Open Access Books

This reprint, as a continuation of a previous Special Issue entitled “Efficiency and Optimization of Buildings Energy Consumption”, gives an up-to-date overview of new technologies based on Machine Learning (ML) and Internet of Things (IoT) procedures to improve the mathematical approach of algorithms that allow control systems to be improved with the aim of reducing housing sector energy consumption.

"Cohousing and cooperative building offer new solutions to contemporary housing challenges. For years, building collectives and housing projects in many countries have gained experience in cooperative planning, developed new forms of housing, and experimented with unconventional forms of communal housing. Housing initiatives, in particular, make use of cooperative planning processes, non-profit oriented management, and collective responsibility in developing and implementing new forms of cohousing. This publication seeks to show how niches within the capitalist system can be utilized and what alternative approaches exist. For this reason, in addition to contributions on the topics of housing and building, contributions relating to commons, solidarity economies, property, decommodification, and alternative funding methods are also included. This publication arose within a TU Wien fellowship on the topic of „New Social Housing“."

The Netherlands is the only country in the world in which euthanasia, under narrow-defined circumstances, is legally permissible. Considerable attention has been paid over a number of years to the problem of regulating it and information has been systematically collected concerning actual practice. Therefore the Dutch experience is of interest not only to the Dutch, but to anyone who is considering wether or not to make euthanasia a legal practice. This book is written for a reader without specific knowledge of law. The central focus of the book is on Dutch law pertaining to euthanansia, but it also considers the moral and legal principles that have played a role in the Dutch debate, the available evidence bearing on actual practice and on the effectiveness of legal control. It ends with some reflections on the problem of the 'slippery slope' and the question whether the Dutch experience is 'exportable'. It includes translations of the relevant legislation (including proposed reforms) and of three leading cases. This title is available in the OAPEN Library - http://www.oapen.org.

To mark 150 years of being ‘Open to the World’ Ca’ Foscari invited students to write about their mobility experiences abroad, and to focus on a learning experience – not necessarily a formal one. More than a hundred students participated. This volume brings together the winning accounts and all the short and long listed entries. As well as illuminating the significance of the mobility experience to students’ personal development and celebrating fundamental human values of tolerance, friendship, and hospitality, they reveal a great well of creative resources in the use of English as a lingua franca.

Published

This volume collects papers on pragmatic perspectives on ancient theatre. Scholars working on literature, linguistics, theatre will find interesting insights on verbal and non-verbal uses of language in ancient Greek and Roman Drama. Comedies and tragedies spanning from the 5th century B.C.E. to the 1st century C.E. are investigated in terms of im/politeness, theory of mind, interpersonal pragmatics, body language, to name some of the approaches which afford new interpretations of difficult textual passages or shed new light into nuances of characterisation, or possibilities of performance. Words, silence, gestures, do things, all the more so in dramatic dialogues on stage. Readership: Academics and advanced students interested in ancient Greek and Roman drama, historical pragmatics, drama and performance, linguistics, narratology, literary interpretation of dramatic genres.

