysis workshop. The experienced reader with a good knowledge of statistics and programming might skip some sections on univariate models and enjoy the various mathematical roots of multivariate techniques.The Quantlet platform quantlet.de, quantlet.com, quantlet.org is an integrated QuantNet environment consisting of different types of statistics-related documents and program codes. Its goal is to promote reproducibility and offer a platform for sharing validated knowledge native to the social web. QuantNet and the corresponding Data-Driven Documents-based visualization allows readers to reproduce the tables, pictures and calculations inside this Springer book.

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This edited volume discusses the theoretical, practical and methodological issues surrounding changes in journalism in the digital era. The chapters explore how technological innovations have transformed journalism and how an international comparative perspective can contribute to our understanding of the topic. Journalism is examined within Anglo-American and European contexts as well as in Asia and Africa, and comparative approaches and methods for journalism studies in the digital age are evaluated. In so doing, the book offers a thorough investigation of changes in journalistic norms, practices and genres in addition to providing an international and comparative perspective for understanding these changes and what they mean to journalism. Written by both leading scholars and media practitioners in the field, the articles in this collection are based on theoretical frameworks and empirical data, drawn from content analysis of newspaper and online coverage, in-depth interviews with news practitioners, observation on the websites of news organisations and analysis of journalists on Twitter. The result is a cohesive compilation that offers the reader an up-to-date and comprehensive understanding of digital developments in journalism and comparative journalism studies.

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This instant gold standard title is a major contribution to the field of clinical medical ethics and will be used widely for reference and teaching purposes for years to come. Throughout his career, Mark Siegler, MD, has written on topics ranging from the teaching of clinical medical ethics to end-of-life decision-making and the ethics of advances in technology. With more than 200 journal publications and 60 book chapters published in this area over the course of his illustrious career, Dr. Siegler has become the pre-eminent scholar and teacher in the field. Indeed his work has had a profound impact on a range of therapeutic areas, especially internal medicine, pediatrics, surgery, oncology, and medical education.Having grown steadily in importance the last 30 years, clinical ethics examines the practical, everyday ethical issues that arise in encounters among patients, doctors, nurses, allied health workers, and health care institutions. The goal of clinical ethics is to improve patient care and patient outcomes, and almost every large hospital now has an ethics committee or ethics consultation service to help resolve clinical ethical problems; and almost every medical organization now has an ethics committee and code of ethics. Most significantly, clinical ethics discussions have become a part of the routine clinical discourse that occurs in outpatient and inpatient clinical settings across the country. This seminal collection of 46 landmark works by Dr. Siegler on the topic is organized around five themes of foundational scholarship: restoring and transforming the ethical basis of modern clinical medicine, the doctor-patient relationship, education and professionalism, end-of-life care, and clinical innovation. With introductory perspectives by a group of renowned scholars in medicine, Clinical Medical Ethics: Landmark Works of Mark Siegler, MD explains the field authoritatively and comprehensively and will be of invaluable assistance to all clinicians and scholars concerned with clinical ethics.

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The new edition of this book provides a comprehensive review of the basic tests available in gastroenterology. Chapters examine widely-used modern techniques such as ultrasonography for Crohn’s disease, capsule endoscopy, elastography and video proctosigmoidoscopy among others. Fully updated to reflect the recent advances in the field in the last 20 years, this volume evaluates investigations for their current clinical usefulness in the management of patients. The reader will benefit from a critical analysis describing those older tests which have proved their worth alongside the newer procedures which have been introduced. Emphasis is placed on those techniques of which the authors have personal experience. The book is designed for trainees and clinicians without special expertise in gastroenterology, as well as being a shelf manual for the gastroenterologist and the staff of gastroenterology investigation units.

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This book provides the reader with some thermochemistry notes. The intention is to provide a simple, easy to understand text which serves as a complimentary material to more complex books. It also provide students and those beginning in the field with several application examples used in different areas of materials processing. The book presents fully solved problems, some quite often found in major metallurgical operations.

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This book considers representations of wealth and the wealthy in videogames. The introduction explores the estrangement of wealth from everyday life in the contemporary west, and argues that videogames have contributed to modern life by dramatizing the economic anxieties of our age — in particular, those anxieties that relate to the Global Great Recession. A review of historical titles reveals that such and related efforts draw in significant ways from the literary tradition of sentimental romance, where wealth and the wealthy have long been associated with notions of the underworld or hell. The relevance of this tradition to contemporary titles is explored through a careful analysis of romantic themes and concerns with significance to acts of exchange. The Wealth of Virtual Nations will appeal to students with an interest in narrative theory, game design, literature, economics, and the humanities. It will also be of interest to the videogame industry.

