Open Access Books

This volume groups contributions related to learning service and professional learning communities, allows us to appreciate why and how you are great facets of teaching and university training, first, they are being addressed in different countries and, second, they reveal to time new conceptions, sensibilitiesand commitments of one and the other with the social.Service learning has entered strongly into the Iberian context and, longer, has been developing in the Ibero-American. It is a promising window from which to look and walk for re-consciousness, as many times claimed as not always well attended, intertwined university, the training of professionals and the labor and social contexts in which they will have to exercise their work taking into consideration, next to the academic curriculum, the great themes, problems and challenges that concern, today, to the inequality and fight for a society whose professionals will have to be, in addition to good technicians, conscious citizens, sensitive and committed to the construction of forms ofmore human, fair and equitable life.

In this book, McHenry challenges the still-regnant paradigm of knowledge acquisition as the end and means of schooling, supplanting it with an inquiry into what knowledge is. Tracing the development of the idea of knowledge from its roots in Descartes and Locke through the ontological turn in Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Buber, he provides an alternative rationale and vocabulary for a practice of schooling that engages teachers with students in being-together-and-inventing. Philosophically centered though accessibly written, with examples from the author’s personal experiences with his own child and his students, the book engages the reader in inquiry rather than argument, leaving her not with a list of tips and prescriptions, but with a capacity for encounter with the actual persons in her classroom.

Knowledge management; Business information systems

Au début du XVIIIe siècle, la république de Mulhouse est une enclave indépendance en terre alsacienne et française. Le commerce constitue une ressource essentielle pour cette cité dépourvue de domaine agricole. Misant avec opportunisme sur l’indiennage, premier phénomène de mode à atteindre toutes les couches de la société, des négociants mulhousiens vont provoquer, dès les années 1750, l’explosion d’une nouvelle activité manufacturière et transformer leur cité en véritable pôle industriel. Devenus chefs d’entreprise, ils entrent dans l’ère du capitalisme : à la fin du siècle, les indiennes de Mulhouse se négocient dans toute l’Europe...

Present in soil and water, humic substances are the most widespread organic compounds, naturally occurring from a physical, chemical, and microbiological transformation of biomolecules. They represent about 25% of the total organic carbon on the Earth and comprise up to 75% of the dissolved organic carbon in water, making them important for multiple environmental processes in both soil and aquatic systems. Despite many decades of extensive study, the formation mechanisms of humic substances are still a subject of discussion and controversy. This book examines the dynamics of humic substances, their physicochemical and biological properties, and methods for their extraction and characterization. The book also sheds light on recent advances and applications of humic substances in agriculture, environment, industry, and medicine.

This edited volume aims to discuss the most contemporary state of the determinants of the firm value. This book presents theoretical works as well as empirical studies that contrast the arguments offered by the leading, ground-breaking theories on the firm value. What variables determine the firm value? Are these determinants controllable or uncontrollable by the managers of the companies? Is the impact of corporate governance systems on the firm value symmetrical between different institutional contexts? Do the financial reports affect the value of the firm? What role does corporate social responsibility play as a determinant of the firm value? These and other questions are analyzed and scrutinized step by step throughout this book.

Surface waves have drawn a significant attention and interest in the recent years in a broad range of commercial applications, while their commercial developments have been supported by fundamental and applied research studies. This book is a result of contributions of experts from international scientific community working in different aspects of surface waves and reports on the state-of-the-art research and development findings on this topic through original and innovative research studies. It contains up-to-date publications of leading experts, and the edition is intended to furnish valuable recent information to the professionals involved in surface wave analysis and applications. The text is addressed not only to researchers but also to professional engineers, students, and other experts in various disciplines, both academic and industrial, seeking to gain a better understanding of what has been done in the field recently and what kind of open problems are in this area.

The development of mathematical models and their optimization are fundamental for the effective resolution of many problems in operational research. In recent years, increased insights into real-world problems have led to the development of new mathematical models and optimization algorithms, contributing to the development of a research area with increasing practical relevance. This Special Issue is dedicated to works at the interface of mathematical modeling, optimization, and operations research, with a special focus on their real-world applications. The interest of the scientific community was significant, with submissions from authors from different countries from five continents, including Australia, China, Egypt, India, Israel, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the United States of America. Ten papers were accepted for publication after thorough peer review by dedicated reviewers with expertise in the relevant fields. We are confident that the papers selected for this Special Issue will attract a significant audience in the scientific community and will further stimulate research involving the development of mathematical models and their optimization.

