International Perspectives on the Belt and Road Initiative investigates the most significant global-scale international trade expansion and capital investment programme since the Second World War. This book focusses on the multi-national perspectives of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in order to interrogate the Chinese government's representation of it as a symbol of "peace, cooperation, development and mutual benefit." With specific focus on the interrelationship between geopolitics, infrastructure investments and urban regional development, the book reflects on 12 countries' experiences in depth, including those of Iran, Pakistan, Brazil, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan and Ethiopia, specificly to their economic development levels, political systems, power dynamics and socio-environmental issues. The book clarifies and contributes new knowledge on the nature of BRI concerning its relationship to globalism, neo-colonialism, the notion of developed vs developing countries and their institutions and macro-micro benefits and impacts. In doing so, the book offers a balanced account of the antagonistic geo-political narrative of socio-political conflict and the collaborative framework of real socio-economic flows and development. The book will appeal to academics, researchers and policy-makers with an interest in the BRI and its impacts on politico-economic development and urban, regional and spatial systems in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

International Perspectives on the Belt and Road Initiative investigates the most significant global-scale international trade expansion and capital investment programme since the Second World War. This book focusses on the multi-national perspectives of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in order to interrogate the Chinese government's representation of it as a symbol of "peace, cooperation, development and mutual benefit." With specific focus on the interrelationship between geopolitics, infrastructure investments and urban regional development, the book reflects on 12 countries' experiences in depth, including those of Iran, Pakistan, Brazil, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan and Ethiopia, specificly to their economic development levels, political systems, power dynamics and socio-environmental issues. The book clarifies and contributes new knowledge on the nature of BRI concerning its relationship to globalism, neo-colonialism, the notion of developed vs developing countries and their institutions and macro-micro benefits and impacts. In doing so, the book offers a balanced account of the antagonistic geo-political narrative of socio-political conflict and the collaborative framework of real socio-economic flows and development. The book will appeal to academics, researchers and policy-makers with an interest in the BRI and its impacts on politico-economic development and urban, regional and spatial systems in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

Negotiations on trade facilitation were concluded at the WTO 9th Ministerial Conference in 2013, and the Agreements on Trade Facilitation (TFA), therefore, became the first fully multilateral agreement in WTO history. Since then, trade facilitation has been in the limelight on the stage of the world trading system. During recent years, the TFA has been consistently on the agenda of the summits of G20, G7, and APEC. The Agreement has come into force and shall be implemented on a global scale. As a result, the WTO members shall be prepared to translate the Agreement into their domestic legislation, which will involve a series of reforms in trade laws and policies. There are extensive voices demanding a comprehensive expatiation on trade facilitation and the TFA. It is essential to systematically delve into the genesis of trade facilitation, revisit the course where the TFA came into being, and analyse the well-turned legalese of the TFA. This book meets this demand. This book is path-breaking in these aspects: it expounds on the rationales for trade facilitation and the significance of constituting an international accord on trade facilitation; it restores the one-century track of the international community's talks on trade facilitation, from the times of the League of Nations to the WTO era; it reveals how the WTO negotiating mechanisms enabled the TFA to be nailed down, which would be enlightening for trade diplomats engaged in other WTO negotiations; and it provides an in-depth commentary on the TFA articles, which will help stakeholders more accurately understand and implement the Agreement. This book will be especially valuable for government officials and policy-makers, trade practitioners, lawyers, advisers, and scholars interested in international economic law, WTO law, international trade, international relations, and international development studies.

This open access book explores various issues concerning the net-zero emission achievement, ranging from carbon pricing, carbon trade schemes, energy transition, ecological conservation, and carbon sinks, as well as the economic and social impacts of introducing carbon neutral policies in the Asia-Pacific region. The extreme flooding and drought problems, crop yield problems, and habitat changes brought about by climate change have seriously threatened the ecosystem and human survival, forcing people to rethink environmental management policies and limits on economic development. In the post-COVID-10 era, it is indispensable to adopt a more proactive climate change adaptation policy and establish bilateral cooperation with international partners who value climate change. 2021 is a critical year, and the leaders of major industrial countries at the recently concluded G7 meeting jointly stated the common objective seeking the establishment of carbon-neutral international community by the mid of the century. Major carbon-emitting countries or entities such as the European Union, US, Japan, Korea, China, and India have proposed specific timetables for net-zero carbon emissions and carbon neutrality before or at the COP26. Policy-makers around the world would also work closely with scientists, experts, and enterprises seeking appropriate policy instruments such as the development of carbon tax, carbon pricing, carbon sinks, global or regional carbon emission trade schemes, energy transitions, and other carbon-neutral policies moving toward net-zero emission society by the mid of the century. At a time when carbon pricing policies are being formulated, climate change related laws and policies will reshape the global governance and industrial layout during the period of 2021–-2030, and it is critical to move toward energy and industrial transformation, ecological conservation, and sustainable agricultural development.

