At the heart of this book is one of the most ancient and profound question philosophers, spiritual seekers, and curious individuals have pondered since the beginning of history: "Who am I?". Advances in modern science, and access to Zen tradition, have provided us with broader and richer understanding of this topic. Over the chapters the author, a psychologist and Zen master, investigates how the brain fosters a sense of an independent self, situating his research in the contexts of neuroscience, ecology, evolution, psychology, and of the principles Eastern wisdom traditions. The book explores a broad range of insights from brain science, evolutionary biology, astronomy, clinical psychology, thoughts and emotions, mental health disorders, and Zen Buddhism. This book will appeal to psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, counsellors, and researchers of Eastern traditions. General readers interested in the functioning of the brain will discover practical ways to integrate fascinating new findings on an age-old question into their everyday life.

This thesis reports on essential experimental work in the field of novel two-dimensional (2D) atomic crystals beyond graphene. It especially describes three new 2D crystal materials, namely germanene, hafnene, and monolayer PtSe2 fabricated experimentally for the first time, using an ultra-high vacuum molecular beam epitaxy (UHV-MBE) system. Multiple characterization techniques, including scanning tunneling microscope (STM), low energy electron diffraction (LEED), scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM), and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), combined with theoretical studies reveal the materials' atomic and electronic structures, which allows the author to further investigate their physical properties and potential applications. In addition, a new epitaxial growth method for transition metal dichalcogenides involving direct selenization of metal supports is developed. These studies represent a significant step forward in expanding the family of 2D crystal materials and exploring their application potentials in future nanotechnology and related areas.

This book discusses the technical, economic, and environmental aspects of electric vehicles and their impact on electrical grids and energy systems. The book is divided into three parts that include load modeling, integration and optimization, and environmental evaluation. Theoretical background and practical examples accompany each section and the authors include helpful tips and hints in the load modeling and optimization sections. This book is intended to be a useful tool for undergraduate and graduate students, researchers and engineers who are trying to solve power and engineering problems related electric vehicles. Provides optimization techniques and their applications for energy systems; Discusses the economic and environmental perspectives of electric vehicles; Contains the most comprehensive information about electric vehicles in a single source.

This book aims to revisit the "traditional" interaction between channel strategies and the marketing mix in a connected world. In particular, it focuses on the following four dimensions in this context: Consumers, Products, Value Proposition and Sustainability. Keeping in mind the growing digitalization of business processes in the retail world and the move towards omni-channel retailing, the book introduces the state-of-the-art academic and practitioner studies along these dimensions that could enhance the understanding of the potential impact that new technologies and strategies can have on practice in the near future. When launching a new product/service to market, firms usually consider various components of the marketing mix to influence consumers' purchase behaviors, such as product design, convenience, value proposition, promotions, sustainability initiatives, etc. This mix varies depending on the specific channel and consumer niche that the firm is targeting. But this book shows how channel strategy also influences the effectiveness in utilizing the marketing mix to attract potential customers.

Putting the anthropological imagination under the spotlight, this book represents the experience of three generations of researchers, each of whom have long collaborated with the same Indigenous community over the course of their careers. In the context of a remote Indigenous Australian community in northern Australia, these researchers-anthropologists, an archeologist, a literary scholar, and an artist-encounter reflexivity and ethnographic practice through deeply personal and professionally revealing accounts of anthropological consciousness, relational encounters, and knowledge sharing. In six discrete chapters, the authors reveal the complexities that run through these relationships, considering how any one of us builds knowledge, shares knowledge, how we encounter different and new knowledge, and how well we are positioned to understand the lived experiences of others, whilst making ourselves fully available to personal change. At its core, this anthology is a meditation on learning and friendship across cultures.

This two-volume set constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Collaborative Computing: Networking, Applications, and Worksharing, CollaborateCom 2020, held in Shanghai, China, in October 2020.The 61 full papers and 16 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 211 submissions. The papers reflect the conference sessions as follows: Collaborative Applications for Network and E-Commerce; Optimization for Collaborate System; Cloud and Edge Computing; Artificial Intelligence; AI Application and Optimization; Classification and Recommendation; Internet of Things; Collaborative Robotics and Autonomous Systems; Smart Transportation.

