Open Access Books

This Element outlines the origins and evolution of an international award-winning development intervention, index-based livestock insurance (IBLI), which scaled from a small pilot project in Kenya to a design that underpins drought risk management products and policies across Africa. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Premio Gaspara Stampa 2026 How can we appropriately describe Giovan Battista Marino’s very complex and ambiguous poetics? Torn between strong modernity claims on the one hand and literary tradition as its original starting point on the other, it resists simplistic classifications such as rupture versus continuity. We can in fact identify various convergences, divergences, and hybridizations between literary past and present, which clearly shows us that even an apparently revolutionary poetics such as Marino’s can only really be understood in light of its historical context. More specifically, this study demonstrates that three highly productive spheres of critical debate in sixteenth-century Italy (the sacred and secular rhetoric, as well as the controversy over tragicomedy) deeply influenced and formed Marino’s poetics.

Capital Redefined presents a unique perspective on the nature of “capital,” departing from the prevailing reductionist accounts. Hosseini and Gills offer an expanded perspective on Marxian value theory by addressing its main limitations and building their own integrative value theory. They argue that the current understanding of “value” must be re-examined and liberated from its subservient ties to capital while acknowledging the ways in which capital appropriates value. This is achieved by differentiating between “fetish value” created by capital and “true value” generated through various commons-based forms of coexistence. The authors propose a defetishization of value by rejecting the commonly accepted idea of its objectivity. They introduce their “commonist value theory,” which redefines capital as both the product and process of perverting the fundamental commoning causes of true value into sources of fetish value. Capital is theorized through a “modular” framework, where multiple intersecting processes constitute a comprehensive power structure, a “value regime,” representing an unprecedented degree of the domination of capital over life. Their theory reconciles two apparently incompatible views on the notion of value. One view encompasses all inputs involved in capitalist value production and conflates intrinsic and commodity values. The other warns against this conflation as it treats capital as an entity tightly associated only with commodity production and wage labor. The authors believe that establishing alternative forms of value creation based on normative principles of living in commons is crucial as an analytical base for criticizing existing power structures and economic systems. The book offers a theoretical foundation for transforming our life worlds toward “post-capitalist” futures. It appeals to scholars and students in various fields, such as political economy, capitalism, and post-capitalist studies, economic and political sociology, globalization, development studies, social ecology, and ecological philosophy.

El 18 de octubre de 2019 los chilenos abrieron otro capítulo de una larga lucha que prometieron llevar hasta que la dignidad se haga costumbre. Este volumen colectivo que conjuga palabra escrita, imagen y poesía se inscribe en un intento por tratar de documentar, visibilizar y analizar las dimensiones no solo políticas, sino también expresivas, creativas y profundamente subjetivas de dicho estallido ciudadano, social y democrático. Sus capítulos componen una polifonía de voces que asumen el desafío de escribir sobre la revuelta del 18-O desde diferentes perspectivas y posiciones disciplinares. Abordando múltiples expresiones, que van desde la participación de jóvenes y mujeres, el rol de las redes sociales y las prácticas artivistas, hasta la inclusión de una historieta, fotografías y un poemario que emergieron al calor de la revuelta, este libro se configura como un genuino artefacto cultural.

Die Last-Zeit-Funktion beim Aufprall von Aluminiumstoßkörpern, deren Geometrie- und Steifigkeitsverteilung an eine Passagiermaschine angepasst waren, wurde in experimentellen Untersuchungen auf Basis von unabhängigen Messsystemen und Hochgeschwindigkeitsaufnahmen für verschiedene Füllgrade des implementierten Tankes bestimmt.Ein numerisches Simulationsmodell zur Abbildung des Aufpralls sowie die Bestimmung der Last-Zeit-Funktion mit analytischen Berechnungsmodellen werden dargestellt.

Nowadays, Chromatography is the most versatile and widespread technique employed in modern chemical analysis and plays a vital role in the advancement of chemistry, biology, medicine and related fields of research. Because of the inherent simplicity and ease of operation, it can be used together with a wide range of detection systems, including electrochemical, photometric and mass spectrometry, being an invaluable laboratory tool for the separation and identification of compounds. The purpose of this book is not only to present the latest state and development tendencies of chromatography, but to bring the reader useful information on separation sciences to enable him to use chromatography on his research field. Taking into account the large amount of knowledge about chromatography theory and practice presented in the book, it has three major parts: applications, theory and sample preparation. The book is also intended for both graduate and postgraduate students in fields such as chemistry, biology, biotechnology, forensic, medicine, pharmacology and engineering, and as a reference for professionals and practitioners.

