Open Access Books

In recent years, cities worldwide have embraced the minute city concept as an urban planning guiding principle. By adopting 10-, 15-, or 20-minute city initiatives, cities are buying into the rationale that since people must travel to spatially dispersed opportunities, bringing origins and destinations closer together enables individuals to reach daily needs using the most universally accessible forms of transport: walking and cycling. Our chapter discusses how these guidelines are incorporating principles long demanded by feminist scholars and how they have the potential to transform the built environment, leading to tangible benefits for women and others. While the “minute city” tag may only be a global urban marketing strategy, it has the potential to promote changes in urban design that will reduce gendered mobility disparities and enable alternative travel behaviours and attitudes.

In this volume, specialists in various fields of cultural studies investigate the ways in which scientific knowledge was transferred and disseminated throughout Eurasia between the 17th and 19th centuries. The papers highlight the intellectual effort and strategies by which scientific works were made available and understandable to audiences whose cultural background was very different from that for which they had been originally created.

This book reaffirms the need to build intergenerational bridges that connect the institutional legacy of the Colombian Armed Forces with the aspirations and expectations of younger generations through inclusive educational initiatives, collaborative academic engagement, and the promotion of strategic citizenship. The cultural and social legitimacy of the Colombian Armed Forces will increasingly depend on this process of openness, enabling younger generations to embrace national defense as a shared civic value rather than perceiving it as a distant function of the State. This volume invites readers—whether scholars, military personnel, or civilians—to explore a collective contribution to knowledge and nation-building, where institutional experience, empirical research, and strategic reflection converge. In line with the institutional mission of the ESDEG, this book serves as a forum for dialogue across generations and disciplines, fostering defense thinking grounded in ethics, culture, and cooperation. In doing so, it highlights the evolving relationship between the Armed Forces and society while proposing a roadmap for strengthening a national project founded on trust, legitimacy, and the shared development of strategic knowledge.

This book is about how urban linguistic landscapes reflect and create sociolinguistic, societal and urban dynamics, and how these relations can be scientifically explored. Focusing on the linguistic landscapes of selected cities in northern and southern Europe, it sheds light on how urban areas with diverse profiles differ, and how the linguistic landscapes change through tourism and migration, or in times of crisis. The chapters put forward sophisticated and novel ways of approaching urban sociolinguistics and they enhance understanding of the challenges and opportunities included in the study of sociolinguistic variation in these linguistic landscapes. The book is targeted at scholars in the field of urban sociolinguistics and those wishing to approach the subject through the lens of linguistic landscapes. It also gives interesting suggestions to people involved in language planning and policy reflection, as well as those engaged in urban redevelopment planning. Last but not least, it offers theoretical and methodological guidance to students and researchers in a variety of disciplines.

Most of the world’s human population lives along the coast, where ecosystems are subject to the environmental degrading impacts brought by the increasing use of plastics, loss of coastal buffers from storms like mangrove forests, and decreasing biodiversity from which ecosystem services spring from. In many cases, as the effects of these changes become more widespread, regions lacking basic information, like the knowledge of what animals reside along a coastline, are being threatened. These developments occur on the complex backdrop of natural processes that shape the geological and sedimentary features of the shore. The clash of the timescales of these changes, short for human-mediated impacts and long for geological ones, creates thought-provoking contrasts and gives insight into what the future may hold for coastal ecosystems. This book presents current research exploring solutions, exposing effects, and describing biological and geological coastline features for the first time in understudied regions of the world. It is an essential text for libraries, classrooms where coastal ecology is taught, and the general readership interested in coastal ecosystems.