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The book discusses the emerging topic of comprehensive energy management in electric vehicles from the viewpoint of academia and from the industrial perspective. It provides a seamless coverage of all relevant systems and control algorithms for comprehensive energy management, their integration on a multi-core system and their reliability assurance (validation and test). Relevant European projects contributing to the evolvement of comprehensive energy management in fully electric vehicles are also included.

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This volume applies the science of complexity to study coupled human-environment systems (CHES) and integrates ideas from the social sciences of climate change into a study of rural development amid flooding and urbanization in the Poyang Lake Region (PLR) of China. Author Qing Tian operationalizes the concept of sustainability and provides useful scientific analyses for sustainable development in less developed rural areas that are vulnerable to climatic hazards.The book uses a new sustainability framework that is centered on the concept of well-being to study rural development in PLR. The PLR study includes three major analyses: (1) a regional assessment of human well-being; (2) an empirical analysis of rural livelihoods; and (3) an agent-based computer model used to explore future rural development. These analyses provide a meaningful view of human development in the Poyang Lake Region and illustrate some of the complex local- and macro-level processes that shape the livelihoods of rural households in the dynamic process of urbanization. They generate useful insights about how government policy might effectively improve the well-being of rural households and promote sustainable development amid social, economic, and environmental changes.This case study has broader implications. Rural populations in the developing world are disproportionally affected by extreme climate events and climate change. Furthermore, the livelihoods of rural households in the developing world are increasingly under the influences of macro-level forces amid urbanization and globalization. This case study demonstrates that rural development policies must consider broader development dynamics at the national (and even global) level, as well as specific local social and environmental contexts. By treating climate as one of many factors that affect development in such places, we can provide policy recommendations that synergistically promote development and reduce climatic impacts and therefore facilitate mainstreaming climate adaptation into development.

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The fourth edition of this popular graduate textbook, like its predecessors, presents a balanced and comprehensive treatment of both time and frequency domain methods with accompanying theory. Numerous examples using nontrivial data illustrate solutions to problems such as discovering natural and anthropogenic climate change, evaluating pain perception experiments using functional magnetic resonance imaging, and monitoring a nuclear test ban treaty.The book is designed as a textbook for graduate level students in the physical, biological, and social sciences and as a graduate level text in statistics. Some parts may also serve as an undergraduate introductory course. Theory and methodology are separated to allow presentations on different levels. In addition to coverage of classical methods of time series regression, ARIMA models, spectral analysis and state-space models, the text includes modern developments including categorical time series analysis, multivariate spectral methods, long memory series, nonlinear models, resampling techniques, GARCH models, ARMAX models, stochastic volatility, wavelets, and Markov chain Monte Carlo integration methods.This edition includes R code for each numerical example in addition to Appendix R, which provides a reference for the data sets and R scripts used in the text in addition to a tutorial on basic R commands and R time series. An additional file is available on the book’s website for download, making all the data sets and scripts easy to load into R.

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This book, part of the new wave of political sociology in EU studies, examines the dialectics of construction/deconstruction of the European civil service through a succession of empirically grounded case studies. Breaking with the usual representations of ‘Eurocrats’, it sheds light on a hidden aspect of the current European crisis: a crisis of social reproduction which affects the European civil service in a heavy context of management reforms, enlargements, institutional changes and the euro crisis. This in turn has a number of consequences in terms of internal tensions, power, and more broadly, the capacity of EU institutions to create convergence between diverging national and economic interests, and to embody a European future.European Civil Service in (Times of) Crisis will be of interest to students and scholars across a wide range of disciplines, including politics, sociology and public administration, to practitioners working in and with the EU institutions, as well as those wishing to know more about the EU.

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This management book presents value-driven business process management as a successful discipline to turn strategy into people- and technology-based execution, quickly and at minimal risk. It shows how to achieve high performance successfully in a digital business environment. Static business models do not keep pace with the dynamic changes in our digital world. Organizations need a management approach that fits this environment and capitalizes on its opportunities while minimizing the related risks. They need to execute their business strategy fast and reliably. In effect, they have to know how and when to modify or enhance their business processes, which processes are the best candidates for intervention, and how to move rapidly from strategy to execution. This means organizations need to establish business process management as a real management discipline. The importance of process innovation, digital technology and people aspects, process governance, internationalization, emerging processes and the unique situation in mid-market organizations are some of the key topics discussed in this book. It ends with a comprehensive case study and a discussion about what process engineers can learn from jazz musicians.

