Empires have been the commonest form of political organization for most of recorded history. How should we best understand them? What are their principles and how do they differ from other political forms, such as the nation-state? What sort of relations between rulers and ruled do they express? Do they, as many have held, follow a particular course of "rise, decline, and fall"? How and why do empires end, and with what consequences? Is the era of empire over? This book explores these questions through a fascinating analysis of the major empires of world history and the present. It pays attention not just to the modern overseas empires of the Europeans, but also to the ancient empires of the Middle East and Mediterranean, the Islamic empires of the Arabs, Mughals, and Ottomans, and the two-thousand-year Chinese Empire. As Kumar shows, understanding empires helps us understand better the politics of our own times.

The book highlights mechanical, thermal, electrical, and magnetic properties, and characterization of additive manufactured products in a single volume. It will serve as an ideal reference text for graduate students and academic researchers in diverse engineering fields including industrial, manufacturing, and materials science. This text Explains mechanical properties like hardness, tensile strength, impact strength, and flexural strength of additive manufactured components Discusses characterization of components fabricated by different additive manufacturing processes including fusion deposition modeling, and selective laser sintering. Highlights corrosion behavior of additive manufactured polymers, metals, and composites. Covers thermal, electrical, and magnetic properties of additively manufactured materials. Illustrates intrinsic features and their Influence on mechanical properties of additive manufactured products. This text discusses properties, wear behavior and characterization of components produced by additive manufacturing technology. These products find applications in diverse fields including design, manufacturing and tooling, aerospace, automotive industry, and biomedical industry. It will further help the readers in understanding the parameters that influence the mechanical behavior and characterization of components manufactured by additive manufacturing processes. It will serve as an ideal reference text for graduate students and academic researchers in the fields of industrial engineering, manufacturing engineering, automotive engineering, aerospace engineering, and materials science.

This volume proposes an alternative development paradigm to the existing capitalist extant one, and studies how it is distinctly different from the older system. Rooted in the principles of solidarity between humans, as well as between humans and nature, this alternative paradigm replaces the methodological individualism of capitalism by ‘reciprocal altruism’, a new logic of capital, to give pace and direction to the development process. The essays in this volume highlight instances of various forms of solidarity that have emerged in the contemporary world—such as resistance movements of informal workers, the formation of an autonomous cooperative of self-employed waste pickers in India, called SWaCH, and Brazil and Cuba’s experiments with Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE)—to achieve long sustaining cohesive development. They also provide recommendations as to how the State can mold its development process to the benefit of marginalized communities, especially in India and Bangladesh. Featuring insights from leading experts in the field, Theorizing Cohesive Development will be an indispensable read for students and researchers of development studies, economics, political economy, political science and sociology, minority studies and Asian studies.

This volume proposes an alternative development paradigm to the existing capitalist extant one, and studies how it is distinctly different from the older system. Rooted in the principles of solidarity between humans, as well as between humans and nature, this alternative paradigm replaces the methodological individualism of capitalism by 'reciprocal altruism', a new logic of capital, to give pace and direction to the development process. The essays in this volume highlight instances of various forms of solidarity that have emerged in the contemporary world-such as resistance movements of informal workers, the formation of an autonomous cooperative of self-employed waste pickers in India, called SWaCH, and Brazil and Cuba's experiments with Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE)-to achieve long sustaining cohesive development. They also provide recommendations as to how the State can mold its development process to the benefit of marginalized communities, especially in India and Bangladesh. Featuring insights from leading experts in the field, Theorizing Cohesive Development will be an indispensable read for students and researchers of development studies, economics, political economy, political science and sociology, minority studies and Asian studies.

Empires have been the commonest form of political organization for most of recorded history. How should we best understand them? What are their principles and how do they differ from other political forms, such as the nation-state? What sort of relations between rulers and ruled do they express? Do they, as many have held, follow a particular course of "rise, decline, and fall"? How and why do empires end, and with what consequences? Is the era of empire over? This book explores these questions through a fascinating analysis of the major empires of world history and the present. It pays attention not just to the modern overseas empires of the Europeans, but also to the ancient empires of the Middle East and Mediterranean, the Islamic empires of the Arabs, Mughals, and Ottomans, and the two-thousand-year Chinese Empire. As Kumar shows, understanding empires helps us understand better the politics of our own times.

In the automotive and aerospace industries, the need for strong yet light materials has given rise to extensive research into aluminum and magnesium alloys and formable titanium alloys. All of these are categorized as light weight materials. The distinguishing feature of light weight materials is that they are low density, but they have a wide range of properties and, as a result, a wide range of applications. This book provides researchers and students with an overview of the recent advancements in light weight material processing, manufacturing and characterization. It contains chapters by eminent researchers on topics associated with light weight materials, including on the current buzzword "composite materials". First, this book describes the current status of light weight materials. Then, it studies applications of these materials, given that, as the densities vary, so do the applications, ranging from automobiles and aviation to bio-mechatronics. This book will therefore serve as an excellent guide to this field.

