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The Use of Artificial Intelligence in the Public Sector in Shanghai: Ambition, Capacity and Reality
by Diego TodaroThis book examines how Shanghai aims to improve public service provision by accelerating the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the public sector. After clarifying the technical and social factors that shape the use of AI in this area, the book delves into the AI policy environment and AI ecosystem of Shanghai to gauge the city’s capacity to implement public sector AI applications. Then it examines how this capacity translates into real-world policy initiatives through the investigation of case studies. It highlights the analytical, operational and political capabilities that determine the strengths and limitations of such initiatives in deploying AI in the public sector, and it assesses their impacts on public service provision in Shanghai. By using the findings on Shanghai to gain a deeper understanding of key topics in public sector AI research, this book also contributes new knowledge about the use of AI to improve the provision of public services.
Resolving Intergenerational Conflicts: An Approach from Philosophy, Economics, and Experiments (Advances in Japanese Business and Economics #33)
by Toshiaki HiromitsuThis book is an unprecedented consideration of the challenges of what we can do for generations yet to come. Many growing intergenerational conflicts of interest, such as climate change and fiscal sustainability, are the result of the historically new progress of increasing human power, and the resolution of those conflicts demands a new intergenerational ethic. The book offers fresh new ideas for resolving intergenerational conflicts through the exploration of an entirely new field, conceptualized in philosophy, developed in economics, and tested in experiments. In particular, this work develops the theory of intergenerational cooperation based on a new relationship of direct reciprocity between generations. From experimental results, the possibility of intergenerational cooperation through Kantian categorical imperative is shown. The book also examines the effectiveness of inviting representatives of future generations, which are called "imaginary future generations", into the deliberations for current policy decisions. The original Japanese edition of this book was awarded the 66th Nikkei Prize for Excellent Books in Economic Science. The prize was established in 1958 to contribute to the advancement of academics and knowledge in the fields of economics, management, and accounting, as well as to its general dissemination and application.
Child Development Within Contexts: Cultural-Historical Research and Educational Practice (Early Childhood Research and Education: An Inter-theoretical Focus #6)
by Nikolai Veresov Sarika Kewalramani Junqian MaThis book examines the pedagogical encounters within children's ecological and socio-cultural historical contexts, and aspects of playful learning and development within these contexts. It addresses research and practices varying across learning contexts, providing easily adaptable exemplary practices leading to children's positive learning and development. The book offers a unified general cultural-historical theoretical model for exploring new contexts at different stages of children's learning and development. It suggests studying contexts as a source of development, as social situations of development. It analyzes play, early learning and the transition from play to school learning. It also explores the role of teachers and parents in supporting the development of executive functions, digital literacy, creative inquiries, problem solving and creativity as necessary and important prerequisites of children's school academic achievements. This volume contributes to the discourse on how children's learning is shaped in the 21st century era. It equips educators and parents with new and effective methods of creating developing contexts in their daily practice and to fully utilize the developing potential of existing contexts.
Leaders of the Nation: A Political History of Kazakhstan (The Steppe and Beyond: Studies on Central Asia)
by Ainash MustoyapovaThe book tells about people who lived in an era of historical cataclysms, wars and revolutions, changes in political formations. The generation of the Kazakh intelligentsia responded to the historical challenge facing the Kazakhs at a turning point in history. These are people born at the end of the 19th century, educated in different countries and united by the idea of overcoming colonial dependence on the Russian Empire.The author aims to form a holistic view of a galaxy of outstanding personalities who, in an important historical period, were able to take responsibility for the people and their future. The history of the country is perceived through the prism of their destinies, views, activities and death.The material of the book is a biographical sketch and covers the history of Kazakhstan in the first third of the twentieth century, until the period of the Great Terror (1937–1938).
