Mental health has been a growing concern in society but recently has further come to light due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on societal well-being. With mental health issues such as depression on the rise, professionals need to implement new techniques that are effective in reducing psychological problems and enhancing psychological well-being. The integration of meditation and mindfulness techniques presents new methods for providing psychological intervention to alleviate psychological distress. Clinical Applications of Meditation and Mindfulness-Based Interventions in Mental Health presents mindfulness-based interventions in clinical and non-clinical conditions. This book disseminates evidence-based practices in the area of meditation and mindfulness to mental health professionals for the advancement of the mental health discipline and the benefit of students and trainees. Covering topics including mindful parenting, mediation, trauma-informed work, and psychological trauma recovery, this book is essential for mental health practitioners, therapists, psychologists, counselors, meditation specialists, professionals, students, researchers, and academicians.

This book examines the modes by which the grand theories of International Relations can be restructured at the level of meta-theory. It emphasizes the inability of grand theories to make sense of international relations in postcolonial societies and argues to engage in such restructuring in the domain of ontology. This is done by making a historical sociological defence toward adopting mid-level theories in IR. It is a critique of the meta-theoretical foundations of Kenneth Waltz's grand theory of neorealism, by pivoting itself upon the framework of postcolonial ontology. Dwelling upon Mohammed Ayoob’s mid-level theory of subaltern realism,  it argues for undertaking the task of restructuring International Relations at the level of meta-theory, largely in the sphere of ontology. It explains how the thrust of grand theories such as neorealism, on ontological singularity can be circumvented. Owing to this, International Relations can experience a meta-theoretical transformation that may manifest in the broader engagement of the discipline itself, with the very conception of ontological multiplicity.

Communication is a key component of everyday life, but what happens when an individual is faced with a communication disorder? Today, the prevalence of individuals with communication disorders has increased substantially. However, many of these ailments are poorly understood, and medical professionals often lack the training and research necessary to manage and treat these individuals. The Handbook of Research on Psychosocial Perspectives of Human Communication Disorders is a critical scholarly resource that covers needs-based issues pertaining to the assessment and management of communication disorders. It provides the latest research on the importance of early identification, as well as prevention and intervention practices to promote healthy cognitive, speech, language, motor, social, and emotional development. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as speech therapy for children, behavior therapy, and communication disorders, this book is a vital reference source for clinical psychologists, audiologists, speech-language pathologists, special education teachers, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, physiatrists, otolaryngologists, and neurologists.

Conceived for both computer scientists and biologists alike, this collection of 22 essays highlights the important new role that computers play in developmental biology research. Essays show how through computer modeling, researchers gain further insight into developmental processes. Featured essays also cover their use in designing computer algorithms to tackle computer science problems in areas like neural network design, robot control, evolvable hardware, and more. Peter Bentley, noted for his prolific research on evolutionary computation, and Sanjeev Kumar head up a respected team to guide readers through these very complex and fascinating disciplines.
* Covers both developmental biology and computational development -- the only book of its kind
* Provides introductory material and more detailed information on BOTH disciplines
* Includes contribututions from Richard Dawkins, Lewis Wolpert, Ian Stewart, and many other experts

Arsenic contamination in drinking water and associated adverse outcomes is one of the major health issues in more than 50 countries worldwide. The scenario is getting even more detrimental with increasing number of affected people and newer sites reported from all over the world. Apart from drinking water, the presence of arsenic has been found in various other dietary sources. Threatening the health of millions of people due to arsenic’s toxicity and carcinogenicity, the major routes of arsenic exposure for humans are either through drinking water or crops. This edited volume brings together a diverse group of environmental science, sustainability, and health researchers to address the challenges posed by global mass poisoning caused by arsenic water contamination. The book sheds light on this global environmental issue and proposes solutions to aquatic contamination through multi-disciplinary sustainable approaches and case studies from different parts of world. This book addresses the problem of arsenic by pursuing a holistic approach. It presents the status quo in different parts of the world and provides essential information on food-related arsenic exposure risks for humans and possible preventive and curative measures for tackling arsenic poisoning. The mechanisms of arsenic uptake, translocation, and distribution in plants and grains are also explained. In closing, the book reviews a variety of prospective sustainable solutions to the problem of arsenic accumulation in soil and water. The book comprises three sections. First section describes the routes of exposure to environmental arsenic and its transport in soil and aquatic ecosystems including its source and distribution in specific locations. Second section explains the health risks linked to arsenic exposure in food and the environment. Third section addresses sustainable arsenic contamination mitigation strategies using the potential applications of recent biotechnological techniques, bioremediation, phytoremediation, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and in silico approaches. The book is intended for a broad audience including researchers, scientists, and readers with diverse backgrounds including agriculture, environmental science, food science, environmental management, and human health. It can also be used as an important reference guide for undergraduate and graduate students, university faculties, and environmentalists. The book may serve as a reference to environment and sustainability researchers, students, and policy makers.

