Open Access Books

Esperamos que este libro pueda representar una valiosa contribución del pensamiento crítico a la comprensión más integral de nuestro convulsionado tiempo histórico. Tiempos de incertidumbre, de ausencia de certezas acerca del devenir que tomarán los procesos sociales, signados por la crisis de la civilización que nos impone el capitalismo y por las crecientes conflictividades sociales y de clases. Con todo, son muchos los interrogantes que quedan abiertos y esperamos estimulen nuevos esfuerzos investigativos y líneas de trabajo.

In the last 50 years, combinations of conventional and molecular methods have made the genetic diversity a widespread science. Moreover, the issue of conserving genetic diversity as a component of the conservation of the environment has been raised at an international level. We hope that the current book will provide a glimpse into the dynamic process of genetic diversity by presenting the research of some of the scientists who are engaged in development of new tools and ideas in genetic diversity. We would like to express our deepest gratitude to all authors who contributed to this book by sharing their valuable works with us.

Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological disorders, with a prevalence of 4-10/1000. The book contains the practical methods to approaching the classification and diagnosis of epilepsy, and provides information on management. Epilepsy is a comprehensive book which guides the reader through all aspects of epilepsy, both practical and academic, covering all aspects of diagnosis and management of children with epilepsy in a clear, concise, and practical fashion. The book is organized so that it can either be read cover to cover for a comprehensive tutorial or be kept desk side as a reference to the epilepsy. Each chapter introduces a number of related epilepsy and its diagnosis, treatment and co-morbidities supported by examples. Included chapters bring together valuable materials in the form of extended clinical knowledge from practice to clinic features.

The volumes on the Great War that are here published are the result of a series of seminars held at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the University of Florence between 2014 and 2015. Starting from the occasion of the centennial, the authors wanted to take stock of some specific aspects of the studies related to the First World War. To this purpose, historians, military analysts, political scientists and sociologists have questioned the meaning of the fracture that marks the beginning of the twentieth century and, consequently, the basic aspects of the new policy of the “short century”, from both an Italian and European perspective.

Institutional and technological change is a highly topical subject. At the theoretical level, there is much debate in the field of institutional economics about the role of technological change in endogenous growth theory. At a practical policy level, arguments rage about how Japan and the Japanese economy should plan for the future. In this book, leading economists and economic historians of Japan examine a range of key issues concerning institutional and technological change in Japan, rigorously using discipline-based tools of analysis, and drawing important conclusions as to how the process of change in these areas actually works. In applying these ideas to Japan, the writers in this volume are focusing on an issue which is currently being much debated in the country itself, and are helping our understanding of the world’s second-largest economy.

On 10 and 11 May 2006 the international conference on the theme “River, landscape and land conservation. Overcoming emergencies and grasping opportunities” was held in the main lecture hall of Florence University. The initiative was promoted and organised by the PhD course in Landscape Design – Professor Giulio G. Rizzo, Dr. Michele Ercolini – and by the Master degree course in Landscaping – Professor Guido Ferrara – of the University of Florence. The majority of the addresses presented during the two days of work, and included in this book, were characterised by the cultural and scientific input of the initiative, in other words the attempt to transform a “system of demands” (namely the requirements of land conservation) into a “system of opportunities” for the design of new landscapes.

This open access book offers an account of the very different technologies implicated in border crossing and migration management. Borders have been sites of contestations and struggles over who belongs and who does not, who is and is not allowed to move freely in transnational or national spaces. Embedded as they are in the bordering process, policing and security practices produce the irregularity and illegitimacy of the migrating subject. At the same time, border practices simultaneously imply processes of dissidence and resistance. Border infrastructures and resistance to bordering practices refer to dynamic and complex interactions between migrants and non-human others, technologies at the borderland and elsewhere. Border guards, EU officials, Frontex officers, activists, NGOs and solidarity networks configure both hybrid alliances of humans/nonhumans and new virtual and urban spaces in order to enforce or resist bordering. Through analyses of empirical cases drawing from the European border regimes the book investigates how technologies employed by states and EU border agencies configure the border regimes; how spaces of migration are configured through uses and re-uses of high-tech technologies; and finally on how the border regimes and ‘the border industrial complex’ are contested reconfigured by the use of ICT by migrants and solidarity networks. 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 Velux Foundations

Este libro es la recopilación de la experiencia docente de los autores en el área de tratamiento de señal aplicada a las Telecomunicaciones, especialmente en el campo analógico. Acopia sus notas de clases y recurre al software de simulación como una alternativa válida para la comprobación de experiencias físicas. Este texto es un complemento a las múltiples obras literarias que existen en la temática, sin embargo, está adaptado para el contexto nacional actual y su contenido aporta y apoya la abstracción en la operación, fundamentación y representación de señales en equipos de medición. Su contenido atiende la fundamentación básica en el procesamiento de señales introduciendo el manejo de software especializado para la verificación de eventos reales. Es un libro inicial que espera despertar la búsqueda de competencias avanzadas en sus lectores.