The ‘Hidden Curriculum’ of Vietnam’s English School Textbooks (SpringerBriefs in Education)
by Thi Duyen Phuong Raf VanderstraetenThis book analyzes the basic ideas and premises underlying the English textbooks used at the higher secondary school level in Vietnam from the 1980s to the present, from a sociological perspective. The dataset, upon which this book builds, consists of a collection of 18 textbooks, which belong to five sets of locally developed English textbooks for grade 10 to grade 12 students. These series were used in all public schools from the mid-1980s to the present. During this period, schooling expanded rapidly in Vietnam, while English also gained increasing prominence within the school system.This book examines the curricular content of these textbooks and presents a long-term analysis of the ‘hidden’ curricular content in light of Vietnam’s recent history and its government’s concerns about national identity.
Advances in Brain Inspired Cognitive Systems: 13th International Conference, BICS 2023, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, August 5–6, 2023, Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science #14374)
by Jinchang Ren Amir Hussain Iman Yi Liao Rongjun Chen Kaizhu Huang Huimin Zhao Xiaoyong Liu Ping Ma Thomas MaulThis book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Brain Inspired Cognitive Systems, BICS 2023, held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in August 2023. The 36 full papers included in this book were reviewed and selected from 58 submissions and are organized in thematic sections as follows: Bio-inspired systems and Neural Computation; Image Recognition, Detection and Classification; Vision and Object Tracking; Data Analysis and Machine Learning and Applications.
A Contemporary Turkish Prison Diary: Reflections on the Writings of Said Nursi and Aleksander Solzhenitsyn
by Ismail AlbayrakThis book explores the religious experiences of two notable figures who endured severe trials under authoritarian regimes: Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (1877–1960) within the Islamic tradition, and Aleksander Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) within the Russian Orthodox Christian tradition. Against the tumultuous backdrop of the twentieth century’s spiritual, social, political, and intellectual upheavals, both Nursi and Solzhenitsyn grappled with immense hardships because of their beliefs. Despite immense tribulations, both individuals demonstrated unwavering faith and resilience in the face of adversity, continuing their scholarly and literary activities. The current study centers on the dichotomy of spiritual confinement and expansiveness, illustrating how people can experience spiritual distress even without physical restraints. It explores the historical and conceptual aspects of imprisonment within Christian and Muslim perspectives, explores the reasons for Nursi and Solzhenitsyn's incarceration, examines their coping mechanisms in the face of hardship, and underscores the role of faith and spirituality. The author integrates personal experiences, particularly his own incarceration during the aftermath of the 2016 Turkish staged coup attempt, within the context of the narratives of Nursi and Solzhenitsyn. The book addresses court proceedings, release, departure from Turkey, and resettlement in Australia. Throughout, the author draws parallels between their own observations and those of Nursi and Solzhenitsyn, contributing to the broader discourse on individual spirituality and collective consciousness. The book offers insights into spiritual resilience in the face of adversity, utilizing the lives of these figures to illuminate shared human experiences. A unique collation of personal narration and scholarly reflection, it is relevant to academics and students in history, political science, sociology, Islamic and Middle Eastern studies, and to social scientists researchingthe phenomenon of exile and prison in different countries across the world. It also speaks to the work of activists and policymakers in human rights.
Embracing Diversity: Preparing Future Teachers to Foster Religious Tolerance (SpringerBriefs in Education)
by Anne Suryani A. Bukhori MuslimThis book presents a detailed discussion of Indonesian future teachers’ experience of religious diversity, tolerance and intolerance, their level of intellectual humility, and intentions to foster religious tolerance. Drawing from large-scale mixed methods research conducted in Indonesian universities involving over one thousand three hundred future teachers from diverse religious backgrounds, this book demonstrates that religion and religious beliefs can, and do, shape the way future teachers view their teaching practices and pedagogies. The book sheds light into the under-researched yet prominent issue of integrating tolerance into teacher education preparation. It is set in the largest Muslim-majority country in the world which, in recent years, has seen a gradual degradation of secularity while religion becomes more dominant across all levels and sectors of society. This novel and timely book is of interest to researchers, scholars, and students in religious studies, education, social sciences, and Asian studies, as well as anyone interested in the interplay between religion and education in the 21st century.
