Humanities & Social Sciences

In this open access publication, Ganaele Langlous describes how textile has been used as a medium of communication since the prehistoric period. In fact, up until the 19th century, civilizations throughout the world manipulated thread and fabric to communicate in a way that would astound many of us now. Unlike text and images, textile is haptic and three-dimensional. Its meaning is unfixed, constantly shifting as it circulates between different owners and creators. In How Textile Communicates , Langlois dissects textile’s unique capacity for communication through a range of global case studies, before examining the profound impact of colonialism on textile practice and the appropriation of this medium by capitalist systems. A thought-provoking contribution to the fields of both fashion and communication studies, Langlois’ writing challenges readers’ preconceptions and shines new light on the profound impact of textiles on human communication. 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 York University, Toronto, Canada.

This open access book. provides a synthesis of six projects, across ten countries, each of which have been sustained for two or more decades, and which illustrate how success can be achieved regardless of systems of governance, of a nation’s wealth, or of culture. Detailed narratives are presented on the key personalities that have conceived, conducted and concluded long-term projects: personal stories of vision, failure, frustration and persistence ultimately leading to success. The case studies vary widely in their geography and goals. The single-handed commitment to re-discover the last surviving populations of Giant Sable in the miombo woodlands of central Angola, through the capture, translocation and establishment of robust breeding herds of this magnificent antelope, contrasts with the massively funded, three-decade programme with over one hundred participants that reversed the annual loss to predation by feral cats of 455 000 seabirds from a sub-Antarctic island. Similarly, the foresight of Zimbabwean and Namibian ecologists to place rural communities at the centre of conservation programmes by giving value to wildlife populations and benefits to local people, transformed a land degradation problem to a socio-ecological solution. Across ten countries, building capacity in botanical collection, documentation and herbarium management expanded into a global project to place the knowledge base of Africa’s flora onto an electronic data system accessible to researchers and conservation planners in even the most remote corners of the continent. None of these projects enjoyed immediate results. Each required leadership skills that combined vision, a generosity of spirit, fortuitous timing and the exploitation of unexpected opportunities.

Carbon moves through the atmosphere, through the oceans, onto land, and into ecosystems. This cycling has a large effect on climate – changing geographic patterns of rainfall and the frequency of extreme weather – and is altered as the use of fossil fuels adds carbon to the cycle. The dynamics of this global carbon cycling are largely predicted over broad spatial scales and long periods of time by Earth system models. This book addresses the crucial question of how to assess, evaluate, and estimate the potential impact of the additional carbon to the land carbon cycle. The contributors describe a set of new approaches to land carbon cycle modeling for better exploring ecological questions regarding changes in carbon cycling; employing data assimilation techniques for model improvement; doing real- or near-time ecological forecasting for decision support; and combining newly available machine learning techniques with process-based models to improve prediction of the land carbon cycle under climate change. This new edition includes seven new chapters: machine learning and its applications to carbon cycle research (five chapters); principles underlying carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere, contemporary active research and management issues (one chapter); and community infrastructure for ecological forecasting (one chapter). Key Features Helps readers understand, implement, and criticize land carbon cycle models Offers a new theoretical framework to understand transient dynamics of the land carbon cycle Describes a suite of modeling skills – matrix approach to represent land carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycles; data assimilation and machine learning to improve parameterization; and workflow systems to facilitate ecological forecasting Introduces a new set of techniques, such as semi-analytic spin-up (SASU), unified diagnostic system with a 1-3-5 scheme, traceability analysis, and benchmark analysis, and PROcess-guided machine learning and DAta-driven modeling (PRODA) for model evaluation and improvement Reorganized from the first edition with seven new chapters added Strives to balance theoretical considerations, technical details, and applications of ecosystem modeling for research, assessment, and crucial decision-making

The paper recalls the various phases in the diffusion of knowledge about Marco Polo’s journey. It especially highlights his later discovery in China, which occurred only during the eighteenth century and was made by Protestant missionaries. At the same time, also in Italy his name began to be remembered again, thanks to our first Ambassador to China, who indicated Marco Polo as a champion of the Italian presence in East Asia. Thus, it contributed to the spreading of his fame also in Italy. We can thus appreciate a few episodes of such a history, in Italy and in China, rich in misunderstandings, which, however, turned the Venetian into the symbol of the modern traveler.

Producer organisations are very numerous and active in the farming modernisation process in southern developing countries. This didactic work analyses the advantage of the partnership with producer organisations, how they can be strengthened and their relations with the environment. The questions are made extremely accessible and are illustrated by numerous examples in the southern countries.

