Focusing on different tools, platforms, and techniques, Blockchain and the Smart City: Infrastructure and Implementation uses case studies from around the world to examine blockchain deployment in diverse smart city applications. The book begins by examining the fundamental theories and concepts of blockchain. It looks at key smart cities' domains such as banking, insurance, healthcare, and supply chain management. It examines Using case studies for each domain, the book looks at payment mechanisms, fog/edge computing, green computing, and algorithms and consensus mechanisms for smart cities implementation. It looks at tools such as Hyperledger, Etherium, Corda, IBM Blockchain, Hydrachain, as well as policies and regulatory standards, applications, solutions, and methodologies. While exploring future blockchain ecosystems for smart and sustainable city life, the book concludes with the research challenges and opportunities academics, researchers, and companies in implementing blockchain applications.

Senior adult ministry isn't what it used to be. The comfortable assumptions and outdated programs that were the basis for local church ministry are being challenged. Baby boomers are hitting middle age and retirement. And their own parents are living longer. Authors Win and Charles Arn have updated and supplemented Catch the Age Wave with ideas, examples and advice to help the local church leader start and maintain a senior adult program. In addition, they have added practical program ideas to use in any local church setting. New challenges for a new day. Catch the Age Wave won't let you miss the boat.

In 1963, Betty Friedan's transcendent work, The Feminine Mystique, changed forever the way women thought about themselves and the way society thought about women. In 1993, with The Fountain of Age, Friedan changes forever the way all of us, men and women, think about ourselves as we grow older and the way society thinks about aging. Struggling to hold on to the illusion of youth, we have denied the reality and evaded the new triumphs of growing older. We have seen age only as decline. In this powerful and very personal book, which may prove even more liberating than The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan charts her own voyage of discovery, and that of others, into a different kind of aging. She finds ordinary men and women, moving into their fifties, sixties, seventies, discovering extraordinary new possibilities of intimacy and purpose. In their surprising experiences, Friedan first glimpsed, then embraced, the idea that one can grow and evolve throughout life in a style that dramatically mitigates the expectation of decline and opens the way to a further dimension of "personhood." The Fountain of Age suggests new possibilities for every one of us, all founded on a solid body of startling but little-known scientific evidence. It demolishes those myths that have constrained us for too long and offers compelling alternatives for living one's age as a unique, exuberant time of life, on its own authentic terms. Age as adventure! In these pages, film producers and beauticians, salespersons and college professors, union veterans and business tycoons, former (and forever) housewives, male and female empty-nesters and retirees, have crossed the chasm of age... and kept going. They have foundfulfillment beyond career, bonding that transcends youthful dreams of happily-ever-after, and a richer, sweeter intimacy not tied to mechanical measures of sexual activity, but to deep and honest sharing. While gerontologists focus on care, illness, and the concept of age as deterio

Do you love someone enough to let them go?It was love at first sight when talented art student Felicity "Flick" Johnston-Hart and Jim MacDuff's worlds collided at Oxford University. However, after years of blissful marriage, everything crashes down when their marriage comes to a painful and abrupt end, thanks to Flick's interfering mother Penelope. Finally succumbing to maternal pressure, Flick falls into the high-flying career her mother believed she was destined for. However, she soon realises life without Jim isn't all she'd hoped, and that some decisions, once made, cannot be undone. Meanwhile, Jim is settling back into life as a single man in the beautiful Highland village of Shieldaig, when an unexpected visitor brings painful news. A letter from beyond the grave leads him to do something he never imagined and takes him on a journey he didn't anticipate. Can either of them heal and truly move on? Or is it true that a broken heart can never be a blank canvas? This book was previously published as Through the Glass. Praise for Lisa Hobman: 'I love it! - escape to the beautiful Isle of Skye with this feel-good, uplifting story of lost love and second chances...' Holly Martin 'Simply gorgeous. An uplifting story of two broken individuals trying to find the courage to take a chance on love again' Jessica Redland 'A really uplifting, feel-good read about hope, love and second chances, that really did warm my heart.' Kim Nash 'A gorgeous, heart-warming romantic journey, reminds us to never give up on love...' Lucy Coleman 'You will fall in love with this story of fresh starts and mending broken hearts' Mandy Baggot 'A heart-breakingly beautiful story of love and loss set in the stunning village of Glentorrin. Be prepared to fall in love over and over again.' Nancy Barone 'What a beautiful read this was. I was rooting for Juliette from the first page. Lisa handled some tough subjects with a delicate and deft touch. I'm ready to escape to Skye!' Sarah Bennett

Using digital and mobile technologies provides smart healthcare options for the inhabitants of urban centers. The IOT revolution that has exploded in the segment of energy, transportation, security and infrastructure will have sweeping healthcare implications. A centralized healthcare system, data collection and sharing, analysis and testing methods will usher in a new age to combat modern times. Emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence, 5G, and smart cameras as well as innovative strategies and design are just a few of the ways smart cities can address healthcare problems. Smart cities rely heavily on sensors to perceive parameters such as temperature, humidity, allergens, pollution and power grid status. All these affect deeply the way cities function and the adaptation phase cities will pass in achieving a balanced 'out of danger' co-living with Covid-19. The scope of this publication encompasses empirical work and scientific documentation on the two meeting areas: resilience and the smart city in the case of the Covid-19 pandemic in cities. Moreover, interface concept development and urban technologies production systems that can be replicable in many cities, including AI, machine learning and ICT are discussed. Strategically responding to system data updates enables healthcare to be smarter. Building capacity programs on how a community might gain universal access to valuable information, partners, networks, new learning paradigms and/or to eventually familiarize itself with innovative tracking, mentoring and fighting technologies and address the challenges in solving today's healthcare challenges.

The Impact of Natural Disasters on Systemic Political and Social Inequities in the U.S. examines how natural disasters impact social inequality in the United States. The contributors analyze natural disasters such as Hurricane Maria to show how these events influence the ways political and social inequality change over time. The contributors cover topics such as criminal justice, demographics, economics, history, political science, and sociology to show how effects of natural disasters vary by social and economic class in the United States. Ultimately, the contributors conclude that natural disasters and emergencies make political and social inequality worse. The Impact of Natural Disasters study social and political mechanisms in disaster response and relief that enable natural disasters to worsen inequalities in America and offers potential solutions.

Coronavirus caused a significant tourism crisis in Portugal in 2020. This book aims to analyze the situation and proposes practical local solidarity and business models for information and knowledge dissemination about/against the pandemic causes/impact. It includes suggestions and rules to be used by social actors to better cope with Covid-19. These suggestions may augment their social solidarity, inclusive practices, citizenship education, and lifelong learning opportunities, within a safe, resilient, and sustainable city. Such recommendations may also inspire other socioeconomic stakeholders, medium/small corporations, ONGs, associations, and local communities to develop and diffuse such instruments. The book aims to revitalize cultural tourism industries and services during and after the Covid-19 pandemic by helping create jobs in the areas of restoration, leisure, and culture via enhancement of knowledge transfer among universities, innovating industries, tourism agencies, museums, etc. This book is ideal for researchers, teachers, students, and other social agents within scientific communities, in connection with the above-mentioned scientific purposes, applied to technological and social needs.