This open access book introduces the National Health Insurance (NHI) system of Taiwan with a particular emphasis on its application of digital technology to improve healthcare access and quality. The authors explicate how Taiwan integrates its strong Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry with 5G to construct an information system that facilitates medical information exchange, collects data for planning and research, refines medical claims review procedures and even assists in fighting COVID-19. Taiwan's NHI, launched in 1995, is a single-payer system funded primarily through payroll-based premiums. It covers all citizens and foreign residents with the same comprehensive benefits without the long waiting times seen in other single-payer systems. Though premium rate adjustment and various reforms were carried out in 2010, the NHI finds itself at a crossroads over its financial stability. With the advancement of technologies and an aging population, it faces challenges of expanding coverage to newly developed treatments and diagnosis methods and applying the latest innovations to deliver telemedicine and more patient-centered services. The NHI, like the national health systems of other countries, also needs to address the privacy concerns of the personal health data it collects and the issues regarding opening this data for research or commercial use. In this book, the 12 chapters cover the history, characteristics, current status, innovations and future reform plans of the NHI in the digital era. Topics explored include: Income Strategy Payment Structure Pursuing Health Equity Infrastructure of the Medical Information System Innovative Applications of the Medical Information Applications of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence Digital Health Care in Taiwan is essential reading for academic researchers and students in healthcare administration, health policy, health systems research, and health services delivery, as well as policymakers and public officials in relevant government departments. It also would appeal to academics, practitioners, and other professionals in public health, health sciences, social welfare, and health and biotechnology law.

This book brings together the fields of artificial intelligence (often known as A.I.) and inclusive education in order to speculate on the future of teaching and learning in increasingly diverse social, cultural, emotional, and linguistic educational contexts. This book addresses a pressing need to understand how future educational practices can promote equity and equality, while at the same time adopting A.I. systems that are oriented towards automation, standardisation and efficiency. The contributions in this edited volume appeal to scholars and students with an interest in forming a critical understanding of the development of A.I. for education, as well as an interest in how the processes of inclusive education might be shaped by future technologies. Grounded in theoretical engagement, establishing key challenges for future practice, and outlining the latest research, this book offers a comprehensive overview of the complex issues arising from the convergence of A.I. technologies and the necessity of developing inclusive teaching and learning. To date, there has been little in the way of direct association between research and practice in these domains: A.I. has been a predominantly technical field of research and development, and while intelligent computer systems and 'smart' software are being increasingly applied in many areas of industry, economics, social life, and education itself, a specific engagement with the agenda of inclusion appears lacking. Although such technology offers exciting possibilities for education, including software that is designed to 'personalise' learning or adapt to learner behaviours, these developments are accompanied by growing concerns about the in-built biases involved in machine learning techniques driven by 'big data'.

The book includes insights that reflect the advances in the field of Internet of Things from upcoming researchers and leading academicians across the globe. It contains the high-quality peer-reviewed papers of 'International Conference on Internet of Things for Technological Development (IoT4TD 2017)', held at Kadi Sarva Vishvavidyalaya, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India during April 1-2, 2017. The book covers variety of topics such as Internet of things, Intelligent Image Processing, Networks and Mobile Communications, Big Data and Cloud. The book is helpful for the perspective readers' from computer industry and academia to derive the advances of next generation communication and computational technology and shape them into real life applications.

The health technology has become a hot topic in academic research. It employs the theory of social networks into the different levels of the prediction and analysis and has brought new possibilities for the development of technology. This book is a descriptive summary of challenges and methods using disease identification with various case studies from diverse authors across the globe. One of the new buzzwords in healthcare sector that has become popular over years is health informatics. Healthcare professionals must deal with an increasing number of computers and computer programs in their daily work. With rapid growth of digital data, the role of analytics in healthcare has created a significant impact on healthcare professional’s life. Improvements in storage data, computational power and paral- lelization has also contributed to uptake this technology. This book is intended for use by researchers, health informatics professionals, academicians and undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in knowing more about health informatics. It aims to provide a brief overview about informatics, its history and area of practice, laws in health informatics, challenges and technologies in health informatics, applica- tion of informatics in various sectors and so on. Finally, the research avenues in health informatics along with some case studies are discussed.