Mit »Constructing Intersex« liegt die erste Biographieforschung mit intergeschlechtlichen Menschen im deutschsprachigen Raum vor. Auf Basis von Interviews stellt Anja Gregor heraus, welche schwerwiegenden Folgen bestimmte medizinische Pathologisierungs- und Zurichtungspraktiken für die Biographien der Betroffenen haben. Sie zeigt: Die soziale Konstruktion von Intergeschlechtlichkeit als zugleich tabuisiertem und medizinisch hochrelevantem Phänomen ist nicht nur auf der medizinisch-praktischen Ebene von Ambivalenzen und Verwerfungen geprägt. Die Studie reflektiert zudem den sozialen Gehalt von Körper und Geschlecht und verweist so auf das gesellschaftstheoretische Potential von Intergeschlechtlichkeit als sozialer Kategorie.

In this chapter, we will discuss the effect of different grassland management practices on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration. This includes comparison of grasslands with arable croplands, the role of N fertilization, and grazing strategies. Special emphasis will be given to grasslands in rotation with cropping systems and integration with timber systems to improve sustainable management and SOC sequestration.

This book explores the notions of violence, care, and cure within the medical encounter and seeks to foreground the ways in which, whether individually or as a triad, they are prone to ambiguous interpretations. The chapters of this book attend to the complex interlacing of these three key terms and what to make of their entanglement by offering historical, practical, philosophical, personal, and aesthetic analyses of different medical scenes, objects, and concepts. Besides the three main concepts that give the collection its title, the volume deals with bodily experience, medical neglect or scepticism, pain and suffering, diagnosis and recovery, and epistemic injustice, through the lens of, among others, biopolitics, ethics, gender medicine, and critical medical humanities. Altogether, the chapters pay particular attention to the role of images and other narratives, including social media platforms. The case studies in this collection invite the reader to observe medical encounters that take place in and are shaped by a variety of both material and ‘immaterial’ spaces, from the consulting room to the antechamber of medical bureaucracy, and from artistic venues to biopolitical discourses. Taken together, this book argues that a hermeneutic of violence, care, and cure is inseparable from individual and collective perceptions of the medical encounter; that is, it is inextricable from an understanding of the tensions and consensus that surge among perceptions orchestrated by both internal (subjective) and external (social, cultural, political) ‘gazes’. Moreover, the volume aims to provide, both directly and indirectly, a meta‑eflection on the disciplines that fall under the umbrella of ‘medical and health humanities’, interrogating the field’s potential to unearth systemic bias, to open different possibilities of existence, and to make visible the complexity of its research objects, as well as to caution against their possible pitfalls. By bringing together different methodological approaches, this volume provides its readers with conceptual resources for thinking about the intersections of violence, care, and cure. By providing a space where the voices of both emerging and established scholars mingle and respond to one another, this book will be essential reading for anyone across the social sciences and humanities interested in the sociology of health and medicine, the medical humanities, and gender studies.

Lost and Forgotten presents an historical overview of one regional development of Chinese studies / Sinology from the seventeenth century to the present time. The book focuses on the description and evaluation of contributions by scholars who originated from Austria and the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Contributions that were made in Austria and achievements of emigrants are treated in separate chapters. The account of the development of Chinese studies from the time when Sinology was institutionalised at Vienna University (1972) deals with the institutions involved. Apart from published material, the author also includes a wealth of unpublished research work found in libraries and archives in Austria, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The book incorporates detailed investigations of the source material, descriptions of state-of-the-art research at the time, and a discussion of these contributions in the light of the international Sinological discourse past and present. Book reviews, personal correspondence, discussion of personal affiliations and feuds offer further insights into the intellectual background of these scholars, their aims, concerns and methodological approaches.

This open access book introduces readers to the physics of particle accelerators, by means of beam dynamics simulations and exercises using the computer code ZGOUBI. The respective chapters are organized chronologically and trace the historical development of accelerators from electrostatic columns to storage rings, to the numerous variations on resonant acceleration and focusing techniques, while also addressing side aspects such as synchrotron radiation and spin dynamics. The book offers computer simulations in which readers can manipulate, guide, and accelerate charged particles and particle beams in most types of particle accelerator. By performing these simulation exercises, they will acquire a deeper understanding of charged particle beam optics, accelerator physics and technology, as well as the why and how of when to use one technology or the other. These exercises guide readers through a virtual world of accelerator and beam simulations, and involve e.g. manipulating beams for cancer therapy, producing synchrotron radiation for condensed matter research, accelerating polarized ion beams for nuclear physics research, etc. In addition to acquiring an enhanced grasp of physics, readers will discover the basic theoretical and practical aspects of particle accelerators’ main components: guiding and focusing magnets, radio-wave accelerating cavities, wigglers, etc.

In many countries of the Global South, energy infrastructure is holey, unreliable or simply not existent. This leads to different kinds of severe problems. Just to name a few: Family members, mostly women, spend hours every day to collect firewood for cooking. In many cases, they suffer under pulmonary diseases, because they have no access to clean cooking facilities. And companies are less productive without access to electricity. Students of the Joint International Master on Sustainable Development worked on energy access scale-up projects during their third semester at Leipzig University. In this semester, students are requested to work on an ''integration project'': integrating various aspects of sustainable development in a particular case study. The class of 2017 approached energy access from the interdisciplinary perspective of sustainable development, anchored however in the field of Economics and Management Science to ensure feasibility of their work. This present edition of Studies in Infrastructure and Resources Management looks at their work in two different energy access scale-up projects in the sub-Saharan countries Nigeria and Senegal.

