Asia's recent demographic transitions and rural - urban structural transformations are extraordinary and involve complexities that require in-depth study.The chapters within this volume examine those complexities using a range of traditional and nontraditional measures - such as multidimensional poverty, gaps, and polarization - to arrive at t...
This Open Access Brief analyzes the dynamics in which children's selves emerge through their everyday activities of meaning construction, both in their relationships with family and within school education. It begins with a discussion of new psychological inquiries into children's selves and builds upon the innovative theoretical notion o...
This book provides new methodological and theoretical insights into temporal reference and its linguistic expression, from a cross-linguistic experimental corpus pragmatics approach. Verbal tenses, in general, and more specifically the categories of tense, grammatical and lexical aspect are treated as cohesion ties contributing to the temporal cohe...
Public spending on infrastructure plays an important role in promoting economic growth and poverty alleviation. Empirical studies unequivocally show that under-investment in infrastructure limits economic growth. At the same time, numerous other studies have shown that investment in infrastructure can be an effective tool in fighting poverty reduct...
This book takes an in-depth look at Louisiana as a state which is ahead of the curve in terms of extreme weather events, both in frequency and magnitude, and in its responses to these challenges including recovery and enhancement of resiliency.Louisiana faced a major tropical catastrophe in the 21st century, and experiences the fastest rising sea l...
As the American election administration landscape changes as a result of major court cases, national and state legislation, changes in professionalism, and the evolution of equipment and security, so must the work of on-the-ground practitioners change. This Open Access title presents a series of case studies designed to highlight practical response...
This volume offers insights from modeling relations between teacher quality, instructional quality and student outcomes in mathematics across countries. The relations explored take the educational context, such as school climate, into account. The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement's Trends in Mathematics a...
This free book is the first comprehensive guide to a new soft computing technique which is used in complex forensic cases. The chapters include detailed technical and practical overviews, and discussions about the latest tools, open problems and ethical and legal issues involved. The book will be of interest to researchers and practitioners in fore...
The book examines the methodological challenges in analyzing the effectiveness of development policies. It presents a selection of tools and methodologies that can help tackle the complexities of which policies work best and why, and how they can be implemented effectively given the political and economic framework conditions of a country. The cont...
This free book provides a glimpse into the Japanese management technique known as "Kaizen," and the ways it has been disseminated around the developing world. The novelty of this book is three-fold: it provides a contextualized view of the mechanisms of initiatives implementing Kaizen in developing countries; compared with productivity st...
By highlighting relations between experimental and theoretical work, this volume explores new ways of addressing one of the central challenges in the study of language and cognition. The articles bring together work by leading scholars and younger researchers in psychology, linguistics and philosophy. An introductory chapter lays out the background...
This free book summarizes the latest scientific findings regarding the biological effects of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FNPP) accident in 2011.
Various cases of changes in animals and organisms have been reported since the FNPP accident. However, it is often unknown whether they are actually due to radiation, since the dose or dos...
This open access book focuses on diagnostic and interventional imaging of the chest, breast, heart, and vessels. It consists of a remarkable collection of contributions authored by internationally respected experts, featuring the most recent diagnostic developments and technological advances with a highly didactical approach. The chapters are disea...
Technology has made human lives incomparably better. Civilization as we know it would utterly collapse without it. However, if not properly managed, technology can and will be systematically abused and misuse and thereby become one of the biggest threats to humankind. This open access book applies proactive crisis management to the management of te...
This free book is about the development of a common understanding of environmental citizenship. It conceptualizes and frames environmental citizenship taking an educational perspective. Organized in four complementary parts, the book first explains the political, economic and societal dimensions of the concept. Next, it examines environmental citiz...
This book provides an authoritative insight on the Loss and Damage discourse by highlighting state-of-the-art research and policy linked to this discourse and articulating its multiple concepts, principles and methods. Written by leading researchers and practitioners, it identifies practical and evidence-based policy options to inform the discourse...
