Open Access Books

How can we map differing perceptions of the living environment? Mapping the Unmappable? explores the potential of cartography to communicate the relations of Africa's indigenous peoples with other human and non-human actors within their environments. These relations transcend Western dichotomies such as culture-nature, human-animal, natural-supernatural. The volume brings two strands of research - cartography and »relational« anthropology - into a closer dialogue. It provides case studies in Africa as well as lessons to be learned from other continents (e.g. North America, Asia and Australia). The contributors create a deepened understanding of indigenous ontologies for a further decolonization of maps, and thus advance current debates in the social sciences.

Obesity is a major worldwide health problem, reached epidemic proportions that affects both developed and developing countries. Obesity increases the risk for a wide metabolic conditions including type 2 diabetes. Additionally, a relationship between obesity, diabetes and cognitive function, as well as risk of dementias have come to attention. The link between these pathologies is the activation of the inflammatory process. Obesity is considered as a chronic low grade inflammatory disease that affects numerous tissues including the brain. The consumption of large amounts of dietary fats, particularly saturated fatty acids can impair hypothalamic neuronal metabolism and circuitries that control whole-body energy homeostasis, consequently leading to obesity. Homeostatic control of brain metabolism is essential for neuronal activity. Neuroendocrine signals play a major role in the regulation of brain metabolism and also peripheral energy balance. Brain inflammation is a major cause for brain metabolic dysfunction and it is known to impair the control of whole-body energy homeostasis and also brain activity in several metabolic and neurodegenerative disorders. Metabolic diseases, inflammation, and brain diseases are likely linked, however a clear mechanistic understanding has remained elusive. This Research Topic collects articles on the neurometabolic changes in the brain induced by inflammatory processes associated with obesity and chronic metabolic disorders.

Bezpieczeństwo w sferze transportu stanowi jeden z istotnych problemów związanych z kształtowaniem polityki bezpieczeństwa każdego kraju, a rola transportu jako kluczowego elementu całego systemu logistycznego staje się coraz bardziej znacząca. Prezentowana monografia ma na celu usystematyzowanie wiedzy z zakresu transportu w Federacji Rosyjskiej ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem problematyki jego bezpieczeństwa. W publikacji przedstawiono także kwestie dotyczące stanu i perspektyw prowadzenia działalności gospodarczej w sektorze transportu i gospodarki magazynowej oraz przestępczości w sferze transportu. Książka adresowana jest do szerokiego grona Czytelników zainteresowanych teorią i praktyką bezpieczeństwa transportu oraz metodami przeciwdziałania potencjalnym zagrożeniom w sferze transportu, jak również do studentów i słuchaczy studiów podyplomowych, których profil studiów mieści się w obszarze transportu, spedycji i logistyki, a także szeroko rozumianego bezpieczeństwa.

En Égypte ancienne, la mort semble être une préoccupation constante. Pour affronter cette étape tant redoutée, le dogme prévoit une existence dans l'au-delà, mais celle-ci demeure conditionnée au maintien de la mémoire des individus parmi les vivants. Chaque personne va donc tenter, en fonction de son statut et de ses capacités, de développer certaines stratégies pour rendre son propre culte éternel et garantir ainsi son immortalité. Cette étude, fondée principalement sur l'analyse des pratiques post-inhumatoires, souhaite mettre en évidence les différents leviers qui sont utilisés en vue de pérenniser les cultes mémoriels : le choix du lieu, celui des supports et enfin – peut-être surtout – l'intégration à de multiples matrices sociales complémentaires. Car le maintien de la mémoire est avant tout affaire de société. L'individu, pour exister, se doit d'interagir avec la communauté, qu'il soit vivant ou bien mort.

What does it mean to be a teenager in an American city at the close of the twentieth century? How do urban surroundings affect the ways in which teens grow up, and what do their stories tell us about human development? In particular, how do the negative images of themselves on television and in the newspaper affect their perspectives about themselves? Psychologists typically have shown little interest in urban youth, preferring instead to generalize about adolescent development from studies of their middle-class, suburban counterparts. In Everyday Courage Niobe Way, a developmental psychologist, looks beyond the stereotypes to reveal how the personal worldviews of inner-city poor and working-class adolescents develop over time. In the process, she challenges much conventional wisdom about inner-city youth and about adolescents more generally. She introduces us to Malcolm, a sensitive and proud young man full of contradictions. We follow him as he makes the honor roll, becomes a teenage father, and falls into depression as his younger sister is dying of cancer. We meet Eva, an intelligent and confident young women full of questions, who grows increasingly alienated from her mother and comes to rely on her best friends for support. We watch her blossom as a ball player and a poet. We share her triumph when she receives a scholarship to the college of her choice. In these 24 adolescents, Way finds a cross-section of youngsters who want to make positive changes in their lives and communities while struggling with concerns about betrayal, trust, racism, violence, and death. Each adolescent wants most of all to "be somebody," to have her or his voice heard.

