This open book gathers authoritative contributions concerning multiscale problems in biomechanics, geomechanics, materials science and tribology. It is written in memory of Sergey Grigorievich Psakhie to feature various aspects of his multifaceted research interests, ranging from theoretical physics, computer modeling of materials and material char...
This open book is a comparative analysis of recent large scale education reforms that broadened curriculum goals to better prepare students for the 21st century. The book examines what governments actually do when they broaden curriculum goals, with attention to the details of implementation. To this end, the book examines system level reforms in s...
This open book presents the findings of Collaborative Research Center Transregio 40 (TRR40), initiated in July 2008 and funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Gathering innovative design concepts for thrust chambers and nozzles, as well as cutting-edge methods of aft-body flow control and propulsion-component cooling, it brings together fu...
This open book offers up-to-date advice and practical guidance on how to undertake a discrete choice experiment as a tool for environmental valuation. It discusses crucial issues in designing, implementing and analysing choice experiments. Compiled by leading experts in the field, the book promotes discrete choice analysis in environmental valuatio...
This open book describes the serious threat of invasive species to native ecosystems. Invasive species have caused and will continue to cause enormous ecological and economic damage with ever increasing world trade. This multi-disciplinary book, written by over 100 national experts, presents the latest research on a wide range of natural science an...
This open book focuses on processing, modeling, and visualization of anisotropy information, which are often addressed by employing sophisticated mathematical constructs such as tensors and other higher-order descriptors. It also discusses adaptations of such constructs to problems encountered in seemingly dissimilar areas of medical imaging, physi...
This open book discusses service design capabilities in innovation processes, and provides a framework that guides design students, practitioners and researchers towards a better understanding of operational aspects of service design processes. More specifically, it revisits service designers' capabilities in light of the new roles that have o...
This open book offers a selection of research papers and case studies presented at the 3rd international conference "Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions", held in December 2019 in Bolzano, Italy, and explores the concept of smart and sustainable planning, including top contributions from academics, policy makers, consult...
This open book draws on a multidimensional model of educational change, the book reviews the field of climate change education and identifies some of the areas in which past efforts have fallen short in supporting effective pedagogical change at scale. It then formulates an approach to engage university students and faculty in partnering with schoo...
This open book is an outcome of the collaboration between the Soil and Water Management & Crop Nutrition Section, Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, Department of Nuclear Sciences and Applications, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Vienna, Austria, and the German Science Foundation research unit DASI...
This open book provides a theoretical framework and case studies on decision science for regional sustainability by integrating the natural and social sciences. The cases discussed include solution-oriented transdisciplinary studies on the environment, disasters, health, governance and human cooperation. Based on these case studies and comprehensiv...
This open volume surveys the state of the field to examine whether a fifth wave of deterrence theory is emerging. Bringing together insights from world-leading experts from three continents, the volume identifies the most pressing strategic challenges, frames theoretical concepts, and describes new strategies.
The use and utility of deterrence in...
This open book reviews the water-agro-food and socio-eco-system of the Seine River basin (76,000 km2), and offers a historical perspective on the river's long-term contamination. The Seine basin is inhabited by circa 17 million people and is impacted by intensive agricultural practices and industrial activities. These pressures have gradually ...
This open access book is the first published guide about how to analyse data produced by the EQ-5D, one of the most widely used Patient Reported Outcomes questionnaires world wide. The authors provide practical, clear and comprehensive guidance in five concise chapters. Following an overview of the EQ-5D and its analysis, we describe how the questi...
Organic waste composting is another excellent example to demonstrate the power and the benefits of nexus thinking. Even though organic waste composting itself is not a new topic, those who want to start a new project or align an ongoing project with nexus thinking, find it difficult to gather the necessary information. With nine case studies from f...
This open book summarizes the research done and results obtained in the second funding phase of the Priority Program 1648 "Software for Exascale Computing" (SPPEXA) of the German Research Foundation (DFG) presented at the SPPEXA Symposium in Dresden during October 21-23, 2019.
In that respect, it both represents a continuation of Vol. 1...
The emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT), combined with greater heterogeneity not only online in cloud computing architectures but across the cloud-to-edge continuum, is introducing new challenges for managing applications and infrastructure across this continuum. The scale and complexity is simply so complex that it is no longer realistic for...
This open book focuses on theoretical and empirical intersections between governance, knowledge and space from an interdisciplinary perspective. The contributions elucidate how knowledge is a prerequisite as well as a driver of governance efficacy, and conversely, how governance affects the creation and use of knowledge and innovation in geographic...
This open book is an encyclopaedic analysis of the current and future energy system of the world's most populous country and second biggest economy. What happens in China impacts the planet. In the past 40 years China has achieved one of the most remarkable economic growth rates in history. Its GDP has risen by a factor of 65, enabling 850,000...
This open book explores ways to leverage information technology and machine learning to combat disease and promote health, especially in resource-constrained settings. It focuses on digital disease surveillance through the application of machine learning to non-traditional data sources. Developing countries are uniquely prone to large-scale emergin...
This open book presents and analyzes the results of more than 30 years of long-term ecological research in riparian forest ecosystems with the aim of casting light on changes in the dynamics of riparian forests over time. The research, focusing on the Ooyamazawa riparian forest, one of the remaining old-growth forests in Japan, has yielded a number...
This open access book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Semantic Systems, SEMANTiCS 2020, held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in September 2020....
This open book explores cultural competence in the higher education sector from multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary perspectives. It addresses cultural competence in terms of leadership and the role of the higher education sector in cultural competence policy and practice. Drawing on lessons learned, current research and emerging evidence, th...
This open book provides an overview of the recent advances in representation learning theory, algorithms and applications for natural language processing (NLP). It is divided into three parts. Part I presents the representation learning techniques for multiple language entries, including words, phrases, sentences and documents. Part II then introdu...
This open book synthesizes leading-edge science and management information about forest and rangeland soils of the United States. It offers ways to better understand changing conditions and their impacts on soils, and explores directions that positively affect the future of forest and rangeland soil health. This book outlines soil processes and ide...
The world is currently undergoing an historic energy transition, driven by increasingly stringent decarbonisation policies and rapid advances in low-carbon technologies. The large-scale shift to low-carbon energy is disrupting the global energy system, impacting whole economies, and changing the political dynamics within and between countries.This ...
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...
In this book, you'll find information about a set of libraries developed within the Apache Commons (also referred to as "Commons"). Commons is a set of small, popular components which forms a Top-level Project at the Apache Software Foundation. Ranging from the elementary to the complex, many would consider some of these libraries in...
Build your database management knowledge with the technical open book, Introducing SQL Server 2016. Get an overview of the SQL Server 2016 features - from in-memory performance and enhanced security to end-to-end mobile business intelligence and advanced analytics.
Learn about faster queries, improved security, higher availability, and state-of-...
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are seemingly everywhere. Thanks to the popularity of web-based products, cloud-based X-as-a-service offerings, and IoT, it is becoming increasingly important for engineers to understand all aspects of APIs, from design, to building, to operation.
Research shows that there is increasing demand for near r...
Each chapter comprises a separate study on some optimization problem giving both an introductory look into the theory the problem comes from and some new developments invented by author(s). Usually some elementary knowledge is assumed, yet all the required facts are quoted mostly in examples, remarks or theorems....
This book provides novel and in-depth perspectives on evaluating environment and sustainability issues in developing countries. Evaluating Environment in International Development focuses on the approaches and experiences of leading international organizations, not-for-profits, and multilateral and bilateral aid agencies to illustrate how systemati...