Humanities & Social Sciences

This book analyses recent developments concerning the application of the international legal doctrines of recognition and self-determination in relation to the Western Sahara Question. It investigates the emergent shift in favour of Morocco’s sovereignty claim to Western Sahara as apparent from the positions adopted by an increasing number of third States in the United Nations and the recent spate of third States establishing consulates in Western Sahara, with Morocco’s encouragement. It reflects on what the functioning of the doctrines of recognition and self-determination in this situation reveals about contemporary international law in practice more generally. The work will be of interest to scholars, researchers, and postgraduate students as well as practitioners of public international law who have a particular interest in decolonisation, self-determination disputes, and/or conflicts about natural resource entitlements. It will also appeal to readers with an interest in the work of International Organisations, including the United Nations, the European Union, and the African Union, and to specialists in international relations and regional politics. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

This chapter aims at exploring some theoretical issues associated with the impact of technology companies on the market structure in the financial industry with the special focus on capital markets. Based on the industrial organization theory, as well as on an extensive literature review, research to date, and industry reports, the attempt was made to identify main structural changes resulting from FinTech's activity in this market segment. It was found that, in contrast to the banking sector, BigTechs are not interested in entering into capital markets. This can be explained by complexity of investment services and weak synergies between them and non-financial services offered by technology giants. As a result, digitalization in capital markets is driven rather from inside and supported by FinTechs. In the stock market, the development of high-frequency trading resulted in the increasing centralization of trade that neither facilitated market access nor eliminated the market asymmetry. Nonetheless, FinTech solutions allowed reductions in transaction costs and increase in short-term market efficiency. In the asset management and mutual funds industry digital platforms, developed mostly by incumbents, by lowering transaction costs and reducing communication frictions made investing easier and cheaper for individuals, however their decisions became more speculative.

Locative and existential predications are fundamental linguistic constructions that exhibit significant formal overlap while serving distinct communicative functions. Locative clauses typically anchor a definite referent to a spatial context, whereas existential clauses introduce new, often indefinite, referents into discourse. Despite their central role in syntactic and typological research, the cross-linguistic diversity of these predications remains largely underexplored. This collective volume originates from workshops held in 2023 at the Annual SLE Meeting in Athens and the International Conference on Historical Linguistics in Heidelberg. It brings together in-depth analyses of locative and existential predications across a wide range of languages, drawing on diverse methodological and theoretical approaches. Rather than imposing a single framework, the volume deliberately allows for variation in how these constructions are defined and analyzed, reflecting the complexity and diversity of linguistic structures. A key theme of the book is the relationship between locative, existential, and possessive predication. Many of the included studies highlight the formal and functional connections between these domains, illustrating how different languages encode possession through structures that overlap with locative and existential constructions. The volume also challenges conventional assumptions about structural distinctions between these predications, showing that in many languages, such boundaries are blurred or even nonexistent. The introductory chapter reviews key findings from prior research and offers a refined typology of locative and existential predications. It also highlights the major insights from the remaining chapters, each of which provides a detailed empirical analysis of these constructions in one or several underdescribed languages. The contributions address (i) the structural and functional properties of locative and existential clauses, (ii) criteria for distinguishing these constructions in languages where formal differentiation is minimal, (iii) their frequency and usage in natural discourse, and (iv) grammaticalization pathways that link locative, existential, and possessive predication. By integrating data from a broad range of languages and perspectives, this volume advances our understanding of locative and existential predication and offers a foundation for future research in typology, syntax, and historical linguistics.

Why should classical antiquity matter to Irish migration? Irish Migrations and Classical Antiquity argues that ancient Greece and Rome have shaped Irish migration narratives from the earliest texts to the 21st century. These classical models emerge in response to four key drivers of migration: war, economic need, religious motivation and the pursuit of education. Rather than passive inheritances, Graeco-Roman forms are used both to join and to challenge dominant frameworks, offering tools for cultural participation and strategies of resistance to exclusion. The book traces classical reception in contexts ranging from early Irish origin legends and medieval Latin learning to 21st-century cultural politics, including Irish-language translation, diaspora literature and gendered experiences. Participation appears in assertions of Irish civilisation, synchronistic histories, literary cosmopolitanism and transnational exchange. Resistance surfaces in critiques of marginalisation, defence of minority languages and challenges to aesthetic or political canons. This book rethinks how Irish identities travel across borders, languages and centuries by showing how the ancient world underwrites both movement and its meanings. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the European Research Council.

