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This book showcases the state of the art in the field of electronics, as presented by researchers and engineers at the 53rd Annual Meeting of the Italian Electronics Society (SIE), held in Rende (CS), Italy, on September 5-7, 2022. It covers a broad range of aspects, including: integrated circuits and systems, micro- and nano-electronic devices, microwave electronics, sensors and microsystems, optoelectronics and photonics, power electronics, electronic systems and applications.

This book, besides discussing challenges and opportunities, will reveal the microbe-metal interactions and strategies for e-waste remediation in different ecosystems. It will unveil the recent biotechnological advancement and microbiological approach to sustainable biorecycling of e-waste such as bioleaching for heavy metal extraction, valorization of precious metal, biodegradation of e-plastic, the role of the diverse microbial community in e-waste remediation, genetically engineered microbes for e-waste management, the importance of microbial exopolysaccharides in metal biosorption, next-generation technologies, omics-based technologies etc. It also holds the promise to discuss the conservation, utilization and cataloging indigenous microbes in e-waste-polluted niches and promising hybrid technology for sustainable e-waste management.Revolution in the area of information technology and communication is constantly evolving due to scientific research and development.Concurrently, the production of new electrical and electronic equipment also thus uplifting in this era of revolution. These technological advancements certainly have problematic consequences which is the rise of huge amounts of electronic obsoletes or electronic waste (e-waste). Improper management of both hazardous and nonhazardous substances of e-waste led to a major concern in our digital society and environment. Therefore, a sustainable approach including microbial candidates to tackle e-waste is the need of the hour.Nevertheless, the continuous demand for new-generation gadgets and electronics set this high-tech evolution to a new frontier in the last few years. With this continuing trend of technological development, e-waste is expanding exponentially worldwide. In the year of 2019, the worldwide generation of e-waste was approximately 53.6 Mt, of which only about 17.4% of e-waste was collected and recycled, and the other 82.6% was not even documented. E-waste containsvarious heterogeneous waste complexes such as metals (60%), blends of many polymers (30%) and halogenated compounds, radioactive elements and other pollutants (10%), respectively. The sustainable, efficient, and economic management of e-waste is thus, a challenging task today and in the coming decades. Conventional techniques such as the use of chemicals, incineration and informal ways of e-waste dismantling trigger serious health risks and contamination to the human population and environment, respectively due to the liberation of toxic and hazardous substances from the waste. In this context, bio-candidates especially microorganisms could be sharp-edged biological recycling tools to manage e-waste sustainably. As microbes are omnipresent and diverse in their physiology and functional aspects, they offer a wide range of bioremediation.

In the present book, the starting line is defined by a morphogenetic perspective on human communication and culture. The focus is on visual communication, music, religion (myth), and language, i.e., on the "symbolic forms" at the heart of human cultures (Ernst Cassirer). The term "morphogenesis" has more precisely the meaning given by René Thom (1923-2002) in his book "Morphogenesis and Structural Stability" (1972) and the notions of "self-organization" and cooperation of subsystems in the "Synergetics" of Hermann Haken (1927- ). The naturalization of communication and cultural phenomena is the favored strategy, but the major results of the involved disciplines (art history, music theory, religious science, and linguistics) are respected.Visual art from the Paleolithic to modernity stands for visual communication. The present book focuses on studies of classical painting and sculpture (e.g., Leonardo da Vinci, William Turner, and Henry Moore) and modern art (e.g., Jackson Pollock and Joseph Beuys). Musical morphogenesis embraces classical music (from J. S. Bach to Arnold Schönberg) and political songwriting (Bob Dylan, Leonhard Cohen). The myths of pre-literary societies show the effects of self-organization in the re-assembly (bricolage) of traditions. Classical polytheistic and monotheistic religions demonstrate the unfolding of basic germs (religious attractors) and their reduction in periods of crisis, the self-organization of complex religious networks, and rationalized macro-structures (in theologies). Significant tendencies are analyzed in the case of Buddhism and Christianism. Eventually, a holistic view of symbolic communication and human culture emerges based on state-of-the-art in evolutionary biology, cognitive science, linguistics, and semiotics (philosophy of symbolic forms).