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This textbook is designed with the needs of today’s student in mind. It is the ideal textbook for a first course in elementary differential equations for future engineers and scientists, including mathematicians. This book is accessible to anyone who has a basic knowledge of precalculus algebra and differential and integral calculus. Its carefully crafted text adopts a concise, simple, no-frills approach to differential equations, which helps students acquire a solid experience in many classical solution techniques. With a lighter accent on the physical interpretation of the results, a more manageable page count than comparable texts, a highly readable style, and over 1000 exercises designed to be solved without a calculating device, this book emphasizes the understanding and practice of essential topics in a succinct yet fully rigorous fashion. Apart from several other enhancements, the second edition contains one new chapter on numerical methods of solution.The book formally splits the "pure" and "applied" parts of the contents by placing the discussion of selected mathematical models in separate chapters. At the end of most of the 246 worked examples, the author provides the commands in Mathematica® for verifying the results. The book can be used independently by the average student to learn the fundamentals of the subject, while those interested in pursuing more advanced material can regard it as an easily taken first step on the way to the next level. Additionally, practitioners who encounter differential equations in their professional work will find this text to be a convenient source of reference.

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This textbook provides an exciting new addition to the area of network science featuring a stronger and more methodical link of models to their mathematical origin and explains how these relate to each other with special focus on epidemic spread on networks. The content of the book is at the interface of graph theory, stochastic processes and dynamical systems. The authors set out to make a significant contribution to closing the gap between model development and the supporting mathematics. This is done by: Summarising and presenting the state-of-the-art in modeling epidemics on networks with results and readily usable models signposted throughout the book; Presenting different mathematical approaches to formulate exact and solvable models; Identifying the concrete links between approximate models and their rigorous mathematical representation; Presenting a model hierarchy and clearly highlighting the links between model assumptions and model complexity; Providing a reference source for advanced undergraduate students, as well as doctoral students, postdoctoral researchers and academic experts who are engaged in modeling stochastic processes on networks; Providing software that can solve differential equation models or directly simulate epidemics on networks. Replete with numerous diagrams, examples, instructive exercises, and online access to simulation algorithms and readily usable code, this book will appeal to a wide spectrum of readers from different backgrounds and academic levels. Appropriate for students with or without a strong background in mathematics, this textbook can form the basis of an advanced undergraduate or graduate course in both mathematics and other departments alike.

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This book provides the reader with up-to-date information on important advances in the understanding of breast cancer and innovative approaches to its management. Current and emerging perspectives on genetics, biology, and prevention are first discussed in depth, and individual sections are then devoted to pathology, imaging, oncological surgery, plastic and reconstructive surgery, medical oncology, and radiotherapy. In each case the focus is on the most recent progress and/or state of the art therapies and techniques. Further topics to receive detailed consideration include particular conditions requiring multidisciplinary approaches, the investigation of new drugs and immunological agents, lifestyle and psychological aspects, and biostatistics and informatics. The book will be an excellent reference for practitioners, interns and residents in medical oncology, oncologic surgery, radiotherapy, pathology, and human genetics, researchers, and advanced medical students.

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In this book I argue for an approach that conceives human rights as both moral and legal rights. The merit of such an approach is its capacity to understand human rights more in terms of the kind of world free and reasonable beings would like to live in rather than simply in terms of what each individual is legally entitled to. While I acknowledge that every human being has the moral entitlement to be granted living conditions that are conducive to a dignified life, I maintain, at the same time, that the moral and legal aspects of human rights are complementary and should be given equal weight. The legal aspect compensates for the limitations of moral human rights the observance of which depends on the conscience of the individual, and the moral aspect tempers the mechanical and inhumane application of the law. Unlike the traditional or orthodox approach, which conceives human rights as rights that individuals have by virtue of their humanity, and the political or practical approach, which understands human rights as legal rights that are meant to limit the sovereignty of the state, the moral-legal approach reconciles law and morality in human rights discourse and underlines the importance of a legal framework that compensates for the deficiencies in the implementation of moral human rights. It not only challenges the exclusively negative approach to fundamental liberties but also emphasizes the necessity of an enforcement mechanism that helps those who are not morally motivated to refrain from violating the rights of others. Without the legal mechanism of enforcement, the understanding of human rights would be reduced to simply framing moral claims against injustices. From the moral-legal approach, the protection of human rights is understood as a common and shared responsibility. Such a responsibility goes beyond the boundaries of nation-states and requires the establishment of a cosmopolitan human rights regime based on the conviction that all human beings are members of a community of fate and that they share common values which transcend the limits of their individual states. In a cosmopolitan human rights regime, people are protected as persons and not as citizens of a particular state.

