This book begins with an introduction of pragmatic cluster randomized trials (PCTs) and reviews various pragmatic issues that need to be addressed by statisticians at the design stage. It discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each type of PCT, and provides sample size formulas, sensitivity analyses, and examples for sample size calculation. The generalized estimating equation (GEE) method will be employed to derive sample size formulas for various types of outcomes from the exponential family, including continuous, binary, and count variables. Experimental designs that have been frequently employed in PCTs will be discussed, including cluster randomized designs, matched-pair cluster randomized design, stratified cluster randomized design, stepped-wedge cluster randomized design, longitudinal cluster randomized design, and crossover cluster randomized design. It demonstrates that the GEE approach is flexible to accommodate pragmatic issues such as hierarchical correlation structures, different missing data patterns, randomly varying cluster sizes, etc. It has been reported that the GEE approach leads to under-estimated variance with limited numbers of clusters. The remedy for this limitation is investigated for the design of PCTs. This book can assist practitioners in the design of PCTs by providing a description of the advantages and disadvantages of various PCTs and sample size formulas that address various pragmatic issues, facilitating the proper implementation of PCTs to improve health care. It can also serve as a textbook for biostatistics students at the graduate level to enhance their knowledge or skill in clinical trial design. Key Features: Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each type of PCTs, and provide sample size formulas, sensitivity analyses, and examples. Address an unmet need for guidance books on sample size calculations for PCTs; A wide variety of experimental designs adopted by PCTs are covered; The sample size solutions can be readily implemented due to the accommodation of common pragmatic issues encountered in real-world practice; Useful to both academic and industrial biostatisticians involved in clinical trial design; Can be used as a textbook for graduate students majoring in statistics and biostatistics.

This edited book emerges from the observation that the current literatures on migration in China are constrained by a series of shortfalls, including a relative topical homogeneity centred on domestic labour migration; relatively narrowly conceived and institutionalist conceptions of migration and migrants, without adequate attention paid to the identities, agencies and everyday experiences of migrants; and finally a lack of engagement with theoretical models and paradigms in the broad discipline of migration studies. Assembling eight fine-grained research works engaging with a broad variety of migratory trajectories and experiences, this book addresses these shortfalls by: (1) investigating diverse forms of domestic and transnational migration in and to China; (2) problematising, rethinking and innovating well-established analytical tools and categories to move beyond their epistemological fixity and highlight their socially and dynamically constructed nature; and (3) underscoring the centrality of identity, subjectivity and everyday experiences, rather than mechanical causality between institutions and migration outcomes, to theoretical understandings of migration in China. It will be of interest to researchers and advanced students of Sociology, Politics, Human Geography, Social Work and Urban Studies. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

Rainfall-induced landslides are common around the world. With global climate change, their frequency is increasing and the consequences are becoming greater. Previous studies assess them mostly from the perspective of a single discipline-correlating landslides with rainstorms, geomorphology and hydrology in order to establish a threshold prediction value for rainfall-induced landslides; analyzing the slope's stability using a geomechanical approach; or assessing the risk from field records. Rainfall Induced Soil Slope Failure: Stability Analysis and Probabilistic Assessment integrates probabilistic approaches with the geotechnical modeling of slope failures under rainfall conditions with unsaturated soil. It covers theoretical models of rainfall infiltration and stability analysis, reliability analysis based on coupled hydro-mechanical modelling, stability of slopes with cracks, gravels and spatial heterogenous soils, and probabilistic model calibration based on measurement. It focuses on the uncertainties involved with rainfall-induced landslides and presents state-of-the art techniques and methods which characterize the uncertainties and quantify the probabilities and risk of rainfall-induced landslide hazards.Additionally, the authors cover: The failure mechanisms of rainfall-induced slope failure Commonly used infiltration and stability methods The infiltration and stability of natural soil slopes with cracks and colluvium materials Stability evaluation methods based on probabilistic approaches The effect of spatial variability on unsaturated soil slopes and more

Cyberspace in increasingly important to people in their everyday lives for purchasing goods on the Internet, to energy supply increasingly managed remotely using Internet protocols. Unfortunately, this dependence makes us susceptible to attacks from nation states, terrorists, criminals and hactivists. Therefore, we need a better understanding of cyberspace, for which patterns, which are predictable regularities, may help to detect, understand and respond to incidents better. The inspiration for the workshop came from the existing work on formalising design patterns applied to cybersecurity, but we also need to understand the many other types of patterns that arise in cyberspace.

Cyberspace in increasingly important to people in their everyday lives for purchasing goods on the Internet, to energy supply increasingly managed remotely using Internet protocols. Unfortunately, this dependence makes us susceptible to attacks from nation states, terrorists, criminals and hactivists. Therefore, we need a better understanding of cyberspace, for which patterns, which are predictable regularities, may help to detect, understand and respond to incidents better. The inspiration for the workshop came from the existing work on formalising design patterns applied to cybersecurity, but we also need to understand the many other types of patterns that arise in cyberspace.

Driven by the need to achieve superior control performances for robots with hyper degrees of freedom, the virtual decomposition control approach is thoroughly presented in this book. This approach uses subsystem (such as links and joints of a complex robot) dynamics to conduct control design, while guaranteeing the stability and convergence of the entire complex robot without compromising the rigorousness of the system analysis. The central concept of this approach is the definition of the virtual stability. The stability of the entire complex robot is mathematically equivalent to the virtual stability of every subsystem. This fact allows us to convert a large problem to a few simple problems with mathematical certainty.

