A collection of short-stories peeking into the lives of three twenty-somethings in the midst of their respective quarter life crises. A mix of autobiography and fiction, the authors' raw storytelling explores how love, personhood, and a lot of trauma shapes a person of five and twenty.

With the rapid advancement of sensor technology and digital system, the capabilities of network communication have significantly improved, allowing multiple computing nodes to exchange information and collaborate seamlessly through networks. This progress has accelerated the development of distributed optimization theory and its applications in emerging fields such as low altitude economy, big data, and artificial intelligence. These emerging domains usually involve solving complex large-s...

The school-to-work transition has been an important topic in the fields of education and sociology research in the past few years. Pre-vocational education, which takes place during lower-secondary school and aims to facilitate the school-to-work transition, is of critical significance in introducing the participants to the world of work and/or in preparing them for entry into further vocational education programs.With a strong comparative nature, Jun Li presents this systematic in...

New image-processing tools and data-processing network systems have considerably increased the volume of transmitted information such as 2D and 3D images with high resolution. Thus, more complex networks and long processing times become necessary, and high image quality and transmission speeds are requested for an increasing number of applications. To satisfy these two requests, several, either numerical or optical solutions, were offered separately. Advanced Secure Optical Image Proce...

Development of Ultra-High Performance Concrete against Blasts: From Materials to Structures presents a detailed overview of UHPC development and its related applications in an era of rising terrorism around the world. Chapters present case studies on the novel development of the new generation of UHPC with nano additives. Field blast test results on reinforced concrete columns made with UHPC and UHPC filled double-skin tubes columns are also presented and compiled, as is the residual load-...

In the past three decades, China has successfully transformed itself from an extremely poor economy to the world’s second largest economy. The country’s phenomenal economic growth has been sustained primarily by its rapid and continuous industrialization. Currently industry accounts for nearly two-fifths of China’s gross domestic product, and since 2009 China has been the world’s largest exporter of manufactured products. This book explores the question of how far this industrial growth ha...

Although sensor fusion is an essential prerequisite for autonomous driving, it entails a number of challenges and potential risks. For example, the commonly used deep fusion networks are lacking in interpretability and robustness. To address these fundamental issues, this book introduces the mechanism of deep fusion models from the perspective of uncertainty and models the initial risks in order to create a robust fusion architecture.This book reviews the multi-sensor data fusion m...

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the kinetic theory for describing flow problems from molecular scale, hydrodynamic scale, to Darcy scale. The author presents various numerical algorithms to solve the same Boltzmann-like equation for different applications of different scales, in which the dominant transport mechanisms may differ.This book presents a concise introduction to the Boltzmann equation of the kinetic theory, based on which different simulation methods t...

Edited by Professor CJ Li, one of the leading international experts in the fields of Green Chemistry and Green Synthesis, this volume presents such hot topics as synthesis without protecting groups, multi-component reactions, and synthesis in green solvents.The Handbook of Green Chemistry comprises of 9 volumes in total, split into 3 subject-specific sets. The three sets are available individually. All 9 volumes are available individually, too.

This book unfolds the artistic and cultural exchanges between China, Persia, and Italy, picturing “a Transcultural Renaissance on the Silk Road” with fascinating reading of rich images. The author has been intensely engaged in the transcultural art history for more than a decade, spanning east and west, crossing different fields of painting, architecture, philosophy, cartography and literature. With illuminating case studies, it also explores the intermedial play between painting and poetr...

This book highlights the practical models and algorithms of earth observation satellite (EOS) task scheduling. EOS task scheduling is a typical complex combinatorial optimization problem with NP-Hard computational complexity. It is a key technology in aerospace scheduling and has attracted global attention. Based on the actual needs of the EOS operation control center, the book summarizes and reviews the state of the art in this research and engineering field. In both deterministic scenari...

This book explores the core concept of Chinese ancient architecture from a multidisciplinary perspective. It aims to contribute to the development, inheritance, and protection of Chinese ancient architectural culture, while also benefiting the sustainable development of modern architecture. This book follows a main line of inquiry, exploring the rich and harmonious ideas present in Chinese ancient architecture. It combines the traditional Chinese culture and architectural ideas, and examin...