Qi Zhang - Böcker

Metaheuristics for Resource Deployment under Uncertainty in Complex Systems analyzes how to set locations for the deployment of resources to incur the best performance at the lowest cost. Resources can be static nodes and moving nodes while services for a specific area or for customers can be provided. Theories of modeling and solution techniques are used with uncertainty taken into account and real-world applications used.The authors present modeling and metaheuristics for solving resource deployment problems under uncertainty while the models deployed are related to stochastic programming, robust optimization, fuzzy programming, risk management, and single/multi-objective optimization. The resources are heterogeneous and can be sensors and actuators providing different tasks. Both separate and cooperative coverage of the resources are analyzed. Previous research has generally dealt with one type of resource and considers static and deterministic problems, so the book breaks new ground in its analysis of cooperative coverage with heterogeneous resources and the uncertain and dynamic properties of these resources using metaheuristics.This book will help researchers, professionals, academics, and graduate students in related areas to better understand the theory and application of resource deployment problems and theories of uncertainty, including problem formulations, assumptions, and solution methods.

Metaheuristics for Resource Deployment under Uncertainty in Complex Systems analyzes how to set locations for the deployment of resources to incur the best performance at the lowest cost. Resources can be static nodes and moving nodes while services for a specific area or for customers can be provided. Theories of modeling and solution techniques are used with uncertainty taken into account and real-world applications used.The authors present modeling and metaheuristics for solving resource deployment problems under uncertainty while the models deployed are related to stochastic programming, robust optimization, fuzzy programming, risk management, and single/multi-objective optimization. The resources are heterogeneous and can be sensors and actuators providing different tasks. Both separate and cooperative coverage of the resources are analyzed. Previous research has generally dealt with one type of resource and considers static and deterministic problems, so the book breaks new ground in its analysis of cooperative coverage with heterogeneous resources and the uncertain and dynamic properties of these resources using metaheuristics.This book will help researchers, professionals, academics, and graduate students in related areas to better understand the theory and application of resource deployment problems and theories of uncertainty, including problem formulations, assumptions, and solution methods.

The book examines concurrent green initiatives and their spillover effects on environmental conservation and management to reveal their impact on conservation effectiveness, drawing on a range of international case studies. Green initiatives are programs, payments, or endeavors that restore, sustain, or improve nature’s capacity, with examples including payments for ecosystem services and the development of nature reserves and protected areas. This book explicitly examines concurrent green initiatives, where initiatives overlap either geographically or in terms of recipients of multiple payments. The book provides a detailed analysis of case studies in the USA and China, including the USA-based Conservation Reserve Program and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, and the China based Grain-to-Green Program and the Forest Ecological Benefit Compensation Fund. Through this comparison, the book shows the impact of concurrent green initiatives, including additional or unintended benefits for conservation and local communities as well as negative spillover effects. The book complements these case studies by drawing on other global examples ranging in size from local to continental, including planting native trees and shrubs in Australia and green initiatives in the Baltic Sea region. Overall, this book demonstrates the importance of analyzing concurrent green efforts to better understand both the positive and negative impacts to ensure the optimal effectiveness of these policies and programs for conservation and environmental management. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental conservation and management, land use, ecosystem services and environmental policy, as well as policymakers and practitioners working on environmental initiatives and programs.

The book examines concurrent green initiatives and their spillover effects on environmental conservation and management to reveal their impact on conservation effectiveness, drawing on a range of international case studies. Green initiatives are programs, payments, or endeavors that restore, sustain, or improve nature’s capacity, with examples including payments for ecosystem services and the development of nature reserves and protected areas. This book explicitly examines concurrent green initiatives, where initiatives overlap either geographically or in terms of recipients of multiple payments. The book provides a detailed analysis of case studies in the USA and China, including the USA-based Conservation Reserve Program and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, and the China based Grain-to-Green Program and the Forest Ecological Benefit Compensation Fund. Through this comparison, the book shows the impact of concurrent green initiatives, including additional or unintended benefits for conservation and local communities as well as negative spillover effects. The book complements these case studies by drawing on other global examples ranging in size from local to continental, including planting native trees and shrubs in Australia and green initiatives in the Baltic Sea region. Overall, this book demonstrates the importance of analyzing concurrent green efforts to better understand both the positive and negative impacts to ensure the optimal effectiveness of these policies and programs for conservation and environmental management. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental conservation and management, land use, ecosystem services and environmental policy, as well as policymakers and practitioners working on environmental initiatives and programs.