This book examines the latest manifestations of resource competition. The energy transition and the digitalization of the global economy are both accelerating even as geopolitics driven by Sino-American hyper-competition become increasingly contentious. The volume brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars, policy makers, institutional stakeholders, and industry experts to analyze not only the transition itself, but also the implications that the need for uninterrupted access to unprecedented levels of raw materials generates. By framing the challenges ahead for global society, governance, industry, international power politics, and the environment, the book asks hard questions about the choices that need to be made to reach net zero by mid-century. Moreover, it sheds light on different facets of the growing risks to what have been global interdependent supply chains in a way that is nuanced, balanced, and practical, thus pushing back on some of the most sensational headlines that breed confusion and may lead policymakers to make more narrow and less effective decisions. The volume is an outcome of ¿Rich Rocks, the Climate Crisis and the Tech-imperium¿ a Summer Institute at Caltech and the Huntington that took place in July 2021.

This book presents the so-called Shuffled Shepherd Optimization Algorithm (SSOA), a recently developed meta-heuristic algorithm by authors. There is always limitations on the resources to be used in the construction. Some of the resources used in the buildings are also detrimental to the environment. For example, the cement utilized in making concrete emits carbon dioxide, which contributes to the global warming. Hence, the engineers should employ resources efficiently and avoid the waste. In the traditional optimal design methods, the number of trials and errors used by the designer is limited, so there is no guarantee that the optimal design can be found for structures. Hence, the deigning method should be changed, and the computational algorithms should be employed in the optimum design problems.The gradient-based method and meta-heuristic algorithms are the two different types of methods used to find the optimal solution. The gradient-based methods require gradient information. Also, these can easily be trapped in the local optima in the nonlinear and complex problems. Therefore, to overcome these issues, meta-heuristic algorithms are developed. These algorithms are simple and can get out of the local optimum by easy means. However, a single meta-heuristic algorithm cannot find the optimum results in all types of optimization problems. Thus, civil engineers develop different meta-heuristic algorithms for their optimization problems.Different applications of the SSOA are provided. The simplified and enhanced versions of the SSOA are also developed and efficiently applied to various optimization problems in structures. Another special feature of this book consists of the use of graph theoretical force method as analysis tool, in place of traditional displacement approach. This has reduced the computational time to a great extent, especially for those structures having smaller DSI compared to the DKI. New framework is also developed for reliability-based design of frame structures. The algorithms are clearly stated such that they can simply be implemented and utilized in practice and research.

This book offers an account of ten crucial moments in the history of ideas, which represent ten key moments of the discovery of pluralism. From the Indian emperor Ashoka to Origen and from Nicola Cusano to Las Casas, Montaigne, Lessing, giants who opened the way to the thought of tolerance, challenging the dogma of a unique truth dictated by authority, followed in this reconstruction by other glowing thinkers of the twentieth century, such as Horace Kallen, Margaret Mead, and Jacques Dupuis. These protagonists, each in their own way, battled against monism for the respect of differences and for the knowledge of otherness. This kind of hall of fame of pluralist thinkers ends with the most important figure of the pluralism of values, Isaiah Berlin, of whom an unpublished interview appears here for the first time in English. The volume is unique in this two-thousand-year-old variety of voices gathered under the denominator of cultural pluralism that they embody in the deepest andmost challenging sense, often at the limits and beyond the limits of heresy. It is of great value and interest to scholars and students of theoretical, moral, political philosophy, sociology, comparative studies, comparative literature, religious diversity, religious studies, anthropology, and all those interested in the history of tolerance.

This book provides a thorough introduction to research ethics and ethically responsible research practice in a research organization. It is relevant for all research areas. Morality, however, is not something one can just "learn". Therefore, the book is written with a different basic tone than regular textbooks, so that it makes the reader aware of how morality plays a role in the various daily tasks one has in a research organization. The book conveys knowledge and experience material about the society's and the research community's view of how different ethical issues should be solved. From this, the reader will acquire the basic ethical principles they need to know and understand and be aware of, in order to be qualified in an ethical context as employees of a research organization, and to be able to deal with common ethical issues associated with research.