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The aim of the book is to present original and though-provoking essays in human paleontology and prehistory, which are at the forefront of human evolutionary research, in honor of Professor Yoel Rak (a leading scholar in paleoanthropology).​ ​The volume presents a collection of original papers contributed by many of Yoel's friends and colleagues from all over the globe. Contributions from experts around the globe fall roughly into three broad categories: Reflections on some of the broad theoretical questions of evolution, and especially about human evolution; the early hominins, with special emphasis on Australopithecus afarensis and Paranthropus; and the Neanderthals, that contentious group of our closest extinct relatives. Within and across these categories, nearly every paper addresses combinations of methodological, analytical and theoretical questions that are pertinent to the whole human evolutionary time span. This book will appeal most to scholars and advanced students in paleoanthropology, human paleontology and prehistoric archaeology.

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This fifth edition provides information on techniques needed to analyze foods for chemical and physical properties. The book is ideal for undergraduate courses in food analysis and is also an invaluable reference to professionals in the food industry. General information chapters on regulations, labeling, sampling, and data handling provide background information for chapters on specific methods to determine chemical composition and characteristics, physical properties, and objectionable matter and constituents. Methods of analysis covered include information on the basic principles, advantages, limitations, and applications. Sections on spectroscopy and chromatography along with chapters on techniques such as immunoassays, thermal analysis, and microscopy from the perspective of their use in food analysis have been expanded. Instructors who adopt the textbook can contact the editor for access to a website with related teaching materials.

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This book gives a unified presentation of the research performed in the field of multiscale modelling in sheet metal forming over the course of more than thirty years by the members of six teams from internationally acclaimed universities. The first chapter is devoted to the presentation of some recent phenomenological yield criteria (BBC 2005 and BBC 2008) developed at the CERTETA center from the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca. An overview on the crystallographic texture and plastic anisotropy is presented in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 is dedicated to multiscale modelling of plastic anisotropy. The authors describe a new hierarchical multi-scale framework that allows taking into account the evolution of plastic anisotropy during sheet forming processes. Chapter 4 is focused on modelling the evolution of voids in porous metals with applications to forming limit curves and ductile fracture. The chapter details the steps needed for the development of dissipation functions and Gurson-type models for non-quadratic anisotropic plasticity criteria like BBC 2005 and those based on linear transformations. Chapter 5 describes advanced models for the prediction of forming limit curves developed by the authors. Chapter 6 is devoted to anisotropic damage in elasto-plastic materials with structural defects. Finally, Chapter 7 deals with modelling of the Portevin-Le Chatelier (PLC) effect. This volume contains contributions from leading researchers from the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania, the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, Clausthal University of Technology, Germany, Amirkabir University of Technology, Iran, the University of Bucharest, Romania, and the Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy, Romania. It will prove useful to postgraduate students, researchers and engineers who are interested in the mechanical modeling and numerical simulation of sheet metal forming processes.

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This multi-disciplinary collection brings together work by scholars from Britain, America and Canada on the popular, personal and institutional histories of pregnancy. It follows the process of reproduction from conception and contraception, to birth and parenthood. The contributors explore several key themes: narratives of pregnancy and birth, the patient-consumer, and literary representations of childbearing. This book explores how these issues have been constructed, represented and experienced in a range of geographical locations from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. Crossing the boundary between the pre-modern and modern worlds, the chapters reveal the continuities, similarities and differences in understanding a process that is often, in the popular mind-set, considered to be fundamental and unchanging.

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This book will cover several topics to elaborate how proteomics may enhance agricultural productivity. These include crop and food proteomics, farm animal proteomics, aquaculture, microorganisms and insect proteomics. It will also cover several technical advances, which may address the current need for comprehensive proteome analysis.An emerging field of the proteomics aim is to integrate knowledge from basic sciences and to translate it into agricultural applications to solve issues related to economic values of farm animals, crops, food security, health, and energy sustainability. Given the wealth of information generated and to some extent applied in agriculture, there is the need for more efficient and broader channels to freely disseminate the information to the scientific community.

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This book sheds light on cross-industry and industry-specific trends in today’s digital economy. Prepared by a group of international researchers, experts and practitioners under the auspices of SAP’s Digital Thought Leadership & Enablement team within SAP’s Business Transformation Services (BTS) unit, the book furthermore presents relevant use cases in digital transformation and innovation. The book argues that breakthrough technologies have matured and hit scale together, enabling five defining trends: hyper-connectivity, supercomputing, cloud computing, a smarter world, and cyber security. It presents in detail how companies are now reimagining their products and services, business models and processes, showcasing how every business today is a digital business. Digitalization, defined as the process of moving to a digital business, is no longer a choice but an imperative for all businesses across all industries and regions. Taking a step toward becoming a digital enterprise is demanding and challenging. The dimensions of customer centricity, leadership and strategy, business models, including offerings (products and services), processes, structure and governance, people and skills, culture, and technology foundation can serve as orientation for digitalization. The articles in this book touch on all dimensions of this digital innovation and transformation framework and offer possible answers to some of the pressing questions that arise when practitioners seek to digitalize their business.

