Open Access Books

The book tells the story of the sea-land continuum based on the case of the North Sea — one of the world’s most industrialised seas, in which the Netherlands plays a central role. The space of the North Sea is almost fully planned and has been loaded with the task of increased economic production from new and traditional maritime sectors. At the same time, it has been emptied of cultural signi ficance. Through diverse projects from academia, art, literature, and practice, from analysis to design, the book explores synergies for designing this new spatial realm. Port city expert Carola Hein, professor of the history of architecture & urban planning at Delft University of Technology, and Nancy Couling, associate professor at the Bergen School of Architecture and researcher of the urbanised sea, combine forces with interdisciplinary experts to guide the reader through this complex and fascinating topic. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7480/isbn.9789462085930

After its eclipse by the piano, the harpsichord survived primarily as a museum curiosity until the end of the nineteenth century. But early in the new century the player and builder Arnold Dolmetsch found a ready market for his harpsichords, clavichords, and virginals and an eager audience for his chamber concerts featuring these new/old instruments. In 1923 the incomparable Wanda Landowska made her American debut. This tiny woman, almost a cult figure, was to exert a powerful influence on the course of harpsichord playing for the next half century. Among her students were Putnam Aldrich, the harpsichord duo of Philip Manuel and Gavin Williamson, Alice Ehlers, and, for a short time, Ralph Kirkpatrick. Landowska's instrument was the heavy, durable Pleyel. As the harpsichord and authentic instrument revival progressed, American builders started to produce lighter instruments, and in recent years do-it-yourself builders have been buying harpsichord kits. Sylvia Marlowe is famous for playing jazz on the harpsichord, and in a reversal of past practice, harpsichordists are now borrowing the music of the piano and making it their own. The harpsichord has come a long way from the days when reviewers patronizingly described it as "quaint," "tinkling," or sounding like "a regiment of mice." It can be powerful and tender, dramatic and delicate, and in the minds of many, the only medium for the performance of early music.

Integrated river basin management is an approach focusing on the development and management of land and water resources in a coordinated manner with the primary aim to ensure society development, which is well balanced from the environmental, economic, and social points of view. It is a complex approach, including all aspects of water resource management (water and aquatic ecosystem protection, disaster management, and water use) and covering a wide range of disciplines (e.g., hydrology, ecology, environmental management, and economy), cross-cutting issues (climate change, data sharing, and stakeholder involvement), and approaches (river basin management plans preparation, water-food-energy-ecosystems nexus assessment, science-policy integration, and transboundary cooperation). This book provides a comprehensive overview of achievements and challenges associated with the implementation of the approach throughout the world.

Electrophoresis is a classic molecular biology technique. The basic idea is to separate molecules based on their sizes and charges. Coupled with other technologies, electrophoresis is applied in various research fields to suit different purposes. This book describes and discusses the applications of electrophoresis in various research fields, including single-cell technology, veterinary diagnosis, dental research, biodiversity study, and soil research.

One of the symptoms of cerebral palsy is muscle tone disorder hencethe disorder of facial muscles. The disorder of facial muscles is connected with the supranuclear damage to the so-called bulbar pathways, with involuntary movements of these muscles that continue beyond the period of physiological occurrence in the form of motor automatisms associated with eating. Therefore the tactile stimulation and massage of certain parts of the face, around the mouth, jaws, nose and cheeks, play such an important role in the rehabilitation of children with CP. It is important because facial muscles take part in the necessary movements of eating, taking bites and keeping them in the mouth in the right position. Those processes affect the development of masticatory organ (jaws and teeth) and take active part in the shaping of motor speech mechanisms and producing sounds of speech. The aim of the paper is to discuss tactile stimulation on the example of Elena Archipowa’s method.

Industrial / commercial art & design

The importance of woven fabrics increases constantly. Starting from traditional uses mainly in clothing applications, woven fabrics today are key materials for structural, electronic, telecommunications, medical, aerospace and other technical application fields. The new application fields of the woven fabrics is directly reflected in the contents of the book. A selected collection of papers in the technological state-of-the-art builds the book “Advances in Modern Woven Fabrics Technology”. It is written by internationally recognized specialists and pioneers of the particular fields. The chapters embrace technological areas with major importance, while maintaining a high scientific level. This interdisciplinary book will be useful for the textile family member as well as for the experts of the related engineering fields. The open access character of the book will allow a worldwide and direct access to its contents, supporting the members of the academic and industrial community.

Esta obra pretende refletir sobre o Brasil que queremos em um horizonte de vinte anos. Comprometido com a efetivação do SUS e a melhoria da saúde pública brasileira, o livro discute temas como projeções do perfil epidemiológico do país, organização e gestão dos serviços de saúde. Para identificar tendências, construir indicadores e intervir na realidade, os autores utilizam as ferramentas da prospecção estratégica. “Prospectar o futuro é ter um programa de ação. É criar elementos para a articulação e indução de políticas econômicas e sociais, no interesse do desenvolvimento com equidade, fomentando o acesso e a inclusão de camadas excluídas, expandindo e assegurando direitos sociais às significativas parcelas da população que permanecem marginalizadas”, explicam os organizadores. “Tomando a realidade atual como ponto de partida e a materialização das aspirações como ponto de chegada, torna-se possível projetar futuros favoráveis ao desenvolvimento econômico e social, dos quais faz parte um patamar mais elevado de gasto público em saúde, compatível com a universalização do acesso, há tanto anunciada”. O livro integra um conjunto de publicações resultantes da iniciativa Brasil Saúde Amanhã, rede multidisciplinar de pesquisa, coordenada pela Fiocruz, com apoio do Ministério da Saúde.