This open access book explores the complementarity of hydropower with new energy sources such as solar and wind in the global energy transition. It analyzes the technological advantages, environmental impacts, and economic potential of combining hydropower and new energy sources, while examining the related policies and market mechanisms. Through a multidimensional approach, the book demonstrates the importance of this energy integration in improving energy system efficiency, reducing carbon emissions, and promoting sustainable development. Starting with the challenges and strategies of technology integration, the book will explore the role of smart grid management and energy storage technologies in this context, providing quantitative and qualitative assessments of the ecosystem and socio-economic impacts of such energy synergies. Valuable knowledge and practical guidance for energy researchers, policy makers and professionals in the field of sustainable development.

This open access book constitutes revised selected papers from the 4th International Workshop on Brain-Inspired Computing, BrainComp 2019, held in Cetraro, Italy, in July 2019. The 11 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in this book. They deal with research on brain atlasing, multi-scale models and simulation, HPC and data infra-structures for neuroscience as well as artificial and natural neural architectures.

Smart cities are emerging worldwide, including economic, institutional, social, and technical concepts in interaction with existing infrastructure to achieve sustainability and increase quality of life. Additionally, digitalisation projects in the field of urban water infrastructure (UWI) aim to increase capacity of existing infrastructure to deal with future challenges caused by climate change, growing of urban population, and maintenance. Therefore, efficient and reliable information- and communication technologies (ICT) represent a key factor for the exchange of measurement data (e.g., monitoring environmental parameters) and interconnections between different participants. However, ICT and system-wide management are not yet widely deployed and mainly concentrated on main points in network-based UWI (e.g., combined sewer overflows, inlet point of district meter areas). In this context, especially the Internet of Things (IoT) concepts enables a large-scale implementation of measurement devices even at underground and remote structures, increasing data availability significantly. Following, new possibilities in the management of network-based UWI are emerging. The research aim of this doctoral dissertation is to contribute to the ongoing development of smart water cities by developing innovative concepts in the field of urban drainage and water distribution network including nature-based solutions.

Widely regarded as the definitive turning point in nineteenth-century Latin American studies, the publication of François-Xavier Guerra’s Modernidad e independencias marked a “before and after” in Spanish American historiography. Through ten masterful essays, Guerra provides a comprehensive reinterpretation of the revolutions that swept Spanish America between 1808 and 1825. Rather than merely offering a historical account, this work lays the foundations for a new paradigm to understand the seismic political and cultural shifts brought about by the advent of modernity. The book’s central thesis focuses on the radical transformation of social and political imaginaries triggered by the Napoleonic invasion of Spain in 1808. By treating the revolutions as a complex and multidimensional phenomenon within a shared Euro-American cultural space, Guerra explores the tension between “tradition” and “modernity,” rethinking how individualism, sociability, and the public sphere redefined the Spanish American world. By raising questions that have inspired a generation of scholars to explore the complexities of the Hispanic Atlantic, Guerra’s work remains an indispensable cornerstone for any study of the social and political history of the nineteenth century. It is not simply a book about the past; it is the framework through which the modern Hispanic world is understood.

From a perspective of great scientific and didactic relevance, the volume is part of today's theoretical-methodological reflections on humanistic computer science and digital humanities, dealing with different aspects of the application of digital technologies to the study of the language of art. The contributions, arising from the research project Lessico multilingue dei Beni Culturali (Multilingual lexicon of cultural heritage), conducted by the University of Florence in collaboration with other Italian and foreign universities, describe numerous online resources and platforms for communication, organization and sharing of applications and data, extremely useful for scholars of vocabulary and specialized translation in multiple languages, in particularly in the field of cultural and artistic heritage.

