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In traditional Internet of Things (IoT) systems, sensor nodes are usually powered by batteries, and their limited battery power leads to limited system lifetimes and prevents the large-scale promotion of IoT; this is commonly referred to as the energy bottleneck. The subsequent emergence of Wireless Power Transmission (WPT) technology enables IoT nodes to replenish their energy through wireless charging, giving rise to the novel network paradigm of Wireless Rechargeable Sensor Networks (WRSNs). This has made it possible to solve the IoT energy bottleneck and extend IoT system lifetimes. This book elaborates on the theory and technical paradigms of WRSNs. The topics discussed include the energy efficiency, schedulability and reliability of WRSNs, as well as their potential intersections with other fields. Specifically, this book 1) proposes the theory of optimal scheduling of spatio-temporal correlation power supply for large-scale WRSNs; 2) analyses in depth the shortcomings and hidden risks of existing WRSN hardware and protocols, and proposes the concept of charging attack and the theory of trusted scheduling; and 3) introduces a radio electromagnetic signal propagation model into the design of charging deployment methods in complex environments, revealing a new dimension of charging efficiency optimization. The methods described here will lay the theoretical foundation for extending WRSN lifetimes and provide a new theoretical model for WRSN security and reliability, accelerating the development of these networks from multiple perspectives.

This book focuses on conducting a comprehensive analysis of blockchain scalability serving large-scale application scenarios, from the “what, why, how” three perspectives, layer by layer. Gathering the latest state-of-the-art research advances in the area of key issues and technologies for blockchain scalability, it also presents some special and exciting insights on the existing and future blockchain scalability. Despite blockchain's merits of decentralization, immutability, non-repudiation, and traceability, the current blockchain has faced a serious scalability bottleneck. The scalability bottleneck problem is mainly manifested in two aspects: low-performance efficiency and difficulty in functional extension. First, the security and reliability of the blockchain system come from the fact that most nodes of the whole network participate in a distributed consensus to maintain the ledger. The high-cost consensus mechanism makes limited performance of blockchain, and there isa big gap between the actual large-scale application system. In addition, in order to ensure the security of a single blockchain system, data between different blockchain systems are relatively isolated, making it difficult for assets and data to interact. This book explores the scalability of blockchain in depth, proposes meaningful approaches to the problems mentioned above, and builds an original theoretical system of blockchain scalability. It describes the root of blockchain scalability problems, mainstream blockchain performance, the classification of existing scalability problem solutions, and some exciting sharding-based approaches. It also includes open issues and future directions to scale blockchain for complex practical application scenarios. As such, this book will be a valuable resource for students, researchers, engineers, and policymakers working in various areas related to blockchain scalability, which is also of great significance for understanding and solving the bottleneck of blockchain scalability and realizing the practical large-scale commercial application of blockchain.

Input/Output in Parallel and Distributed Computer Systems has attracted increasing attention over the last few years, as it has become apparent that input/output performance, rather than CPU performance, may be the key limiting factor in the performance of future systems. This I/O bottleneck is caused by the increasing speed mismatch between processing units and storage devices, the use of multiple processors operating simultaneously in parallel and distributed systems, and by the increasing I/O demands of new classes of applications, like multimedia. It is also important to note that, to varying degrees, the I/O bottleneck exists at multiple levels of the memory hierarchy. All indications are that the I/O bottleneck will be with us for some time to come, and is likely to increase in importance. Input/Output in Parallel and Distributed Computer Systems is based on papers presented at the 1994 and 1995 IOPADS workshops held in conjunction with the International Parallel Processing Symposium. This book is divided into three parts. Part I, the Introduction, contains four invited chapters which provide a tutorial survey of I/O issues in parallel and distributed systems. The chapters in Parts II and III contain selected research papers from the 1994 and 1995 IOPADS workshops; many of these papers have been substantially revised and updated for inclusion in this volume. Part II collects the papers from both years which deal with various aspects of system software, and Part III addresses architectural issues. Input/Output in Parallel and Distributed Computer Systems is suitable as a secondary text for graduate level courses in computer architecture, software engineering, and multimedia systems, and as a reference for researchers and practitioners in industry.

The book focused on the basic bottleneck issues in the ship uncertainty-based design optimization. Based on the concepts of robustness and reliability design, uncertainty classification, uncertainty modeling, uncertainty analysis and propagation methods were systematically explained, revealing the influence mechanism and rules of multi-source aleatory and epistemic uncertainty on ship design. Finally, a hull form design optimization method with mixed uncertainty was established. The theory of uncertainty design optimization is not yet mature, and this book gives a detailed introduction. The illustrations and tables in this book compared the differences between uncertainty-based optimization and traditional deterministic optimization, reflecting the advantages of uncertainty optimization. This book will be a useful reference for researchers and engineers in the field of ship design.

This book reports theoretical and practical aspects related to the application of lean manufacturing tools in companies established in Latin America. The book is divided into sections according to the tools discussed therein, basic LM tools (Visual management, Andon, 5S and Standardized work), LM tools applied to production planning (Demand management, Heijunka, Takt time, Hoshin Kanri, Value stream map), LM tools applied to quality (Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle (PDCA), Total quality management (TQM), Kaizen, Gemba, Root cause analysis, Getting it right the first time, A3 problem solving, 5 whys), LM tools applied to material flow (One-piece flow, Kanban, Just in time, Bottleneck analysis), LM tools applied to machinery (Jidoka, Poka-yoke, Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), Single-Minute Exchange of Die (SMED)), LM tools applied to production Organization (Cellular manufacturing, Six big losses, Intelligent goals, Key performance indicators (KPI), Lean audits, Decentralization, Vertical information systems), LM applied to human factors (Multifunctional teamwork, Empowerment, Integration of functions, Leadership, Motivation, Labor safety) and LM benefits (Economic, Social and Environmental). We report each tool's concepts, crucial research, and applications. Also, each approach underlines the authors that stand out in that topic, the implementation methodology in the production systems, the benefits they offer, and finally, a case study.