Why do political elites in authoritarian regimes, even within the same country, engage in different levels of predatory behavior, whereby some foster vibrant capitalism and others suffocate the innovative private sector? This book proposes a theory of localized property-rights protection under authoritarianism. By combining in-depth fieldwork with archival research and quantitative data analysis, Qi Zhang and Mingxing Liu discuss the post-1949 conflicts between dominant and marginalized factions in the Chinese province of Zhejiang. These conflicts resulted in systemic vulnerabilities among the marginalized local cadres, thus motivating them to form alliances with their grassroots constituents. They therefore provided their constituents with quasi-public goods, such as property-rights protection, to increase their odds of political survival. Zhang and Liu argue that this framework can apply both to the Mao era and to the current reform era, and it also can be extended beyond China to a wider context.

Why do political elites in authoritarian regimes, even within the same country, engage in different levels of predatory behavior, whereby some foster vibrant capitalism and others suffocate the innovative private sector? This book proposes a theory of localized property-rights protection under authoritarianism. By combining in-depth fieldwork with archival research and quantitative data analysis, Qi Zhang and Mingxing Liu discuss the post-1949 conflicts between dominant and marginalized factions in the Chinese province of Zhejiang. These conflicts resulted in systemic vulnerabilities among the marginalized local cadres, thus motivating them to form alliances with their grassroots constituents. They therefore provided their constituents with quasi-public goods, such as property-rights protection, to increase their odds of political survival. Zhang and Liu argue that this framework can apply both to the Mao era and to the current reform era, and it also can be extended beyond China to a wider context.

Comprehensive reference detailing key aspects of SHE, enabling readers to formulate different kinds of SHE equations, effectively solve the nonlinear SHE equations, and grasp key aspects of SHE applications. Unified Selective Harmonic Elimination for Power Converters focuses on the three main challenges of selective harmonic elimination (SHE)—the mathematical modeling of fundamental and harmonic components using the pre-defined waveform, accurately solving SHE equations and obtaining the complete switching angle solution trajectory, and implementing SHE on multilevel converters and industrial drives—with information on how to fully leverage the strength of SHE techniques in power converters. The book covers the basics of the SHE method and reviews state-of-the-art research towards SHE, such as unified SHE formulations for multilevel converters, algebraic switching angle solving algorithms for SHE equations, and optimal implementations of SHE in multilevel converters and electric drives. The book delves into model predictive SHE control for PMSM with simulation and experimental results and explains how to achieve common mode voltage reduction and capacitor voltage balance in multilevel converters. Concepts are supported by original MATLAB/Mathematica/ Maple codes. This book includes information on: Detailed derivation steps on Fourier series of square waveform and traditional SHE equationsUnified SHE formulations for symmetric and asymmetric multilevel converters, and different SHE equations for various scenariosAdvanced SHE solving algorithms including the resultant elimination method, the Groebner Bases-based method, symmetric polynomials, and Newton identitiesOnline implementations of SHE based on both algebraic algorithms and intelligent algorithmsAdvanced capacitor voltage balancing methods under SHE for multilevel convertersBasic and advanced closed-loop controller and model-predictive control under SHE for industrial drivesThis book is a good reference for engineers and researchers in the area of power electronics, with particular interest to those involved in renewable power generation, high-power energy storage, and high-power drives.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Blockchain, ICBC 2019, held as part of the Services Conference Federation, SCF 2019, in San Diego, CA, USA, in June 2019.The 13 full papers and 2 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 29 submissions. The papers cover a wide range of topics in blockchain technologies, platforms, solutions and business models such as new blockchain architecture, platform constructions, blockchain development and blockchain services technologies, as well as standards, and blockchain services innovation lifecycle including enterprise modeling, business consulting, solution creation, services orchestration, services optimization, services management, services marketing, business process integration and management.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 25th China Conference on Information Retrieval, CCIR 2019, held in Fuzhou, China, in September 2019.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Cloud Computing, CLOUD 2020, held as part of SCF 2020, during September 18-20, 2020.

This book provides in-depth discussions on the present and future of teaching Chinese characters, focusing on three distinct areas: teaching and learning Chinese characters online;

This book provides in-depth discussions on the present and future of teaching Chinese characters, focusing on three distinct areas: teaching and learning Chinese characters online; critical perspectives regarding typing Chinese characters in Chinese language classrooms; and the development of methodologies and theories for character teaching. The authors look to the future of teaching Chinese characters in the current digital era, drawing on years of collective experience in different contexts around the world, as well as the influence of online language teaching during the pandemic. The book includes perspectives on teaching methods, learning strategies, and curriculum design, among other areas, and will be a key resource for Chinese language researchers, practitioners, and students.