Die Studie untersucht vor dem Hintergrund der Menschenrechtsfrage die Gewaltpolitik der Kolonialmächte Großbritannien und Frankreich während des Mau-Mau-Kriegs in Kenia (1952 bis 1959) und des Algerienkrieges (1954 bis 1962). Die Radikalisierung kolonialer Gewalt wird dabei insbesondere anhand des kolonialen Ausnahmezustandes und der "antisubversiven Militärstrategie" vergleichend dargestellt. Die Verteidigung der kolonialen Herrschaft stand der universellen Ausbreitung der Menschenrechte diametral entgegen und das internationale Menschenrechtsregime wurde durch den Widerstand der Kolonialmächte bis zum Abschluss der Dekolonisation gelähmt. Methodisch betritt Fabian Klose Neuland, indem er zwei bisher weitgehend getrennte Forschungsfelder, nämlich den internationalen Menschenrechtsdiskurs und den Prozess der Dekolonisation, zum ersten Mal miteinander verbindet und die wechselseitigen Auswirkungen beider Entwicklungen aufeinander untersucht. Das Werk steht methodisch somit an der Schnittstelle einer modernen politischen Ideengeschichte und einer vergleichenden ereignisgeschichtlichen Studie der Dekolonisierungskriege und kolonialer Notstandsregime. Der Autor stützt sich auf bisher nicht zugängliches, neu erschlossenes Archivmaterial aus einer Reihe internationaler Archive wie das des Internationalen Komitees vom Roten Kreuz und der Menschenrechtskommission der Vereinten Nationen.

Self-directed learning is perhaps the Holy Grail of adult learning and for good reason. Within this seemingly simple phrase lies the battleground for the frustrations of both educator and learner as they work through the difficulties of an unequal and sometimes intense partnership

This book examines the state of print and electronic media in the United States of America, Europe, and China. The latest mass communication advances demonstrate that we live in an increasingly media-centric world. The chapters include theoretical and empirical studies that shed light on the meaning of this development. The trajectory of people’s move to electronic communication is a global phenomenon affecting their daily life. Does this trend aid or impede democracy? Is there an emerging digital divide contributing to an increasing gap between the rich and poor people and nations? The four parts of this book explore various aspects of political socialization and its relationship with different media, including print, broadcasting, and the Internet.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence and edited by a leading expert, this is an important book for anyone seeking to understand one of today’s most significant determinants of health. How has austerity impacted on health and wellbeing in the UK? Health in Hard Times explores its repercussions for social inequalities in health. The result of five years of research, the book draws on a case study of Stockton-on-Tees in the north-east of England, home to some of the starkest health divides. By placing individual and local experiences in the context of national budget cuts and welfare reforms, it provides a holistic perspective on countrywide inequalities.

This book assembles contributions dealing with language contact and areal linguistics. The goal of the book is to investigate linguistic convergence in Europe with a strong focus on the languages of Eastern Central Europe which show many remarkable similarities. The focus is put on a methodical and empirical component in the investigation of two or more languages in the context of possible language contact phenomena. Languages of Eastern Central Europe and adjacent parts of Europe use a considerable amount of common vocabulary due to the transfer of loanwords during a long period of cultural contact. But they also share several grammatical features—phonological, morphological and syntactic ones. This book tackles lexical and grammatical phenomena in language contact situations. The authors take up diachronic, synchronic and language acquisitional perspectives, and discuss methodological problems for the field.

The history of reflection on language is characterized by a singular ambiguity. For centuries, it has been carried on as if the existence of language and the cognitive-narrative capacities which derive from it were independently considered from the function that, on the other hand, founds and characterizes it, namely listening. We believe that the reason for this strangeness lies in the fact that there is no possible discourse on listening that does not lead to a discourse on the body, especially focusing on the body discourse of one's mother and her voice. On the contrary, this contribution aims to show that, in order to understand our history as talking and storytelling animals, it is important to reconstruct the specific journey that - in the course of both our phylogenesis and ontogenesis - the ear makes. It is, in fact, an organ already active in utero and on which, during our evolution, depends on both the emergence of the articulate voice and the bipedalism as well, as the posture par excellence of narration.

Since the discovery of X rays by Roentgen in 1895, the ionizing radiation has been extensively utilized in a variety of medical and industrial applications. However people have shortly recognized its harmful aspects through inadvertent uses. Subsequently people experienced nuclear power plant accidents in Chernobyl and Fukushima, which taught us that the risk of ionizing radiation is closely and seriously involved in the modern society. In this circumstance, it becomes increasingly important that more scientists, engineers and students get familiar with ionizing radiation research regardless of the research field they are working. Based on this idea, the book "Current Topics in Ionizing Radiation Research" was designed to overview the recent achievements in ionizing radiation research including biological effects, medical uses and principles of radiation measurement.

Published

This open access book explores a new conceptual framework for the sustainable management of the boreal forest in the face of climate change. The boreal forest is the second-largest terrestrial biome on Earth and covers a 14 million km2 belt, representing about 25% of the Earth’s forest area. Two-thirds of this forest biome is managed and supplies 37% of global wood production. These forests also provide a range of natural resources and ecosystem services essential to humanity. However, climate change is altering species distributions, natural disturbance regimes, and forest ecosystem structure and functioning. Although sustainable management is the main goal across the boreal biome, a novel framework is required to adapt forest strategies and practices to climate change. This collaborative effort draws upon 148 authors in summarizing the sustainable management of these forests and detailing the most recent experimental and observational results collected from across the boreal biome. It presents the state of sustainable management in boreal forests and highlights the critical importance of this biome in a context of global change because of these forests' key role in a range of natural processes, including carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling, and the maintaining of biodiversity. This book is an essential read for academics, students, and practitioners involved in boreal forest management. It outlines the challenges facing sustainable boreal forest management within the context of climate change and serves as a basis for establishing new research avenues, identifying future research trends, and developing climate-adapted forest management plans.