Today's real-world problems and applications in sensory systems and target detection require efficient, comprehensive and fault-tolerant multi-sensor allocation. This book presents the theory and applications of novel methods developed for such sophisticated systems. It discusses the advances in multi-agent systems and AI along with collaborative control theory and tools. Further, it examines the formulation and development of an allocation framework for heterogeneous multi-sensor systems for various real-world problems that require sensors with different performances to allocate multiple tasks, with unknown a priori priorities that arrive at unknown locations at unknown time. It demonstrates how to decide which sensor to allocate to which tasks when and where. Lastly, it explains the reliability and availability issues of task allocation systems, and includes methods for their optimization. The presented methods are explained, measured, and evaluated by extensive simulations, and the results of these simulations are presented in this book. This book is an ideal resource for academics, researchers and graduate students as well as engineers and professionals and is relevant for various applications such as sensor network design, multi-agent systems, task allocation, target detection, and team formation.

Atheism Revisited is a collection of essays that explore the multifaceted nature of atheism. Starting from the notion that today's atheism is shaped by the defining processes of Modernity-such as secularization and the breakup of science, philosophy, and theology-the first part of the book undertakes a thorough scrutiny of Modern atheisms, from Spinoza and Hobbes to Marx and Nietzsche. The second part of the book seeks to draw practical conclusions from this scrutiny and answer the questions: what is the state of atheism today? What is the role of an atheist in a world affected by religious fundamentalisms? What should the relationship between atheists and religious people look like? The wide scope of the book allows readers to see atheism as a central concern of many intellectual movements, from Marxism and French Theory to post-secularism and the reevaluation of Modernity, and to understand atheism as a focal point of the most important contemporary philosophical debates.

This book gathers outstanding papers presented at the International Conference on Advances in Materials and Manufacturing Engineering (ICAMME 2019), held at KIIT Deemed to be University, Bhubaneswar, India, from 15 to 17 March 2019. It covers theoretical and empirical developments in various areas of mechanical engineering, including manufacturing, production, machine design, fluid/thermal engineering, and materials.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the themed workshops of the 6th International Conference on Life System Modeling and Simulation, LSMS 2020, and of the 6th International Conference on Intelligent Computing for Sustainable Energy and Environment, ICSEE 2020, held in Hangzhou, China, in October 2020.The 36 full and 2 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from over 165 submissions. The papers of this volume are organized in topical sections on: smart energy systems and devices; intelligent manufacturing and systems; and intelligent biology and information systems.

This book studies the fundamental aspects of many-body physics in quantum systems open to an external world. Recent remarkable developments in the observation and manipulation of quantum matter at the single-quantum level point to a new research area of open many-body systems, where interactions with an external observer and the environment play a major role. The first part of the book elucidates the influence of measurement backaction from an external observer, revealing new types of quantum critical phenomena and out-of-equilibrium dynamics beyond the conventional paradigm of closed systems. In turn, the second part develops a powerful theoretical approach to study the in- and out-of-equilibrium physics of an open quantum system strongly correlated with an external environment, where the entanglement between the system and the environment plays an essential role. The results obtained here offer essential theoretical results for understanding the many-body physics of quantum systems open to an external world, and can be applied to experimental systems in atomic, molecular and optical physics, quantum information science and condensed matter physics.

Analysing developments in digital technologies and institutional changes, this book provides an overview of the current frenetic state of transformation within the global automobile industry. An ongoing transition brought about by the relocation of marketing, design and production centres to emerging economies, and experimentation with new mobility systems such as electrical, autonomous vehicles, this process poses the question as to how original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and newcomers can remain competitive and ensure sustainability. With contributions from specialists in the automobile sector, this collection examines the shifts in power and geographical location occurring in the industry, and outlines the key role that public policy has in generating innovation in entrepreneurial states. Offering useful insights into the challenges facing emerging economies in their attempts to grow within the automobile industry, this book will provide valuable reading for those researching internationalization and emerging markets, business strategy and more specifically, the automotive industry.

