In this book, Chen Gang examines the real-world effectiveness of China's approach to the promotion of green technologies and practices, and discusses the political landscape in which it is situated. Politics of Renewable Energy in China questions the wisdom of hailing China as a model for authoritarian environmental governance with an up-to-date examination of the subject. It provides readers with a thorough and timely account of recent developments in China's low-carbon energy industries. Disclosing how energy interest groups are lobbying members of central government, and shedding light on disputes between pro-development and pro-environmental groups, this book explores the ideological and bureaucratic inconsistency and confusion which surrounds China's environmental policies. Emphasizing China's renewable energy policies, related enforcement issues and local political concerns over wind and solar generation, this book examines the extent to which China's centralised, top down approach has been effective in ensuring local actors reach policy targets. This up-to-date account of recent developments in Chinese low-carbon industries will be useful for readers with an interest in China's model of renewable energy industries, in particular students of Chinese and international politics. It will also be a valuable tool for researchers and professors of public and environmental policy, Chinese and climate studies.

Going under the hood of retail strategy, this book provides in-depth coverage of how retailers can leverage the latest in data analytics and technology to improve profitability and customer value through pricing. Retail pricing is not about dollars, pounds or euros, but the value a customer associates with a product, which can and does change over time. To maximize revenues and profits, pricing must be dynamic, strategic, and in today’s hyper-connected and -competitive world, scientific. Using technology to gather customer insights and create data-driven pricing approaches can also enhance the customer experience, improve vendor management, help monitor competitors, and ensure market efficiency – including the much-needed reduction of waste in the food sector. This book uses case studies from around the globe to illustrate the evolution of retailing and offers takeaways with each chapter to enable retailers to manage the future of pricing. Retail and pricing managers, retail sector consultants, and students of sales and marketing will welcome this book’s innovative solutions to one of bricks-and-mortar retailing’s most critical challenges.

This book presents a major research program on epigenetic mechanisms of cell programming and reprogramming. The program was launched by the National Natural Science Foundation of China during the 11th Five-Year Plan period, which was started in October 2008 and concluded at the end of 2016. It first summarizes the epigenetic research plans and the current situation of epigenetic research in China and the international frontier. With the application of interdisciplinary research methods, the book discusses the development trends of epigenetic research, such as mechanisms of establishment and maintenance of epigenetic information and epigenetic regulation on reproduction and development. It also presents a variety of research achievements. For example, the discovery of new epigenetic regulators and chromatin remodulaters and their biological functions and mechanisms are highlighted. Several regulation mechanisms of cell differentiation and trans-differentiation are discussed, especially the discovery of the key factors to promote the trans-differentiation of somatic cells to hepatocytes. In addition, this book puts forward some key academic fields with increasing importance, such as biochemistry, cell biology, and clinical medicine. Given its scope, the book is of interest to researchers who work in cell biology, biochemistry, structural biology, bioinformatics, clinical medicine, and other related fields.  

I am a nature lover that is working on healing from the effects of child sexual abuse. I thought up most of the poems while walking in the woods. Nature is the place that I feel the safest now and as a child. I still connect outside better than I do inside.
I kept the abuse a secret for 30 yrs. Once my mind started to free the memories, I was flood with them. I would have Flashbacks that word put me back to that age feeling as I did then. There were body memories that made my body feel the way it did when the abuse happen. Some times it would take me days to get over these. They would hit any time and any place. I had help from my doctors, my therapist, medications and even hospital stays. I was diagnosed with PTSD, DID major depression and anxiety disorder. It is full of ups and downs. This as been a rough journey, but one well worth it.
This is my journey thru poems and journaling. A journey that is still going. I hope this book helps you on your own journey.