This book provides detailed insights into how space and popular culture intersect across a broad spectrum of examples, including cinema, music, art, arcade games, cartoons, comics, and advertisements. This is a pertinent topic since the use of space themes differs in different cultural contexts, and these themes can be used to explore various aspects of the human condition and provide a context for social commentary on politically sensitive issues. With the use of space imagery evolving over the past sixty years of the space age, this is a topic ripe for in-depth exploration. The book also discusses the contrasting visions of space from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the reality of today and analyzes space vehicles and habitats in popular depictions of space from an engineering perspective, exploring how many of those ideas have actually been implemented in practice and why or why not (a case of life imitating art and vice versa). As such, it covers a wide arrayof relevant and timely topics examining intersections between space and popular culture and offering accounts of space and its effect on culture, language, and storytelling from the southern regions of the world.

This book provides a deep insight into recent achievements in synthesis, investigation, and applications of the low-dimensional chalcohalide nanomaterials. The large number of interesting phenomena occur in these compounds, including ferroelectric, piezoelectric, pyroelectric, electrocaloric, Seebeck, photovoltaic, and ferroelectric-photovoltaic effects. Furthermore, the outstanding photoelectrochemical, photocatalytic, and piezocatalytic properties of the chalcohalide nanomaterials have been revealed. Since many chalcohalide semiconductors possess both photoactive and ferroelectric properties, they are recognized as photoferroelectrics. It presents an overview of fabrication of chalcohalide nanomaterials using different methods: mechanical milling of bulk crystals, liquid-phase exfoliation, vapor phase growth, hydro/solvothermal methods, synthesis under ultrasonic irradiation, microwave synthesis, laser/heat-induced crystallization, electrospinning, successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction. The strategies of the chalcohalide nanomaterials processing for construction of functional devices are presented.The book describes solution processing for thin films preparation, spin-coating deposition of polymer composites, solution casting, films deposition via drop-casting, high pressure compression of nanowires into the bulk samples, pressure assisted sintering, and electric field assisted alignment of nanowires. The applications of the chalcohalide nanomaterials for mechanical/thermal energy harvesting and energy storage are presented. Major challenges and emerging trends in fabrication, characterization, and future applications of low-dimensional chalcohalide nanomaterials are discussed. A wealth of information for scholars, graduate students, and engineers involved in research of nanomaterials.

This book describes the first application at CMS of deep learning algorithms trained directly on low-level, ¿raw¿ detector data, or so-called end-to-end physics reconstruction. Growing interest in searches for exotic new physics in the CMS collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN has highlighted the need for a new generation of particle reconstruction algorithms. For many exotic physics searches, sensitivity is constrained not by the ability to extract information from particle-level data but by inefficiencies in the reconstruction of the particle-level quantities themselves. The technique achieves a breakthrough in the reconstruction of highly merged photon pairs that are completely unresolved in the CMS detector. This newfound ability is used to perform the first direct search for exotic Higgs boson decays to a pair of hypothetical light scalar particles H¿aa, each subsequently decaying to a pair of highly merged photons äyy, an analysis once thought impossible to perform. The book concludes with an outlook on potential new exotic searches made accessible by this new reconstruction paradigm.

This book explores norm diffusion in non-Western contexts. It analyzes how norms transfer and what mechanisms or sources of leverage facilitate their diffusion. The individual chapters follow an interdisciplinary framework that analyzes social norms beyond the theoretical tradition of international relations, and focus on particular cases of diffusion--both successful and unsuccessful--across the non-Western world. In this way, the book challenges existing perspectives and advances critical norm research that diversifies the agency of norm entrepreneurs beyond processes of norm localization. It makes a twofold contribution--by deepening our theoretical understanding of norms and their dynamics and by broadening the geographical scope of norms research.

This book contains selected papers from International Symposium for Production Research 2022, held on October 6-9, 2022, Turkey. The book reports recent advances in production engineering and operations. It explores topics including: production research;production management; operations management;industry 4.0;industrial engineering;mechanical engineering;engineering management; andoperational research.Presenting real-life applications, case studies, and mathematical models, this book is of interest to researchers, academics, and practitioners in the field of production and operation engineering. It provides both the results of recent research and practical solutions to real-world problems.

