Open Access Books

Epigenetics is changing the way we think about disease. It helps explain how the same DNA can lead to very different outcomes, and how inflammation, metabolism, environmental exposures, and lifestyle can leave lasting effects on gene activity without altering the genetic code. This edited volume offers a concise, connected overview of key epigenetic processes such as DNA methylation, histone modifications, chromatin remodeling, and non-coding RNAs, and shows how they shape immune imbalance, tissue remodeling, vascular and organ aging, host–pathogen interactions, and cancer behavior, including progression and treatment response. Rather than treating each condition in isolation, the book highlights shared regulatory principles and the “rules” that govern epigenetic plasticity across systems. The result is a practical guide to the language of chromatin in health and disease, with clear value for researchers, clinicians, and advanced students seeking a reliable framework for interpreting complex phenotypes and understanding why epigenetic mechanisms have become central to biomarker development, patient stratification, and epigenome-informed therapeutic strategies.

Why the British fantasy comedy TV show »Good Omens« – co-produced by the BBC and Amazon Prime – has become such a hit is not at all »ineffable«. The series, based on the beloved novel by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, follows the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley in their attempts to prevent the Apocalypse and save humanity from both ›above‹ and ›below‹, while slowly falling for each other. »Good Omens’« unique blend of humor, fantasy, and biblical themes has captivated audiences. The lead performances by Michael Sheen (Aziraphale) and David Tennant (Crowley) have been particularly praised for their chemistry and ability to bring these iconic characters to life. The series has also been lauded for its clever writing, stunning visual effects, intricate costumes and set-design, and its exploration of profound themes such as free will, good vs. evil, friendship, the meaning of life, and the very nature of existence. Because of its subversive humor, the constant transgression of societal norms as well as its pointed intertextual references to popular culture, literature, and history, »Good Omens« gained a strong and dedicated fan-following, which centers around Aziraphale and Crowley. The contributions of this volume from literary, cultural, media, film, and television studies as well as related disciplines are concerned with a broad variety of aspects of this thought-provoking series regarding mythology, intertextuality, gender, and fandom in particular.

Die Softwareentwicklung benötigt ständig Domänenmodelle: beim Erheben der Anforderungen, beim Design, bei der Implementierung, beim Testen, bei der Dokumentation und bei der Wartung. Dennoch ist das Erstellen dieser Modelle immer noch ein kreativer Akt - mit allen Vor- und vor allem Nachteilen. Dieses Buch stellt ein auf thematischen Rollen basierendes Verfahren vor, mit dem man auf analytischem Weg von natürlichsprachlichen Texten zu Domänenmodellen kommt.

Intellectual property, trade, human rights and access to medicines in Africa: A reader by Atangcho N Akonumbo explores the current debates and conflicts pertaining to intellectual property (IP), trade and access to medicines in Africa as a public health issue, in a public health context. The Reader has a broad focus running across fourteen chapters. It examines the complex web of access to medicines, while introducing major concepts pertaining to access to medicines such as IP, trade, medicine and human rights, and provides a historical overview of the nexus between IP and human rights. It establishes the link between human rights, IP and access to medicines within the context of developing countries broadly and Africa in particular. The Reader discusses key flexibilities within the international IP framework championed by the TRIPS Agreement to enhance access to medicines, including compulsory licensing and parallel importation, while addressing impediments therein which provoked the Doha Declaration and arrangements thereafter. Also, it examines issues such as the implications of data exclusivity and linkage techniques; the role of anti-counterfeiting and competition laws in checking the effect of IP regimes; current threats to access to medicines at the international, regional and national levels such as the influence of regional or bilateral trade agreements; and research and development in respect of medicines for neglected and (re)emerging infectious diseases. It discusses the contributions of naturopathic and traditional medicines as parallel and complementary systems to modern medicine in the access to medicines landscape in the African context. The Reader further addresses the implications of the difficulty of access to medicines for women, children and other social minorities such as disabled persons and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) persons. This Reader comes at a critical time, and potentially, a turning point in the history of public health crisis in Africa – when concerns about access to medicines have been heightened in the face of (re)emerging diseases and today the Covid-19 pandemic – a situation which has revealed gross lapses in public health governance. It is written in a simple language, making its content accessible to a wide audience. It contains informative and useful graphs, text boxes and illustrative excerpts from various primary and secondary sources. The Reader is likely to become an invaluable tool for a wide range of persons and institutions, including academics, students, legal practitioners, health professionals, drug procurement agencies, civil society organisations and the public at large, involved or interested in the access to medicines discourse.

