Oil Spill Response : A Global Perspective
This book provides a timely international perspective on applied research and development, technology transfer, and “lessons learned” from field trials and actual case studies associated with recent spill events. This book provides a synopsis as to the methods currently employed to deals with spills and an insight on future technologies under development.
Health Dimensions of COVID-19 in India and Beyond
This book addresses the multiple health dimensions posed by the COVID-19 pandemic in India and other countries including nine in Asia, five in Sub-Saharan Africa, and New Zealand. It explores the impact of the pandemic on mental health, sexual and reproductive health and rights, health financing, self-care, and vaccine development and distribution. The contributing authors discuss its impact on vulnerable populations, including interstate migrants and female sex workers. The significant role of media and communications, rapid dissemination of information in social media, and its impact during the COVID-19 pandemic era are discussed. It closes with lessons learned from the experiences of countries that have contained the pandemic.
From brows to trust : Evaluating embodied conversational agents
This book will help experts and designers in the specification and development of applications incorporating ECAs. Part 1 provides guidelines for evaluation methodologies and the identification of design and evaluation parameters. Part 2 demonstrates the importance of considering the user's perspective and interaction experience. Part 3 addresses issues in fine-tuning design parameters of ECAs and verifying the perceived effect. Finally, in Part 4 lessons learned from a number of application case studies are presented. The book is intended for both ECA researchers in academia and industry, and developers and designers interested in applying the technology.
Freshwater Microplastics : Emerging Environmental Contaminants?
Focuses on microscopic plastic debris, also referred to as microplastics, which have been detected in aquatic environments around the globe and have accordingly raised serious concerns. The book explores whether microplastics represent emerging contaminants in freshwater systems, an area that remains underrepresented to date.Given the complexity of the issue, the book covers the current state-of-research on microplastics in rivers and lakes, including analytical aspects, environmental concentrations and sources, modelling approaches, interactions with biota, and ecological implications. To provide a broader perspective, the book also discusses lessons learned from nanomaterials and the implications of plastic debris for regulation, politics, economy, and society. In a research field that is rapidly evolving, it offers a solid overview for environmental chemists, engineers, and toxicologists, as well as water managers and policy-makers.
Experimental Aspects of Quantum Computing
Practical quantum computing still seems more than a decade away, and researchers have not even identified what the best physical implementation of a quantum bit will be. There is a real need in the scientific literature for a dialog on the topic of lessons learned and looming roadblocks. These papers, which appeared in the journal of "Quantum Information Processing" are dedicated to the experimental aspects of quantum computing These papers highlight the lessons learned over the last ten years, outline the challenges over the next ten years, and discuss the most promising physical implementations of quantum computing.
Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable Development
The following sections focus on evaluation of climate change projects and policies as they link to development, from the perspective of international organisations, NGO’s, multilateral and bilateral aid agencies, and academia. The authors share methodologies or approaches used to better understand problems and assess interventions, strategies and policies. They also share challenges encountered, what was done to solve these and lessons learned from evaluations. Collectively, the authors illustrate the importance of evaluation in providing evidence to guide policy change to informed decision-making.
Developing BIM talent : A guide to the BIM body of knowledge with Metrics, KSAs, and learning outcomes
A systematic Building Information Modeling (BIM) framework features cutting-edge use cases and competencies for students and professionals pursuing BIM careers. Offers: A solid foundation and guidelines for educators and practitioners for starting or enhancing a BIM curriculum or training program Templates, expert interviews, and case studies that provide in-depth knowledge and lessons learned that can facilitate process changes and strategic action plans Strategies for standardizing emerging BIM job tasks, descriptions, and methods for benchmarking performance
Decision Making under Deep Uncertainty : From Theory to Practice
Focuses on both the theory and practice associated with the tools and approaches for decisionmaking in the face of deep uncertainty. It explores approaches and tools supporting the design of strategic plans under deep uncertainty, and their testing in the real world, including barriers and enablers for their use in practice. The book broadens traditional approaches and tools to include the analysis of actors and networks related to the problem at hand. It also shows how lessons learned in the application process can be used to improve the approaches and tools used in the design process. The book offers guidance in identifying and applying appropriate approaches and tools to design plans, as well as advice on implementing these plans in the real world. For decisionmakers and practitioners, the book includes realistic examples and practical guidelines that should help them understand what decisionmaking under deep uncertainty is and how it may be of assistance to them.