This open access book explores various issues concerning the net-zero emission achievement, ranging from carbon pricing, carbon trade schemes, energy transition, ecological conservation, and carbon sinks, as well as the economic and social impacts of introducing carbon neutral policies in the Asia-Pacific region. The extreme flooding and drought problems, crop yield problems, and habitat changes brought about by climate change have seriously threatened the ecosystem and human survival, forcing people to rethink environmental management policies and limits on economic development. In the post-COVID-10 era, it is indispensable to adopt a more proactive climate change adaptation policy and establish bilateral cooperation with international partners who value climate change. 2021 is a critical year, and the leaders of major industrial countries at the recently concluded G7 meeting jointly stated the common objective seeking the establishment of carbon-neutral international community by the mid of the century. Major carbon-emitting countries or entities such as the European Union, US, Japan, Korea, China, and India have proposed specific timetables for net-zero carbon emissions and carbon neutrality before or at the COP26. Policy-makers around the world would also work closely with scientists, experts, and enterprises seeking appropriate policy instruments such as the development of carbon tax, carbon pricing, carbon sinks, global or regional carbon emission trade schemes, energy transitions, and other carbon-neutral policies moving toward net-zero emission society by the mid of the century. At a time when carbon pricing policies are being formulated, climate change related laws and policies will reshape the global governance and industrial layout during the period of 2021–-2030, and it is critical to move toward energy and industrial transformation, ecological conservation, and sustainable agricultural development.

This book is about the Ultra-high Performance Cementitious Composites (UHPCC), which is a relativity new type of cementitious materials. UHPCC has very low water-to-binder ratio, high amount of high-range water reducer, fine aggregates and high-strength steel or organic fibers. With the prominent mechanical properties, e.g., high compressive and tensile strength, high ductility, and high fracture energy, UHPCC has been becoming the most prospective construction cement-based material for both civil and military structures to resist high-speed projectile penetration, low-velocity impact and blast loadings. In this book, the related work conducted by authors on the static and dynamic mechanical properties, as well as the impact and blast resistance of UHPCC are presented. This book is written for the researchers, engineers and graduate students in the fields of protective structures and terminal ballistics.

This book is about the Ultra-high Performance Cementitious Composites (UHPCC), which is a relativity new type of cementitious materials. UHPCC has very low water-to-binder ratio, high amount of high-range water reducer, fine aggregates and high-strength steel or organic fibers. With the prominent mechanical properties, e.g., high compressive and tensile strength, high ductility, and high fracture energy, UHPCC has been becoming the most prospective construction cement-based material for both civil and military structures to resist high-speed projectile penetration, low-velocity impact and blast loadings. In this book, the related work conducted by authors on the static and dynamic mechanical properties, as well as the impact and blast resistance of UHPCC are presented. This book is written for the researchers, engineers and graduate students in the fields of protective structures and terminal ballistics.

This book presents the syllabus of Hu Shih's course on the History of Chinese Thought, which he taught at Harvard University from 1944 to 1945, and has been transcribed from his (more than 1500) hand-written notes. This book focuses on Hu Shih's in-depth study and interpretation of Chinese intellectual history and philosophy, etc. It also distills the development of China's long and complex intellectual history over the past 3,000 years into a clear and succinct outline. Transcribing, collating and publishing this valuable hand-written manuscript for the first time, the book represents a truly unique historical document.

This book presents comprehensive experimental, numerical, and theoretical research on projectile impact analysis, such as the rigid projectile penetration/perforation of concrete and metallic targets, and shaped-charge-formed projectile and jet penetrations. Concrete and metal materials are widely used in protective structures in both civil engineering and armored vehicles, such as military fortifications, underground shelters, infantry fighting vehicles, and tanks, which are designed to withstand intentional or accidental impact loadings caused by projectiles and fragments, and the responses of these targets under projectile impact have been a topic of discussion for several decades. Written for researchers and engineers working in the fields of protective structures and high-speed penetration mechanics, the book is also a valuable reference for senior undergraduate and postgraduate students majoring in defense engineering, terminal ballistics and other related fields.

