In this book the author explores the work and living experiences of Confucius Institute Chinese teachers (CICTs) in the UK, how they interpret and make sense of their sojourning experience, and how this context and the wider globalised social environment have impacted on their understandings and their personal growth. Because of their betwixt and between situation, the CICTs’ stories differ from those of other immigrants, international students and pre-service student teachers, who have be...

China’s rise as an aid provider in Africa has caught global attention, with China’s activity being viewed as the projection of soft power of a neo-colonialist kind in an international relations context. This book, which focuses on China’s education aid—government scholarships, training, Confucius Institutes, dispatched teachers, etc., reveals a much more complicated picture. It outlines how the divide between the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Education hinders China’s so...

This book examines Sino-African relations and their impact on Africa. It argues that Africa’s relationship with China has had a profound impact on key sectors in Africa—economic and political development, the media, infrastructural development, foreign direct investments, loans, debt peonage, and international relations. The authors also analyze the imperialist and neo-colonialist implications of this relationship and discuss the degree to which the relationship is beneficial to Africa.

This book investigates the performance analysis and optimization design of parallel manipulators in detail. It discusses performance evaluation indices for workspace, kinematic, stiffness, and dynamic performance, single- and multi-objective optimization design methods, and ways to improve optimization design efficiency of parallel manipulators. This book collects the authors’ research results previously scattered in many journals and conference proceedings and presents them in a unified f...

This book focuses on the synthesis of lower-mobility parallel manipulators, presenting a group-theory-based method that has the advantage of being geometrically intrinsic. Rotations and translations of a rigid body as well as a combination of the two can be expressed and handled elegantly using the group algebraic structure of the set of rigid-body displacements. The book gathers the authors’ research results, which were previously scattered in various journals and conference proceedings, ...

Sent to suppress a rebellion against the great Chen Empire, the third prince, Jing Shao, rides out once more as marshal of an army a hundred thousand strong. At his side is Mu Hanzhang--his "gentleman wife"--in the guise of a sage strategist.As corruption and treachery in the imperial court begin to shape the battles ahead, Jing Shao uses the knowledge of his past life to alter the fate that once led to his downfall. Along the way, supported by Mu Hanzhang's cunning, Jing Shao uses his reg...

On the brink of death, Prince Cheng is stunned to find the one person still by his side: his long-neglected princely consort, Mu Hanzhang. While Prince Cheng pursued power and countless lovers, Mu Hanzhang never wavered in his dedication as his wife, despite the future he lost. Prince Cheng knows he never deserved such loyalty.But fate isn’t finished with him yet. When he awakens in the past—on the morning after their disastrous wedding night, with all his memories intact—Prince Cheng seiz...

Welcomed back to the capital with unbelievable rewards, Jing Shao and his princely consort Mu Hanzhang fall into a new routine at home and at court--involving challenging but satisfying duties that Mu Hanzhang takes on with pleasure.While the two men contend with scheming princes, unexpected visitors, and volatile in-laws, new trouble is brewing. The earlier revenge taken on Mu Hanzhang's behalf set off a chain reaction that now threatens his father's clan and his mother's life. And when a...

Structural Reliability in Civil Engineering gives essential insights into the complexities of uncertainty in engineered structures, along with practical examples and advanced methods, making it an invaluable resource for both theory and real-world application in your civil engineering projects.Uncertainties are associated with the design, evaluation, and dynamic analysis of engineered structures. Structural Reliability in Civil Enginee...

The rise of cloud computing and Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized data analytics pipelines. Analysts can collect, store, and process vast datasets in the cloud with high availability and scalability, and also leverage Generative AI to query and visualize datasets in natural languages. This pioneering textbook provides a gateway for students, educators, and professionals to develop and enhance social data analytics capabilities with the latest cloud computing and AI...

China in the Era of Social Media discusses how social media is changing the world in an unprecedented way through speed, scope, and depth. In the last decade or so, social media in China has witnessed the most explosive growth in the world. Being the most populous nation in the world, it has the most social media users in the world as well. This book examines the current situation and unique characteristics of Chinese social media, the significance of social media in the country’s...

The development of earth observation and computing technology has promoted the wide application of spatio-temporal big data and artificial intelligence. The enrichment of data and the improvement of computational performance make it possible to perform spatio-temporal analysis and computation on a larger scale. Therefore, it is necessary to study the optimization methods and application methods of high-performance geocomputing, starting from GIS architecture, in order to form a high-perfor...