The book 'Intelligent System and Computing” reports the theory, mathematical models, algorithms, design methods, and applications of intelligent systems and computing. It covers various disciplines including computer and information science, electrical and computer engineering, natural sciences, economics, and neuroscience. The broad-ranging discussion covers the key disciplines in computational science and artificial intelligence as well as advances in neuromorphic computing, deep learning, the Internet of Things, computer vision, and many others. This volume provides both academics and professionals with a comprehensive overview of the field and presents areas for future research.

‘Thank you for your order, Mr Mainframe Customer. The cost is £5 million and the lead-time for manufacture will be two years. In the meantime you will have to build a special computer centre to our specification. For our part, our project team will help you recruit and train potential programmers and we shall advise on how you might use the system.’ How different from today when the customer will want to see a specific application running before he puts a hand in his/her pocket. Chris Yardley lived the changes as a computer salesman and tells his story of a career living and working in five countries. Warts and all. The ecstasies, the heartbreaks and idiocies of major corporations. His career was not a planned one. In a growing industry, opportunities presented themselves and Chris believes he grasped every one presented. Having written his story, he has had every chapter verified by at least one person who features in that narrative. His respondents have universally endorsed the facts with comments such as ‘Wow, I’d forgotten most of that’. ‘You have a fantastic memory.’ ‘I never knew before the full facts of what happened.’ ‘How have you remembered all the circumstances?’ ‘It really is a people business.’ His career was not a planned one. In a growing industry, opportunities presented themselves and Chris believes he grasped every one presented. Having written his story, he has had every chapter verified by at least one person who features in that narrative. His respondents have universally endorsed the facts with comments such as ‘Wow, I’d forgotten most of that’. ‘You have a fantastic memory.’ ‘I never knew before the full facts of what happened.’ ‘How have you remembered all the circumstances?’ ‘It really is a people business.’

The map illustrates the position of the burial mound fields in Central Tibet that have been registered so far by the “Tibetan tumulus project”, an Austrian Science Fund (FWF) financed long-term research conducted at the Austrian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for Social Anthropology (ISA). The entries of districts and key political sites related to the time of the Tibetan Empire (7th-9th cent. CE) form the relevant historical reference for this distribution map. This reveals a tumulus landscape of enormous concentration in the relatively small geographic area of Central Tibet (Dbus-Gtsang region), which in geographical, economic and political terms formed the heartland of the Tibetan Empire.

This open access book explores the history of how banks and banking services have become part of everyday life. Taking welfare state Sweden as its setting, the book identifies key cultural challenges and shows how banks and finance companies made inroads into the workplace, the family, spaces of consumption and the world of social movements while also taking on tasks typically associated with state authorities. Focusing on this ‘bankification of everyday life’ reveals the historical links between the post-war welfare state and the financialised everyday culture of the late twentieth century. This book will be of interest to scholars of economic and cultural history and sociology, as well as those interested in the history of welfare states and the development of commercial surveillance.

As anti-globalization reshapes the world, the divide between East and West, developed and developing countries, and North and South, deepens, creating new challenges for economic policy and global governance. This book provides a nuanced and balanced analysis of economic transformation over the past century, exploring critical themes such as structural change, resource mobilization, and the future of global growth. Featuring insights from leading economists, this volume offers expert commentary on economic transformation, development strategies, and the evolving global order. It further examines into pressing governance questions surrounding AI, green technology, and the financing of health crises, future pandemics, and energy transitions. A vital resource for economists, policymakers, and researchers, this book provides strategic guidance on navigating global shifts and mobilizing resources to drive sustainable development in an emerging new global economic order.

The ORME programme (Observatoire régional méditerranéen de l'environnement) is a CNRS multidisciplinary research structure that studies the environment as a scientific object and centres its work on the Gulf of Lion, a land-sea system seen as a key zone in the Mediterranean.This takes stock of the multidisciplinary knowledge acquired of the system. It provides an overview of its vulnerability in the face of climate and manmade change. It demonstrates the necessity of integrated management of the "water" resource, in consultation with all the stakeholders involved, taking account of the interactions between man and nature.