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Health Research in Nigeria: A Bibliometric Analysis
by Joseph Abiodun BalogunThis book is the first authoritative study of the research output and scientific impact of Nigerian health academics, including those in the diaspora. Around the world, policymakers and academics measure the scientific impact of research at national and international levels using bibliometric measures. Unfortunately, there is limited data on scientists' research productivity and impact in developing countries, particularly in Africa. Therefore, normative bibliometric information from different countries is needed to address the challenges faced by scientists in Africa. This book contributes to filling this research gap. Additionally, the author addresses the controversies surrounding the use of bibliometrics in judging research productivity and offers recommendations to improve research systems.
The Female Turn: How Evolutionary Science Shifted Perceptions About Females
by Malin Ah-KingThis book traces the history of how evolutionary biology transformed its understanding of females from being coy, reserved and sexually passive, to having active sexual strategies and often mating with multiple males. Why did it take so long to discover female active sexual strategies? What prevented some researchers from engaging in sexually active females, and what prompted others to develop this new knowledge? The Female Turn provides a global overview of shifting perceptions about females in sexual selection research on a wide range of animals, from invertebrates to primates. Evolutionary biologist and feminist science scholar Malin Ah-King explores this history from a unique interdisciplinary vantage point. Based on extensive knowledge of the scientific literature on sexual selection and in-depth interviews with leading researchers, pioneers and feminist scientists in the field, her analysis engages with key theoretical approaches in gender studies of science. Analyzing the researchers’ scientific interests, theoretical frameworks, specific study animals, technological innovations, methodologies and sometimes feminist insights, reveals how these have shaped conclusions drawn about sex. Thereby, The Female Turn shows how certain researchers gained knowledge about active females whereas others missed, ignored or delayed it – that is, how ignorance was produced.
Branding Bangladesh: From ‘Bottomless Pit’ to a ‘Middle Income’ Country
by Imtiaz A. Hussain Jessica Tartila SumaThis book explores Bangladesh's shift from a 'bottomless pit' into a 'middle-income' category. Six chapters in the book cover topics on microfinance growth, ready-made garment production, and social safety net programs playing pivotal roles particularly for women empowerment. In doing so, the book shows that the net effect was not just a change to the country's limited number of representative brands, but also a realization of many more brands to have built up over time.
Monitoring of Desert Locust in Africa and Asia
by Yingying Dong Longlong Zhao Wenjiang HuangThis book deals with the topic on remote sensing monitoring of desert locust in Africa and Asia. Remote sensing monitoring of the occurrence and damage of desert locust is conducted by integrating cutting-edge technologies and methods in cross-disciplinary fields in remote sensing science, geographic information science, agronomy, plant protection, agricultural meteorology, mathematics, and computer science. The main contents include spatio-temporal data analysis and processing, desert locust breeding areas monitoring, pest migration path analysis and damage monitoring. Moreover, a desert locust remote sensing monitoring system is constructed and applied in the region of Africa and Asia countries. This book not only provides technical reference for remote sensing monitoring and application of desert locust but also serves as a research reference for scholars and graduate students engaged in agricultural remote sensing, agricultural information technology, plant protection and other related field. It will help to improve remote sensing monitoring and application of desert locust.