This book presents recent research work on Biosaline Agriculture presented during First International Forum on Biosaline Agriculture in Laayoune, Morocco from May 3rd to May 4th 2019. The aim of this book is to showcase the global potential of Biosaline agriculture, provide an update on the development of recent innovations in the field of Biosaline agriculture, the best management practices to safely use brackish and saline water, highlight the use of non-conventional water in marginal environment production and the current advanced technologies of desalination of brackish and seawater. The different chapters will also discuss solutions that are adapted to local conditions as part of a sustainable development perspective. The book provides up-to-date technical and scientific data on growing crops under marginal environment so as to encourage the dissemination of this knowledge in the best practices to increase the productivity in Biosaline agriculture, in view of the potential to contribute to food security. The book is expected to stimulate interest in the non-conventional water resources and crops among junior and senior researchers and among those who are increasingly focused on exploiting marginal environments. It will also be of interest to decision-makers and the public and private sectors to jointly address the issues of food security especially of the poor and vulnerable people living in marginal environments worldwide by providing innovative technology transfer.

First book to fully incorporate MCDM techniques with location analysis Tailors specific techniques to particular location problems Eiselt and Marianov are two of the best known scholars/authors in the field

This book intends to decipher the knowledge in the advancement of understanding, detecting, predicting, and monitoring landslides. The number of massive landslides and the damages they cause has increased across the globe in recent times. It is one of the most devastating natural hazards that cause widespread damage to habitat on a local, regional, and global scale. International experts provide their experience in landslide research and practice to help stakeholders mitigate and predict potential landslides. The book comprises chapters on: Dynamics, mechanisms, and processes of landslides; Geological, geotechnical, hydrological, and geophysical modelling for landslides; Mapping and assessment of hazard, vulnerability, and risk associated with landslides; Monitoring and early warning of landslides; Application of remote sensing and GIS techniques in monitoring and assessment of landslides. The book will be of interest to researchers, practitioners, and decision-makers in adapting suitable modern techniques for landslide study.

Antimicrobial resistance is recognised among the world's most challenging problems. Despite its global spread, Africa, specifically sub-Saharan Africa, is the most affected by this malaise. Poor living conditions and inadequate access to sanitation and potable water supplies are among contributing factors that have influenced a high disease burden on the continent, requiring extensive antimicrobials. Weak health systems and the absence of firm policies further aggravate the problem, as the use of antimicrobials is mostly unregulated. The increasing demand for animal protein to meet the starving populations' demands has also influenced the use of these antimicrobials, including those banned on other continents, for food animal production. The ripple effect of indiscriminate use in humans and animals is the massive discharge of antimicrobials, their residues, antimicrobial-resistant microorganisms and their associated genes into the environment. This 14-chapter unique masterpiece presents the AMR problem in African, addressing the various compartments of the One Health - humans, animals, and the environment, to illustrate the need for concerted efforts in the fight against AMR, especially in Africa. Authors from the four cardinal points present diverse aspects of AMR in Africa, starting with behavioural and social drivers of AMR in Africa. Antimicrobial stewardship in an African context is also discussed. AMR in humans is presented through studies on antibiotic-resistant neonates and nontyphoidal Salmonella infections and the clinical relevance of the genetics of viral resistance. Topics on AMR in mastitis, biosecurity in animal farming and the linkage between disinfectants and AMR are discussed. The environmental dimension of AMR is discussed, notably in the aquatic environment, and its implication for aquaculture and irrigation and using nanomaterials to treat polluted waters from such environments are highlighted. Finally, Africa's rich floral diversity is portrayed as an eco-friendly and cost-effective approach to combat AMR. Hopefully, the work presented will spur greater collaboration between scientists, environmental, animal and human health practitioners, the general population, and policymakers to assimilate and implement the One Health approach to combating AMR, rather than working in silos on their various sectors

