Open Access Books

Delay, difference, functional, fractional, and partial differential equations have many applications in science and engineering. In this Special Issue, 29 experts co-authored 10 papers dealing with these subjects. A summary of the main points of these papers follows:Several oscillation conditions for a first-order linear differential equation with non-monotone delay are established in Oscillation Criteria for First Order Differential Equations with Non-Monotone Delays, whereas a sharp oscillation criterion using the notion of slowly varying functions is established in A Sharp Oscillation Criterion for a Linear Differential Equation with Variable Delay. The approximation of a linear autonomous differential equation with a small delay is considered in Approximation of a Linear Autonomous Differential Equation with Small Delay; the model of infection diseases by Marchuk is studied in Around the Model of Infection Disease: The Cauchy Matrix and Its Properties. Exact solutions to fractional-order Fokker–Planck equations are presented in New Exact Solutions and Conservation Laws to the Fractional-Order Fokker–Planck Equations, and a spectral collocation approach to solving a class of time-fractional stochastic heat equations driven by Brownian motion is constructed in A Collocation Approach for Solving Time-Fractional Stochastic Heat Equation Driven by an Additive Noise. A finite difference approximation method for a space fractional convection-diffusion model with variable coefficients is proposed in Finite Difference Approximation Method for a Space Fractional Convection–Diffusion Equation with Variable Coefficients; existence results for a nonlinear fractional difference equation with delay and impulses are established in On Nonlinear Fractional Difference Equation with Delay and Impulses. A complete Noether symmetry analysis of a generalized coupled Lane–Emden–Klein–Gordon–Fock system with central symmetry is provided in Oscillation Criteria for First Order Differential Equations with Non-Monotone Delays, and new soliton solutions of a fractional Jaulent soliton Miodek system via symmetry analysis are presented in New Soliton Solutions of Fractional Jaulent-Miodek System with Symmetry Analysis.

The internet is changing the way that knowledge is made and shared. Knowledge-making in face-to-face settings is being replaced by information gathering from remote sources, whose origins may be concealed but which can create an illusion of intimacy. Though remote communication is beneficial in many ways – modern societies would fail without it -- and though the tight boundaries of the face-to-face can be used for evil purposes such as criminal conspiracy, if the overall trend to remote communication continues unchecked, it could be disastrous for the future of democracy and the very idea of truth itself. Too much reliance on remote communication threatens the core institutions of democratic societies. We explain the change in technical detail, from a systematic analysis of the workings of the face-to-face to a high level setting-out of its dangerous political implications. The analysis includes field studies, reflexive examination, drawing on the wide experience of the authors, of the stickiness of the face-to-face in our own work and other institutions, and network analysis which explains the illusion of intimacy that can be generated inadvertently or maliciously. We look at the apparent effectiveness of techniques such as blockchain and the limits of their domain. New information is provided about the malicious use of disinformation by foreign powers. We dramatise the dangers to Western pluralist democracy through a personal accounting of the 2020 American election. By drawing out the special features of face-to-face interaction and its constitutive role in creating societies, with science as the icon, the book sets out an agenda for civic education that can protect democratic institutions from the erosion of pluralism and the facile abandonment of trustworthy expertise. The authors conclude by returning to the themes set out at the start of the book, namely the crucial role played by trust in modern societies and the importance of face-to-face interactions in reproducing that trust, and the democratic institutions in which it should be invested.

Decades of research have identified a role for dopamine neurotransmission in prefrontal cortical function and flexible cognition. Abnormal dopamine neurotransmission underlies many cases of cognitive dysfunction. New techniques using optogenetics have allowed for ever more precise functional segregation of areas within the prefrontal cortex, which underlie separate cognitive functions. Learning theory predictions have provided a very useful framework for interpreting the neural activity of dopamine neurons, yet even dopamine neurons present a range of responses, from salience to prediction error signaling. The functions of areas like the Lateral Habenula have been recently described, and its role, presumed to be substantial, is largely unknown. Many other neural systems interact with the dopamine system, like cortical GABAergic interneurons, making it critical to understand those systems and their interactions with dopamine in order to fully appreciate dopamine's role in flexible behavior. Advances in human clinical research, like exome sequencing, are driving experimental hypotheses which will lead to fruitful new research directions, but how do (or should?) these clinical findings inform basic research? Following new information from these techniques, we may begin to develop a fresh understanding of human disease states which will inform novel treatment possibilities. However, we need an operational framework with which to interpret these new findings. Therefore, the purpose of this Research Topic is to integrate what we know of dopamine, the prefrontal cortex and flexible behavior into a clear framework, which will illuminate clear, testable directions for future research.