This book comprises fourteen chapters. The first five chapters form the foundation of this approach. The remaining nine chapters are relatively independent. Starting from Chapter 6, each chapter deals with a particular type of systems including motor/transmission assemblies, hydraulic robots, coordinated multiple robots, space robots, humanoid robots, adaptive teleoperation, and modular robot manipulators. At the end, the extensions of this approach to distributed-parameter systems and to electrical circuits are given, paving the way for other applications to follow.

This book is intended for practitioners, researchers, and graduate students who have acquired fundamental knowledge on robotics and control systems and have been committed to achieving the best control performances on complex robotics systems and beyond.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Theory and Applications of Models of Computation, TAMC 2007, held in Shanghai, China in May 2007.

The 67 revised full papers presented together with 2 plenary lectures were carefully reviewed and selected from over 500 submissions. All major areas in computer science, mathematics (especially logic) and the physical sciences particularly with regard to computation and computability theory are addressed. The papers - featuring this crossdisciplinary character - particularly focus on algorithms, complexity and computability theory, giving the conference a special flavor and distinction.

Rainfall-induced landslides are common around the world. With global climate change, their frequency is increasing and the consequences are becoming greater. Previous studies assess them mostly from the perspective of a single discipline-correlating landslides with rainstorms, geomorphology and hydrology in order to establish a threshold prediction value for rainfall-induced landslides; analyzing the slope's stability using a geomechanical approach; or assessing the risk from field records. Rainfall Induced Soil Slope Failure: Stability Analysis and Probabilistic Assessment integrates probabilistic approaches with the geotechnical modeling of slope failures under rainfall conditions with unsaturated soil. It covers theoretical models of rainfall infiltration and stability analysis, reliability analysis based on coupled hydro-mechanical modelling, stability of slopes with cracks, gravels and spatial heterogenous soils, and probabilistic model calibration based on measurement. It focuses on the uncertainties involved with rainfall-induced landslides and presents state-of-the art techniques and methods which characterize the uncertainties and quantify the probabilities and risk of rainfall-induced landslide hazards.Additionally, the authors cover: The failure mechanisms of rainfall-induced slope failure Commonly used infiltration and stability methods The infiltration and stability of natural soil slopes with cracks and colluvium materials Stability evaluation methods based on probabilistic approaches The effect of spatial variability on unsaturated soil slopes and more

Driven by the need to achieve superior control performances for robots with hyper degrees of freedom, the virtual decomposition control approach is thoroughly presented in this book. This approach uses subsystem (such as links and joints of a complex robot) dynamics to conduct control design, while guaranteeing the stability and convergence of the entire complex robot without compromising the rigorousness of the system analysis. The central concept of this approach is the definition of the virtual stability. The stability of the entire complex robot is mathematically equivalent to the virtual stability of every subsystem. This fact allows us to convert a large problem to a few simple problems with mathematical certainty.

This book comprises fourteen chapters. The first five chapters form the foundation of this approach. The remaining nine chapters are relatively independent. Starting from Chapter 6, each chapter deals with a particular type of systems including motor/transmission assemblies, hydraulic robots, coordinated multiple robots, space robots, humanoid robots, adaptive teleoperation, and modular robot manipulators. At the end, the extensions of this approach to distributed-parameter systems and to electrical circuits are given, paving the way for other applications to follow.

This book is intended for practitioners, researchers, and graduate students who have acquired fundamental knowledge on robotics and control systems and have been committed to achieving the best control performances on complex robotics systems and beyond.

Traditional Chinese Medicine refers to a broad range of medicine practices sharing common theoretical concepts which have been developed in China and are based on a tradition of over 2,000 years, including various forms of herbal medicine, acupuncture, massage (Tui na), exercise (qigong), and dietary therapy. Although these practices are considered alternative medicine in the Western world, they are a common part of medical care throughout East Asia, accounting for an estimated 40% of all health care delivered in China. Topics discussed in this book include a comparison of Chinese views with Western perspectives on traditional Chinese Medicine and complementary alternative medicine; cinnabar and realgar in traditional Chinese Medicine; metabolomic analysis of herbal medicines; Chinese Herbal Medicine in health care; and acupuncture for patients with cerebral apoplexy.

Thin films have an extremely broad range of applications from electronics and optics to new materials and devices. Collaborative and multidisciplinary efforts from physicists, materials scientists, engineers and others have established and advanced a field with key pillars constituting (i) the synthesis and processing of thin films, (ii) the understanding of physical properties in relation to the nanometer scale, (iii) the design and fabrication of nano-devices or devices with thin film materials as building blocks, and (iv) the design and construction of novel tools for characterization of thin films.Against the backdrop of the increasingly interdisciplinary field, this book sets off to inform the basics of thin film physics and thin film devices. Readers are systematically introduced to the synthesis, processing and application of thin films; they will also study the formation of thin films, their structure and defects, and their various properties - mechanical, electrical, semiconducting, magnetic, and superconducting. With a primary focus on inorganic thin film materials, the book also ventures on organic materials such as self-assembled monolayers and Langmuir-Blodgett films.This book will be effective as a teaching or reference material in the various disciplines, ranging from Materials Science and Engineering, Electronic Science and Engineering, Electronic Materials and Components, Semiconductor Physics and Devices, to Applied Physics and more. The original Chinese publication has been instrumental in this purpose across many Chinese universities and colleges.