This book explores and analyzes influential predictors and the underlying mechanisms of individual content sharing/retweeting behavior on social networking sites (SNS) from an empirical perspective. Since Individual content sharing/ retweeting behavior expedites information dissemination, it is a critical mechanism of information diffusion on Twitter. Individual sharing/retweeting behavior does not appear to happen randomly. So, what factors lead to individual information dissemination behavior? What are the dominating predictors? How does the recipient make retweeting decisions? How do these influential predictors combine and by what mechanism do they influence an individual's retweeting decisions? Furthermore, are there any differences in the process of individual retweeting decisions? If so, what causes such differences? In order to answer these previously unexplored questions and gain a holistic view of individual retweeting behavior, the authors examined people's retweeting history on Twitter and obtained a real dataset containing more than 60 million Twitter posts. They then employed text mining and natural language processing techniques to extract useful information from social media content, and used various feature selection methods to identify a subset of salient features that have substantial effects on individual retweeting behavior. Lastly, they applied the Elaboration Likelihood Model to build an overarching theoretical framework to reveal the underlying mechanisms of individual retweeting behavior. Given its scope, this book will appeal to researchers interested in investigating information dissemination on social media, as well as to marketers and administrators who plan to use social networking sites as an important avenue for information dissemination.

This book summarizes years of research in the field of fuzzy relational programming, with a special emphasis on geometric models. It discusses the state-of-the-art in fuzzy relational geometric problems, together with key open issues that must be resolved to achieve a more efficient application of this method. Though chiefly based on research conducted by the authors, who were the first to introduce fuzzy geometric problems, it also covers important findings obtained in the field of linear and non-linear programming. Thanks to its balance of basic and advanced concepts, and its wealth of practical examples, the book offers a valuable guide for both newcomers and experienced researcher in the fields of soft computing and mathematical optimization.

This book presents a differential geometric method for designing nonlinear observers for multiple types of nonlinear systems, including single and multiple outputs, fully and partially observable systems, and regular and singular dynamical systems. It is an exposition of achievements in nonlinear observer normal forms. The book begins by discussing linear systems, introducing the concept of observability and observer design, and then explains the difficulty of those problems for nonlinear systems. After providing foundational information on the differential geometric method, the text shows how to use the method to address observer design problems. It presents methods for a variety of systems. The authors employ worked examples to illustrate the ideas presented. Observer Design for Nonlinear Dynamical Systems will be of interest to researchers, graduate students, and industrial professionals working with control of mechanical and dynamical systems.

Explore the concepts, algorithms, and applications underlying federated learning In Federated Learning for Future Intelligent Wireless Networks, a team of distinguished researchers delivers a robust and insightful collection of resources covering the foundational concepts and algorithms powering federated learning, as well as explanations of how they can be used in wireless communication systems. The editors have included works that examine how communication resource provision affects federated learning performance, accuracy, convergence, scalability, and security and privacy. In the book, readers will explore a wide range of topics that show how federated learning algorithms, concepts, and design and optimization issues that apply to wireless communications. Readers will also find: A thorough introduction to the fundamental concepts and algorithms of federated learning, including horizontal, vertical, and hybrid FL Comprehensive explorations of wireless communication network design and optimization for federated learning Practical discussions of novel federated learning algorithms and frameworks for future wireless networks Expansive case studies in edge intelligence, autonomous driving, IoT, MEC, blockchain, and content caching and distribution Perfect for electrical and computer science engineers, researchers, professors, and postgraduate students with an interest in machine learning, Federated Learning for Future Intelligent Wireless Networks will also benefit regulators and institutional actors responsible for overseeing and making policy in the area of artificial intelligence.

