This volume draws on findings from the Canada-China Nature Notes Reciprocal Learning Program to explore cross-cultural exchanges in science education in and outside of the classroom. Under the collaborative reciprocity perspective, cross-cultural learning needs to go beyond simple comparison in practices, values, and results and moves to a paradigm that emphasizes a two-way learning process in the context of acting together. Through collaborative work between the international teams and partner schools, the program described in this book shows how collaborative efforts between the two sister schools worked to raise awareness about Chinese farming culture and extend students' outdoor learning experiences. In this book, educators from across the research team share their insights and reflect on the cross-cultural collaborative process and how it impacted the learning experiences of themselves and their students.

This book introduces the current approaches in prokaryotic taxonomy and streamlines the advanced techniques for use in prokaryotic systematics. While highlighting the key differences in the taxonomy of cultured and not-yet-cultured bacteria and archaea, it presents the genomic technology involved in microbial systematics that serves as comprehensive guidelines for isolating and identifying bacteria. Microbial systematics is a fundamentally important discipline area for microbiologists and those seeking to understand Earth’s biodiversity. As bacterial taxonomy is critical in microbial ecology and clinical microbiology works, the correct identification of microbes is crucial. However, the microbial collection existing and described as cultured species so far are either based on the taxonomic pattern that existed during its time of first cultivation. With evolving technology, many microbes were found to be wrongly classified. Therefore, it is essential to keep in contact with the developing technology and methods for the correct placement of cultured bacteria and their identification. This book is an excellent guideline for adequately identifying, classifying, and describing novel taxa of bacteria and archaea.

This collection gives broad and up-to-date results in the research and development of materials characterization and processing. Coverage is well-rounded from minerals, metals, and materials characterization and developments in extraction to the fabrication and performance of materials. In addition, topics as varied as structural steels to electronic materials to plant-based composites are explored. The latest research presented in this wide area make this book both timely and relevant to the materials science field as a whole. The book explores scientific processes to characterize materials using modern technologies, and focuses on the interrelationships and interdependence among processing, structure, properties, and performance of materials. Topics covered include ferrous materials, non-ferrous materials, minerals, ceramics, clays, soft materials, method development, processing, corrosion, welding, solidification, composites, extraction, powders, nanomaterials, advanced materials, and several others.

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.

This collection focuses on the characterization of minerals, metals, and materials as well as the application of characterization results on the processing of these materials. Papers cover topics such as clays, ceramics, composites, ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals, minerals, electronic materials, magnetic materials, environmental materials, advanced materials, and soft materials. In addition, papers covering materials extraction, materials processing, corrosion, welding, solidification, and method development are included. This book provides a current snapshot of characterization in materials science and its role in validating, informing, and driving current theories in the field of materials science. This volume will serve the dual purpose of furnishing a broad introduction of the field to novices while simultaneously serving to keep subject matter experts up-to-date.

This collection gives broad and up-to-date results in the research and development of materials characterization and processing. Topics covered include characterization methods, ferrous materials, non-ferrous materials, minerals, ceramics, polymer and composites, powders, extraction, microstructure, mechanical behavior, processing, corrosion, welding, solidification, magnetic, electronic, environmental, nano-materials, and advanced materials The book explores scientific processes to characterize materials using modern technologies, and focuses on the interrelationships and interdependence among processing, structure, properties, and performance of materials.

This book consists of one hundred and seventeen selected papers presented at the 2015 International Conference on Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Information Science (EEEIS2015), which was held in Guangzhou, China, during August 07-09, 2015. EEEIS2015 provided an excellent international exchange platform for researchers to share their knowledge and results and to explore new areas of research and development.Global researchers and practitioners will find coverage of topics involving Electronics Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Technology for Road Traffic, Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering Management. Experts in these fields contributed to the collection of research results and development activities.This book will be a valuable reference for researchers working in the field of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Information Science.

This collection gives broad and up-to-date results in the research and development of materials characterization and processing. Coverage is well-rounded from minerals, metals, and materials characterization and developments in extraction to the fabrication and performance of materials. In addition, topics as varied as structural steels to electronic materials to plant-based composites are explored. The latest research presented in this wide area make this book both timely and relevant to the materials science field as a whole. The book explores scientific processes to characterize materials using modern technologies, and focuses on the interrelationships and interdependence among processing, structure, properties, and performance of materials. Topics covered include ferrous materials, non-ferrous materials, minerals, ceramics, clays, soft materials, method development, processing, corrosion, welding, solidification, composites, extraction, powders, nanomaterials, advanced materials, and several others.

In this beautifully illustrated multicultural children's book, a modern-day boy goes on an adventure where he meets Confucius-China's most famous ancient philosopher. In his newest adventure, Ming and his father travel to Qufu in China's Shandong Province, the hometown of the famous Chinese sage Confucius, born over 2,500 years ago. While Ming's father studies the stunning historic architecture, Ming's attention is drawn to a game of Chinese checkers set up in a gazebo. But as soon as he touches the checkers, Ming finds himself magically transported back in time to ancient Qufu. There he meets Confucius and his students, and explores with them the principles established by the renowned teacher, which remain so important in China today. Another delightful tale of past meets present from author/artist Li Jian, Ming's Adventures with Confucius in Qufu is sure to inspire a new generation of children.

In this monograph, the authors reports the current advancement in high frequency piezoelectric crystal micromachined ultrasound transducers and arrays and their biomedical applications. Piezoelectric ultrasound transducers operating at high frequencies (> 20 MHz) are of increasing demand in recent years for medical imaging and biological particle manipulation involved therapy. The performances of transducers greatly rely on the properties of the piezoelectric materials and transduction structures, including piezoelectric coefficient (d), electromechanical coupling coefficient (k), dielectric permittivity (e) and acoustic impedance (Z). Piezo-composite structures are preferred because of their relatively high electromechanical coupling coefficient and low acoustic impedance. A number of piezo-composite techniques have been developed, namely "dice and fill," "tape-casting," "stack and bond," "interdigital phase bonding," "laser micromachining" and "micro-molding". However, these techniques are either difficult to achieve fine features or not suitable for manufacturing of high frequency ultrasound transducers (> 20 MHz). The piezo-composite micromachined ultrasound transducers (PC-MUT) technique discovered over the last 10 years or so has demonstrated high performance high frequency piezo-composite ultrasound transducers. In this monograph, piezoelectric materials used for high frequency transducers is introduced first. Next, the benefits and theory of piezo composites is presented, followed by the design criteria and fabrication methods. Biomedical applications using piezo composites micromachined ultrasound transducers (PC-MUT) and arrays will also be reported, in comparison with other ultrasound transducer techniques. The final part of this monograph describes challenges and future perspectives of this technique for biomedical applications.