The book deals with the concept of urban infrastructure and the strong evolution of globalization, in particular the driving force taken by global cities. Urban infrastructure is a constituent part of the global cities, both have a synergistic evolution. The main reference is to western global cities in the intertwining of financialization, settling and brownfield which is a little different from the urbanization of other global cities of other non- developed countries, or emerging countries. There is therefore a significant link between globalization and urban infrastructure. The occurrence of slowbalization can have consequences on urban areas infrastructures and more generally on the different dichotomy between global city and nation. With the pandemic infectious and the post COVID, there is already a different configuration between the global city and the rest of the national territory. A driving element of the urban infrastructure and the global city has been the financializationand identification of assets within global cities. Urban infrastructure as an asset has grown considerably in the last two decades, in the wake of what has already been highlighted previously for real estate. There are contiguous issues that affect the concept of urban infrastructures and they are the enormous growth of finance and the landings of this in the great cities of the world with investments that first involved Real Estate and then urban infrastructures. There has also been a technological revolution that has merged the ubiquitous technological infrastructure with other more traditional components of the infrastructure, even apparently recent themes, such as smart cities, come from this evolutionary trend and merge with urban infrastructures. The theme of smart cities, if properly interpreted, gives strength to the concept of urban infrastructure.

This book contains extensive data about tandem wing aircraft. It includes a review of modern flying vehicles with four fixed wings, a review of analytical, numerical and experimental methods; results of the studies about aerodynamics; dependencies between geometrical parameters and aerodynamic characteristics, practical recommendations in development and optimizing of tandem wing aircraft to provide high lift-to-drag ratio, stability, and controllability. This is an ideal book for graduate students, researchers, and engineers working in fields of aerodynamics and conceptual design of the aircraft especially UAVs, ground-effect vehicles, and convertiplanes.

This thesis works on the topic of fiber-reinforced plastics and discusses the measurement of strain with embedded sensors. Embedding sensors into a structure fundamentally poses challenges arising from the differences in mechanical properties of sensor and structure. This thesis works on the research area of Self-Sensing, where these challenges are overcome by using carbon fibers for both load-carrying and strain-sensing functions. Starting with a literature review, this thesis proposes three research hypotheses, which are targeted to describe the Self-Sensing properties of unidirectional carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRPs) for strain measurements. These hypotheses assume, that the electric anisotropy of the material results in a complex voltage distribution within a Self-Sensing specimen. In order to discuss this point further, a two-dimensional piezoresistivity model based on the Laplace equation is introduced. The developed model newly allows to quantify the electricpotential changes in specimens with arbitrary geometrical dimensions and electric anisotropy.Furthermore, this thesis discusses a set of experimental results on the piezoresistive properties of unidirectional CFRP made with the pultrusion process. Overall, the results of the experiments indicate that the most repeatable results are obtained for specimens with electric contacts at their cut-end. This approach allows to manufacture Self-Strain-Sensing rods with a gauge factor of approximately 1.9 that can be used in a multifunctional manner for both load-carrying and strain-sensing purposes. Furthermore, a novel measurement setup is developed, which allows to acquire the electric potential distribution on the surface of electrical conductors with very high spacial resolution. This experimental setup newly reveals that the current flow in specimens can be more complex than assumed in a two-dimensional model.

This book is a collection of stories, reflections and advice written by proficient scientists. They address the question of what doing science means to them, and describe attitudes and working practices that have proved effective and rewarding. The book is aimed in particular at young people who are attracted by science or already undertaking undergraduate studies, and who are considering making science their long-term profession. It will also be helpful and revealing to early-career scientists who are searching for their own best route to success. The book serves as a platform for experienced scientists to describe their original inclination, how that subjective disposition found its expression in their way of doing science, whether their expectations were met, and what achievements they can claim. But it is not restricted to success: contributors also share details of the limitations and failures they have encountered. Last but not least they describe how they see science now, howthey think it will be in the near future, and what advice they would give to the their much younger colleagues. Readers will appreciate the diversity of the individual paths shaped by different education, motivation, ambition, inclination, intuition, feeling, belief and eligibility. At the same time the stories confirm that science relies on a translation of this subjective level into an objective level, one that is shared and accepted by the international scientific community, and whose results are produced with a commonly accepted and fully rational scientific method of investigation.

