Against a backcloth of philosophical debates on science and technology, and in particular the viewpoints of Karl Marx, this three-volume set proposes to reconsider science and technology and explores how the philosophy of science and technology responds to scientific and technological evolutions and an ever-changing world. The first volume analyses Marx's reconsideration of science and technology in five parts: its positioning, its historical practice, alienation of science and technology, and its relationship with productivity and human liberty. In the second volume, viewpoints and problems of scientism and anti-scientism are discussed, covering topics such as instrumental reason, scientific optimism and pessimism, irrationalism and the deconstruction of scientism. The final volume discusses complementary value choices, the loss and awakening of scientific culture and reveals a vison for a liberal and open world of science and technology. The volumes will appeal to scholars and students interested in Marxist philosophy, the philosophy of science and technology and topics related to scientific culture.

Review of philosophical classics, particularly the works of Marx Logical and reasoned analysis, in combination with reality Reflections on the problems brought about by science and technology

This authoritative and comprehensive collection contains the most important published papers and articles on the economics of crime. It presents a variety of different perspectives and will be an essential reference source for both researchers and policymakers.The book examines the theory and methodology of the economics of law enforcement and crime prevention as they affect both public authorities and private individuals. It explores the economics of organized crime from the point of view of the criminal, but also considers the costs to the community of criminal acts and their effects. It studies the causes of crime and the costs and effectiveness of deterrence and punishment. The editors have written a new authoritative introduction which gives a wide-ranging overview of the topics covered.

Resource allocation is an important issue in wireless communication networks. In recent decades, cognitive radio-based networks have garnered increased attention and have been well studied to overcome the problem of spectrum scarcity in future wireless communications systems. Many new challenges in resource allocation appear in cognitive radio-based networks. This book focuses on effective resource allocation solutions in several important cognitive radio-based networks, including opportunistic spectrum access networks, cooperative sensing networks, cellular networks, high-speed vehicle networks, and smart grids. Cognitive radio networks are composed of cognitive, spectrum-agile devices capable of changing their configuration on the fly based on the spectral environment. This capability makes it possible to design flexible and dynamic spectrum access strategies with the purpose of opportunistically reusing portions of the spectrum temporarily vacated by licensed primary users. Different cognitive radio-based networks focus on different network resources, such as transmission slots, sensing nodes, transmission power, white space, and sensing channels. This book introduces several innovative resource allocation schemes for different cognitive radio-based networks according to their network characteristics: Opportunistic spectrum access networks - Introduces a probabilistic slot allocation scheme to effectively allocate the transmission slots to secondary users to maximize throughput Cooperative sensing networks - Introduces a new adaptive collaboration sensing scheme in which the resources of secondary users are effectively utilized to sense the channels for efficient acquisition of spectrum opportunities Cellular networks - Introduces a framework of cognitive radio-assisted cooperation for downlink transmissions to allocate transmission modes, relay stations, and transmission power/sub-channels to secondary users to maximize throughput High-speed vehicle networks - Introduces schemes to maximize the utilized TV white space through effective allocation of white space resources to secondary users Smart grids - Introduces effective sensing channel allocation strategies for acquiring enough available spectrum channels for communications between utility and electricity consumers

Energy Efficient Buildings A complete and authoritative discussion of the fundamentals of designing and engineering energy efficient buildings In Energy Efficient Buildings: Fundamentals of Building Science and Thermal Systems, distinguished engineer and architect Dr. John Zhai delivers a comprehensive exploration of the design and engineering fundamentals of energy efficient buildings. The book introduces the fundamental knowledge, calculations, analyses, and principles used by designers of energy efficient buildings and addresses all essential elements of the discipline. An essential guide for students studying civil, architectural, mechanical, and electrical engineering with a focus on energy, building systems, and building science, the book provides practical in-class materials, examples, and actual design practices, as well as end-of-chapter questions (with solutions) and sample group projects. Readers will find: A thorough introduction to the cross-disciplinary approach to the design of energy efficient buildings Comprehensive explorations of all critical elements of energy efficient building design, including standards and codes, psychometrics, microclimate, thermal comfort, indoor air quality, HVAC systems, and more In-depth discussions of the foundational knowledge, calculations, analysis, and principles needed to design energy efficient buildings Practical in-class examples and end-of-chapter questions with solutions for students, and design guidance and sample group projects for use in course lectures and actual design practices. Perfect for graduate and advanced undergraduate students studying building environmental systems, building systems in construction, and mechanical and electrical systems in construction, Energy Efficient Buildings: Fundamentals of Building Science and Thermal Systems will also earn a place in the libraries of practicing civil, architectural, and mechanical engineers.