In an article for Wired Magazine in 2006, Jeff Howe defined crowdsourcing as an idea for outsourcing a task that is traditionally performed by a single employee to a large group of people in the form of an open call. Since then, by modifying crowdsourcing into different forms, some of the most successful new companies on the market have used this idea to make people's lives easier and better. On the other hand, software testing has long been recognized as a time-consuming and expensive activity. Mobile application testing is especially difficult, largely due to compatibility issues: a mobile application must work on devices with different operating systems (e.g. iOS, Android), manufacturers (e.g. Huawei, Samsung) and keypad types (e.g. virtual keypad, hard keypad). One cannot be 100% sure that, just because a tested application works well on one device, it will run smoothly on all others.Crowdsourced testing is an emerging paradigm that can improve the cost-effectiveness of software testing and accelerate the process, especially for mobile applications. It entrusts testing tasks to online crowdworkers whose diverse testing devices/contexts, experience, and skill sets can significantly contribute to more reliable, cost-effective and efficient testing results. It has already been adopted by many software organizations, including Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft. This book provides an intelligent overview of crowdsourced testing research and practice. It employs machine learning, data mining, and deep learning techniques to process the data generated during the crowdsourced testing process, to facilitate the management of crowdsourced testing, and to improve the quality of crowdsourced testing.

Energy and climate change are two of the most critical issues nowadays. These two topics are also correlated to each other. Fossil fuels are the main energy supplies that have been used in modern history since the industrial revolution. The impact of CO2 emission has been a major concern for its effect on global warming and other consequences. In addition, fossil fuels are not unlimited. Due to the increasing demands for energy supplies, alternative renewable, sustainable, environmentally friendly energy resources are desirable.Solar energy is an unlimited, clean, and renewable energy source, which can be considered to replace the energy supply of fossil fuel. The silicon solar cell is one of the dominant photovoltaic technologies currently, which converting sunlight directly into electric power with around 20% efficiency. This technique was been widely used in mainstream solar energy applications for decades, though the relatively energy-demanding production process remained with challenges to be resolved.Recently, emerging photovoltaic technologies such as organometal halide hybrid perovskite solar cell has attracted tremendous attention due to their promising power conversion efficiencies (over 22%) and ease of fabrication. Their progress roadmap is unprecedented in photovoltaic history from the material development and efficiency advancement perspective. Beyond the rapid progress achieved in the last few years, it is expected that this novel technology would make an impact on the future solar cell market providing long-term stability and Pb content issues are addressed. These challenges rely on a better understanding of materials and device function principles. The scope of this book is to provide a collection on the recent investigations from fundamental process, materials development to device optimization for perovskite solar cells.

Conventional air conditioning is not a sustainable solution to the challenge of a hot or humid climate. The climate problem is compounded in so-called Urban Heat Islands, urban areas where the air can be 3-5 DegreesC hotter than its surrounding areas and where pollution levels are consequently raised. Including a colour section with thermal images and maps, this book explores the complex relationships between climate, buildings and plants, especially in urban heat islands. These relationships bear very critically on a range of environmental issues and point to some corresponding solutions. One chapter highlights some of the extensive research work carried out in Singapore, especially investigating the thermal benefits of greenery in buildings in the urban setting. Though several books have been written on urban heat islands, this work uniquely examines the linkages between climate, buildings and plants. It forms a reference for researchers and professionals such as architects, architectural science, landscape architects, building services engineers, urban planners and urban climatologists. It may also be useful for final year undergraduates or graduate students in these disciplines.

Understanding how the brain works and developing effective therapeutics are important in advancing neuroscience and improving clinical patient care. Neurophotonics and Brain Mapping covers state-of-the-art research and development in optical technologies and applications for brain mapping and therapeutics. It provides a comprehensive overview of various methods developed using light, both microscopic and macroscopic techniques. Recent developments in minimally-invasive endoscopic imaging of deep brain structure and function, as well as light-based therapy are also reviewed.

In an article for Wired Magazine in 2006, Jeff Howe defined crowdsourcing as an idea for outsourcing a task that is traditionally performed by a single employee to a large group of people in the form of an open call. Since then, by modifying crowdsourcing into different forms, some of the most successful new companies on the market have used this idea to make people’s lives easier and better. On the other hand, software testing has long been recognized as a time-consuming and expensive activity. Mobile application testing is especially difficult, largely due to compatibility issues: a mobile application must work on devices with different operating systems (e.g. iOS, Android), manufacturers (e.g. Huawei, Samsung) and keypad types (e.g. virtual keypad, hard keypad). One cannot be 100% sure that, just because a tested application works well on one device, it will run smoothly on all others.Crowdsourced testing is an emerging paradigm that can improve the cost-effectiveness of software testing and accelerate the process, especially for mobile applications. It entrusts testing tasks to online crowdworkers whose diverse testing devices/contexts, experience, and skill sets can significantly contribute to more reliable, cost-effective and efficient testing results. It has already been adopted by many software organizations, including Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft. This book provides an intelligent overview of crowdsourced testing research and practice. It employs machine learning, data mining, and deep learning techniques to process the data generated during the crowdsourced testing process, to facilitate the management of crowdsourced testing, and to improve the quality of crowdsourced testing.

