Open Access Books

For religious Jews in medieval and modern times, art – in the Western European sense – was an irrelevant and unnecessary issue for life, because traditional Judaism, observing the second commandment of the Mosaic Decalogue, rejected its existence as an object of adoration and “delight”. (Exodus 20:4). In religious culture, art and creativity can only be understood in the context of artistic craftsmanship, and its characteristic feature is the symbolic and decorative aspect. Moreover, in religious circles there is a lack of concepts of the autonomy of the artwork and its contemplation as well as a definition of artistic creation. Nevertheless, since the Middle Ages (12th century) there has been a custom of collecting religious exhibits in synagogues, and the activity of individual collectors of Judaica dates back to the 17th century. The turn of the 19th and 20th centuries marked the beginning of the Zionist movement, in whose program – following the European model – art was to be an element of building a new ( Jewish) identity, and collections of old Judaica were included in this process. Henceforth, it was assumed that visual arts would be fully used for the purposes of the so-called promotion of Zionism and its demands, as well as starting a debate on the role, function and possibilities of impact of visual arts. Therefore, within the framework of Zionism, not only was the theory of art reevaluated (and its universal adaptation), but, above all, it was harnessed to specific goals and the projection of postulates calling for the formation of a separate national and Zionist consciousness. We can therefore repeat after Kalman Bland that “What complicates the argumentation of Jewish Aiconism is late-nineteenth-century Zionism.” It should also be added, following Steven Fine, that: “Israel begins its adventure with art only in the centenary of Zionism”.

It is a work with investigations on the history of Law in homage to the jurist Carlos Ramos Núñez.

This book provides a new perspective on Foucault’s The Archaeology of Knowledge by revealing the extent to which its approach to language was influenced by the mathematical sciences. Setting out this background to Foucault’s analysis makes The Archaeology of Knowledge both accessible in a new way, and relevant to issues that are at the heart of much contemporary debate over the nature of critical thought and the relation between philosophy and the sciences. This book sheds new light on a crucial period of Foucault’s work by highlighting his relation to thinkers such as Cavaillès and Serres. It aims to provide a reading of The Archaeology of Knowledge that puts it at the heart Foucault’s thought. Rather than attempting a scientific study of language as such, Foucault is shown to have adopted a mode of thought indebted to thinkers in the scientific and epistemological tradition.

‘Challenger banks’ are banks or non-banking start-ups, the operations of which are based on digital technologies and which challenge big, traditional banks. It is a new approach to provide financial services, where an agile organization and new technologies are the key success factors. The aim of the study is to explore the operations of challenger banks and their new digital approaches to provide banking and investment services to retail customers as an innovation in the financial market. The case of Revolut is used as a unit of analysis. The study makes an attempt to identify and explore: (i) What product innovations have been implemented by Revolut in regard to the customers’ access to financial markets? (ii) How does Revolut compete with other challenger banks and traditional financial institutions? (iii) What are socio-economic consequences of innovations introduced by challenger banks? (iv) What is the legal formula of Revolut's operations? From the perspective of management theory, the study identifies the mechanisms of developing and implementing innovations in the financial sector, in the context of digital transformation and the changes in legal regulations.

This book is the first of three volumes. Every year millions of people are losing their lives around the world, undeterred by the widespread opulence and remarkably higher per capita income, because of sporadic famines, endemic undernourishment, and destitution; let alone those hundreds of millions leading lives of never-ending vulnerability and want. This book is a collection of twenty six chapters in three volumes. There are ten chapters in this first volume. The book as a whole attempts to explore many of the vague phenomena as to the characteristics, causation, and possible antidotes of hunger in the contemporary world. By carrying out both analytical and empirical investigations, it dwells on the need for a broader perspective for better understanding of the reasons and remedies of hunger.

This chapter explores the fuzzy boundaries of who is an irregular migrant in China, and how the latent threat of being cast as irregular influences the lives of migrants. The shorthand for irregular migration in China is "three illegals” (san fei), which comprises unlawful entry, residence, and work. Drawing upon data about different groups of migrants in China, including traders, students, marriage migrants, and returnees, the chapter discusses how foreigners in China are continuously at risk of having their status changed from “legal” to “illegal”. This transition can result from national or local changes in law enforcement or from idiosyncratic events, such as residents reporting migrants in the wake of, for example, conflicts between migrant tenants and landlords or international students and university administrators. Policies and enforcement practices to regulate international migration in the People's Republic of China today build on past and current methods to control internal migration.