Neurodevelopmental disorders encompass a group of conditions that can typically manifest during early childhood. These include intellectual disabilities, communication disorders, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), specific learning disorder (SLD), and motor disorders. Early identification and assessment can be a valuable tool in determining diagnosis, prognosis, functional abilities, and formulating clinical intervention for both children and adults with neurodevelopmental disorders. Emerging Trends in the Diagnosis and Intervention of Neurodevelopmental Disorders is an essential reference source that discusses and disseminates contributions covering recent trends in diagnosis, assessment, and intervention techniques. Featuring research on topics such as clinical linguistics, neural connectivity, and animal-assisted therapy, this book is ideally designed for speech pathologists, social workers, occupational therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists, pediatricians, researchers, clinicians, and academicians seeking coverage on neural and developmental disorder identification and strategies for clinician support and therapies.

This book examines the complex dynamics of India Pakistan relations, by situating the same in the post-colonial setting of the subcontinent. In pursuit of this, the book analyses the impact of the linkages between the postcolonial processes of state-making and the structuring of political communities, upon the evolution of the problématique of state security in South Asia. For the purpose of undertaking this task, the author deconstructs the countries' colonial history, with an aim to mapp its impact on the making of the foreign policy of Pakistan. Drawing primarily from colonial discourse theory and historical sociology, the book links the trajectory of Pakistan’s international politics, to its domestic politics and ‘weak state’ inheritances. By doing this, it offers a stimulating treatment of the history of the country’s troubled post-colonial relations with India. This has been done in the book, by presenting the modes by which the religio-military and politico-bureaucratic classes that constitute the power elite in Pakistan, tended to have molded an India-centered State security problématique. This book will be of interest to researchers studying South Asian security, India-Pakistan relations and the defence and foreign policy of Pakistan.

An electrical power system consists of a large number of generation, transmission, and distribution subsystems. It is a very large and complex system; hence, its installation and management are very difficult tasks. An electrical system is essentially a very large network with very large data sets. Handling these data sets can require much time to analyze and subsequently implement. An electrical system is necessary but also potentially very dangerous if not operated and controlled properly. The demand for electricity is ever increasing, so maintaining load demand without overloading the system poses challenges and difficulties. Thus, planning, installing, operating, and controlling such a large system requires new technology. Artificial intelligence (AI) applications have many key features that can support a power system and handle overall power system operations. AI-based applications can manage the large data sets related to a power system. They can also help design power plants, model installation layouts, optimize load dispatch, and quickly respond to control apparatus. These applications and their techniques have been successful in many areas of power system engineering. Artificial Intelligence Techniques in Power Systems Operations and Analysis focuses on the various challenges arising in power systems and how AI techniques help to overcome these challenges. It examines important areas of power system analysis and the implementation of AI-driven analysis techniques. The book helps academicians and researchers understand how AI can be used for more efficient operation. Multiple AI techniques and their application are explained. Also featured are relevant data sets and case studies. Highlights include: Power quality enhancement by PV-UPQC for non-linear load Energy management of a nanogrid through flair of deep learning from IoT environments Role of artificial intelligence and machine learning in power systems with fault detection and diagnosis AC power optimization techniques Artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques in power systems automation

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is completing a decade. There have been varied responses to the Initiative from countries and regions besides the emergence of alternative initiatives and narratives. This sets the stage for evaluating the robustness of the Initiative, its implementation as well as its implications from the perspective of individual countries and regions across the globe. This book begins by examining China's domestic, economic, maritime and strategic interests as drivers for the Initiative. BRI has been analysed in country-specific, regional and continental contexts. It brings out the experiences and responses from South Asia, Eurasia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Arab world, Latin America, the Caribbean as well as from Europe and Africa. Further, BRI has been studied in the larger context of the US-China competition. The final section explores BRI in the context of the twin challenges of recent times, i.e., the pandemic and Russia-Ukraine conflict. The book concludes with an epilogue which outlines the broad trends related to BRI that have emerged from this study of ICWA. Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Bhutan)

