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Taking a holistic approach to the study of aging, this volume uses biological, archaeological, medical, and cultural perspectives to explore how older adults have functioned in societies around the globe and throughout human history.

The 39-volume set, comprising the LNCS books 13661 until 13699, constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 17th European Conference on Computer Vision, ECCV 2022, held in Tel Aviv, Israel, during October 23–27, 2022. The 1645 papers presented in these proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 5804 submissions. The papers deal with topics such as computer vision; machine learning; deep neural networks; reinforcement learning; object recognition; image classification; image processing; object detection; semantic segmentation; human pose estimation; 3d reconstruction; stereo vision; computational photography; neural networks; image coding; image reconstruction; object recognition; motion estimation.

Biological materials and their applications have drawn increasing attention among scientists. Cellulose is an abundant, renewable, biodegradable, economical, thermally stable, and light material, and it has found application in pharmaceuticals, coatings, food, textiles, laminates, sensors, actuators, flexible electronics, and flexible displays. Its nano form has extraordinary surface properties, such as higher surface area than cellulose; hence, nanocellulose can be used as a substitute for cellulose. Among many other sustainable, functional nanomaterials, nanocellulose is attracting growing interest in environmental remediation technologies because of its many unique properties and functionalities.Nanocellulose and Its Composites for Water Treatment Applications supplies insight into the application of nanocellulose and its nanocomposites for water purification and remediation. It covers different classes of nanocellulose—cellulose nanocrystal (CNC), microfibrillated cellulose (MFC), hairy cellulose nanocrystalloid (HCNC), and bacterial nanocellulose (BNC)—for their competency with other renewable and carbonaceous materials such as pectin, alginate, and CNTs. Future perspectives of nanocellulose and nanocomposites gleaned from different biodegradable origins are also discussed.This book delves into an updated description of the basic principles and developments in synthesis, characterization methods, properties (chemical, thermal, optical, structural, surface, and mechanical structure), property relationships, crystallization behavior, and degradability of biodegradable nanocomposites. The book also supplies vivid information about various cellulose nanomaterials and their applications in absorbing organic and inorganic toxins, membrane filtration of bacteria, viruses, and ionic impurities, photocatalytic dye removal, and sensing of water toxins.Features Details the synthesis and characterization methods of nanocellulose Illustrates the applications of nanocellulose and its nanocomposites Shows in-depth accounts of the various types of properties of nanocellulose and its composites Features emerging trends in the use of nanocellulose as adsorbents, sensors, membranes, and photocatalysis materials This book will be useful for academics, researchers, and engineers working in water treatment and purification.

Remains of the Everyday traces the changing material culture and industrial ecology of China through the lens of recycling. Over the last century, waste recovery and secondhand goods markets have been integral to Beijing's economic functioning and cultural identity, and acts of recycling have figured centrally in the ideological imagination of modernity and citizenship. On the one hand, the Chinese state has repeatedly promoted acts of voluntary recycling as exemplary of conscientious citizenship. On the other, informal recycling networks—from the night soil carriers of the Republican era to the collectors of plastic and cardboard in Beijing's neighborhoods today—have been represented as undisciplined, polluting, and technologically primitive due to the municipal government's failure to control them. The result, Joshua Goldstein argues, is the repeatedly re-inscribed exclusion of waste workers from formations of modern urban citizenship as well as the intrinsic liminality of recycling itself as an economic process.

In this wide-ranging study, Sucheta Mazumdar offers a new answer to the fundamental question of why China, universally acknowledged one of the most developed economies in the world through the mid-eighteenth century, paused in this development process in the nineteenth. Focusing on cane-sugar production, domestic and international trade, technology, and the history of consumption for over a thousand years as a means of framing the larger questions, the author shows that the economy of late imperial China was not stagnant, nor was the state suppressing trade; indeed, China was integrated into the world market well before the Opium War. But clearly the trajectory of development did not transform the social organization of production or set in motion sustained economic growth.

