A food writer travels the Silk Road, immersing herself in a moveable feast of foods and cultures and discovering some surprising truths about commitment, independence, and love. As a newlywed traveling in Italy, Jen Lin-Liu was struck by culinary echoes of the delicacies she ate and cooked back in China, where she’d lived for more than a decade. Who really invented the noodle? she wondered, like many before her. But also: How had food and culture moved along the Silk Road, the ancient trade route linking Asia to Europe—and what could still be felt of those long-ago migrations? With her new husband’s blessing, she set out to discover the connections, both historical and personal, eating a path through western China and on into Central Asia, Iran, Turkey, and across the Mediterranean. The journey takes Lin-Liu into the private kitchens where the headscarves come off and women not only knead and simmer but also confess and confide. The thin rounds of dough stuffed with meat that are dumplings in Beijing evolve into manti in Turkey—their tiny size the measure of a bride’s worth—and end as tortellini in Italy. And as she stirs and samples, listening to the women talk about their lives and longings, Lin-Liu gains a new appreciation of her own marriage, learning to savor the sweetness of love freely chosen.
A memorable and mouthwatering cook's tour of today's China As a freelance journalist and food writer living in Beijing, Jen Lin-Liu already had a ringside seat for China's exploding food scene. When she decided to enroll in a local cooking school--held in an unheated classroom with nary a measuring cup in sight--she jumped into the ring herself. Progressing from cooking student to noodle-stall and dumpling-house apprentice to intern at a chic Shanghai restaurant, she finds poor young men and women streaming in from the provinces in search of a "rice bowl" (living wage); a burgeoning urban middle class hungry for luxury after decades of turmoil and privation; and the mentors who take her in hand in the kitchen and beyond. Together they present an unforgettable slice of contemporary China in the full swing of social and economic transformation.
Microbes may become pathogenic and mankind develops antimicrobials and vaccines to fight with them, which may lead to an arms race as pathogens develop drug resistance and humans invent newer drugs, often ending up with uncontrollable infections. This book narrates the author’s journey pursuing the origin of pathogenic bacterial species, demonstrating through experiments that bacteria form new species by acquiring novel genes from surroundings and altering the genome for better fitness. If the newly acquired genes encode pathogenic traits, the originally benign bacteria may become new pathogens. To control pathogens, antimicrobials and vaccines are useful in many cases, but, in addition, book proposes a third strategy through the concept of herd resistance via enhancing the protective functions of intestinal microbiota, which will not trigger an arms race nor interfere with immune functions. This strategy can be generalized to a broad range of bacterial or viral pathogens, such as SARS-CoV-2.
Freeze-drying is an important preservation technique for heat-sensitive pharmaceuticals and foods. Products are first frozen, then dried in a vacuum at low temperature by sublimation and desorption, rather than by the application of heat. The resulting items can be stored at room temperature for long periods. This informative text addresses both principles and practice in this area. The first chapter introduces freeze-drying. The authors then review the fundamentals of the technique, heat-mass transfer analyses, modelling of the drying process and the equipment employed. Further chapters focus on freeze-drying of food, freeze-drying of pharmaceuticals and the protective agents and additives applied. The final chapter covers the important subjects of disinfection, sterilization and process validation. Freeze-drying of pharmaceutical and food products is an essential reference for food, pharmaceutical and refrigeration engineers and scientists with an interest in preservation techniques. It will also be of use to students in these fields. Addresses the principles and practices used in this important preservation technique Explains the fundamentals of heat-mass transfer analysis, modelling and the equipment used Discusses the importance of disinfection, sterilization and process validation
This brief presents four practical methods to effectively explore causal relationships, which are often used for explanation, prediction and decision making in medicine, epidemiology, biology, economics, physics and social sciences. The first two methods apply conditional independence tests for causal discovery. The last two methods employ association rule mining for efficient causal hypothesis generation, and a partial association test and retrospective cohort study for validating the hypotheses. All four methods are innovative and effective in identifying potential causal relationships around a given target, and each has its own strength and weakness. For each method, a software tool is provided along with examples demonstrating its use. Practical Approaches to Causal Relationship Exploration is designed for researchers and practitioners working in the areas of artificial intelligence, machine learning, data mining, and biomedical research. The material also benefits advanced students interested in causal relationship discovery.
