Based on three years of fieldwork in Zhanli, a remote Kam Village in Guizhou Province, Wang and Jiang explore the complex dynamics between the discursive practices of the local government and the villagers in relation to the reconstruction of Kam identity in response to social change, particularly the rise of rural tourism. China’s profound demographic and socio-economic transformation has intensified the dominance of Han culture and language and seriously challenged the traditional cultures in ethnic minority areas. The authors draw on multiple empirical sources, including in-depth interviews with Kam villagers and local officials, field observations, media discourse, local archives and government documents. They present an engaging account of the significant compromises that government and villagers have made in relation to ethnic identity in the name of economic development, and of the tensions and struggles that characterise the ongoing process of ethnic identity reconstruction. Students and researchers in sociolinguistics, ethnography, and discourse studies, especially those with an interest in Chinese discourse, and everyone interested in issues around ethnicity (minzu) issues in China, will find this book a valuable resource.

Based on three years of fieldwork in Zhanli, a remote Kam Village in Guizhou Province, Wang and Jiang explore the complex dynamics between the discursive practices of the local government and the villagers in relation to the reconstruction of Kam identity in response to social change, particularly the rise of rural tourism. China's profound demographic and socio-economic transformation has intensified the dominance of Han culture and language and seriously challenged the traditional cultures in ethnic minority areas. The authors draw on multiple empirical sources, including in-depth interviews with Kam villagers and local officials, field observations, media discourse, local archives and government documents. They present an engaging account of the significant compromises that government and villagers have made in relation to ethnic identity in the name of economic development, and of the tensions and struggles that characterise the ongoing process of ethnic identity reconstruction. Students and researchers in sociolinguistics, ethnography, and discourse studies, especially those with an interest in Chinese discourse, and everyone interested in issues around ethnicity (minzu) issues in China, will find this book a valuable resource.

In practice, actuators often undergo failures and various factors influence its effectiveness. Also due to the increasing complexity of large-scale systems, subsystems are often interconnected, whereas the interactions between any two subsystems are difficult to deal with. This book details a series of new methodologies of designing and analyzing adaptive backstepping control systems involving treatment on actuator failures, subsystem interactions and nonsmooth nonlinearities. Moreover, it discusses some interesting open issues in adaptive failure accommodation, decentralized adaptive control and distributed adaptive coordinated control.

This book assesses new developments in and reform of China's banking law system following its accession of the WTO. It focuses on the relationship between GATS/WTO national treatment obligations and China's banking law. Tracing the history of national treatment in China, the book compares the treatment of foreign-funded banks with the treatment of Chinese-funded banks and examines the structure and shortcomings of the existing banking law framework in China. Offering suggestions as to how the framework could be restructured and analysing the economic and political bases of an integrated banking law framework, the book argues that reorganization would bring about greater consistency with GATS/WTO national treatment requirements. The book also explores the ambiguous definition of prudential carve-out, the subtle relationship between GATS national treatment and market access based on WTO cases, national treatment clauses in China's bilateral investment treaties, and special treatment on banking in China's free trade agreements. This volume is a valuable resource for academics and students as well as professionals and policy-makers working in the field of banking, WTO, Chinese law and foreign trade.

Scientific explanation, laws of nature, and causation are crucial and frontier issues in the philosophy of science. This book studies the complex relationship between the three concepts, aiming to achieve a holistic synthesis about explanation-laws-causation. By reviewing Hempel's scientific explanation models and Salmon's three conceptions - the epistemic, modal, and ontic conception - the book suggests that laws are essential to explanation and that our understanding of laws will help solve the problems of the latter. Concerning the nature of laws, this book tackles both the problems of regularity approach and necessitarian approach. It also proposes that the ontological order of explanation should be from events (or processes) to causation, then to regularity (laws), and finally to science system, but the epistemological order should be from science system to laws to explanation and causation. In addition, this book examines the legitimacy of ceteris paribus laws, the connection between explanation and reduction, the relation between explanation and interpretation, and some other issues closely related to explanation-laws-causation. This book will attract scholars and students of philosophy of science, natural sciences, social sciences, etc.