Decision Making for Complex Socio-Technical Systems : Robustness from Lessons Learned in Long-Term Radioactive Waste Governance
The long-term governance of radioactive waste continues to be a major complex and contentious socio-technical issue worldwide. Traditionally, it has been considered as mainly a challenge to scientists and engineers to develop technical "solutions" to specific problems. But increasingly these narrow solutions have been enlarged by wider societal considerations such as ethics, public involvement, control and retrievability – needs that have in the meanwhile been recognised by the nuclear community, at least in a general way. In this book, we analyse motives for a broad discourse as well as suggest prerequisites to launch it. The author attempts to give a novel, empirically based and technically sound treatment of fundamental issues in long-term management and governance. Written to be accessible to a wide selection of the interested public, the study proposes a combination of technical design issues, analysis methods and institutional backup in a dynamic procedure, and with involvement at all levels of political, commercial and social life.
Clinical text mining : Secondary use of electronic patient records
Describes the results of natural language processing and machine learning methods applied to clinical text from electronic patient records. It is divided into twelve chapters. Chapters 1-4 discuss the history and background of the original paper-based patient records, their purpose, and how they are written and structured. These initial chapters do not require any technical or medical background knowledge. The remaining eight chapters are more technical in nature and describe various medical classifications and terminologies such as ICD diagnosis codes, SNOMED CT, MeSH, UMLS, and ATC. Chapters 5-10 cover basic tools for natural language processing and information retrieval, and how to apply them to clinical text. The book’s closing chapters present a number of applications in clinical text mining and summarise the lessons learned from the previous chapters.
Managing Global Innovation : Uncovering the Secrets of Future Competitiveness
"Managing Global Innovation is a rich compendium of new concepts of global R&D, enlivened by 18 excellent best-in-class case studies. What is especially impressive, the authors bridge seamlessly theoretical and practical issues about how companies create, transform and implement new technology in an expanding marketplace. This will be intriguing to both the industry and the academic world. The lessons learned are invaluable. The book is a real tour de force, probably destined to become a standard in this field for some time to come." Professor Jeff Huang, Harvard University "This excellent book demonstrates how the dynamics of innovation and creativity can be mastered. Important reading for senior management and a must for R&D leaders."
Management of Intentional and Accidental Water Pollution
The goals of the workshop included a discussion of the state of the science in identification of new research and approaches for water pollution events and communication of the management of water pollution and sustainability of water resources. Critical to management of accidental and intentional pollution events is the assessment of the risk, an understanding of the hazards and lessons learned from events which may lead to preventative management and control strategies. Public health protection will ultimately be improved by the ability to develop management frameworks which are flexible and adaptable to the specific region, country or watershed problems and concerns and allow for prioritization in the decision making. The integration of scientific information regarding the types of hazards the environmental fate of the chemical/biological, exposure pathways and human and ecosystem impacts may be implemented from both a qualitative or descriptive approach or using a more classical quantitative risk assessment paradigm. Thus the frameworks for assessing the risk and managing the risk may be seen as preventive, early warning and responsive.
Managed Software Evolution
This book presents the outcomes of the “Design for Future – Managed Software Evolution” .The different lifecycles of software and hardware platforms lead to interoperability problems in such systems. Instead of separating the development, adaptation and evolution of software and its platforms, as well as aspects like operation, monitoring and maintenance, they should all be integrated into one overarching process. Accordingly, the book is split into three major parts, the first of which includes an introduction to the nature of software evolution, followed by an overview of the specific challenges and a general introduction to the case studies used in the project. The second part of the book consists of the main chapters on knowledge carrying software, and cover tacit knowledge in software evolution, continuous design decision support, model-based round-trip engineering for software product lines, performance analysis strategies, maintaining security in software evolution, learning from evolution for evolution, and formal verification of evolutionary changes. In turn, the last part of the book presents key findings and spin-offs. The individual chapters there describe various case studies, along with their benefits, deliverables and the respective lessons learned. An overview of future research topics rounds out the coverage.