This book develops and details a rigorous, canonical modeling approach for analyzing spatio-temporal brain wave dynamics. The nonlinear, nonstationary behavior of brain wave measures and general uncertainty associated with the brain makes it difficult to apply modern system identification techniques to such systems. While there is a substantial amount of literature on the use of stationary analyses for brain waves, relatively less work has considered real-time estimation and imaging of brain waves from noninvasive measurements. This book addresses the issue of modeling and imaging brain waves and biomarkers generally, treating the nonlinear and nonstationary dynamics in near real-time. Using a modal state-space formulation leads to intuitive, physically significant models which are used for analysis and diagnosis.A Modal Approach to the Space-Time Dynamics of Cognitive Biomarkers provides a much-needed reference for practicing researchers in biomarker modeling leveraging the lens of engineering dynamics.

The anxious search for agricultural income resources, and assurance of the national water supply in the northern newly created state of Israel initiated the national project of the Hula Drainage. The implementation of this project was accompanied as of today by research and monitoring of the ecological trait aimed at crop harvest improvement in the Hula valley and prevention of water quality deterioration in Lake Kinneret. Forty years later a reclamation project to improve the peat soil property and renovate the hydrological system was carried out. This book documents the scientific research carried out during this mega-ecological project. Several issues of the ecological renovation and its impact on the Hula valley management and water quality in lake Kinneret are presented in this book. The advantage and contribution of a newly created shallow lake Agmon-Hula to nutrient dynamics, and hydrological control, accompanied by avian presence, (among others, Cranes, Storks, Pelicans, Flamingoes) and plants renewal which enhanced, tourism; potential impact of nitrogen and sulfate migration from the Hula valley on the Kinneret water quality; the role of climate change on the ecology of the Hula Valley and the Kinneret nutrient availabilities and phytoplankton community; the subterranean migration of water and nutrients and water loss. Further proposals for future development are under consideration. This book presents a comprehensive practical management implementation of a long-term ecological project. Results of scientific and monitoring research which followed the project implementation benefit the international and national communities.

The pandemic that struck in late 2019 - the coronavirus, commonly referred to as COVID-19 - affected every country in the world. This book examines how the pandemic has impacted healthcare institutions worldwide, and focuses on the international experience of COVID-19 in terms of healthcare delivery since 2019 and today. It highlights how healthcare facilities around the world have managed and continue to manage their obligations to their citizens. The book's goal is to improve our understanding of the many negative and positive impacts of the pandemic on various aspects of our lives, including the health aspect, and how healthcare institutions could expand their ability to manage similar pandemics in the future without seriously compromising their ability to address other, regular health issues. At the same time, it takes a closer look at CSR, sustainability, ethics, and governance issues related to the pandemic, as well as current CSR practices in each of the countries reviewed.Given its scope, the book will be of interest to a broad readership including researchers, practitioners, and students concerned with the pandemic's societal and public health implications.

This book presents the modern technological advancements and revolutions in the biomedical sector. Progress in the contemporary sensing, Internet of Things (IoT) and machine learning algorithms and architectures have introduced new approaches in the mobile healthcare. A continuous observation of patients with critical health situation is required. It allows monitoring of their health status during daily life activities such as during sports, walking and sleeping. It is realizable by intelligently hybridizing the modern IoT framework, wireless biomedical implants and cloud computing. Such solutions are currently under development and in testing phases by healthcare and governmental institutions, research laboratories and biomedical companies. The biomedical signals such as electrocardiogram (ECG), electroencephalogram (EEG), Electromyography (EMG), phonocardiogram (PCG), Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary (COP), Electrooculography (EoG), photoplethysmography (PPG), and image modalitiessuch as positron emission tomography (PET), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computerized tomography (CT) are non-invasively acquired, measured, and processed via the biomedical sensors and gadgets. These signals and images represent the activities and conditions of human cardiovascular, neural, vision and cerebral systems. Multi-channel sensing of these signals and images with an appropriate granularity is required for an effective monitoring and diagnosis. It renders a big volume of data and its analysis is not feasible manually. Therefore, automated healthcare systems are in the process of evolution. These systems are mainly based on biomedical signal and image acquisition and sensing, preconditioning, features extraction and classification stages. The contemporary biomedical signal sensing, preconditioning, features extraction and intelligent machine and deep learning-based classification algorithms are described. Each chapter starts with the importance, problemstatement and motivation. A self-sufficient description is provided. Therefore, each chapter can be read independently. To the best of the editors' knowledge, this book is a comprehensive compilation on advances in non-invasive biomedical signal sensing and processing with machine and deep learning. We believe that theories, algorithms, realizations, applications, approaches, and challenges, which are presented in this book will have their impact and contribution in the design and development of modern and effective healthcare systems.