Locating Technology Education in STEM Teaching and Learning: What Does the ‘T’ Mean in STEM? (Contemporary Issues in Technology Education)
by Wendy Fox-Turnbull P. John WilliamsThis book offers clarity and consistency of thinking in relation to Technology Education when situated within a STEM approach to teaching. It examines the range of Innovations and Issues which are being considered by schools as they implement STEM, with particular focus on the place of Technology, or the ‘T’ in STEM. The book is divided into three sections: Philosophy, Implementation and Issues and Innovations, with each containing five to seven chapters. The first section lays the foundations for the remainder of the book: it focuses the readers on the technology aspect of STEM education and situates it to align with the international understanding of technology education. The second section provides insights into how STEM is best implemented to give technology due consideration across a range of disciplines with technology education, including engineering, food technology, and textile technology. This section also provides suggestions for the successful implementation of the STEM approach, and offers further insight through a range of case studies. The third section outlines and discusses a range of issues that pose a threat to the position and understanding of technology within the STEM teaching and learning approach. This section also examines how technology and STEM are situated within, are supported or are threatened by, other current innovations and approaches to teaching an integrated curriculum, such as the Maker Space Movement and Play-based Learning.
Contender States and Modern Chinese International Thought: From the Republican era until the ‘Chinese School of International Relations’
by Ferran Perez MenaThis book contends that the development of modern Chinese international thought has been profoundly shaped by the distinctive nature of the Chinese state as a contender state and its global positioning since 1912. The argument posited demonstrates that, notwithstanding the varied perspectives on the 'international' held by Chinese intellectuals throughout the 20th century, there exist commonalities across the periods analyzed in this book. In essence, the book emphasizes that the shared elements influencing the production of modern Chinese international thought do not derive from a unified cultural Chinese identity but rather stem from China's evolving geopolitical position in the modern world.
Linguistic Entrepreneurship in Sino-African Student Mobility
by Wen XuThis book explores African international students’ lived experience within Chinese higher education, including their language ideologies, investment in Chinese language learning and the (re)shaping of identities and aspirations. Whilst high English proficiency has been sought by globally mobile students to play the ‘class game’ and gain entrée to the circle of elites, considerably less attention has been paid to how shifting global structures and China’s semi-peripheral position shape its language learners’ investment and identity construction. Drawing upon a series of interviews, the book deciphers African students’ logics of linguistic exchanges within the geopolitical and geo-economic context of China-African relations. The students invested heavily into Chinese language learning and use, while displaying perfectionism, linguistic entrepreneurship and linguistic insecurity. As the value of their Chinese linguistic capital increases, they reassessed their sense of themselves and produced different social identities, which includes the idea of ‘the world is my oyster’, contributing to Africa’s sustainable development and the disposition to ‘tell China’s story well’. This work transgresses monolingual dominance (i.e. English) in the existing body of international student mobility and second language acquisition (SLA) research, as great importance is assigned to Chinese as linguistic capital in South-South student migration. The book is of interest to researchers in international higher education, international student mobilities, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, languages education, and Chinese language teaching and learning.
Love, Beauty or Morality
by Alberto CastelliThis book is moved by two main questions. Is Love a matter of beauty or mortality? In other words, is love an ethical ideal? Also, modernity understood as the age of mechanical reproduction, has shaped not simply our cities but our very same way of feeling. How has our conception of love changed, if it has, in the past two centuries? This book is to address these questions. It is not to trace the evolution of the idea of love in Western culture, from Plato to the present day. It aims to bring to the surface different shades of love lingering at the heart of Western culture to rehabilitate the myth of love to its original credibility. Our confused civilization has split love into sensual and moral aspects but to be aware of it is perhaps to defeat a dilemma that seems so unnatural. This book is about how we make sense of our lives through love and how nineteenth and twentieth-century literature records it.
Artificial Intelligence and the Law
by Tshilidzi Marwala Letlhokwa George MpediThis textbook offers a starting point for the education of attorneys and other legal professionals about the potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the law, as well as a forum for discussing artificial intelligence's legal and ethical concerns. Intended for classroom use, this book will help students, legal professionals and policymakers alike. AI is swiftly transforming the world, including the legal system. Legal applications to areas such as ethics, human rights, climate change, labor law, health, social protection, inequality, lethal autonomous weapons, the criminal justice system and autonomous vehicles, contract drafting, legal investigation, criminal analysis and evidence investigation, utilize AI. As AI becomes more sophisticated, its impact on the law will likely increase.