En suivant deux fils rouges, l’histoire des grandes révolutions de la physique au xxe siècle et l’abstraction progressive du concept de symétrie, de son usage ordinaire en géométrie à son application aux lois de la physique, cette leçon inaugurale aborde un des défis majeurs de la physique actuelle, celui de réconcilier la relativité d'Einstein et la mécanique quantique, théories amplement vérifiées empiriquement et pourtant incompatibles. C’est peut-être dans une symétrie immense, décrite en théorie des groupes par des groupes très particuliers, que réside la clé pour formuler cette théorie plus fondamentale de la gravitation, qui pourrait permettre la grande synthèse avec la mécanique quantique.

This paper looks at the contentious debate surrounding humanitarian intervention through a critical, narratological lens. By questioning the roles cast and identities constituted, in what could be compared to a theatrical drama, focus is given to the unreliable narration of the most powerful characters on the international stage – from the US to the UN – and its impact on the political and legal stances taken in various contexts. On a meta-level, it examines the conditions that enable this unreliable narration, by pointing out a problematic flexibility owing to the paradoxes and conflation entrenched in human rights rhetoric; what some call a budding ‘humanity’s law’. Attention is meant to be drawn to the power of mental imagery conjured up by intervention narratives, based on the story of saving innocents, as embodiments of humanity. The goal is to foster self-reflection among readers working in humanitarian intervention, within the epistemic community of international lawyers, and beyond. We extend our heartfelt thanks to the Vahabzadeh Foundation for financially supporting the publication of best works by young researchers of the Graduate Institute, giving a priority to those who have been awarded academic prizes for their master’s dissertations.

This book argues that Plato’s Republic must be understood as developing out of a 5th Century sophistic debate. In Part One the author presents a new analysis of the sophists and their extant texts addressing the important topics of justice and its value. This part shows that already in the 5th Century there was a robust debate about whether the just or unjust life was better for the self-interested individual, and that multiple sophistic authors made inventive and philosophically sophisticated arguments on both sides of this debate. The Moral Cynics argues that the intelligent individual was better off being unjust, whereas the Friends of Justice defended the idea that the just life was better for human beings. Part Two argues that Plato was very much aware of this debate and that in a number of dialogues—but most importantly in Republic—he engaged with this debate. The immoralist challenge that Glaucon and Adeimantus pose to Socrates early in Republic draws from the arguments of the 5th Century Moral Cynics and moreover identifies problems with the arguments of the 5th Century Friends of Justice. By having Socrates make an argument that overcomes the theoretical weaknesses of the earlier Friends of Justice, Plato is able to pose a new defence of justice that is more effective at responding to the Moral Cynics. The book’s analysis of Republic suggests new readings for certain important passages, such as the division of goods.

The antiphospholipid syndrome has been described for the first time by Graham Hughes in 1983 as a condition connected with thromboses or foetal losses and antiphospholipid antibodies presence. Form that time there has been a great progress in knowledge, including antiphospholipid antibodies characterisation, their probable and also possible action, clinical manifestations, laboratory detection and treatment possibilities . This book provides a wide spectrum of clinical manifestations through Chapters written by well known researchers and clinicians with a great practical experience in management of diagnostics or treatment of antiphospholipid antibodies' presence.

Intertwining biographical method and autobiography. Massimo Quaini had shown much interest in the ‘egogeography’ genre, practiced by different French geographers. The work traces back, on the basis of published and unpublished writings, some significant aspect of the intellectual personality of the Italian geographer. In particular, passages are presented in which he recalls his scientific and professional training and some letters that account for the highly critical positioning towards academic power, against the management of competitions based on personal relationships rather than on scientific merits (to the detriment of the discipline itself). Some original documents testify the interest in history and philosophy and the acceptance of historical materialism that has shaped his youth work and, more generally, founded his interpretation of geographical reality.

Knowledge Management (KM) as a multidisciplinary discipline has strong roots in Information Sciences (IS), which are sometimes overlooked by knowledge managers, while information scientists regard KM sometimes as a particular branch of the IS discipline. This chapter starts with a brief historical review of the common roots and overlapping areas of both disciplines. Main theoretical frameworks are presented, leading towards examples of current application areas of KM. The chapter concludes with an outlook on current challenges and future directions of research.