Wie gestaltet sich Interkulturelle Kommunikation als wissenschaftliche Disziplin in China und Deutschland im Vergleich? Inwieweit gibt es Unterschiede und Ähnlichkeiten im Kulturverständnis? Inwieweit wird die Entwicklung interkultureller Kompetenz als disziplinübergreifende Herausforderung in Studium und Beruf verfolgt und wo gibt es Übereinstimmungen oder Besonderheiten im Verständnis, dem Design und den Formen der Vermittlung? Die Beitragenden zu diesem Sammelband sind seit Jahren in Lehre und Forschung mit Fragen interkultureller Kommunikation beschäftigt, als Vertreterinnen und Vertreter der Disziplin oder als perspektivisch Betroffene in anderen Wissenschaftsbereichen, in denen Interkulturalität zur zentralen Lebens- und Arbeitsperspektive/Praxis gehört.

Several excellent books have been published that address one or more aspects of the diverse field of industrial mycology, but none of them cover the entire process of fungal bioactive metabolites discovery. Until now. The Handbook of Industrial Mycology provides, in one volume, an overview of recent developments in industrial mycology with emphasis on the discovery of bioactive metabolites and, most importantly, their underlying biology and genetics. Two additional features distinguish this book from other books in the field: 1) most chapters are prepared using experimental data to illustrate theories and 2) the authors provide methodologies and experimental protocols in their chapters. Presenting a comprehensive overview of recent advances, the book provides a framework of basic methods, tools, and organizational principles for channeling fungal germplasm into the academic, pharmaceutical, and enzyme discovery laboratories. It covers the complex range of processes involved in the discovery, characterization, and profiling of bioactive fungal metabolites. The book includes examples of several recently marketed fungal metabolites and explores the impact of fungi on applications in the pharmaceutical, food and beverage, agricultural, and agrochemical industries.

The inverse design approach is new to the built environment research and design community, though it has been used in other industries including automobile and airplane design. This book, from some of the pioneers of inverse design applications in the built environment, introduces the basic principles of inverse design and the specific techniques that can be applied to built environment systems. The authors' inverse design concept uses the desired enclosed environment as the design objective and inversely determines the systems required to achieve the objective. The book discusses a number of backward and forward methods for inverse design. Backward methods, such as the quasi-reversibility method, the pseudo-reversibility method, and the regularized inverse matrix method, can be used to identify contaminant sources in an enclosed environment. However, these methods cannot be used to inversely design a desired indoor environment. Forward methods, such as the computational-fluid-dynamics (CFD)-based genetic algorithm (GA) method, the CFD-based adjoint method, the CFD-based artificial neural network (ANN) method, and the CFD-based proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) method, show the promise in the inverse design of airflow and heat transfer in an enclosed environment. The book describes the fundamentals of the methods for beginners, provides exciting design examples for the reader to duplicate, discusses the pros and cons of each design method and points out the knowledge gaps for further development.

The book provides an overview of III-nitride-material-based light-emitting diode (LED) technology, from the basic material physics to the latest advances in the field, such as homoepitaxy and heteroepitaxy of the materials on different substrates. It also includes the latest advances in the field, such as approaches to improve quantum efficiency and reliability as well as novel structured LEDs. It explores the concept of material growth, chip structure, packaging, reliability and application of LEDs. With spectra coverage from ultraviolet (UV) to entire visible light wavelength, the III-nitride-material-based LEDs have a broad application potential, and are not just limited to illumination. These novel applications, such as health & medical, visible light communications, fishery and horticulture, are also discussed in the book.