The Evolution of China’s Anti-Poverty Strategies: Cases of 20 Chinese Changing Lives
by William N. BrownThis open access book presents the findings of the author’s 3 decades of studying China’s evolving anti-poverty strategies. It argues that much of the billions that nations spend yearly on economic aid is used inefficiently or to treat the symptoms but not the root causes of poverty. China, however, has evolved an effective sustainable alternative by providing the means for self-reliance to not only relieve economic poverty but also poverty of spirit. As a result, the success of China’s historic war on poverty has been due not only to top-down visionary leadership but also to the bottom-up initiatives of an empowered populace unswervingly united in ending poverty.From 1993 to 2019, the author drove over 200,000 km around China and interviewed hundreds of people from all walks of life as he explored the evolution of China’s anti-poverty strategies from simplistic aid and redistribution, which often engendered dependency and poverty of spirit. Over time, the philosophy shifted to empowerment by fostering self-reliance—or as Chinese put it, “blood production rather than blood transfusion.” The primary method of empowerment was to provide modern infrastructure, “Roads first, then riches,” so rural dwellers in remote Inner Mongolia or the Himalayan heights of Tibet had the same access to markets, jobs and internet for e-commerce as their urban counterparts. People who seized the opportunities and prospered first then used their newfound wealth and experience to help others.The stories in this book include a Tibetan entrepreneur whose family was impoverished in spite of 300 years of service to the Panchen Lama, or the farm girl with 4 years of education who now has several international schools, a biotechnology company and poverty alleviation projects across China, or the photographer who walked 40,000 km through deserts to chronicle the threat of desertification. Their tales underscore how diverse people across China helped make possible China’s success in alleviating absolute poverty and why Chinese are now confident in achieving a “moderately prosperous society.”
Being a Teacher: From Technicist to Existential Accounts, in conversation with Jean-Paul Sartre (Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education #19)
by Alison M. BradyThis book re-conceptualizes teaching through an engagement with Jean-Paul Sartre’s early existentialist thought. Against the grain of teacher accountability, it turns to the demanding account of being human in Sartre’s thought, on the basis of which an alternative account of teaching can be developed. It builds upon Sartre’s key concepts related to the self, freedom, bad faith, and the Other, such that they might open up original ways of thinking about the practices of teaching. Indeed, given the everyday complexities that characterize teaching, as well as the vulnerabilities and uncertainty that it so often involves, this book ultimately aims to create a space in which to reimagine forms of accounting that move from technicist ways of thinking to existential sensitivity in relation to one’s practice as a teacher.
Screen Media and the Construction of Nostalgia in Post-Socialist China: Contemporary East Asian Visual Cultures, Societies And Politics (Contemporary East Asian Visual Cultures, Societies and Politics)
by Zhun GuThis book traces the cultural transformation of nostalgia on the Chinese screen over the past three decades. It explores how filmmakers from different generations have engaged politically with China’s rapidly changing post-socialist society as it has been formed through three mutually constitutive frameworks: political discourse, popular culture and state-led media commercialisation. The book offers a new, critical model for understanding relationships between filmmakers, industry and the State.
Scholarship Students in Elite South African Schools: The Gift of a Scholarship (Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education #16)
by Jennifer Wallace Jennifer FeldmanThis book provides a narrative account of the experiences of twenty former scholarship students from historically disadvantaged communities who attended elite public and private secondary schools. It draws on in-depth, one-on-one semi-structured interviews conducted with former scholarship recipients who were between the ages of 19 and 24 years at the time of the interviews. Various themes are explored, specifically focusing on elite schooling in relation to the experiences and navigational practices of the scholarship recipients and the adjustments that they felt they needed to make in order to fit into the elite school space.The book analyses and discusses the reflective experiences of students who were awarded a scholarship to attend an elite secondary school. It reveals that accepting the gift of a scholarship is far more complex, multi-layered, and at times harsh and even painful for the individual recipients than is possibly realized by those involved in this practice. This book contributes to academic educational debates within the sociology of education, elite schools and schooling in the post-apartheid South African context.
Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue (Encounters between East and West)
by Fred Dervin Huiyu TanThis book offers a snapshot of interculturality as a complex, unstable and highly political object of research and education when it locates at the centre of multifaceted dialogues between teachers and students; students and students; teachers, students, scholars and readers. The context of the book is a Chinese course on intercultural communication education where students engage with local and international teachers. By listening to the intriguing and stimulating voices of these students in dialogue with the teachers, the reader also has the opportunity to enter the intercultural world of Chinese youth, beyond stereotypes. The unique approach proposed in the book is of interest to students, teachers of intercultural communication education, teacher educators, researchers and anyone wishing to build up supercriticality in relation to the fascinating notion of interculturality. The book contains 15 chapters and revolves around five main dialogues between the students and their teachers. Following each dialogue, the floor is given to the students to react to the dialogues and to share their views on questions that emerged from the main dialogues. The book conveys the authors’ excitement about approaching interculturality in supercritical ways, engaging in the process with multiple voices.