As the rivalry between the US and China enters a dangerous new phase, reaffirming the politics of anti-imperialism is a task more important than ever. From trade wars and pandemic politics to rioting workers, intercontinental balloons, and battles over TikTok, the US media tends to present contemporary China—when it’s discussed at all—in sensationalist terms. This portrayal has only intensified as China’s relationship with the United States has grown increasingly hostile. Whether in the form of overtly racist rhetoric and aggressive trade actions, or the more buttoned down but equally antagonistic efforts to oppose Chinese interests abroad, the US has made clear that it has no interest in giving up its position as global hegemon. This seemingly endless cycle of nationalism, jingoism, and reactionary politics on both sides of the Pacific suggests a downward spiral that could plausibly result in catastrophic military confrontation. Against Imperialism forcefully makes the case that workers and socially marginalized people in both the US and China must oppose our rulers’ claims that they have our best interests in mind as they ratchet up their rivalry. Rather, if we’re to avert nuclear calamity, we must oppose imperialism in all its forms, and regardless of its source and rhetoric. Through snapshots of China’s growing social movements—from its labor struggles to feminist campaigns, and more—Lin, Liu, Friedman, and Smith provide some of the building blocks we’ll need to construct a movement that centers international solidarity across borders.
In the last decade there has been a phenomenal growth in interest in crime pattern analysis. Geographic information systems are now widely used in urban police agencies throughout industrial nations. With this, scholarly interest in understanding crime patterns has grown considerably. Artificial Crime Analysis Systems: Using Computer Simulations and Geographic Information Systems discusses leading research on the use of computer simulation of crime patterns to reveal hidden processes of urban crimes, taking an interdisciplinary approach by combining criminology, computer simulation, and geographic information systems into one comprehensive resource.
This book highlights the fundamental physics of orbit theory, dynamical models, methods of orbit determination, design, measurement, adjustment, and complete calculations for the position, tracking, and prediction of satellites and deep spacecraft. It emphasizes specific methods, related mathematical calculations, and worked examples and exercises. Therefore, technicians and engineers in the aerospace industry can directly apply them to their practical work. Dedicated to undergraduate students and graduate students, researchers, and professionals in astronomy, physics, space science, and related aerospace industries, the book is an integrated work based on the accumulated knowledge in satellite orbit dynamics and the author’s more than five decades of personal research and teaching experience in astronomy and aerospace dynamics.
Much of pattern recognition theory and practice, including methods such as Support Vector Machines, has emerged in an attempt to solve the character recognition problem. This book is written by very well-known academics who have worked in the field for many years and have made significant and lasting contributions. The book will no doubt be of value to students and practitioners." -Sargur N. Srihari, SUNY Distinguished Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and Director, Center of Excellence for Document Analysis and Recognition (CEDAR), University at Buffalo, The State University of New York "The disciplines of optical character recognition and document image analysis have a history of more than forty years. In the last decade, the importance and popularity of these areas have grown enormously. Surprisingly, however, the field is not well covered by any textbook. This book has been written by prominent leaders in the field. It includes all important topics in optical character recognition and document analysis, and is written in a very coherent and comprehensive style. This book satisfies an urgent need. It is a volume the community has been awaiting for a long time, and I can enthusiastically recommend it to everybody working in the area." -Horst Bunke, Professor, Institute of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics (IAM), University of Bern, Switzerland In Character Recognition Systems, the authors provide practitioners and students with the fundamental principles and state-of-the-art computational methods of reading printed texts and handwritten materials. The information presented is analogous to the stages of a computer recognition system, helping readers master the theory and latest methodologies used in character recognition in a meaningful way. This book covers: * Perspectives on the history, applications, and evolution of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) * The most widely used pre-processing techniques, as well as methods for extracting character contours and skeletons * Evaluating extracted features, both structural and statistical * Modern classification methods that are successful in character recognition, including statistical methods, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), Support Vector Machines (SVM), structural methods, and multi-classifier methods * An overview of word and string recognition methods and techniques * Case studies that illustrate practical applications, with descriptions of the methods and theories behind the experimental results Each chapter contains major steps and tricks to handle the tasks described at-hand. Researchers and graduate students in computer science and engineering will find this book useful for designing a concrete system in OCR technology, while practitioners will rely on it as a valuable resource for the latest advances and modern technologies that aren't covered elsewhere in a single book.
