Taiwan has become a significant player on the world stage in many areas and has developed a distinct international profile and influence. Its pro-active foreign policy firmly reminds the world of a new political entity's achievement, aspirations and unfulfilled ambitions. This pioneering book discusses Taiwan's pragmatic diplomacy as a way of seeking legitimacy, survival and development for a burgeoning nation-state, against the dynamic changes in domestic and international scenes and tumultuous relations with China. With special reference to Taiwan's relations with Southeast Asia, a key region in Taiwan's international linkages, the book investigates three major pillars sustaining Taipei's unorthodox diplomacy. These three pillars are: Taiwan's investment and trade prowess, and the global networks built by its business elite; its special relations with global ethnic Chinese communities; and transnational activism of Taiwan's political, social and religious groups, in a so-called 'total diplomacy'. Political Scientists, students and international policy makers along with anyone interested in the changing role of China and Taiwan on the world stage will find this book lively and informative.

The theme of this book is the political practices by Zhejiang Government under the guidance of "China Dream" policy. It reviews the political facets of governance, The People's Congress System, the consultative system, grassroots democracy, rule of law, government function, restriction and supervision of power and the united front. These areas are the foundations of Chinese government, and are currently discussed in detail from the point of view of the Zhejiang local administration. As China has its unique political system, this book could help scholars and policy makers around the global better understand the operation of Chinese government and political goals for the future under the guidance of the statecraft.

The second congress of the Paci?c Asian Society of Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery (PASMISS) held in Phuket,Thailand,August 5-6,2002,was highly s- cessful. Dr.Akira Dezawa, the president, had worked hard in organizing the congress,which was well attended.All scienti?c papers presented were of the highest standard and were worthy of publication in book form.This scienti?c meeting brought to light the practice of this modern surgical technique as it is being performed by spine surgeons in the Asia-Paci?c region.Dr.Dezawa has made a great effort to collect the papers from the congress,and to have them edited and published as a text that covers all aspects of the minimally invasive spine surgical approach. Minimally invasive spinal surgery will be a highlight of operative approaches in the twenty-?rst century and already has been popularized worldwide.This procedure will provide surgical options that address several pathological conditions in the spinal column without producing the types of morbidity commonly seen in open surgical procedures. The contents of this book provide highly relevant and detailed information. I certainly believe that it will be a great bene?t to all orthopedic surgeons who are interested in performing minimally invasive spine surgery. Charoen Chotigavanich,M.D. Chairman,Spinal Section The Royal College of Orthopedic Surgeons of Thailand V Preface Recent decades have been characterized by revolutionary changes in spinal surgery. Concurrent progress in implant technology and functional en- scopes and the improvement of less invasive surgical techniques has opened a new dimension for spine surgery.

A salient trend in studies of China and transnational civil society - two newly influential global forces - is the converging of their paths. Thousands of international NGOs and foundations have come to operate in China in the 'low politics' of environment, development and epidemics, while democracy activists campaign on China from outside. This path-breaking book investigates transnational groups' evolving relations with China and its NGO sector, and compares China with transnational stories of party states in Eastern Europe and Taiwan. This book discusses the penetration, growth and operation of transnational civil society (TCS) in China. It explores TCS' impacts on the incremental development of China's political pluralism, mainly through exploring the influences of the leading TCS actors on the country's bottom-up and self-governing activist NGOs that have sprung up spontaneously, in terms of capacities, strategies, leadership and political outlook, as a result of complex interactions between the two sectors. Transnational Civil Society in China opens up a new frontier in discussing the society, politics and international relations of China that will appeal to scholars and researchers studying China and transnational/global civil society.

This volume features 29 invited papers presented at the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 1-2 July 2008 by colleagues, collaborators, students and friends of Professor J. Michael Rotter (FREng, FRSE, FICE, FASCE, FIStructE, FIEAust) in honour of his 60th birthday.

The articles published in this volume will be of great value to readers as it contains contributions from the world s leading experts in their fields. These fields include failure investigations, structural design of buildings, collapse and buckling of shells, structural design of silos, residual stresses in aluminium sheets due to welding, fundamental aspects of granular solids as well as flow and pressures in silos, novel models for concrete behaviour and strengthening structures using advanced fibre reinforced polymer composites. The topics involve static conditions, vibration, seismic responses and behaviour of structures under fire. They range from fundamental research to innovations in teaching of structural mechanics.

This book will be of interest to practising engineers, researchers and postgraduate students working in the fields of structural engineering, construction materials, mining, chemical and process engineering. The application areas of this knowledge are equally wide, so it will prove to be a valuable resource to consulting companies, government departments, research and development organisations, professional bodies and construction contractors.
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The four-volume set LNCS 11256, 11257, 11258, and 11259 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First Chinese Conference on Pattern Recognition and Computer Vision, PRCV 2018, held in Guangzhou, China, in November 2018. The 179 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 399 submissions. The papers have been organized in the following topical sections: Part I: Biometrics, Computer Vision Application. Part II: Deep Learning. Part III: Document Analysis, Face Recognition and Analysis, Feature Extraction and Selection, Machine Learning. Part IV: Object Detection and Tracking, Performance Evaluation and Database, Remote Sensing.

The four-volume set LNCS 11256, 11257, 11258, and 11259 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First Chinese Conference on Pattern Recognition and Computer Vision, PRCV 2018, held in Guangzhou, China, in November 2018. The 179 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 399 submissions. The papers have been organized in the following topical sections: Part I: Biometrics, Computer Vision Application. Part II: Deep Learning. Part III: Document Analysis, Face Recognition and Analysis, Feature Extraction and Selection, Machine Learning. Part IV: Object Detection and Tracking, Performance Evaluation and Database, Remote Sensing.