The brain functions within an internal environment that is determined and controlled by morphological structures and cellular mechanisms present at interfaces between the brain and the rest of the body. In vertebrates these interfaces are across cerebral blood vessels (blood-brain barrier) choroid plexuses (blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier) and pia-arachnoid. There is a CSF-brain barrier in the neuroepithelium lining the ventricular system that is only present in embryos. There is now substantial evidence that many brain barrier mechanisms develop early and that in some cases they are functionally more active and even more specialized compared to adult barriers. Therefore barriers in developing brain should be viewed as adapted appropriately for the growing brain and not, as is still widely believed, immature. Considerable advances in our understanding of these barrier mechanisms have come from studies of the developing brain and invertebrates. A striking aspect, to be highlighted in this special edition, is that many of the molecular mechanisms in these very diverse species are similar despite differences in the cellular composition of the interfaces. This Frontiers Topic comprises articles in three sections: Original studies, Reviews and Myths & Misconceptions. Original articles provide new information on molecular and cellular barrier mechanisms in developing brains of primates, including human embryos (Brøchner et al., Ek et al., Errede et al.), rodents (Bauer et al., Liddelow, Strazielle & Ghersi-Egea, Saunders et al., Whish et al.), chick (Bueno et al.) and zebrafish (Henson et al.) as well as studies in drosophila (Hindle & Bainton, De Salvo et al., Limmer et al.). The Reviews section includes evolutionary perspectives of the blood-brain and blood-CSF barriers (Bueno et al., Bill & Korzh). There are also detailed reviews of the current state of understanding of different interfaces and their functional mechanisms in developing brain (Bauer et al., Strazielle & Gjersi-Egea, Liddelow, Richardson et al., Errede et al., Henson et al., Brøchner et al.) and in invertebrates (Hindle & Bainton, De Salvo et al., Limmer et al). Different aspects of the relationship between properties of the internal environment of the brain and its development are discussed. (Stolp & Molnar, Johansson, Prasongchean et al.). A neglected area, namely barriers over the surface of the brain during development is also covered (Brøchner et al.). Clinically related perspectives on barrier disruption in neonatal stroke are provided by Kratzer et al. and other aspects of dysfunction by Morretti et al. and by Palmeta et al. on the continuing problem of bilirubin toxicity. Progress in this field is hampered by many prevailing myths about barrier function, combined with methodologies that are not always appropriately selected or interpreted. These are covered in the Misconceptions, Myths and Methods section, including historical aspects and discussion of the paracellular pathway, a central dogma of epithelial and endothelial biology (Saunders et al.) and a review of markers used to define brain barrier integrity in development and in pathological conditions (Saunders et al.). Use of inappropriate markers has caused considerable confusion and unreliable interpretation in many published studies. Torbett et al. deal with the complexities of the new field of applying proteomics to understanding blood-brain barrier properties as do Huntley at al. with respect to applying modern high throughput gene expression methods (Huntley et al.). The Editorial summarizes the contributions from all authors. This includes mention of some the main unanswered but answerable questions in the field and what the impediments to progress may be.

This book explains the concept of serological methods used in laboratory diagnoses of certain bacteria, mycoplasmas, viruses in humans, animals and plants, certain parasitic agents as well as autoimmune disease. The authors present up-to-date information concerning the serological methods in laboratory diagnosis of such infectious diseases. Section one deals with the serological methods for bacteria. Section 2 deals with serological methods in human, animal and plant viruses. Section 3 is concerned with the serological laboratory diagnosis of echinococcus and human toxocariasis agents. The last section deals with serological laboratory methods in the diagnosis of coeliac disease.

Intuitionen spielen sowohl in der Auseinandersetzung mit konkreten ethischen Problemen als auch bei der allgemeinen ethischen Urteilsbildung eine entscheidende Rolle. Melanie Werren bietet eine interdisziplinär angelegte Standortbestimmung der Forschung zu ethischen Intuitionen. Dabei geht es insbesondere um die Frage, wie ethische Intuitionen zustande kommen und wodurch sie beeinflusst werden. Des Weiteren entwickelt Werren eine Methode, die es erlaubt, ethische Intuitionen auf eine sinnvolle Art und Weise zu artikulieren. Diese Methode stellt sie anhand konkreter Fallerzählungen vor und überträgt sie anschließend auf das Forschungsfeld der Angewandten Ethik. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/