This book sheds light on the structure of “a unity with diversity” developed in the Qing imperial formation (1636–1912) by a case study of the Qing-Tibetan encounters in the eighteenth century. By analyzing historical and ethnographical materials, the book investigates the translation of Chinese histories and stone inscriptions into Tibetan, the transformation of the landscapes at Mount Wutai and Lhasa, and the transplantation of Chinese deities and medical practices to Tibet. It demonstrates the processes in which the cosmopolitan interlocutors reified imperial integrity while expressing their diverse longings and belongings. It concludes that the Qing’s rule over its cultural others was neither simply Sinicizing nor colonizing, but a translational process in which multivocalic actors shared narratives, landscapes, and practices, while the emperor and tantric masters performed cosmic power over humans and metahumans. This book cuts across the fields of anthropology, history, Chinese Studies, and Tibetan Studies. It reflects on the concepts of sovereignty and ethnicity, and it also extends the methodological horizon of historical anthropology.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is an ambitious infrastructure construction program designed and financially supported by the Chinese government. It spans the globe and is active in about 150 countries, affecting the international order, government policies, and ordinary people’s daily lives. The BRI uses a version of China’s domestic development model, set in an international environment. Using a wealth of documents, cases, multi-country input-output models, and a project database created by the authors, this book provides a complete picture of the BRI: its benefits, risks, and implications. The book explores the institutional roots of the problems of the BRI (including debt problems), argues that the debt problem is a soft budget constraint problem, and discusses the redesign and reorganising of its future versions. This book aims to help policymakers, researchers, students, and everyone interested in political science, economics, and country-specific research to understand and rethink the advantages and risks of the BRI.

This book introduces the latest advances made in both fundamental studies and potential applications of upconversion nanomaterials, particularly in the field of high-resolution in vitro bioanalysis and in vivo imaging. This book starts with the synthesis and characterization, and focuses on applications ranging from materials science to biology. Above all, it describes cutting-edge advances in upconversion nanophosphor (UCNP)-based applications in multiplexed encoding, guest delivery and release systems, photodynamic therapy (PDT), solar cells, photocatalysis and so on. The major barriers that currently prevent UCNPs from being used in mainstream applications are also presented in detail.

Tethered Space Robot: Dynamics, Measurement, and Control discusses a novel tethered space robot (TSR) system that contains the space platform, flexible tether and gripper. TSR can capture and remove non-cooperative targets such as space debris. It is the first time the concept has been described in a book, which describes the system and mission design of TSR and then introduces the latest research on pose measurement, dynamics and control. The book covers the TSR system, from principle to applications, including a complete implementing scheme. A useful reference for researchers, engineers and students interested in space robots, OOS and debris removal. - Provides for the first time comprehensive coverage of various aspects of tethered space robots (TSR) - Presents both fundamental principles and application technologies including pose measurement, dynamics and control - Describes some new control techniques, including a coordinated control method for tracking optimal trajectory, coordinated coupling control and coordinated approaching control using mobile tether attachment points

Intelligent Image and Video Compression: Communicating Pictures, Second Edition explains the requirements, analysis, design and application of a modern video coding system. It draws on the authors' extensive academic and professional experience in this field to deliver a text that is algorithmically rigorous yet accessible, relevant to modern standards and practical. It builds on a thorough grounding in mathematical foundations and visual perception to demonstrate how modern image and video compression methods can be designed to meet the rate-quality performance levels demanded by today's applications and users, in the context of prevailing network constraints. "David Bull and Fan Zhang have written a timely and accessible book on the topic of image and video compression. Compression of visual signals is one of the great technological achievements of modern times, and has made possible the great successes of streaming and social media and digital cinema. Their book, Intelligent Image and Video Compression covers all the salient topics ranging over visual perception, information theory, bandpass transform theory, motion estimation and prediction, lossy and lossless compression, and of course the compression standards from MPEG (ranging from H.261 through the most modern H.266, or VVC) and the open standards VP9 and AV-1. The book is replete with clear explanations and figures, including color where appropriate, making it quite accessible and valuable to the advanced student as well as the expert practitioner. The book offers an excellent glossary and as a bonus, a set of tutorial problems. Highly recommended! --Al Bovik - An approach that combines algorithmic rigor with practical implementation using numerous worked examples - Explains how video compression methods exploit statistical redundancies, natural correlations, and knowledge of human perception to improve performance - Uses contemporary video coding standards (AVC, HEVC and VVC) as a vehicle for explaining block-based compression - Provides broad coverage of important topics such as visual quality assessment and video streaming