This book assesses new developments in and reform of China's banking law system following its accession of the WTO. It focuses on the relationship between GATS/WTO national treatment obligations and China's banking law. Tracing the history of national treatment in China, the book compares the treatment of foreign-funded banks with the treatment of Chinese-funded banks and examines the structure and shortcomings of the existing banking law framework in China. Offering suggestions as to how the framework could be restructured and analysing the economic and political bases of an integrated banking law framework, the book argues that reorganization would bring about greater consistency with GATS/WTO national treatment requirements. The book also explores the ambiguous definition of prudential carve-out, the subtle relationship between GATS national treatment and market access based on WTO cases, national treatment clauses in China's bilateral investment treaties, and special treatment on banking in China's free trade agreements. This volume is a valuable resource for academics and students as well as professionals and policy-makers working in the field of banking, WTO, Chinese law and foreign trade.

This book constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the 13th EAI International Conference on Broadband Communications, Networks, and Systems, Broadnets 2022, which took place in March 2023. Due to COVID-19 pandemic the conference was held virtually. The 9 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 23 submissions. The papers are thematically grouped as follows: Mobile Communication Networks; Mobile Software Security; and Algorithm, Model and Application. The scope of this conference is the 5G-enabled digital society.

Giving you a combination of general principles, applied practice and information on the state-of-the-art, this book will give you the information you need to incorporate the latest systems and technologies into your building projects. It focuses on a number of important issues, such as:

• Network communication protocols and standards, including the application of the internet.
• The integration and interfacing of building automation subsystems and multiple building systems.
• Local and supervisory control strategies for typical building services systems.
• The automation system configuration and technologies for air-conditioning control, lighting system control, security and access control, and fire safety control.

Whether you?re a project manager or engineer planning the systems set-up for a high value building, or a building engineering or management student looking for a practical guide to automation and intelligent systems, this book provides a valuable introduction and overview.

This book brings together papers presented at the 2021 International Conference on Communications, Signal Processing, and Systems, which provides a venue to disseminate the latest developments and to discuss the interactions and links between these multidisciplinary fields. Spanning topics ranging from communications, signal processing and systems, this book is aimed at undergraduate and graduate students in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Mathematics, researchers and engineers from academia and industry as well as government employees (such as NSF, DOD and DOE).

In practice, actuators often undergo failures and various factors influence its effectiveness. Also due to the increasing complexity of large-scale systems, subsystems are often interconnected, whereas the interactions between any two subsystems are difficult to deal with. This book details a series of new methodologies of designing and analyzing adaptive backstepping control systems involving treatment on actuator failures, subsystem interactions and nonsmooth nonlinearities. Moreover, it discusses some interesting open issues in adaptive failure accommodation, decentralized adaptive control and distributed adaptive coordinated control.

Scientific explanation, laws of nature, and causation are crucial and frontier issues in the philosophy of science. This book studies the complex relationship between the three concepts, aiming to achieve a holistic synthesis about explanation-laws-causation. By reviewing Hempel's scientific explanation models and Salmon's three conceptions - the epistemic, modal, and ontic conception - the book suggests that laws are essential to explanation and that our understanding of laws will help solve the problems of the latter. Concerning the nature of laws, this book tackles both the problems of regularity approach and necessitarian approach. It also proposes that the ontological order of explanation should be from events (or processes) to causation, then to regularity (laws), and finally to science system, but the epistemological order should be from science system to laws to explanation and causation. In addition, this book examines the legitimacy of ceteris paribus laws, the connection between explanation and reduction, the relation between explanation and interpretation, and some other issues closely related to explanation-laws-causation. This book will attract scholars and students of philosophy of science, natural sciences, social sciences, etc.

A comprehensive look at the enormous growth and evolution of distressed debt markets, corporate bankruptcy, and credit risk models This Fourth Edition of the most authoritative finance book on the topic updates and expands its discussion of financial distress and bankruptcy, as well as the related topics dealing with leveraged finance, high-yield, and distressed debt markets. It offers state-of-the-art analysis and research on U.S. and international restructurings, applications of distress prediction models in financial and managerial markets, bankruptcy costs, restructuring outcomes, and more.

