Open Access Books

This eBook is a collection of articles from a Frontiers Research Topic. Frontiers Research Topics are very popular trademarks of the Frontiers Journals Series: they are collections of at least ten articles, all centered on a particular subject. With their unique mix of varied contributions from Original Research to Review Articles, Frontiers Research Topics unify the most influential researchers, the latest key findings and historical advances in a hot research area! Find out more on how to host your own Frontiers Research Topic or contribute to one as an author by contacting the Frontiers Editorial Office: frontiersin.org/about/contact

Appréhendant l’univers des officiers de l’administration des finances des xviie et xviiie siècles en Nouvelle-Espagne comme un espace social, cette étude reconstitue les pratiques, autant collectives qu’individuelles, d’un groupe de l’élite coloniale. La démarche suivie associe l’étude des parcours socioprofessionnels à celle de l’insertion familiale, sociale et économique de ces officiers. Au-delà, la reconstitution de leurs comportements débouche sur une réflexion relative aux modes de fonctionnement de l’appareil d’État dans une société coloniale de l’époque moderne. L’originalité de l’approche permet de défricher de nouvelles interprétations concernant les enjeux, les objets et les moyens mis en oeuvre par le pouvoir métropolitain pour imposer son autorité à l’une de ses principales colonies. Simultanément, l’étude s’oriente vers une anthropologie de la pratique du pouvoir parmi les élites coloniales. La mise en évidence de l’étroitesse des relations nouées par les officiers royaux avec le milieu local souligne la place centrale des stratégies familiales et l’influence décisive des pratiques clientélistes. Débouchant sur de vastes réseaux relationnels, ces dernières constituaient l’une des principales forces d’animation et de structuration de la société coloniale. Leur reconstitution éclaire sous un jour nouveau la place des groupes familiaux au sein de l’appareil d’État impérial et renouvelle notre perception de l’exercice du pouvoir dans la Nouvelle-Espagne du xviiie siècle.

The feudal lordship of Southern Italy and in Southern Italy is a long-lasting historiographic theme, which has taken on new life in recent years. The rethinking of the interpretative categories of the medieval lordship, a series of in-depth analyses of the late-medieval rural societies and the characteristics of the feudal powers, the detailed reconstructions of their forms of administration and management, the investigations into the semantics of representations have allowed the overcoming of that historiographic paradigm of a Southern baronial class which was internally homogeneous and monolithic in its orientations. Aiming to follow this path, this book puts a case study forth: the lordship of the Orsini, counts of Nola, between Terra di Lavoro and Principato Ultra (1293-1528). Using a wide variety of sources (documentary, literary, iconographic and architectural), the author reconstructs how the Orsini were able to entrench themselves within this territory, exposing their network of relationships with Nola’s most prominent families, and analysing the processes of their self-representation through artistic patronage.

Published

The self-organizing map, first described by the Finnish scientist Teuvo Kohonen, can by applied to a wide range of fields. This book is about such applications, i.e. how the original self-organizing map as well as variants and extensions of it can be applied in different fields. In fourteen chapters, a wide range of such applications is discussed. To name a few, these applications include the analysis of financial stability, the fault diagnosis of plants, the creation of well-composed heterogeneous teams and the application of the self-organizing map to the atmospheric sciences.

"EPUB and EPDF available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Using case studies from Europe and the UK, this book highlights those men who are taking action to eradicate violence against women. Examining the factors that support men to take a public stance, the authors also demonstrate what we can learn from their experiences to help build the movement to end violence against women. This important study will inform grassroots movements working to involve and engage men and boys in building gender equality."

Social anxiety (SA) is a common and incapacitating disorder that has been associated with seriously impaired career, academic, and general social functioning. Regarding epidemiological data, SA has a lifetime prevalence of 12.1% and is the fourth most common psychopathological disorder (Kessler et al., 2005). At a fundamental point of view, the most prominent cognitive models of SA posit that biased cognitions contribute to the development and maintenance of the disorder (e.g., Clark & Wells, 1995; Rapee & Heimberg, 1997). Over the last decades, a large body of research has provided evidence that individuals suffering from SA exhibit such biased cognitions at the level of visual attention, memory of social encounters, interpretation of social events, and in judgment of social cues. Such biased cognitions in SA has been studied in different ways within cognitive psychology, behavioral psychology, clinical psychology, and cognitive neuroscience over the last few decades, yet, integrative approaches for channeling all information into a unified account of biased cognitions in SA has not been presented so far. The present Research Topic aims to bring together theses different ways, and to highlight findings and methods which can unify research across these areas. In particular, this Research Topic aims to advance the current theoretical models of SA and set the stage for future developments of the field by clarifying and linking theoretical concepts across disciplines.

