This open access report presents findings from the five Latin American countries that participated in the second cycle of the IEA International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS 2016). ICCS 2016 investigated the ways in which a range of countries are preparing their young people to undertake their roles as citizens during the second decad...
This book explores the dataspace paradigm as a best-effort approach to data management within data ecosystems. It establishes the theoretical foundations and principles of real-time linked dataspaces as a data platform for intelligent systems. The book introduces a set of specialized best-effort techniques and models to enable loose administrative ...
This book summarizes the key findings from the second cycle of IEA's International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS), conducted in 2018. ICILS seeks to establish how well schools around the globe are responding to the need to provide young people with the necessary digital participatory competencies. Effective use of information ...
This open access book describes the technologies needed to construct a secure big data infrastructure that connects data owners, analytical institutions, and user institutions in a circle of trust. It begins by discussing the most relevant technical issues involved in creating safe and privacy-preserving big data distribution platforms, and especia...
This textbook presents fundamental machine learning concepts in an easy to understand manner by providing practical advice, using straightforward examples, and offering engaging discussions of relevant applications. The main topics include Bayesian classifiers, nearest-neighbor classifiers, linear and polynomial classifiers, decision trees, neural ...
The 2nd edition of Evidence-Based Practice in Clinical Social Work continues to bridge the gap between social work research and clinical practice, presenting EBP as both an effective approach to social work and a broader social movement. Building on the models and insights outlined in the first edition, this new edition provides updated research an...
This textbook examines the extent to which moral values play a role as productive forces for the economy, and explores the effect of ethical and unethical Behavior on the economy. It shows how ethics improves productivity in the economy, and provides specific ethics tools for practical application for students and managers. Stemming from an overall...
Production ergonomics - the science and practice of designing industrial workplaces to optimize human well-being and system performance - is a complex challenge for a designer. Humans are a valuable and flexible resource in any system of creation, and as long as they stay healthy, alert and motivated, they perform well and also become more competen...
This open book brings together the latest research from a wide range of internationally influential scholars to analyze educational policy research from international, historical and interdisciplinary perspectives. By effectively breaking through the boundaries between countries and disciplines, it presents new theories, techniques and methods for ...
XcalableMP is a directive-based parallel programming language based on Fortran and C, supporting a Partitioned Global Address Space (PGAS) model for distributed memory parallel systems. This open book presents XcalableMP language from its programming model and basic concept to the experience and performance of applications described in XcalableMP.�...
This open book describes modern applications of computational human modeling in an effort to advance neurology, cancer treatment, and radio-frequency studies including regulatory, safety, and wireless communication fields. Readers working on any application that may expose human subjects to electromagnetic radiation will benefit from this book'...
This open book discusses how the involvement of citizens into scientific endeavors is expected to contribute to solve the big challenges of our time, such as climate change and the loss of biodiversity, growing inequalities within and between societies, and the sustainability turn. The field of citizen science has been growing in recent decades. Ma...
This open book focuses on how the design and use of innovative learning environments can evolve as teaching practices and education policies change. It addresses how these new environments are used, how teachers are adapting their practices, the challenges that these changes pose, and the effective evaluation of these changes.
The book reports on ...
Written by a group of international experts in the field and the result of over ten years of collaboration, it allows students and readers to gain to gain a detailed understanding of scar and wound treatment - a topic still dispersed among various disciplines. The content is divided into three parts for easy reference. The first part focuses on the...
This open book presents new developments in the field of demographic forecasting, covering both mortality, fertility and migration. For each component emerging methods to forecast them are presented. Moreover, instruments for forecasting evaluation are provided. Bayesian models, nonparametric models, cohort approaches, elicitation of expert opinion...
Our purpose in this book is twofold. First, we introduce the basic skill set and knowledge base used by practicing instructional designers. We do this through chapters contributed by experts in the field who have either academic, research-based backgrounds, or practical, on-the-job experience (or both). Our goal is that students in introductory ins...