This unique book focuses on the non-myeloma plasma cell dyscrasias. A key resource for this group of diseases, the book features the latest in emerging knowledge and therapeutic developments, including novel therapies. Each disease-specific chapter discusses biology, disease course, and appropriate therapeutic interventions, covering plasma cell leukemia, plasmacytoma, POEMS Syndrome and Castleman's Disease, Waldenstroem macroglobulinemia, immunoglobin deposition disease, and cryoglobulinemic syndromes, among others. The only book dedicated to this intriguing family of diseases, Biology and Management of Unusual Plasma Cell Dyscrasias will be a long-lasting reference for clinicians and scientists alike.

PREDICTING HEART FAILURE Predicting Heart Failure: Invasive, Non-Invasive, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Based Methods focuses on the mechanics and symptoms of heart failure and various approaches, including conventional and modern techniques to diagnose it. This book also provides a comprehensive but concise guide to all modern cardiological practice, emphasizing practical clinical management in many different contexts. Predicting Heart Failure supplies readers with trustworthy insights into all aspects of heart failure, including essential background information on clinical practice guidelines, in-depth, peer-reviewed articles, and broad coverage of this fast-moving field. Readers will also find: Discussion of the main characteristics of cardiovascular biosensors, along with their open issues for development and application Summary of the difficulties of wireless sensor communication and power transfer, and the utility of artificial intelligence in cardiology Coverage of data mining classification techniques, applied machine learning and advanced methods for estimating HF severity and diagnosing and predicting heart failure Discussion of the risks and issues associated with the remote monitoring system Assessment of the potential applications and future of implantable and wearable devices in heart failure prediction and detection Artificial intelligence in mobile monitoring technologies to provide clinicians with improved treatment options, ultimately easing access to healthcare by all patient populations. Providing the latest research data for the diagnosis and treatment of heart failure, Predicting Heart Failure: Invasive, Non-Invasive, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Based Methods is an excellent resource for nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, medical students, and general practitioners to gain a better understanding of bedside cardiology.

Optimization is central to any problem involving decision-making in engineering. Optimization theory and methods deal with selecting the best option regarding the given objective function or performance index. New algorithmic and theoretical techniques have been developed for this purpose, and have rapidly diffused into other disciplines. As a result, our knowledge of all aspects of the field has grown even more profound. In Optimization for Engineering Problems, eminent researchers in the field present the latest knowledge and techniques on the subject of optimization in engineering. Whereas the majority of work in this area focuses on other applications, this book applies advanced and algorithm-based optimization techniques specifically to problems in engineering.

This unique book focuses on the non-myeloma plasma cell dyscrasias. A key resource for this group of diseases, the book features the latest in emerging knowledge and therapeutic developments, including novel therapies. Each disease-specific chapter discusses biology, disease course, and appropriate therapeutic interventions, covering plasma cell leukemia, plasmacytoma, POEMS Syndrome and Castleman's Disease, Waldenstroem macroglobulinemia, immunoglobin deposition disease, and cryoglobulinemic syndromes, among others. The only book dedicated to this intriguing family of diseases, Biology and Management of Unusual Plasma Cell Dyscrasias will be a long-lasting reference for clinicians and scientists alike.

The design and study of materials is a pivotal component to new discoveries in the various fields of science and technology. By better understanding the components and structures of materials, researchers can increase their applications across different industries. Composites and Advanced Materials for Industrial Applications is a critical scholarly resource that examines recent advances in the field of application of composite materials. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as nanocomposites, hybrid composites, and fabrication techniques, this book is a vital reference source for engineers, academics, researchers, students, professionals, and practitioners seeking current research on improvements in manufacturing processes and developments of new analytical and testing methods.

The success of any product sold to consumers is based, largely, on the longevity of the product. This concept can be extended by various methods of improvement including optimizing the initial creation structures which can lead to a more desired product and extend the product's time on the market. Design and Optimization of Mechanical Engineering Products is an essential research source that explores the structure and processes used in creating goods and the methods by which these goods are improved in order to continue competitiveness in the consumer market. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics including modeling and simulation, new product development, and multi-criteria decision making, this publication is targeted toward students, practitioners, researchers, engineers, and academicians.

The surface characterizations of engineering materials effects their scratch/abrasion/Mar resistance, coating adhesion/strength, and abrasive wear mechanism.
Scratching of Materials and Applications has chapters devoted to direct industrial application and contains some of the important works that are being conducted. Scratch testing of materials has grown extensively since the earlier days of the Mohs Scale for ranking minerals according to their relative scratch resistance. This test has been used on metals, ceramics, glasses, polymers and coatings of various types and thicknesses.
The chapters are grouped according to the type of the engineering materials used. The beginning chapters relate mostly to bulk polymers, which are followed by different types of coatings (hard wear resistant to the diamond-like carbon coatings) and finally, chapters on the application of scratching technique to metals and ceramics are included at the end of the book. Thus, the book covers a fairly wide spectrum of engineering materials which are useful to engineers and researchers.
* Balances theoretical science with practical application
* Demonstrates real-life applications within industry
* Written experts in the fields of materials, tribology and surface mechanics