Conventional air conditioning is not a sustainable solution to the challenge of a hot or humid climate. The climate problem is compounded in so-called Urban Heat Islands, urban areas where the air can be 3-5 DegreesC hotter than its surrounding areas and where pollution levels are consequently raised. Including a colour section with thermal images and maps, this book explores the complex relationships between climate, buildings and plants, especially in urban heat islands. These relationships bear very critically on a range of environmental issues and point to some corresponding solutions. One chapter highlights some of the extensive research work carried out in Singapore, especially investigating the thermal benefits of greenery in buildings in the urban setting. Though several books have been written on urban heat islands, this work uniquely examines the linkages between climate, buildings and plants. It forms a reference for researchers and professionals such as architects, architectural science, landscape architects, building services engineers, urban planners and urban climatologists. It may also be useful for final year undergraduates or graduate students in these disciplines.

This book introduces readers to oracle bone inscriptions (OBI), the oldest known form of Chinese writing. It presents 120 rubbings made from unearthed animal bones and turtle shells that the Shang royal court employed to record royal divinations 3500 years ago, covering topics ranging from ancestor worship, rituals, and astronomy to agriculture, war, and hunting. Each rubbing is accompanied by a graph-to-graph transcription, a translation and a detailed annotation. The book is intended for both general readers and scholars who are interested in ancient civilizations and Early China in particular, acquainting them not only with OBI graphs and the development of the Chinese writing system, but also the history of the Shang Dynasty. The didactic and tutorial format makes this book ideal for teaching and for self-learning. Sumerian, Egyptian, Chinese OBI and Mayan constitute the four pristine writing systems. Of these, only Chinese writing has remained logographic and survived to the present day. The study of OBI not only plays a pivotal role in connecting archaeology to history, but is also of great importance to the comparative study of the origin of writing and civilization. Though there are numerous books on Mayan and Egyptian hieroglyphs, there are very few on OBI; this book fills that gap.

In the contemporary world, unprecedented global events are challenging our ability to protect and enhance cultural heritage for future generations. Relevance and Application of Heritage in Contemporary Society examines innovative and flexible approaches to cultural heritage protection. Bringing together cultural heritage scholars and activists from across the world, the volume showcases a spectrum of exciting new approaches to heritage protection, community involvement, and strategic utilization of expertise. The contributions deal with a range of highly topical issues, including armed conflict and non-state actors, as well as broad questions of public heritage, museum roles in society, heritage tourism, disputed ownership, and indigenous and local approaches. In so doing, the volume builds upon, and introduces readers to, a new cultural heritage declaration codified during a 2016 workshop at the Royal Ontario Museum, Canada. Offering a clarion call for an enduring spirit of innovation, collaboration, education, and outreach, Relevance and Application of Heritage in Contemporary Society will be important reading for scholars, students, cultural heritage managers, and local community stakeholders.

From an award-winning team of authors, editors, and translators comes a groundbreaking short story collection that explores the expanse of Chinese science fiction and fantasy. In The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories, you can dine at a restaurant at the end of the universe, cultivate to immortality in the high mountains, watch roses perform Shakespeare, or arrive at the island of the gods on the backs of giant fish to ensure that the world can bloom. Written, edited, and translated by a female and nonbinary team, these stories have never before been published in English and represent both the richly complicated past and the vivid future of Chinese science fiction and fantasy. Time travel to a winter's day on the West Lake, explore the very boundaries of death itself, and meet old gods and new heroes in this stunning new collection.

This book features high-quality, peer-reviewed papers from the International Conference on Recent Advancement in Computer, Communication and Computational Sciences (RACCCS 2019), held at Aryabhatta College of Engineering & Research Center, Ajmer, India, on August 16-17, 2019. Presenting the latest developments and technical solutions in computational sciences, it covers a variety of topics, such as intelligent hardware and software design, advanced communications, intelligent computing technologies, advanced software engineering, the web and informatics, and intelligent image processing. As such it helps those in the computer industry and academia to use the advances in next-generation communication and computational technology to shape real-world applications.