This book presents a series of new topologies and modulation schemes for soft-switching in isolated DC-DC converters. Providing detailed analyses and design procedures for converters used in a broad range of applications, it offers a wealth of engineering insights for researchers and students in the field of power electronics, as well as stimulating new ideas for future research.

The book provides an overview of III-nitride-material-based light-emitting diode (LED) technology, from the basic material physics to the latest advances in the field, such as homoepitaxy and heteroepitaxy of the materials on different substrates. It also includes the latest advances in the field, such as approaches to improve quantum efficiency and reliability as well as novel structured LEDs. It explores the concept of material growth, chip structure, packaging, reliability and application of LEDs. With spectra coverage from ultraviolet (UV) to entire visible light wavelength, the III-nitride-material-based LEDs have a broad application potential, and are not just limited to illumination. These novel applications, such as health & medical, visible light communications, fishery and horticulture, are also discussed in the book.

This book introduces readers to the fundamentals of simulating and analyzing built and natural environments using the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method. CFD offers a powerful tool for dealing with various scientific and engineering problems and is widely used in diverse industries. This book focuses on the most important aspects of applying CFD to the study of urban, buildings, and indoor and outdoor environments. Following the logical procedure used to prepare a CFD simulation, the book covers e.g. the governing equations, boundary conditions, numerical methods, modeling of different fluid flows, and various turbulence models. Furthermore, it demonstrates how CFD can be applied to solve a range of engineering problems, providing detailed hands-on exercises on air and water flow, heat transfer, and pollution dispersion problems that typically arise in the study of buildings and environments. The book also includes practical guidance on analyzing and reporting CFD results, as well as writing CFD reports/papers.

This book addresses how China could avoid the middle-income trap. Professor Li Yining proposed the framework and wrote the first article. Under Li's guidance, other articles were written by researchers at the Guanghua School of Management, Peking University. It is well known that China's reform has been highly successful, but there are still many unsolved institutional problems. The book's authors suggest that the middle-income trap is composed of three traps. Firstly, there is the "development system trap". Secondly, the "social crisis trap " and finally, the "technology trap". In order to avoid these traps, it is important for China to intensify its economic reform, to lessen the gap between the rich and poor, and to enhance innovations in technology as well as the capital market.This book uses both theoretical and case studies to discuss agricultural modernization, new urbanization, the urban-rural gap, income growth, community management, pastoral areas of medicine and the newly-industrializing economy, etc.

This book assesses various intelligent-city evaluation systems around the globe, and subsequently combines that assessment with local-government and enterprise practices to create an evaluation index system for quantifying the Intelligent City concept. In addition, the book provides the results of the CityIQ indicator ranking of intelligent cities in China and worldwide, a system that focuses on three of the most crucial aspects of urban development: the development environment, future trends, and construction and operation. After data sorting, calculation and dimensionless treatment, a score system ranging from 0 to 100 is created for ranking and analyzing cities. Providing unique strategies for promoting an intelligent city evaluation system, the book offers a valuable reference guide for intelligent-city decision-makers, as well as leaders in public urban economy, social welfare and environmental authorities.

This book assesses various intelligent-city evaluation systems around the globe, and subsequently combines that assessment with local-government and enterprise practices to create an evaluation index system for quantifying the Intelligent City concept. In addition, the book provides the results of the CityIQ indicator ranking of intelligent cities in China and worldwide, a system that focuses on three of the most crucial aspects of urban development: the development environment, future trends, and construction and operation. After data sorting, calculation and dimensionless treatment, a score system ranging from 0 to 100 is created for ranking and analyzing cities. Providing unique strategies for promoting an intelligent city evaluation system, the book offers a valuable reference guide for intelligent-city decision-makers, as well as leaders in public urban economy, social welfare and environmental authorities.

