A collection of short-stories peeking into the lives of three twenty-somethings in the midst of their respective quarter life crises. A mix of autobiography and fiction, the authors' raw storytelling explores how love, personhood, and a lot of trauma shapes a person of five and twenty.

Some years—1789, 1929, 1989—change the world suddenly. Or do they? In 2020, a pandemic converged with an economic collapse, inequalities exploded, and institutions weakened. Yet these crises sprang not from new risks but from known dangers. The world—like many patients—met 2020 with a host of preexisting conditions, which together tilted the odds toward disaster. Perhaps 2020 wasn’t the year the world changed; perhaps it was simply the moment the world finally understood its deadly diagnos...

In the past three decades, China has successfully transformed itself from an extremely poor economy to the world’s second largest economy. The country’s phenomenal economic growth has been sustained primarily by its rapid and continuous industrialization. Currently industry accounts for nearly two-fifths of China’s gross domestic product, and since 2009 China has been the world’s largest exporter of manufactured products. This book explores the question of how far this industrial growth ha...

The year 1995, when the Fourth World Conference on Women was held in Beijing, marks a historical milestone in the development of the Chinese feminist movement. In the decades that followed, three distinct trends emerged: first, there was a rise in feminist NGOs in mainland China and a surfacing of LGBTQ movements; second, social and economic developments nurtured new female agency, creating a vibrant, women-oriented cultural milieu in China; third, in response to ethnocentric Western femin...

The school-to-work transition has been an important topic in the fields of education and sociology research in the past few years. Pre-vocational education, which takes place during lower-secondary school and aims to facilitate the school-to-work transition, is of critical significance in introducing the participants to the world of work and/or in preparing them for entry into further vocational education programs.With a strong comparative nature, Jun Li presents this systematic in...

With the rapid advancement of sensor technology and digital system, the capabilities of network communication have significantly improved, allowing multiple computing nodes to exchange information and collaborate seamlessly through networks. This progress has accelerated the development of distributed optimization theory and its applications in emerging fields such as low altitude economy, big data, and artificial intelligence. These emerging domains usually involve solving complex large-s...

The shift towards being as environmentally-friendly as possible has resulted in the need for this important volume on the topic of reactions in water. Edited by one of the leaders in the field, Professor C.-J. Li, this is an essential resource for anyone wishing to gain an understanding of the world of green chemistry, as well as for chemists, environmental agencies and chemical engineers.

This book details the knowledge of digital instrumentation human–machine interaction (HMI) design, infotainment system HMI design, multi-mode interaction design, and driving automation HMI design in intelligent vehicles from the perspective of human factors engineering. It explains the design methodology of intelligent vehicle systems, intelligent driving, and multi-mode interaction from multiple perspectives, covering ergonomics theory, industry specifications, design cases, design princi...

This book provides best practices for decarbonizing cities in East Asia, in which buildings are the major contributor to carbon emissions. Beyond the global commitment through the Paris Agreement to make collective efforts on climate action and accelerated policies, investment and development at the country and city level to combat climate change are occurring at an unprecedented rate. Rapid urbanization and increasing energy demand for large and dense Asian cities require smart and sustai...

This book explores the core concept of Chinese ancient architecture from a multidisciplinary perspective. It aims to contribute to the development, inheritance, and protection of Chinese ancient architectural culture, while also benefiting the sustainable development of modern architecture. This book follows a main line of inquiry, exploring the rich and harmonious ideas present in Chinese ancient architecture. It combines the traditional Chinese culture and architectural ideas, and examin...

Utilizing a case study method and a Multiperspectival Approach, this volume presents a pioneering, in-depth study about China’s teacher education policy since the 1990s. It critically investigates the rational, dynamic and complex implementation process taking place at the micro institutional level for the transformations of teacher education institutions. The book first introduces the sociopolitical and cultural background of China’s teacher education system and its challenges under the c...

Development of Ultra-High Performance Concrete against Blasts: From Materials to Structures presents a detailed overview of UHPC development and its related applications in an era of rising terrorism around the world. Chapters present case studies on the novel development of the new generation of UHPC with nano additives. Field blast test results on reinforced concrete columns made with UHPC and UHPC filled double-skin tubes columns are also presented and compiled, as is the residual load-...