During the famine that befell China following the disaster of the Great Leap Forward, hunger was a major affliction for the individuals undergoing reform in the labor camps. Food – in terms of procurement, consumption, or just discursive recollection – was a central issue in the prisoners’ lives and, as a consequence, descriptions of meals and eating practices are a recurring presence in …
For established entrepreneurs from Western European economies (WEEs) and Northern European economies (NEEs), we estimated relationships between firms’ innovative activity and their owner-managers’ educational level, the firms’ international orientation, and their growth aspirations. International orientation proved to be positively and significantly related to innovative activity in both …
Forest biomass, the most ancient of fuels, is again in the center of renewable energy production. This chapter provides an introductory view of the main factors that condition the ecological sustainability of this energy source. The basic concepts of ecological sustainability, ecological rotation, and ecological thresholds (among others) are presented. The state of the art on approaches to asse…
After decades of traditional space businesses, the space paradigm is changing. New approaches to more efficient missions in terms of costs, design, and manufacturing processes are fostered. For instance, placing big constellations of micro- and nano-satellites in Low Earth Orbit and Very Low Earth Orbit (LEO and VLEO) enables the space community to obtain a huge amount of data in near real-time…
The rate at which global climate change is happening is arguably the most pressing environmental challenge of the century, and it affects our cities. Climate change exerts added stress on urban areas through increased numbers of heat waves threatening people’s well-being and, in many cases, human lives. Earth observation (EO) systems and the advances in remote sensing technology increase the …
Early failure detection and abnormal data reconstruction in sensor data provided by building ventilation control systems are critical for public health. Early detection of abnormal data can help prevent failures in crucial components of ventilation systems, which can result in a variety of issues, from energy wastage to catastrophic outcomes. However, conventional fault detection models ignore …
The EAEA Younger Staff Training is a good example of a successful initiative that encour-ages the professional development of adult education staff, builds new collaborations, and explores the diversity of policy and practice in adult learning in Europe. Organized annually since 2011, the training programme has undergone several modifications over the years to adapt to the changing needs of adu…
Dynamic method dispatch is a core feature of object-oriented programming by which the executed implementation for a polymorphic method is only chosen at runtime. In this paper, we present a specification and verification methodology which extends the concept of dynamic dispatch to design-by-contract specifications. The formal specification language JML has only rudimentary means for polymorphic…
Transport: general interest
The current situation of conflict in Northern Nigeria in the past decade has been responsible for more displacement than in the region’s previous recorded history. According to the Global Terrorism Index, Nigeria is the most terrorised country in Africa and the third most terrorised on the planet. The UNHCR and IDMC estimate over 3.2 million people displaced in the region with 2.58 millions o…