Research and Teaching in a Pandemic World: The Challenges of Establishing Academic Identities During Times of Crisis
by Basil Cahusac de Caux Lynette Pretorius Luke MacaulayThis book adopts collaborative autoethnography as its methodology, and presents the collective witnessing of experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic within the higher education sector. Through the presentation of staff and student experiences and what was learnt from them, the authors examine the global phenomenon that is the COVID-19 pandemic through the purposeful exploration of their own experiences. This book presents an overall argument about the state of higher education in the middle of the pandemic and highlights academic issues and region-specific challenges. The reflections presented in this book offer insights for other staff and students, as well as academic policy-makers, regarding the pandemic experiences of those within academia. It also offers practical suggestions as to how we as a global community can move forward post-pandemic.
Innovative Systems Approach for Facilitating Smarter World (Design Science and Innovation)
by Toshiya Kaihara Hajime Kita Shingo Takahashi Motohisa FunabashiThis book introduces state-of-the-art concepts and methodologies on innovative systems approach that enables the grand design and implementation about Smarter World. This book also describes the shared view that the various heterogeneous social systems that make up Smarter World should be viewed as systems at an abstract level, and develop new developments in SoS and spiral systems through the cycle of analysis, synthesis and abduction. Several new concepts that integrate data-driven mechanism into traditional model-driven methodologies in systems approach are explained with practical applications. As such, it offers a valuable resource for systems engineers, system integrators, and researchers in related engineering fields, as well as government policymakers.
Reflecting on and with the ‘More-than-Human’ in Education: Things for Interculturality (SpringerBriefs in Education)
by Fred Dervin Mei YuanThis book examines today’s central and yet often misunderstood and misconstrued notion of interculturality. It specifically focuses on one aspect of intercultural awareness that has been ignored in research and education: the presence and influence of things on the way we experience, do, and reflect on interculturality. This book provides the readers with opportunities to engage with interculturality by reflecting on how our lives are full of things and entangled with them. It urges teachers, teacher educators, scholars, and students to open their eyes to the richness that the more-than-human, with which we can reflect, has to offer for intercultural communication education.
Salutogenic Urbanism: Architecture and Public Health in Early Modern European Cities
by Mohammad Gharipour Anatole TchikineThis book offers a new, salutogenic, perspective on the development of early modern cities by exploring profound and complex ways in which architecture and landscape design served to promote public health on an urban scale. Focusing on fifteenth- through nineteenth-century Europe, it addresses the histories of spaces and institutions that supported salubrious living, highlighting the intersections of medical theory, government policy, and architectural practice in designing, improving, and monumentalizing the infrastructure of sanitation and healthcare. Studies in this book highlight the joint role of design thinking and scientific practice in reforming the facilities for treating and preventing disease; the impact of cross-cultural exchange on early modern strategies of urban improvement; and the creation of new therapeutic environments through state, communal, and private initiatives concerned with the preservation of physical and mental health, from recreational landscapes to spa resorts.
Ecological Migration and Targeted Poverty Alleviation in Ningxia: Experience and Lessons (International Research on Poverty Reduction)
by Xiaoyi WangThis book assesses Ecological Migration and Precision Poverty Alleviation Measures, based on research conducted in Ningxia. “Resettling residents currently living in poor areas” is an important measure for “precise poverty alleviation.” China’s central government has provided extraordinary support for these areas, so as to help with “removing poverty nests,” “changing poverty industries,” and “pulling out the roots of poverty.”This book is mainly based on research conducted in Ningxia, one of the earliest areas in China to achieve poverty alleviation and development through immigration and relocation. Since the Twelfth Five-Year Plan, Ningxia’s ecological migration has been integrated into the process of new urbanization and industrialization. Poverty alleviation and relocation not only involves regional transfer, industrial transformation, and changes in livelihood, but also the social adaptation and integration of migrant groups. In addition to examining these aspects, the book shares stories of how impoverished individuals have succeeded in changing their fates.