This new volume introduces various VLSI (very-large-scale integration) architecture for DSP filters, speech filters, and image filters, detailing their key applications and discussing different aspects and technologies used in VLSI design, models and architectures, and more. The volume explores the major challenges with the aim to develop real-time hardware architecture designs that are compact and accurate. Knowledge of VLSI is necessary for understanding today’s contemporary hardware prospects of engineering. It is the process of creating an integrated circuit by combining millions of MOS transistors onto a single chip that is needed for handheld portable battery-operated devices that require efficient, errorless, and low-power arithmetic operation. VLSI plays a most important role in the performance of digital systems, digital signal processing (DSP), image processing applications, hardware security, quantum computing, etc. Especially in DSP systems, the algorithms of VLSI have a number of interesting characteristics that can be exploited in the design of the arithmetic circuits so that they can be implemented more efï¬ciently in terms of computation time, chip area, and power consumption. This volume, VLSI Architecture for Signal, Speech, and Image Processing, provides useful research in the field of computer arithmetic and can be applied for various arithmetic circuits, for their digital implementation schemes, and for performance considerations. It covers how computer arithmetic contributes to the era of quantum computing, hardware security, image processing, biomedical engineering, artificial intelligence, neural networks, and stochastic computing. Prepared by leading researchers in the field of computer arithmetic architecture, the state-of-the-art information presented here helps to provide a comprehensive understanding of VLSI for students, faculty, and researchers in computer science, computer engineering, and electrical and electronics engineering. It may be used as a textbook for courses on VLSI as well as a reference book.

This book presents various computer-aided drug discovery methods for the design and development of ligand and structure-based drug molecules. A wide variety of computational approaches are now being used in various stages of drug discovery and development, as well as in clinical studies. Yet, despite the rapid advances in computer software and hardware, combined with the exponential growth in the available biological information, there are many challenges that still need to be addressed, as this book shows. In turn, it shares valuable insights into receptor-ligand interactions in connection with various biological functions and human diseases. The book discusses a wide range of phylogenetic methods and highlights the applications of Molecular Dynamics Simulation in the drug discovery process. It also explores the application of quantum mechanics in order to provide better accuracy when calculating protein-ligand binding interactions and predicting binding affinities. In closing, the book provides illustrative descriptions of major challenges associated with computer-aided drug discovery for the development of therapeutic drugs. Given its scope, it offers a valuable asset for life sciences researchers, medicinal chemists and bioinformaticians looking for the latest information on computer-aided methodologies for drug development, together with their applications in drug discovery.

In the present scenario, green technologies are playing significant role in changing the course of nation's economic growth towards sustainability and providing an alternative socio-economic model that will enable present and future generations to live in a clean and healthy environment, in harmony with nature. Green technology, which is also known as clean technology, refers to the development and extension of processes, practices, and applications that improve or replace the existing technologies facilitating society to meet their own needs while substantially decreasing the impact of human on the planet, and reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities. The concepts of Green Technologies, if endorsed and pervaded into the lives of all societies, will facilitate the aim of the Millennium Development Goals of keeping the environment intact and improve it for the civilization to survive. Green Technologies and Environmental Sustainability is focused on the goals of green technologies which are becoming increasingly important for ensuring sustainability. This book provides different perspectives of green technology in sectors like energy, agriculture, waste management and economics and contains recent advancements made towards sustainable development in the field of bioenergy, nanotechnology, green chemistry, bioremediation, degraded land reclamation. This book is written for a large and broad readership, including researchers, scientists, academicians and readers from diverse backgrounds across various fields such as nanotechnology, chemistry, agriculture, environmental science, water engineering, waste management and energy. It could also serve as a reference book for graduates and post-graduate students, faculties, environmentalist and industrial personnel who are working in the area of green technologies.

2D Materials for Surface Plasmon Resonance-based Sensors offers comprehensive coverage of recent design and development (including processing and fabrication) of 2D materials in the context of plasmonic-based devices. It provides a thorough overview of the basic principles and techniques used in the analysis and design of 2D material-based optical sensor systems. Beginning with the basic concepts of plasmon/plasmonic sensors and mathematical modelling, the authors explain the fundamental properties of 2D materials, including Black Phosphorus (BP), Phosphorene, Graphene, Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), MXene's and SW-CNT. It also details the applications of these emerging materials in clinical diagnosis and their future trends. This text will be useful for practising engineers, undergraduate and postgraduate students. Key Features Presents the fundamental concepts of 2D material assisted fibre optic and prism based SPR sensor in a student-friendly manner. Includes the recent synthesis and characterization techniques of 2D materials. Provides computational results of recently discovered electronic and optical properties of the 2D materials along with their effectiveness in the field of plasmonic sensors. Presents emerging applications of novel 2D material-based plasmonic sensors in the field of chemical, bio-chemical and biosensing.