The status of Hong Kong English has been an increasing concern among the local population. Despite prolific research into attitudes towards language variation within the field of sociolinguistics in general, very few studies have focused on the Hong Kong context. Previous research has demonstrated that native English speakers tend to evaluate Standard English varieties highly as far as status is concerned, while non-standard varieties are evaluated highly in terms of solidarity. There is still, however, a noticeable lack of information about the attitudes of Hong Kong Chinese people to different English varieties and, particularly, about their attitudes to the local non-standard variety.This richly detailed case study sets out to investigate the attitudes of Hong Kong university students to eight varieties of English speech. It employs a range of direct and indirect techniques of attitude measurement in order to obtain in-depth information about the students’ perceptions. The book also discusses the important pedagogical implications of the choice of linguistic model in English language teaching, both within the Hong Kong population and among other Chinese communities.

Pioneering reference book providing the latest developments and experimental results of aqueous zinc ion batteriesAqueous Zinc Ion Batteries comprehensively reviews latest advances in aqueous zinc ion batteries and clarifies the relationships between issues and solutions for the emerging battery technology. Starting with the history, the text covers essentials of each component of aqueous zinc ion batteries, including cathodes, anodes, and electrolytes, helping readers quickly attain a foundational understanding of the subject. Written by three highly qualified authors with significant experience in the field, Aqueous Zinc Ion Batteries provides in-depth coverage of sample topics such as: History, main challenges, and zinc metal anodes for aqueous zinc ion batteriesElectrochemical reaction mechanism of aqueous zinc ion batteries and interfacial plating and stripping on zinc anodesCathode materials for aqueous zinc ion batteries, covering manganese-based materials, vanadium-based materials, Prussian blue analogs, and other cathode materialsDevelopment of electrolytes, issues, and corresponding solutions for aqueous zinc ion batteries Separators for aqueous zinc ion batteries, development of full zinc ion batteries, and future perspectives on the technologyA detailed resource on a promising alternative to current lithium-ion battery systems, Aqueous Zinc Ion Batteries is an essential read for materials scientists, electrochemists, inorganic chemists, surface chemists, catalytic chemists, and surface physicists who want to be on the cutting edge of a promising new type of battery technology.

Since the 1997 Kyoto protocol of reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the development of novel refrigerators has been a priority within the scientific community. Although magnetocaloric materials are promising candidates, they still need a large magnetic field to induce a giant ΔT as well as powerful and costly magnets. However, in electrocaloric materials (ECMs) a temperature change may be achieved by applying or removing an electric field. Since a giant electrocaloric effect on ferroelectric thin films was reported in Science in 2006, researchers have been inspired to explore such effect in different ferroelectric thin films. This book reviews electrocaloric effects observed in bulk materials as well as recent promising advances in thin films, with special emphasis on the ferroelectric, antiferroelectric and relaxor nature of ECMs. It reports a number of considerations about the future of ECMs as a means of achieving an efficient, ecologically sustainable and low cost refrigerator.

Since the 1997 Kyoto protocol of reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the development of novel refrigerators has been a priority within the scientific community. Although magnetocaloric materials are promising candidates, they still need a large magnetic field to induce a giant ΔT as well as powerful and costly magnets. However, in electrocaloric materials (ECMs) a temperature change may be achieved by applying or removing an electric field. Since a giant electrocaloric effect on ferroelectric thin films was reported in Science in 2006, researchers have been inspired to explore such effect in different ferroelectric thin films. This book reviews electrocaloric effects observed in bulk materials as well as recent promising advances in thin films, with special emphasis on the ferroelectric, antiferroelectric and relaxor nature of ECMs. It reports a number of considerations about the future of ECMs as a means of achieving an efficient, ecologically sustainable and low cost refrigerator.

This book is designed primarily to meet two objectives. It is intended to serve as a textbook for a one-semester university course for graduate or senior undergraduate students in the physical sciences, electrical engineering and other related disciplines, or it may be used as a reference book for those who are working in the field. For those intending to use the book for self-study, a general knowledge of electromagnetism, electrical circuitry and plasma and discharge physics is necessary. In order to meet these diverse objectives, the authors have attempted to make the book reasonably compact so that it can fit in a one-semester schedule while retaining its comprehensiveness in serving as a reference book. The contents are arranged so that theory and practice are proportionally balanced and each topic consists of essentially four basic elements: fundamental principles, mathematical expressions and formulas, examples and illustrations, numerical data and applications. In order to keep its compactness, lengthy theoretical discussions and detailed mathematical derivations are avoided whenever possible.

This book focuses on mechanical and electric designing, body shape sensing and tip motion control of various types of light slender robots based on tendon-sheath transmission. From the theoretical concise figures and practical examples of tendon-sheath transmitted mechanisms illustrated succinctly and clearly with 3D color drawings in this book, the proposed readers, including the researchers and students, might get inspirations in their own robotic system design or just following this book to build their own tendon-sheath actuated light slender robotic systems.