With the growth of the installed capacity and the proportion of REG, mainly including wind power and PV power generation, the stable operation of REG and AC/DC transmission systems has become a technical bottleneck for the sustainable development of REG. Since 2009, broadband oscillation incidents have occurred frequently in REG and AC/DC transmission systems in China and some foreign countries, resulting in severe consequences such as large-scale tripping-off of REG units, damaging equipments, and an increasing curtailment of wind and PV power generation. However, there are great difficulties and challenges for the analysis and mitigation of broadband oscillation.This book focuses on the analysis and mitigation of broadband oscillation in renewable energy generation and AC/DC transmission systems. The theoretical knowledge and practical approaches to solve this issue are explored through the contents of 4 parts, 18 chapters. Part Ⅰ is Small-signal Modeling of Converters, containing four chapters. The frequency-domain small-signal modeling method and impedance modeling of three types of basic converters commonly used in power electronic devices, including the two-level converter, modular multilevel converter, and thyristor converter are introduced. Part Ⅱ is Impedance Model and Characteristics Analysis of REG and HVDC Transmission, containing six chapters. The impedance model and characteristics analysis of the full power conversion wind turbine, DFIG-based wind turbines, PV unit, SVG, LCC-HVDC, and MMC-HVDC are introduced. Part Ⅲ is Broadband Oscillation Analysis in REG and AC/DC Transmission Systems, containing three chapters. The impedance modeling and characteristics analysis of REG plants, and oscillation analysis of REG connected into AC and HVDC transmission systems are introduced. Part Ⅳ is Broadband Oscillation Mitigation in REG and AC/DC Transmission Systems, containing five chapters. The impedance reshaping of the REG unit, SVG, LCC-HVDC, and MMC-HVDC as well as project cases are presented.This book can be used by the researchers engaged in the design, technology research and development, and operation management of electrical engineering and renewable energy engineering, which can also be a reference book for teachers and students of electrical engineering in colleges and universities.

This book discusses the thermodynamic mechanism of MQL grinding with nano-biological lubricant from the force, heat, surface integrity, and micro-morphology.It makes up the fatal defect of the lack of heat transfer capability of traditional MQL grinding. The machining accuracy, surface quality, especially surface integrity of the workpiece, are significantly improved; at the same time, the service life of the grinding wheel is increased and the working environment is improved.The general scope of the book's content is the effects of MQL grinding with nano-bio-lubricant on grinding force, thermal mechanism, and surface.It provides a new method of sustainable green grinding for environment-friendly, resource-saving, and energy-efficient utilization and solves the technical bottleneck of the insufficient capacity in MQL heat transfer.

This book discusses the extent and nature of COVID-19 pandemic in India and its effect on the society and economy. The suggested management practices discussed here are also not stereotype. At the same time, it highlights deficiency in development fundamentals in India on several dimensions, especially health, education, quality of public spending, taxation orientation, external trade involvement across states, etc., deficiencies which create an inbuilt bottleneck toward the creation of a more equal society. While discussing these, the book throws light on how they were expectedly exacerbated by the sudden negative shock in the form of COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, the book has highlighted the COVID pandemic and its response in India in the background of certain less discussed aspects of development fundamentals. The contents would be of interest to researchers and students studying socioeconomic aspect of developmental economics and also to policy makers and non-government entities involved in mitigating effects of pandemic in the socioeconomic sphere.

This book puts forward a technological system for the construction of subsea tunnel using drilling and blasting method. Taking the water-induced disaster as the core risk, the safety guarantee system for large cross-sectional subsea tunnels is established. The composite grouting technology referred to ground reinforcement and water plugging is established, which breaks through the technical bottleneck of subsea tunnel construction in highly permeable strata. The process control theory based on water inrush mechanism is created, which gets rid of the over-dependence on engineering experience for disaster control of submarine tunnel. An active control waterproof drainage system based on the synergy of reinforcement ring and support system is invented to solve the contradiction between the control of water displacement and water pressure. The above-mentioned achievements have been successfully applied in the first three large cross-sectional subsea tunnels in China, and have played a key role in the construction safety. The proposed technological system can improve the overall construction level of subsea tunnel, which can provide reference for the design and construction of subsea tunnels, especially for those crossing through weakness zones.

This open access book introduces how to manage important tasks in industrial wireless networks. Important tasks must be completed on time and with guaranteed quality; that is the consensus reached by system designers and users. However, for too long, important tasks have often been given unnecessary urgency, and people intuitively believe that important tasks should be executedfirst so that their performance can be guaranteed. Actually, in most cases, their performance can be guaranteed even if they are executed later, and the “early” resources can be utilized for other, more urgent tasks. Therefore, confusing importance with urgency hinders the proper use of system resources. In 2007, mixed criticality was proposed to indicate that a system may contain tasks of various importance levels. Since then, system designers and users have distinguished between importance and urgency. In the industrial field, due to the harsh environment they operate in, industrial wireless networks'quality of service (QoS) has always been a bottleneck restricting their applications. Therefore, this book introduces criticality to label important data, which is then allocated more transmission resources, ensuring that important data's QoS requirements can be met to the extent possible. To help readers understand how to apply mixed-criticality data to industrial wireless networks, the content is divided into three parts. First, we introduce how to integrate the model of mixed-criticality data into industrial wireless networks. Second, we explain how to analyze the schedulability of mixed-criticality data under existing scheduling algorithms. Third, we present a range of novel scheduling algorithms for mixed-criticality data. If you want to improve the QoS of industrial wireless networks, this book is for you.

This work presents some essential techniques that constitute the modern strategy for computing scattering amplitudes. It begins with an introductory chapter to fill the gap between a standard QFT course and the latest developments in the field. The author then tackles the main bottleneck: the computation of the loop Feynman integrals. The most efficient technique for their computation is the method of the differential equations. This is discussed in detail, with a particular focus on the mathematical aspects involved in the derivation of the differential equations and their solution. Ample space is devoted to the special functions arising from the differential equations, to their analytic properties, and to the mathematical techniques which allow us to handle them systematically. The thesis also addresses the application of these techniques to a cutting-edge problem of importance for the physics programme of the Large Hadron Collider: five-particle amplitudes at two-looporder. It presents the first analytic results for complete two-loop five-particle amplitudes, in supersymmetric theories and QCD. The techniques discussed here open the door to precision phenomenology for processes of phenomenological interest, such as three-photon, three-jet, and di-photon + jet production.