Since the 1970 and 1980s, fanzines have constituted a zone of freedom of thought, of do-it-yourself creativity and of alternatives to conventional media. Along with bands, records and concerts, they became a vital part of the construction of punk 'scenes', actively contributing to the creation and consolidation of communities. This book moves beyond the usual focus on Anglophone punk scenes to consider fanzines in international contexts. The introduction offers a theoretical, chronological and thematic survey for understanding fanzines, considering their contemporary polyhedral vitality. It then moves to consider the distinct social, historical and geographic contexts in which fanzines were created. Covering the UK, Portugal, Greece, Canada, Germany, Argentina, France and Brazil, as well as a wide range of standpoints, this book contributes to a more global understanding of the fanzine phenomenon.

The book describes the significant multidisciplinary research findings at the Universita Politecnica delle Marche and the expected future advances. It addresses some of the most dramatic challenges posed by today's fast-growing, global society and the changes it has caused. It also discusses solutions to improve the wellbeing of human beings. The book covers the main research achievements in the various disciplines of the life sciences, and includes chapters that highlight mechanisms relevant to all aspects of human diseases, the molecular, cellular, and functional basis of therapy, and its translation into the management of people's health needs. It also describes research on traditional and innovative foods to enhance quality, safety and functionality, and to develop bioactive/nutraceutical compounds. Further chapters address conservation and management of various environments, from the forests to the oceans, describing the studies on countermeasures against climate changes and terrestrial/aquatic pollutants, and on terrestrial/marine biodiversity, ecosystems and landscapes, erosion of genetic biodiversity, innovative aquaculture feed, sustainable crop production and management of forests. Lastly, the book reports the findings of research work on different classes of biomolecules, and on the molecular basis of antibiotic resistances and their diffusion.

Though there have been significant advances in the theory and applications of linear time-invariant systems, developments regarding repetitive control have been sporadic. At the same time, there is a dearth of literature on repetitive control (RC) for nonlinear systems.Addressing that gap, this book discusses a range of basic methods for solving RC problems in nonlinear systems, including two commonly used methods and three original ones. Providing valuable tools for researchers working on the development of repetitive control, these new and fundamental methods are one of the major features of the book, which will benefit researchers, engineers, and graduate students in e.g. the field of control theory.

This book discusses the evolution of future-generation technologies through the Internet of things, bringing together all the related technologies on a single platform to offer valuable insights for undergraduate and postgraduate students, researchers, academics and industry practitioners. The book uses data, network engineering and intelligent decision- support system-by-design principles to design a reliable IoT-enabled ecosystem and to implement cyber-physical pervasive infrastructure solutions. It takes readers on a journey that begins with understanding the insight paradigm of IoT-enabled technologies and how it can be applied. It walks readers through engaging with real-time challenges and building a safe infrastructure for IoT-based, future-generation technologies. The book helps researchers and practitioners to understand the design architecture through IoT and the state of the art in IoT countermeasures. It also highlights the differences between heterogeneous platforms in IoT-enabled infrastructure and traditional ad hoc or infrastructural networks, and provides a comprehensive discussion on functional frameworks for IoT, object identification, IoT domain model, RFID technology, wearable sensors, WBAN, IoT semantics, knowledge extraction, and security and privacy issues in IoT-based ecosystems. Written by leading international experts, it explores IoT-enabled insight paradigms, which are utilized for the future benefit of humans. It also includes references to numerous works. Divided into stand-alone chapters, this highly readable book is intended for specialists, researchers, graduate students, designers, experts, and engineers involved in research on healthcare-related issues.

This book discusses how to plan the time-variant placements of the UAVs served as base station (BS)/relay, which is very challenging due to the complicated 3D propagation environments, as well as many other practical constraints such as power and flying speed. Spectrum sharing with existing cellular networks is also investigated in this book. The emerging unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been playing an increasing role in the military, public, and civil applications. To seamlessly integrate UAVs into future cellular networks, this book will cover two main scenarios of UAV applications as follows. The first type of applications can be referred to as UAV Assisted Cellular Communications. Second type of application is to exploit UAVs for sensing purposes, such as smart agriculture, security monitoring, and traffic surveillance. Due to the limited computation capability of UAVs, the real-time sensory data needs to be transmitted to the BS for real-time data processing. The cellular networks are necessarily committed to support the data transmission for UAVs, which the authors refer to as Cellular assisted UAV Sensing. To support real-time sensing streaming, the authors design joint sensing and communication protocols, develop novel beamforming and estimation algorithms, and study efficient distributed resource optimization methods. This book targets signal processing engineers, computer and information scientists, applied mathematicians and statisticians, as well as systems engineers to carve out the role that analytical and experimental engineering has to play in UAV research and development. Undergraduate students, industry managers, government research agency workers and general readers interested in the fields of communications and networks will also want to read this book.

