Arts-Based Methods in Education Around the World aims to investigate arts-based encounters in educational settings in response to a global need for studies that connect the cultural, inter-cultural, cross-cultural, and global elements of arts-based methods in education. In this extraordinary collection, contributions are collected from experts all over the world and involve a multiplicity of arts genres and traditions. These contributions bring together diverse cultural and educational perspectives and include a large variety of artistic genres and research methodologies.

Throughout the world there is evidence of mounting interest in marine resources and new maritime industries to create jobs, economic growth and to help in the provision of energy and food security. Expanding populations, insecurity of traditional sources of supply and the effects of climate change add urgency to a perceived need to address and overcome the serious challenges of working in the maritime environment.

The semiconductor industry is a fundamental building block of the new economy, there is no area of modern life untouched by the progress of nanoelectronics. The electronic chip is becoming an ever-increasing portion of system solutions, starting initially from less than 5% in the 1970 microcomputer era, to more than 60% of the final cost of a mobile telephone, 50% of the price of a personal computer (representing nearly 100% of the functionalities) and 30% of the price of a monitor in the early 2000's.

In Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS), tools go through narrow openings and manipulate soft organs that can move, deform, or change stiffness. There are limitations on modern laparoscopic and robot-assisted surgical systems due to restricted access through Trocar ports, lack of haptic feedback, and difficulties with rigid robot tools operating inside a confined space filled with organs. Also, many control algorithms suffer from stability problems in the presence of unexpected conditions. Yet biological "manipulators", like the octopus arm can manipulate objects while controlling the stiffness of selected body parts and being inherently compliant when interacting with objects. STIFF-FLOP robot is an innovative soft robotic arm that can squeeze through a standard MIS, reconfigure itself and stiffen by hydrostatic actuation to perform compliant force control tasks while facing unexpected situations.

In recent years, a considerable amount of effort has been devoted, both in industry and academia, to the development, validation and verification of critical systems, i.e. those systems whose malfunctions or failures reach a critical level both in terms of risks to human life as well as having a large economic impact.

Electro-mobility is considered as a key technology to achieve green mobility and fulfil tomorrow's emission standards, however, challenges still need to be faced to achieve comparable performances to conventional vehicles and finally obtain market acceptance. Two of these challenges are vehicle range and production costs. The aim of the INCOBAT project (October 2013 - December 2016) was to provide innovative and cost efficient battery management systems for next generation HV-batteries.

Cognitive Hyperconnected Digital Transformation provides an overview of the current Internet of Things (IoT) landscape, ranging from research, innovation and development priorities to enabling technologies in a global context. It is intended as a standalone book in a series that covers the Internet of Things activities of the IERC-Internet of Things European Research Cluster, including both research and technological innovation, validation and deployment.

Parkinson's Disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that manifests with motor and non-motor symptoms. PD treatment is symptomatic and tries to alleviate the associated symptoms through an adjustment of the medication. As the disease is evolving and this evolution is patient specific, it could be very difficult to properly manage the disease.

The rapid increase of cloud computing, high performance computing (HPC) and the vast growth in Internet and Social Media use have aroused the interest in energy consumption and the carbon footprint of Data Centres. Data Centres primarily contain electronic equipment used for data processing (servers), data storage (storage equipment), and communications (network equipment). Collectively, this equipment processes, stores, and transmits digital information and is known as information technology (IT) equipment.

The Internet as we know it today is the result of a continuous activity for improving network communications, end user services, computational processes and also information technology infrastructures. The Internet has become a critical infrastructure for the human-being by offering complex networking services and end-user applications that all together have transformed all aspects, mainly economical, of our lives.

Behavioural type systems in programming languages support the specification and verification of properties of programs beyond the traditional use of type systems to describe data processing. A major example of such a property is correctness of communication in concurrent and distributed systems, motivated by the importance of structured communication in modern software.

The European research project DESERVE (DEvelopment platform for Safe and Efficient dRiVE, 2012-2015) had the aim of designing and developing a platform tool to cope with the continuously increasing complexity and the simultaneous need to reduce cost for future embedded Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). For this purpose, the DESERVE platform profits from cross-domain software reuse, standardization of automotive software component interfaces, and easy but safety-compliant integration of heterogeneous modules.

INTUITEL is a research project that was co-financed by the European Commission with the aim to advance state-of-the-art e-learning systems via addition of guidance and feedback for learners. Through a combination of pedagogical knowledge, measured learning progress and a broad range of environmental and background data, INTUITEL systems will provide guidance towards an optimal learning pathway. This allows INTUITEL-enabled learning management systems to offer learners automated, personalised learning support so far only provided by human tutors

How stem cells behave is very much a factor of their local microenvironment, also known as the stem cell niche. Physical, chemical, or electrical signals from the neighboring cells or biochemical signals from distant cells are crucial in the cell fate decision process. A major challenge of tissue engineering is to mimic the natural cell environment by designing very sophisticated scaffolds able not only to mechanically support cells, but also to release signals biologically relevant for governing stem cell fate. In addition, increasing evidence suggests that abnormal interaction of stem cells with their niche is responsible for altered cell function leading to malignant transformation.

In the first decade of the 21st century product development in networks was predicted to be of ever-increasing importance to businesses of all sizes because of changes in markets, in technology, in networks, and in the competences of Businesses. The growth in new products' share of businesses' total turnover and earnings were increasing at an unprecedented speed.