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This is the first textbook on a generally applicable control strategy for turbulence and other complex nonlinear systems. The approach of the book employs powerful methods of machine learning for optimal nonlinear control laws. This machine learning control (MLC) is motivated and detailed in Chapters 1 and 2. In Chapter 3, methods of linear control theory are reviewed. In Chapter 4, MLC is shown to reproduce known optimal control laws for linear dynamics (LQR, LQG). In Chapter 5, MLC detects and exploits a strongly nonlinear actuation mechanism of a low-dimensional dynamical system when linear control methods are shown to fail. Experimental control demonstrations from a laminar shear-layer to turbulent boundary-layers are reviewed in Chapter 6, followed by general good practices for experiments in Chapter 7. The book concludes with an outlook on the vast future applications of MLC in Chapter 8. Matlab codes are provided for easy reproducibility of the presented results. The book includes interviews with leading researchers in turbulence control (S. Bagheri, B. Batten, M. Glauser, D. Williams) and machine learning (M. Schoenauer) for a broader perspective. All chapters have exercises and supplemental videos will be available through YouTube.

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This book provides semester-length coverage of electronics for embedded systems, covering most common analog and digital circuit-related issues encountered while designing embedded system hardware. It is written for students and young professionals who have basic circuit theory background and want to learn more about passive circuits, diode and bipolar transistor circuits, the state-of-the-art CMOS logic family and its interface with older logic families such as TTL, sensors and sensor physics, operational amplifier circuits to condition sensor signals, data converters and various circuits used in electro-mechanical device control in embedded systems. The book also provides numerous hardware design examples by integrating the topics learned in earlier chapters. The last chapter extensively reviews the combinational and sequential logic design principles to be able to design the digital part of embedded system hardware.

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The book provides an overview of the floods and major hydrological changes that occurred in the medieval Hungarian kingdom (covering the majority of the Carpathian Basin) between 1000 and 1500 AD. The analysis was based on contemporary documentary evidence presented for the first time and the results of archaeological and scientific investigations. Beyond the evidence on individual flood events, the book includes a comprehensive overview of short-, medium-, and long-term changes detected in a hydrologically sensitive environment during the transition period between the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. It also discusses the possible causes (including climate and human intervention) and the consequences for the physical and human environment, namely the related hydro-morphological changes, short- and long-term social response, and human perception issues.

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In this book, leading world authorities on brain edema and neurological disorders/injuries and experts in preconditioning join forces to discuss the latest progress in basic sciences, translational research, and clinical management strategies relating to these conditions. The range of topics covered is wide, including microglia, energy metabolism, trace metals and ion channels, vascular biology, cellular treatment, hemorrhagic stroke, novel technological advances, anesthesia and medical gases, pediatric brain edema, neuroimaging, behavioral assessment, clinical trials, peripheral to central signaling pathways, preconditioning translation, and animal models for preconditioning and brain edema research. The book comprises presentations from Brain Edema 2014, the joint meeting of the 16th International Conference on Brain Edema and Cellular Injury and the 3rd Symposium on Preconditioning for Neurological Disorders, held in Los Angeles on September 27–30, 2014.

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This book provides a comprehensive view of rational suicide in the elderly, a group that has nearly twice the rate of suicide when chronically ill than any other demographic. Its frame of reference does not endorse a single point-of-view about the legitimacy of rational suicide, which is evolving across societies with little guidance for geriatric mental health professionals. Instead, it serves as a resource for both those clinicians who agree that older people may rationally commit suicide and those who believe that this wish may require further assessment and treatment. The first chapters of the book provides an overview of rational suicide in the elderly, examining it through history and across cultures also addressing the special case of baby boomers. This book takes an ethical and philosophical look at whether suicide can truly be rational and whether the nearness of death in late-life adults means that suicide should be considered differently than in younger adults. Clinical criteria for rational suicide in the elderly are proposed in this book for the first time, as well as a guidelines for the psychosocial profile of an older adult who wants to commit rational suicide. Unlike any other book, this text examines the existential, psychological, and psychodynamic perspectives. A chapter on terminal mental illness and a consideration of suicide in that context and proposed interventions even without a diagnosable mental illness also plays a vital role in this book as these are key issues in within the question of suicide among the elderly. This book is the first to consider all preventative measures, including the spiritual as well as the psychotherapeutic, and pharmacologic. A commentary on modern society, aging, and rational suicide that ties all of these elements together, making this the ultimate guide for addressing suicide among the elderly.Rational Suicide in the Elderly is an excellent resource for all medical professionals with potentially suicidal patients, including geriatricians, geriatric and general psychiatrists, geriatric nurses, social workers, and public health officials.

