Open Access Books

romance; essays

Recently, great attention has been paid to materials that can be used in the human body to prepare parts that replace failed bone structures. Of all materials, Ti-based materials are the most desirable, because they provide an optimum combination of mechanical, chemical, and biological properties. The successful application of Ti biomaterials has been confirmed mainly in dentistry, orthopedics, and traumatology. Titanium biocompatibility is practically the highest of all metallic biomaterials; however, new solutions are being sought to continuously improve their biocompatibility and osseointegration. Thus, the chemical modification of Ti results in the formation of new alloys or composites, which provide new perspectives for Ti biomaterials applications. This book covers broad aspects of Ti-based biomaterials concerning the design of their structure, mechanical, and biological properties. This book demonstrates that the new Ti-based compounds and their surface treatment provide the best properties for biomedical applications.

Athenian building accounts inscribed on stone underwent a gradual evolution in classical Athens. The first preserved specimens, dating to the third quarter of the fifth century BCE, adopted a “list-like format,” with receipt and expenditure entries with their relevant monetary figures organized in multiple columns. In the last quarter of the same century, by contrast, they began to accommodate many more details, attaining a decidedly “narrative format” at the expense of the user-friendly layout chosen previously. This evolution, rather than being interpreted in light of the dichotomy between the symbolic and functional purpose of inscribed documents, should be attributed to a change in the ways in which the city chose to celebrate its building achievements. Whereas “list-like” accounts emphasized the financial means the city had deployed to realize its building projects, “narrative” accounts focused on describing how a building project was carried out, pointing less to the financial aspects and more to the deployment of the human and technical resources necessary to realize it. As regards the columnar format that features prominently in building accounts, at first glance it seems to recall the uses of writing on non-stone media. However, one should not assume a direct derivation of inscribed accounts from contemporary accounting documents written on perishable materials. In fact, the two-sub-column format with numerals on the left that characterizes earlier building accounts was originally and expressly designed for inscribing financial documents in which monetary figures were to occupy a prominent position. Notably, even later “narrative” accounts, in which entries proceed in a continuous-line format with numerals embedded in the text, did not abandon the columnar format, which remained a layout feature inextricably linked to this type of epigraphic document.

Québec’s engagement with the United States is the most significant and consequential point of interaction amongst all its international activities. This new, edited book volume seeks to explore the many ways in which Quebec engages with the United States, including political exchange, border issues, trade, business and investment, transportation, immigration, cultural links and identity, the role of energy transmission and natural resources, and environmental considerations. As a sub-national actor pursuing a wide range of paradiplomatic bilateral and multilateral initiatives directly involving the U.S., our book both explores and explains what, when, why and how Québec has chosen to engage the United States while examining the fundamental issues that lie at the heart of the relationship. Multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary in focus, this edited collection of essays, titled The Québec-United States Relationship: Political, Security, Economic, Environmental and Cultural Dynamics, features the work of scholars who think deeply about Quebec-U.S. relations. Each contribution considers contemporary policy relevant issues; in so doing, this collection examines and emphasizes the background, scope, and impacts of policy decisions. This is an open access book.

This anthology provides a single, convenient volume of diverse primary texts supporting the teaching and research field of Anglophone Transatlantic literature and print culture in the long nineteenth century. Focusing on ongoing and shared concerns and social practices across the long nineteenth century, the book’s thematically-organised sections mark major Transatlantic social movements of that era as expressed, negotiated, and recorded through literary production. The book offers a range of tools and texts for innovative thinking, teaching, and exploration. Headnotes provide guidance on how individual selections arose from social and historical contexts and, often, suggest potential pairings with other selections. Annotations create student-friendly identification of key terms or allusions.

On August 8, 1942, 302 people arrived by train at Vocation, Wyoming, to become the first Japanese American residents of what the U.S. government called the Relocation Center at Heart Mountain. In the following weeks and months, they would be joined by some 10,000 of the more than 120,000 people of Japanese descent, two-thirds of them U.S. citizens, incarcerated as “domestic enemy aliens” during World War II. Heart Mountain became a town with workplaces, social groups, and political alliances—in short, networks. These networks are the focus of Saara Kekki’s Japanese Americans at Heart Mountain. Interconnections between people are the foundation of human societies. Exploring the creation of networks at Heart Mountain, as well as movement to and from the camp between 1942 and 1945, this book offers an unusually detailed look at the formation of a society within the incarcerated community, specifically the manifestation of power, agency, and resistance. Kekki constructs a dynamic network model of all of Heart Mountain’s residents and their interconnections—family, political, employment, social, and geospatial networks—using historical “big data” drawn from the War Relocation Authority and narrative sources, including the camp newspaper Heart Mountain Sentinel. For all the inmates, life inevitably went on: people married, had children, worked, and engaged in politics. Because of the duration of the incarceration, many became institutionalized and unwilling to leave the camps when the time came. Yet most individuals, Kekki finds, took charge of their own destinies despite the injustice and looked forward to the day when Heart Mountain was behind them. Especially timely in its implications for debates over immigration and assimilation, Japanese Americans at Heart Mountain presents a remarkable opportunity to reconstruct a community created under duress within the larger American society, and to gain new insight into an American experience largely lost to official history.