Thurston maps are topological generalizations of postcritically-finite rational maps. This book provides a comprehensive study of ergodic theory of expanding Thurston maps, focusing on the measure of maximal entropy, as well as a more general class of invariant measures, called equilibrium states, and certain weak expansion properties of such maps. In particular, we present equidistribution results for iterated preimages and periodic points with respect to the unique measure of maximal entropy by investigating the number and locations of fixed points. We then use the thermodynamical formalism to establish the existence, uniqueness, and various other properties of the equilibrium state for a Holder continuous potential on the sphere equipped with a visual metric. After studying some weak expansion properties of such maps, we obtain certain large deviation principles for iterated preimages and periodic points under an additional assumption on the critical orbits of the maps. This enables us to obtain general equidistribution results for such points with respect to the equilibrium states under the same assumption.

The motion of the train depends on the traction of linear motors in the vehicle. This book describes a number of essential technologies that can ensure the safe operation of Maglev trains, such as suspension and orientation technologies, network control and diagnosis technologies. This book is intended for researchers, scientists, engineers and graduate students involved in the rail transit industry, train control and diagnosis, and Maglev technology.

This book discusses how to combine type-2 fuzzy sets and graphical models to solve a range of real-world pattern recognition problems such as speech recognition, handwritten Chinese character recognition, topic modeling as well as human action recognition. It covers these recent developments while also providing a comprehensive introduction to the fields of type-2 fuzzy sets and graphical models. Though primarily intended for graduate students, researchers and practitioners in fuzzy logic and pattern recognition, the book can also serve as a valuable reference work for researchers without any previous knowledge of these fields. Dr. Jia Zeng is a Professor at the School of Computer Science and Technology, Soochow University, China. Dr. Zhi-Qiang Liu is a Professor at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, China.

The motion of the train depends on the traction of linear motors in the vehicle. This book describes a number of essential technologies that can ensure the safe operation of Maglev trains, such as suspension and orientation technologies, network control and diagnosis technologies. This book is intended for researchers, scientists, engineers and graduate students involved in the rail transit industry, train control and diagnosis, and Maglev technology.

Given their key position in the process control industry, process monitoring techniques have been extensively investigated by industrial practitioners and academic control researchers. Multivariate statistical process control (MSPC) is one of the most popular data-based methods for process monitoring and is widely used in various industrial areas. Effective routines for process monitoring can help operators run industrial processes efficiently at the same time as maintaining high product quality. Multivariate Statistical Process Control reviews the developments and improvements that have been made to MSPC over the last decade, and goes on to propose a series of new MSPC-based approaches for complex process monitoring. These new methods are demonstrated in several case studies from the chemical, biological, and semiconductor industrial areas. Control and process engineers, and academic researchers in the process monitoring, process control and fault detection and isolation (FDI) disciplines will be interested in this book. It can also be used to provide supplementary material and industrial insight for graduate and advanced undergraduate students, and graduate engineers. Advances in Industrial Control aims to report and encourage the transfer of technology in control engineering. The rapid development of control technology has an impact on all areas of the control discipline. The series offers an opportunity for researchers to present an extended exposition of new work in all aspects of industrial control.

This book discusses how to combine type-2 fuzzy sets and graphical models to solve a range of real-world pattern recognition problems such as speech recognition, handwritten Chinese character recognition, topic modeling as well as human action recognition. It covers these recent developments while also providing a comprehensive introduction to the fields of type-2 fuzzy sets and graphical models. Though primarily intended for graduate students, researchers and practitioners in fuzzy logic and pattern recognition, the book can also serve as a valuable reference work for researchers without any previous knowledge of these fields. Dr. Jia Zeng is a Professor at the School of Computer Science and Technology, Soochow University, China. Dr. Zhi-Qiang Liu is a Professor at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, China.

This book describes the algorithms, validation and preliminary analysis of the Global LAnd Surface Satellite (GLASS) products, a long-term, high-quality dataset that is now freely available worldwide to government organizations and agencies, scientific research institutions, students and members of the general public.

The GLASS products include leaf area index, broadband albedo, broadband emissivity, downward shortwave radiation and photosynthetically active radiation. The first three GLASS products cover 1981 to 2012 with 1km and 5km spatial resolutions and 8-day temporal resolution, and the last two GLASS products span 2008 to 2010 with 3-hour temporal resolution and 5km spatial resolution. These GLASS products are unique. The first three are spatially continuous and cover the longest period of time among all current similar satellite products. The other two products are the highest spatial-resolution global radiation products from satellite observations that are currently available.