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This book provides a comprehensive overview of the clinical phenomenon of pica. It focuses specifically on the disorder as it presents in children, adolescents, and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual disabilities (ID). Initial chapters introduce current theories and definitions, followed by a more detailed examination of how developmental disabilities complicate diagnosis and intervention. The volume describes evidence-based and clinically sound approaches to the treatment and prevention of pica in school and adult clinical settings, ranging from behavioral treatment to function-based interventions. In addition, it discusses common diagnostic, client, and provider issues that result in pica remaining undetected among individuals with ASD and ID.Featured topics include: Definition of pica in accessible terms, differentiating between various forms of the disorder. Issues and practical methods of prevention and treatment of pica in developmentally disabled persons. Functional and behavioral assessment methods for pica in individuals with ASD and ID. A range of effective behavioral and nonbehavioral treatments for pica. Illustrative cases and service delivery challenges. Areas for future research and practice. Pica in Individuals with Developmental Disabilities is an invaluable resource for researchers, clinicians and other professionals, and graduate students in clinical child and school psychology, behavior analysis/therapy, and social work as well as child and adolescent psychiatry, pediatrics, family studies, and special education.

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This book provides innovative practical suggestions regarding the production and management of medical records that are designed to address the inconsistencies and errors that have been highlighted especially in relation to national eHealth programs. Challenges and lessons that have emerged from the use of clinical information and the design of medical records are discussed, and principles underpinning the implementation of health IT are critically examined. New trends in the use of clinical data are explored in depth, with analysis of issues relating to integration and sharing of patient information, data visualization, big data analytics, and the requirements of modern electronic health records. The spirit pervading the book is one of co-production, in which the needs of practitioners are taken into account from the outset. Readers will learn the basic concepts of how clinical information emanating from the doctor–patient relationship can be effectively integrated with genetic and environmental data and analyzed by complex algorithms with the goal of improving medical decision making and patient care. The book, written by European experts and researchers, will be of interest to all stakeholders in the field, including doctors, technicians, and policy makers.

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This book provides a thorough background to the emerging field of medical robotics. It covers the mathematics needed to understand the use of robotic devices in medicine, including but not limited to robot kinematics, hand-eye and robot-world calibration, reconstruction, registration, motion planning, motion prediction, motion correlation, motion replication and motion learning. Additionally, basic methods behind state-of-the art robots like the DaVinci system, the CyberKnife, motorized C-arms and operating microscopes as well as stereotactic frames are presented. The book is a text book for undergraduates in computer science and engineering.The main idea of the book is to motivate the methods in robotics in medical applications rather than industrial applications. The book then follows the standard path for a robotics textbook. It is thus suitable for a first course in robotics for undergraduates. It is the first textbook on medical robotics.

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This book provides a narrative of how R can be useful in the analysis of public administration, public policy, and political science data specifically, in addition to the social sciences more broadly. It can serve as a textbook and reference manual for students and independent researchers who wish to use R for the first time or broaden their skill set with the program. While the book uses data drawn from political science, public administration, and policy analyses, it is written so that students and researchers in other fields should find it accessible and useful as well. By the end of the first seven chapters, an entry-level user should be well acquainted with how to use R as a traditional econometric software program. The remaining four chapters will begin to introduce the user to advanced techniques that R offers but many other programs do not make available such as how to use contributed libraries or write programs in R. The book details how to perform nearly every task routinely associated with statistical modeling: descriptive statistics, basic inferences, estimating common models, and conducting regression diagnostics. For the intermediate or advanced reader, the book aims to open up the wide array of sophisticated methods options that R makes freely available. It illustrates how user-created libraries can be installed and used in real data analysis, focusing on a handful of libraries that have been particularly prominent in political science. The last two chapters illustrate how the user can conduct linear algebra in R and create simple programs. A key point in these chapters will be that such actions are substantially easier in R than in many other programs, so advanced techniques are more accessible in R, which will appeal to scholars and policy researchers who already conduct extensive data analysis. Additionally, the book should draw the attention of students and teachers of quantitative methods in the political disciplines.

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This book aims to offer a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of male stress urinary incontinence that will serve as a useful tool and reference for urologists, andrologists, physiotherapists, general practitioners, and nurses. Detailed information is provided on diagnostic workup, including clinical assessment and the role of urodynamic evaluations and other instrumental examinations, and on the full range of potential treatments, from conservative and pharmacological interventions to surgical options. In addition to careful descriptions of the surgical procedures themselves, clear advice is given on the management of iatrogenic complications of incontinence surgery. Helpful treatment algorithms and recommendations offer further practical support. Relevant background knowledge is provided in expert reviews of topics such as the functional anatomy of the male pelvis and the pathophysiology, epidemiology, and classification of male urinary incontinence.

