Open Access Books

Innovative research of 'Islam at work' in geographical and social contexts. 'Modern Islamic Thinking and Activism' presents a series of scholarly papers in relation to Islamic thinking, activism, and politics in both the West and the Middle East. The reader will apprehend that Islam is not the monolithic religion so often depicted in the media or (earlier) in the academic world. The Islamic world is more than a uniform civilization with a set of petrified religious prescriptions and an outdated view on political and social organization. The contributions show the dynamics of 'Islam at work' in different geographical and social contexts. By treating the working of Islamic thinking and of Islamic activism on a practical level, 'Modern Islamic Thinking and Activism' includes innovative research and fills a significant gap in existing work.

Celiac disease is a common autoimmune disorder triggered by eating gluten that affects at least 1% of the world’s population. Despite many years of effort, its pathogenesis is still not understood completely. This book discusses several important aspects of celiac disease, including its primary contributor, the DQ2 gene. It also examines dysfunctional immune checkpoints, causes and treatments of refractory celiac disease, and the status of the gluten-free food market.

Durant toute l’Antiquité, l’historien Thucydide a constitué une référence obligée et un modèle qui a inspiré nombre de continuateurs et d’imitateurs, en milieu grec et à Rome, que ce soit pour sa méthode ou pour les caractéristiques formelles de son œuvre. Cet engouement, qui a perduré jusqu’au Moyen Âge byzantin et ne s’est pas démenti à la Renaissance, redouble à partir du xviiie siècle, au moment où l’histoire se construit comme « science » : la Guerre du Péloponnèse devient alors le paradigme de l’histoire « véritable », rationaliste et positiviste. C’est aussi au xviiie siècle que se construit une certaine image de l’Athènes classique, largement tributaire de la vision qu’en donne Thucydide. Cependant, depuis quelques années, l’héritage documentaire auquel son nom est attaché se voit de plus en plus contesté par les historiens et les archéologues spécialistes de cette période. La fortune de Thucydide, les modalités de sa réception ont donc varié selon les époques, et ce sont ces fluctuations qu’il a paru nécessaire d’étudier sur la longue durée, de manière aussi exhaustive que possible, en croisant les points de vue disciplinaires.

La sentence est connue : " La Justice des Villages est très mauvaise parce qu'elle est rendue par des gens de peu, sans honneur, sans conscience, gens qui de leur jeunesse n'ayant appris à travailler ont fait état de vivre aux dépens et de la misère d'autrui, gens accoutumés à vivre en débauche aux tavernes qui changent tous les jours de personnage, parce que celui qui est aujourd'hui Juge en un Village est demain greffier en l'autre... " (Charles Loyseau, Discours de l'" abus des Justices de Village..., 1603). Elle est pourtant fort loin de correspondre à la réalité révélée par les archives et nombre d' " abus " n'étaient que des ajustements nécessaires pour fournir aux populations un service de proximité. Pour la première fois, l'ensemble du dossier d'accusation de la justice seigneuriale a donc été repris et nuancé par les regards croisés d'historiens des Facultés de Droit et des Lettres. Les Justices de Village sont une édition enrichie du deuxième colloque angevin d'histoire du village : " Justice seigneuriale et régulation sociale ". Cette publication comporte une synthèse historiographique et problématique, dix-neuf études régionales et thématiques couvrant l'ensemble de la France de la fin du Moyen Âge à la Révolution, un recueil de trente sources inédites et commentées et un guide bibliographique de plusieurs centaines d'entrées. François Brizay, Antoine Follain et Véronique Sarrazin qui ont dirigé cet ouvrage sont tous trois maîtres de conférences en histoire moderne à l'université d'Angers. Contributions de : Annie Antoine, François Brizay, Michel Brunet, Pierre Charbonnier, Laetitia Cornu, Jean-Claude Diedler, Serge Dontenwill, Madeleine Ferrières, Antoine Follain, Patrick Fournier, Jean Gallet, Benoît Garnot, Éric Gasparini, Jeremy Hayhoe, Philippe Jarnoux, Olivier Jouneaux, Brigitte Maillard, Isabelle Mathieu, Frédérique Pitou, Francine Rolley Véronique Sarrazin, Sylvain Soleil et Anne Zink. En couverture : composition originale inspirée des personnages figurant sur les terriers de Sadournin et Esparros en Bas-Armagnac (Hautes-Pyrénées).