In this chapter, we discuss justice-related challenges in the context of the tourism workforce. The most influential conception of justice in modern societies is based on Rawls’ work on the importance of distributive justice. Sen's capability approach, in contrast, emphasizes a person's individual capability to convert endowed resources into a decent life. From an epistemological perspective, we criticize contemporary justice theories by showing that they are grounded on untenable assumptions deduced from the rationality axiom. Instead, we propose a phenomenological and ethical reinterpretation of justice theories by emphasizing their relevance in legitimizing and empowering tourism-related institutions. While the literature mainly focuses on justice in the Global South, so-called advanced economies are likewise subject to socio-economic injustice in the form of income inequality, limited career opportunities and job-cutting developments. Findings from a mixed-methods study reveal job-related injustices for a large proportion of the tourism workforce of a major Swedish tourism region. We show how our plea for a transformative tourism science paradigm and an ‘institutional thickness’ approach may contribute to socio-economic justice for the tourism workforce. We highlight the role of tourism-related institutions, such as unions, destination development organizations and the regional administrative board.

L’ouvrage interroge les relations au patrimoine que les habitants des villes inscrites sur la liste du patrimoine mondial de l’Unesco entretiennent dans leurs pratiques ordinaires à partir d’études de cas (France, Chili, Italie). Les contributions ici réunies discutent des enjeux théoriques et pragmatiques, liés au fait d’habiter le patrimoine urbain, en fonction du statut des habitants ou de leurs choix de fréquentation de lieux (places, commerces, rues, quartiers). Ces pratiques journalières ancrent les résidents dans des habitudes, des sociabilités, un cadre de vie et des attachements qui constituent un terrain d’enquête varié pour les chercheurs et les professionnels du patrimoine. Le livre évoque également la responsabilité des habitants en matière de développement durable, dans leurs pratiques ordinaires.

Despite tremendous advances in civil rights, we live in a world where the sexes remain sharply segregated from birth to death: in names, clothing, social groupings, and possessions; in occupations, civic association, and domestic roles. Gender separatism, so pervasive as to be almost invisible, permeates the fabric of our daily social routines. Preferring a notion of gender that is fluid and contextual, and denying that separatism is inevitable, Nancy Levit dismantles the myths of gender essentialism Drawing on a wealth of interdisciplinary data regarding the biological and cultural origins of sex differences, Levit provides a fresh perspective on gendered behaviors and argues the need for careful cultivation of new relations between the sexes. With its focus particularly on men, The Gender Line offers an insightful overview of the construction of gender and the damaging effects of its stereotypes. Levit analyzes the ways in which law legitimizes the social segregation of the sexes through legal decisions regarding custody, employment, education, sexual harassment, and criminal law. In so doing, she illustrates the ways in which men's and women's oppressions are intertwined and how law molds the very definition of masculinity. Applying feminist methodology to the doctrine of feminism itself, Levit artfully demonstrates that gender separatism infects even our contemporary views of feminism. Levit asks questions that have been too long been unspoken--those that lie at the core of the feminist project, yet threaten its very foundations. Revealing masculinity as both a privileged and a victimized condition, she calls for a step forward, past the bounds of contemporary feminism and its conflicts, toward a more egalitarian and inclusive feminism. This brand of feminism would reshape traditional masculinity, invite men into feminist dialogue, and claim men as political allies.

Jüngste Entwicklungen im Medienbereich, oft umschrieben mit dem Begriff ""Web 2.0"", führten zu tiefgreifenden Veränderungen in Studium. Die empirische Untersuchung beschreibt die Nutzung von 43 verschiedenen Medienangeboten (Web 2.0-Dienste, Printmedien und E-Learning-Angebote) durch 1.500 Studierende. Auf Basis der Ergebnisse werden Zusammenhänge der Medienakzeptanz mit verschiedenen Faktoren (Lernverhalten, soziodemographische Größen) aufgezeigt und eine Medientypologie des Studiums entworfen.

In this book we show how semantic technologies and in particular the use of ontologies can be employed to address a number of typical challenges in distributed information systems: First, we illustrate how ontologies enable the integration of information across heterogeneous nodes. Second, we show how ontology evolution allows dealing with the dynamics in the information in a consistent manner. Third, we present a model for ontologybased coordination using semantic overlay networks.

The subject of the present study concerns the relationships between men and women and the composition of household groups among the lower Afro-American strata of the society of Curaçao. The material on which it is based was collected in Curaçao in the course of a 15-month period of fieldwork in 1965 and 1966.

