The targeted readership of this book includes language instructors, language educators, and administrators of college-level Chinese and Japanese language programs, as well as area studies faculty members interested in collaboration with language faculty to engage students in interdisciplinary learning. Language educators in other Category IV languages will also benefit from this book, given the shared learner needs and challenges in their respective languages. Similarly, we believe the interpretation and implementation of the transdisciplinary approach to SLA in this volume will provide inspiration for educators and pedagogy researchers of all languages, especially those with limited exposure to innovative SLA approaches. The book provides suggestions for transforming from a conventional "language-literature" model to an "area-studies" model where language education is part of the integrative curriculum including humanities, STEM, and business courses. This book will also have appeal to international readers, as an increasing number of college-level Chinese and Japanese language courses have been offered around the world in recent years. The approach discussed in the book will highlight international collaboration with faculty located in China and Japan and, therefore, will be appealing to educators in China and Japan who are interested or already engaged in online or offline intercultural collaboration teaching.

The targeted readership of this book includes language instructors, language educators, and administrators of college-level Chinese and Japanese language programs, as well as area studies faculty members interested in collaboration with language faculty to engage students in interdisciplinary learning. Language educators in other Category IV languages will also benefit from this book, given the shared learner needs and challenges in their respective languages. Similarly, we believe the interpretation and implementation of the transdisciplinary approach to SLA in this volume will provide inspiration for educators and pedagogy researchers of all languages, especially those with limited exposure to innovative SLA approaches. The book provides suggestions for transforming from a conventional "language-literature" model to an "area-studies" model where language education is part of the integrative curriculum including humanities, STEM, and business courses. This book will also have appeal to international readers, as an increasing number of college-level Chinese and Japanese language courses have been offered around the world in recent years. The approach discussed in the book will highlight international collaboration with faculty located in China and Japan and, therefore, will be appealing to educators in China and Japan who are interested or already engaged in online or offline intercultural collaboration teaching.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Symposium on Intelligence Computation and Applications, ISICA 2015, held in Guangzhou, China, in November 2015. The 77 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 189 submissions. The papers feature the most up-to-date research in analysis and theory of evolutionary computation, neural network architectures and learning; neuro-dynamics and neuro-engineering; fuzzy logic and control; collective intelligence and hybrid systems; deep learning; knowledge discovery; learning and reasoning.

Dielectrics is becoming increasingly important due to the rapid developments in electronics, optoelectronics, photonics and nanotechnology. In the past two decades, research on advanced dielectric materials and related applications has undergone an accelerated growth, due in larger part to the discovery of the superior piezoelectric properties in relaxor single crystals, the development of the lead-free piezoelectric/ferroelectric materials and the renaissance of the multiferroics.This book contains 9 feature articles which, together, provide a comprehensive account on the current state of advanced dielectrics and related phenomena. The first two articles present fundamental knowledge related to the characterization of ferroelectric hysteresis, which is the most widely used method to learn the ferroelectricity experimentally. The latest research progress in relaxor ferroelectric is given in the next two articles. The last five articles are dedicated to the multi-functionality of advanced dielectrics, with emphasis on multiferroic magnetoelectric composites, lead-free piezoceramics, pyroelectric/electrocaloric materials, polymer-based dielectrics, and flexible nanodielectrics.

Failures of loose fill slopes have caused severe losses of life and property in Hong Kong. One of the reasons for such destructive power of the failures is the liquefaction of the loose fills in static conditions due to the infiltration of rainwater. One possible cost effective solution in upgrading this type of slopes is the use of soil nails. However, a major problem in using soil nails is the lack of knowledge about soil nail behaviour if the loose fill liquefies. In order to fill the gap and ultimately explore the potential of using soil nails in upgrading thousands of loose fill slopes in Hong Kong, a comprehensive field program was launched. Soil nails were constructed in a highly instrumented loose fill slope, which was purposely built by end tipping method to simulate the old fill slope formation in Hong Kong. The test slope, subjected to various in situ tests and monitoring for a rain season, was eventually brought to failure under concurrent surcharging and simulated rainfall conditions. From this study, soil nails have concluded to fit for this purpose, provided that some design details are adequately considered.