In recent years, black neoconservatism has captured the national imagination. Clarence Thomas sits on the Supreme Court. Stephen Carter's opinions on topics ranging from religion to the confirmation process are widely quoted. The New Republic has written that black neoconservative Thomas Sowell was having a greater influence on the discussion of matters of race and ethnicity than any other writer of the past ten years. In this compelling and vividly argued book, Ronald Roberts reveals how this attention has turned an eccentricity into a movement. Black neoconservatives, Roberts believes, have no real constituency but, as was the case with Clarence Thomas, are held up and proclaim themselves as simply and ruthlessly honest, as above mere self-interest and crude political loyalties. They profess a concern for those they criticize, claiming to possess an objective truth which sets them apart from their critics in the establishment Left. They claim to be outsiders even while sustained by the culture's most powerful institutions. As they level attacks at the activist organizations they perceive as moribund, every significant argument they advance rests on fervent mantras of harsh truths and simple realities. Enlisting the ideal of impartiality as a partisan weapon, this Tough Love Crowd has elevated the familiar wisdom of Spare the rod and spoil the child to the arena of national politics. Turning to their own writings and proclamations, Roberts here serves up a devastating critique of such figures as Clarence Thomas, Shelby Steele, Stephen Carter, and V. S. Naipaul (Tough Love International). Clarence Thomas and the Tough Love Crowd marks the emergence of a provocative and powerful voice on our cultural and political landscape, a voice which holds those who subscribe to this polemically powerful ideology accountable for their opinions and actions.

This report analyzes special payments that Medicare has been making to rural providers. These special payments are intended to support the rural health care infrastructure to help ensure access to care for Medicare beneficiaries. The research provides a comprehensive overview of these payments, including documentation of the supply of providers, trends in payments, and Medicare costs per beneficiary. Four types of special payments were examined: (1) payments to sole community hospitals, Medicare-dependent hospitals, and rural referral centers; (2) reimbursements to rural health clinics and federally qualified health centers; (3) bonus payments to physicians in rural health professional shortage areas; and (4) capitation payments in rural counties.

The publication collects the results of the four Laboratories of Architectural and Urban Design and Interior Architecture of the 5UE Master's Degree Course in Architecture of the DiARC of the Department of Architecture of the University of Naples "Federico II", which took place during the academic year 2020/2021. The exercises conducted by the students are located in the Vallone San Rocco area, falling within an urban area of PUA, and aimed at the care of the domestic and urban space through the experimentation of new forms of collective living, and particular attention to integration. cultural, social and generational. The theme of the living space was declined through the elaboration of different project scales: from the private internal space to the semi-public external space, ending with the collective open space, including agricultural and productive ones. The volume is completed by numerous essays by lecturers from the Department of Architecture, architects and experts demonstrating the transversal and central nature of the topic dealt with in the context of contemporary architectural research.

This book provides information to the readers starting with the history of oral hygiene manners, and modern oral hygiene practices. It continues with the prevalence and etiology of caries and remedy of caries through natural sources. Etiology of secondary caries in prosthetic restorations and the relationship between orthodontic treatment and caries is addressed. An update of early childhood caries is presented. The use of visual-tactile method, radiography and fluorescence in caries detection is given. The book finishes with methods used for the prevention of white spot lesions and management of caries.

This Book of Abstracts covers the abstracts presented at the 6th International Maar Conference (6IMC) in Changchun (China). The 6IMC conference sessions are focused on Maar and Environment Change, covering a wide spectrum of topics including: characteristics, mechanism, modeling and geological background of Monogenetic volcanic activities; volcanic evolution and spatial distribution regulation, resources, disaster, detecting, monitoring and societal responses of volcanic activity.

Characteristic of the premodern Mediterranean world were the manifold connections between communities shaped by diverse traditions. German-speaking actors influenced these transcultural entanglements: as rulers, traders, spouses, refugees, soldiers, diplomats, prisoners, pilgrims. This volume thus inquires into the significance of the Mediterranean region for German literature and into the functions of its literary portrayals.

The development and deployment of safe, effective, affordable, and accessible vaccines are essential for reducing transmission and disease severity. A central component of vaccine evaluation and immune protection against SARS-CoV-2 is the measurement of neutralizing antibodies, which serve as key indicators of antiviral immune activity. Accordingly, there is an urgent need for standardized, reliable, and reproducible in vitro potency assays to assess antiviral products throughout preclinical and clinical development. Neutralizing antibody assays are critical not only for evaluating vaccine efficacy but also for characterizing immune responses in COVID-19 patients, asymptomatic individuals, and vaccinated populations. However, current SARS-CoV-2 neutralization assays—including live virus, recombinant virus, pseudotyped virus, and competition-based assays—exhibit substantial methodological diversity. Differences in protocols, reagents, and result interpretation across laboratories have led to significant variability, limiting comparability between studies and vaccines and hindering the establishment of robust correlates of protection. This reprint provides a systematic and up-to-date overview of advances in SARS-CoV-2 neutralization assay development and vaccine evaluation. By summarizing methodological progress and remaining challenges, it aims to serve as a reference for researchers, clinicians, regulatory scientists, and public health professionals involved in COVID-19 research and response.