A guidare la mano di Darwin mentre nel 1837 tracciava in un taccuino il primo schizzo del suo «albero della vita» c'era l'idea della discendenza delle specie da un antenato comune. Idea audace, che andava contro il dogma creazionista e stabiliva una continuità tra gli esseri umani e creature ben più primitive nella scala della natura. Da allora l'albero filogenetico, nelle sue molteplici incarnazioni, non ha fatto che espandersi, incontrando tuttavia un limite nell'impossibilità di esplorare adeguatamente il vasto mondo degli organismi microscopici. Negli anni Settanta, grazie al suo lavoro su batteri e archei con tecniche avanzate di filogenetica molecolare, Carl Woese ha mostrato che l'albero della vita è più intricato di quanto si immaginasse, e forse non è neppure un albero. Un dubbio che è divenuto certezza quando si è scoperto che i geni non si spostano solo in senso verticale, da una generazione alla successiva, ma anche lateralmente, e che possono attraversare i confini di specie o passare da un regno a un altro. Noi stessi siamo un mosaico di forme di vita: l'otto per cento del genoma umano consiste infatti di residui di retrovirus che hanno invaso il DNA dei nostri antenati, «l'equivalente genetico di una trasfusione di sangue». E tra i ‘donatori'ci sono organismi primordiali che dominavano la scena della vita miliardi di anni fa e ora abitano in ciascuno di noi in una simbiosi che solleva interrogativi inquietanti sul concetto stesso di specie e di individuo. Con mano sicura, Quammen ci guida nei meandri della scienza che negli ultimi decenni ha cercato di far luce sul mistero dei rapporti filogenetici fra tutti gli esseri che popolano la Terra, restituendoci una galleria di ritratti – un ‘albero di storie‘ – che rimarrà impressa a lungo nella mente del lettore.

Un revelador libro que abre las puertas a descubrimientos que podrían transformar radicalmente nuestra manera de concebir la evolución. ¿Quiénes somos, qué somos y cómo evolucionó la vida en nuestro planeta? En la década de los setenta diversos científicos empezaron a comparar secuencias de ADN con el fin de ahondar en nuestro conocimiento sobre la historia de la vida. Su trabajo supuso una drástica revisión de uno de los conceptos más básicos de la biología, la idea del árbol de la vida. Al descubrir que los genes también pueden desplazarse lateralmente, traspasando así los límites entre especies, dieron un vuelco a la certeza tradicional de que los genes se transferían de arriba abajo, es decir únicamente de padres a hijos. Una revelación que no solo ponía en duda cuanto sabíamos sobre la evolución humana, sino que inauguraba unaserie nueva de incertidumbres, pues acarreaba importantes implicaciones sobre la identidad, la individualidad y la salud humana. En El árbol enmarañado, David Quammen, uno de los mejores divulgadores científicos de la actualidad, nos presenta este y otros hallazgos trascendentales en el campo de la biología molecular para abrirnos las puertas a descubrimientos que transformarán radicalmente nuestra idea de la evolución. Porque, como dice el autor «no somos precisamente lo que pensábamos que éramos. El árbol de la vida está más enmarañado.» Reseñas: «Quammen no es un escritor corriente. Es sorprendente, uno de esos raros narradores bendecidos con brío, ingenuidad, humor, instinto y con un gran corazón.» Elle «Quammen es el mejor reportero del mundo natural. Cada página desborda descripciones de una autenticidad extraordinaria.» Parul Sehgal, The New York Times «David Quammen demuestra ser un guía excepcional, inmensamente bien informado para una historia de tal complejidad. En mi opinión, es el mejor escritor de historia natural; sus libros impresionan por su precisión, su energía y su escritura brillante y evocativa.» David Barash, The Wall Streer Journal «Quammen hasescrito una profunda y atrevida aventura intelectual. El árbol enmarañado es mucho más que un reportaje sobre algunos hechos científicos atractivos; es una auténtica fuente de maravillas.» Thomas Levenson, The Boston Globe «Quammen es un maestro en deconstruir conceptos científicos para luego armar con ellos una narrativa coherente, comprensible y reveladora. Es justamente lo que hace en El árbol enmarañado, centrándose en los científicos que, recientemente, han cambiado todo cuanto sabíamos sobre la evolución, la herencia genética y, sí, el origen de las especies.» Jennifer Bort Yacovissi, Washington Independent Review of Books «La ciencia y la filosofía se interconectan de maneras que a la mayoría de nosotros se nos escapan. Pero Quammen siempre está alerta.» John Archibald, Nature «Un vívido testimonio de cómo la nueva investigación genética está cambiando radicalmente la historia de la vida.» Andrea Thompson, Scientific American «Con humor, lucidez y testimonies increíbles de descubrimientos y contiendas, Quammenrepasa minuciosamente las revelaciones que han dejado al descubierto la espectacular complejidad de la vida.» Booklist «Una obra maestro de un nuevo campo de la biología molecular [...] un relato impresionante sobre quizás la revolución científica más desconocida del siglo XX.» Kirkus