In the context of coupled-coordination control mechanisms, this book focuses on the delay robustness of consensus problems with asynchronously coupled and synchronously coupled consensus algorithms respectively. Moreover, constructive consensus algorithms that tolerate larger communication delays are proposed according to idea of compensation. By providing rigorous theoretical proofs and numerous numerical simulations, it enhances readers’ understanding of the consensus coordination control mechanism of multi-agent systems with communication delays.
This book provides energy efficiency quantitative analysis and optimal methods for discrete manufacturing systems from the perspective of global optimization. In order to analyze and optimize energy efficiency for discrete manufacturing systems, it uses real-time access to energy consumption information and models of the energy consumption, and constructs an energy efficiency quantitative index system. Based on the rough set and analytic hierarchy process, it also proposes a principal component quantitative analysis and a combined energy efficiency quantitative analysis. In turn, the book addresses the design and development of quantitative analysis systems. To save energy consumption on the basis of energy efficiency analysis, it presents several optimal control strategies, including one for single-machine equipment, an integrated approach based on RWA-MOPSO, and one for production energy efficiency based on a teaching and learning optimal algorithm. Given its scope, the book offers a valuable guide for students, teachers, engineers and researchers in the field of discrete manufacturing systems.
Problems facing manufacturing clusters that intersect information technology, process management, and optimization within the Internet of Things (IoT) are examined in this book. Recent advances in information technology have transformed the use of resources and data exchange, often leading to management and optimization problems attributatble to technology limitations and strong market competition. This book discusses several problems and concepts which makes significant connections in the areas of information sharing, organization management, resource operations, and performance assessment. Geared toward practitioners and researchers, this treatment deepens the understanding between resource collaborative management and advanced information technology. Those in manufacturing will utilize the numerous mathematical models and methods offered to solve practical problems related to cutting stock, supply chain scheduling, and inventory management. Academics and students with a basic knowledge of manufacturing, combinatorics, and linear programming will find that this discussion widens the research area of resource collaborative management and unites the fields of information technology, manufacturing management, and optimization.
Due to inherent limitations in human sensing organs, most data collected for various purposes contain uncertainties. Even at the rare occasions when accurate data are available, the truthful predictions derived on the data tend to create chaotic consequences. So, to effectively process and make sense out of available data, we need methods to deal with uncertainty inherently existing inside the data. The intent of this monograph is to explore the fundamental theory, methods, and techniques of practical application of grey systems theory, initiated by Professor Deng Julong in 1982. This volume presents most of the recent advances of the theory accomplished by scholars from around the world. From studying this book, the reader will not only acquire an overall knowledge of this new theory but also be able to follow the most current research activities. All examples presented are based on practical applications of the theory when urgent real-life problems had to be addressed. Last but not the least, this book concludes with three appendices. The first one compares grey systems theory and interval analysis while revealing the fact that interval analysis is a part of grey mathematics. The second appendix presents an array of different approaches of studying uncertainties. And, the last appendix shows how uncertainties appear using general systems approach.
In the 1950s, the residents of the southwestern coastal areas of Taiwan suffered greatly from Blackfoot disease (BFD) due to the consumption of arsenic-contaminated groundwater. Groundwater with high levels of arsenic in southwestern and northeastern Taiwan received much attention. After arsenic-safe tap water was utilized for drinking instead of groundwater in the 1970s, BFD cases decreased greatly. After 1990, no new BFD cases were reported, and as a consequence, BFD problems disregarded. However, arsenic is still present in the groundwater. This book will improve the knowledge and understanding of the occurrence and genesis of arsenic-rich groundwaters in Taiwan. It deals with constraints on the mobility of arsenic in groundwater, its uptake from soil and water by plants, arsenic-propagation through the food chain, human health impacts, and arsenic-removal technologies. Taiwan case experiences are described in this book and can be applied worldwide. This book is a state-of-the-art overview of research on arsenic in Taiwan and is designed to: create interest in regions within Taiwan that are affected by the presence of arseniferous aquifers; draw attention from the international scientific community; increase awareness among researchers, administrators, policy makers, and company executives; improve the international cooperation on arsenic problems worldwide.