The focus of this book is an application of Digital Twin as a concept and an approach, based on the most accurate view on a physical production system and its digital representation of complex engineering products and systems. It describes a methodology to create and use Digital Twin in a built environment for the improvement and optimization of factory processes such as factory planning, investment planning, bottleneck analysis, and in-house material transport. The book provides a practical response based on achievements of engineering informatics in solving challenges related to the optimization of factory layout and corresponding processes. This book introduces the topic, providing a foundation of knowledge on process planning, before discussing the acquisition of objects in a factory and the methods for object recognition. It presents process simulation techniques, explores challenges in process planning, and concludes by looking at future areas of progression. By providinga holistic, trans-disciplinary perspective, this book will showcase Digital Twin technology as state-of-the-art both in research and practice.

This book highlights the failure theories and evaluation techniques of thermal barrier coatings, covering the thermal-mechanical–chemical coupling theories, performance and damage characterization techniques, and related evaluations. Thermal barrier coatings are the key thermal protection materials for high-temperature components in advanced aeroengines. Coating spallation is a major technical bottleneck faced by researchers. The extremely complex microstructure, diverse service environments, and failure behaviors bring challenges to the spallation analysis in terms of the selective use of mechanical theories, experimental methods, and testing platforms. In the book, the authors provide a systematic summary of the latest research and technological advances and present their insights and findings in the past couple of decades. This book is not only suitable for researchers and engineers in thermal barrier coatings and related fields but also a good reference for upper-undergraduate and postgraduate students of materials science and mechanics majors.

Flexible electronics are electronics that can be stretched, bent, twisted, and deformed into arbitrary shapes. They break through the bottleneck and monopoly of traditional, rigid IC technologies and represent the next-generation electronics. This book provides an overview of the underlying theory and method of structural design for flexible electronics. Compared to intrinsically flexible and stretchable materials, structural engineering has proven its unique advantages, e.g. stretchable inorganic electronics. Based on the mechanical mechanisms, this book discusses the main structural deformation behaviors of flexible electronics, including mechanics of film-on-substrate and fiber-on-substrate, self-similar design with/without substrate, conformal design on rigid/soft substrate, purely in-plane design of serpentine interconnect with/without substrate, buckling-driven self-assembly and kirigami assembly strategies, neutral layer design, and the new materials-based structure design likeliquid metals, etc. Moreover, the related advanced fabrication technology, the devices designs and applications of flexible electronics are also presented. The comprehensive and in-depth content makes this book can be used as a reference book for experienced researchers, as well as a teaching material for graduate students.

This open access book gives an overview of cutting-edge work on a new paradigm called the “sublinear computation paradigm,” which was proposed in the large multiyear academic research project “Foundations of Innovative Algorithms for Big Data.” That project ran from October 2014 to March 2020, in Japan. To handle the unprecedented explosion of big data sets in research, industry, and other areas of society, there is an urgent need to develop novel methods and approaches for big data analysis. To meet this need, innovative changes in algorithm theory for big data are being pursued. For example, polynomial-time algorithms have thus far been regarded as “fast,” but if a quadratic-time algorithm is applied to a petabyte-scale or larger big data set, problems are encountered in terms of computational resources or running time. To deal with this critical computational and algorithmic bottleneck, linear, sublinear, and constant time algorithms are required.The sublinear computation paradigm is proposed here in order to support innovation in the big data era. A foundation of innovative algorithms has been created by developing computational procedures, data structures, and modelling techniques for big data. The project is organized into three teams that focus on sublinear algorithms, sublinear data structures, and sublinear modelling. The work has provided high-level academic research results of strong computational and algorithmic interest, which are presented in this book.The book consists of five parts: Part I, which consists of a single chapter on the concept of the sublinear computation paradigm; Parts II, III, and IV review results on sublinear algorithms, sublinear data structures, and sublinear modelling, respectively; Part V presents application results. The information presented here will inspire the researchers who work in the field of modern algorithms.

Exa-scale computing needs to re-examine the existing hardware platform that can support intensive data-oriented computing. Since the main bottleneck is from memory, we aim to develop an energy-efficient in-memory computing platform in this book. First, the models of spin-transfer torque magnetic tunnel junction and racetrack memory are presented. Next, we show that the spintronics could be a candidate for future data-oriented computing for storage, logic, and interconnect. As a result, by utilizing spintronics, in-memory-based computing has been applied for data encryption and machine learning. The implementations of in-memory AES, Simon cipher, as well as interconnect are explained in details. In addition, in-memory-based machine learning and face recognition are also illustrated in this book.

Today, computer-system optimization, at both the hardware and software levels, must consider the details of the memory system in its analysis; failing to do so yields systems that are increasingly inefficient as those systems become more complex. This lecture seeks to introduce the reader to the most important details of the memory system; it targets both computer scientists and computer engineers in industry and in academia. Roughly speaking, computer scientists are the users of the memory system and computer engineers are the designers of the memory system. Both can benefit tremendously from a basic understanding of how the memory system really works: the computer scientist will be better equipped to create algorithms that perform well and the computer engineer will be better equipped to design systems that approach the optimal, given the resource limitations. Currently, there is consensus among architecture researchers that the memory system is'the bottleneck,'and this consensus has held for over a decade. Somewhat inexplicably, most of the research in the field is still directed toward improving the CPU to better tolerate a slow memory system, as opposed to addressing the weaknesses of the memory system directly. This lecture should get the bulk of the computer science and computer engineering population up the steep part of the learning curve. Not every CS/CE researcher/developer needs to do work in the memory system, but, just as a carpenter can do his job more efficiently if he knows a little of architecture, and an architect can do his job more efficiently if he knows a little of carpentry, giving the CS/CE worlds better intuition about the memory system should help them build better systems, both software and hardware. Table of Contents: Primers / It Must Be Modeled Accurately /...\ and It Will Change Soon

Exa-scale computing needs to re-examine the existing hardware platform that can support intensive data-oriented computing. Since the main bottleneck is from memory, we aim to develop an energy-efficient in-memory computing platform in this book. First, the models of spin-transfer torque magnetic tunnel junction and racetrack memory are presented. Next, we show that the spintronics could be a candidate for future data-oriented computing for storage, logic, and interconnect. As a result, by utilizing spintronics, in-memory-based computing has been applied for data encryption and machine learning. The implementations of in-memory AES, Simon cipher, as well as interconnect are explained in details. In addition, in-memory-based machine learning and face recognition are also illustrated in this book.