“The Ladies on the Hill” is dedicated to the Benedictine monastery of St. George in Prague and the women's community alongside the Augustinian canons in Klosterneuburg. The volume discusses the rich heritage of these women's monasteries from historical, art historical, and music historical perspectives. The beginnings of dynastic family formation in the European Middle Ages were often linked to the founding of women's monasteries. This alone reveals the great political, social, and religious significance of the monasteries for the self-image of families, but also for the intergenerational anchoring of power and influence in space. Nevertheless, many of the once influential women's communities have remained largely unstudied to this day. This is particularly true of the oldest monastery in Bohemia, the Benedictine monastery of St. George in Prague, which existed for over 1,000 years. But the Klosterneuburg women's community alongside the Augustinian canons was also unjustly forgotten after its dissolution in 1568.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) plays a pivotal role in enabling and managing smart grids, which are modernized electrical grids that leverage digital technologies for enhanced efficiency, reliability, and sustainability. ICT serves as the backbone of smart grids, enabling efficient, reliable, and sustainable electricity delivery while supporting the integration of renewable energy sources and promoting active consumer participation in grid operations. The current book treats different aspects of ICT in smart grids. The use of renewable energy sources is the core element of a sustainable energy infrastructure. Therefore, different chapters focus on microgrids. Furthermore, the book presents use cases for the use of microgrids in special environments, such as educational buildings, rural areas, and the housing industries. The Internet of Things (IoT) represents the paradigm to model any intelligent or smart system. In such IoT system, functionalities are organized in overlaid layers, therefore, it is called a “layered model” with a hierarchical structure. The bottom layer covers the nationwide dispatched energy infrastructure. The upper layer can be represented through either the service layer applications or business layers. The book describes and analyzes technologies and solutions for the data layer as well as the communications/networking level.

Metaphor in medieval times is often understood from the perspective of rhetoric or semantics. This collective work draws on philosophy, theology, mysticism and poetics to rethink the notion of metaphor by testing a new definition that calls on pragmatics. Using the "spiritual exercise" expression, the common thread of the entire work, the contributors analyze the use of metaphor in medieval texts as a pedagogical or therapeutic tool, or even as a weapon of conversion, aimed at changing, in oneself and in others, the way of living or seeing the world. The whole opens up a more general reflection on the articulation between readings of texts and practices of the self.

Starting from a transgeneric and transregional approach, Isabel Schröder’s monograph is devoted to African prison literature. The study brings into view the female voices that are often neglected in the reception of the genre and demonstrates their diversity. For the first time, the work brings together numerous English- and French-language texts from different regions of Africa and provides a detailed analysis of six texts by African women authors from Eritrea, Cameroon, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, and Zimbabwe, published between 1970 and 2015. Both personal testimonies of prisoners and fictional novels depicting life in prison are examined. This research approach is of particular interest because both types of texts fulfill testimonial functions while simultaneously employing strategies of fictional narration. Despite the very different historical-political and cultural contexts of the prison texts, they often share a common feature: on the thematic level, they express criticism of political and social conditions and appeal to a moral community. This criticism is frequently gender-specific; however, it can only be conceived and understood in relation to other categories of difference, which is why the analysis consistently follows an intersectional approach. The prison space itself is understood as a “heterotopia” in the sense of Michel Foucault—a space that enables prisoners, among other things, to perceive, question, and in some cases subvert social structures in different ways. In this manner, a critical perspective emerges on the impenetrability and closed nature of the prison, one that probes the boundaries of literature and power.

Family Therapy - Recent Advances in Clinical and Crisis Settings explores the processes and practices of family systems therapy as conducted in humanitarian situations across the globe. It provides readers with a comprehensive overview of the current state-of-the-art, innovative advances in family counselling and psychotherapies for families and couples in humanitarian crises, conflicts, and disasters. It also reviews recent advances in strengths-based therapies and contemporary models such as solution-focused, narrative, and conversational therapies for family relationships. It is a useful resource for a wide range of readers, including professionals, clients and patients, policymakers, decision-makers in healthcare delivery, and representatives of public and private health insurance schemes.