The four-volume set LNCS 11256, 11257, 11258, and 11259 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First Chinese Conference on Pattern Recognition and Computer Vision, PRCV 2018, held in Guangzhou, China, in November 2018. The 179 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 399 submissions. The papers have been organized in the following topical sections: Part I: Biometrics, Computer Vision Application. Part II: Deep Learning. Part III: Document Analysis, Face Recognition and Analysis, Feature Extraction and Selection, Machine Learning. Part IV: Object Detection and Tracking, Performance Evaluation and Database, Remote Sensing.

The four-volume set LNCS 11256, 11257, 11258 and 11259 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First Chinese Conference on Pattern Recognition and Computer Vision, PRCV 2018, held in Guangzhou, China, in November 2018. The 179 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 399 submissions. The papers have been organized in the following topical sections: Part I: Biometrics, Computer Vision Application. Part II: Deep Learning. Part III: Document Analysis, Face Recognition and Analysis, Feature Extraction and Selection, Machine Learning. Part IV: Object Detection and Tracking, Performance Evaluation and Database, Remote Sensing.

The two-volume set CCIS 662 and CCIS 663 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th Chinese Conference on Pattern Recognition, CCPR 2016, held in Chengdu, China, in November 2016.The 121 revised papers presented in two volumes were carefully reviewed and selected from 199 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on robotics; computer vision; basic theory of pattern recognition; image and video processing; speech and language; emotion recognition.

The two-volume set CCIS 662 and CCIS 663 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th Chinese Conference on Pattern Recognition, CCPR 2016, held in Chengdu, China, in November 2016.The 121 revised papers presented in two volumes were carefully reviewed and selected from 199 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on robotics; computer vision; basic theory of pattern recognition; image and video processing; speech and language; emotion recognition.

The second congress of the Paci?c Asian Society of Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery (PASMISS) held in Phuket,Thailand,August 5-6,2002,was highly s- cessful. Dr.Akira Dezawa, the president, had worked hard in organizing the congress,which was well attended.All scienti?c papers presented were of the highest standard and were worthy of publication in book form.This scienti?c meeting brought to light the practice of this modern surgical technique as it is being performed by spine surgeons in the Asia-Paci?c region.Dr.Dezawa has made a great effort to collect the papers from the congress,and to have them edited and published as a text that covers all aspects of the minimally invasive spine surgical approach. Minimally invasive spinal surgery will be a highlight of operative approaches in the twenty-?rst century and already has been popularized worldwide.This procedure will provide surgical options that address several pathological conditions in the spinal column without producing the types of morbidity commonly seen in open surgical procedures. The contents of this book provide highly relevant and detailed information. I certainly believe that it will be a great bene?t to all orthopedic surgeons who are interested in performing minimally invasive spine surgery. Charoen Chotigavanich,M.D. Chairman,Spinal Section The Royal College of Orthopedic Surgeons of Thailand V Preface Recent decades have been characterized by revolutionary changes in spinal surgery. Concurrent progress in implant technology and functional en- scopes and the improvement of less invasive surgical techniques has opened a new dimension for spine surgery.

The theme of this book is the political practices by Zhejiang Government under the guidance of "China Dream" policy. It reviews the political facets of governance, The People's Congress System, the consultative system, grassroots democracy, rule of law, government function, restriction and supervision of power and the united front. These areas are the foundations of Chinese government, and are currently discussed in detail from the point of view of the Zhejiang local administration. As China has its unique political system, this book could help scholars and policy makers around the global better understand the operation of Chinese government and political goals for the future under the guidance of the statecraft.

The core of this textbook is a systematic and self-contained treatment of the nonlinear stabilization and output regulation problems. Its coverage embraces both fundamental concepts and advanced research outcomes and includes many numerical and practical examples. Several classes of important uncertain nonlinear systems are discussed. The state-of-the art solution presented uses robust and adaptive control design ideas in an integrated approach which demonstrates connections between global stabilization and global output regulation allowing both to be treated as stabilization problems. Stabilization and Regulation of Nonlinear Systems takes advantage of rich new results to give students up-to-date instruction in the central design problems of nonlinear control, problems which are a driving force behind the furtherance of modern control theory and its application. The diversity of systems in which stabilization and output regulation become significant concerns in the mathematical formulation of practical control solutions-whether in disturbance rejection in flying vehicles or synchronization of Lorenz systems with harmonic systems-makes the text relevant to readers from a wide variety of backgrounds. Many exercises are provided to facilitate study and solutions are freely available to instructors via a download from springerextras.com. Striking a balance between rigorous mathematical treatment and engineering practicality, Stabilization and Regulation of Nonlinear Systems is an ideal text for graduate students from many engineering and applied-mathematical disciplines seeking a contemporary course in nonlinear control. Practitioners and academic theorists will also find this book a useful reference on recent thinking in this field.

First published in 1995, the award-winning Civil Engineering Handbook soon became known as the field's definitive reference. To retain its standing as a complete, authoritative resource, the editors have incorporated into this edition the many changes in techniques, tools, and materials that over the last seven years have found their way into civil engineering research and practice.

The Civil Engineering Handbook, Second Edition is more comprehensive than ever. You'll find new, updated, and expanded coverage in every section. In fact, more than 1/3 of the handbook is new or substantially revised. In particular you'll find increased focus on computing reflecting the rapid advances in computer technology that has revolutionized many aspects of civil engineering.

You'll use it as a survey of the field, you'll use it to explore a particular subject, but most of all you'll use The Civil Engineering Handbook to answer the problems, questions, and conundrums you encounter in practice.