Ecoambiguity, Community, and Development takes stock of cultural and environmental contexts in many different regions of the world by exploring literature and film. Artists and scholars working in the social ecology, environmental justice, and postcolonial arenas have long recognized that as soon as we tug on a thread of "ecodegradation," we generally find it linked to some form of cultural oppression. The reverse is also often true. In the spirit of postcolonial ecocriticism, the studies collected by Scott Slovic, R. Swarnalatha, and Vidya Sarveswaran emphasize the impossibility of disentangling environmental and cultural problems. While not all the authors explicitly invoke Karen Thornber's term "ecoambiguity" or the concepts and terminology of postcolonial ecocriticism, their articles frequently bring to light various ironies. For example, the fact that Ukrainian environmental experience in the twenty-first century is defined by one of the world's most infamous industrial disasters, the Chernobyl nuclear accident of 1986, yet Ukrainian culture, like many throughout the world, actually cherishes a profound, even animistic, attachment to the wonders of nature. The repetition of this and other paradoxes in human cultural responses to the more-than-human world reinforces our sense of the congruities and idiosyncrasies of human culture. Every human culture, regardless of its condition of economic and industrial development, has produced its own version of "environmental literature and art"-but the nuances of this work reflect that culture's precise social and geophysical circumstances. In various ways, these stories of community and development from across the planet converge and diverge, as told and explained by distinguished scholars, many of whom come from the cultures represented in these articles.

Presenting current approaches in observational and computational seismology, this book introduces advanced methods and techniques by means of case studies in earthquake research. Among others these include solving inverse seismologic problems, tomography for structure imaging, characterizing fault damage and healing, seismicity analysis for determining pre-shock moment release, and coupled solid-fluid models.

China's quest for democracy is constrained by Confucian legacies and the norm of the one-party system. This book explores the feasible paths toward democracy in China, challenging methodological wisdom in employing quantitative changes in socioeconomic structure to predict dichotomous change in the political system.

This book is aimed at advanced undergraduates, graduate students and other researchers who possess an introductory background in materials physics and/or chemistry, and an interest in the physical and chemical properties of novel materials, especially transition metal oxides. New materials often exhibit novel phenomena of great fundamental and technological importance. Contributing authors review the structural, physical and chemical properties of notable 4d- and 5d-transition metal oxides discovered over the last 10 years. These materials exhibit extraordinary physical properties that differ significantly from those of the heavily studied 3d-transition metal oxides, mainly due to the relatively strong influence of the spin- orbit interaction and orbital order in 4d- and 5d materials. The immense growth in publications addressing the physical properties of these novel materials underlines the need to document recent advances and the current state of this field. This book includes overviews of the current experimental situation concerning these materials.

Data processing has become essential to modern civilization. The original data for this processing comes from measurements or from experts, and both sources are subject to uncertainty. Traditionally, probabilistic methods have been used to process uncertainty. However, in many practical situations, we do not know the corresponding probabilities: in measurements, we often only know the upper bound on the measurement errors; this is known as interval uncertainty. In turn, expert estimates often include imprecise (fuzzy) words from natural language such as "small"; this is known as fuzzy uncertainty. In this book, leading specialists on interval, fuzzy, probabilistic uncertainty and their combination describe state-of-the-art developments in their research areas. Accordingly, the book offers a valuable guide for researchers and practitioners interested in data processing under uncertainty, and an introduction to the latest trends and techniques in this area, suitable for graduate students.

This monograph provides an up-to-date overview on methods and techniques in seismology, with a focus on describing and detecting seismic waves in anisotropic media. The author discusses structural, physical and mechanical aspects of the crust by analyzing earthquake data from field studies, rendering the book a practical reference for researchers in seismology and applied geophysics. Contents: Rock Anisotropy, Fracture and Earthquake Assessment Seismic Wave Propagation in Anisotropic Rocks with Applications to Defining Fractures in Earth Crust Reproducing the Realistic Compressive-tensile Strength Ratio of Rocks using Discrete Element Model Rock Fracture under Static and Dynamic Stress Multiple Linear Regression Analyses on the Relationships among Magnitude, Rupture Length, Rupture Width, Rupture Area, and Surface Displacement PI Algorithm Applied to the Sichuan-Yunnan Region: A Statistical Physics Method for Intermediate-term Medium-range Earthquake Forecast in Continental China Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Assessment for Pacific Island Countries

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.