At present, the impact of distributed energy resources in the operation of power and energy systems is unquestionable at the distribution level, but also at the whole power system management level. Increased flexibility is required to accommodate intermittent distributed generation and electric vehicle charging. Demand response has already been proven to have a great potential to contribute to an increased system efficiency while bringing additional benefits, especially to the consumers. Distributed storage is also promising, e.g., when jointly used with the currently increasing use of photovoltaic panels. This book addresses the management of distributed energy resources. The focus includes methods and techniques to achieve an optimized operation, to aggregate the resources, namely, by virtual power players, and to remunerate them. The integration of distributed resources in electricity markets is also addressed as a main drive for their efficient use.

In the modern era, not only do objects themselves multiply seemingly effortlessly, but so do their design forms. In a sociological reexamination of European design history from the Renaissance to the Bauhaus, this book reconstructs this process as a multifaceted enhancement of the aesthetic value of form. The luxury economy of early modern courts and cities separates the forms of objects from their artisanal execution, concentrating and enhancing them. The market society that emerged in the 18th century ruthlessly exploits this abundance. The resulting loss of a central aesthetic authority sparks a debate over form. Through three case studies, the book examines the aesthetic resources that emerged from this: the musealization of material heritage, the invention of craftsmanship, and the enchantment of technology. ›Modernity‹ thus appears as an aesthetic dynamic of intensification, driven by ever-new revaluations of the value of form.

The Return of Malthus is the first comprehensive analysis of the post-war fear of scarcity. Linnér traces the development of an international discourse of crisis through the influence of such thinkers as William Vogt, Fairfield Osborn and Georg Börgström, labelled ‘neo-Malthusians’ for their emphasis on an impending clash between population growth and resource limits, after the manner of the nineteenth-century father of scarcity economics. The book analyses the role of science and technology in securing food supply, the transmutation of older ideas about preserving nature into a new conservation ideology based on sustainable use, and the preoccupation of the industrialised nations with forestalling communism and controlling power relations. First published by The White Horse Press in 2003. Even more relevant today, this revised edition charts perceptions of and prescriptions for crises of population growth and resource shortage, which have had profound influence on agricultural, population and security policies from the Second World War to the present.

Efforts to reform the U.S. campaign finance system typically focus on the corrupting influence of large contributions. Yet, as Raymond J. La Raja and Brian F. Schaffner argue, reforms aimed at cutting the flow of money into politics have unintentionally favored candidates with extreme ideological agendas and, consequently, fostered political polarization. Drawing on data from 50 states and the U.S. Congress over 20 years, La Raja and Schaffner reveal that current rules allow wealthy ideological groups and donors to dominate the financing of political campaigns. In order to attract funding, candidates take uncompromising positions on key issues and, if elected, take their partisan views into the legislature. As a remedy, the authors propose that additional campaign money be channeled through party organizations—rather than directly to candidates—because these organizations tend to be less ideological than the activists who now provide the lion’s share of money to political candidates. Shifting campaign finance to parties would ease polarization by reducing the influence of “purist” donors with their rigid policy stances. La Raja and Schaffner conclude the book with policy recommendations for campaign finance in the United States. They are among the few non-libertarians who argue that less regulation, particularly for political parties, may in fact improve the democratic process.

Fermentation is a theme widely useful for food, feed and biofuel production. Indeed each of these areas, food industry, animal nutrition and energy production, has considerable presence in the global market. Fermentation process also has relevant applications on medical and pharmaceutical areas, such as antibiotics production. The present book, Fermentation Processes, reflects that wide value of fermentation in related areas. It holds a total of 14 chapters over diverse areas of fermentation research.

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) can be considered as a clustering of several risk factors such as obesity, hypertension, insulin resistance and dyslipidemia, which could lead to the development of diabetes and cardiovascular diseases (CVD). There are several underlying causes for MetS including overweight, physical inactivity and genetic factors. However, the underlying mechanisms that leads to MetS are still poorly understood. Therefore, the aim of this E-book is to provide a space where researchers holding different backgrounds could shed some light onto the pathophysiology of different risk factors involved in MetS, mostly from translational research worldwide.

In these harsh lands inhabited by the silence of humble fragments, architectural design ties both history and life together, revealing the essential features of the place. The book proposes a journey within abandonment between Architecture and ruins: it reinterprets the pioneering research of Aldo Rossi; it explores, together with Gianandrea Gazzola, the labyrinths of meaning between Art and ruin; it investigates the projects of Colletta di Castelbianco by Giancarlo De Carlo and the houses in the Canton of Ticino by Buchner Bründler; and finally, it traces an itinerary of contamination between anonymous architecture and architectural languages in the Mediterranean. It is within these horizons that the Design and Research Laboratory of the Florence School of Architecture reveals the deep soul and redesigns a new life for the abandoned villages of Castiglioncello di Firenzuola (FI) and Campo di Brenzone (VR).