This book, discusses the latest research on the intelligent control of two important components in smart grids, namely microgrids (MGs) and electric vehicles (EVs). It focuses on developing theoretical frameworks and proposing corresponding algorithms, to optimally schedule virtualized elements under different uncertainties so that the total cost of operating the microgrid or the EV charging system can be minimized and the systems maintain stabilized. With random factors in the problem formulation and corresponding designed algorithms, it provides insights into how to handle uncertainties and develop rational strategies in the operation of smart grid systems. Written by leading experts, it is a valuable resource for researchers, scientists and engineers in the field of intelligent management of future power grids.

Multirate Switched-Capacitor Circuits for 2-D Signal Processing introduces the concepts of analog multirate signal processing for the efficient implementation of two-dimensional (2-D) filtering in integrated circuit form, particularly from the viewpoints of silicon area and power dissipation. New 2-D switched-capacitor (SC) networks and design techniques are presented, both with finite impulse response (FIR) and infinite impulse response (IIR) with separable denominator polynomial, which offer simpler and more systematic synthesis procedures than currently available design techniques for 2-D analog filters. Since they are in the discrete-time domain, the book can be also referred to the digital multirate signal processing. A 2-D SC image processor that realizes both (2 x 2)nd-order Butterworth lowpass and highpass filtering functions for video image signals was realized as a prototype integrated circuit implemented in 1.0-mum CMOS technology. The experimental characterization of this prototype chip demonstrated the feasibility of real-time analog multirate 2-D image processing with equivalent 8-bits accuracy, using only 2.5 x 3.0 mm2 of silicon area and dissipating as little as 85 mW at 5V supply and 18 MHz sampling rate. This indicates that for moderate accuracy and low to moderate complexity of the filtering function, a fully multirate analog implementation has a potential to achieve a more competitive implementation than an alternative digital VLSI implementation. However, for high accuracy and/or higher processing complexity, not only the relative overhead cost of the front-end and back-end converters will diminish but also the implementation of the processing core in digital VLSI will benefit more of technology scaling to achieve higher density of integration. Multirate Switched-Capacitor Circuits for 2-D Signal Processing is essential reading for practicing analog design engineers and researchers in the field. It is also suitable as a text for an advanced course on the subject.

This book, discusses the latest research on the intelligent control of two important components in smart grids, namely microgrids (MGs) and electric vehicles (EVs). It focuses on developing theoretical frameworks and proposing corresponding algorithms, to optimally schedule virtualized elements under different uncertainties so that the total cost of operating the microgrid or the EV charging system can be minimized and the systems maintain stabilized. With random factors in the problem formulation and corresponding designed algorithms, it provides insights into how to handle uncertainties and develop rational strategies in the operation of smart grid systems. Written by leading experts, it is a valuable resource for researchers, scientists and engineers in the field of intelligent management of future power grids.

Multirate Switched-Capacitor Circuits for 2-D Signal Processing introduces the concepts of analog multirate signal processing for the efficient implementation of two-dimensional (2-D) filtering in integrated circuit form, particularly from the viewpoints of silicon area and power dissipation. New 2-D switched-capacitor (SC) networks and design techniques are presented, both with finite impulse response (FIR) and infinite impulse response (IIR) with separable denominator polynomial, which offer simpler and more systematic synthesis procedures than currently available design techniques for 2-D analog filters. Since they are in the discrete-time domain, the book can be also referred to the digital multirate signal processing. A 2-D SC image processor that realizes both (2 x 2)nd-order Butterworth lowpass and highpass filtering functions for video image signals was realized as a prototype integrated circuit implemented in 1.0-mum CMOS technology. The experimental characterization of this prototype chip demonstrated the feasibility of real-time analog multirate 2-D image processing with equivalent 8-bits accuracy, using only 2.5 x 3.0 mm2 of silicon area and dissipating as little as 85 mW at 5V supply and 18 MHz sampling rate. This indicates that for moderate accuracy and low to moderate complexity of the filtering function, a fully multirate analog implementation has a potential to achieve a more competitive implementation than an alternative digital VLSI implementation. However, for high accuracy and/or higher processing complexity, not only the relative overhead cost of the front-end and back-end converters will diminish but also the implementation of the processing core in digital VLSI will benefit more of technology scaling to achieve higher density of integration. Multirate Switched-Capacitor Circuits for 2-D Signal Processing is essential reading for practicing analog design engineers and researchers in the field. It is also suitable as a text for an advanced course on the subject.