Russian-language edition: One common explanation for the failure of democracy to take root in Russia more quickly and more thoroughly than it has points to inherited cultural values that predispose Russian citizens to favor an autocratic type of governance. Ellen Carnaghan takes aim at this cultural-determinist thesis in her study of Russian attitudes, based on intensive interviews with more than sixty citizens from all walks of life and a variety of political orientations. What she finds is that, rather than being influenced by an antidemocratic and anticapitalist ideology, these ordinary citizens view the economic and political system in Russia today very critically because it simply does not function well for them in meeting their everyday needs. They long for order not because they eschew democracy and free markets in any fundamental way, but because they experience them currently as chaotic and unpredictable, leading to constant frustration. As a result, there is reason to be optimistic about further progress in democratization: it depends on improving the functioning of existing institutions, not transforming deep-rooted cultural norms. In the Conclusion, Carnaghan applies her argument to elucidating the reasons why Russians have responded favorably to what Westerners see as moves in an antidemocratic direction by Vladimir Putin’s government.

This book presents recent research results related to various applications of computer vision methods in the widely understood contexts of automation and robotics. As the current progress of image analysis applications may be easily observed in various areas of everyday life, it becomes one of the most essential elements of development of Industry 4.0 solutions. Some of the examples, partially discussed in individual chapters, may be related to the visual navigation of mobile robots and drones, monitoring of industrial production lines, non-destructive evaluation and testing, monitoring of the IoT devices or the 3D printing process and the quality assessment of manufactured objects, video surveillance systems, and decision support in autonomous vehicles.

The term allorecognition refers to the series of mechanisms used by an individual’s immune system to distinguish its own cells and tissues from those of another individual belonging to the same species. During evolution, different cells and molecules of both innate and adaptive immune systems have been selected to recognize and respond to antigens expressed by allogeneic cells, but not autologous cells (alloantigens). This research topic focuses on allorecognition by lymphocytes of the adaptive immune system and its involvement in rejection or tolerance of allogeneic transplants. T and B cells recognizing alloantigens via specific receptors become activated and undergo proliferation and differentiation into different types of effector and memory cells. Allorecognition by lymphocytes occurs regularly during pregnancy upon trafficking of both maternal and fetal cells. In this setting, allorecognition triggers an alloresponse that is protective towards the fetus thus preventing abortion. Protective alloimmunity is mediated through cooperation between different lymphocytes and antigen presenting cells (APCs), as well as regulatory mediators and receptors. Likewise, certain transplants placed in organs and tissues called immune-privileged sites such as the eye, the central nervous system and the testis elicit protective rather than destructive adaptive immune responses. Therefore, under certain circumstances, allorecognition by regulatory lymphocytes (Tregs and Bregs) can lead to tolerance of alloantigens. In contrast, allorecognition by T cells in non-immune privileged sites and under inflammatory conditions leads to a destructive immune response. Indeed, after transplantation of most allogeneic organs and tissues, activation of pro-inflammatory T cells (TH1 and TH17), which recognize donor MHC proteins (direct pathway) or peptides derived from donor MHC and minor antigens (indirect pathway), leads to graft rejection. This inflammatory response leads to the differentiation of allospecific cytotoxic T cells as well as production of donor specific antibodies by B cells, both of which contribute to the destruction of the transplant. In this Research Topic, we describe the different pathways of allorecognition by T cells involved in allograft rejection, as well as the role of different antigen presenting cells and graft-derived microvesicles (exosomes) involved in this process. Another aspect of this Research Topic addresses the essential role of alloreactive memory T cells in allograft rejection and resistance to transplant tolerance induction in laboratory rodents, as well as non-human primates and patients. Indeed, it has become evident that laboratory mice display very few memory alloreactive T cells pre-transplantation, essentially due to the fact that they are raised in pathogen-free facilities. In contrast, primates display high frequencies of alloreactive memory T cells, either generated through prior exposure to allogeneic MHC molecules or via cross-reactivity with microbial antigens. We and others have provided ample evidence showing that this feature accounts for differences in terms of tolerance susceptibility between laboratory rodents and patients. This implies that further investigation of tolerance protocols in laboratory mice should be performed using “dirty mice” i.e., mice raised in non-sterile conditions. In summary, this Research Topic addresses key aspects of allorecognition by lymphocytes and alloantigen presentation by dendritic cells, and specifically how these processes shape our immune system and govern the rejection or tolerance of allogeneic tissues and organs.

This volume was prepared to mark the 70th anniversary of Belarusian studies at the University of Warsaw. The publication includes texts from various fields, such as Belarusian spelling, interlingual homonymy, transliteration and transcription of the Belarusian alphabet, linguistic bibliographic databases, attitudes towards the Belarusian language, linguistic biographies of Belarusian studies (concerning academic figures important for Polish Belarusian studies), Polish-Belarusian linguistic contacts, and Belarusian language teaching. The monograph is a scientific memoir of sorts, a testimony to the individual achievements that form part of the long-standing and diverse legacy of the Department of Belarusian Studies. It may also serve as inspiration for new research pursuits in accordance with the ethics promoted by the founder of Polish Belarusian studies, Professor Antonina Obrębska-Jabłońska.

