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This thesis describes in-depth studies of the remarkable electronic transport within the ultrahigh conductivity delafossite metals PtCoO_2 and PdCoO_2 using the tool of focused ion beam (FIB) microstucturing. Despite being first synthesised over 50 years ago, important questions remain regarding both the origin of the unusually high conductivity of these compounds and the consequences of their unique properties for unconventional electronic transport, such as that within the ballistic regime. The thesis explores both these areas.High-energy electron irradiation is used to examine the effects of deliberately introducing point defects into PdCoO_2 and PtCoO_2, demonstrating that the extremely low resistivity of these materials stems from an extreme purity as high as 1 defect in 120,000 atoms, rather than a novel scattering suppression mechanism. In addition, studies of the electronic transport in micron-scale squares of these metals show that their broadly hexagonal Fermi surfaces lead not only to long range ballistic behaviour but novel ballistic regime phenomena which cannot be observed in materials with a higher-symmetry Fermi surface.

This book provides a comprehensive study of the notion of responsibility in environmental governance. It starts with the observation that, although the rhetoric of responsibility is indeed all-pervasive in environmental and sustainability-related fields, decisive political action is still lacking. Governance architectures increasingly strive to hold different stakeholders responsible by installing accountability and transparency mechanisms to manage environmental problems, yet the structural background conditions affecting these issues continue to generate unevenly distributed, socially unjust, and ecologically devastating consequences. Responsibility in Environmental Governance develops the concept of responsibility as an analytical approach to map and understand these dynamics and to situate diverse meanings of responsibility within larger socio-political contexts. It applies this approach to the study of food waste governance, uncovering a narrow governance focus on accountability, optimization, and consumer behavior change strategies, opening up spaces for organizing more democratic solutions to a truly global problem.

This textbook describes strategic product and service planning, introducing the concept of innovation. Linear models of product development are presented, and the product concept and system architecture generation are introduced. The responsiveness of the development process to uncertainty and complexity is covered, as well as ways of managing  portfolios, programmes and projects. This textbook results from the author's experience of teaching more than 40 years. The methods described in the book have been taught and applied by the students. Examples of concept development projects of products and services carried out by the students are described, many of them revealing great creativity.

This book focuses on regions for which until now the geomorphology was very poorly studied and relatively unknown. Nevertheless, the landforms and landscapes of the Horn of Africa are highly attractive, diverse and in a few cases unique, since they span very different environments, from highland plateaus and mountains to lowlands (even below sea level) and coastlines with a high degree of diversity and from monsoon to arid climate conditions.  The main topics addressed in the book include the links between the geological evolution and the current large scale geomorphology of the Horn of Africa; the large differences between the highlands and lowlands climate, river hydrology and their variation through time within a climate change perspective. This part of the world was home of the very first hominids. The landscape in which they lived and evolved throughout the Pleistocene is described in comparison with the arid and inhospitable, though immensely scenic, environment of today. Perennial and ephemeral rivers with very different morphology, processes, and hydrology drain the area, and, in combination with the past and recent uplift, substantially contributed to provide the region with peculiar landscapes and landforms. Long lasting weathering and erosion processes result in a typical inselberg landscape such as the Bur region, or the currently exposed flatland of old peneplain surfaces. Their changes through time, induced by both natural and anthropogenic factors, are addressed by a couple of case studies. Though the region has few inhabitants, they had to struggle to find their livelihood in a land that offers poor resources. This resulted in landscape change and land degradation. Examples of human impact on the landscape are presented at different scales.  This book provides readers interested in geography and geomorphology with essential scientific and educational information on the Landscapes and Landforms of Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia through simple, though scientifically, rigorous texts illustrated with several color maps and photos. One main prerogative of this book is therefore to give an insight into a region of the world where, for geographical and historical constraints, geomorphological investigation was very limited, thus enriching its intrinsic informative value.

This book provides readers with the understanding required to analyse the range of key factors that shape the production of news, and to assess their implications for the role of news and journalism in democracy. It brings existing research together under the umbrella of a central organising framework to explore how news and its production is shaped by a multiplicity of factors including the norms, values, role perceptions and ethics associated with journalism as a profession, the role of news sources, the changing character and significance of news audiences, the aims and objectives of news organisations, and the political, economic and social contexts within which news is produced. Exploring these factors in depth, using examples, and considering the changing conditions of news production, the chapters chart significant changes, challenges, and responses to provide the essential background for understanding the consequences of current transformations for the democratic qualities of news.

