Humanities & Social Sciences

This book contains the proceedings of the conference “The Water Balance of the Alps. What do we need to protect the water resources of the Alps?” held in Innsbruck in September 2006. The aim of the conference was to present the view of researchers as well as of administrators, and to discuss the best way to protect sensitive waters, including ice and snow, of the Alps. Intensive discussions about the best way to protect sensitive water bodies in the Alps – either by implementing specific and hitherto neglected aspects peculiar to mountain regions into the EU Water Framework Directive or by creating a new Water Protocol for the Alpine Convention – went along with the presentation of fresh views on known water problems.

The Encyclopaedia of Slovenian cultural history in Carinthia (Austria) is conceaved as a pluridisciplinary and intercultural reference work with over 160 authors, some 1000 entries and in total over 2100 conceptual entries covering areas such as history, legal history, sociology, linguistics, dialectology, literature, ethnology, art history, biographic studies, terminology. It provides a cross-linked understanding of the geographical area as well as of the cultural and societal processes in the region from an innovative perspective.

The issue of how interpretation results from the form and type of syntactic structures present in language is one which is central and hotly debated in both theoretical and descriptive linguistics. This volume brings together a series of eleven new cutting-edge essays by leading experts in East Asian languages which shows how the study of formal structures and functional morphemes in Chinese, Japanese and Korean adds much to our general understanding of the close connections between form and interpretation. This specially commissioned collection will be of interest to linguists of all backgrounds working in the general area of syntax and language change, as well as those with a special interest in Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

Political Science; European Union

Starting with the great authors of the past, autobiographical requests have been a distinctive feature of Scandinavian literatures. Today, after the modernist experiments of ego building, there is the affirmation of narrative and poetic works which question the boundary between autobiographical truth and fiction, further stimulating the lively, innovative and articulated debate on autobiography in Northern Europe, which has been in development since the 1980s. The 24 authors of the volume (Italian and Scandinavian scholars who are active in Italy or abroad, Scandinavian researchers and writers interested in Italy) illustrate the plurality and uses of autobiographical texts from the 16th century to current days, illuminate areas of a vast territory, investigate little studied texts or go back to questioning the classics.

This Open access book provides an overview of the cutting-edge research to systematize innovative foundations in algorithmic theories and techniques, and apply them to solve socially significant real-life problems, thereby driving social transformation and advancement. Formulating such social problems into well-defined mathematical or computational terms requires not only a solid theoretical foundation but also a deep understanding of the application domain itself. The content is divided into three parts. Following an introductory chapter in Part I, Part II discusses how to bridge the gap between algorithmic solutions and social advancement. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 present motivating problems that showcase the remarkable performance improvements driven by algorithmic technologies, followed by examples of how interfaces and tools were provided to apply these solutions to real-world challenges. The subsequent Chapters 5 through 12 then focus on interdisciplinary discussions regarding how to formulate real societal issues into a catalog of problems to be addressed. Finally, Part III, spanning Chapters 13 to 23, highlights selected topics on the innovative algorithmic foundations developed through the research project, focusing on intriguing subjects and the latest ongoing research. These include processing large-scale discrete structures, graph algorithms, discrete optimization, quantum algorithms, and various other topics related to algorithmic foundations. This book will serve as a valuable resource for readers interested in the use of algorithms in real-life problems. This book is based on the research project in Japan, Algorithmic Foundations for Social Advancement.

Vladimir Solov'ev gehört zu den bedeutendsten Erscheinungen des geistigen Rußlands. Sein Werk fällt in die letzten Jahrzehnte des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, die Auswirkung dieses Werkes in das zwanzigste . . . Alle geistesgeschichtlichen Arbeiten Vladimir Solov'evs kämpfen mit Leidenschaft gegen den Rationalismus in der Philosophie und für die Rückführung der in sich geeinten und befriedeten Welt in den Schoß Gottes. So ist vor allen Dingen seine Kritik an dem westeuropäischen Denken zu verstehen, die so manches Gemeinsame mit der Gedankenwelt der Slavophilen hat.

In all different areas in biomedical engineering, the ultimate objectives in research and education are to improve the quality life, reduce the impact of disease on the everyday life of individuals, and provide an appropriate infrastructure to promote and enhance the interaction of biomedical engineering researchers. This book is prepared in two volumes to introduce recent advances in different areas of biomedical engineering such as biomaterials, cellular engineering, biomedical devices, nanotechnology, and biomechanics. It is hoped that both of the volumes will bring more awareness about the biomedical engineering field and help in completing or establishing new research areas in biomedical engineering.

The naval leader has taken centre stage in traditional naval histories. However, while the historical narrative has been fairly consistent the development of various navies has been accompanied by assumptions, challenges and competing visions of the social characteristics of naval leaders and of their function. Whilst leadership has been a constant theme in historical studies, it has not been scrutinised as a phenomenon in its own right. This book examines the critical period in Europe between 1700 -1850, when political, economic and cultural shifts were bringing about a new understanding of the individual and of society. Bringing together context with a focus on naval leadership as a phenomenon is at the heart of this book, a unique collaborative venture between British, French and Spanish scholars. As globalisation develops in the twenty-first century the significance of navies looks set to increase. This volume of essays aims to place naval leadership in its historical context.

