Pragmatic competence plays a key role in intercultural communication, particularly for students studying in a target community. This book investigates the effect of study abroad on second language learners' productive and receptive pragmatic competences, as well as their cognitive processes during speech act production. It employs a variety of research instruments, both quantitative and qualitative, to explore learners' pragmatic development over one year. The inclusion of a control group is a methodological strength of the longitudinal study, many such studies often not including a control group. In addition, the study longitudinally examines learners' cognitive processes during study abroad with innovative and insightful analyses. The book makes an important contribution to second language pragmatics with regard to developmental changes in both speech act production and perception during such processes.

This book tells the story of the Mount Songshan area architecture in simple terms, while also providing detailed information on the history of Buddhist architecture. The history of the Mount Songshan area can be traced back to the Xia Dynasty in the 23rd century B.C. The heritage architecture in this area has seen the rise and fall of various powers - including the Han Dynasty, Northern Wei Dynasty, Tang and Song Empires, Jin Dynasty, Yuan Dynasty, and the Ming and Qing Empires - and reflects the character of each historical period. Over the past 2,000 years, history has been continuously woven into the architecture. The Mount Songshan area is, therefore, a perfect representation of the perpetual Chinese civilization, and the most magnificent museum of ancient Chinese architecture. Most importantly, these various types of architecture offer valuable insights into the architectural design and technologies of each historical period. The products of ingenuity and innovation, they are marvellous creations that ancient Chinese people took great pride in.

This book presents a systematic study of an emerging field in the development of multi-agent systems. In a wide spectrum of applications, it is now common to see that multiple agents work cooperatively to accomplish a complex task. The book assists the implementation of such applications by promoting the ability of multi-agent systems to track - using local communication only - the mean value of signals of interest, even when these change rapidly with time and when no individual agent has direct access to the average signal across the whole team; for example, when a better estimation/control performance of multi-robot systems has to be guaranteed, it is desirable for each robot to compute or track the averaged changing measurements of all the robots at any time by communicating with only local neighboring robots. The book covers three factors in successful distributed average tracking: algorithm design via nonsmooth and extended PI control; distributed average tracking for double-integrator, general-linear, Euler-Lagrange, and input-saturated dynamics; and applications in dynamic region-following formation control and distributed convex optimization. The book presents both the theory and applications in a general but self-contained manner, making it easy to follow for newcomers to the topic. The content presented fosters research advances in distributed average tracking and inspires future research directions in the field in academia and industry.

This book tells the story of the Mount Songshan area architecture in simple terms, while also providing detailed information on the history of Buddhist architecture. The history of the Mount Songshan area can be traced back to the Xia Dynasty in the 23rd century B.C. The heritage architecture in this area has seen the rise and fall of various powers - including the Han Dynasty, Northern Wei Dynasty, Tang and Song Empires, Jin Dynasty, Yuan Dynasty, and the Ming and Qing Empires - and reflects the character of each historical period. Over the past 2,000 years, history has been continuously woven into the architecture. The Mount Songshan area is, therefore, a perfect representation of the perpetual Chinese civilization, and the most magnificent museum of ancient Chinese architecture. Most importantly, these various types of architecture offer valuable insights into the architectural design and technologies of each historical period. The products of ingenuity and innovation, they are marvellous creations that ancient Chinese people took great pride in.

Multi-agent systems have numerous civilian, homeland security, and military applications; however, for all these applications, communication bandwidth, sensing range, power constraints, and stealth requirements preclude centralized command and control. The alternative is distributed coordination, which is more promising in terms of scalability, robustness, and flexibility. Distributed Coordination of Multi-agent Networks introduces problems, models, and issues such as collective periodic motion coordination, collective tracking with a dynamic leader, and containment control with multiple leaders, and explores ideas for their solution. Solving these problems extends the existing application domains of multi-agent networks; for example, collective periodic motion coordination is appropriate for applications involving repetitive movements, collective tracking guarantees tracking of a dynamic leader by multiple followers in the presence of reduced interaction and partial measurements, and containment control enables maneuvering of multiple followers by multiple leaders. The authors models for distributed coordination arise from physical constraints and the complex environments in which multi-agent systems operate; they include Lagrangian models more realistic for mechanical-systems modeling than point models and fractional-order systems which better represent the consequences of environmental complexity. Other issues addressed in the text include the time delays inherent in networked systems, optimality concerns associated with the deisgn of energy-efficent algorithms, and the use of sampled-data settings in systems with intermittent neightbor-neighbor contact. Researchers, graduate students, and engineers interested in the field of multi-agent systems will find this monograph useful in introducing them to presently emerging research directions and problems in distributed coordination of multi-agent networks. The Communications and Control Engineering series reports major technological advances which have potential for great impact in the fields of communication and control. It reflects research in industrial and academic institutions around the world so that the readership can exploit new possibilities as they become available.