This book relates research being implemented in three main research areas: secure connectivity and intelligent systems, real-time analytics and manufacturing knowledge and virtual manufacturing. Manufacturing SMEs and MNCs want to see how Industry 4.0 is implemented. On the other hand, groundbreaking research on this topic is constantly growing. For the aforesaid reason, the Singapore Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), has created the model factory initiative. In the model factory, manufacturers, technology providers and the broader industry can (i) learn how I4.0 technologies are implemented on real-world manufacturing use-cases, (ii) test process improvements enabled by such technologies at the model factory facility, without disrupting their own operations, (iii) co-develop technology solutions and (iv) support the adoption of solutions at their everyday industrial operation. The book constitutes a clear base ground not only for inspiration of researchers, but also for companies who will want to adopt smart manufacturing approaches coming from Industry 4.0 in their pathway to digitization.

This book brings together papers presented at The 2nd International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in China (ChinaAI) 2020, which provides a venue to disseminate the latest developments and to discuss the interactions and links between these multidisciplinary fields. Spanning topics covering all topics in artificial intelligence with new development in China, this book is aimed at undergraduate and graduate students in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Mathematics, researchers and engineers from academia and industry as well as government employees (such as NSF, DOD and DOE).

This book brings together papers presented at the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in China (ChinaAI) 2019, which provided a venue for disseminating the latest advances and discussing the interactions and links between the various subfields of AI. Addressing topics that cover virtually all aspects of AI and the latest developments in China, the book is chiefly intended for undergraduate and graduate students in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, and Mathematics, for researchers and engineers from academia and industry, and for government employees (e.g. at the NSF, DOD, and DOE).

This book puts forward the concept of the Diameter-Transformed Fluidized Bed (DTFB): a fluidized bed characterized by the coexistence of multiple flow regimes and reaction zones, achieved by transforming the bed into several sections of different diameters. It reviews fundamental aspects, including computational fluid dynamics simulations and industrial practices in connection with DTFB. In particular, it highlights an example concerning the development of maximizing iso-paraffins (MIP) reactors for regulating complex, fluid catalytic cracking reactions in petroleum refineries. The book is a must-have for understanding how academic and industrial researchers are now collaborating in order to develop novel catalytic processes.

This book relates research being implemented in three main research areas: secure connectivity and intelligent systems, real-time analytics and manufacturing knowledge and virtual manufacturing. Manufacturing SMEs and MNCs want to see how Industry 4.0 is implemented. On the other hand, groundbreaking research on this topic is constantly growing. For the aforesaid reason, the Singapore Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), has created the model factory initiative. In the model factory, manufacturers, technology providers and the broader industry can (i) learn how I4.0 technologies are implemented on real-world manufacturing use-cases, (ii) test process improvements enabled by such technologies at the model factory facility, without disrupting their own operations, (iii) co-develop technology solutions and (iv) support the adoption of solutions at their everyday industrial operation. The book constitutes a clear base ground not only for inspiration of researchers, but also for companies who will want to adopt smart manufacturing approaches coming from Industry 4.0 in their pathway to digitization.

Solid chemisorption technology is an effective form of energy conversion for recovering low-grade thermal energy, but limited thermal conductivity and agglomeration phenomena greatly limit its performance. Over the past 20 years, researchers have explored the use of thermal conductive porous matrix to improve heat and mass transfer performance. Their efforts have yielded composite sorption technology, which is now extensively being used in refrigeration, heat pumps, energy storage, and de-NOx applications. This book reviews the latest technological advances regarding composite solid sorbents. Various development methods are introduced and compared, kinetic models are presented, and different cycles are analyzed. Given its scope, the book will benefit experts involved in developing novel materials and cycles for energy conversion, as well as engineers working to develop effective commercialized energy conversion systems based on solid sorption technology

This book brings together papers presented at The 2nd International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in China (ChinaAI) 2020, which provides a venue to disseminate the latest developments and to discuss the interactions and links between these multidisciplinary fields. Spanning topics covering all topics in artificial intelligence with new development in China, this book is aimed at undergraduate and graduate students in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Mathematics, researchers and engineers from academia and industry as well as government employees (such as NSF, DOD and DOE).