This book proposes the concept of a multi-layer pavement system to fulfill the blast resistance requirement for pavement design. It also presents a damage pattern chart for multi-layer pavement design and rapid repair after blast load. Such a multi-layer system consists of three layers including asphalt concrete (AC) reinforced with Geogrid (GST) at the top, a high-strength concrete (HSC) layer in the middle, and engineered cementitious composites (ECC) at the bottom. A series of large-scale laboratory impact tests were carried out to prove the usefulness of this concept and show its advantages over other conventional pavement system. Furthermore, field blast tests were conducted to show the actual behavior of this multi-layer pavement system subjected to blast load under real-world conditions.

In this book, the authors present their theoretical, experimental and numerical investigations into concrete structures subjected to projectile and aircraft impacts in recent years. Innovative approaches to analyze the rigid, mass abrasive and eroding projectile penetration and perforation are proposed. Damage and failure analyses of nuclear power plant containments impacted by large commercial aircrafts are numerically and experimentally analyzed. Ultra-high performance concrete materials and structures against the projectile impact are developed and their capacities of resisting projectile impact are evaluated. This book is written for the researchers, engineers and graduate students in the fields of protective structures and terminal ballistics.

This book proposes the concept of a multi-layer pavement system to fulfill the blast resistance requirement for pavement design. It also presents a damage pattern chart for multi-layer pavement design and rapid repair after blast load. Such a multi-layer system consists of three layers including asphalt concrete (AC) reinforced with Geogrid (GST) at the top, a high-strength concrete (HSC) layer in the middle, and engineered cementitious composites (ECC) at the bottom. A series of large-scale laboratory impact tests were carried out to prove the usefulness of this concept and show its advantages over other conventional pavement system. Furthermore, field blast tests were conducted to show the actual behavior of this multi-layer pavement system subjected to blast load under real-world conditions.

This book addresses the fundamental theory and key technologies of narrowband and broadband mobile communication systems specifically for railways. It describes novel relaying schemes that meet the different design criteria for railways and discusses the applications of signal classification techniques as well as offline resource scheduling as a way of advancing rail practice. Further, it introduces Novel Long Term Evolution for Railway (LTE-R) network architecture, the Quality of Service (QoS) requirement of LTE-R and its performance evaluation and discusses in detail security technologies for rail-dedicated mobile communication systems. The advanced research findings presented in the book are all based on high-speed railway measurement data, which offer insights into the propagation mechanisms and corresponding modeling theory and approaches in unique railway scenarios.It is a valuable resource for researchers, engineers and graduate students in the fields of rail traffic systems, telecommunication and information systems.

In this book, the authors present their theoretical, experimental and numerical investigations into concrete structures subjected to projectile and aircraft impacts in recent years. Innovative approaches to analyze the rigid, mass abrasive and eroding projectile penetration and perforation are proposed. Damage and failure analyses of nuclear power plant containments impacted by large commercial aircrafts are numerically and experimentally analyzed. Ultra-high performance concrete materials and structures against the projectile impact are developed and their capacities of resisting projectile impact are evaluated. This book is written for the researchers, engineers and graduate students in the fields of protective structures and terminal ballistics.

Beginning from centuries of anecdotal descriptions of cell death, such as those on the development of the midwife toad in 1842 by Carl Vogt, to modern-day investigations of cell death as a biological discipline, it has become accepted that cell death in multicellular organisms is a normal part of life. This book provides a comprehensive view of cell death, from its mechanisms of initiation and execution, to its implication in human disease and therapy. Physiological cell death plays critical roles in almost all aspects of biology, and the book details its roles in lymphocyte homeostasis, neuronal function, metabolism, and the DNA damage response. When physiological cell death goes awry, diseases can arise, and cancer is presented as a central paradigm for the consequences of derangements in the interplay between cell survival and cell death. At the same time, the potential promise of targeted therapies aimed at interdicting cell death machineries are also discussed extensively. The molecular mechanisms that underlie apoptotic cell death are illustrated from the perspectives of both the intrinsic, mitochondrial apoptotic pathway and the extrinsic, death receptor pathway. Key players in these pathways, such as the Bcl2 family proteins, cytochrome c, Apaf-1, caspases, death receptor adapter proteins, and inhibitor of apoptosis proteins, are presented from both functional and structural angles. Until only a few years ago, programmed cell death has been considered essentially synonymous with apoptosis. However, we now know that programmed cell death can also take other forms such as necrosis or necroptosis, and to this end, the mechanisms that underlie programmed necrosis in development and host defense are illustrated. The past twenty plus years have seen an incredible growth of research in cell death, with one breakthrough after another, and the legacy still goes on with constant new surprises and findings. Long live cell death!