This free book brings together discourse on children and peace from the 15th International Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace, covering issues pertinent to children and peace and approaches to making their world safer, fairer and more sustainable. The book is divided into nine sections that examine traditional themes (social con...
This free book explores questions such as why and how did the first biological cells appear? And then complex organisms, brains, societies and –now– connected human societies? Physicists have good models for describing the evolution of the universe since the Big Bang, but can we apply the same concepts to the evolution of aggregated matter –l...
This open access book explores commentaries on an influential text of pre-Copernican astronomy in Europe. It features essays that take a close look at key intellectuals and how they engaged with the main ideas of this qualitative introduction to geocentric cosmology.
Johannes de Sacrobosco compiled his Tractatus de sphaera during the thirteenth ce...
This book summarizes work being pursued in the context of the CIPRNet (Critical Infrastructure Preparedness and Resilience Research Network) research project, co-funded by the European Union under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). The project is intended to provide concrete and on-going support to the Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) r...
This free book explores the concept of Industry 4.0, which presents a considerable challenge for the production and service sectors. While digitization initiatives are usually integrated into the central corporate strategy of larger companies, smaller firms often have problems putting Industry 4.0 paradigms into practice. Small and medium-sized ent...
This book investigates what international placements of healthcare employees in low resource settings add to the UK workforce and the efficacy of the its national health system. The authors present empirical data collected from a volunteer deployment project in Uganda focused on reducing maternal and new-born mortality and discuss the learning and ...
Horrified by the Holocaust, social psychologist Stanley Milgram wondered if he could recreate the Holocaust in the laboratory setting. Unabated for more than half a century, his (in)famous results have continued to intrigue scholars. Based on unpublished archival data from Milgram's personal collection, volume one of this two-volume set introd...
This book is open access under a CC-BY licence. Cancer is perhaps the modern world's most feared disease. Yet, we know relatively little about this malady's history before the nineteenth century. This book provides the first in-depth examination of perceptions of cancerous disease in early modern England. Looking to drama, poetry and pole...
This book describes the history, structure and institutions of open and distance education in six countries: China, India, Russia, Turkey, South Africa and South Korea. It describes how open and distance education is evolving in a digital age to reflect the needs and circumstances of the national higher education systems in these countries. It al...
This free book presents up-to-date analyses of community-based approaches to sustainable resource management of SEPLS (socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes) in areas where a harmonious relationship between the natural environment and the people who inhabit it is essential to ensure community and environmental well-being as well as t...
This volume addresses the current debate on extended working life policy by considering the influence of gender and health on the experiences of older workers. Bringing together an international team of scholars, it tackles issues as gender, health status and job/ occupational characteristics that structure the capacity and outcomes associated with...
This free book provides in-depth insights into participatory research and planning by presenting practical examples of its use. In particular, it describes theoretical and methodological aspects of participatory research and planning, as well as the implementation of participatory processes in fields such as transport planning, cultural heritage ma...
This free book explores how digital tools and social media technologies can contribute to better participation and involvement of EU citizens in European politics. By analyzing selected representative e-participation projects at the local, national and European governmental levels, it identifies the preconditions, best practices and shortcomings of...
This book about the Zadeh Project demonstrates and explores a core question in clinical ethics: how can ethics consultants be accountable in the face of a robust plurality of ethical standpoints, especially those that underwrite practices and methods for doing ethics consultation as well as those viewpoints and values encountered in daily clinical ...
This book looks at the major policy challenges facing developing Asia and how the region sustains rapid economic growth to reduce multidimensional poverty through socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable measures. Asia is facing many challenges arising from population growth, rapid urbanization, provision of services, climate change and t...
This book deals with the relevance of recognition and validation of non-formal and informal learning in education and training, the workplace and society. In an increasing number of countries, it is at the top of the policy and research agenda ranking among the possible ways to redress the glaring lack of relevant academic and vocational qualificat...