This text focuses on the synthesis, properties and applications of nanostructures and nanomaterials, particularly inorganic nanomaterials. It provides coverage of the fundamentals and processing techniques with regard to synthesis, properties, characterization and applications of nanostructures and nanomaterials.

The mammalian gastrointestinal mucosa is a rapidly self-renewing tissue in the body, and its homeostasis is preserved through the strict regulation of epithelial cell proliferation, growth arrest, and apoptosis. The control of the growth of gastrointestinal mucosa is unique and, compared with most other tissue in the body, complex. Mucosal growth is regulated by the same hormones that alter metabolism in other tissues, but the gastrointestinal mucosa also responds to host events triggered by the ingestion and presence of food within the digestive tract. These gut hormones and peptides regulate the growth of the exocrine pancreas, gallbladder epithelium, and the mucosa of the oxyntic gland region of the stomach and the small and large intestines. Luminal factors, including nutrients or other dietary factors, secretions, and microbes that occur within the lumen and distribute over a proximal-to-distal gradient, are also crucial for maintenance of normal gut mucosal regeneration and could explain the villous-height-crypt-depth gradient and variety of adaptation, since these factors are diluted, absorbed, and destroyed as they pass down the digestive tract. Recently, intestinal stem cells, cellular polyamines, and noncoding RNAs are shown to play an important role in the regulation of gastrointestinal mucosal growth under physiological and various pathological conditions. In this book, we highlight key issues and factors that control gastrointestinal mucosal growth and homeostasis, with special emphasis on the mechanisms through which epithelial renewal and apoptosis are regulated at the cellular and molecular levels.

This book is the second of a two-volume set that presents a contemporary analysis of Chinese digital platforms through an intercultural and interdisciplinary lens, highlighting the complex nature of the online ecosystem. The book provides an overview of the complex forces shaping the Chinese cyber-landscape and their global digital implications, drawing on cross-cultural insights and spanning a range of academic disciplines. The intercultural section explores the cross-cultural potential of Chinese social media, addressing intriguing questions such as why and how international influencers maintain a presence on Chinese social media platforms, examining their motivations and communication strategies. The interdisciplinary section studies the intersections of Chinese digital platforms with sociological studies, linguistic analysis and artificial intelligence. This volume is a valuable resource for academics and students in media and communication studies, as well as social media researchers, China studies enthusiasts, industry professionals and anyone seeking a deeper understanding of Chinese social media dynamics.

This book is not Oracle theory or database management system theory book. It is not Oracle programming book either. It is an Oracle DBA (Database Administrator) practice process and scripts and documentations based on author's working experiences. The readers can be people who are interested in learning knowledge on Oracle database administrations like developers working on Oracle database, Oracle DBA beginners who wants to know how to manage their Oracle database, IT managers who wants to have some concepts and knowledge on Oracle DBA jobs etc. In this book, the author provides process, scripts, tools and methods to do Oracle DBA jobs like backup/recover methods and scripts, database clone scripts, regular database maintenance like index defragmentation scripts etc in Oracle 11g and 12C and Windows Server environments.

Breast ultrasound (BUS) image segmentation is challenging and critical for BUS Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) systems. Many BUS segmentation approaches have been proposed in the last two decades, but the performances of most approaches have been assessed using relatively small private datasets with different quantitative metrics, which result in discrepancy in performance comparison.

"Distribution and Transformation of Nutrients and Eutrophication in Large-scale Lakes and Reservoirs: The Three Gorges Reservoir" presents key findings on early eutrophication in large-scale lakes and reservoirs, providing readers with an overview of lake management problems and the tools that can be applied to solve them. The broad spectrum of available tools is presented in detail, including environmental technological methods, ecotechnological methods and the application of models to determine the best management strategy. The book is intended for environmental engineers and researchers in the fields of environmental science and ecological chemistry. Professor Zhenyao Shen, Professor Junfeng Niu and Associate Professor Ying Wang work at the School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, China. Dr. Hongyuan Wang works at Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China. Dr. Xin Zhao works at Changjiang River Scientific Research Institute, China.

Can your job change your personality? While traditionally personality has been considered fixed and stable, recent thinking indicates that this is not the case. Personality can be changed by various work and vocational experiences, such as employment conditions, career roles, job characteristics and training or interventions. Drawing on a wide array of research in the field, Wang and Wu provide a conceptual overview on how personality can be changed at work by societal, organisational and job-related factors, while considering how individuals can take an active approach in changing their personality at work.

Minban schools have established their position in China’s education system. This book applies the theories of new institutionalism to the minban school as an organization and as a party in relationships with other institutions. It explores the features of the evolving institutional environment of education and the strategies that minban schools have adopted to manage the institutions in this environment. There are four types of minban schools: the international minban school, the privately funded minban school, the publicly affiliated minban school, and the converted minban school. A qualitative research methodology in the form of a multiple-case study was used for the analysis. Eight minban secondary schools in Taiyuan and Shenzhen were chosen to represent the various types of minban schools. The study shows that the re-emergence of free market principles, the decentralization of government and the accompanying segmentation of power and authority, bureaucratic and consumerist expectations of teachers, and the commodification of education have engendered an increasingly fragmented institutional environment, which allowed minban schools to thrive. The book reveals that the institutional environment is multi-faceted and ambiguous: during China’s controlled decentralization, organizations and institutions have shaped each other. Minban schools adopt various strategies to cope with institutional pressure. This study provides a systematic understanding of the operation of minban schools by locating the schools in a ‘differential order’, which determines their choice of strategy: international schools choose isolation; privately funded schools, avoidance; affiliated schools, advocacy; and converted schools, capitalization. It also illustrates how the bureaucracy functions in China’s local governments. The various case studies confirm that the government still maintains substantial control over minban schools through the power granted by the bureaucratic structure, which allows them to direct the institutional environment by introducing new regulations and forms of governance.

This book is an exploration of the concept of in-betweenness, as it occurs within the process of moving between the author’s root culture and adopted culture, from her perspective as an immigrant creative arts therapist. Through the critical autoethnographic voice and a/r/tographic inquiry, she introduces a unique exploration site within the process of Guqin-making, an ancient Chinese art form. Through the creation of images and poetry, and through Guqin-making and music-making/playing, the book expands the discussion of in-betweenness by re-theorising ancient Chinese philosophical perspectives on harmonic space. This contribution to arts-based research provides a unique standpoint to explore research methods of moving, walking, making, resting and awakening. It showcases how other researchers can transfer the invisible and intangible embodied feelings, memories and emotions arising from moving between two or more cultures into visible and tangible images, narrative, poetry, craft and music-playing to conduct powerful, interdisciplinary arts-based research.