This volume presents the current status of software development in the field of computational and theoretical chemistry and gives an overview of the emerging trends. The challenges of maintaining the legacy codes and their adaptation to the rapidly growing hardware capabilities and the new programming environments are surveyed in a series of topical reviews written by the core developers and maintainers of the popular quantum chemistry and molecular dynamics programs. Special emphasis is given to new computational methodologies and practical aspects of their implementation and application in the computational chemistry codes. Modularity of the computational chemistry software is an emerging concept that enables to bypass the development and maintenance bottleneck of the legacy software and to customize the software using the best available computational procedures implemented in the form of self-contained modules. Perspectives on modular design of the computer programs for modeling molecular electronic structure, non-adiabatic dynamics, kinetics, as well as for data visualization are presented by the researchers actively working in the field of software development and application. This volume is of interest to quantum and computational chemists as well as experimental chemists actively using and developing computational software for their research.Chapters'MLatom 2: An Integrative Platform for Atomistic Machine Learning” and “Evolution of the Automatic Rhodopsin Modeling (ARM) Protocol'are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 License via link.springer.com.

Critical infrastructures are targets for terrorism and deliver a valuable vector through which the proliferation of CBRN and explosive precursors can be detected. Recent technological breakthroughs, notably in the field of near infrared (NIR), mid infrared (MIR), Terahertz (THz) and Gigahertz (GHz) sources and detectors, have led to rugged commercial devices, capable of standoff sensing a range of these dangerous substances. However, at the same time criminal and terrorist organizations have also benefited from the availability of technologies to increase the threat they pose to the security of citizens and a concerted effort is needed to improve early detection measures to identify activities, such as the production of homemade explosives or CBRN that can be potentially dangerous to society. The key global technological bottleneck to be overcome is the current lack of integration and networking of mature detection technology into early warning systems for critical infrastructures. Thus, this book brings together complementary information connecting the research of leading teams working on critical Infrastructure protection with academic developers and industrial producers of state of the art sensors.

This book is the output of Anthropological Survey of India's National Project'DNA Polymorphism of Contemporary Indian Population'conducted during 2000 to 2018. The book compiles the independent and collaborative work of 49 scientific personnel. Genomics facilitate the study of genetic constitution and diversity at individual and population levels. Genomic diversity explains susceptibility, predisposition and prolongation of diseases; personalized medicine and longevity; prehistoric demographic events, such as population bottleneck, expansion, admixture and natural selection. This book highlights the heterogeneous, genetically diverse population of India. It shows how the central geographic location of India, played a crucial role in historic and pre-historic human migrations, and in peopling different continents of the world. The book describes the massive task undertaken by AnSI to unearth genomic diversity of India populations, with the use of Uni-parental DNA markers mtDNA(mitochondrial DNA) and Y –chromosome in 75 communities. The book talks about the 61 maternal and 35 paternal lineages identified through these studies. It brings forth interesting, hitherto unknown findings such as shared mutations between certain communities. This volume is a milestone in scientific research to understand biological diversity of Indian people at genomic level. It addresses the basic priority to identify different genes underlying various inborn genetic defects and diseases specific to Indian populations. This would be highly interesting to population geneticists, historians, as well as anthropologists.

The world is changing, and so are our donors. In the future, it will become even more important for organizations to find leads, supporters and new donors online - because digitization is a bottleneck in fundraising.This book highlights universal fundraising opportunities. It explains the fundamentals of lead community fundraising and why, especially in digital times, it is important to start with the people - the community. The main topic of the book is the current state of digital fundraising, which is becoming more and more important. More than 45 examples from international fundraising practices provide a valuable foundation for all practitioners in this field.

This book introduces Document As System (DAS), a new GeoComputation pattern, which is also a new GIS application pattern. It uses the GeoComputation language (G language) to describe and execute complex spatial analysis model in the MS Word environment, which solves the bottleneck problem of GIS application, makes GIS become a popular tool for spatial data analysis from the spatial data visualization tool, and plays an important role in the wide application of GIS technology. This book systematically introduces the theory related to the new GeoComputation pattern and the application example in the “dual-evaluation” of territorial and spatial planning, which can be used as a learning and reference manual for GIS related professionals and business personnel engaged in the “dual-evaluation” of territorial and spatial planning.

This book provides a comprehensive view on how regional financial institutions should be operated in order to restore Japan's fiscal health. It points out that, even though the Japan Post Bank has been partially privatized, the old mandatory deposit system still virtually exists between the bank and the government. This makes the bank's asset portfolio heavily weighted toward Japanese government bonds and creates a bottleneck to restoring fiscal health. The book also demonstrates how this system and the low interest rate policy keep the bank's return on assets (ROA) low and expose the bank to an interest rate risk and credit risk. While shedding light on the true nature of these problems, this work looks into the best ways regional financial institutions can be operated for the sake of regional economic revitalization. The process would involve integrating the three privatized public financial institutions (i.e., the Japan Post Bank, the Shoko Chukin Bank, and the Development Bank of Japan) and splitting their operations into different businesses and regional companies as well as reorganizing more than 100 regional banks. The author analyzes total assets and ROA of different types of financial institutions (public and private financial services) in Japan to obtain an overall view. Then, using ROA as an assessment indicator, he looks into ways to optimize their portfolios to make the most of individual financial assets, especially deposits, from a welfare economics point of view and formulates a theory for optimization. Financial institutions can optimize their ROA by using individual deposits and savings for total optimization to maximize their return on investment. If the share of total assets by type of financial institution is optimized through mergers or vertical integration between different types of financial institutions, and if ROA is optimized overall as a result, the structure of financial institutions by type in Japan can be optimized.

Designing molecules and materials with desired properties is an important prerequisite for advancing technology in our modern societies. This requires both the ability to calculate accurate microscopic properties, such as energies, forces and electrostatic multipoles of specific configurations, as well as efficient sampling of potential energy surfaces to obtain corresponding macroscopic properties. Tools that can provide this are accurate first-principles calculations rooted in quantum mechanics, and statistical mechanics, respectively. Unfortunately, they come at a high computational cost that prohibits calculations for large systems and long time-scales, thus presenting a severe bottleneck both for searching the vast chemical compound space and the stupendously many dynamical configurations that a molecule can assume. To overcome this challenge, recently there have been increased efforts to accelerate quantum simulations with machine learning (ML). This emerging interdisciplinary community encompasses chemists, material scientists, physicists, mathematicians and computer scientists, joining forces to contribute to the exciting hot topic of progressing machine learning and AI for molecules and materials. The book that has emerged from a series of workshops provides a snapshot of this rapidly developing field. It contains tutorial material explaining the relevant foundations needed in chemistry, physics as well as machine learning to give an easy starting point for interested readers. In addition, a number of research papers defining the current state-of-the-art are included. The book has five parts (Fundamentals, Incorporating Prior Knowledge, Deep Learning of Atomistic Representations, Atomistic Simulations and Discovery and Design), each prefaced by editorial commentary that puts the respective parts into a broader scientific context.

