In this magnificent family saga, Venna Chee Wan Lee brings to life the extraordinary story of four generations of Chinese ancestors. Her search for the family history, led to the family's lost Zong Pu (clan histories), which spanned thirty-two generations and more than three thousand years This book is Author's quest to preserve a lineage's history for a western audience. The family history begins with an intimate personal portrait of her great-grandmother, a young widow and a devout Buddhist, whose Christian son married three wives, built a business and served as the patriarch of four families during a time of extreme cultural and political change. Lee vividly brings to life a colorful cast of relatives who lived through the turbulent years of recent Chinese history, as China evolved from a farming feudal system to a modern society.
In Singapore, when one orders char siew fan (rice with barbecued pork) he gets siew yoke (roast pork) and siew cheung (roast sausage) as part of the deal. Author Benny F. H. Lee, a trade consultant, who isn’t too fond of barbecued pork, always tell the stallholder to hold the char siew and give him the rest. When he did the same in Hong Kong, the stallholder grew mad with rage. In Hong Kong, char siew fan means rice with barbecued pork and nothing but. Telling him to hold the char siew meant asking him for plain rice.That incident wrenched Benny out of the delusion that he understood the culture in Hong Kong simply because he shared a common Chinese dialect. The same is the case with many international marketers who assume they know a foreign market because they speak the local language. In his book Hold The Char Siew, Benny breaks down the basics of marketing in the Asian continent. To his credit, Benny has over thirty years of international marketing experience. In 1994 he left the corporate world and set up his own export consultancy. Since, he has successfully consulted with MNCs in various countries. He is also a well-known speaker and writer, who has been published in The Business Times among others.
This focused treatment includes the fundamentals and some state-of-the-art developments in the field of predictive control. A substantial part of the book addresses application issues in predictive control, providing several interesting case studies for more application-oriented readers.
This open access book is an outcome of the collaboration between the Soil and Water Management & Crop Nutrition Section, Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, Department of Nuclear Sciences and Applications, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Vienna, Austria, and Dr. Shabbir A Shahid, Senior Salinity Management Expert, Freelancer based in United Arab Emirates.The objective of this book is to develop protocols for salinity and sodicity assessment and develop mitigation and adaptation measures to use saline and sodic soils sustainably. The focus is on important issues related to salinity and sodicity and to describe these in an easy and user friendly way. The information has been compiled from the latest published literature and from the authors’ publications specific to the subject matter. The book consists of six chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the terms salinity and sodicity and describes various salinity classification systems commonly used around the world. Chapter 2 reviews global distribution of salinization and socioeconomic aspects related to salinity and crop production. Chapters 3 covers comprehensively salinity and sodicity adaptation and mitigation options including physical, chemical, hydrological and biological methods. Chapter 4 discusses the efforts that have been made to demonstrate the development of soil salinity zones under different irrigation systems. Chapter 5 discusses the quality of irrigation water, boron toxicity and relative tolerance to boron, the effects of chlorides on crops. Chapter 6 introduces the role of nuclear techniques in saline agriculture.
In an era of intense competition where plant operating efficiencies must be maximized, downtime due to machinery failure has become more costly. To cut operating costs and increase revenues, industries have an urgent need to predict fault progression and remaining lifespan of industrial machines, processes, and systems. An engineer who mounts an acoustic sensor onto a spindle motor wants to know when the ball bearings will wear out without having to halt the ongoing milling processes. A scientist working on sensor networks wants to know which sensors are redundant and can be pruned off to save operational and computational overheads. These scenarios illustrate a need for new and unified perspectives in system analysis and design for engineering applications. Intelligent Diagnosis and Prognosis of Industrial Networked Systems proposes linear mathematical tool sets that can be applied to realistic engineering systems. The book offers an overview of the fundamentals of vectors, matrices, and linear systems theory required for intelligent diagnosis and prognosis of industrial networked systems. Building on this theory, it then develops automated mathematical machineries and formal decision software tools for real-world applications. The book includes portable tool sets for many industrial applications, including: Forecasting machine tool wear in industrial cutting machines Reduction of sensors and features for industrial fault detection and isolation (FDI) Identification of critical resonant modes in mechatronic systems for system design of R&D Probabilistic small-signal stability in large-scale interconnected power systems Discrete event command and control for military applications The book also proposes future directions for intelligent diagnosis and prognosis in energy-efficient manufacturing, life cycle assessment, and systems of systems architecture. Written in a concise and accessible style, it presents tools that are mathematically rigorous but not involved. Bridging academia, research, and industry, this reference supplies the know-how for engineers and managers making decisions about equipment maintenance, as well as researchers and students in the field.