David Zeisberger (1721–1808) was the head of a group of Moravian missionaries that settled in the Upper Ohio Valley in 1772 to minister to the Delaware Nation. For the next ten years, Zeisberger lived among the Delaware, becoming a trusted adviser and involving himself not only in religious activities but also in political and social affairs. During this time he kept diaries in which he recorded the full range of his activities. Published in English for the first time, The Moravian Mission Diaries of David Zeisberger offers an unparalleled insider’s view of Indian society during times of both war and peace. Zeisberger’s diaries, today housed at the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, present a detailed picture of the effect of the American Revolution on one Indian nation—not only on political issues but also in terms of its economy, culture, and demographic structure. A later portion of the diaries, covering the post–Revolutionary War years, was translated and published in the nineteenth century, but the 1772–81 diaries have never been published in English translation. This translation is based on the full scholarly edition of the diaries, which Wellenreuther and Wessel published in Germany in 1995. Publication of this volume will forever change the way we see the impact of the American Revolution on Indian life and on the Ohio country.

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The textual tradition of the Slavic Gospels shows clear evidence of reciprocal influence between the liturgical version and the continuous text. The present survey analyzes 17 ‘textual nodes’ of the Gospel of John, i.e. segments of the text for which the variants of 126 Greek lectionaries from the 8th-11th century have been collected. This analysis aims to shed light on a scarcely studied aspect of Slavic textual history, thus completing the picture outlined in previous works of the author, which were focused on the relationship with the tradition of Greek Tetraevangelia.

La question de l’intime et de ses variations au cours du temps fait l’objet depuis peu d’un fort intérêt parmi les chercheurs. Mais la recherche en la matière reste inépuisable, tant la notion est difficile à cerner selon les époques. L’ouvrage propose une approche interdisciplinaire de l’étude de l’intime et de ses espaces, de l’Antiquité (souvent négligée par les travaux consacrés à la littérature française) à nos jours, qui croise les regards d’archéologues, d’historiens, d’historiens de l’art, de littéraires, de philosophes et d’anthropologues, afin de délimiter les contours de cette notion floue et d’analyser son évolution dans la diachronie. Le mot intime provient du superlatif latin intimus (comparatif interior), « ce qui est le plus intérieur » et s’inscrit dans la dialectique du dedans et du dehors. C’est la prise de conscience de l’existence d’un « dehors » et d’un « dedans » qui entraîne l’idée de soi. L’intime est d’abord une question de lieu. Deux voies parallèles se développent à partir du mot latin : d’une part l’intime comme étant le plus profond et le plus secret, caché à autrui, d’autre part l’intime comme étant ce qui nous associe étroitement à autrui. L’intime porte en lui une contradiction entre la radicalisation d’un intérieur, dérobé à autrui, et l’« union intime », l’« ami intime », qui suscitent une ouverture à l’Autre. L’intime dit à la fois le retrait et le partage. Ce sont les rapports du dedans et du dehors qui sont fondamentalement mis en jeu. L’intime est une catégorie qui ne va pas de soi. Dans une première partie, des articles d’archéologues et d’historiens montrent que l’espace réservé à l’intime dans les demeures est une lente conquête. Dans une seconde partie, c’est la naissance de l’espace intérieur de l’intime qui est interrogée par des chercheurs spécialistes de philosophie et de littérature latines. La troisième partie envisage l’intime comme construction de l’individu « moderne » à travers l’étude des pratiques du soin de soi, en lien avec une histoire du corps, mais aussi avec une histoire des femmes dont l’« intimité » pose question aux hommes. La quatrième partie envisage des scénographies littéraires de l’intime à partir de quelques cas particuliers. Comment dire l’intime, le représenter, si ce n’est à travers des motifs privilégiés, comme la chambre, la fenêtre, lieux symboliques qui disent la profondeur, le secret, l’invisible, qui suggèrent l’indicible ?

La découverte de nouveaux documents cartographiques concernant les origines du développement urbain et la structure sociale de Pondichéry à des moments cruciaux de son histoire modifie considérablement notre représentation de la ville. Rassemblant l’ensemble de la documentation aujourd’hui disponible dans les centres d’archives de France et des Pays-Bas, l’auteur nous montre comment, à partir d’une simple agglomération d’artisans, cet établissement est devenu une métropole structurée selon un plan d’urbanisme rigoureux, comment, aussi, s’est développé le système défensif de la place, du modeste fort barlong de François Martin au fort Louis et à la grande enceinte du temps de Dupleix, jusqu’à la décrépitude de la fin du xviiie siècle, nous permettant ainsi de lire, comme en filigrane, les épaisseurs du passé de Pondichéry.

This is a practical book on MEG that covers a wide range of topics. The book begins with a series of reviews on the use of MEG for clinical applications, the study of cognitive functions in various diseases, and one chapter focusing specifically on studies of memory with MEG. There are sections with chapters that describe source localization issues, the use of beamformers and dipole source methods, as well as phase-based analyses, and a step-by-step guide to using dipoles for epilepsy spike analyses. The book ends with a section describing new innovations in MEG systems, namely an on-line real-time MEG data acquisition system, novel applications for MEG research, and a proposal for a helium re-circulation system. With such breadth of topics, there will be a chapter that is of interest to every MEG researcher or clinician.