Ce catalogue accompagne la publication de l’ouvrage « Flèches de pouvoir à l’aube de la métallurgie de la Bretagne au Danemark (2500-1700 av. n. è.) ». Il rassemble pour la première fois un corpus d’armatures de flèches déposées dans les tombes de la fin du Néolithique et du Bronze ancien dans le Massif armoricain, dans le sud des îles Britanniques et au Danemark. Il contient la description (architecture, anthropologie, mobilier funéraire) de 231 sépultures, ayant livré un total de 1375 pointes de flèches. La plupart de ces armatures sont illustrées par 718 dessins (dont 200 originaux) et 454 photographies (dont 415 originales). À cela s’ajoutent la figuration des plans des tombes et du mobilier associé aux armatures. Ce corpus est enrichi d’un inventaire complémentaire pour le Danemark de 274 pointes de flèches issues de 92 sépultures de datation plus incertaine. Enfin, l’ensemble des armatures étudiées sont décrites selon leurs dimensions, leurs matières premières et leurs lieux de conservation. English abstract: This volume contains the catalogue belonging to the book « Flèches de pouvoir à l’aube de la métallurgie de la Bretagne au Danemark (2500-1700 av. n. è.) ». It contains data on arrowheads deposited in Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Ages graves in the Armorican Massif, in southern British Isles and in Denmark. Included are the description (architecture, anthropology, grave goods) of 231 burials, which have yielded a total of 1375 arrowheads, illustrated with a total of 718 drawings and 454 photographs. Find contexts are illustrated with plans of the burials and associated grave goods. This corpus is enriched with a complementary inventory of 274 arrowheads from 92 graves with more unsecure dating from Denmark. Finally, all arrowheads are described according to their metric dimensions, their raw materials and their location in museums.

The volume presents topics and authors (K. Lewin, M. Sherif, S. Moscovici, S. Milgram and H. Tajfel among others) that characterise social psychology in a specific sense, as a discipline that works on the situational dimension, looking into other terms to grasp in the "here and now" the articulation between individual and collective, also meaning the culture to which we belong. After giving a historical framework of the discipline in relation to the main psychological schools of the twentieth century (psychoanalysis, behaviourism, Gestalt theory, cognitivism, cultural psychology), the research methods and themes on which the action of social psychology is exercised are outlined.

The book offers a glimpse back in time to a Middle Sepik society, the Iatmul, first investigated by the anthropologist Gregory Bateson in the late 1920s while the feminist anthropologist Margaret Mead worked on sex roles among the neighbouring Tchambuli (Chambri) people. The author lived in the Iatmul village of Kararau in 1972/3 where she studied women’s lives, works, and knowledge in detail. She revisited the Sepik in 2015 and 2017. The book, the translation of a 1977 publication in German, is complemented by two chapters dealing with the life of the Iatmul in the 2010s. It presents rich quantitative and qualitative data on subsistence economy, marriage, and women’s knowledge concerning myths and rituals. Besides, life histories and in-depth interviews convey deep insights into women’s experiences and feelings, especially regarding their varied relationships with men in the early 1970s. Since then, Iatmul culture has changed in many respects, especially as far as the economy, religion, knowledge, and the relationship between men and women are concerned. In her afterword, the anthropologist Christiane Falck highlights some of the major topics raised in the book from a 2018 perspective, based on her own fieldwork which she commenced in 2012. Thus, the book provides the reader with detailed information about gendered lives in this riverine village of the 1970s and an understanding of the cultural processes and dynamics that have taken place since.

Power is the essence of politics. Whoever seeks to understand and master it must understand its logic. Drawing on two decades of international experience in political consulting, Dominik Meier and Christian Blum give profound and honest insights into the inner workings of power. Introducing their Power Leadership Approach, the authors provide a conceptual analysis of power and present the tools to successfully exercise it in the political domain. "Power and its Logic" is a guidebook for politicians, business leaders, civil society pioneers, public affairs consultants and for every citizen who wants to understand the unwritten rules of politics.

Chan Sin-wai writes about his own journey from traditional humanities to an embrace of techno-humanities. Through revisiting his past publications, Chan Sin-wai argues that keeping pace with technological changes that are taking place in academia as well as the digital world in which we live has become imperative. This book traces the author's journey from the study of modern Chinese history through his transition into translation studies as an academic discipline. Reflecting on his practical experience as a translator as well as his work developing dictionaries and encyclopedias, this book presents his contributions to translation technology alongside his efforts to establish techno-humanities as a vital research area. Ultimately, it argues that the integration of technology and humanities represents an inevitable and the embracing of techno-humanities as not just a common understanding, but a universal action and major trend. This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of artificial intelligence and translation studies as well as academics in the history of science and technology.

The aim of this thesis consists in the study and modification of complex photonic nano-structures. Nowadays, propagation of light in such materials is a rich and fascinating area of research, both for its fundamental implications and for its practical technological impact. To deeply investigate light propagation inside these structures a high spatial resolution technique is required, especially because intriguing effects often occur on length scales comparable with the diffraction-limit or involve coupling phenomena on this length scale. For this reason in this thesis a Scanning Near-Field Optical Microscope represents one the most straightforward tool both to study and locally modify complex photonic nano-structures from perfect periodic to completely random ones.