There is long-standing debate on how population growth affects national economies. A new report from Population Matters examines the history of this debate and synthesizes current research on the topic. The authors, led by Harvard economist David Bloom, conclude that population age structure, more than size or growth per se, affects economic development, and that reducing high fertility can create opportunities for economic growth if the right kinds of educational, health, and labor-market policies are in place. The report also examines specific regions of the world and how their differing policy environments have affected the relationship between population change and economic development.

The present monograph addresses the decision problem of product concept selection. It is constructed as a multi-criteria decision model spanning the dimensions benefits, costs, opportunities and risks, while each dimension represents a decision network. To focus economic aspects target costing and activity based costing have been incorporated into the methodology. The evaluation logic is based on the analytic network process, amended and modified by the fuzzy set theory.

Prezentowana monografia naukowa składa się z dwóch części. Pierwsza dotyczy zmian w ekonomii w kontekście kryzysu finansowego 2007–2009 i jej kondycji jako nauki społecznej, a druga skoncentrowana jest na przemianach ustrojowych w Polsce po 1989 roku. Pierwszą część publikacji przenika idea współzależności gospodarowania, kultury i polityki. Istotnym motywem jest tu także problem zadłużenia gospodarek narodowych i gospodarki światowej rozważany w kontekście rosnących nierówności dochodowych. W drugiej części książki można śledzić konkretyzację idei zależności gospodarki od kultury i polityki na przykładzie transformacji od planu do rynku. W analizie dynamiki tej metamorfozy akcent położony jest na kryzys rządów prawa i związki przemian w krajach transformacji ustrojowej z upadkiem liberalnej demokracji na świecie. Autorka dużo uwagi poświęca zmianom zachodzącym w szkolnictwie wyższym. Prezentuje je z perspektywy ewolucji funkcji uniwersytetów i wolności akademickiej.

The article presents the problems of the identity of the Warmians living on the cultural border in the 19th century. Warmians as an ethnic group have lived in the historical region of Warmia since the Middle Ages. In the modern period (16th–18th c.), Warmia belonged to the Polish state, was ruled by Polish bishops, there was a large influx of Polish settlers, there developed the Polish culture, and the dialect was mainly based on Polish vocabulary. The situation changed after 1772, when Warmia was occupied by the Prussian state. Throughout the 19th century the Germanization processes took place in this area, manifesting mainly in the elimination of the Polish language and the formation of the German national identity. The Warmians lived on a cultural border, as both nations had great influence over the region. They chose locality, which manifested in devotion to the Catholic church, traditional customs, and the Warmian dialect. That is why they have kept their individuality and identity until today.

This book provides a practice-based analysis of European Union (EU) diplomacy and community-building. Unlike studies focusing on how EU community-building proceeds centrally in Brussels, this book turns to EU diplomacy in its bordering state of Ukraine. At a time when the EU’s internal cohesion is being put to the test, this book provides novel insights into how feelings of belonging are produced amongst its members in the absence of a homogenous ‘we’. Transcending the traditional dichotomy between macro-structures and micro-processes of interaction, the book demonstrates that the EU’s large-scale community depends for its existence on practical instantiations of community-building in distinct ‘communities of practice’. Using the case of an EU diplomatic ‘community of practice’ in Kyiv, Ukraine, takes these questions to the EU’s margins, highlighting that the boundaries of community are key sites in which community materialises. The in-depth case study identifies diplomats’ ‘boundary work’ as the constitutive rule that makes the local ‘community of practice’ cohere and create feelings of belonging to the large-scale polity of the EU. This book will be of interest to researchers of European studies, as well as to those working on global cooperation and international relations more broadly. 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) 4.0 license.

Artykuł dotyczy dzieci z zespołem Aspergera – czyli całościowymi zaburzeniami rozwoju ze spektrum autyzmu. Zespół Aspergera charakteryzuje się między innymi zaburzeniami interakcji społecznych, brakiem umiejętności współpracy w grupie oraz trudnościami w komunikacji niewerbalnej. Te elementy mają decydujący wpływ na funkcjonowanie uczniów z zespołem Aspergera w grupie rówieśniczej w szkole. W artykule zostało zaprezentowane, jak problemy dziecka z zespołem Aspergera mogą zostać ograniczone dzięki przeniesieniu znacznej części jego aktywności do internetu. Inaczej mówiąc – komunikacja przez internet może być szansą na lepsze relacje społeczne osób z zespołem Aspergera oraz postępy w ich edukacji.

This open access book by Nils Karlson explores the strategies used by left- and right-wing populists to make populism intelligible, recognizable, and contestable. It presents a synthesized explanatory model for how populists promote autocratization through the deliberate polarization of society. It traces the ideational roots of the core populist ideas and shows that these ideas form a collectivistic identity politics. Karlson argues that to fight back requires the revival of liberalism itself by defending and developing the liberal institutions, the liberal spirit, liberal narratives, and liberal statecraft. The book also presents and discusses an extensive list of counterstrategies against populism. Written within the tradition of political theory and institutional economics, this book uses a wide variety of sources, including results and analyses from social psychology, ethics, law, and history.