This book summarizes the authors'latest research on narrowband interference and impulsive noise mitigation and cancelation, including (i) mitigating the impacts of NBI on synchronization; (ii) improving time-frequency interleaving performance under NBI and IN; (iii) accurately recovering and eliminating NBI and IN. The complicated, random and intensive narrowband interference and impulsive noise are a serious bottleneck of the next-generation wireless communications and Internet of things. This book also proposes effective and novel frameworks and algorithms, which will significantly improve the capability of mitigating and eliminating NBI and IN in the next-generation broadband communications systems.This book not only presents thorough theoretical models and algorithm design guidelines, but also provides adequate simulation and experimental engineering methods and results. The book is a valuable reference for those engaged in theoretical study, algorithm design and engineering practice in related fields, such as wireless communications, smart lighting, IoT and smart grid communications.

This book describes novel and disruptive architecture and circuit design techniques, toward the realization of low-power, standard-compliant radio architectures and silicon implementation of the circuits required for a variety of leading-edge applications. Readers will gain an understanding of the circuit level challenges that exist for low power radios, compatible with the IEEE 802.15.6 standard. The authors discuss current techniques to address some of these challenges, helping readers to understand the state-of-the-art, and to address the various, open research problems that exist with respect to realizing low power radios.Enables readers to face challenging bottleneck in low power radio design, with state-of-the-art, circuit-level design techniques;Provides readers with basic knowledge of circuits suitable for low power radio circuits compatible with the IEEE 802.15.6 standard;Discusses new and emerging architectures and circuit techniques, enabling applications such as body area networks and internet of things.

Jatropha curcas, or physic nut, is a small tree that, in tropical climates, produces fruits with seeds containing ~38% oil. The physic nut has the potential to be highly productive and is amenable to subculture in vitro and to genetic modification. It also displays remarkable diversity and is relatively easy to cross hybridize within the genus. Thanks to these promising features, J. curcas is emerging as a promising oil crop and is gaining commercial interest among the biofuel research communities. However, as a crop, physic nut has been an economic flop since 2012, because the species was not fully domesticated and the average productivity was less than 2 t/ha, which is below the threshold of profitability.^7 t/ha could be reached and it is contributing to new markets in some countries. As such, it is important fro research to focus on the physiology and selective breeding of Jatropha. This book provides a positive global update on Jatropha, a crop that has suffered despite its promising agronomic and economic potential. The editors have used their collective expertise in agronomy, botany, selective breeding, biotechnology, genomics and bioinformatics to seek out high-quality contributions that address the bottleneck features in order to improve the economic trajectory of physic nut breeding.

This book covers and makes four major contributions: 1) analyzing and surveying the pros and cons of current approaches for identifying rumor sources on complex networks; 2) proposing a novel approach to identify rumor sources in time-varying networks; 3) developing a fast approach to identify multiple rumor sources; 4) proposing a community-based method to overcome the scalability issue in this research area. These contributions enable rumor source identification to be applied effectively in real-world networks, and eventually diminish rumor damages, which the authors rigorously illustrate in this book. In the modern world, the ubiquity of networks has made us vulnerable to various risks. For instance, viruses propagate throughout the Internet and infect millions of computers. Misinformation spreads incredibly fast in online social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter. Infectious diseases, such as SARS, H1N1 or Ebola, have spread geographically and killed hundreds of thousands people. In essence, all of these situations can be modeled as a rumor spreading through a network, where the goal is to find the source of the rumor so as to control and prevent network risks. So far, extensive work has been done to develop new approaches to effectively identify rumor sources. However, current approaches still suffer from critical weaknesses. The most serious one is the complex spatiotemporal diffusion process of rumors in time-varying networks, which is the bottleneck of current approaches. The second problem lies in the expensively computational complexity of identifying multiple rumor sources. The third important issue is the huge scale of the underlying networks, which makes it difficult to develop efficient strategies to quickly and accurately identify rumor sources. These weaknesses prevent rumor source identification from being applied in a broader range of real-world applications. This book aims to analyze and address these issuesto make rumor source identification more effective and applicable in the real world. The authors propose a novel reverse dissemination strategy to narrow down the scale of suspicious sources, which dramatically promotes the efficiency of their method. The authors then develop a Maximum-likelihood estimator, which can pin point the true source from the suspects with high accuracy. For the scalability issue in rumor source identification, the authors explore sensor techniques and develop a community structure based method. Then the authors take the advantage of the linear correlation between rumor spreading time and infection distance, and develop a fast method to locate the rumor diffusion source. Theoretical analysis proves the efficiency of the proposed method, and the experiment results verify the significant advantages of the proposed method in large-scale networks. This book targets graduate and post-graduate students studying computer science and networking. Researchers and professionals working in network security, propagation models and other related topics, will also be interested in this book.

This book describes the bottleneck faced soon by designers of traditional CMOS devices, due to device scaling, power and energy consumption, and variability limitations. This book aims at bridging the gap between device technology and architecture/system design. Readers will learn about challenges and opportunities presented by “beyond-CMOS devices” and gain insight into how these might be leveraged to build energy-efficient electronic systems.

This book provides a real-time and knowledge-based fuzzy logic model for soft tissue deformation. The demand for surgical simulation continues to grow, as there is a major bottleneck in surgical simulation designation and every patient is unique. Deformable models, the core of surgical simulation, play a crucial role in surgical simulation designation. Accordingly, this book (1) presents an improved mass spring model to simulate soft tissue deformation for surgery simulation; (2) ensures the accuracy of simulation by redesigning the underlying Mass Spring Model (MSM) for liver deformation, using three different fuzzy knowledge-based approaches to determine the parameters of the MSM; (3) demonstrates how data in Central Processing Unit (CPU) memory can be structured to allow coalescing according to a set of Graphical Processing Unit (GPU)-dependent alignment rules; and (4) implements heterogeneous parallel programming for the distribution of grid threats for Computer Unified Device Architecture (CUDA)-based GPU computing.