Tożsamość konstytucyjna jako pojęcie pojawiło się w doktrynie prawa w kontekście relacji prawa krajowego i unijnego, w szczególności po wprowadzeniu Traktatem z Maastricht do postanowień Traktatu o UE przepisu, zgodnie z którym „Unia szanuje tożsamość narodową państw członkowskich”1. Punktem wyjścia do rozważań doktrynalnych było zatem pojęcie „tożsamości narodowej” wyrażone expressis verbis w TUE. Od samego początku jego niejasny sens budził wątpliwości interpretacyjne co do skuteczności w zakresie ochrony uprawnień państw członkowskich przed nieuprawnioną ingerencją Unii. W artykule postawiono pytanie czy możliwe jest stworzenie zamkniętego katalogu zasad tworzących swoiste „jądro konstytucyjne”. Każde państwo kładzie bowiem nacisk na inne elementy, które stanowią o jego tożsamości konstytucyjnej podlegającej szczególnej ochronie. Wspólną cechą wypowiedzi sądów konstytucyjnych jest odwoływanie się do wspólnych wartości „łączących” jednostki w naród, takich jak język, kultura, wspólna historia czy tradycja, przesądzających o istnieniu jedności kulturowej i przynależności państwowej, po szerszy aspekt odnoszący się do obowiązku respektowania przez Unię ciągłości egzystencji państw członkowskich jako suwerennych podmiotów. Zasadne jest zatem pytanie, czy pojęcie to podlega ewolucji, jest dynamiczne, „żywe”, czy też jako mające zakotwiczenie w Konstytucji jest stałe i wymaga jedynie wyinterpretowania. Wreszcie czy tylko Konstytucja jest rezerwuarem wartości tworzących tożsamość konstytucyjną, czy jej elementy należałoby wywodzić z innych aktów, historycznie wcześniejszych. Podejmując próbę określenia katalogu zasad, trzeba dodatkowo wziąć pod uwagę fakt, że w odczuciu społecznym pojęcie tożsamości państwowej, konstytucyjnej czy narodowej może być rozumiane w różny sposób, w zależności od wyznawanych wartości i poglądów, wiary, wyrażanego światopoglądu, stosunku człowieka do otaczającego go świata, potrzeb, oczekiwań, wychowania czy przekonań, dlatego też trudno byłoby jednoznacznie uchwycić to, co jest w równym stopniu istotne dla wszystkich jednostek tworzących określoną społeczność czy naród. Część społeczeństwa tożsamość konstytucyjną utożsamiać będzie przede wszystkim z ładem i porządkiem prawnym, ideą demokratycznego państwa, respektowaniem zasad niedyskryminacji, ochroną praw podstawowych, poszanowaniem praw mniejszości i przestrzeganiem zasad praworządności. Z kolei dla części społeczeństwa kluczowe będą te wartości, które odnoszą się do tradycji kultury, dziedzictwa narodowego i kulturowego, historii, religii czy wyznania. Spór o wartości z góry wydaje się nierozwiązywalny.

As a reflection of a terroir and a landscape, as an emblem of a region, a nation or a civilisation, wine also facilitates a connection between cultural dimensions that we are used to discriminating in our everyday representations (human/divine, human/animal, noble/common, beautiful/monstruous, natural/artificial). It is thus a vector of alterity, an invitation to go towards the other, to modify or alter one's vision of the world, to cross not only regional and national borders, but also the threshold between the profane and the sacred. It was therefore essential to combine the thoughts of wine professionals with those of researchers from many areas of the human sciences, from history to economics, linguistics, semiotics, communication sciences and literary criticism. Reflet d'un terroir et d’un paysage, emblème d’une région, d’une nation ou d’une civilisation, le vin facilite aussi le rapprochement entre des dimensions culturelles que nous sommes habitués à distinguer dans nos représentations ordinaires (humain/divin, humain/animal, noble/vulgaire, beau/monstrueux, naturel/artificiel). Il est ainsi vecteur d’altérité, il invite à aller vers l’autre, à modifier ou altérer sa vision du monde, à franchir non seulement les frontières régionales et nationales, mais également le seuil séparant le profane du sacré. Il était donc indispensable d’associer les réflexions de professionnels spécialistes du vin à celles de chercheurs issus de nombreux secteurs des sciences humaines, de l’histoire à l’économie en passant par la linguistique, la sémiotique, les sciences de l’information et de la communication ou encore la critique littéraire.

La presentación de varias antologías por áreas en ocasión de los cuarenta años de trabajo del Centro de Estudios de Asia y África de El Colegio de México, pretende mostrar una parte esencial del esfuerzo realizado en esas décadas, al poner en manos del lector interesado un producto que sobrepase el mero simbolismo recopilador y se convierta en un aporte modesto y vigente para el ímpetu instructivo-educativo.