This book examines some issues involving climate change, human trafficking, and other serious world challenges made worse by climate change. Climate change increases the risk of natural disasters and thus creates poverty and can cause situations of conflict and instability. Displacement can occur giving traffickers an opportunity to exploit affected people. In the fuzzy graph theory part of the book, the relatively new concepts of fuzzy soft semigraphs and graph structures are used to study human trafficking, as well as its time intuitionistic fuzzy sets that have been introduced to model forest fires. The notion of legal and illegal incidence strength is used to analyze immigration to the USA. The examination of return refugees to their origin countries is undertaken. The neighborhood connectivity index is determined for trafficking in various regions in the world. The cycle connectivity measure for the directed graph of the flow from South America to the USA is calculated. It is determined that there is a need for improvement in government response by countries. Outside the area of fuzzy graph theory, a new approach to examine climate change is introduced. Social network theory is used to study feedback processes that effect climate forcing. Tipping points in climate change are considered. The relationship between terrorism and climate change is examined. Ethical issues concerning the obligation of business organizations to reduce carbon emissions are also considered. Nonstandard analysis is a possible new area that could be used by scholars of mathematics of uncertainty. A foundation is laid to aid the researcher in the understanding of nonstandard analysis. In order to accomplish this, a discussion of some basic concepts from first-order logic is presented as some concepts of mathematics of uncertainty. An application to the theory of relativity is presented.

This book helps readers easily learn basic model checking by presenting examples, exercises and case studies. The toolset mCRL2 provides a language to specify the behaviour of distributed systems, in particular where there is concurrency with inter-process communication. This language allows us to analyse a distributed system with respect to its functional requirements. For example, biological cells, supply chain management systems, patient support platforms, and communication protocols.The underlying technique is based on verifying requirements through model checking. The book explains the syntax of mCRL2 and offers modelling tips and tricks.

With the rapid penetration of technology in varied application domains, the existing cities are getting connected more seamlessly. Cities becomes smart by inducing ICT in the classical city infrastructure for its management. According to McKenzie Report, about 68% of the world population will migrate towards urban settlements in near future. This migration is largely because of the improved Quality of Life (QoL) and livelihood in urban settlements. In the light of urbanization, climate change, democratic flaws, and rising urban welfare expenditures, smart cities have emerged as an important approach for society¿s future development. Smart cities have achieved enhanced QoL by giving smart information to people regarding healthcare, transportation, smart parking, smart traffic structure, smart home, smart agronomy, community security etc. Typically, in smart cities data is sensed by the sensor devices and provided to end users for further use. The sensitive data is transferred with the help of internet creating higher chances for the adversaries to breach the data. Considering the privacy and security as the area of prime focus, this book covers the most prominent security vulnerabilities associated with varied application areas like healthcare, manufacturing, transportation, education and agriculture etc. Furthermore, the massive amount of data being generated through ubiquitous sensors placed across the smart cities needs to be handled in an effective, efficient, secured and privacy preserved manner. Since a typical smart city ecosystem is data driven, it is imperative to manage this data in an optimal manner. Enabling technologies like Internet of Things (IoT), Natural Language Processing (NLP), Blockchain Technology, Deep Learning, Machine Learning, Computer vision, Big Data Analytics, Next Generation Networks and Software Defined Networks (SDN) provide exemplary benefits if they are integrated in the classical city ecosystem in an effective manner. The application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is expanding across many domains in the smart city, such as infrastructure, transportation, environmental protection, power and energy, privacy and security, governance, data management, healthcare, and more. AI has the potential to improve human health, prosperity, and happiness by reducing our reliance on manual labor and accelerating our progress in the sciences and technologies. NLP is an extensive domain of AI and is used in collaboration with machine learning and deep learning algorithms for clinical informatics and data processing. In modern smart cities, blockchain provides a complete framework that controls the city operations and ensures that they are managed as effectively as possible. Besides having an impact on our daily lives, it also facilitates many areas of city management.