Selbst- und Fremdbeschreibungen der Soziologie sind stark von der symbolischen Differenzierung entlang kultureller Grenzen geprägt. Als Wissenskultur zwischen den »harten« Natur- und den »weichen« Geisteswissenschaften muss sie interdisziplinäre Anschlussfähigkeit und zugleich Distinktion vermitteln. Um der Gesellschaft die Gesellschaft zu erklären, muss sie verständlich sein und doch die spezifische Sprache der Wissenschaft nutzen. Lisa Kressin zeichnet die Bedeutung der Methodenlehre im Soziologiestudium für die Reproduktion dieser Spannungen nach und weist ihr eine Schlüsselrolle in der Etablierung der kulturellen Einheit und Differenz dieser wissenschaftlichen Disziplin zu.

Im Rahmen des Projekts Duncker & Humblot reprints heben wir Schätze aus dem Programm der ersten rund 150 Jahre unserer Verlagsgeschichte, von der Gründung 1798 bis zum Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs 1945. Lange vergriffene Klassiker und Fundstücke aus den Bereichen Rechts- und Staatswissenschaften, Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, Geschichte, Philosophie und Literaturwissenschaft werden nach langer Zeit wieder verfügbar gemacht – und zwar sowohl gedruckt als auch in elektronischer Form. Einige Titel sind bereits erschienen. Täglich kommen weitere hinzu. Bis Ende des Jahres wird das »Duncker & Humblot reprints«-Programm auf ca. 1.500 Bände anwachsen. Möchten Sie regelmäßig über Neuerscheinungen aus dem reprints-Programm informiert werden? Dann abonnieren Sie unseren E-Mail-Benachrichtigungsdienst.

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Demonstrates how micro-interaction between people shapes larger patterns of peace and conflict. This book features chapters on the methods of micro-sociology (including Video Data Analysis) as well as analytical chapters on violence, nonviolence, conflict transformation, peace talks and international meetings. This title is Open Access.

The first clinical application of the phacoemulsification cataract surgical technique (often referred to as “phaco”) was introduced in 1967 by Dr. Charles Kelman. This innovation is a big step forward for cataract surgery. With the development of intraocular lens (IOL) design, more and more premium presbyopia- and astigmatism-correction IOLs are being used in clinics. This progress has greatly improved the visual quality of cataract patients. This book discusses the basic surgical skills required to perform this procedure, premium IOL surgical design, specific surgical plans for clinically challenging cases, and more. It provides readers with a comprehensive knowledge of the current state of the art of cataract surgery and surgical design.

Countries across Africa are rapidly transitioning from rural to urban societies. The UN projects that 60% of people living in Africa will be in urban areas by 2050, with the urban population on the continent tripling over the next 50 years. The challenge of building inclusive and sustainable cities in the context of rapid urbanization is arguably the critical development issue of the 21st Century and creating food secure cities is key to promoting health, prosperity, equity, and ecological sustainability. The expansion of Africa’s urban population is taking place largely in secondary cities: these are broadly defined as cities with fewer than half a million people that are not national political or economic centres. The implications of secondary urbanization have recently been described by the Cities Alliance as “a real knowledge gap”, requiring much additional research not least because it poses new intellectual challenges for academic researchers and governance challenges for policy-makers. International researchers coming from multiple points of view including food studies, urban studies, and sustainability studies, are starting to heed the call for further research into the implications for food security of rapidly growing secondary cities in Africa. This book will combine this research and feature comparable case studies, intersecting trends, and shed light on broad concepts including governance, sustainability, health, economic development, and inclusivity. This is an open access book.

