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...
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...
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...
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 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 offers a summary of the development of Digital Earth over the past twenty years. By reviewing the initial vision of Digital Earth, the evolution of that vision, the relevant key technologies, and the role of Digital Earth in helping people respond to global challenges, this publication reveals how and why Digital Earth is beco...
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...
The papers presented in this open access book address diverse challenges in decarbonizing energy systems, ranging from operational to investment planning problems, from market economics to technical and environmental considerations, from distribution grids to transmission grids, and from theoretical considerations to data provision concerns and app...
This open access book focuses on the development of methods, interoperable and integrated ICT tools, and survey techniques for optimal management of the building process. The construction sector is facing an increasing demand for major innovations in terms of digital dematerialization and technologies such as the Internet of Things, big data, advan...
This free book brings together a set of original studies that use cutting-edge computational methods to investigate conflict at various geographic scales and degrees of intensity and violence. Methodologically, this book covers a variety of computational approaches from text mining and machine learning to agent-based modelling and social network an...
This Open Access biography chronicles the life and achievements of the Norwegian engineer and physicist Rolf Widerøe. Readers who meet him in the pages of this book will wonder why he isn't better known.The first of Widerøe's many pioneering contributions in the field of accelerator physics was the betatron. He later went on to build th...
This open access book captures and elaborates on the skill of storytelling as one of the distinct leadership features of Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and the President of the People's Republic of China. It gathers the stories included in Xi's speeches on various occasions, where they conveyed the essen...
This book presents a comprehensive survey of modern operator techniques for boundary value problems and spectral theory, employing abstract boundary mappings and Weyl functions. It includes self-contained treatments of the extension theory of symmetric operators and relations, spectral characterizations of selfadjoint operators in terms of the anal...
This book collects 5 keynote and 15 theme lectures presented at the 2nd European Conference on Earthquake Engineering and Seismology (2ECEES), held in Istanbul, Turkey, from August 24 to 29, 2014. The conference was organized by the Turkish Earthquake Foundation - Earthquake Engineering Committee and Prime Ministry, Disaster and Emergency Managemen...
This book presents theoretical and practical research relating to the vast, publicly financed program for the construction of new schools and the reorganization of existing educational buildings in Italy. This transformative process aims to give old buildings a fresh identity, to ensure that facilities are compliant with the new educational and tea...
This open access book addresses several questions regarding the implementation of human and organisational factors (HOF) so that recent improvements in industrial safety can be built upon. It addresses sources of frustration in senior management with high expectations of operational recommendations and disquiet on the part of HOF specialists strugg...
This open access book provides the first comprehensive collection of papers that provide an integrative view on cybersecurity. It discusses theories, problems and solutions on the relevant ethical issues involved. This work is sorely needed in a world where cybersecurity has become indispensable to protect trust and confidence in the digital infras...
This is an open access book. Lewis F Richardson (1981-1953), a physicist by training, was a pioneer in meteorology and peace research and remains a towering presence in both fields. This edited volume reviews his work and assesses its influence in the social sciences, notably his work on arms races and their consequences, mathematical models, the s...
This book examines key aspects of international cooperation to enhance nuclear safety, security, safeguards, and non-proliferation, thereby assisting in development and maintenance of the verification regime and fostering progress toward a nuclear weapon-free world. The book opens by addressing important political, institutional, and legal dimensio...
This book contains the refereed proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Agile Software Development, XP 2016, held in Edinburgh, UK, in May 2016.While agile development has already become mainstream in industry, this field is still constantly evolving and continues to spur an enormous interest both in industry and academia. To this end, ...
This book shows how the study of multi-hadron production phenomena in the years after the founding of CERN culminated in Hagedorn's pioneering idea of limiting temperature, leading on to the discovery of the quark-gluon plasma -- announced, in February 2000 at CERN.Following the foreword by Herwig Schopper -- the Director General (1981-1988) o...
This publication addresses the global challenges of food and water security in a rapidly changing and complex world. The essays highlight the links between bio-physical and socio-cultural processes, making connections between local and global scales, and focusing on the everyday practices of eating and drinking, essential for human survival. Writte...
This book presents work collected through the Liquefaction Experiments and Analysis Projects (LEAP) in 2017. It addresses the repeatability, variability, and sensitivity of lateral spreading observed in twenty-four centrifuge model tests on mildly sloping liquefiable sand. The centrifuge tests were conducted at nine different centrifuge facilitie...
This book illustrates the benefits to be gained from digitally networked communication for health, education and transitioning economies in developing nations (Sierra Leone and Papua New Guinea) and developed nations. Growing powers of e-citizenship can help build sustainable futures. This small volume provides a collection of examples and ideas fr...
This book analyses intellectual property and innovation governance in the development of six key industries in India and China. These industries are reflective of the innovation and economic development of the two economies, or of vital importance to them: the IT Industry, the film industry, the pharmaceutical industry, plant varieties and food sec...
This book is a practical introduction to multilevel modelling or multilevel analysis (MLA) – a statistical technique being increasingly used in public health and health services research. The authors begin with a compelling argument for the importance of researchers in these fields having an understanding of MLA to be able to judge not only the g...
This open access book discusses transnational trade union cooperation in Europe – its forms, focuses, conditions, and obstacles. It provides an overview of existing trade union cooperation and includes detailed analyses of two specific questions: the debates on statutory minimum wages and the Posting of Workers Directive. Drawing on empirical res...
This open access book, inspired by the ICME 13 Thematic Afternoon on "European Didactic Traditions", consists of 17 chapters, in which educators from the Netherlands reflect on the teaching and learning of mathematics in their country and the role of the Dutch domain-specific instruction theory of Realistic Mathematics Education.Written b...
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 book provides a comprehensive toolbox of analysis techniques forionospheric multi-satellite missions. The immediate need for this volume was motivatedby the ongoing ESA Swarm satellite mission, but the tools that are described are generaland can be used for any future ionospheric multi-satellite mission with comparableinstrumentation.
In addi...
This open access book is about understanding the processes involved in the transformation of smallholder rice farming in the Lower Mekong Basin from a low-yielding subsistence activity to one producing the surpluses needed for national self-sufficiency and a high-value export industry. For centuries, farmers in the Basin have regarded rice as "...