A Concise History of Chinese Philosophy
by Qi Feng Weiping ChenThis book is an abridged version of Feng Qi’s two major works on the history of philosophy, The Logical Development of Ancient Chinese Philosophy and The Revolutionary Course of Modern Chinese Philosophy. It is a comprehensive history of Chinese philosophy taking the reader from ancient times to the year 1949. It illuminates the characteristics of traditional Chinese philosophy from the broader vantage point of epistemology. The book revolves around important debates including those on “Heaven and humankind” (tian ren天人), “names and actualities” (mingshi名實), “principle and vital force” (liqi理氣), “the Way and visible things” (daoqi道器), “mind and matter/things” (xinwu心物), and “knowledge and action” (zhixing知行). Through discussion of these debates, the course of Chinese philosophy unfolds. Modern Chinese philosophy has made landmark achievements in the development of historical and epistemological theory, namely the “dynamic and revolutionary theory of reflection”. However, modern Chinese philosophy is yet to construct a systematic overview of logic and methodology, as well as questions of human freedom and ideals. Amid this discussion, the question of how contemporary China is to “take the baton” from the thinkers of the modern philosophical revolution is addressed.
Comparative and Decolonial Studies in Philosophy of Education
by David G. HebertThis book introduces the educational philosophies of notable African and Asian thinkers who tend to be little recognized in Europe and North America. It offers specific resources for diversification of higher education curricula. The book expands the philosophy of education, in clear language, to include ideas of major non-western educational thinkers who are little discussed in previous publications. It includes critical analysis of non-western concepts and consideration of their relevance to schools worldwide. The book features discussions of how the work of Tagore and postcolonial thinkers offers diverse visions that increasingly inspire a decolonizing approach to education. This book offers a unique emphasis on how a decolonized philosophy of education can especially enable a rethinking of approaches to education in arts and humanities subjects.
A Gentle Introduction to Group Theory
by Bana Al Subaiei Muneerah Al NuwairanThe book is intended to serve as an introductory course in group theory geared towards second-year university students. It aims to provide them with the background needed to pursue more advanced courses in algebra and to provide a rich source of examples and exercises. Studying group theory began in the late eighteenth century and is still gaining importance due to its applications in physics, chemistry, geometry, and many fields in mathematics. The text is broadly divided into three parts. The first part establishes the prerequisite knowledge required to study group theory. This includes topics in set theory, geometry, and number theory. Each of the chapters ends with solved and unsolved exercises relating to the topic. By doing this, the authors hope to fill the gaps between all the branches in mathematics that are linked to group theory. The second part is the core of the book which discusses topics on semigroups, groups, symmetric groups, subgroups, homomorphisms, isomorphism, and Abelian groups. The last part of the book introduces SAGE, a mathematical software that is used to solve group theory problems. Here, most of the important commands in SAGE are explained, and many examples and exercises are provided.
Traditional Ethics and Contemporary Society of China
by Guojie LuoBased on the ethical thinking of the pre-Qin Dynasty, this book discusses the formation and development of traditional Chinese ethics, the refinement of the Confucian ethical normative system and the establishment of its orthodoxy, as well as the deepening and maturation of feudal ethics. The book is simple in style and clear in context. It contains not only the essence of traditional Chinese morality but also the achievements of modern civilization. It analyzes the implications of traditional Chinese ethics on the governance and moral construction of modern society and can be used as a reference for governance and revitalization of the country and moral development.