These products can be downloaded from Beijing Normal University at http: //glass-product.bnu.edu.cn/and the University of Maryland Global Land Cover Facility at http: //www.glcf.umd.edu/

The GLASS productsare the outcome of a key research project entitled Generation & Applications of Global Products of Essential Land Variables, supported by funding from the High-Tech Research and Development Program of China and involving dozens of institutions and nearly one hundred scientists and researchers.Following an introduction, the book contains five chapters corresponding to these five GLASS products: background, algorithm, quality control and validation, preliminary analysis and applications. It discusses the long-term environmental changes detected from the GLASS products and other data sources at both global and local scales and also provides detailed analysis of regional hotspots where environmental changes are mainly associated with climate change, drought, land-atmosphere interactions, and human activities.

The book is based primarily on a set of published journal papers about these five GLASS products and includes updated information. Since these products have now begun to be widely used, this bookis an essential reference document. It is also a very helpful resource to anyone interested in satellite remote sensing and its applications."

Analysis and Control of Boolean Networks presents a systematic new approach to the investigation of Boolean control networks. The fundamental tool in this approach is a novel matrix product called the semi-tensor product (STP). Using the STP, a logical function can be expressed as a conventional discrete-time linear system. In the light of this linear expression, certain major issues concerning Boolean network topology - fixed points, cycles, transient times and basins of attractors - can be easily revealed by a set of formulae. This framework renders the state-space approach to dynamic control systems applicable to Boolean control networks. The bilinear-systemic representation of a Boolean control network makes it possible to investigate basic control problems including controllability, observability, stabilization, disturbance decoupling etc.

Given their key position in the process control industry, process monitoring techniques have been extensively investigated by industrial practitioners and academic control researchers. Multivariate statistical process control (MSPC) is one of the most popular data-based methods for process monitoring and is widely used in various industrial areas. Effective routines for process monitoring can help operators run industrial processes efficiently at the same time as maintaining high product quality.

"Multivariate Statistical Process Control"" "reviews the developments and improvements that have been made to MSPC over the last decade, and goes on to propose a series of new MSPC-based approaches for complex process monitoring. These new methods are demonstrated in several case studies from the chemical, biological, and semiconductor industrial areas.

Control and process engineers, and academic researchers in the process monitoring, process control and fault detection and isolation (FDI) disciplines will be interested in this book. It can also be used to provide supplementary material and industrial insight for graduate and advanced undergraduate students, and graduate engineers.

Advances in Industrial Control aims to report and encourage the transfer of technology in control engineering. The rapid development of control technology has an impact on all areas of the control discipline. The series offers an opportunity for researchers to present an extended exposition of new work in all aspects of industrial control."

Over the last few decades, research on handwriting recognition has made impressive progress. The research and development on handwritten word recognition are to a large degree motivated by many application areas, such as automated postal address and code reading, data acquisition in banks, text-voice conversion, security, etc. As the prices of scanners, com puters and handwriting-input devices are falling steadily, we have seen an increased demand for handwriting recognition systems and software pack ages. Some commercial handwriting recognition systems are now available in the market. Current commercial systems have an impressive performance in recognizing machine-printed characters and neatly written texts. For in stance, High-Tech Solutions in Israel has developed several products for container ID recognition, car license plate recognition and package label recognition. Xerox in the U. S. has developed TextBridge for converting hardcopy documents into electronic document files. In spite of the impressive progress, there is still a significant perfor mance gap between the human and the machine in recognizing off-line unconstrained handwritten characters and words. The difficulties encoun tered in recognizing unconstrained handwritings are mainly caused by huge variations in writing styles and the overlapping and the interconnection of neighboring characters. Furthermore, many applications demand very high recognition accuracy and reliability. For example, in the banking sector, although automated teller machines (ATMs) and networked banking sys tems are now widely available, many transactions are still carried out in the form of cheques."