Rapid formation and development of new theories of systems science have become an important part of modern science and technology. For - ample, since the 1940s, there have appeared systems theory, information theory, fuzzy mathematics, cybernetics, dissipative structures, synergetics, catastrophe theory, chaos theory, bifurcations, ultra circulations, dynamics, and many other systems theories. Grey systems theory is also one of such systems theories that appeared initially in the 1980s. When the research of systems science and the method and technology of systems engineering are applied in various traditional disciplines, such as management science, decision science, and various scienti?c disciplines, a whole new group of new results and breakthroughs are obtained. Such a historical background has provided the environment and soil for grey systems theory to form and to develop rapidly in the past 20-plus years. More speci?cally, in 1982, Professor Deng Ju-Long published the ?rst research paper in the area of grey systems in the international journal entitled Systems and Control Letters, published by North-Holland Co. His paper was titled “Control Problems of Grey Systems. ” The publication of this paper signalled the birth of grey systems theory after many years of e ective research of the founding father. This new theory soon caught the attention of the international academic community and practitioners of science. Many well-known scholars, such as Chinese academicians Qian Xueshen, Song Jian, and Zhang Zhongjun. Professor Roger W.
The book introduces the concept of cloud manufacturing and describes the cloud service technology system behind it. The authors discuss key technologies of manufacturing cloud service management, including service construction, evaluation and composition, and scheduling. With abundant case studies, the book is an essential reference for researchers and engineers in manufacturing and information management.
Water Environment Modeling covers the formulations and applications of mathematical models that simulate water flow and chemical transport in rivers, lakes, groundwater, estuaries, coastal, and ocean waters. These models are used to evaluate the response of water environment to human interventions and serve as useful analytical tools for water pollution control and resource management. Simple and comprehensive modeling techniques and their practical applications are presented with examples and exercises, most of which are derived from actual case studies. In general, simple models can be solved analytically and comprehensive models require numerical solutions. While simple models are usually adopted for preliminary assessment of a particular water environment, comprehensive models are used to provide detailed spatial and temporal variations of pollutants in complex environments. The system-based models in the forms of integral equations are introduced as an alternative modeling approach. This textbook is ideal for advanced undergraduate students and graduate students in civil and environmental engineering and related academic fields. It is also suitable as a reference book for practicing engineers and scientists. Authors: Clark C.K. Liu is Emeritus Professor of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at University of Hawaii and former Environmental Engineering Director of US National Science Foundation. Pengzhi Lin is Professor of State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering at Sichuan University. He is the author of Numerical Modeling of Water Waves (CRC Press, 2008). Hong Xiao is Professor and Vice Director of Hydroinformatics Institute of the State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering at Sichuan University.
This monograph provides a detailed and systematic introduction to the application of deep learning technology in the intelligent monitoring of crop diseases and pests. Taking 24 types of crop pests, wheat aphids, and wheat diseases with complex backgrounds as examples, a large-scale crop pest and disease dataset was constructed to provide necessary data support for the deep learning module. Various schemes for identifying and detecting large-scale crop diseases and pests based on deep convolutional neural network technology have also been proposed. This book can be used as a reference for teachers and students majoring in agriculture, computer science, artificial intelligence, intelligent science and technology, and other related fields in higher education institutions. It can also be used as a reference book for researchers in fields such as image processing technology, intelligent manufacturing, and high-tech applications.
Our expert authors, longtime residents in and frequent travelers to China, share their candid opinions on what's worth your time and what's?not. Frommer's China takes you from the Great Wall, to the terracotta warriors of Xi'an; from hidden Buddhist caves along the Silk Road to mystical mountains in the East. Plus, you'll have everything you need to enjoy a cosmopolitan adventure in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. Learn strategies for when to travel independently and when to travel with a tour group. Our extensive transportation information and author recommendations help get you off the beaten path. Detailed maps have Chinese characters, pinyin spelling, and English;?supplemental chapters list translations of hotels, restaurants, and points of interest. Extensive and invaluable supplemental language and dining chapters help make sense of Mandarin for the traveler. Plus, useful Chinese characters throughout the book?make navigating the country easier.
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