This book looks at the recent developments in the area of photocatalytic degradation of dyes using photocatalytic techniques, for example by means of various nanoparticles, heterogeneous, and hybrid systems. Dyes are one of the major groups of water pollutants and are widely used in a diverse range of industries. The toxic effects of organic dyes in wastewater can have a great environmental impact, therefore there is significant interest and need to remove these dyes effectively and efficiently during wastewater treatment.This volume covers a plethora of basics on the photochemistry of dyes and provides information on technological perspectives including reactor designs and process intensification. Since many industries release a significant amount of colored effluents, which are toxic and difficult to remove by conventional methods, the comprehensive studies herein will contribute to helping reduce the impact of colored effluents in wastewater on the environment.

This book presents practical guidelines and recommendations for the design in seismic-prone regions. It is based on extensive research and it includes original drawings and sketches at the macro and micro levels. It is the first time that an attempt has been made to publish a book on urban design in the seismic-prone regions, covering the needs of government officials, planners, economists, architects, engineers and scientists, with the purpose of planning for seismic risk reduction and the practical implementation of method-ologies and findings in earthquake affected regions. The guidelines presented are expected to be immensely beneficial to all countries in the earth-quake prone regions, particularly in the developing world.

In this book, recent developments on fuzzy logic, neural networks and optimization algorithms, as well as their hybrid combinations, are presented. In addition, the above-mentioned methods are applied to areas such as, intelligent control and robotics, pattern recognition, medical diagnosis, time series prediction and optimization of complex problems. The book contains a collection of papers focused on hybrid intelligent systems based on soft computing techniques. There are some papers with the main theme of type-1 and type-2 fuzzy logic, which basically consists of papers that propose new concepts and algorithms based on type-1 and type-2 fuzzy logic and their applications. There also some papers that offer theoretical concepts and applications of meta-heuristics in different areas. Another group of papers describe diverse applications of fuzzy logic, neural networks and hybrid intelligent systems in medical problems. There are also some papers that present theory and practice of neural networks in different areas of application. In addition, there are papers that present theory and practice of optimization and evolutionary algorithms in different areas of application. Finally, there are some papers describing applications of fuzzy logic, neural networks and meta-heuristics in pattern recognition and classification problems. 

This classroom-tested textbook provides a self-contained one-semester course in semiconductor physics and devices that is ideal preparation for students to enter burgeoning quantum industries. Unlike other textbooks on semiconductor device physics, it provides a brief but comprehensive introduction to quantum physics and statistical physics, with derivations and explanations of the key facts that are suitable for second-year undergraduates, rather than simply postulating the main results. The book is structured into three parts, each of which can be covered in around ten lectures. The first part covers fundamental background material such as quantum and statistical physics, and elements of crystallography and band theory of solids. Since this provides a vital foundation for the rest of the text, concepts are explained and derived in more detail than in comparable texts. For example, the concepts of measurement and collapse of the wave function, which are typically omitted, are presented in this text in language accessible to second-year students. The second part covers semiconductors in and out of equilibrium, and gives details which are not commonly presented, such as a derivation of the density of states using dimensional analysis, and calculation of the concentration of ionized impurities from the grand canonical distribution. Special attention is paid to the solution of Poisson's equation, a topic that is feared by many undergraduates but is brought back down to earth by techniques and analogies from first-year physics. Finally, in the third part, the material in parts 2 and 3 is applied to describe simple semiconductor devices, including the MOSFET, the Schottky and PN-junction diodes, and optoelectronic devices. With a wide range of exercises, this textbook is readily adoptable for an undergraduate course on semiconductor physics devices, and with its emphasis on consolidating and applying knowledge of fundamental physics, it will leave students in engineering and the physical sciences well prepared for a future where quantum industries proliferate.

This book constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the Fifth IFIP TC 12 International Conference on Computational Intelligence in Data Science, ICCIDS 2022, held virtually, in March 2022.The 28 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 96 submissions. The papers cover topics such as computational intelligence for text analysis; computational intelligence for image and video analysis; blockchain and data science.

This book provides a state-of-the art review of this field and demonstrates the basic applications of robotic surgery in the field of neurosurgery, exposing its basic principles, practical technical nuances, and advantages and limitations related to the technology. It also provides a concise yet comprehensive summary of the current status of the field that will help guide patient management and stimulate investigative efforts.  All chapters are written by experts in their fields and include the most up to date scientific and clinical information.  Robotics in Neurosurgery: Principles and Practice will serve as a valuable resource for clinicians, surgeons, engineers and researchers dealing with, and interested in, this challenging and promising field in robotics applied to neurosurgery.