The year 1968 holds a significant place in our cultural memory. A year of youth rebellion, student revolts and workers striking. But how did the political and cultural events of 1968 affect the fields of pedagogy and education? This specific question is explored by contributors to this edited anthology on the legacies of 1968. In this volume the events of 1968 are placed in a wider context of political struggle and educational reform. While this particular year saw students at Stockholm University occupy their own student union building while millions of people took to the streets in Paris and other major cities around the world, this volume argues that this totemic year should be contextualized within the broader tendencies of leftwing-radicalism during the sixties and seventies. During this period, active discussions were ongoing surrounding not only pedagogic practice but the meaning and function of the whole school and university system. Behind these critical discussions was the foundational question surrounding the relationship between building a new and emancipated society and changes in educational and school policies. After more than fifty years since these events, what might we learn today from those who were committed to the idea that another world – as well as another school system and form of pedagogy – were possible, and who took to the streets to chant: ‘be realistic, and demand the impossible!’

Während das deutsche Recht eine Beachtlichkeit des Motivirrtums nur für letztwillige Verfügungen kennt, ist im französischen und österreichischen Recht der Motivirrtum auch bei Schenkungen beachtlich. Dieser Unterschied bei der Lösung einer zeitlosen Problemstellung ist angesichts des gemeinsamen Ursprungs der kontinentaleuropäischen Rechtsordnungen im römischen Recht bemerkenswert. Wie haben sich diese gesetzlichen Regelungen in Deutschland, Frankreich und Österreich entwickelt? Wie werden sie heute in Wissenschaft und Praxis gehandhabt? Und haben Rechtsprechung und Lehre in Deutschland funktionale Ersatztatbestände für eine Motivirrtumsanfechtung von Schenkungen geschaffen? Diese Fragen beantwortet Luca Wimmer aus rechtshistorischer und -vergleichender Perspektive und unterzieht die Lösung des deutschen Rechts einer kritischen Würdigung.

En este volumen se ofrecen datos básicos de las elecciones federales de 1961 a 1988. Estos datos Han sido usados con fines más específicos, en múltiples textos y documentos. El propósito es el de facilitar futuros trabajos de investigación sobre temas electorales

This book explores the role of Catholic peacebuilding in addressing the global mining industry. Mining is intimately linked to issues of conflict, human rights, sustainable development, governance, and environmental justice. As an institution of significant scope and scale with a large network of actors at all levels and substantial theoretical and ethical resources, the Catholic Church is well positioned to acknowledge the essential role of mining, while challenging unethical and harmful practices, and promoting integral peace, development, and ecology. Drawing together theology, ethics, and praxis, the volume reflects the diversity of Catholic action on mining and the importance of an integrated approach. It includes contributions by an international and interdisciplinary range of scholars and practitioners. They examine Catholic action on mining in El Salvador, Peru, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Philippines. They also address general issues of corporate social responsibility, human rights, development, ecology, and peacebuilding. The book will be of interest to scholars of theology, social ethics, and Catholic studies as well as those specializing in development, ecology, human rights, and peace studies.

In his preface, Danilo E. Ponce describes this book as an "unblinking look at Filipino history in Hawaii." Written from a Filipino viewpoint, the book commemorates seventy five years of collective existence of this ethnic group in the Aloha State. It examines Filipino experience in Hawaii in the context of Philippine history and culture. This is not a simple book, for its subject is complex. For example, there were three waves of Filipino immigration to Hawaii - each wave bringing people of differing socio-economic, educational, and geopolitical backgrounds. It would be misleading to speak of one homogeneous group called "Filipinos" being affected at any given time. Implicit in Out of This Struggle is the human drama that underlies events. Hawaii's need for labor promised the Filipinos the possibility of bettering their economic status, but plantation wages proved so low that entire families needed to work to live, limiting their access to education. Out of this frustration came their active and telling role in the organization of the IL WU and the labor strife of the 1920s. As Hawaii's Filipinos look to the future beyond 1981, they find in their community many and varied elements-proof of vitality, of a community trying to identify issues, examine events, and understand itself. Out of This Struggle will contribute to that understanding. This book is one of the projects of the Filipino 75th Anniversary Commemoration Commission, which was created by the 1977 Hawaii State Legislature, through Enabling Act 181, to oversee the year-long celebration of the arrival of the first Filipinos in Hawaii in 1906. The idea of the Commission itself came from a group called the Hawaii Filipino-American Community Foundation, which, as early as 1976, had thought of the need to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Filipino immigration to Hawaii not only through ceremony, but more appropriately, through more permanent means. One of these means was to be a book which would give its readers some understanding of what the past 75 years have meant for the Filipinos in Hawaii. At the same time, 'the members of the Foundation felt that such a book would adequately mirror the changes that have taken place in the Filipino community, as well as lay to rest the prevalent view that the old stereotypes still apply. The members of the Education (Printed) Committee of the Commission, whose task was to oversee the production of this book, are, fittingly, also members of the Foundation.