Fiktionale Darstellungen von Technik scheinen von Geschlechterstereotypen bevölkert, die Klischees bedienen und auf der Opposition traditioneller, geschlechtlich assoziierter Merkmale basieren. So verkörpert Männlichkeit das technische Prinzip, während das Weibliche der Sphäre der Natur zugeordnet ist. Doch wie stereotyp sind technische Zukunftsvisionen? Der Band nimmt die geschlechtliche Kodiertheit literarischer und filmischer Technikzukünfte in den Fokus. Die Beiträge dieses Sammelbandes betrachten jeweils differenziertere Aspekte, beispielsweise im Hinblick auf stereotype, genderspezifische Rollenzuschreibungen, die Bedeutung geschlechtlicher Identitäten in den von Technik geprägten Räumen und ihre jeweilige mediale Vermittlung, und liefern ein erstes Panoptikum zur Erschließung der Fragestellung von Gender und Technikzukünften unter spezifisch kulturwissenschaftlicher Perspektive.

Until recently, most grape-based wine was consumed close to where it was produced, and mostly that was in Europe. Now more than two-fifths of all wine consumed globally is produced in another country, including in the Southern Hemisphere, the USA and Asia. This latest edition of global wine statistics not only updates data to 2016 but also adds another century of data. The motivation to assemble those historical data was to enable comparisons between the current and the previous globalization waves. This unique database reveals that, even though Europe’s vineyards were devastated by vine diseases and the pest phylloxera from the 1860s, most ‘New World’ countries remained net importers of wine until late in the nineteenth century. Some of the world’s leading wine economists and historians have contributed to and drawn on this database to examine the development of national wine market developments before, during and in between the two waves of globalization. Their initial analyses cover all key wine-producing and -consuming countries using a common methodology to explain long-term trends and cycles in national wine production, consumption, and trade.

Explores new directions in modern Japanese literature

Das Buch untersucht den Aufstieg des Verhaltenswissens seit der Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts sowie dessen praktische und politische Konsequenzen Die Frage, wie menschliches Verhalten beeinflusst werden kann, ist in der jüngsten Zeitgeschichte virulenter geworden. Auf der Basis verhaltenswissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisse versprechen Expert:innen, Menschen durch subtile Interventionen glücklicher, gesünder und wohlhabender zu machen. Zugleich haben die Digitalisierung und Datafizierung unserer Welt Ängste vor einer umfassenden Verhaltensmanipulation und -kontrolle verschärft. Das Buch zeigt, dass es keineswegs selbstverständlich ist, Menschen nicht als handelnde Subjekte, sondern als sich verhaltende Organismen zu begreifen. Es untersucht, wie seit der Behavioral Revolution in der Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts in verschiedenen Wissensfeldern, von den Wirtschafts- über die Psychowissenschaften bis zur Kriminologie, ein spezifisches Verhaltenswissen entwickelt wurde. Davon ausgehend analysiert es dessen Bedeutung für den Wandel politischer Steuerungstechniken vor allem in Bezug auf das Umwelt-, Gesundheits- und Finanzverhalten seit den 1970er Jahren.

Wie blicken hochaltrige Menschen selbst auf ihr Leben und Älterwerden? Innerhalb der Geragogik wird bereits nach dem Lernen des Älterwerdens gefragt und diese Prozesse werden in der Praxis begleitet. Wie sehen aber biografische Bildungsprozesse im Umgang mit der Lebensphase des hohen Alters aus? Welche Rolle spielen dabei die eigene Endlichkeit, der Körper und Verletzlichkeit? Wie wird Welt und Generativität in hochaltrigen Biografien hergestellt und verhandelt? Und inwiefern ist das eigene Doing Age in Forschung mit und über das hohe Alter zu hinterfragen?

Over the past three decades, high-performance concrete (HPC) and ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) have emerged as transformative materials in civil engineering and construction. Characterized by their exceptional compressive strength (often exceeding 150 MPa for UHPC), high ductility (strain-hardening behavior under tension), and superior durability, these materials represent a paradigm shift from conventional concrete. The versatility of HPC/UHPC has enabled its adoption in cutting-edge engineering applications. In 3D-printed construction, their rheological properties—tailored through precise control of viscosity and thixotropy—allow for layer-by-layer extrusion without slump deformation, enabling complex geometries unachievable with ordinary concrete. For dry concrete construction, HPC/UHPC’s rapid hardening and low water-to-binder ratio minimize curing time and reduce shrinkage cracks, which is critical for prefabricated modular systems. In protective engineering, UHPC’s high fracture toughness and energy absorption capacity make it ideal for blast-resistant structures, seismic retrofitting, and coastal defenses exposed to chloride ingress. Emerging applications further underscore its transformative potential. Despite the growing body of research focused on HPC/UHPC, numerous challenges and unresolved research gaps persist, necessitating further innovative exploration.