This book gathers extended contributions to the workshop on Long-Term Digital Care, LTC-2021, organized by the Universita Politecnica delle Marche (UNIVPM), Ancona, Italy, and the Hochschule Konstanz (HTWG), Germany, in November 2021, and funded by the DAAD Joint Mobility Program. It covers innovative, practice-oriented approaches that are expected to foster digital health care, with a special focus on improving internationalization and accessibility. The book, which  bridges between technological and social disciplines, reports on selected studies with the main goals of: establishing a comparison of Long-Term Digital Care approaches, with focus on exchange and networking processes; defining practical roadmaps for digital social innovation; establishing concepts and methods for process evaluation and sustainability.  It offers a timely snapshot on technologies for patient monitoring and assistant systems, medical data analysis and image processing, digital platforms and advanced diagnostics techniques, and discusses important concepts relating to traceable process evaluation, networking and accessibility.  It aims at informing, yet it is also intended to inspire and foster a stronger collaboration across disciplines, countries, as well as academic and professional institutions.

This book focuses on the numerous energy harvesting techniques and their system implementation towards the fulfilment of energy requirements in compact electronic devices. These cover a wide range of applications in portable devices, bio-medical services, agriculture needs, mechanical systems, sensor networks, automobiles, food sector, home appliances, industry needs, etc. The authors detail energy harvesting methods using the latest technologies in acoustics, bio-chemical, thermal, artificial light, fluid flow, vibrations, EM energy, RF energy, piezoelectric, electrostatic, photovoltaic, thermoelectric, hybrid harvesting, ultrasonic, infrared, light, wind, and solar. The book is intended for researchers, academics, professionals, and students in energy harvesting.

This book elucidates the peculiar phenomenon of entropy/enthalpy compensation that takes place in high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) of polymers. Numerous publications, including some books, are devoted to molecular characterization of synthetic polymers, materials presently produced in large and steadily growing quantities, applying methods of HPLC. A knowledge of the molecular characteristics of polymers is indispensable, not only for their proper applications but also for their recycling and remediation. Polymer scientists generally focus on synthesis and potential applications of polymers while not giving due attention to an important central link, their comprehensive characterization in context of development of structure-property correlations. To fill this gap is one of the aims of the present book. The process of entropy/enthalpy compensation plays a decisive role in the advanced method of polymer characterization such as liquid chromatography at critical conditions, eluent gradient interaction chromatography, and temperature gradient interaction chromatography. All chemists working on any aspect of polymer science will find this book a valuable resource for the development of structure-property correlations.

This book uses economic and policy approaches to highlight sustainability, environmental, and social aspects of the circular economy. It emphasizes the circular economy within the market¿s perspective, including the links between consumption and sustainability, and how balances between profitability and environmental sustainability can be attained. The author also uses a life cycle assessment approach to improve and evaluate circular economy strategies to help determine the environmental, social, and economic consequences of a product. The chapters illustrate circular business models and sustainability consumption behaviour in the public sector, while also measuring eco-efficiency and sustainability impacts. The book will useful for students and researchers in environmental and sustainability economics, as well as businesses and government organizations adapting policies to develop environmentally sustainable economic practices.

A smart ecosystem is envisioned to exchange and analyze data across systems, enabling a flexible, faster, and reliable smart ecosystem for high-quality results at reduced costs and little human intervention. This book introduces many innovative approaches and provides solutions to various problems of smart ecosystems designed by employing various techniques/models based on AI, ML, Deep Learning, and the Internet of Things (IoT). The main focus is on intelligent multimedia processing and automated decision-making for various services, real-time data analysis, data security, cost-effective solutions for multimedia applications, smart information processing systems, and smart city planning to name a few. In addition, this book presents some key insights and future directions in the various areas of technology. Throughout the book, many state-of-the-art solutions concerning various applications are proposed to solve the issues and ensure the quality of services (QoS). The authors discuss the limitations of the current techniques used to design a smart ecosystem and highlight some prospective areas of research in the future. The book comprehensively discusses multimedia processing of various forms of data comprising text, images, and audio for the implementation of various solutions. The book is aimed to open many areas of research and thus would present a comprehensive reference for the design of smart ecosystems in various applications.

This volume covers the field of linguistic (im)politeness in a particular mediated, customer-oriented setting. It is the first book to do so across telephone, email and social media. It offers key insights into a unique customer service setting through authentic and spontaneous data analysis. The book looks at how customers and agents of a large public transport company engage in transactional services and impolite behaviour. This text is directed at scholars and practitioners working in communication, business discourse, (socio)pragmatics, interaction studies, and social media interactions. It is also of great value to students in applied linguistics and scholars of Slavic languages, particularly Slovenian. The cross-media study is also of value to public/private institutions to reflect on their work practices, helping them improve existing customer¿service provider relationships. The diverse readership and appeal are essential features of this book.Examines mediated institutional talk and impoliteness in the Slovenian languageCovers mediated service interactions, such as requests and complaints across three different mediaProvides in-depth insights into communication within a contemporary business environment

The combination of DEA and ratio analysis is introduced as a suitable field for evaluating the performance of DMUs. In this regard, DEA-R is also proposed as a hybrid technique for calculating efficiency, ranking DMUs, and finding efficient faces. Therefore, the relationship between DEA and DEA-R provides a suitable field for researchers in the field of evaluating the performance of DMUs. The audience of this book is not limited to researchers in mathematics fields, but experts and students in industrial engineering and management fields also benefit from the topics of this book.

