Acknowledgments

As you've seen in the Preface, the journey of this book has been lengthy, and I owe a great deal to the community:

1. Gratitude to Bingqian Huo, Lingtong Xiao, Ke Chen, XiaoLiang Wu, Yang Zhang, Yuang Qiao, Zhiying Wang for their diverse forms of assistance and feedback during the early draft stages.
2. Special thanks to Jendrik Johannes, Lingtong Xiao, Paul Blundell and Wajahat Karim for their expert proofreading during the final stages.
3. Appreciation to Ivan Gavrilovic and Shengyou Fan for suggestions on structuring the book's table of contents and cross-referencing among chapters.

Furthermore, I'd like to extend my thanks to Ying Zi for her perceptive editing insights and to Xing Liu for crafting the cover design of this book. Ultimately, this book is dedicated to Hedy, whose unwavering support has been a guiding light throughout these years.