This edited volume compiles a set of papers that present various applications of spatial analysis, both traditional and contemporary, on diverse subjects in a wide range of contexts. The volume is dedicated to the memory of the late Professor Pavlos Kanaroglou, McMaster University, Canada, who greatly contributed to scientific and applied research on spatial analysis. In his honor, the book offers a selection of various spatial analysis approaches to the study of contemporary urban transportation, land use, and air pollution issues. The first part of the book discusses selected general issues in spatial analysis; ontologies, agent-based modelling and accessibility analysis. The second part deals with urban transportation analysis and modelling issues; agent-based activity/travel microsimulation, bottleneck models, public transit use, freight transport and connected automated vehicles impact assessment. Part three focuses on integrated land use and transport analysis, discussing the land value impacts of public transport infrastructure, the role of transport provision on business evolution and commute distance considerations in urban relocation. The fourth part, on travel-related air pollution analysis, presents the development of a geo-information software for mapping Aerosol Optical Thickness in urban environments and the development of a neighborhood level, real time, internet-enabled, air pollution map in the Canadian urban context. This book will appeal to academics, researchers, graduate students, consultants, and practitioners working on topics related to spatial analysis, land use and transport analysis, planning and decision making, and air pollution studies.

This book describes how the genome sequence contributes to our understanding of allopolyploidisation and the genome evolution, genetic diversity, complex trait regulation and knowledge-based breeding of this important crop. Numerous examples demonstrate how widespread homoeologous genome rearrangements and exchanges have moulded structural genome diversity following a severe polyploidy bottleneck. The allopolyploid crop species Brassica napus has the most highly duplicated plant genome to be assembled to date, with the largest number of annotated genes.Examples are provided for use of the genome sequence to identify and capture diversity for important agronomic traits, including seed quality and disease resistance. The increased potential for detailed gene discovery using high-density genetic mapping, quantitative genetics and transcriptomic analyses is described in the context of genome availability and illustrated with recent examples. Intimate knowledge of the highly-duplicated gene space, on the one hand, and the repeat landscape on the other, particularly in comparison to the two diploid progenitor genomes, provide a fundamental basis for new insights into the regulatory mechanisms that are coupled with selection for polyploid success and crop evolution.

This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of unbundling and, in particular, ownership unbundling policies from the perspective of international economic law. It does so by focusing on the prominent example of the EU's energy sector and its Third Energy Package. Unbundling has become an increasingly crucial competition instrument in network-bound industries worldwide. It is designed to ensure access to bottleneck infrastructures on fair and non-discriminatory terms and thus to suppress the anti-competitive potential deriving from vertical integration in natural monopoly situations. While promoting important public policy objectives, unbundling policies have also raised a number of legal issues. This book analyzes how international economic law limits the adoption and maintenance of unbundling and related measures and also outlines how international trade law can play a ‘positive'role in this field. As a result, it provides a valuable reference for academics, practitioners andpolicy-makers.

This book describes fundamental theory and recent advances of sum frequency generation (SFG) spectroscopy. SFG spectroscopy is widely used as a powerful tool of surface characterization, although theoretical interpretation of the obtained spectra has been a major bottleneck for most users. Recent advances in SFG theory have brought about a breakthrough in the analysis methods beyond conventional empirical ones, and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation of SFG spectroscopy allows for simultaneous understanding of observed spectra and interface structure in unprecedented detail. This book explains these recently understood theoretical aspects of SFG spectroscopy by the major developer of the theory. The theoretical topics are treated at basic levels for undergraduate students and are described in relation to computational chemistry, such as molecular modeling and MD simulation, toward close collaboration of SFG spectroscopy and computational chemistry in the near future.

This book provides essential insights into designing a localized DNA circuit to promote the rate of desired hybridization reactions over undesired leak reactions in the bulk solution. The area of dynamic DNA nanotechnology, or DNA circuits, holds great promise as a highly programmable toolbox that can be used in various applications, including molecular computing and biomolecular detection. However, a key bottleneck is the recurring issue of circuit leakage. The assembly of the localized circuit is dynamically driven by the recognition of biomolecules – a different approach from most methods, which are based on a static DNA origami assembly. The design guidelines for individual reaction modules presented here, which focus on minimizing circuit leakage, are established through NUPACK simulation and tested experimentally – which will be useful for researchers interested in adapting the concepts for other contexts. In the closing section, the design concepts are successfully applied to the biomolecular sensing of a broad range of targets including the single nucleotide mutations, proteins, and cell surface receptors.

This book focuses on Blakiston's fish owl and the red-crowned crane as umbrella species. Healthy river, riparian and wetland ecosystems are necessary to maintain the populations of the two species. Both species have been revered by people since ancient times, but both are currently listed as endangered because of their small population sizes. The population decline of the two species can be mainly attributed to the degradation of the natural riparian and wetland habitats, which is associated with land use development.The populations of the two species are now recovering in Japan due to recent conservation and reproduction efforts, but the genetic diversity of the two species are still low due to previous bottleneck effects. To develop conservation and dispersal plans to establish the species over the East Asian mainland and on the island of Hokkaido, basic information, such as their regional distribution, genetic diversity, food availability, reproductive traits, and nesting, breeding, rearing, and commuting habitat, is essential. The intensive, collaborative studies conducted in Japan and Russia has clarified the status quo and the ecology of the two species. This is the first book that comprehensively compiles the above information for the mainland and island populations. In addition, it verifies their suitability as umbrella species of an ecosystem and the possibility of their future population expansion, taking into account changes in land use in Hokkaido, which is about to experience a dramatic decline in human population. As such, the book provides valuable information for students who wish to learn about these beautiful symbolic creatures, for NGOs engaged in conservation activities, and for managers who are involved in creating conservation plans and implementing restoration projects.