This open access book provides methods for the estimation of Biomass Water Equivalent (BEW), an essential step for improving the accuracy of area-wide soil moisture by cosmic-ray neutron sensors (CRNS). Three techniques are explained in detail: (i) traditional in-situ destructive sampling, (ii) satellite based remote sensing of plant surfaces, and (iii) biomass estimation via the use of the CRNS itself. The advantages and disadvantages of each method are discussed along with step by step instructions on proper procedures and implementation.
Modeling, Control and Coordination of Helicopter Systems provides a comprehensive treatment of helicopter systems, ranging from related nonlinear flight dynamic modeling and stability analysis to advanced control design for single helicopter systems, and also covers issues related to the coordination and formation control of multiple helicopter systems to achieve high performance tasks. Ensuring stability in helicopter flight is a challenging problem for nonlinear control design and development. This book is a valuable reference on modeling, control and coordination of helicopter systems,providing readers with practical solutions for the problems that still plague helicopter system design and implementation. Readers will gain a complete picture of helicopters at the systems level, as well as a better understanding of the technical intricacies involved.
Control systems include many components, such as transducers, sensors, actuators and mechanical parts. These components are required to be operated under some specific conditions. However, due to prolonged operations or harsh operating environment, the properties of these devices may degrade to an unacceptable level, causing more regular fault occurrences. It is therefore necessary to diagnose faults and provide the fault-accommodation control which compensates for the fault of the component by substituting a configuration of redundant elements so that the system continues to operate satisfactorily. In this book, we present a result of several years of work in the area of fault diagnosis and fault-accommodation control. It aims at information estimate methods when faults occur. The book uses the model built from the plant or process, to detect and isolate failures, in contrast to traditional hardware or statistical technologies dealing with failures. It presents model-based learning and design technologies for fault detection, isolation and identification as well as fault-tolerant control. These models are also used to analyse the fault detectability and isolability conditions and discuss the stability of the closed-loop system. It is intended to report new technologies in the area of fault diagnosis, covering fault analysis and control strategies of design for various applications. The book addresses four main schemes: modelling of actuator or sensor faults; fault detection and isolation; fault identification, and fault reconfiguration (accommodation) control. It also covers application issues in the monitoring control of actuators, providing several interesting case studies for more application-oriented readers.
Previous research on fixed/finite-time sliding-mode control focuses on forcing a system state (vector) to converge within a certain time moment, regardless of how each state element converges. This book introduces a control problem with unique finite/fixed-time stability considerations, namely time-synchronized stability, where at the same time, all the system state elements converge to the origin, and fixed-time-synchronized stability, where the upper bound of the synchronized settling time is invariant with any initial state. Accordingly, sufficient conditions for (fixed-) time-synchronized stability are presented. These stability formulations grant essentially advantageous performance when a control system (with diversified subsystems) is expected to accomplish multiple actions synchronously, e.g., grasping with a robotic hand, multi-agent simultaneous cooperation, etc. Further, the analytical solution of a (fixed) time-synchronized stable system is obtained and discussed. Applications to linear systems, disturbed nonlinear systems, and network systems are provided. In addition, comparisons with traditional fixed/finite-time sliding mode control are suitably detailed to showcase the full power of (fixed-) time-synchronized control.
Drug Law Reform in East and Southeast Asia is a multi-author look at drugs in East and Southeast Asia, on drug policy, patterns and trends, local problems, human rights abuses, treatment prospects, and potential reforms. From the history of drugs in Asia, the book examines recent trends in illicit drugs, especially the present enormous amphetamine problems. It addresses recent policy shifts, especially harm reduction responses to the devastating drug-associated HIV epidemics. It explores further necessary reform, especially in regard to the abysmally inhuman current emphasis on detention and the death penalty for drug offences, and present the most recent evidence on effective and humane approaches to drug treatments. As the first comprehensive collection on illicit drug and harm reduction in East and Southeast Asia, it will be a vital resource for health professionals, policymakers, and others working there—and elsewhere—on drug policy reform. As the first comprehensive collection on illicit drugs and harm reduction in East and Southeast Asia, it will be a vital resource for health professionals, policymakers, and others working on East and Southeast Asia—and elsewhere—on drug policy.
Evolutionary multiobjective optimization is currently gaining a lot of attention, particularly for researchers in the evolutionary computation communities. Covers the authors’ recent research in the area of multiobjective evolutionary algorithms as well as its practical applications.
The series Advances in Industrial Contral aims to report and encourage technology transfer in control engineering. The rapid development of control technology has an impact on all areas of the control discipline. New theory, new controllers, actuators, sensors, new industrial processes, computer methods, new applications, new philosophies ... , new challenges. Much of this development work resides in industrial reports, feasibility study papers and the reports of advanced collaborative projects. The series offers an opportunity for researchers to present an extended exposition of such new work in all aspects of industrial control for wider and rapid dissemination. From time to time a particular practical control problem emerges as a challenge to the design capabilities of the control community. One example has been the activated sludge process in wastewater systems where the process is highly nonlinear and measurements are few. A second example is the hard disk drive servo system. These widely used systems are critical to the operation of modem computing devices. They are nonlinear and demand a high-precision control system for the operations of track seeking and track following. There are also alternative actuation systems available to achieve these objectives. In this Advances in Industrial Control monograph B.M. Chen, T.H. Lee and V.
