Lihong Wang - Böcker

Despite widespread agreement among economists that labour-intensive manufacturing has contributed mightily to rapid development in China and other fast-growing economies, most developing countries have had little success in raising the share of manufacturing in production, employment, or exports. Tales from the Development Frontier recounts efforts to establish light manufacturing clusters in several Asian and African countries, looking in particular at China. A companion volume to Light Manufacturing in Africa—which laid out a strategy for injecting new industrial growth nodes into African economies—Tales from the Development Frontier focuses on the six main binding constraints to competitiveness that nascent light manufacturing industries must overcome in developing countries: the availability, cost, and quality of inputs; access to industrial land; access to finance; trade logistics; entrepreneurial capabilities, both technical and managerial; and worker skills. The volume systematically explores potential growth opportunities in light manufacturing in a carefully selected subset of industries: agribusiness, apparel, leather goods, wood-working, and metal products. It specifies the constraints that need to be addressed before local and international entrepreneurs can take advantage of the latent comparative advantage available to many low-income economies in the target industries. It also proposes policies to ease the constraints—policies that can open the door to rapid increases in industrial output, employment, productivity, and exports. The outcomes described in this volume include both inspiring successes and miserable failures in addressing the binding constraints in the identified sectors. These examples reveal how and why industrial development efforts in poor countries—where, by definition, underlying conditions are far from ideal—can accelerate growth. Most of the firms described in a series of case studies started from a very simple and modest base in an environment full of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. With its rich array of new material, this book will support the ongoing research of policy analysts focused on China and other developing countries. Above all, the volume aims to embolden business entrepreneurs and government officials in low-income countries to pursue newly emerging opportunities to expand and accelerate the growth of light manufacturing in their home economies.

This book focuses on the phenomenon of Chinese postgraduate students studying abroad and depicts their learning trajectory as they adjust to a new culture of teaching and learning in a new environment. It uses an example from a British university to draw together intercultural learning theories to explore the impact that studying abroad has.

Photoacoustics promises to revolutionize medical imaging and may well make as dramatic a contribution to modern medicine as the discovery of the x-ray itself once did. Combining electromagnetic and ultrasonic waves synergistically, photoacoustics can provide deep speckle-free imaging with high electromagnetic contrast at high ultrasonic resolution and without any health risk. While photoacoustic imaging is probably the fastest growing biomedical imaging technology, this book is the first comprehensive volume in this emerging field covering both the physics and the remarkable noninvasive applications that are changing diagnostic medicine.Bringing together the leading pioneers in this field to write about their own work, Photoacoustic Imaging and Spectroscopy is the first to provide a full account of the latest research and developing applications in the area of biomedical photoacoustics.Photoacoustics can provide functional sensing of physiological parameters such as the oxygen saturation of hemoglobin. It can also provide high-contrast functional imaging of angiogenesis and hypermetabolism in tumors in vivo. Discussing these remarkable noninvasive applications and so much more, this reference is essential reading for all researchers in medical imaging and those clinicians working at the cutting-edge of modern biotechnology to develop diagnostic techniques that can save many lives and just as importantly do no harm.

Introduces key developments in optical polarization methods for quantitative studies of tissues, while presenting the theory of polarization transfer in a random medium as a basis for the quantitative description of polarized light interaction with tissues. This theory uses the modified transfer equation for Stokes parameters and predicts the polarization structure of multiple scattered optical fields. The backscattering polarization matrices (Jones matrix and Mueller matrix) important for noninvasive medical diagnostic are introduced. The text also describes a number of diagnostic techniques such as CW polarization imaging and spectroscopy, polarization microscopy and cytometry. As a new tool for medical diagnosis, optical coherent polarization tomography is analyzed. The monograph also covers a range of biomedical applications, among them cataract and glaucoma diagnostics, glucose sensing, and the detection of bacteria.

Optical Polarization in Biomedical Applications introduces key developments in optical polarization methods for quantitative studies of tissues, while presenting the theory of polarization transfer in a random medium as a basis for the quantitative description of polarized light interaction with tissues.

Core texts addressing creativity in a number of contexts show that creativity as a scientific subject has received principally the attention of Western scholars. Is this due to the fact that Western cultures are more creative or sensitive to creativity than the Eastern cultures? The editors strongly believe that this is more due to the differences in understanding and practising creativity in the West and East than to an Eastern indifference to creativity.Arts-Based Education: China and Its Intersection with the World investigates the field of arts-based educational practices and research. It argues that reflections on these themes must necessarily be reframed and re-read beyond the limits of colonialist oppositions and suggests a constructive and reflexive approach to theory and methodology, which takes into account intercultural and critical perspectives in these studies.This volume is the tangible product of the acknowledgement that China and Chinese culture deserves a more systematic and up-to-date dissemination through recent studies that bring together the arts, learning and creativity. It is clustered around two themes: (1) China and its communication with the world through arts-based education in international contexts, and (2) the development of arts education in China.