Promoting Citizenship and Preventing Statelessness in South Africa: A Practitioner's Guide Edited by Lawyers for Human Rights 2014 ISSN: 978-1-920538-30-9 Pages: 152 Print version: Available Electronic version: Free PDF available

Né en 1709 et mort en 1783, Charles Collé est au cœur de la production littéraire et critique du xviiie siècle. Chansonnier, membre du Caveau, homme de théâtre et auteur d'un Journal rédigé de 1748 à 1772 qui est une mine d'informations, il se met à écrire des pièces de circonstance pour la famille de son protecteur M. de Meulan, avant de devenir le fournisseur attitré des divertissements du duc d'Orléans (à Paris, Bagnolet et Villers-Cotterêts) et, à un moindre titre, de ceux du comte de Clermont (à Berny). Son statut d'auteur de société ne l'empêche pas de viser une reconnaissance littéraire : l'amuseur renommé pour ses chansons et sa veine amphigourique, le faiseur de parades et de tragédies burlesques est aussi l'auteur de La Veuve ou Dupuis et Desrosnais, des comédies proches du genre sérieux, et de La Partie de chasse de Henri IV, jouée en société puis en province avant d'être tardivement autorisée à la Comédie-Française. Cet ouvrage collectif explore pour la première fois l'ensemble de l'œuvre de Collé imprimée et manuscrite (chansons, pièces de théâtre de tout genre, journal et correspondance), ce qui permet de réévaluer sa place dans la République des Lettres, ses relations avec ses contemporains chansonniers, dramaturges, auteurs appointés ou indépendants, commanditaires ou acteurs, et d'expliciter un certain nombre de ses jugements esthétiques. Comme témoin de la vie littéraire de son époque, comme dramaturge de société qui réfléchit à sa condition d'homme de lettres et comme spécialiste des formes comiques et des petits genres, Collé est un auteur à redécouvrir.

Inclusive business as a model at the base of the pyramid is a relatively recent area of study. From an institutional perspective, companies are influenced by norms, processes, and moral and ethical standards, which have not been extensively examined in the development of inclusive business models involving agricultural cooperatives. This research aims to identify institutions that can contribute to the development of inclusive agribusiness models. The study focuses on banana-producing agricultural cooperatives in Magdalena, Colombia, as the unit of analysis to identify such institutions. The methodological approach involves a multiple-case study (six banana cooperatives) with a single unit of analysis, applying a deductive approach to review institutional factors. The findings reveal that both formal institutions (such as certifications, quality standards, social responsibility policies, and incentives) and informal institutions (including cooperation, quality-of-life improvement, and social capital generation) promote the development of inclusive businesses within cooperatives at the base of the pyramid. This study serves as a foundational step for potential replication in other agricultural industries and economic sectors.

Modern permanent magnets are important for many industries and technologies. New developments in processing techniques, materials, and methods used to produce different types of modern permanent magnets are very useful for devices and industrial applications. This book presents an overview of available permanent magnets and recent developments in modern magnets. Chapters address such topics as light–matter interaction in 2D magnets, the environmental impact of permanent magnets, and advances in nanocrystalline permanent magnets. This book is a valuable resource for undergraduate and graduate students as well as professionals like engineers, scientists, researchers, technicians, and technology managers.

Iodine, a key component of thyroid hormones, is considered an essential micronutrient for proper health at all life stages. Indeed, an inadequate dietary intake of iodine is responsible for several functional and developmental abnormalities. The most serious consequences of iodine deficiency include hypothyroidism, early abortion, low birth weight, preterm delivery, neurocognitive impairment, and mental retardation. On the other hand, the consequences of mild-to-moderate iodine deficiency, such as goiter, are less well understood but represent an important priority for research and public health practice. Over the last several decades, many countries across the globe have introduced mandatory salt iodization programs, which have dramatically reduced the number of iodine-deficient countries. However, despite substantial progress worldwide, mild-to-moderate deficiency is still prevalent even in many developed countries. Thus, the ongoing monitoring of the population iodine status remains crucially important, and attention may need to be paid to vulnerable life stage groups.