Christianity Today Book Award Finalist—Missions/Global ChurchReader's Choice Award WinnerThroughout China's rapidly growing cities, a new wave of unregistered house churches is growing. They are developing rich theological perspectives that are both uniquely Chinese and rooted in the historical doctrines of the faith. To understand how they have endured despite government pressure and cultural marginalization, we m...

AI in MRI-based Brain Disease Prediction presents a comprehensive exploration of artificial intelligence technologies in the analysis of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for brain disease prediction. Bridging medical imaging, neuroscience, and AI, this volume covers core methodologies—such as deep learning, multimodal fusion, and fast MRI processing—and applies them to neurological disorders including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, stroke, glioma, and autism. Featuring theoretical foun...

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 20th Chinese Conference on Image and Graphics Technologies and Applications, IGTA 2025, held in Beijing, China, during August 9-10, 2025.The 25 full papers included in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 103 submissions. The papers focus on image processing, computer graphics, and related topics, including but not limited to image analysis and understanding, computer vision and pattern recognition, data mining, v...

This book introduces the current state of research on dark energy. It consists of three parts. The first part is for preliminary knowledge, including general relativity, modern cosmology, etc. The second part reviews major theoretical ideas and models of dark energy. The third part reviews some observational and numerical works. The aim of this book is to provide a sufficient level of understanding of dark energy problems, so that the reader can both get familiar with this area quickly and...

This is a unique book that adopts a global approach to studying international business. It stimulates research and rethinking among scholars and practitioners to understand how businesses operate internationally into lucrative markets, and their role in sustainable business growth, glocal value creation, and economic development. It provides insights into how international firms, entrepreneurs, family businesses, and other stakeholders balance the act of value creation and conducting susta...

The second edition of this book illuminates the fundamental principle and applications of probability-based multi-objective optimization for material selection in viewpoint of system theory, in which a brand new concept of preferable probability and its assessment as well as other treatments are introduced by authors for the first time. Hybrids of the new approach with experimental design methodologies (response surface methodology, orthogonal experimental design, and uniform experimental ...

Time is an important factor in physical and natural sciences. It characterizes the progress of chemical and biochemical processes. Mass spectrometry provides the means to study molecular structures by detecting gas-phase ions with the unique mass-to-charge ratios. Time-resolved mass spectrometry (TRMS) allows one to differentiate between chemical states that can be observed sequentially at different time points. Real-time mass spectrometric monitoring enables recording data continuously wi...

This book presents the latest research findings and state-of-the-art solutions on optimization techniques and provides new research direction and developments. Both the theoretical and practical aspects of the book will be much beneficial to experts and students in optimization and operation research community. It selects high quality papers from The International Conference on Optimization: Techniques and Applications (ICOTA2013). The conference is an official conference series of POP (Th...

The fashion industry has a dynamic, ever-changing landscape. The last decade has seen a shift in consumer expectations and a heightened dependence on efficient and effective supply chain management. These shifts in the consumer mentality have already forced apparel retailers to adapt, making changes throughout their organisations to maintain consumer loyalty. This new textprovides an overview of the latest trends and advances in fashion supply chain management and logistics, including:...

This groundbreaking book analyzes the dramatic impact of Han Chinese migration into Inner Mongolia during the Qing era. In the first detailed history in English, Yi Wang explores how processes of commercial expansion, land reclamation, and Catholic proselytism transformed the Mongol frontier long before it was officially colonized and incorporated into the Chinese state. Wang reconstructs the socioeconomic, cultural, and administrative history of Inner Mongolia at a time of unprecedented C...

This book challenges the common perceptions of Australian dependence upon great-power allies in the conduct of its foreign relations through a critical examination of Australia's relations with the People's Republic of China. The author focuses on the economic and political dimensions of the policy-making process from the founding of the PRC in 1949 to the present era, against an analytical framework that takes into account both internal and external factors in the formulation and implemen...

This book aims to make the best use of fine-grained smart meter data to process and translate them into actual information and incorporated into consumer behavior modeling and distribution system operations. It begins with an overview of recent developments in smart meter data analytics. Since data management is the basis of further smart meter data analytics and its applications, three issues on data management, i.e., data compression, anomaly detection, and data generation, are subsequen...