Progress in Drug Research is a prestigious book series which provides extensive expert-written reviews on a wide spectrum of highly topical areas in current pharmaceutical and pharmacological research. It serves as an important source of information for researchers concerned with drug research and all those who need to keep abreast of the many recent developments in the quest for new and better medicines.

It has been established that TNF receptor associated factors (TRAFs) are critical signaling mediators for not only the TNF receptor superfamily, but also the interleukin-1 receptor/Toll-like receptor superfamily and the T-cell receptors. They play important roles in mammalian biology including embryonic development, innate and adaptive immune regulation and maintenance of cellular homeostasis. Agents that manipulate the signaling of these receptors are being used or showing promise towards the treatment and prevention of many human diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, coronary heart disease, transplantation rejection, insulin resistance, multiple organ failure and cancer.

TNF Receptor Associated Factors is the only literature that is entirely devoted to TRAFs. Almost every aspect of TRAF signaling is covered, including the different TRAF family members, their distinct biological functions, the TRAF structures, their modes of receptor recognition, the signaling mechanisms, and the roles of TRAFs in normal cellular functions and in viral infection. TNF Receptor Associated Factors is intended for a wide audience, including researchers in the field of TRAF signaling and students and postdoctoral fellows learning cell biology and cell signal transduction. This exciting new volume is up to date on the most recent advances in TRAF signal transduction.

It has been established that TNF receptor associated factors (TRAFs) are critical signaling mediators for not only the TNF receptor superfamily, but also the interleukin-1 receptor/Toll-like receptor superfamily and the T-cell receptors. They play important roles in mammalian biology including embryonic development, innate and adaptive immune regulation and maintenance of cellular homeostasis. Agents that manipulate the signaling of these receptors are being used or showing promise towards the treatment and prevention of many human diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, coronary heart disease, transplantation rejection, insulin resistance, multiple organ failure and cancer. TNF Receptor Associated Factors is the only literature that is entirely devoted to TRAFs. Almost every aspect of TRAF signaling is covered, including the different TRAF family members, their distinct biological functions, the TRAF structures, their modes of receptor recognition, the signaling mechanisms, and the roles of TRAFs in normal cellular functions and in viral infection. TNF Receptor Associated Factors is intended for a wide audience, including researchers in the field of TRAF signaling and students and postdoctoral fellows learning cell biology and cell signal transduction. This exciting new volume is up to date on the most recent advances in TRAF signal transduction.

Progress in Drug Research is a prestigious book series which provides extensive expert-written reviews on a wide spectrum of highly topical areas in current pharmaceutical and pharmacological research. It serves as an important source of information for researchers concerned with drug research and all those who need to keep abreast of the many recent developments in the quest for new and better medicines.

Negotiations on trade facilitation were concluded at the WTO 9th Ministerial Conference in 2013, and the Agreements on Trade Facilitation (TFA), therefore, became the first fully multilateral agreement in WTO history. Since then, trade facilitation has been in the limelight on the stage of the world trading system. During recent years, the TFA has been consistently on the agenda of the summits of G20, G7, and APEC. The Agreement has come into force and shall be implemented on a global scale. As a result, the WTO members shall be prepared to translate the Agreement into their domestic legislation, which will involve a series of reforms in trade laws and policies. There are extensive voices demanding a comprehensive expatiation on trade facilitation and the TFA. It is essential to systematically delve into the genesis of trade facilitation, revisit the course where the TFA came into being, and analyse the well-turned legalese of the TFA. This book meets this demand. This book is path-breaking in these aspects: it expounds on the rationales for trade facilitation and the significance of constituting an international accord on trade facilitation; it restores the one-century track of the international community's talks on trade facilitation, from the times of the League of Nations to the WTO era; it reveals how the WTO negotiating mechanisms enabled the TFA to be nailed down, which would be enlightening for trade diplomats engaged in other WTO negotiations; and it provides an in-depth commentary on the TFA articles, which will help stakeholders more accurately understand and implement the Agreement. This book will be especially valuable for government officials and policy-makers, trade practitioners, lawyers, advisers, and scholars interested in international economic law, WTO law, international trade, international relations, and international development studies.