Governance in Bangladesh: Innovations in Delivery of Public Service (New Frontiers in Regional Science: Asian Perspectives #68)
by Md. Nurul Momen Jannatul FerdousThis book adopts the multidimensional nature of innovation as its point of focus and offers a comprehensive analysis of contemporary governance issues in Bangladesh. Each chapter views those issues from its own disciplinary perspective, but all share a common focus on the current process in the governance of innovation. The authors show how the processes of innovation and public service delivery are influenced while there is simultaneously a striving for a digital Bangladesh. The book presents innovation as a complex phenomenon with multidisciplinary viewpoints affecting its governance. As well, new practices, developments, and empirical research are shown here. The aim is to point out the most persistent difficulties in public administration and public service delivery, with an emphasis on how to deliver public service in Bangladesh in a sustainable manner. Although significant transformations have been made recently for a better organized public sphere, public services still must be more closely in line with what citizens need rather than what service providers are prepared to deliver. This published work speaks strongly to a wide-ranging audience, from scholars of governance and innovation management to academics, researchers, and postgraduate students interested in public service delivery innovations in Bangladesh and South Asia. Indeed, the book serves as a text and valuable resource for postgraduate courses in politics, business administration, economics, political science, development, and governance in South Asia.
Effectiveness and Fairness of Chinese Higher Education Admissions Policy: Perceptions and Reforms (Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices)
by Jing SunThis book explores effectiveness and fairness in higher education admissions policy. It reviews the literatures from the 1940s until the 2010s and provides a theoretical framework. The book explores comparisons between this framework and the empirical data by interviewing policymakers from the Chinese government as well as admissions officer at Chinese universities. The book contributes to providing underlying theoretical foundation on the future Chinese higher education admissions policy reform. This book appeals to policymakers on all level of education, practitioners of admissions policy, researchers on education policy, and anyone who is interested in this field.
Turmoil and Order in Regional International Politics (Evidence-Based Approaches to Peace and Conflict Studies #10)
by William R. Thompson Thomas J. VolgyThis edited book complements and follows up on the book, Thompson and Volgy et al, Regions, Power and Conflict: Constrained Capabilities, Hierarchy, and Rivalry. It is predicated in part on the paucity of published material available on comparing regional international politics. Monadic, dyadic, and systemic approaches all have their uses and have been exploited extensively. The same cannot be said about comparative regional analysis. The premise is that a great deal of international politics takes place within regional parameters. Most states simply lack the capability or interest in devoting many resources to extra-regional affairs. Yet each region is distinctive. In some, military coups remain common while they have died out as a form of political practice in others. A few have been highly conflictual and then become more pacific, while others persist in their conflict intensity. Some have powerful neighbors with intervention tendencies, while others are surrounded by relatively weak states. Some are rich; others are poor. The point is that regions, all with proper names, have attributes that can be harnessed through comparison to explain why regional behavior differs greatly across the planet. The aim is to replace the proper names with the leading variables that appear to drive behavior. For instance, to shrug and say “that’s the Middle East for you” does not take us very far. Replacing the Middle East label with conceptualization about how a set of small, weak, autocratic states behave subject to high penetration by major powers might take us farther than shrugging off regional identity. We have good reasons to think that comparative regional analysis can deliver an explanatory value-added product just as much as alternative “levels of analysis” can. Ultimately, we might desire to integrate separate levels of analysis, rather than segregating them. But in the short term, we need to encourage comparative regional analysis because it is the least developed perspective. Why that might be the case can be debated, but it stems in part from our disciplinary tendencies for some analysts to specialize in regional behavior largely in a descriptive vein while others prefer to focus on explaining universal behavior. Comparative regional behavior tends to be squeezed out by regional scholars who suspect generalization about behavior and universal scholars who suspect particular contexts such as regions. Comparative regional analysis requires analysts who are willing to explore generalization but acknowledge regional contexts more explicitly than is customary. At the same time, more general substitutes for those regional labels must be introduced if explanatory headway is to be achieved.