You want to know more about the series? Watch the short video introducing ‘Traces’ by Iman Elghonemi and Mariama De Brito Henn. Grasping traces means understanding past events, seizing absences, questioning the present, and apprehending the coming of potential futures. Traces are found in languages and rituals, in recipes and practices, in art and culture. We aim to explore such traces and their readings, because they play a role in inventing and authorizing communities. Our approach is a transdisciplinary one. Thus, the series includes texts centered around material culture, architecture, art, monument, counter-monument, discourses, and performances, with no chronological nor geographical limitations. Saisir les traces, c'est comprendre les événements passés, se confronter aux absences, interroger le présent et appréhender l'avènement de futurs potentiels. Les traces se trouvent dans les langues et les rituels, dans lesrecettes et les pratiques, dans l'art et la culture. Notre objectif est d'explorer ces traces ainsi que leurs différentes lectures, parce que celles-ci jouent un rôle dans l'invention et la légitimité des communautés. Notre approche est transdisciplinaire; la série publie des textes centrés sur la culture matérielle, l'architecture, l'art, les monuments, les contre-monuments, les discours et les performances, sans limitation chronologique ni géographique. Spurenlesen heißt, vergangene Ereignisse zu verstehen, Abwesenheiten zu erfassen, die Gegenwart zu hinterfragen und die mögliche Zukunft zu antizipieren. Spuren finden sich in Sprachen und Ritualen, in Rezepten und Praktiken, in Kunst und Kultur. Wir wollen Spuren und ihren Lesarten nachforschen, denn sie spielen ihre Rolle bei der Gründung und Legitimation von Gemeinschaften. Unser Ansatz ist transdisziplinär, daher beinhaltet die Reihe Arbeiten, die sich mit materieller Kultur, Architektur, Kunst, Monumenten, Gegenmonumenten, Texten, Diskursen undPerformanzen befassen, und zwar ohne chronologische oder geografische Einschränkungen. Advisory Board: Nebahat Avcioglu , The City University of New York Yaëlle Biro , The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Eva Kernbauer , Universität für Angewandte Kunst, Wien Antje Flüchter , Universität Bielefeld, Germany Yuko Lippit , Harvard University, Cambridge, MA Noor Nieftagodien , University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg Moira Patricia Perez , Universidad de Buenos Aires Thomas Sandkühler , Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Marie-Karine Schaub , Université Paris Est Didier Houenoude , University of Abomey-Calavi, Cotonou, Benin

The early modern period was of great significance throughout Europe with respect to its gradual transition from a largely oral to a fundamentally literate society. On the one hand, the spoken word remained of the utmost importance to the dissemination of ideas, the communication of information and the transmission of the cultural repertoire. On the other hand, the proliferation of written documents of all kinds, the development of printing and the spread of popular literacy combined to transform the nature of communication. Studies previous to this have traditionally focussed on individual countries or regions, and emphasised the contradictions between oral and literate culture. The essays in this fascinating collection depart from these approaches in several ways. By examining not only English, but also Scottish and Welsh oral culture, they provide the first pan-British study of the subject. The authors also emphasise the ways in which oral and literate culture continued to compliment and inform each other, rather than focusing exclusively on their incompatibility, or on the 'inevitable' triumph of the written word. The chronological focus, ranging from the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, with glances ahead to the twentieth, set the problem against a longer chronological span than most other studies, providing a link between early modern and modern oral and literate cultures. This book it will be of interest to students and scholars of British history, Linguistics, Literary Studies and Folklore Studies.

Jugendlichen wird in der Öffentlichkeit wie in der Wissenschaft gerne Politikverdrossenheit und Desinteresse an politischen Themen unterstellt. Merle-Marie Kruse zeigt in ihrer Studie zu medienbezogenen Aushandlungen des Politischen dagegen auf, dass das den konkreten Sichtweisen junger Menschen nicht gerecht wird. Aus der Perspektive eines mediatisierten Alltags und eines erweiterten Politikverständnisses rekonstruiert sie anhand von Gruppendiskussionen, wie Jugendliche Politik begreifen, kommunikativ mit Bedeutung versehen und politische Identitäten aushandeln. Dabei zeigt ihre Analyse auch, welche Rolle populärkulturelle Medien für das Involvement mit Politischem spielen.

In recent years, European political leaders from Angela Merkel to David Cameron have discarded the term multiculturalism and now express scepticism, critique and even hostility towards multicultural ways of organising their societies. Yet they are unprepared to reverse the diversity existing in their states. These contradictory choices have different political consequences in the 11 European countries examined in this book: Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Sweden and Turkey. The future of European liberalism is being played out as multicultural notions of belonging, inclusion, tolerance and the national home are brought into question.