In addition to expanding and clarifying a number of sections of the first edition, it generalizes the analysis that eliminates the noncausal pre-acceleration so that it applies to removing any pre-deceleration as well. It also introduces a robust power series solution to the equation of motion that produces an extremely accurate solution to problems such as the motion of electrons in uniform magnetic fields.

This heavily revised third edition gives an essential textbook which provides a comprehensive guide to robotic surgical techniques in urology. Extensively updated chapters cover general aspects of surgery such as aspects of operating room preparation and anesthesia. Instructions on how to use a variety of the latest techniques for procedures associated with the kidney, prostate, bladder and testicle are covered. Detailed information on how to improve outcomes, avoid potential complications and pitfalls is also provided. Instructive video clips assist the reader in being able to visualize how to enhance their methodologies further.Robotic Urologic Surgery is a detailed up-to-date resource that includes contributions from leading robotic urologic surgeons from around the world.  It assists readers in refining their surgical technique and improving their patient care. Therefore, it is a critical resource for all practicing and trainee physicians involved in the care of these patients.  

Blindness or serious vision impairment is one of the most feared disabilities known to humankind. A 2016 report compiled by the National Eye Institute (NEI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Prevent Blindness America states that although half of all blindness can be prevented, the number of people who suffer vision loss continues to increase. The technique of dynamic light scattering (DLS) was developed by physicists in the late 1960s to early 1970s. DLS is now emerging as a potential ophthalmic tool, making possible studies of virtually every tissue and fluid comprising the eye, thus pushing the envelope for broader applications in ophthalmology.This book presents a comprehensive review of the application of light scattering in clinical use. It is the first of its kind, offering insight to how DLS can be applied to the human eye as well as animals. Chapters discuss DLS in neurological diseases, including protocols, informed consent, and patents. Dynamic Light Scattering Spectroscopy of the Human Eye is a must-have resource for physicians, engineers, and physicists interested in the clinical application of DLS to diagnose and potentially treat medical conditions in a non-invasive, quantitative and novel way. 

This book focuses on twentieth-century Australian leprosaria to explore the lives of indigenous patients and the Catholic women missionaries who nursed them. Distinguished from previous historical studies of leprosy, the book examines the care and management of the incarcerated, enabling a broader understanding of their experience, beyond a singular trope of banishment, oppression and death. From the 1930s until the 1980s, respective governments appointed the trained sisters to four leprosaria across remote northern Australia, where almost two thousand people had been removed from their homes and detained under law for years - sometimes decades. The book traces the sisters¿ holistic nursing from early efforts of amelioration and palliation to their part in the successful treatment of leprosy after World War II. It reveals the ways the sisters stepped out of their assigned roles and attempted to shape the institutions as places of health and hygiene, of European culture and education, and of Christianity. Making use of accounts from patients, doctors; bureaucrats; missionary men; and Indigenous families and communities, the book offers fresh perspectives on two important strands of history. First, its attention to the day-to-day work of the Australian sisters helps to demystify leprosy healthcare by female missionaries, generally. Secondly, with the sisters specifically caring for Indigenous people, this book exposes the institutional practices and goals specific to race relations of both the Australian government and Catholic missionaries. An important and timely read for anyone interested in Indigenous history, medical history and the connections between race, religion and healthcare, this book contextualizes the twentieth-century leprosy epidemic within Australia's broader colonial history.

The book deals with the secession/separation of territorial entities and the legal consequences that derive from it both for the parent state and for the seceded/separated entity or the entity that intends to secede/separate. This subject is approached from the triple perspective of international law, comparative law, and Spanish law.International law, because it is this legal system which contains the general legal framework within which this issue must be dealt with. Thus, for example, the legal basis of the right to self-determination, the constituent elements of the state, the recognition of states and governments, succession in the matter of treaties, succession in membership of International Organisations, etc.Moreover, international law is also the reference invoked by secessionist/independentist political projects within states in an attempt to provide a legal basis for the legality of their claim.Comparative law, in order to find out not only how most state constitutions deal with secession or independence of their territories, but also the jurisprudence handed down by national courts on the matter (USA, Canada, Italy, France, Spain, among others).And finally, Spanish Law, because the perspective chosen to address the object of study is from the perspective of Spain.