The New Journey of China’s Economic and Social Development
by Fuzhan Xie Fang Cai Xuesong LiThis book aims at China's economic and social development, which has embarked on a new journey. It collects more than 20 major research achievements of researchers in relevant fields of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. These topics cover rural revitalization and anti-poverty, industrialization and manufacturing transformation, service industry upgrading, fiscal and taxation system and fiscal sustainability, major financial reform, industry and competition policy, ownership structure, new pattern of opening up, digital economy, innovation driven, financial stability, macro-control, new urbanization, regional development, ecological environment, aging population, labor market, income distribution, social governance, people's livelihood, social security, the rule of law, cultural power, and other major issues. This book helps people from all walks of life better understand and grasp the new trends, opportunities, and challenges of China's economic and social development in the future and provides useful reference for thinking about China's medium and long-term development strategy and development path.
Living Well in a World Worth Living in for All: Volume 1: Current Practices of Social Justice, Sustainability and Wellbeing
by Kristin Elaine Reimer Mervi Kaukko Sally Windsor Kathleen Mahon Stephen KemmisThis open access book is the first of a two-volume series focusing on how people are being enabled or constrained to live well in today’s world, and how to bring into reality a world worth living in for all. The chapters offer unique narratives drawing on the perspectives of diverse groups such as: asylum-seeking and refugee youth in Australia, Finland, Norway and Scotland; young climate activists in Finland; Australian Aboriginal students, parents and community members; families of children who tube feed in Australia; and international research students in Sweden. The chapters reveal not just that different groups have different ideas about a world worth living in, but also show that, through their collaborative research initiative, the authors and their research participants were bringing worlds like these into being. The volume extends an invitation to readers and researchers in education and the social sciences to consider ways to foster education that realises transformed selves and transformed worlds: the good for each person, the good for humankind, and the good for the community of life on the planet. The book also includes theoretical chapters providing the background and rationale behind the notion of education as initiating people into ‘living well in a world worth living in'. An introductory chapter discusses the origins of the concept and the phrase.
Advances in Civil Engineering Materials: Selected Articles from the 6th International Conference on Architecture and Civil Engineering (ICACE 2022), August 2022, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering #310)
by Elham Maghsoudi Nia Lloyd Ling Mokhtar Awang Seyed Sattar EmamianThis book presents selected articles from the 6th International Conference on Architecture and Civil Engineering 2022 (ICACE 2022), held in Malaysia. Written by leading researchers and industry professionals, the papers highlight recent advances and addresses current issues in the fields of civil engineering and architecture.
Splendors of Quanzhou, Past and Present
by William N. BrownThis open access book explores the past and present of Quanzhou (Zayton) and the rich diversity and tolerance that kindled Quanzhou’s innovativeness and helped it prosper both commercially and culturally—values that are today being embraced by China’s global trade partners. Quanzhou (Zayton), Marco Polo’s port of departure and Columbus’ goal in China, was not only the start of the Maritime Silk Road and the Middle Age’s greatest port but also centuries ahead of its time in its tolerance and diversity. The fabled “City of Light” had 7 mosques for its 40,000 Muslims, some of whom served in government, as well as 3 Franciscan cathedrals funded in part by the emperor, Jewish synagogues, and centers for Nestorian Christians, Hindus, Taoists, Manicheans, Jains, etc. As Franciscan Bishop Andrew of Perugia wrote in 1322, “Tis a fact that in this vast empire, there are people of every nation under heaven, and every sect, and all and sundry are allowed to live freely according to their creed.” In 2021, UNESCO designated “Quanzhou, Emporium of the World,” as a world heritage site, and the city is now the hub of the Belt and Road Initiative, the 21st Century Silk Road, which was inspired by ancient Quanzhou.