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This textbook presents basic and advanced computational physics in a very didactic style. It contains very-well-presented and simple mathematical descriptions of many of the most important algorithms used in computational physics. The first part of the book discusses the basic numerical methods. The second part concentrates on simulation of classical and quantum systems. Several classes of integration methods are discussed including not only the standard Euler and Runge Kutta method but also multi-step methods and the class of Verlet methods, which is introduced by studying the motion in Liouville space. A general chapter on the numerical treatment of differential equations provides methods of finite differences, finite volumes, finite elements and boundary elements together with spectral methods and weighted residual based methods. The book gives simple but non trivial examples from a broad range of physical topics trying to give the reader insight into not only the numerical treatment but also simulated problems. Different methods are compared with regard to their stability and efficiency. The exercises in the book are realised as computer experiments.

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This snapshot volume is designed to provide a smooth entry into the field of protein folding. Presented in a concise manner, each section introduces key concepts while providing a brief overview of the relevant literature. Outlook subsections will pinpoint specific aspects related to emerging methodologies, concepts and trends.

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This book is aimed at everyone preparing for the ISTQB® Certified Tester – Foundation Level exam based on the Foundation Level syllabus (version 4.0) published in 2023. It provides candidates with reliable knowledge based on this document and thus distinguishes itself from all the information about ISTQB® syllabi and exams on the Internet, which is often of rather poor quality and may even contain serious errors. The book expands and details many issues that are described in the new 2023 version of the syllabus in a perfunctory or general way only. According to the ISTQB® guidelines for syllabus-based training, an exercise must be provided for each learning objective at the K3 level, and a practical example must be provided for each objective at the K2 or K3 level. In order to satisfy these requirements, the authors prepared numerous exercises and examples for all learning objectives at these levels. In addition, for each learning objective, one or more sample exam questions are presented which are similar to those that the candidate will see in the exam. This makes the book an excellent aid for studying and preparing for the exam and verifying acquired knowledge.

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This book analyses Member States’ and EU neighbours’ national visions for the enlargement of the European Union (EU), highlighting 41 national histories, policies, and corresponding public perceptions of European integration. In a geopolitical context in which Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine has renewed the impetus for EU enlargement, national views vary considerably on the timing, conditions, and reforms necessary to welcome Eastern neighbours and the Western Balkans countries into the European family. Moreover, EU enlargement policy is not only an investment in peace and stability; it has also become a political tool in response to the exploitation of interdependencies and illiberal pressures. This book presents concrete policy recommendations to national governments and the EU on how to move forward productively.

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This textbook approaches the history of English from a theoretical perspective. The book provides a brief chronological overview describing the way in which the English language has changed over time from Old English to Modern English, while subsequent parts adopt a theoretical focus that is thematically organised to deal with the question of how and why English changed in the way it did, including a part addressing some specific contact-induced changes and key topics such as English as a Lingua Franca. Supported throughout with information boxes with empirical studies, the examples given are all drawn from English, but boxes with examples from other languages tie the development of the English language into changes in other contexts and settings. This book is an ideal resource for undergraduate students of the English Language and historical linguistics.

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This book includes studies that employ a variety of research techniques from diverse fields targeting a better understanding of the second language (L2)/foreign language (FL) acquisition process including issues of heritage language (HL) learning. Specifically, the chapters discuss matters such as speech perception and production patterns in a second/foreign language, factors that facilitate second language acquisition, acquisition of heritage languages, teaching of a second/foreign language, and acquisition of second/foreign language grammatical and other structures, among others. The investigation of L2/FL and HLs is of paramount importance for updating the existing theories in the field and maximizing learning outcomes for the sake of effective communication, cultivation of intercultural understanding, career advancement, and personal development. The book is of interest to a wide range of disciplinary audiences, including linguists, psychologists, educators, and social scientists.

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This book examines how entrepreneurship can be used as a tool to escape poverty. With relevance for both SDG 1: ‘No Poverty,’ and SDG 8: ‘Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all,’ it pays special attention to women and minority ethnic groups. Offering a fresh perspective on entrepreneurship as a means of upward social mobility and rooted in research, the book explores the issue in three ways. Firstly, it pays special attention to the nexus between the entrepreneur, resources, institutions, opportunities, necessities, and the environment for drawing a comprehensive picture of how individuals could use entrepreneurship for successful upward social mobility in a changing world. Secondly, it emphasizes the peculiar challenges that female entrepreneurs face, how those challenges can be overcome, and how female entrepreneurship may be a route to women’s socio-economic advancement. Thirdly, it highlights the challenges faced by ethnic minority business owners and how such ethnic minority businesses could thrive amid institutional voids as well as direct and indirect forms of discrimination. Based on the latest research from developed and developing countries, the book offers compelling insights for sustaining entrepreneurial ventures in an evolving world.