This book provides a scholarly yet accessible approach to critical psychology, specifically discussing therapeutic practices that are possible outside of the mainstream psychology industry. While there are many books that deconstruct or dismantle clinical psychology, few provide a compendium of potential alternatives to mainstream practice. Focusing on five main themes in reference to this objective: suffering, decolonization, dialogue, feminism and the arts, these pages explore types of personal inquiry, cultural knowledge or community action that might help explain and heal psychological pain beyond the confines of the therapy room. Chapters focus on the role of cultural knowledge, including spiritual traditions, relational being, art, poetry, feminism and indigenous systems in promoting healing and on community-based-initiatives, including open dialogue, justice-based collaboration and social prescribing. Beyond the Psychology Industry will be of interest to researchers, clinical psychologists, therapists, academics in mental health, and cultural psychologists.

Henri Bergson (1859-1941) is one of the truly great philosophers of the modernist period, and there is currently a major renaissance of interest in his unduly neglected texts and ideas amongst philosophers, literary theorists, and social theorists. Creative Evolution (1907) is the text that made Bergson world-famous in his own lifetime; in it Bergson responds to the challenge presented to our habits of thought by modern evolutionary theory, and attempts to show that the theory of knowledge must have its basis in a theory of life.

The papers of the present volume investigate the potential of the metaphor of life as theater for literary, philosophical, juridical and epistemological discourses from the Middle Ages through modernity, and focusing on traditions as manifold as French, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian and Latin-American.

Variation is the norm in language. It is the universal trait that has never been embarrassed by counterexamples. As language is a joint product of human cognition and human society, the dimensions underlying language variation could potentially reveal the complexity of the human mind and defines us of what we are as cognitive and social beings, be it Austrians speaking German, or Nepalis speaking Dumi. This volume includes eight papers highlighting three dimensions underlying language variation. The linguistic dimension explores how language changes across the physical time span and across linguistic breadth. The cognitive dimension examines how the human mind handles experiential frequency and life experiences, and how it copes with suboptimal processing faculties. Finally, the contextual dimension focuses on how language interacts with its ambiance, either in the form of geographical surroundings, or in the form of artistic styles. The uniqueness of this volume lies not only in its wide range of dimensions investigated, but also in its broad spectrum of languages covered. This enables us to form a fuller understanding of how language evolves and interacts with human cognition.

This book explores the career experiences of Generation A, the half-million individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who will reach adulthood in the next decade. With Generation A eligible to enter the workforce in unprecedented numbers, research is needed to help individuals, organizations, and educational institutions to work together to create successful work experiences and career outcomes for individuals with ASD. Issues surrounding ASD in the workplace are discussed from individual, organizational, and societal perspectives. This book also examines the stigma of autism and how it may affect the employment and career experiences of individuals with ASD. This timely book provides researchers, practitioners, and employers with empirical data that examines the work and career experiences of individuals with ASD. It offers a framework for organizations committed to hiring individuals with ASD and enhancing their work experiences and career outcomes now and in the future.

This book focuses on the use of artificial intelligence to address a specific problem in the brain - the orientation distribution function. It discusses three aspects: (i) Preparing, enhancing and evaluating one of the cuckoo search algorithms (CSA); (ii) Describing the problem: Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI) is used for non-invasive investigations of anatomical connectivity in the human brain, while Q-ball imaging (QBI) is a diffusion MRI reconstruction technique based on the orientation distribution function (ODF), which detects the dominant fiber orientations; however, ODF lacks local estimation accuracy along the path. (iii) Evaluating the performance of the CSA versions in solving the ODF problem using synthetic and real-world data. This book appeals to both postgraduates and researchers who are interested in the fields of medicine and computer science.