Lessons Learned : Risk Management Issues in Genetic Counseling
The only book devoted exclusively to this specialty, Lessons Learned details the risk management issues involved in genetic counseling practice, and offers solid strategies for minimizing the risk of costly, career-damaging malpractice suits. Schmerler clearly identifies areas of practitioner liability and demonstrates how they may be averted, so counselors can better manage their practice while lowering the risk of legal action. Examples drawn from relevant court cases illustrate typical issues in malpractice, negligence, and breach of contract suits. With this in-depth knowledge, readers can refine their goals toward increased self-protection as well as client care.
Learning in Modern International Society : On the Cognitive Problem Solving Abilities of Political Actors
Claudia Hofmann engages in a theoretical modelling of international learning processes and the substantiation of this model through three cases from international politics. She answers two questions: How may international actors learn as a collective? And how may the lessons learned influence actor behaviour and problem solving processes? As a foundation for answering these questions she examines the nature of actor behaviour within a social international system and integrates the diffusion of norms and values among macro-level actors.
Knowledge Management and Management Learning : Extending the Horizons of Knowledge-Based Management
The book begins with an extended introduction and theoretical framework. Contributing authors have written chapters that add to both the framework and the practical consequences of knowledge management. These chapters suggest many lessons learned that will find considerable use in practice. Some of these chapters include an investigation of the "do’s and don’ts" virtual learning based on real-life cases, the use of design teams for group learning, the role of language and the creation of common ground between company and client, culture as a dynamic and non-linear constructed concept, innovation and knowledge management and more. The book offers an exceptional range of contributions within a developing paradigm. Within this context, the book illustrates why and how of knowledge management is important for companies.
Competition Policies in Emerging Economies : Lessons and Challenges from Central America and Mexico
Do small developing economies, or SDEs, need a specific competition policy to create competitive markets? Against the backdrop of globalization, protectionist policies that promote state ownership and heavy regulation of key industries are proving increasingly ineffective for driving growth. Countries around the world are instituting reforms to promote competition and business creation, yet the economic and political concentration of power, feeble judicial systems, and the scarcity of human and financial resources pose special challenges to SDEs. Competition Policies in Emerging Economies features an in-depth analysis of two strategic industries — telecommunications and banking — in several Central American nations which sheds light on the dynamics of the transition to deregulation and trade liberalization. Examining the lessons learned from these experiences and presenting discussion of political, legal, economic, financial, cultural, and organizational issues, the book provides unique perspectives on competition policy and economic development.
Competition Authorities in South Eastern Europe : Building Institutions in Emerging Markets
Provides answers to key open questions concerning competition policy in emerging economies, with a focus on South Eastern Europe. The contributions address two major issues. One is the design of competition policy and the national competition authorities that enforce it, including the topics of competition advocacy and state aid control; the other is the use of economic methods in competition law enforcement, especially in the cases of relevant market definition and merger control. Many lessons learned in the countries of South Eastern Europe can be applied to the emerging markets of other regions. As such, the findings presented here will be highly relevant for officials and staff at national competition authorities, advisers to legislators shaping national competition policy, competition law professionals, and university students alike.
Community Quality-of-Life Indicators : Best Cases VIII
Offers critical insights into the thriving international field of community indicators, incorporating the experiences of government leaders, philanthropic professionals, community planners and a wide range of academic disciplines. It illuminates the important role of community indicators in diverse settings and the rationale for the development and implementation of these innovative projects. details many of the practical “how to” aspects of the field as well as lessons learned from implementing indicators in practice. The case studies included here also demonstrate how, using a variety of data applications, leaders of today are monitoring and measuring progress and communities are empowered to make sustainable improvements in their wellbeing.
Clinical Anesthesia: Near Misses and Lessons Learned
This book serve as either an excellent review for the American Board of Anesthesiology’s oral exam or as an easy and practical way for the reader to gain familiarity with unexpected problems in clinical anesthesia.



