Multi-criteria Decision Making Methods with Bipolar Fuzzy Sets (Forum for Interdisciplinary Mathematics)
by Muhammad Akram Shumaiza José Carlos Rodríguez AlcantudThis monograph discusses the theoretical and practical development of multicriteria decision making (MCDM). The main purpose of MCDM is the construction of systematized strategies for the "optimisation" of feasible options, as well as the justification of why some alternatives can be declared "optimal". However, at time, we must make decisions in an uncertain environment and such inconvenience gives rise to a much more elaborate scenario. This book highlights models where this lack of certainty can be flexibly fitted in and goes on to explore valuable strategies for making decisions under a multiplicity of criteria. Methods discussed include bipolar fuzzy TOPSIS method, bipolar fuzzy ELECTRE-I method, bipolar fuzzy ELECTRE-II method, bipolar fuzzy VIKOR method, bipolar fuzzy PROMETHEE method, and two-tuple linguistic bipolar fuzzy Heronian mean operators. This book is a valuable resource for researchers, computer scientists, and social scientists alike.
Indigeneity, Culture and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (Sustainable Development Goals Series)
by Dominic O’SullivanThis is the first scholarly book to examine the UN Sustainable Development Goals from an indigenous perspective and, specifically, with reference to the right to self-determination. It refers to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and domestic instruments such as New Zealand’s Tiriti o Waitangi to suggest how the goals could be revised to support self-determination as a more far-reaching and ambitious project than the goals imagine in their current form. The book primarily draws its material from Australia, Canada, and New Zealand to support analysing the goals’ policy relevance to wealthy states and the political claims that indigenous peoples make in established liberal democracies.
Introduction to Ethics: Concepts, Theories, and Contemporary Issues
by Chhanda ChakrabortiThe book introduces the reader to western ethics as a subject, along with its three standard subdivisions. Although the book is written with university students, policymakers, and professionals in mind, the book is lucid enough to be accessible to most adult readers. The book begins with introductions to the basics of ethics. These chapters are meant to provide the reader with the background knowledge necessary for understanding the more technical chapters on metaethics, normative ethics theories, and applied ethics, the three well-known subdivisions within ethics. The chapters that follow take up core ethical issues from each of these areas. The sections focus on explanation and a critical understanding of the ethical issue. The chapters also have examples, cases, and exercises to encourage critical thinking and to enable the reader to grasp the issue better. The book has tried to bring contemporary issues, such as ethics of human organ transplantation, and contemporary theories, such as Amartya Sen’s concept of Justice and Martha Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach, to engage the readers with ethics in the real world. The book concludes with applied ethics, but with the example of ethics of artificial intelligence. The aim is to keep ethics as a future-driven activity and to emphasize the need to understand the real-world ethical situations and dilemmas that will affect the stakeholders all around the world in the coming years as artificial intelligence and data-driven technologies change our everyday life.
The Uniqueness of Chinese Civilization in World History (China Academic Library)
by Guy S. AlittoThe book is a meticulous work in answering these questions which often occur to foreigners as well as modern Chinese themselves at the thought of the old China and its experience in modern times: What is Chinese civilization? How could it exist for several millennia and spread that far? Is there anything inherent in this civilization?From the standpoint of an “outsider” to this civilization, the author incorporates various elements, such as geographic factors, language, thoughts, with the recurrent themes along the two thousand years and changes throughout, rather than simply following a lineal progression. His historiographical approach, the methodology of eclectic common sense, as he termed it, is a new try in this field and will present a brand new perspective for both readers and researchers in that field.
A History of China in the 20th Century
by Lü PengThis book provides readers with rich context and detailed description leading to new perspectives on major historical events in China. Positioned as a thought leader and highly acclaimed arts professional in China, the author is able to give a historical account of China’s twentieth century that is richly informed by its valent fields of political economy and cultural studies. Western readers' knowledge of China’s twentieth century remains based on pioneering research of modern scholars such as Fairbank and Jonathan Spence. In recent years, however, it is rare to see a complete history of China spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries which also includes the first two decades of the twenty-first century. This book contributes new narrative and perspective to this span of history. Now, as the Sino-US trade conflict makes dramatic impact on a post-COVID global economy, readers have the need for a fresh understanding of how China came to be what it is today. The author’s groundbreaking work provides new insight provided by newly uncovered sources explaining how China came to be what it is today from a cultural and sociological perspective, in a historical mode.