The book consists of 32 chapters featuring the concepts and applications of precision farming and protected cultivation broadly covered with theoretical and practical approach. The first 8 chapters are exclusively designed to provide detailed information on concept, need, objectives, benefits, components, applications and limitations of precision farming; laser leveler and its working mechanism, components and functioning; mechanized sowing and types of mechanical seeders and their use; approaches for mapping of soils and plant attributes; site-specific weed and nutrient management; precision management of insect-pests and diseases; yield mapping in horticultural crops. An attempt has been made to cover the concept and application of protected cultivation in chapters from 9 to 30 characteristically highlighting the concept of greenhouse technology, its principles as well as historical and technological developments, agrivoltaic system, its concept and features, response of plant species under greenhouse conditions, criteria for the selection of crops and varieties for protected cultivation, basic considerations for site selection, orientation and designing of greenhouse structures, climate control mechanisms for cooling and heating in greenhouses, components, accessories and BIS codes for protected cultivation, types of Irrigation system for greenhouse production system, growing media for greenhouse cultivation, soil pasteurization namely solarization, steam sterilization, chemical sterilization and augmentation with biological agents, checking the suitability of soil and water for greenhouse crops, plug tray nursery raising, basics of fertigation in greenhouse production system, packages of practice for greenhouse cucumber, bell pepper, tomato and melons, potential of pruning as unconventional alternative for mass multiplication of greenhouse cucumber and tomato, types of soil-less cultures, GAP for protected cultivation and economic analysis of protected cultivation. Note: T&F does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

This book develops a critical understanding of Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy and practice in the context of contemporary challenges and engages with some of his key work and ideas. It highlights the relevance of Gandhi's legacy in the quest towards peace-building, equity and global justice. The volume examines diverse facets of Gandhi's holistic view of human life - social, economic and political - for the creation of a just society. Bringing together expert analyses and reflections, the chapters here emphasise the philosophical and practical urgency of Gandhi's thought and action. They explore the significance of his concepts of truth and nonviolence to address moral, spiritual and ethical issues, growing intolerance, conflict and violence, poverty and hunger, and environmental crisis for the present world. The volume serves as a platform for constructive dialogue for academics, researchers, policymakers and students to re-imagine Gandhi and his moral and political principles. It will be of great interest to those in philosophy, political studies, Gandhi studies, history, cultural studies, peace studies and sociology.

This authored book is primarily for the readers who are in search of how to use basic concepts of statistics in the field of fishery science. It has been written for the new comers coming in the fishery sector including university students, teachers and research scholars. It enriches the reader's knowledge of data analysis step by step starting from data collection to its analysis and interpretation along with practical application with real example. It supports readers for enhancing theoretical and practical concept of application of fundamental statistics in fishery domain. Reader may also learn how to analyses data using different statistical software. Each chapter starts with an introduction of the topic followed by statistical concept with example and ends with chapter based question for comprehension purpose. This book is of interest to teachers, researchers, scientists, capacity builders in fishery sciences. Also the book serves as additional reading material for undergraduate and graduate students of fisheries and aquatic sciences.

This book looks at cyber security challenges with topical advancements in computational intelligence and communication technologies. This book includes invited peer-reviewed chapters on the emerging intelligent computing and communication technology research advancements, experimental outcomes, and cyber security practices, threats, and attacks with challenges. The book begins with a state-of-the-art survey and reviews of cyber security trends and issues. It further covers areas such as developments in intelligent computing and communication, smart healthcare, agriculture, transportation, online education, and many more real-life applications using IoT, big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, data science, and machine learning. This book is of interest to graduate/postgraduate students, researchers, and academicians. This book will be a valuable resource for practitioners and professionals working in smart city visualization through secure and intelligent application design, development, deployment to foster digital revolution, and reliable integration of advanced computing and communication technologies with global significance.

This two volume set (CCIS 1776-1777) constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Computer Vision and Image Processing, CVIP 2022, held in Nagpur, India, November 4–6, 2022. The 110 full papers and 11 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 307 submissions. Out of 121 papers, 109 papers are included in this book. The topical scope of the two-volume set focuses on Medical Image  Analysis,  Image/  Video  Processing  for  Autonomous  Vehicles,  Activity Detection/  Recognition,  Human  Computer  Interaction,  Segmentation  and  Shape Representation,  Motion  and  Tracking,  Image/  Video  Scene  Understanding,  Image/Video  Retrieval,  Remote  Sensing,  Hyperspectral  Image  Processing,  Face,  Iris, Emotion, Sign Language and Gesture Recognition, etc.

This two volume set (CCIS 1776-1777) constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Computer Vision and Image Processing, CVIP 2022, held in Nagpur, India, November 4–6, 2022. The 110 full papers and 11 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 307 submissions. Out of 121 papers, 109 papers are included in this book. The topical scope of the two-volume set focuses on Medical Image  Analysis,  Image/  Video  Processing  for  Autonomous  Vehicles,  Activity Detection/  Recognition,  Human  Computer  Interaction,  Segmentation  and  Shape Representation,  Motion  and  Tracking,  Image/  Video  Scene  Understanding,  Image/Video  Retrieval,  Remote  Sensing,  Hyperspectral  Image  Processing,  Face,  Iris, Emotion, Sign Language and Gesture Recognition, etc.