Attitude Takeover Control of Failed Spacecraft is both necessary and urgently required. This book provides an overview of the topic and the role of space robots in handling various types of failed spacecraft. The book divides the means of attitude takeover control into three types, including space manipulator capture, tethered space robot capture, and cellular space robot capture. Spacecraft attitude control is the process of controlling the orientation of a spacecraft (vehicle or satellite) with respect to an inertial frame of reference or another entity such as the celestial sphere, certain fields, and nearby objects, etc.It has become increasingly important: with the increasing number of human space launch activities, the number of failed spacecraft has increased dramatically in recent years. - Proposes a means of attitude takeover control of failed spacecraft - Provides a comprehensive overview of current attitude takeover control technologies of space robots - Covers space manipulator capture, tethered space robot capture, and cellular space robot capture

The causes of global warming and its consequences are clear, and the economic impacts of climate change are apparent. Climate change threatens development gains. Extreme weather events have brought severe droughts to Central Asia, heat waves and forest fires to the Russian Federation, and floods to Southeastern Europe. Unchecked emissions will result in rising economic costs and increasing risks to individuals. There is a clear case for all of the world's economies to move to a low-carbon growth path. Yet climate action has been inadequate, especially in the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region. With prospects of a global climate agreement uncertain, Growing Green: The Economic Benefits of Climate Action identifies the actions that governments in the region can take to reduce the carbon footprints of their economies. Many of these actions will more than pay for themselves, and quickly-especially when indirect benefits such as better health and increased competitiveness are considered. To realize these benefits, policy makers in ECA need to move quickly on three sets of priorities: use energy much more efficiently; gradually move to cleaner energy sources; and increase carbon capture in soils and forests. These actions will require transformations in power generation, industrial production, mobility, city living, and farming and forestry. Policy makers are justifiably worried that climate action may jeopardize economic performance and strain the budgets of poorer families. Growing Green: The Economic Benefits of Climate Action shows how well-designed growth and social policies can make climate action growth-enhancing while protecting the living standards of less well-off households. The ECA region has been a bystander on climate action, and sluggish in realizing the benefits of the economic and technological innovations available to combat climate change. Growing Green: The Economic Benefits of Climate Action aims to help ECA become a leader in confronting this challenge. In doing so, it shows how countries in the region can make climate action-along with economic growth and social inclusion-the third pillar of their development strategies. Growing Green: The Economic Benefits of Climate Action is a part of a series of three regional reports that includes Balancing Act: Cutting Energy Subsidies While Protecting Affordability and Energy Efficiency: Lessons Learned from Success Stories. These reports will be of interest to policy makers, government officials in finance and line ministries, nongovernmental organizations, and development practitioners.

Estimates of potential output are an important component of a structured forecasting and policy analysis system. Using information on capacity utilization, this paper extends the multivariate filter developed by Laxton and Tetlow (1992) and modified by Benes and others (2010), Blagrave and others (2015), and Alichi and others (2015). We show that, although still fairly uncertain, the real-time estimates from this approach are more accurate than estimates constructed from naïve univariate statistical filters. The paper presents illustrative estimates for the United States and discusses how the end-of-sample estimates can be improved with additional information.

This paper presents estimates of potential output for all Central American economies. Our findings are that potential output growth has declined in recent years in most economies of Central America. Lower capital accumulation and TFP growth are accounting for most of this decline. Apart from Costa Rica, there are no indications of significant economic slack in 2015 in Central America. Looking forward, potential growth in most Central American economies is expected to continue at an average of 4 percent in the medium-term due to structural constraints to capital and employment growth, and low TFP growth. Increasing potential growth, thus, should be a policy priority and structural reforms must be directed at improving business conditions, product and labor markets, and enhancing the capacity for innovation.

The Government of the Republic of Belarus (GoB) plans to increase district heating tariffs to cost-recovery levels and gradually phase out subsidies, replacing them with social assistance programs. Residential DH tariffs in Belarus are currently at roughly 10†“21 percent of cost-recovery levels. DH subsidies are highly regressive, add costs to business, and create significant fiscal risks and macroeconomic vulnerabilities. The study analyzes the social, sectoral, and fiscal impacts of the proposed tariff reform, and identifies and recommends measures to mitigate adverse impacts of district heating tariff increases on the households. The analysis shows that a negative social impact is manageable if a tariff increase is accompanied by countervailing measures to compensate for the loss of purchasing power, in particular of the poor, through targeted social assistance and energy efficiency programs. The reform is more likely to be successful if communication campaigns to address consumer concerns are carried out before significant price increases, and consumer engagement and monitoring systems are established. When tariff reform and mitigation measures are properly sequenced and coordinated, the reform will become more socially acceptable, consumers will benefit from better quality of services, the government will achieve positive fiscal savings, and the DH sector will become sustainable in the long term. The study analyzes the social, sectoral, and fiscal impacts of the proposed district heating tariff reform in Belarus, and identifies and recommends measures to mitigate adverse impacts of district heating tariff increases on the households.