Multi-agent systems have numerous civilian, homeland security, and military applications; however, for all these applications, communication bandwidth, sensing range, power constraints, and stealth requirements preclude centralized command and control. The alternative is distributed coordination, which is more promising in terms of scalability, robustness, and flexibility. Distributed Coordination of Multi-agent Networks introduces problems, models, and issues such as collective periodic motion coordination, collective tracking with a dynamic leader, and containment control with multiple leaders, and explores ideas for their solution. Solving these problems extends the existing application domains of multi-agent networks; for example, collective periodic motion coordination is appropriate for applications involving repetitive movements, collective tracking guarantees tracking of a dynamic leader by multiple followers in the presence of reduced interaction and partial measurements, and containment control enables maneuvering of multiple followers by multiple leaders. The authors models for distributed coordination arise from physical constraints and the complex environments in which multi-agent systems operate; they include Lagrangian models more realistic for mechanical-systems modeling than point models and fractional-order systems which better represent the consequences of environmental complexity. Other issues addressed in the text include the time delays inherent in networked systems, optimality concerns associated with the deisgn of energy-efficent algorithms, and the use of sampled-data settings in systems with intermittent neightbor-neighbor contact. Researchers, graduate students, and engineers interested in the field of multi-agent systems will find this monograph useful in introducing them to presently emerging research directions and problems in distributed coordination of multi-agent networks. The Communications and Control Engineering series reports major technological advances which have potential for great impact in the fields of communication and control. It reflects research in industrial and academic institutions around the world so that the readership can exploit new possibilities as they become available.

Assuming only neighbor-neighbor interaction among vehicles, this monograph develops distributed consensus strategies that ensure that the information states of all vehicles in a network converge to a common value. Readers learn to deal with groups of autonomous vehicles in aerial, terrestrial, and submarine environments. Plus, they get the tools needed to overcome impaired communication by using constantly updated neighbor-neighbor interchange.

Assuming only neighbor-neighbor interaction among vehicles, this monograph develops distributed consensus strategies that ensure that the information states of all vehicles in a network converge to a common value. Readers learn to deal with groups of autonomous vehicles in aerial, terrestrial, and submarine environments. Plus, they get the tools needed to overcome impaired communication by using constantly updated neighbor-neighbor interchange.

This book presents a systematic study of an emerging field in the development of multi-agent systems. In a wide spectrum of applications, it is now common to see that multiple agents work cooperatively to accomplish a complex task. The book assists the implementation of such applications by promoting the ability of multi-agent systems to track - using local communication only - the mean value of signals of interest, even when these change rapidly with time and when no individual agent has direct access to the average signal across the whole team; for example, when a better estimation/control performance of multi-robot systems has to be guaranteed, it is desirable for each robot to compute or track the averaged changing measurements of all the robots at any time by communicating with only local neighboring robots. The book covers three factors in successful distributed average tracking: algorithm design via nonsmooth and extended PI control; distributed average tracking for double-integrator, general-linear, Euler-Lagrange, and input-saturated dynamics; and applications in dynamic region-following formation control and distributed convex optimization. The book presents both the theory and applications in a general but self-contained manner, making it easy to follow for newcomers to the topic. The content presented fosters research advances in distributed average tracking and inspires future research directions in the field in academia and industry.

Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) use networked multiple autonomous agents to accomplish complex tasks in areas such as space-based applications, smart grids, and machine learning. The overall system goal is achieved using local interactions among the agents. The last two decades have witnessed rapid development of MASs in automatic control.Tracing the roots of such systems back more than 50 years, this monograph provides the reader with an in-depth and comprehensive survey of the research in Multi-Agent Systems. The focus is on the research conducted in the two decades. It introduces the basic concepts and definitions to the reader before going on to describe how MAS has been used in most forms of systems. The monograph offers a concise reference for understanding the use of MASs and the contemporary research issues for further investigation. In addition to covering the basic theory, the authors also cover applications in multi-robot systems, sensor networks, smart grid, machine learning, social networks, and many-core microprocessors. On the Control of Multi-Agent Systems provides researchers and students in systems and control a modern, comprehensive survey of one of the most important current day topics.

The World Solar Challenge is a bi-annual competition that allows universities from around the world to design and build a fully solar-powered vehicle that can travel 3000km across Australia at an average speed of over 60 km/h. In order to monitor the solar car remotely, a data acquisition system with wireless transmission capabilities has to be developed. Various types of sensors are chosen to monitor information such as voltages, currents, temperatures and vehicle speed. All these data will be transferred wirelessly through a radio modem and displayed on a laptop in an escort vehicle following the Solar Car.

This Element introduces the areas that second language (L2) pragmatics research has investigated. It begins with a theme-based review of the field with respect to L2 pragmatics learning, teaching, and assessing. The section on pragmatics learning examines studies on learners' pragmatic production and perception, and analyzes research modalities in this field. The section on pragmatics teaching examines the effects of and different approaches to L2 pragmatics instruction; and the section on pragmatics assessing examines the aspects involved in testing learners' pragmatic competence, and studies on issues related to validity and rating in pragmatics assessing. The Element then analyzes studies exploring learners' cognitive processes during pragmatic performance, and case studies are provided to showcase two ongoing projects, one investigating advanced learners' self-praise on social media and the other investigating lingua franca pragmatics among children. Finally, the Element offers some topics and questions for future research in L2 pragmatics.

As big data becomes increasingly pervasive and cloud computing utilization becomes the norm, the security and privacy of our systems and data becomes more critical with emerging security and privacy threats and challenges. This book presents a comprehensive view on how to advance security and privacy in big data, cloud computing, and their applications. Topics include cryptographic tools, SDN security, big data security in IoT, privacy preserving in big data, security architecture based on cyber kill chain, privacy-aware digital forensics, trustworthy computing, privacy verification based on machine learning, and chaos-based communication systems. This book is an essential reading for networking, computing, and communications professionals, researchers, students and engineers, working with big data and cloud computing.