East-West Dialogue
by Sudeshna SarkarThis Open access book is a collection of interviews published by China News Service, a Beijing-based news agency, in its “West-East Talk” column. It has been divided into five sections: “Mutual Learning Among Civilizations,” “Hot Issues,” “About China,” “Sino-U.S. Relations” and “Cultural Collision”. The interviews are with more than 50 eminent scholars, scientists, politicians, authors, etc., from different parts of the world as well as China, who have an association with China and see the real China beyond the stereotypes. Besides current global issues, the book also covers Chinese culture, history as well as China-U.S. relations, described as one of the most important bilateral relationships in the world today. The book aims to build a platform for dialogue among different civilizations and appreciate the “harmony within diversity” of different cultures, especially of the East and West. We hope it will foster tolerance and rationality, dispelling the misconceptions about China in particular.
Undernutrition in India: Causes, Consequences and Policy Measures (Sustainable Development Goals Series)
by Aparajita Chattopadhyay Akancha Singh Samriddhi S. GupteThis book deals with issues related to undernutrition and anaemia in India. It establishes its interconnectedness with poverty, tribal living conditions, contraception usage, dietary diversity, and socioeconomic inequality. It addresses SDG 2, namely “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.” It puts forth the linkages between mother's economic empowerment and children's nutritional status, anaemia of women with particular reference to tribal women, and the issues associated with anaemia in India. It also delves into the relationship between contraceptive usage and anaemia level. It explores the proximate and intermediate determinants of undernutrition disaggregated at the state level in India. It elaborates the importance of ensuring food security and suggests policy measures to improve maternal and child health. The book is an asset for all researchers, academicians, clinicians and policy makers dealing with sociology, economics, public policy, social work, population study, gender issues, biostatistics, health, development, and nutrition.
The Reconstruction of Chinese Sociology: An Oral History of 40 Sociologists (1979–2019)
by Zhou XiaohongTracing the evolution of Chinese Sociology from the late 1970s to the present day, the book aims to record the path of reconstruction, localization, change, and reform of Chinese Sociology through interviews with 40 Chinese top sociologists such as Su Guoxun, Zhou Xiaohong, Bian Yanjie, Zhao Dingxin, Zhou Xueguang et al. Divided into three sections, this insightful book is the best proof of the rapid development and overall improvement of the discipline since the reform and opening-up in China. On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the restoration and reconstruction of Chinese Sociology, this book is expected to inspire the younger generation of sociology researchers and deepen public’s understanding of sociology.
Managing People in Projects for High Performance: Behavioural Approach to Productive Project Teams (Management for Professionals)
by Upasna A. Agarwal Karuna Jain Vittal Anantatmula Sankaran ShankarThis book examines practically useful management and people skills, and looks at competencies from the micro, meso, and macro- lens. At the micro- level, the book examines a range of competencies needed for managing oneself and others in a project environment, such as personality style, cognitive skills, communication skills, and emotional intelligence. The book will also includes discussion on strategies for managing emotions of self and others effectively. At the meso- level, the book discusses basic structure, characteristics, and importance of different types of teams such as virtual teams, project teams, domain specific teams, and heavy-weight teams in organizations to enhance productivity and delegate accountability. It also explores team processes, including structure, culture, supporting systems, performance and incentive systems, and their impact on team productivity. In addition, the book includes a discourse on skills to manage a multi-generational workforce (a combination of baby boomers, X and Y generation), a challenge faced by project managers in current scenario. Finally, at the macro- level, the book captures the role of culture in a project context; emerging leadership styles in projects, maintaining relationship with internal and external stakeholders; role of power, politics and influence in relationship building (social networks and social capital); and managing conflicts and negotiations. The book presents ethical considerations in managing projects; relationship between projects and sustainability; societal responsibilities of projects; advantages and disadvantages of forms of control in projects (behaviour and outcome control). It is positioned primarily for practitioners although it is a relevant and useful resource and reference for academics and students of project management and management studies courses.