How and why did students at Kabul University engage in political activism or refrained from it between 1964 and 1992? Based on oral history interviews with former students, this book reveals how they – as many others around the world at the same time – were galvanized by and disappointed with promises of progress dominating local and international politics. During the 1960s, the international influences on campus encouraged students’ engagement with competing political ideologies. Collective student protest against the monarchy turned into hostilities between opposing political groups within the student body claiming to lead Afghanistan towards independence and prosperity. After the coup d’état by the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) in 1978, none of the ideologies which had previously incited students provided hope for a better future anymore. Many students who had fought for the PDPA earlier were repelled by the government’s violence and those who stood up against the regime were persecuted and fled the country. Overall, the dynamics of political activism at Kabul University reflect the deep intertwinement of the Global Cold War and local struggles for inclusion and independence. ; How and why did students at Kabul University engage in political activism or refrained from it between 1964 and 1992? Based on oral history interviews with former students, this book reveals how they – as many others around the world at the same time – were galvanized by and disappointed with promises of progress dominating local and international politics. During the 1960s, the international influences on campus encouraged students’ engagement with competing political ideologies. Collective student protest against the monarchy turned into hostilities between opposing political groups within the student body claiming to lead Afghanistan towards independence and prosperity. After the coup d’état by the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) in 1978, none of the ideologies which had previously incited students provided hope for a better future anymore. Many students who had fought for the PDPA earlier were repelled by the government’s violence and those who stood up against the regime were persecuted and fled the country. Overall, the dynamics of political activism at Kabul University reflect the deep intertwinement of the Global Cold War and local struggles for inclusion and independence.

Epidemiological and Clinico-Pathological Factors of COVID-19 in Children is organized into four sections: “Introduction”, “Ethio-Pathogenetic Factors”, “Epidemiology”, and “Clinico-Pathological Factors”. Chapters address such topics as the role of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor expression in COVID-19, epidemiological factors in South Africa, Mexico, and Türkiye compared to other countries in the world, the link between 4-hydroxynonenal (HNE) and sleep and cognitive disturbances in children with COVID-19, and more.

Digitization is also becoming increasingly important for the processing and presentation of biblical texts and their manuscripts. While digitization promises egalitarian access to resources on the one hand, it also poses new challenges in research and teaching on the other. Digital methods and the experiences made with them in the Digital Humanities are also of interest for theology. The anthology focuses on forms of digitized handling of biblical texts and their manuscripts, such as Codex Sinaiticus. It deals with tools of computational philology or computational linguistics as well as with "digital research environments" and the effects of digitization with regard to the use and handling of biblical texts. The articles in this conference volume cover biblical-theological, exegetical, historical, systematic-theological and information-scientific aspects and are in English and German.

In this work, probabilistic methods for combining multiple sensors utilizing multi-sensor fusion for robust and precise localization and mapping in heterogeneous outdoor environments are presented. Aspects of increasing the reliability of landmark recognition are highlighted, as well as the integration of additional absolute and relative sensors using advanced filtering techniques.

In this work, we investigate architecture-based confidentiality analysis under uncertainty. We present a classification of uncertainty regarding confidentiality, a catalog of uncertainty sources, an uncertainty impact analysis that propagates uncertainty to predict its impact on the system's confidentiality, and uncertainty-aware confidentiality analyses that identify violations of confidentiality requirements with respect to uncertainty.

Lifestyle-related diseases, caused by an unbalanced diet and irregular lifestyle, can lead to a chain reaction of various illnesses, such as diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure, which can develop into metabolic syndrome. Due to changes in diet and work environments, the incidence of metabolic syndrome is on the rise worldwide, becoming a serious social problem. Furthermore, because diabetes can cause not only hyperglycemia but also hypoglycemia, caution is also required regarding hypoglycemia. This book summarizes the latest research findings on metabolic syndrome and hypoglycemia, explaining (1) the mechanism of metabolic syndrome onset, (2) the relationship between metabolic syndrome and various diseases and effective intervention methods for preventing lifestyle-related diseases, and (3) the mechanism of hypoglycemia and its prevention. This book offers a new perspective on the treatment and prevention of metabolic syndrome and hypoglycemia.