Anti-Empire explores how different writers across Lusophone spaces have engaged with imperial and colonial power at its various levels of domination, while imagining alternatives to dominant discourses pertaining to race, ethnicity, culture, gender, sexuality, and class. Guided by a theoretically eclectic approach ranging from Psychoanalysis, Deconstruction, Postcolonial Theory, Queer Theory, and Critical Race Studies, Empire is explored as a spectrum of contemporary global power inaugurated by European expansion and propagated in the postcolonial present through economic, cultural, and political forces. Through the texts analysed, Anti-Empire offers in-depth interrogations of contemporary power in terms of racial politics, gender performance, socio-economic divisions, political structures, and the intersections of these facets of domination and hegemony. By way of grappling with Empire’s discursive field and charting new modes of producing meaning in opposition to that of Empire, the texts read from Brazil, Cabo Verde, East Timor, Portugal, and São Tomé and Príncipe open new inquiries for Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies while contributing theoretical debates to the study of Lusophone cultures.

Depuis l’accession au pouvoir d’Hugo Chávez Frías en février 1999, la politique extérieure vénézuélienne se caractérise par un activisme certain et a octroyé au Venezuela une nouvelle visibilité sur la scène internationale. Si les relations houleuses avec les États-Unis de George W. Bush ou celles, souvent décriées, avec l’Iran de Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ont placé Caracas sous les feux de la rampe diplomatique, on ne saurait pour autant occulter d’autres facettes de cette politique, tout aussi sy...

Energy is a vital element in sustaining our modern society but the future of energy is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous; especially when facing a continuous drive to ensure a sustained and equitable access as well as mounting pressures to reduce its emissions. Traditional approaches in developing energy technologies have always been in isolation with distinct and unique contexts. However, we cannot afford to work in silos any longer. Future energy systems and their relationship with the society and the environment will have to be conceived, designed, developed, commissioned, and operated alongside and within contemporary geo-political, ethical, and socio-economic contexts. This has posed an unprecedented volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA), where systemic and holistic approaches are often warranted. This book aims to focus on the VUCA of addressing the future of energy and environment by considering contemporary issues and insights from diverse contexts, viewed as a system, and anchored upon emerging and smart energy technologies.

Published

The essays in this collection share several common themes: A focus on everyday life; Interdisciplinary approaches; An emphasis on the humanities within scientific inquiry. Building on these shared foundations, the authors conduct detailed studies that span from historical perspectives to contemporary realities. Their work is both intimate and broad in scope, addressing social conditions as well as the inner lives of ordinary people. The essays reflect the rich and complex development of Hong Kong’s culture and society, highlighting the pressures and opportunities that come with rapid modernization—challenges common to many societies. At the same time, they affirm the trajectory of Hong Kong’s social development and propose a distinctive, holistic framework for understanding local culture. This framework reveals a cultural landscape that may be unique not only within Asia but also globally. To truly analyze Hong Kong’s culture, one must understand this trajectory, its underlying norms, and the particular conditions that shape it.

There have been three recent developments in AMO and cluster science: a) new and progressively precise technologies to synthesize materials with good purity statistics for their gas-phase, as thin films, or in their liquid-phase; b) significant diversification of pump–probe laser and particle sources and related experimental techniques allowing us to access both the energy response and temporal response of the target materials in ultrafast time scales; and c) increasing the availability of high-performance computer software on ever faster computers, which can be processed in both series and parallel mode. These developments have empowered the broader AMO community to address more detailed and critical aspects of the response and relaxation processes. As a result, many groups have become involved in ever-more challenging and complex investigations, pushing the frontier of knowledge. This Special Issue will provide a forum in which to broadcast emerging research results, creating a repository professional knowledge, novel research questions and outlooks, and stimulating brand-new collaborations.

Biocompatibility refers to the ability of a biomaterial to perform its desired function with respect to a medical therapy, without eliciting any undesirable local or systemic effects in the recipient or beneficiary of that therapy, but generating the most appropriate beneficial cellular or tissue response in that specific situation, and optimizing the clinically relevant performance of that therapy, which reflects current developments in the area of intrinsically biocompatible polymer systems. Polymeric biomaterials are presently used as, for example, long-term implantable medical devices, degradable implantable systems, transient invasive intravascular devices, and, recently, as tissue engineering scaffolds. This Special Issue welcomes full papers and short communications highlighting the aspects of the current trends in the area of intrinsically biocompatible polymer systems.

Sharad Chari explores the how people handle the remains of segregation and apartheid in South Africa as witnessed through portals in an industrial-residential landscape in the Indian Ocean city of Durban.

Timely analysis of the ways in which women grassroots activists, the European Union, and the Turkish state are involved in shaping gender policies in Turkey.Shaping Gender Policy in Turkey uncovers how, why, and to what extent Turkish women, in addition to the Turkish state and the European Union, have been involved in gender policy changes in Turkey. Through analysis of the role of multiple actors at the subnational, national, and supranational levels, Gül Aldıkaçtı Marshall provides a detailed account of policy diffusion and feminist involvement in policymaking. Contextualizing the meaning of gender equality and multiple approaches to women’s rights, she highlights a pivotal but neglected dimension of scholarship on Turkey’s candidacy for European Union membership. This book represents one of the few works providing a multilevel analysis of gender policy in predominantly Muslim countries, and highlights Turkey’s role at a time of swift structural changes to several political regimes in the Middle East.Gül Aldıkaçtı Marshall is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Louisville.

Embedded software demands intensive testing of functional and non-functional requirements. Automation of such tests is performed with different technologies. Source-code level tests require specialized unit-testing tools. Tests of the high-level behavior of control systems follow the model-, software- and hardware-in-the-loop approach. This work studies the integration of such system-level and source-code level tests. The focus lies on a new programming language to implement test cases.