Finland’s Famous Education System: Unvarnished Insights into Finnish Schooling
by Martin Thrupp Piia Seppänen Jaakko Kauko Sonja KosunenThis open access book provides academic insights and serves as a platform for research-informed discussion about education in Finland. Bringing together the work of more than 50 authors across 28 chapters, it presents a major collection of critical views of the Finnish education system and topics that cohere around social justice concerns. It questions rhetoric, myths, and commonly held assumptions surrounding Finnish schooling.This book draws on the fields of sociology of education, education policy, urban studies, and policy sociology. It makes use of a range of research methodologies including ethnography, case study and discourse analysis, and references the work of relevant theorists, including Bourdieu and Foucault. This book aims to provide a critical, updated and astute analysis of the strengths and challenges of the Finnish education system.
Digitized Statecraft of Four Asian Regionalisms: States' Multilateral Treaty Participation and Citizens' Satisfaction with Quality of Life (Evidence-Based Approaches to Peace and Conflict Studies #13)
by Takashi Inoguchi Lien Thi LeThis book attempts to develop a novel way of conceptualizing regionalism under hyper-globalization. Until recently, regionalism has been often framed in terms of economic interdependence and security connectivity in which sovereign states are the key navigators within the liberal world order. Under hyper-globalization in the third millennium, hyper-globalization forces us to capture global politics at two more levels of measurement at the state level and both there below and there above. First, how 29 Asian sovereign states join multilateral treaty participation to develop their global quasi-legislative types and how citizens' satisfaction with quality of life in 29 civil societies shapes their societal types. Second, relating these two features above and below sovereign states, the book attempts to measure the features and speculate on the futures of four Asian regionalisms (Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia) and their prospect of the demographically largest continent called Asia in the twenty-first century. Regionalism is measured by the proclivity of 600 multilateral treaty participation in terms of speed (cautious versus agile), angle (global commons versus individual interests) and strategy (aspirational bonding versus mutual binding), whereas quality of life is measured by citizens' satisfaction with 16 domains, aspects and styles of individual daily life in terms of survival (or materialism), social relations (post-materialism) and public policy preponderance. The book opens an innovative vista to better understand tumultuous global politics. This ambitious volume leverages original survey data on citizen satisfaction and country-level data on treaty accessions to characterize the trajectories of countries in four regions of Asia as they adapt -- or fail to adapt -- to the challenges of globalization in the 21st century and beyond. Readers will learn much about politics from the basic level of the individual citizen to the most comprehensive level of the global system - and about the interactions of politics at all levels.-- Andrew J. Nathan, Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science, Columbia University A wonderful attempt to link a country’s domestic development and its adaptation to the global politics. It is truly eye-opening and the findings are likely to significantly shape our understanding of life and global politics.-- Zhengxu Wang, Ph.D. Distinguished Professor, Department of Political Science, Fudan University
Wireless Sensor Networks: 16th China Conference, CWSN 2022, Guangzhou, China, November 10–13, 2022, Proceedings (Communications in Computer and Information Science #1715)
by Huadong Ma Xue Wang Lianglun Cheng Li Cui Liang Liu An ZengThis book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 16th China Conference on Wireless Sensor Networks, CWSN 2022, which took place in Guangzhou, China, in November 2022. The 17 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 204 submissions, including 87 English papers and 117 Chinese papers. The conference provided an academic exchange of research and a development forum for IoT researchers, developers, enterprises, and users. Exchanging results and experience of research and applications in IoT, and discussing the key challenges and research hotspots, is the main goal of the forum. As a high-level forum for the design, implementation, and application of IoT, the conference promoted the exchange and application of the oriesand technologies of IoT-related topics.