This book provides computer engineers, academic researchers, new graduate students, and seasoned practitioners an end-to-end overview of virtual memory. We begin with a recap of foundational concepts and discuss not only state-of-the-art virtual memory hardware and software support available today, but also emerging research trends in this space. The span of topics covers processor microarchitecture, memory systems, operating system design, and memory allocation. We show how efficient virtual memory implementations hinge on careful hardware and software cooperation, and we discuss new research directions aimed at addressing emerging problems in this space. Virtual memory is a classic computer science abstraction and one of the pillars of the computing revolution. It has long enabled hardware flexibility, software portability, and overall better security, to name just a few of its powerful benefits. Nearly all user-level programs today take for granted that they will have beenfreed from the burden of physical memory management by the hardware, the operating system, device drivers, and system libraries. However, despite its ubiquity in systems ranging from warehouse-scale datacenters to embedded Internet of Things (IoT) devices, the overheads of virtual memory are becoming a critical performance bottleneck today. Virtual memory architectures designed for individual CPUs or even individual cores are in many cases struggling to scale up and scale out to today's systems which now increasingly include exotic hardware accelerators (such as GPUs, FPGAs, or DSPs) and emerging memory technologies (such as non-volatile memory), and which run increasingly intensive workloads (such as virtualized and/or'big data'applications). As such, many of the fundamental abstractions and implementation approaches for virtual memory are being augmented, extended, or entirely rebuilt in order to ensure that virtual memory remains viable and performant in the years to come.

This textbook introduces Wireless Powered Communication Networks (WPCNs) as a promising paradigm to overcome the energy bottleneck suffered by traditional wireless communication networks, as well as emerging Internet-of-Things networks. It selectively spans a coherent spectrum of fundamental aspects in WPCNs, such as wireless energy transfer (WEH) techniques, radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting receiver model, simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT), as well as the rate-energy tradeoff arising from the joint transmission of information and energy using the same waveform. It covers network models for WPCNs, including the baseline and dual-hop WPCN models and a variety of related extensions. This book further examines the key factors including throughput, fairness, and security that must be taken into account for impeccable operation of WPCNs. The new IoT applications are targeted as a key element in those factors. It will also include exercises and examples throughout the book, as well as their PLS solutions.This is the first textbook examining the current research to provide a unified view of wireless power transfer (WPT) and information transmission in WPCNs from a physical layer security (PLS) perspective. Focused on designing efficient secure transmission schemes, analyzing energy evolvement process, and evaluating secrecy outage performance under different channel state information (CSI), the results presented in this book shed light on how to best balance security and throughput with prudent use of harvested energy in WCNs. It also provides an overview of the WPCNs by introducing the background of WPT, followed by a summary of the research conducted in the field. The authors describe the physical-layer security (PLS) problem in WPCNs, including the causes and the impacts of the problem on the performance of WPCNs. The authors extend the discussions by introducing the applications of WPCNs in the IoT.From the Internet of Things (IoT) point of view, this textbook reviews the opportunities and challenges for the lately-emerged WPCN to seamlessly integrate into the IoT ecosystem. It specifically addresses the maximization problem of uplink and downlink sum-throughout in a dual-hop WPCN, while taking fairness among WPCN users as a constraint. The results provided in this book reveal valuable insights into improving the design and deployment of future WPCNs in the upcoming IoT environment.This textbook targets advanced-level students studying wireless communications and research engineers working in this field. Industry engineers in mobile device and network development business with an interest in WPCNs and IoT, as well as their PLS solutions, will also find this book useful.

This book introduces readers to titanium matrix composites (TMCs) with novel network microstructures. The bottleneck problem of extreme brittleness and low strengthening effect surrounding TMCs fabricated by means of powder metallurgy has recently been solved by designing network microstructures, which yield both high strength and superior ductility. As such, network structured TMCs will increasingly offer materials characterized by low weight, high strength, high temperature resistance and superior deformability. The book systematically addresses the design, fabrication, microstructure, properties, modification, and toughening mechanisms of these composites, which will help us find innovative solutions to a range of current and future engineering problems.

This book is a guide to modern production planning methods based on new scientific achievements and various practical planning rules of thumb. Several numerical examples illustrate most of the calculation methods, while the text includes a set of programs for calculating production schedules and an example of a cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Despite the relatively large number of books dedicated to this topic, Advanced Planning and Scheduling is the first book of its kind to feature such a wide range of information in a single work, a fact that inspired the author to write this book and publish an English translation. This work consists of two parts, with the first part addressing the design of reference and mathematical models, bottleneck models and multi-criteria models and presenting various sample models. It describes demand-forecasting methods and also includes considerations for aggregating forecasts. Lastly, it provides reference information on methods for data stocking and sorting. The second part of the book analyzes various stock planning models and the rules of safety stock calculation, while also considering the stock traffic dynamics in supply chains. Various batch computation methods are described in detail, while production planning is considered on several levels, including supply planning for customers, master planning, and production scheduling. This book can be used as a reference and manual for current planning methods. It is aimed at production planning department managers, company information system specialists, as well as scientists and PhD students conducting research in production planning. It will also be a valuable resource for students at universities of applied sciences.

This book reports on a novel and comprehensive approach to the uptake of ICT in Schools. It focuses on key questions, pedagogically sound ways of introducing ICT, new technical artifacts supporting the approach, the evaluation in a large-scale validator, and future work. While many innovations in Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) have emerged over the last two decades, the uptake of these innovations has not always been very successful, particularly in schools. The transition from proof of concept to integration into learning activities has been recognized as a bottleneck for quite some time. This major problem, which is affecting many TEL stakeholders, is the focus of this book which focuses on developing a more effective and efficient approach based on more than 2500 pilots in European classrooms. Teachers, head teachers, and policy makers may benefit from reading how novel learning scenarios can be elaborated, adapted to a local context, and implemented in the classroom;how new technologies can support this process for teachers and their national/regional communities; how teachers and other stakeholders can be educated in such a re-engineering process; how the approach can be scaled up through MOOCs, ambassador schemes, and train-the-trainer programs; how future classroom labs can inspire teachers, head teachers, and policy makers; how teachers and, above all, learners can become more engaged in learning through the adoption of the iTEC approach.Readers with a more technical focus may also be interested in the discussion of recommender systems, the flexible provision of resources and services, the deployment of the cloud in schools, and systems for composing technological support for lesson plans.

