This book takes an in-depth look at the development of the private education sector in modern China. Readers will find valuable data and materials never before presented in such an accessible and transparent way, together with analyses of the major changes and challenges in the course of this development. The book is organized both chronologically and by topic: it employs a past-present-future order that unites the general arrangement; at the same time, each specific subject is approached historically, not only to show the origins of the problem, but also to link it with the historical-comparative context, in which the evaluation of alternative policy choices become highly viable. Further, the book provides a pioneering account of current problems, adopting a fresh perspective to address the most important aspects of Chinese private education reform. The elaboration on topics concerning private school assets, property rights, legal personality, school operators' entrepreneurship, benefits and investment returns, school autonomy, and the development of teachers and students, is both empirically rich and highly insightful. The book's content is chiefly derived from years of fieldwork in private schools and from extensive interviews with hundreds of policy makers, school operators, managers, teachers and students. Since these people are self-conscious about themselves as the actors in and witnesses to the development of Chinese private education over the past three decades, the book places great emphasis on neutrality, allowing the private education landscape to unfold in the context of the privatization of the socialist system after 1978. The book offers an essential guide for anyone who wishes to understand the transformation of Chinese education. It is highly recommendable as a detailed introduction to Chinese education, or as a resource for comparative research on private education from an international perspective.

This book takes an in-depth look at the development of the private education sector in modern China. Readers will find valuable data and materials never before presented in such an accessible and transparent way, together with analyses of the major changes and challenges in the course of this development. The book is organized both chronologically and by topic: it employs a past-present-future order that unites the general arrangement; at the same time, each specific subject is approached historically, not only to show the origins of the problem, but also to link it with the historical-comparative context, in which the evaluation of alternative policy choices become highly viable. Further, the book provides a pioneering account of current problems, adopting a fresh perspective to address the most important aspects of Chinese private education reform. The elaboration on topics concerning private school assets, property rights, legal personality, school operators' entrepreneurship, benefits and investment returns, school autonomy, and the development of teachers and students, is both empirically rich and highly insightful. The book's content is chiefly derived from years of fieldwork in private schools and from extensive interviews with hundreds of policy makers, school operators, managers, teachers and students. Since these people are self-conscious about themselves as the actors in and witnesses to the development of Chinese private education over the past three decades, the book places great emphasis on neutrality, allowing the private education landscape to unfold in the context of the privatization of the socialist system after 1978. The book offers an essential guide for anyone who wishes to understand the transformation of Chinese education. It is highly recommendable as a detailed introduction to Chinese education, or as a resource for comparative research on private education from an international perspective.

This 2-volume set constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Security and Privacy in Communication Networks, SecureComm 2014, held in Beijing, China, in September 2014. The 27 regular and 17 short papers presented were carefully reviewed. It also presents 22 papers accepted for four workshops (ATCS, SSS, SLSS, DAPRO) in conjunction with the conference, 6 doctoral symposium papers and 8 poster papers. The papers are grouped in the following topics: security and privacy in wired, wireless, mobile, hybrid, sensor, ad hoc networks; network intrusion detection and prevention, firewalls, packet filters; malware, and distributed denial of service; communication privacy and anonymity; network and internet forensics techniques; public key infrastructures, key management, credential management; secure routing, naming/addressing, network management; security and privacy in pervasive and ubiquitous computing; security & privacy for emerging technologies: VoIP, peer-to-peer and overlay network systems; security & isolation in data center networks; security & isolation in software defined networking.

Due to increasing potential in real-world applications such as visual communications, computer assisted biomedical imaging, and video surveillance, image and video interpretations have become an area of growing interest. Intelligent Image and Video Interpretation: Algorithms and Applications covers all aspects of image and video analysis from low-level early visions to high-level recognition. This publication highlights how these techniques have become applicable and will prove to be a valuable tool for researchers, professionals, and graduate students working or studying the fields of imaging and video processing.

The issue of critical thinking (CT) by Chinese students first aroused my interest when I was doing the research for my MA project, in which CT was considered by many students to be a salient weakness of their academic writing in the UK. The CT of Chinese students in English academic writing has been discussed extensively in the literature, and researchers are becoming increasingly interested in the impact of the learning context on it. However, there has been a lack of empirical research into this area, especially in-depth qualitative studies. The purpose of this study is to investigate the undergraduate training Chinese students receive in China on their critical thinking skills in academic writing. The focus is on its usefulness as preparation for a higher degree abroad, specifically in the UK. It is the first attempt to explore this issue by seeking evidence primarily from qualitative data.

This book aims to pose one major research question, i.e. why and how to use knowledge management methods in order to enhance knowledge creation in academia - at universities and research institutes? Two surveys and case studies were carried out to achieve the research purpose at a Japanese research university. The first survey focused on knowledge management in academia and investigated the current KM situations, special and diverse requirements from researchers. The second survey concentrated on supporting the creative processes of academic research and investigated which aspects of knowledge creation processes should be supported in particular. With respect to the survey findings, the practical solutions are further presented aimed to improve the creativity environment for scientific knowledge creation, which were found to be valuable by university management. An essential point is that the study is based on the feedback from knowledge creators in a typical knowledge creation organization, which makes the analyses and conclusions more comprehensive and persuasive from both the theoretical and practical points of view.