The book is the first and general report of a series of six that reviews the practice of “China Dream” policy by the Zhejiang provincial government. “China Dream” is one of the most important state policies established by the present Chinese government and how to convert this abstract national strategy to concrete practice is still much of a challenge for local governments. The book summarizes the six facets of government administrative practices in economics, politics, culture, society, ecology and construction of the Party. It serves as the skeleton of the series and outlines the whole structure. It will help scholars and political practitioners worldwide better understand the statecraft of China and the practice China has experienced.

In this New York Times bestseller and longlist nominee for the National Book Award, “our greatest living chronicler of the natural world” (The New York Times), David Quammen explains how recent discoveries in molecular biology affect our understanding of evolution and life's history. In the mid-1970s, scientists began using DNA sequences to reexamine the history of all life. Perhaps the most startling discovery to come out of this new field—the study of life's diversity and relatedness at the molecular level—is horizontal gene transfer (HGT), or the movement of genes across species lines. It turns out that HGT has been widespread and important; we now know that roughly eight percent of the human genome arrived sideways by viral infection—a type of HGT. In The Tangled Tree, “the grandest tale in biology….David Quammen presents the science—and the scientists involved—with patience, candor, and flair” (Nature). We learn about the major players, such as Carl Woese, the most important little-known biologist of the twentieth century; Lynn Margulis, the notorious maverick whose wild ideas about “mosaic” creatures proved to be true; and Tsutomu Wantanabe, who discovered that the scourge of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a direct result of horizontal gene transfer, bringing the deep study of genome histories to bear on a global crisis in public health. “David Quammen proves to be an immensely well-informed guide to a complex story” (The Wall Street Journal). In The Tangled Tree, he explains how molecular studies of evolution have brought startling recognitions about the tangled tree of life—including where we humans fit upon it. Thanks to new technologies, we now have the ability to alter even our genetic composition—through sideways insertions, as nature has long been doing. “The Tangled Tree is a source of wonder….Quammen has written a deep and daring intellectual adventure” (The Boston Globe).

The subject of this book is to reveal the formation process of circulation structure centering on vegetable wholesale market in western cities of China. The data are mainly from the interview and survey on farmers, vegetable wholesalers and retailers and operators of vegetable wholesale markets. The findings of the research show that the large vegetable production bases in eastern economically developed regions place stress on local vegetable circulation through wholesale markets, which results in the change in circulation channel in vegetable wholesale markets in western cities, namely, the circulation channel focusing on local vegetable has been shifted to non-local vegetables. The readers will get inspiration from the book that circulation channels have boasted a significance to the small vegetable bases surrounding the cities.

Selected, peer reviewed papers from the 2014 3rd International Conference on Sustainable Energy and Environmental Engineering (ICSEEE 2014), December 30-31, 2014, Shenzhen, China

Selected, peer reviewed papers from the 4th International Conference on Advanced Design and Manufacturing Engineering (ADME 2014), July 26-27, 2014, Hangzhou, China

Selected, peer reviewed papers from the 2011 International Conference on Manufacturing Science and Technology, (ICMST 2011), September 16-18, 2011, Singapore

Selected, peer reviewed papers from the Fourth Chinese Symposium on Magnetic Bearings (CSMB-4, Mechatronics 2011), August 20-22, 2011, Shanghai, China

CIMTEC 2008Selected, peer reviewed papers from the Symposium C ‚Emboding Intelligence in Structures and Integrated Systems‘ of CIMTEC 2008 - 3rd International Conference ‚Smart Materials, Structures and Systems‘, held in Acireale, Sicily, Italy, June 8-13, 2008

This volume contains about 40 papers covering many of the latest developments in the fast-growing field of bioinformatics. The contributions span a wide range of topics, including computational genomics and genetics, protein function and computational proteomics, the transcriptome, structural bioinformatics, microarray data analysis, motif identification, biological pathways and systems, and biomedical applications. There are also abstracts from the keynote addresses and invited talks.The papers cover not only theoretical aspects of bioinformatics but also delve into the application of new methods, with input from computation, engineering and biology disciplines. This multidisciplinary approach to bioinformatics gives these proceedings a unique viewpoint of the field.