A dynamic network is frequently encountered in various real industrial applications, such as the Internet of Things. It is composed of numerous nodes and large-scale dynamic real-time interactions among them, where each node indicates a specified entity, each directed link indicates a real-time interaction, and the strength of an interaction can be quantified as the weight of a link. As the involved nodes increase drastically, it becomes impossible to observe their full interactions at each time slot, making a resultant dynamic network High Dimensional and Incomplete (HDI). An HDI dynamic network with directed and weighted links, despite its HDI nature, contains rich knowledge regarding involved nodes' various behavior patterns. Therefore, it is essential to study how to build efficient and effective representation learning models for acquiring useful knowledge. In this book, we first model a dynamic network into an HDI tensor and present the basic latent factorization of tensors (LFT) model. Then, we propose four representative LFT-based network representation methods. The first method integrates the short-time bias, long-time bias and preprocessing bias to precisely represent the volatility of network data. The second method utilizes a proportion-al-integral-derivative controller to construct an adjusted instance error to achieve a higher convergence rate. The third method considers the non-negativity of fluctuating network data by constraining latent features to be non-negative and incorporating the extended linear bias. The fourth method adopts an alternating direction method of multipliers framework to build a learning model for implementing representation to dynamic networks with high preciseness and efficiency.

The three volume set LNAI 10462, LNAI 10463, and LNAI 10464 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Applications, ICIRA 2017, held in Wuhan, China, in August 2017. The 235 papers presented in the three volumes were carefully reviewed and selected from 310 submissions. The papers in this first volume of the set are organized in topical sections on soft, micro-nano, bio-inspired robotics; human-machine interaction; swarm robotics; underwater robotics.

The three volume set LNAI 10462, LNAI 10463, and LNAI 10464 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Applications, ICIRA 2017, held in Wuhan, China, in August 2017.The 235 papers presented in the three volumes were carefully reviewed and selected from 310 submissions. The papers in this second volume of the set are organized in topical sections on industrial robot and robot manufacturing; mechanism and parallel robotics; machine and robot vision; robot grasping and control.

The three volume set LNAI 10462, LNAI 10463, and LNAI 10464 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Applications, ICIRA 2017, held in Wuhan, China, in August 2017.The 235 papers presented in the three volumes were carefully reviewed and selected from 310 submissions. The papers in this third volume of the set are organized in topical sections on sensors and actuators; mobile robotics and path planning; virtual reality and artificial intelligence; aerial and space robotics; mechatronics and intelligent manufacturing.

Beginning from centuries of anecdotal descriptions of cell death, such as those on the development of the midwife toad in 1842 by Carl Vogt, to modern-day investigations of cell death as a biological discipline, it has become accepted that cell death in multicellular organisms is a normal part of life.This book provides a comprehensive view of cell death, from its mechanisms of initiation and execution, to its implication in human disease and therapy.

Physiological cell death plays critical roles in almost all aspects of biology, and the book details its roles in lymphocyte homeostasis, neuronal function, metabolism, and the DNA damage response.When physiological cell death goes awry, diseases can arise, and cancer is presented as a central paradigm for the consequences of derangements in the interplay between cell survival and cell death.At the same time, the potential promise of targeted therapies aimed at interdicting cell death machineries are also discussed extensively.The molecular mechanisms that underlie apoptotic cell death are illustrated from the perspectives of both the intrinsic, mitochondrial apoptotic pathway and the extrinsic, death receptor pathway.Key players in these pathways, such as the Bcl2 family proteins, cytochrome c, Apaf-1, caspases, death receptor adapter proteins, and inhibitor of apoptosis proteins, are presented from both functional and structural angles. Until only a few years ago, programmed cell death has been considered essentially synonymous with apoptosis.However, we now know that programmed cell death can also take other forms such as necrosis or necroptosis, and to this end, the mechanisms that underlie programmed necrosis in development and host defense are illustrated.The past twenty plus years have seen an incredible growth of research in cell death, with one breakthrough after another, and the legacy still goes on with constant new surprises and findings.Long live cell death "