This open access collection is a comprehensive analysis of the challenges and contributions of cultural history to contemporary and cross-disciplinary discussions of the Anthropocene. Organised into three key sections, this volume is a concise and critical overview of interdisciplinary research on the cultural history of the Anthropocene. The first part introduces readers to the key conceptual and theoretical challenges of Anthropocene debates, before the second part analyses a variety of case studies, to highlight how ethnography and cultural history can make certain processes visible and historically tangible. Key case studies explored by the volume range from sustainability in poultry production, to 18th century mining, to natural history and the works of Peter Christen Asbjørnsen. Finally, the third section explores 5 critical approaches to Anthropocene discourse, and the challenges it may pose to alternative styles of cultural history. Overall, this volume offers a synthesis of conceptual, historical, and critical approaches, that when combined provide a detailed overview of the latest research surrounding the cultural history of the Anthropocene. 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 Norwegian Research Council and the University of Bergen.

This open access book provides a wealth of hands-on examples that illustrate how hyperparameter tuning can be applied in practice and gives deep insights into the working mechanisms of machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) methods. The aim of the book is to equip readers with the ability to achieve better results with significantly less time, costs, effort and resources using the methods described here. The case studies presented in this book can be run on a regular desktop or notebook computer. No high-performance computing facilities are required. The idea for the book originated in a study conducted by Bartz & Bartz GmbH for the Federal Statistical Office of Germany (Destatis). Building on that study, the book is addressed to practitioners in industry as well as researchers, teachers and students in academia. The content focuses on the hyperparameter tuning of ML and DL algorithms, and is divided into two main parts: theory (Part I) and application (Part II). Essential topics covered include: a survey of important model parameters; four parameter tuning studies and one extensive global parameter tuning study; statistical analysis of the performance of ML and DL methods based on severity; and a new, consensus-ranking-based way to aggregate and analyze results from multiple algorithms. The book presents analyses of more than 30 hyperparameters from six relevant ML and DL methods, and provides source code so that users can reproduce the results. Accordingly, it serves as a handbook and textbook alike.

Presenting very high surface-to-volume ratio, relatively simple processability and low cost, graphene and graphene-related materials were soon identified as promising nanofillers for polymer matrixes. Reports have shown notorious property enhancements for graphene-polymer composites (GPC) at very low filler loadings. Uses of GPC in varied fields, such as energy, electronics, catalysis, separation and purification, biomedicine, aerospace, tribology, etc., have been demonstrated and, in some cases, put into industrial practice. However, challenges still exist. Platelet agglomeration within the polymer matrix is often seen to hinder performance improvements. Poor interfacial adhesion between filler and matrix is also a limiting factor in many systems, demanding for tuning the surface chemistry to promote physical or chemical interactions with the polymer chains. The range of routes for fabrication of graphene-related materials, leading to different morphologies, oxidation states, and degrees of platelet exfoliation, have an impact on the final properties of the composites that has not yet been fully addressed. Some argue that the potential of graphene, and its advantages in relation to other nanofillers, has not yet been clearly demonstrated for polymer composites. This Special Issue provides a state of the art view on the different facets of graphene-polymer composite materials, showing that this area of research is thriving and relevant advancements are still to be expected.

The work examines the lives, works, and impact of emigrated historians in Great Britain in the form of a collective biography. It investigates four major thematic areas: the historians’ emigration and integration, their university careers, their research interests and methods, and their status among British and German historians.

While it has been argued that anonymity in gamete donation has been brought to an end by legal changes and technological developments, Amelie Baumann suggests that this is in fact still in transformation. By focusing on the narratives of those who were conceived with anonymously donated gametes in the UK and Germany, she examines this transformative process and the role which donor-conceived persons play in it. This book shows that it is not someone's decision to procreate that turns »being donor-conceived« into a meaningful categorisation. Rather, kinship knowledge gets activated by the donor-conceived in specific ways for »being donor-conceived« to become a powerful identification.