Types are the central organizing principle of the theory of programming languages. Language features are manifestations of type structure. The syntax of a language is governed by the constructs that define its types, and its semantics is determined by the interactions among those constructs. The soundness of a language design - the absence of ill-d...
The Business of Plant Breeding is the result of a study on demand-led plant variety design for markets in Africa, sharing best practices from private and public sector breeding programmes worldwide that are applicable to improving tropical crops in Africa.
Beginning with an overview of the principles of demand-led plant breeding, the book then d...
This book integrates the vital areas of object-orientation, functional programming, design patterns, and language design. The most important concepts from functional programming are captured with six design patterns: FUNCTION OBJECTS (Black-box behaviour parameterisation) LAZY OBJECTS (Evaluation-by-need semantics) VALUE OBJECTS (Immutable values) ...
Teaching in the University: Learning from Graduate Students and Early Career Faculty provides insight and strategies for successful teaching, advising, and mentoring postsecondary students. In particular, the authors offer support and encouragement for implementing student-centered teaching practices relevant to college classrooms. This book is des...
Writing Guide with Handbook aligns to the goals, topics, and objectives of many first-year writing and composition courses. It is organized according to relevant genres, and focuses on the writing process, effective writing practices or strategies - including graphic organizers, writing frames, and word banks to support visual learning - and conven...
What is the most pressing problem facing the American public today? Is it immigration reform, health care costs, the student debt crisis, stagnating wages, or a budget deficit reaching into the trillions? How about climate change or the threat of plastic pollution in the ocean? What about gun violence and gun rights? The problems facing the U.S. ar...
This book presents extensive information related to the history of IUTAM. The initial chapters focus on IUTAM's history and selected organizational aspects. Subsequent chapters provide extensive data and statistics, while the closing section showcases photos from all periods of the Union's history.The history of IUTAM, the International U...
Romania is an active player in various international higher education areas, while undergoing a series of higher education reforms within its national framework. The Higher Education Evidence Based Policy Making: a necessary premise for progress in Romania project was implemented by the Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development ...
This book overviews environmental issues 4 years after the Fukushima nuclear accident, covering a wide range of areas related to radiation and radioactivity. The topics discussed are necessary to make clear the relationship between the results of research and Fukushima's revitalized future. The chapters are divided into four parts: Part 1 pres...
This book presents the outcomes of four years of educational research in the EU-supported project called ROLE (Responsive Online Learning Environments). ROLE technology is centered around the concept of self-regulated learning that creates responsible learners, who are capable of critical thinking and able to plan their own learning processes. ROL...
Bridging the gap between higher education research and policy making was always a challenge, but the recent calls for more evidence-based policies have opened a window of unprecedented opportunity for researchers to bring more contributions to shaping the future of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Encouraged by the success of the 2011 fir...
This book provides a practical and self-contained overview of the Gene Ontology (GO), the leading project to organize biological knowledge on genes and their products across genomic resources. Written for biologists and bioinformaticians, it covers the state-of-the-art of how GO annotations are made, how they are evaluated, and what sort of analyse...
This book covers all facets of entity-oriented search—where "search" can be interpreted in the broadest sense of information access—from a unified point of view, and provides a coherent and comprehensive overview of the state of the art. It represents the first synthesis of research in this broad and rapidly developing area. Selected ...
This collected volume represents the final outcome of the COST Action IS1104 "The EU in the new complex geography of economic systems: models, tools and policy evaluation".Visualizing the EU as a complex and multi-layered network, the book is organized in three parts, each of them dealing with a different level of analysis: At the macro-l...
'This is an incredibly audacious book. Derek Bolton and Grant Gillett brilliantly succeed in providing the big picture that was lacking in the defense of the biopsychosocial model promoted by Engel 40 years ago.' - Steeves Demazeux, Assistant Professor in philosophy, Bordeaux-Montaigne University, FranceThis book is a systematic update of...
This book presents a systematic investigation into internationally comparable data gathered in ICILS 2013. It identifies differences in female and male students' use of, perceptions about, and proficiency in using computer technologies. Teachers' use of computers, and their perceptions regarding the benefits of computer use in education, ...