This book includes high-quality, peer-reviewed papers from the International Conference on Recent Advancement in Computer, Communication and Computational Sciences (RACCCS-2018), held at Aryabhatta College of Engineering & Research Center, Ajmer, India on August 10-11, 2018, presenting the latest developments and technical solutions in computational sciences. Networking and communication are the backbone of data science, data- and knowledge engineering, which have a wide scope for implementation in engineering sciences. This book offers insights that reflect the advances in these fields from upcoming researchers and leading academicians across the globe. Covering a variety of topics, such as intelligent hardware and software design, advanced communications, intelligent computing technologies, advanced software engineering, the web and informatics, and intelligent image processing, it helps those in the computer industry and academia use the advances in next-generation communication and computational technology to shape real-world applications.

This thesis reports on essential advances in the design, synthesis and biomedical applications of multifunctional Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles (MSNs). It provides several examples of multifunctional MSN-based drug delivery nanosystems and demonstrates successful synergistic cancer therapies combining MSNs and high-intensity focused ultrasound. The book will especially be of interest to researchers and graduate students in the fields of biomaterials, biology, chemistry, medicine and the life sciences who are working to develop new methods and technologies to combat cancer.

In the contemporary world, unprecedented global events are challenging our ability to protect and enhance cultural heritage for future generations. Relevance and Application of Heritage in Contemporary Society examines innovative and flexible approaches to cultural heritage protection. Bringing together cultural heritage scholars and activists from across the world, the volume showcases a spectrum of exciting new approaches to heritage protection, community involvement, and strategic utilization of expertise. The contributions deal with a range of highly topical issues, including armed conflict and non-state actors, as well as broad questions of public heritage, museum roles in society, heritage tourism, disputed ownership, and indigenous and local approaches. In so doing, the volume builds upon, and introduces readers to, a new cultural heritage declaration codified during a 2016 workshop at the Royal Ontario Museum, Canada. Offering a clarion call for an enduring spirit of innovation, collaboration, education, and outreach, Relevance and Application of Heritage in Contemporary Society will be important reading for scholars, students, cultural heritage managers, and local community stakeholders.

This book addresses the emerging paradigm of data-driven engineering design. In the big-data era, data is becoming a strategic asset for global manufacturers. This book shows how the power of data can be leveraged to drive the engineering design process, in particular, the early-stage design. Based on novel combinations of standing design methodology and the emerging data science, the book presents a collection of theoretically sound and practically viable design frameworks, which are intended to address a variety of critical design activities including conceptual design, complexity management, smart customization, smart product design, product service integration, and so forth. In addition, it includes a number of detailed case studies to showcase the application of data-driven engineering design. The book concludes with a set of promising research questions that warrant further investigation. Given its scope, the book will appeal to a broad readership, including postgraduate students, researchers, lecturers, and practitioners in the field of engineering design.

This book focuses on proposing a tsunami early warning system using data assimilation of offshore data. First, Green's Function-based Tsunami Data Assimilation (GFTDA) is proposed to reduce the computation time for assimilation. It can forecast the waveform at Points of Interest (PoIs) by superposing Green's functions between observational stations and PoIs. GFTDA achieves an equivalently high accuracy of tsunami forecasting to the previous approaches, while saving sufficient time to achieve an early warning. Second, a modified tsunami data assimilation method is explored for regions with a sparse observation network. The method uses interpolated waveforms at virtual stations to construct the complete wavefront for tsunami propagation. Its application to the 2009 Dusky Sound, New Zealand earthquake, and the 2015 Illapel earthquake revealed that adopting virtual stations greatly improved the tsunami forecasting accuracy for regions without a dense observation network. Finally, a real-time tsunami detection algorithm using Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD) is presented. The tsunami signals of the offshore bottom pressure gauge can be automatically separated from the tidal components, seismic waves, and background noise. The algorithm could detect tsunami arrival with a short detection delay and accurately characterize the tsunami amplitude. Furthermore, the tsunami data assimilation approach is combined with the real-time tsunami detection algorithm, which is applied to the tsunami of the 2016 Fukushima earthquake. The proposed tsunami data assimilation approach can be put into practice with the help of the real-time tsunami detection algorithm.

This book addresses the emerging paradigm of data-driven engineering design. In the big-data era, data is becoming a strategic asset for global manufacturers. This book shows how the power of data can be leveraged to drive the engineering design process, in particular, the early-stage design. Based on novel combinations of standing design methodology and the emerging data science, the book presents a collection of theoretically sound and practically viable design frameworks, which are intended to address a variety of critical design activities including conceptual design, complexity management, smart customization, smart product design, product service integration, and so forth. In addition, it includes a number of detailed case studies to showcase the application of data-driven engineering design. The book concludes with a set of promising research questions that warrant further investigation. Given its scope, the book will appeal to a broad readership, including postgraduate students, researchers, lecturers, and practitioners in the field of engineering design.