Augmented Reality (AR) is a natural development from virtual reality (VR), which was developed several decades earlier. AR complements VR in many ways. Due to the advantages of the user being able to see both the real and virtual objects simultaneously, AR is far more intuitive, but it's not completely detached from human factors and other restrictions. AR doesn't consume as much time and effort in the applications because it's not required to construct the entire virtual scene and the environment. In this book, several new and emerging application areas of AR are presented and divided into three sections. The first section contains applications in outdoor and mobile AR, such as construction, restoration, security and surveillance. The second section deals with AR in medical, biological, and human bodies. The third and final section contains a number of new and useful applications in daily living and learning.

La biodiversité calédonienne, reconnue comme l’une des plus exceptionnelles avec son fort taux d’endémisme, est largement menacée par l’introduction de nouvelles espèces. Il est donc important de protéger l’écosystème calédonien, à la fois riche et vulnérable, des espèces envahissantes, l’une des principales causes de perte de la biodiversité à l’échelle mondiale. Face à cette menace, le Gouvernement et les trois provinces de Nouvelle-Calédonie souhaitent mettre en place une structure collective afin de définir les orientations stratégiques nécessaires pour préserver et conserver leur biodiversité. Elles ont ainsi voulu qu’un état des connaissances soit dressé et qu’une réflexion soit menée sur la prévention, la détection précoce, l’intervention rapide, l’éradication, le confinement et le contrôle des espèces envahissantes. Cette expertise collégiale apporte les éléments nécessaires à la construction d’un système de biosécurité pertinent et efficace pour l’archipel néo-calédonien.

Three-dimensional (3D) printing has evolved massively during the last years. The 3D printing technologies offer various advantages, including: i) tailor-made design, ii) rapid prototyping, and iii) manufacturing of complex structures. Importantly, 3D printing is currently finding its potential in tissue engineering, wound dressings, tissue models for drug testing, prosthesis, and biosensors, to name a few. One important factor is the optimized composition of inks that can facilitate the deposition of cells, fabrication of vascularized tissue and the structuring of complex constructs that are similar to functional organs. Biocomposite inks can include synthetic and natural polymers, such as poly (ε-caprolactone), polylactic acid, collagen, hyaluronic acid, alginate, nanocellulose, and may be complemented with cross-linkers to stabilize the constructs and with bioactive molecules to add functionality. Inks that contain living cells are referred to as bioinks and the process as 3D bioprinting. Some of the key aspects of the formulation of bioinks are, e.g., the tailoring of mechanical properties, biocompatibility and the rheological behavior of the ink which may affect the cell viability, proliferation, and cell differentiation.The current Special Issue emphasizes the bio-technological engineering of novel biocomposite inks for various 3D printing technologies, also considering important aspects in the production and use of bioinks.

Audit committees are formed to provide impartial advice on matters of governance, risk management, internal controls and audits, performance management, compliance and financial reporting. It is alarming to see communities deteriorating due to poor municipal services, despite existing audit committees serving as independent advisory boards. Accountability is key to the success of municipalities; individuals opposing the implementation of improved service delivery should be held accountable. This book examines the obstacles that hinder audit committees from effectively executing their duties, giving a thorough analysis and resolutions to the South African service delivery crisis. The book's use of the IQA method reveals overlooked variables that South African municipalities and audit committees must contemplate. This methodological contribution results in the construction of a literature framework to substantiate the focus of the study through the identified themes. This book offers guidelines for municipal audit committees on executing their roles successfully and ethically. It also practically equips regulators, including the National Treasury, provincial treasuries, CoGTA and SALGA, with measures to enhance the efficacy of audit committees. Professional bodies and Best Practices Guidance bodies may augment their standards and ethical codes to guide members serving on audit committees.