This SpringerBrief reviews currently applied and potential solutions for improving the efficiency and quality of rural electricity supply in India, a major bottleneck for agricultural development. It provides background on the current state of supply and reviews recent and ongoing research and development projects. One selected project, designed and conducted by the authors, is outlined in detail. The research findings, project implementation, and evaluation are intended to provide development practitioners, policy makers, and applied researchers with experience from the field. At the core of this Brief is the integration of technical and social solutions, emphasizing the role of collective action, and the merits and demerits of small-scale, technically simple measures.

This book covers research on the financing of compulsory education in rural China and provides a highly informative read for readers who are interested in the issue of financing compulsory education in poor areas. Basing on data collected from field studies in 12 counties in 4 provinces around China, this book presents the current status of a new mechanism launched by the Chinese government in 2005 order to ensure funding for compulsory education in the relatively poor rural areas. This mechanism is conceived as a milestone in Chinese compulsory education history, marking the establishment of a government sponsoring model for compulsory education in rural China. Through comparative study, the research finds that the new mechanism not only lightens peasant families'economic burden for having their kids receiving compulsory education, but also breaks the bottleneck of restricting funding for rural compulsory education. The research then also identifies the difficulties and challenges for future improvement.

This book introduces Software Thermal Management (STM) as a means of reducing power consumption in a computing system in order to manage heat, improve component reliability and increase system safety. Readers will benefit from this pragmatic guide to the field of STM for embedded systems and its catalog of software power management techniques. Since thermal management is a key bottleneck in embedded systems design, this book focuses on root cause of heat in embedded systems: power. Since software has an enormous impact on power consumption in an embedded system, this book urges software engineers to manage heat effectively by understanding, categorizing and developing new ways to reduce static and dynamic power consumption. Whereas most books on thermal management describe mechanisms to remove heat, this book focuses on ways for software engineers to avoid generating heat in the first place.

Computational complexity is a serious bottleneck for the design process in virtually any engineering area. While migration from prototyping and experimental-based design validation to verification using computer simulation models is inevitable and has a number of advantages, high computational costs of accurate, high-fidelity simulations can be a major issue that slows down the development of computer-aided design methodologies, particularly those exploiting automated design improvement procedures, e.g., numerical optimization. The continuous increase of available computational resources does not always translate into shortening of the design cycle because of the growing demand for higher accuracy and necessity to simulate larger and more complex systems. Accurate simulation of a single design of a given system may be as long as several hours, days or even weeks, which often makes design automation using conventional methods impractical or even prohibitive. Additional problems include numerical noise often present in the simulation data, possible presence of multiple locally optimum designs, as well as multiple conflicting objectives. In this edited book, various techniques that can alleviate solving computationally expensive engineering design problems are presented. One of the most promising approaches is the use of fast replacement models, so-called surrogates, that reliably represent the expensive, simulation-based model of the system/device of interest but they are much cheaper and analytically tractable. Here, a group of international experts summarize recent developments in the area and demonstrate applications in various disciplines of engineering and science. The main purpose of the work is to provide the basic concepts and formulations of the surrogate-based modeling and optimization paradigm, as well as discuss relevant modeling techniques, optimization algorithms and design procedures. Therefore, this book should be useful to researchers and engineers from any discipline where computationally heavy simulations are used on daily basis in the design process.

In times of growing talent shortage, companies have to find new ways to fill their strategic positions from the outside. This book presents useful and competitive solutions for hiring talented and motivated employees. The author presents four concrete fields of action to achieve this and provides the reader with definitions of strategically relevant key and bottleneck functions. The book emphasizes the fact that employers must sell relevant functions just like they would as part of an employer branding strategy. Employers are moving towards active sourcing strategies beyond job ads and headhunting. They must maintain and manage relations with promising talent once they have been identified. Finally, employers must ensure a positive candidate experience. This book serves as a handy reference for HR managers and talent recruiters.

Optical networks are leaving the labs and becoming a reality. Despite the current crisis of the telecom industry, our everyday life increasingly depends on communication networks for information exchange, medicine, education, data transfer, commerce, and many other endeavours. High capacity links are required by the large futemet traffic demand, and optical networks remain one of the most promising technologies for meeting these needs. WDM systems are today widely deployed, thanks to low-cost at extreme data rates and high reliability of optical components, such as optical amplifiers and fixed/tunable filters and transceivers. Access and metropolitan area networks are increasingly based on optical technologies to overcome the electronic bottleneck at the network edge. Traditional multi-layer architectures, such as the widely deployed IP/ATM/SDH protocol stack, are increasingly based on WDM transport; further efforts are sought to move at the optical layer more of the functionalities available today in higher protocol layers. New components and subsystems for very high speed optical networks offer new design opportunities to network operators and designers. The trends towards dynamically configurable all-optical network infrastructures open up a wide range of new network engineering and design choices, which must face issues such as interoperability and unified control and management.

We dedicate this book to students 0/ computer science who want to under­ stand why the radio channel is at the heart of mobile communications, be it data or voice, and to students 0/ communications engineering looking for an introduction to the structure of the Internet protocols, and their application to mobile radio. We also welcome the practicing engineer'working for mobile network operators and infrastructure suppliers, and the application program­ mer looking for the underlying reasons for the problems they encounter in their daily work. Given that convergence of the information technology and communica­ tions worlds has been talked about for almost 20 years, there is still surpris­ ingly little knowledge among specialists of each others'fields. Data communi­ cations over radio, notably Internet access, however, requires fuH understand­ ing of both fields. Internet protocols have been designed for fixed networks. There bit errors are so rare that interrupted transmission almost inevitably means congestion. In contrast, the radio channel constitutes a bottleneck for mobile data communications in that it introduces bit errors even at modest data rates. This book is based on the doctoral thesis of one of us (M. Taferner).

System-on-a-Chip (SOC) integrated circuits composed of embedded cores are now commonplace. Nevertheless, there remain several roadblocks to rapid and efficient system integration. Test development is seen as a major bottleneck in SOC design and manufacturing capabilities. Testing SOCs is especially challenging in the absence of standardized test structures, test automation tools, and test protocols. In addition, long interconnects, high density, and high-speed designs lead to new types of faults involving crosstalk and signal integrity. SOC (System-on-a-Chip) Testing for Plug and Play Test Automation is an edited work containing thirteen contributions that address various aspects of SOC testing. SOC (System-on-a-Chip) Testing for Plug and Play Test Automation is a valuable reference for researchers and students interested in various aspects of SOC testing.