The concept of "energy" includes methods for obtaining and using various types of energy for the needs of human society. Energy is one of the foundations for the development of modern society. The effectiveness of solving social, economic and technical problems, as well as the anthropogenic transformations of nature, is largely determined by energy production and the scale of energy production.Modern energy is not a separate industry, but it penetrates widely into other areas, in particular, chemical, transport, aerospace, construction, metallurgy, engineering, agriculture, etc. The energy sector is based on complex technical systems that are multicomponent, spatially distributed systems that during their operation are affected to a wide range of design and non-design thermomechanical loading conditions, the effects of aggressive fields and units, unauthorized influences (operator errors, terrorism, sabotage) and can reach various limit states.Complex technical systemsare characterized by complex non-linear interactions between their constituent elements, complex chains (scenarios) of cause-effect relationships between hazardous, probabilistic events and processes that occur during their life. These scenarios can be implemented over complex ramified scenario trees.Ensuring the operational reliability, durability and safety of power equipment is a difficult task, which is associated with the organization of the reliability of control over the operation of power plants and ensuring optimal conditions for their operation. In this regard, we can distinguish a whole class of tasks related to the development of control systems, diagnostics and monitoring in the energy industry, which are presented in this book. Of particular relevance now is the use of UAVs in the energy sector.Particular attention must be paid to the environmental consequences of the operation of energy facilities, the main of which is significant environmental pollution in large cities and industrial areas.The development of environmental management information systems is the prerogative of the state, corporations and one of the main directions of the national informatization policy. A clearly debugged system of environmental monitoring gives a general idea of ​​the features of the current ecological state, the main directions of state policy in the field of environmental protection, the use of natural resources and environmental safety. The methodology and hardware-software tools for monitoring the state of the environment presented in the monograph are effective tools for supporting decision-making in managing the environmental safety of the atmosphere during its technogenic pollution.

This book describes the state-of-the-art use of biological insulating liquids in detail. In recent years, more and more transformers filled with esters have been put into operation. This is because people recognize the benefits of ester liquids in terms of their fire safety (high flash and fire points) and environmental characteristics, judging from their biodegradability, their low CO2 footprint (only valid for natural ester) and their beneficial interactions with solid insulation, etc. One of the main reasons is that the water adsorption and absorption characteristics of these liquids are excellent and very different compared to mineral oil. The today¿s discussion about climate change and global warming is an additional driver for using natural ester. Another advantage is that transformers filled with biological insulating liquids can operate with an overload of up to 150%. This is advantageous in the case of volatile energy generation from wind and solar power and in the supply of electrical energy for electromobility. Liquid inside electrical equipment is the lifeblood that serves both as a dielectric and a cooling medium. Some properties of these liquids differ from mineral oil, which had to be considered in the transformer design. The dielectric liquid is always in direct contact with transformer materials; therefore, the interaction should be very well understood, especially when retrofilling an existing mineral oil filled device. There are several natural ester fluids derived from various seeds and fruits on the market, and their properties may differ more or less. In the book, the most important properties of the different biological insulating fluids and mineral oil are compared. Ester fluids have already found their way into various standards. The condition of the device can be verified very well from the contents of the insulating liquids. For analysis and testing, the same equipment and devices that are commonly used for mineral oil are used for ester liquid. The chemical and physical behaviors of ester fluids compared to mineral oil are different. This must always be considered when interpreting test results stemming from ester fluids. The book is a guideline for students, original equipment manufacturers, users, laboratories and authorities in the use of biological insulating liquids.

This book presents new trends to optimize e-Government in various contexts. It aims to highlight new methods and approaches that unveil the potential of data for public services. The book also illustrates how public services can be mathematically modeled with many case studies. Then, algorithms are proposed to optimize their functioning and to better contribute to the general interest, such as education, health care, safety, security, or culture. The book also focuses on protecting citizens' personal data and obtaining their explicit consent.The book is suitable for students and academics aiming to build up their background on the usage of data and algorithms through various techniques, including artificial intelligence. The book is used as a reference book for teaching a graduate course on e-Government, Process Modeling, or Artificial Intelligence. Besides its use in academia, this book is used by civil servants of every domain and citizens who aim to understand the ongoing modernization of public services.