This book provides a comprehensive overview of the foundational attributes of the Particle Swarm Optimization(PSO) algorithm, including general descriptions, topological structures, evaluation metrics, and diversity. It explores in depth the issues of premature convergence and the kinematic characteristics of the Gbest (Global best), Pbest (Personal best), and standard particle models. The book also introduces a stability criterion based on dynamic time-varying systems and examines the Mar...

This book addresses the transfer of rhetorical knowledge from a first language (L1) to a second language (L1-to-L2 rhetorical transfer), a common cognitive phenomenon in the L2 writing of students in foreign language learning environments. It investigates L1-to-L2 rhetorical transfer from a cognitive perspective and examines a specific component of L2 writers’ agency in this transfer, namely metacognition. The book’s ultimate goal is to enhance our understanding of the cognitive mechanism ...

Rotating Electrode Methods and Oxygen Reduction Electrocatalysts provides the latest information and methodologies of rotating disk electrode and rotating ring-disk electrode (RDE/RRDE) and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). It is an ideal reference for undergraduate and graduate students, scientists, and engineers who work in the areas of energy, electrochemistry science and technology, fuel cells, and other electrochemical systems. - Presents a comprehensive description, from fundamentals ...

A great nation has a great dream; a great country has a great dream. China’s dream is to build a society of common prosperity and a world in which all people live together in peace and harmony.This book provides predictions up to 2030 regarding the future major developments and trends of both China and the world in general from a historical and worldwide perspective. This book spells out the dreams of all mankind in the pursuit of common prosperity. It also offers China’s vision an...

This book provides a comprehensive review of the latest modelling developments in flow batteries, as well as some new results and insights. Flow batteries have long been considered the most flexible answer to grid scale energy storage, and modelling is a key component in their development. Recent modelling has moved beyond macroscopic methods, towards mesoscopic and smaller scales to select materials and design components. This is important for both fundamental understanding and the design...

This book aims to extend existing works on consensus of multi-agent systems systematically. The agents to be considered range from double integrators to generic linear systems. The primary goal is to explicitly characterize how agent parameters, which reflect both self-dynamics and inner coupling of each agent, and switching network topologies jointly influence the collective behaviors. A series of necessary and/or sufficient conditions for exponential consensus are derived.The con...

This book presents recent research work on stochastic jump hybrid systems. Specifically, the considered stochastic jump hybrid systems include Markovian jump Ito stochastic systems, Markovian jump linear-parameter-varying (LPV) systems, Markovian jump singular systems, Markovian jump two-dimensional (2-D) systems, and Markovian jump repeated scalar nonlinear systems. Some sufficient conditions are first established respectively for the stability and performances of those kinds of stochasti...

In the 30 years since Rod Ellis first published the award-winning Understanding Second Language Acquisition, it has become a classic text. This new, fully updated edition continues to provide an authoritative and highly readable introduction to key areas of theory and research in second language acquisition. Ellis presents a comprehensive overview of the different theories in this field and examines critical reactions to them. The book reflects recent trends in looking at cognitive and soc...

China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know® is a concise introduction to the most astonishing economic growth story of the last three decades. In the 1980s China was an impoverished backwater, struggling to escape the political turmoil and economic mismanagement of the Mao era. Today it is the world's second biggest economy, the largest manufacturing and trading nation, the consumer of half the world's steel and coal, the biggest source of international tourists, and one of the ...

The Finite Element Method: Its Basis and Fundamentals offers a complete introduction to the basis of the finite element method, covering fundamental theory and worked examples in the detail required for readers to apply the knowledge to their own engineering problems and understand more advanced applications. This edition sees a significant rearrangement of the book's content to enable clearer development of the finite element method, with major new chapters and sections added to cover: - ...

A leading expert on evolution and communication presents an empirically based theory of the evolutionary origins of human communication that challenges the dominant Chomskian view.Human communication is grounded in fundamentally cooperative, even shared, intentions. In this original and provocative account of the evolutionary origins of human communication, Michael Tomasello connects the fundamentally cooperative structure of human communication (initially discover...

The Finite Element Method for Solid and Structural Mechanics is the key text and reference for engineers, researchers and senior students dealing with the analysis and modeling of structures, from large civil engineering projects such as dams to aircraft structures and small engineered components. This edition brings a thorough update and rearrangement of the book's content, including new chapters on: - Material constitution using representative volume elements - Differential geometry and ...