This book puts forward the concept of the Diameter-Transformed Fluidized Bed (DTFB): a fluidized bed characterized by the coexistence of multiple flow regimes and reaction zones, achieved by transforming the bed into several sections of different diameters. It reviews fundamental aspects, including computational fluid dynamics simulations and industrial practices in connection with DTFB. In particular, it highlights an example concerning the development of maximizing iso-paraffins (MIP) reactors for regulating complex, fluid catalytic cracking reactions in petroleum refineries. The book is a must-have for understanding how academic and industrial researchers are now collaborating in order to develop novel catalytic processes.

This book introduces readers to the fundamental properties and practical applications of shape memory alloys (SMAs) from the perspective of seismic engineering. It objectively discusses the superiority of this novel class of materials, which could potentially overcome the limitations of conventional seismic control technologies. The results, vividly presented in the form of tables and figures, are demonstrated with rigorous experimental verifications, supplemented by comprehensive numerical and analytical investigations. The book allows readers to gain an in-depth understanding of the working mechanisms of various SMA-based structural devices and members, including beam-to-column connections, dampers, and braces, while also providing them with a broader vision of next-generation, performance-based seismic design for novel adaptive structural systems. Helping to bridge the gap between material science and structural engineering, it also sheds light on the potential of commercializing SMA products in the construction industry. The cutting-edge research highlighted here provides technical incentives for design professionals, contractors, and building officials to use high-performance and smart materials in structural design, helping them stay at the forefront of construction technology.

An exciting adventure dealing with the topics of bulling and friendship based on the fictional characters from the award-winning video game World of Warcraft.

This book brings together papers presented at the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in China (ChinaAI) 2019, which provided a venue for disseminating the latest advances and discussing the interactions and links between the various subfields of AI. Addressing topics that cover virtually all aspects of AI and the latest developments in China, the book is chiefly intended for undergraduate and graduate students in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, and Mathematics, for researchers and engineers from academia and industry, and for government employees (e.g. at the NSF, DOD, and DOE).

Contemporary discussions of China tend to focus on politics and economics, giving Chinese culture little if any attention. Why Fiction Matters in Contemporary China offers a corrective, revealing the crucial role that fiction plays in helping contemporary Chinese citizens understand themselves and their nation. Where history fails to address the consequences of man-made and natural atrocities, David Der-Wei Wang argues, fiction arises to bear witness to the immemorial and unforeseeable. Beginning by examining President Xi Jinping's call in 2013 to "tell the good China story," Wang illuminates how contemporary Chinese cultural politics have taken a "fictional turn," which can trace its genealogy to early modern times. He does so by addressing a series of discourses by critics within China, including Liang Qichao, Lu Xun, and Shen Congwen, as well as critics from the West such as Arendt, Benjamin, and Deleuze. Wang highlights the variety and vitality of fictional works from China as well as the larger Sinophone world, ranging from science fiction to political allegory, erotic escapade to utopia and dystopia. The result is an insightful account of contemporary China, one that affords countless new insights and avenues for understanding.

This book introduces readers to the fundamental properties and practical applications of shape memory alloys (SMAs) from the perspective of seismic engineering. It objectively discusses the superiority of this novel class of materials, which could potentially overcome the limitations of conventional seismic control technologies. The results, vividly presented in the form of tables and figures, are demonstrated with rigorous experimental verifications, supplemented by comprehensive numerical and analytical investigations. The book allows readers to gain an in-depth understanding of the working mechanisms of various SMA-based structural devices and members, including beam-to-column connections, dampers, and braces, while also providing them with a broader vision of next-generation, performance-based seismic design for novel adaptive structural systems. Helping to bridge the gap between material science and structural engineering, it also sheds light on the potential of commercializing SMA products in the construction industry. The cutting-edge research highlighted here provides technical incentives for design professionals, contractors, and building officials to use high-performance and smart materials in structural design, helping them stay at the forefront of construction technology.