This book introduces the principle theories and applications of control and filtering problems to address emerging hot topics in feedback systems. With the development of IT technology at the core of the 4th industrial revolution, dynamic systems are becoming more sophisticated, networked, and advanced to achieve even better performance. However, this evolutionary advance in dynamic systems also leads to unavoidable constraints. In particular, such elements in control systems involve uncertainties, communication/transmission delays, external noise, sensor faults and failures, data packet dropouts, sampling and quantization errors, and switching phenomena, which have serious effects on the system’s stability and performance. This book discusses how to deal with such constraints to guarantee the system’s design objectives, focusing on real-world dynamical systems such as Markovian jump systems, networked control systems, neural networks, and complex networks, which have recently excited considerable attention. It also provides a number of practical examples to show the applicability of the presented methods and techniques. This book is of interest to graduate students, researchers and professors, as well as R&D engineers involved in control theory and applications looking to analyze dynamical systems with constraints and to synthesize various types of corresponding controllers and filters for optimal performance of feedback systems.
Force and Position Control of Mechatronic Systems provides an overview of the general concepts and technologies in the area of force and position control. Novel ideas and innovations related to this area are presented and reported in detail, and examples of applications in medical technology are given. The book begins by introducing force sensing, and modelling of contacting objects. In then moves steadily through a variety of topics, including: • disturbance observer-based force estimation; • force-based supervisory control; • stabilization systems; • controller design; and • control of tube insertion procedures. This book will be of interest to researchers, engineers and students interested in force control, particularly those with a focus on medical applications of these ideas. Advances in Industrial Control reports and encourages the transfer of technology in control engineering. The rapid development of control technology has an impact on all areas of the control discipline. The series offers an opportunity for researchers to present an extended exposition of new work in all aspects of industrial control.
Recently, there has been considerable research interest in neural network control of robots, and satisfactory results have been obtained in solving some of the special issues associated with the problems of robot control in an “on-and-off” fashion. This book is dedicated to issues on adaptive control of robots based on neural networks. The text has been carefully tailored to (i) give a comprehensive study of robot dynamics, (ii) present structured network models for robots, and (iii) provide systematic approaches for neural network based adaptive controller design for rigid robots, flexible joint robots, and robots in constraint motion. Rigorous proof of the stability properties of adaptive neural network controllers is provided. Simulation examples are also presented to verify the effectiveness of the controllers, and practical implementation issues associated with the controllers are also discussed.
This book provides the latest developments in the analysis and control of nonlinear time-delay systems using T-S fuzzy model approach. It presents a comprehensive, up-to-date, and detailed treatment of many interesting topics, such as stability analysis, stabilization, fuzzy variable structure control, fuzzy tracking control, fuzzy observer design, and filter design for T-S fuzzy systems with time delay.
The Hazmat medical life support basic provider course book aims to equip medical responders to a hazmat incident — chemical, radiological or biological — with essential skills and knowledge to safely manage casualties. It includes basic information about hazmat agents and provides easy to remember algorithmic approaches for the on-scene management of a hazmat event. Essential information on setting up medical operations, triaging and approach to hazmat event, personal protective equipment, decontamination, wound management, life support as well as paediatric-specific issues are discussed in this book.
Real-time Iterative Learning Control demonstrates how the latest advances in iterative learning control (ILC) can be applied to a number of plants widely encountered in practice. The book gives a systematic introduction to real-time ILC design and source of illustrative case studies for ILC problem solving; the fundamental concepts, schematics, configurations and generic guidelines for ILC design and implementation are enhanced by a well-selected group of representative, simple and easy-to-learn example applications. Key issues in ILC design and implementation in linear and nonlinear plants pervading mechatronics and batch processes are addressed, in particular: ILC design in the continuous- and discrete-time domains; design in the frequency and time domains; design with problem-specific performance objectives including robustness and optimality; design in a modular approach by integration with other control techniques; and design by means of classical tools based on Bode plots and state space.
This second edition of Precision Motion Control focuses on enabling technologies for precision engineering. It has been extensively edited and rewritten throughout with the following particular areas being expanded or added: • piezoelectric actuators • fine movement control • gantry-stage control • interpolation of quadrature encoder signals • geometrical error modeling for single-, dual- and general-XY-axis stages.