This open access book introduces the National Health Insurance (NHI) system of Taiwan with a particular emphasis on its application of digital technology to improve healthcare access and quality. The authors explicate how Taiwan integrates its strong Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry with 5G to construct an information system that facilitates medical information exchange, collects data for planning and research, refines medical claims review procedures and even assists in fighting COVID-19. Taiwan's NHI, launched in 1995, is a single-payer system funded primarily through payroll-based premiums. It covers all citizens and foreign residents with the same comprehensive benefits without the long waiting times seen in other single-payer systems. Though premium rate adjustment and various reforms were carried out in 2010, the NHI finds itself at a crossroads over its financial stability. With the advancement of technologies and an aging population, it faces challenges of expanding coverage to newly developed treatments and diagnosis methods and applying the latest innovations to deliver telemedicine and more patient-centered services. The NHI, like the national health systems of other countries, also needs to address the privacy concerns of the personal health data it collects and the issues regarding opening this data for research or commercial use. In this book, the 12 chapters cover the history, characteristics, current status, innovations and future reform plans of the NHI in the digital era. Topics explored include: Income Strategy Payment Structure Pursuing Health Equity Infrastructure of the Medical Information System Innovative Applications of the Medical Information Applications of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence Digital Health Care in Taiwan is essential reading for academic researchers and students in healthcare administration, health policy, health systems research, and health services delivery, as well as policymakers and public officials in relevant government departments. It also would appeal to academics, practitioners, and other professionals in public health, health sciences, social welfare, and health and biotechnology law.

Taking a unique materials science approach, this text introduces students to the basic concepts and applications of materials and biomedical engineering and prepares them for the challenges of the new interdisciplinary field of biomaterials science. Split into three sections - Basic Biology Principles, Biological Materials, and Bioinspired Materials and Biomimetics - it presents biological materials along with the structural and functional classification of biopolymers, bioelastomers, foams, and ceramic composites. More traditional biomimetic designs such as Velcro are then discussed in conjunction with new developments that mimic the structure of biological materials at the molecular level, mixing nanoscale with biomolecular designs. Bioinspired design of materials and structures is also covered. Focused presentations of biomaterials are presented throughout the text in succinct boxes, emphasising biomedical applications, whilst the basic principles of biology are explained, so no prior knowledge is required. The topics are supported by approximately 500 illustrations, solved problems, and end-of-chapter exercises.

This book features high-quality, peer-reviewed papers from the Fourth International Conference on Recent Advancements in Computer, Communication, and Computational Sciences (RACCCS 2021), held at Aryabhatta College of Engineering and Research Center, Ajmer, India, on August 20-21, 2021. Presenting the latest developments and technical solutions in computational sciences, it covers a variety of topics, such as intelligent hardware and software design, advanced communications, intelligent computing technologies, advanced software engineering, the web and informatics, and intelligent image processing. As such, it helps those in the computer industry and academia to use the advances in next-generation communication and computational technology to shape real-world applications.

Materials for Additive Manufacturing covers the materials utilized in the additive manufacturing field, including polymers, metals, alloys and ceramic materials. A conceptual overview of the preparation and characterization of the materials and their processing is given, beginning with theoretical aspects that help readers better understand fundamental concepts. Emerging applications in medicine, aerospace, automotive, artwork and rapid manufacturing are also discussed. This book provides a comprehensive overview of materials, along with rapid prototyping technologies.

Hydrogels Based on Natural Polymers presents the latest research on natural polymer-based hydrogels, covering fundamentals, preparation methods, synthetic pathways, advanced properties, major application areas, and novel characterization techniques. The advantages and disadvantages of each natural polymer-based hydrogel are also discussed, enabling preparation tactics for specific properties and applications. Sections cover fundamentals, development, characteristics, structures and properties. Additional chapters cover presentation methods and properties based on natural polymers, including physical and chemical properties, stimuli-responsive properties, self-healing properties, and biological properties. The final section presents major applications areas, including the biomedical field, agriculture, water treatments, and the food industry. This is a highly valuable resource for academic researchers, scientists and advanced students working with hydrogels and natural polymers, as well as across the fields of polymer science, polymer chemistry, plastics engineering, biopolymers and biomaterials. The detailed information will also be of great interest to scientists and R&D professionals, product designers, technicians and engineers across industries.