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This book presents various forms of human trafficking, a growing trend in the exploitation of large numbers of people with concurrent public health, socio-cultural, and economic costs to countries burdened with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Edited by psychiatric-mental health nurses and an applied anthropologist, this volume covers all forms of human trafficking: sex trafficking, forced labor, forced marriage, baby trafficking, organ trafficking, child marriage, and child soldiers with a global public health and policy focus. As such, it fills a gap in human trafficking knowledge and is built on courses springing up around the United States in multiple disciplines. Medical, mental health, and social work interventions are included as well as information about programs with documented outcomes. Each chapter includes state of the art of knowledge with case studies illustrating specific focal ideas, discussion, questions and exercises in order to help readers retain and reinforce chapter material. This textbook will be useful in the disciplines of nursing, medicine, public health, social work, and policy making, as well as in disciplines in which human trafficking is a current interest, such as law, criminal justice, and education.

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This book explores and demonstrates how geometric tools can be used in data analysis. Beginning with a systematic exposition of the mathematical prerequisites, covering topics ranging from category theory to algebraic topology, Riemannian geometry, operator theory and network analysis, it goes on to describe and analyze some of the most important machine learning techniques for dimension reduction, including the different types of manifold learning and kernel methods. It also develops a new notion of curvature of generalized metric spaces, based on the notion of hyperconvexity, which can be used for the topological representation of geometric information.In recent years there has been a fascinating development: concepts and methods originally created in the context of research in pure mathematics, and in particular in geometry, have become powerful tools in machine learning for the analysis of data. The underlying reason for this is that data are typically equipped with some kind of notion of distance, quantifying the differences between data points. Of course, to be successfully applied, the geometric tools usually need to be redefined, generalized, or extended appropriately.Primarily aimed at mathematicians seeking an overview of the geometric concepts and methods that are useful for data analysis, the book will also be of interest to researchers in machine learning and data analysis who want to see a systematic mathematical foundation of the methods that they use.

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This open access book from the world’s first 6G Flagship research program at the University of Oulu, Finland, provides a multi-disciplinary and insightful overview of the subject, with contributions from experts in the field. Today’s fourth generation of mobile connectivity services (4G) are available everywhere, and adoption of fifth generation (5G) networks is well underway. Compared to 4G, 5G has already brought about new business opportunities and enabled seamless virtual and augmented reality services, but also raised serious concerns on data privacy and security and the use of artificial intelligence. The sixth generation (6G) networks are already in R&D phase aiming at deployment in 2030. We need to understand today what 5G evolution and 6G may bring for the future of service delivery and how they will influence us. The contributions answer what 5G, its evolution, and 6G will be about; what kind of impacts 5G and 6G will have on future digital services, businesses, and society; how we could benefit from 5G and 6G innovations; and how 5G and 6G should be regulated in the future. Future 5G evolution and 6G are not only about moving toward faster, better, and more secure networks providing the basis for innovative digital services, they are also going to bring about a huge digital disruption that will affect all levels of society. This book will be of great interest to academics and students of management, telecommunications and digital innovation, as well practitioners and policymakers looking to the future of business.

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This two-volume work examines far-reaching debates on the concept of courage from Greek antiquity to the Christian and mediaeval periods, as well as the modern era. Volume 1 begins with Homeric poetry and the politics of fearless demi-gods thriving on war. The tales of lion-hearted Heracles, Achilles, and Ulysses, and their tragic fall at the hands of fate, eventually give way to classical views of courage based on competing theories of rational wisdom and truth. Fears of the enemy and anxieties about suffering and death are addressed through the lenses and teachings of medicine, geography, military history, moral philosophy, and metaphysics. For early Christian thinkers, the ethics of fear, fate, and fealty to the Almighty supplant the voice of reason and the wisdom of virtue. Much of Christian doctrine's history is a long journey towards bridging the gap between Greek philosophy and devotion to God and spirits in heaven. Some Church Fathers attempt to dispel the fear of suffering through a joyful craving for martyrdom and the eternal blessings that follow. Others show openness to one or more of the following principles: the abstractions of moral philosophy, the metaphysics of Gnostic enlightenment, the gift of free will and intentionality, the growth of church authority and hegemony, and the intrinsic worth of life on Earth. Augustine, Ambrose, Cassian, and Chrysostom play a central role in revisiting the foundations of Christian fortitude along some or all of these lines. They lay the groundwork for the scholastic adaptations of faith-based rationalism proposed by Peter Lombard, Philip the Chancellor, Albert the Great, and Thomas of Aquinas. The mediaeval period ends with church dissidents and Protestant Reform leaders condemning Rome’s corruption and calling for a return to early Christian faith and the courage of godly fear, submission, suffering, and fate.

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