Unmanned Rotorcraft Systems explores the research and development of fully-functional miniature UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) rotorcraft, and provides a complete treatment of the design of autonomous miniature rotorcraft UAVs. The unmanned system is an integration of advanced technologies developed in communications, computing, and control areas, and is an excellent testing ground for trialing and implementing modern control techniques. Included are detailed expositions of systematic hardware construction, software systems integration, aerodynamic modeling; and automatic flight control system design. Emphasis is placed on the cooperative control and flight formation of multiple UAVs, vision-based ground target tracking, and landing on moving platforms. Other issues such as the development of GPS-less indoor micro aerial vehicles and vision-based navigation are also discussed in depth: utilizing the vision-based system for accomplishing ground target tracking, attacking and landing, cooperative control and flight formation of multiple unmanned rotorcraft; and future research directions on the related areas.
Present-day globalization, migration, and the spread of English have resulted in a great diversity of social and educational contexts in which English learning is taking place. A basic assumption of this book is that because English is an international language, effective pedagogical decisions cannot be made without giving special attention to the many varied contexts in which English is taught and learned. Its unique value is the combination of three strands – globalization, sociolinguistics, and English as an international language – in one focused volume specifically designed for language teachers, providing explicit links between sociolinguistic concepts and language pedagogy. International English in Its Sociolinguistic Contexts: fully recognizes the relationship between social context and language teaching describes the social and sociolinguistic factors that affect the teaching and learning of English examines how the social context is influential in determining which languages are promoted in schools and society and how these languages are taught is unique in directly relating basic constructs in sociolinguistics to English language teaching features case studies that illustrate the diversity of English teaching contexts Directed to a wide TESOL and applied linguistics professional readership, this text will be particularly useful and effective for pre-service and in-service professional development in TESOL for K-12 and higher education levels.
This easy-to-use, concise, yet informative book deals with a comprehensive range of urogynaecological problems and explores solutions to these problems. It is written by a team of experienced and expertly trained urogynaecologists. The book is aimed at helping patients understand the common gynaecological conditions and the possible treatment options. It encourages further questions from patients who want to know more about the common conditions.
Chen Poh Seng''s great grandfather lived in Pulau Tekong, his 50-over cousins were born and educated there. He lived in Changi Point which is 30 minutes away by ferry. Lee Leong Sze is a Malaysian, graduated from the Department of History, National Chong Hsing University, Taiwan, obtained PhD in Singapore. Two researchers met in August 2005. They shared the same interest in studying the history of Pulau Tekong. During the study, they had full support and encouragement from former residents. The book describes how Pulau Tekong Island developed during the early 20th century. It describes where the ethnic groups came from, how they settled down, worked and lived together, and the relationship among different ethnic groups, like the Malay and Chinese (including Hakka and Chouchouese) over the years. Finally, the book finds out how and why the villages vanished. The final chapter outlines the outstanding citizens from Pulau Tekong and reviews how they merged with the main stream of Singapore society after leaving the offshore island.
Chen Poh Seng's great grandfather lived in Pulau Tekong, his 50-over cousins were born and educated there. He lived in Changi Point which is 30 minutes away by ferry.Lee Leong Sze is a Malaysian, graduated from the Department of History, National Chong Hsing University, Taiwan, obtained PhD in Singapore. Two researchers met in August 2005. They shared the same interest in studying the history of Pulau Tekong. During the study, they had full support and encouragement from former residents.The book describes how Pulau Tekong Island developed during the early 20th century. It describes where the ethnic groups came from, how they settled down, worked and lived together, and the relationship among different ethnic groups, like the Malay and Chinese (including Hakka and Chouchouese) over the years. Finally, the book finds out how and why the villages vanished. The final chapter outlines the outstanding citizens from Pulau Tekong and reviews how they merged with the main stream of Singapore society after leaving the offshore island.
This open access book is an outcome of the collaboration between the Soil and Water Management & Crop Nutrition Section, Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, Department of Nuclear Sciences and Applications, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Vienna, Austria, and Dr. Shabbir A Shahid, Senior Salinity Management Expert, Freelancer based in United Arab Emirates.The objective of this book is to develop protocols for salinity and sodicity assessment and develop mitigation and adaptation measures to use saline and sodic soils sustainably. The focus is on important issues related to salinity and sodicity and to describe these in an easy and user friendly way. The information has been compiled from the latest published literature and from the authors' publications specific to the subject matter. The book consists of six chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the terms salinity and sodicity and describes various salinity classification systems commonly used around the world. Chapter 2 reviews global distribution of salinization and socioeconomic aspects related to salinity and crop production. Chapters 3 covers comprehensively salinity and sodicity adaptation and mitigation options including physical, chemical, hydrological and biological methods. Chapter 4 discusses the efforts that have been made to demonstrate the development of soil salinity zones under different irrigation systems. Chapter 5 discusses the quality of irrigation water, boron toxicity and relative tolerance to boron, the effects of chlorides on crops. Chapter 6 introduces the role of nuclear techniques in saline agriculture. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.
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