China witnessed an unprecedented economic boom in the past four decades but will soon see the end of "demographic dividend". With shrinking labor, improving the quality of human capital could be one way to maintain China’s remarkable growth. The population in rural China accounts for 41% of the total population in China but the human capital development in rural China lags far behind the urban cities.This book selects four major reforms on education and health in rural China and ev...

This book systematically discusses the intelligent scheduling problem of complex semiconductor manufacturing systems from theory to method and then to application. The main contents include data-driven scheduling framework of semiconductor manufacturing system, data preprocessing of semiconductor manufacturing system, correlation analysis of performance index of semiconductor production line, intelligent release control strategy, dynamic dispatching rules simulating pheromone mechanism, an...

This research-led textbook investigates the use of new technologies for language learning, linking theory to practice. The book synthesises previous technology use (including Computer Assisted Language Learning) theory and research, and describes practical applications for both second and foreign language classrooms, including detailed examples of these applications and the procedures for evaluating them.

This thesis provides a novel methodological basis for mechanistically understanding the dynamics of chemicals in products (CiPs) in the anthroposphere and physical environment and establishes a modeling continuum from production of a chemical to its concentrations in various environmental compartments. Using this framework, the thesis investigates how CiPs are transported and transformed and how they accumulate in the global environment. Furthermore, it identifies the measures needed to mi...

This book provides a comprehensive examination of three key water reforms in China. By leveraging unique natural experiments and employing state-of-the-art applied microeconometric methods, this book offers robust insights into the causal links between water reforms and economic outcomes in China.The book covers three major reforms: the rural drinking water program, private sector participation in urban water supply, and the adoption of Increasing Block Tariffs (IBTs) in the urban ...

This book reveals the underlying mechanisms of complexity and stochastic evolutions of traffic flows. Using Eulerian and Lagrangian measurements, the authors propose lognormal headway/spacing/velocity distributions and subsequently develop a Markov car-following model to describe drivers’ random choices concerning headways/spacings, putting forward a stochastic fundamental diagram model for wide scattering flow-density points. In the context of highway onramp bottlenecks, the authors prese...

Winner of the 2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionLong-listed for the 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in FictionA New York Times Book Review Editors’ ChoiceA Slate Top Ten Book of the YearA TIME Best Fiction Book of 2022Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, NPR, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian

She is as beautiful as a flower and weak like a woman. She had a scum before her and a lick after her, can't she just give me something normal …

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR MEMOIR/AUTOBIOGRAPHYFINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTIONWinner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in NonfictionFinalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book AwardLong-listed for the National Book Critics Circle Award for AutobiographyOne of the New York Times Notable Books...

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2024'Any book by Yiyun Li is a cause for celebration' SIGRID NUNEZ'One of our finest living authors' NEW YORK TIMES'Bruising, beautiful' GUARDIANA dazzling new collection of short stories written over a decade, spanning loss, alienation, ageing and the strangeness of contemporary life – from Yiyun Li, the prize-winning a...

One day, not so very many years ago, a small peasant boy was chosen to study ballet at the Beijing Dance Academy. His mother urged him to take this chance of a lifetime.But Li was only eleven years old and he was scared and lonely, pushed away from all that he had ever known and loved. He hated the strict training routines and the strange place he had been brought to. All he wanted to do was go home – to his mother, father and six brothers, to his own small village. But soon Li real...