There are only two ways to live our life, according to Albert Einstein: one is as if nothing is a miracle; the other, as if everything is a miracle. Life of Miracles along the Yangtze and Mississippi is a book about how the impossible became possible?about things that happened in China and America to the people Wang Ping grew up with, met, and befriended along her journeys between these two distant rivers. This is also a story about water, alive with spirits and energy, giving birth to all sentient beings. We are water. The river runs through us. Those who live in harmony with water can ride the current of the universe?the secret of Tao, reaching all the way to the sea of miracles, one story, one droplet, and one wave at a time. A miracle is a state of mind, a way of living: how we face hardship, pain, and tragedies, how we transform them into fuels for our journey and transcend them into joy and hope. This is a book about how ordinary people perform miracles every day; how we are touched, touching, all the time, across oceans and continents, across time and space, through our stories.

“Wang Ping’s The Last Communist Virgin is a beauty of a collection. She has interwoven the earthiness of China and the harshness of immigrant life . . . to create a series of short stories that are at once pitiful, heartbreaking, funny, and deeply inspiring.”—Lisa See, author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan From the restaurants of New York’s Chinatown to the retail emporium of Bergdorf Goodman, and from remote Chinese military outposts to the streets of Beijing, the tremors of China’s rapid economic and cultural growth can be felt. As the characters in these stories struggle to find their way, a young girl discovers love amidst a sea of angry Red Guards, émigrés navigate New York’s relentless rat race, an ambitious businesswoman finds the meaning of success in her rival, and an old man returns to a Beijing he doesn’t recognize on a mission to restore his son-in-law’s flagging honor. Moving smoothly across political, cultural, and personal borders and between countries, continents, and languages, these stories open a window into the rapid transformations of an ancient culture and the soul’s thirst for adventure and harmony in a quickly changing world. Wang Ping was born in Shanghai and grew up on a small island in the East China Sea. After three years spent farming in a mountain village commune, she attended Beijing University. In 1985 she left China to study in the United States, earning her PhD from New York University. She is the acclaimed author of the short story collection American Visa, the novel Foreign Devil, two poetry collections: Of Flesh & Spirit and The Magic Whip, and the cultural study Aching for Beauty: Footbinding in China. She now lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, and teaches at Macalester College. Visit her website at www.wangping.com.

The Mingjia (School of Names) is a notional grouping of philosophers first recorded as such in the Shiji. Their identifying feature was a concern with linguistic issues particularly involving the correct use of names. The origin of this concern is taken to be Lunyu XIII.3. The group, as listed in the Han Shu, comprised seven men living between the sixth and third centuries BC. Only four of these men have extant writings attributed to them (Deng Xi, Yin Wen, Hui Shi and Gongsun Long) and in three of these there are issues of authenticity. Nevertheless, it is an important group for an understanding of the development of pre-Qin philosophy as the men themselves and the concepts they explored feature prominently in the writings of the other schools. The present work contains four sections: (i) the extant writings of the four men; (ii) all significant references to them in other works up to the fourth century AD; (iii) other significant writing on the topics up to that time; and (iv) four appendices on specific issues concerning the school.

When Wang Ping was nine years old, she secretly set about binding her feet with elastic bands. Footbinding had by then been outlawed in China, women’s feet “liberated,” but at that young age she desperately wanted the tiny feet her grandmother had–deformed and malodorous as they were. By first examining the root of her own girlhood desire, Wang unleashes a fascinating inquiry into a centuries-old custom.
Aching for Beauty combines Wang’s unique perspective and remarkable literary gifts in an award-winning exploration of the history and culture surrounding footbinding. In setting out to demystify this reviled tradition, Wang probes an astonishing range of literary references, addresses the relationship between beauty and pain, and discusses the intense female bonds that footbinding fostered. Her comprehensive examination of the notions of hierarchy, femininity, and fetish bound up in the tradition places footbinding in its proper context in Chinese history and opens a window onto an intriguing culture.

In this award-winning inquiry, Wang Ping offers a fresh perspective on the centuries-old custom of footbinding.

First examining the root of her own girlhood desire for tiny feet -- years after footbinding had been outlawed in China -- Wang then probes an astonishing range of literary references, addresses the relationship between beauty and pain, and discusses the intense female bonds that footbinding fostered in endeavoring to demystify this complex phenomenon. With a comprehensive examination of the notions of hierarchy, femininity, and fetish bound up in the tradition, Aching for Beauty places footbinding in its proper context and opens a window onto an intriguing culture.