Open Access Books

This book is focused on clarifying the anticancer effects (i.e., apoptotic, antiproliferative, antimetastatic, antiangiogenic) and mechanisms of most of the medicinal plants found in the world against solid and/or hematological cancers.

This open access book discusses the statistical modeling of insurance problems, a process which comprises data collection, data analysis and statistical model building to forecast insured events that may happen in the future. It presents the mathematical foundations behind these fundamental statistical concepts and how they can be applied in daily actuarial practice. Statistical modeling has a wide range of applications, and, depending on the application, the theoretical aspects may be weighted differently: here the main focus is on prediction rather than explanation. Starting with a presentation of state-of-the-art actuarial models, such as generalized linear models, the book then dives into modern machine learning tools such as neural networks and text recognition to improve predictive modeling with complex features. Providing practitioners with detailed guidance on how to apply machine learning methods to real-world data sets, and how to interpret the results without losing sight of the mathematical assumptions on which these methods are based, the book can serve as a modern basis for an actuarial education syllabus.

Semantic change — how the meanings of words change over time — has preoccupied scholars since well before modern linguistics emerged in the late 19th and early 20th century, ushering in a new methodological turn in the study of language change. Compared to changes in sound and grammar, semantic change is the least understood. Ever since, the study of semantic change has progressed steadily, accumulating a vast store of knowledge for over a century, encompassing many languages and language families. Historical linguists also early on realized the potential of computers as research tools, with papers at the very first international conferences in computational linguistics in the 1960s. Such computational studies still tended to be small-scale, method-oriented, and qualitative. However, recent years have witnessed a sea-change in this regard. Big-data empirical quantitative investigations are now coming to the forefront, enabled by enormous advances in storage capability and processing power. Diachronic corpora have grown beyond imagination, defying exploration by traditional manual qualitative methods, and language technology has become increasingly data-driven and semantics-oriented. These developments present a golden opportunity for the empirical study of semantic change over both long and short time spans.

The last decade has seen the growing popularity and visibility of fashion as a cultural product, including its growing presence in museum exhibitions. This book explores the history of fashion curating and exhibitions, highlighting the continuity of past and present curatorial practices. Comparing and contrasting exhibitions from different museums and decades – from the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900 to the Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2011 – it makes connections between museum fashion and the wider fashion industry. By critically analyzing trends in fashion exhibition practice over the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Julia Petrov defines and describes the varied representations of historical fashion within British and North American museum exhibitions.

A brutal Civil War erupted across Ireland in June 1922. The IRA, in opposition to the development of a pro-Treaty government, returned to the familiar guerrilla tactics of the War of Independence. Hundreds of dugouts constructed in rural settings were key to the IRA campaign. These secret places offered safe shelter to men on the run, while also allowing for supplies and arms to be stored and prisoners held.Tormore Cave, high in the mountains of County Sligo, in the northwest of Ireland, was one such dugout. Over 30 Republican men sought refuge there for six weeks in September and October 1922. Like most dugouts, Tormore Cave was never mentioned in historical accounts or documentary sources, but its significance was remembered locally. Archaeological excavations conducted on the centenary of its occupation revealed the extensive modifications that had transformed this natural limestone cave into a habitable military dugout, a crucial refuge for combatants whose comrades had been executed or arrested by Government forces. The historical artefacts and environmental material recovered during the excavations, combined with detailed archaeological surveys and analyses, provide a fascinating insight into the conditions endured by those billeted there. The lives of the men and women directly associated with the cave dugout are explored, including an in-depth study of IRA General Officer Commanding Billy Pilkington – a key figure during the Irish revolutionary period who has, until now, been largely overlooked.An Irish Civil War Dugout: Tormore Cave, County Sligo adopts a multidisciplinary approach, the first of its kind in an Irish context, combining archaeology, local and military histories, family memories, community recollections, and landscape studies. This groundbreaking study – the first archaeological excavation of a Civil War site in Ireland, facilitates a wider discussion of the role of dugouts in guerrilla warfare. By focussing in detail on one site at a local level, this book provides a unique and valuable contribution to the Irish revolutionary period on a regional and national scale.

Indonesia

This open access book fills a gap in the literature on shipping in a number of cross-cutting fields (including marine transportation law and policy, law of the sea, Indigenous rights, marine environmental management, and risk and safety studies). Moreover, the book includes a focus on the consideration of Indigenous rights in shipping, a topic of emerging importance. There are, to our knowledge, no directly competing titles with the same interdisciplinary approach to conceptualize, understand, and describe best practices for area-based management approaches. There are, however, related titles which cover some aspects of area-based management, usually from narrow disciplinary perspectives. Area-based management in the governance of shipping has become a useful and effective approach to promote maritime safety, maritime security, and pollution prevention and to mitigate the adverse impacts of shipping on the marine environment and coastal communities. Based on the results of a research project and a major workshop convened at Dalhousie University in Canada, this book consists of multidisciplinary studies and analyses of major issues pertaining to area-based management in shipping from a comparative perspective, but with the principal focus on Canada. The book contains both theoretical and empirical contributions.

In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird für eine neue Klasse von humanoiden Robotern ein generisches zweischichtiges diskret-kontinuierliches Regelungskonzept vorgestellt, welches eine operative multisensorielle Überwachung des Roboterumfeldes hinsichtlich störungsbedingter Abweichungen vom geplanten Bewegungsablauf beinhaltet und in der Lage ist, entsprechend zu reagieren. Auf der Grundlage des vorgeschlagenen Konzepts wurden verschiedene perzeptorisch geregelte Grundgeschicklichkeiten implementiert.