What is development, what has it been in the past, and what can historians learn from studying the history of development? How has the field of the history of development evolved over time, and where should it be going in the future?

While Dickens used to be seen as a writer of shallow and sentimental children’s literature, as the prolific caterer to the new market of mass literature, this collection of essays shows that Dickens was not only a reader of high-brow literature, but also expected his readers to understand them in the context of contemporary scientific and economic debates. Covering a wide range of writers – from Sidney, Shakespeare, Cervantes to Swift, Smollett and Bulwer-Lytton – Dickens’s novels reveal a multi-layered cosmos and supply their readers with richly woven nets of intertextuality.

Assumptions of inability and the perceived costs of employing disabled persons are two of the primary reasons why it has been impossible or difficult for many capable disabled persons to access work and to continue working. This book considers the South African legal framework that seeks to promote such access and critiques it with particular reference to the intersections of the rights to equality and access to social security. One of the primary arguments is the need for a more active conception of social security in which access to work for disabled persons is recognised as an integral component of promoting both social security and substantive equality.

This book contains the latest findings in a number of research areas, including the effects of dog-assisted therapy on the psychomotor development of children with intellectual disability; the use of weighted blankets and sleep quality in children with autism spectrum disorders; cognitive assessment and rehabilitation for pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis; the use of gait indexes in detecting gait changes in children with spastic hemiplegic cerebral palsy; as well as the effect of ankle joint mobilization, functional progressive resistance exercise, and action observation training on range of motion, gait, spasticity, gross motor function, and balance in children with spastic cerebral palsy. The book is intended for people who work with children and adolescents with neurodysfunctions on a daily basis. It will certainly be useful to physiotherapists, medical doctors, psychologists, and all members of interdisciplinary therapeutic teams. The book can also be recommended to all individuals interested in neurorehabilitation, including parents or guardians of children and adolescents with neurodysfunctions.

The Ragusan maritime network gradually developed from the ancient Venetian one, at the time of Venetian preponderance (1205-1358). But, at the end of the Venetian domination, the Ragusan network developed some characteristics of its own, presented in this contribution. The characteristics of the network are here presented through its four mains aspects: extension, ramification, temporality and dangerousness. In terms of extension, both in the East and in the West of the Mediterranean, the Ragusan maritime network had great similarities with the Venetian one. It is in terms of ramification, that the differences gradually appear.

This open access book provides novel insights into the field, exploring the potential for the 'sensing citizens' to concretely influence risk governance by filling - intentional or accidental - official informational gaps. Grassroots-driven environmental monitoring based on own senses or on sensor technology, i.e., 'citizen sensing', can be considered a constructive response to crises. When lay people distrust official information or just want to fill data gaps, they may resort to sensors and data infrastructures to visualize, monitor, and report risks caused by environmental factors to public health. Although through a possible initial conflict, citizen sensing may ultimately have the potential to contribute to institutional risk governance. Citizen sensing proves to be a practice able to address governance challenges with the way data over an (environmental) risk problem are gathered and provided to the public. This essentially unveils the issue of a perceived legitimacy gap in current (environmental) risk governance. Nonetheless, it also opens avenues for a more inclusive and transparent governmental response to pressing and complex risks, affecting first and foremost local people.

Meaningful Education invites readers to view the school as a living space shaped by relationships, questions, and shared responsibilities. Its chapters bring together research perspectives on the education of children and young people within learning environments that call for attentive listening, care, participation, and social commitment. The first section addresses the relationship between family and school, teachers’ transformational leadership, children’s participation as a right, and the role of literature in the construction of the self. It recognizes the importance of opening avenues for dialogue among educational stakeholders and strengthening experiences that enable children to be heard and understood. The second section broadens the discussion to encompass secondary education, formative fields, teachers’ narratives of resilience in Chocó, and pedagogical strategies for preventing criminal behavior among adolescents. Taken as a whole, the volume offers a sensitive and critical overview of the current challenges facing education and proposes an understanding of teaching as a practice capable of transforming communities, bodies of knowledge, and life projects.

Pour célébrer l'installation de l'Université d'Avignon dans les superbes bâtiments de l’Hôpital Sainte-Marthe, une équipe de chercheurs nous invite à découvrir un site patrimonial d’exception : l'ancienne pharmacie de l'Hôpital. Des recherches historiques aux analyses chimiques, l’ouvrage nous entraîne au cœur de l'Avignon d’autrefois. Pots et récipients, herbes médicinales et sirops de l’apothicairerie se transforment en autant de pages de la vie municipale et de l’histoire de la médecine des siècles passés. Accompagné par un cahier de photographies de Thomas Bohl, ce livre nous compte la riche histoire d’un bâtiment aujourd’hui abrité dans les locaux de l’université : quelle meilleure façon de marquer les vingt ans de l’un de ses campus ?