After 1945, new methods and tools for forecasting the future grew out of the dynamic developments that were taking place in science and technology. Conceptions of futures research or futures studies as approaches to forecasting, planning and envisaging the future grew out of transnational circulations of knowledge in the 1950s and 1960s. The futures field was epitomized by the perception of many possible futures to be forecast and shaped. However, during the 1970s, the limits of envisioning the future became increasingly evident. This book as the first comprehensive study on the topic focuses on the futures field in Western industrialized countries – particularly the USA and West Germany – but also takes the socialist states and global networks into its ambit.

This reprint aims to disseminate the latest research achievements, findings, and ideas in the robotics field, with particular focus on the Italian scenario. It covers a range of topics related to the theory, design, practice, and applications of robots, such as robot design and kinematics, dynamics of robots and multi-body systems, linkages and manipulators, control of robotic systems, trajectory planning and optimization, innovative robots and applications, industrial robotics, collaborative robotics, medical robotics, assistive robotics, and service robotics. The reprints contributions include (but are not limited to) revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers that were presented at the 2nd International Conference of IFToMM, Italy (IFIT 2018).

Wireless power transfer techniques have been gaining researchers' and industry attention due to the increasing number of battery-powered devices, such as mobile computers, mobile phones, smart devices, intelligent sensors, mainly as a way to replace the standard cable charging, but also for powering battery-less equipment. The storage capacity of batteries is an extremely important element of how a device can be used. If we talk about battery-powered electronic equipment, the autonomy is one factor that may be essential in choosing a device or another, making the solution of remote powering very attractive. A distinction has to be made between the two forms of wireless power transmission, as seen in terms of how the transmitted energy is used at the receiving point: - Transmission of information or data, when it is essential for an amount of energy to reach the receiver to restore the transmitted information; - Transmission of electric energy in the form of electromagnetic field, when the energy transfer efficiency is essential, the power being used to energize the receiving equipment. The second form of energy transfer is the subject of this book.

Management functions were developed first as a systematic step to carry out management activities, while implementation of the information components followed as part of management elements. The authors point out that the use of the possibilities and advantages of quantitatively supported managerial decisions gives managers the ability to quantify the impacts of both technical (hard) and subjective (soft) constraints and improve managerial decision-making processes that would otherwise be based mostly on personal intuition and experience. To achieve the goals and benefits of excellent performance, it is necessary to design and develop integrated models that would coordinate management functions and information system components as an integrated process. These facts are presented in various case studies.

This volume is a product of the 13th International Conference on Archaeological Prospection 2019, which was hosted by the Department of Environmental Science in the Faculty of Science at the Institute of Technology Sligo. The conference is held every two years under the banner of the International Society for Archaeological Prospection and this was the first time that the conference was held in Ireland. New Global Perspectives on Archaeological Prospection draws together over 90 papers addressing archaeological prospection techniques, methodologies and case studies from 33 countries across Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe and North America, reflecting current and global trends in archaeological prospection. At this particular ICAP meeting, specific consideration was given to the development and use of archaeological prospection in Ireland, archaeological feedback for the prospector, applications of prospection technology in the urban environment and the use of legacy data. Papers include novel research areas such as magnetometry near the equator, drone-mounted radar, microgravity assessment of tombs, marine electrical resistivity tomography, convolutional neural networks, data processing, automated interpretive workflows and modelling as well as recent improvements in remote sensing, multispectral imaging and visualisation.

Il faut attendre l'entre-deux-guerres pour que l'artisanat soit reconnu par les pouvoirs publics comme une catégorie à part entière, avec l'instauration d'un statut fiscal et du crédit artisanal, avec la création des chambres des métiers et du registre des métiers. Dès lors les prémices d'une politique artisanale, qui prendra toute sa dimension dans les années 70, peuvent voir le jour. C'est l'analyse de l'influence de cette politique sur l'évolution de l'artisanat entre 1938 et 1970 qu'a choisi d'étudier Cédric Perrin. En 1938, l'artisanat est un secteur dynamique dont la croissance est fondée sur la mobilité sociale et géographique. Plus tard Vichy glorifie les artisans dans sa propagande mais cette période est avant tout un temps de pénuries, notamment de main d'oeuvre, de crédit et de matières premières. Après la Libération, l'artisanat vit une grave crise qui impose une modernisation. À l'écart des priorités économiques de la Nation, les artisans se sentent abandonnés : ils voient leurs impôts s'alourdir alors que le crédit se restreint. À partir de la fin des années 1950, l'État réintègre ce secteur dans sa politique économique avec une commission de l'artisanat au Commissariat général du Plan : l'assistance technique se développe, le crédit et la fiscalité artisanale sont réformés. Les progrès sont nets sans toutefois être à la hauteur des besoins. À travers le prisme de l'artisanat, Cédric Perrin apporte un éclairage nouveau sur l'histoire de l'industrialisation française ainsi que sur le rôle économique de l'État pendant et après la seconde guerre mondiale. « Au total, le livre conteste l'idée d'un déclin de l'artisanat et explique sa survie par son dynamisme interne plus que par l'aide (très relative au regard d'autres secteurs comme l'agriculture) qu'il a reçue de l'État. » Michel Lescure.

"The definitive volume of this Late Classic site. . . . an important contribution to Oaxaca archaeology and to understanding Monte Alb at its peak and during its demise." Veronica Perez Rodriguez, American Anthropologist