Open Access Books

This reprint summarizes the ongoing research on the topic of polymer nanoparticles for different applications. It includes functionalization of graphene, silver, and titanium surface with polymers as electrochemical sensors, and antimicrobial agents. The Special Issue "Polymer nanoparticles: Synthesis and Applications" reviews the latest research in polymeric and functionalized nanoparticles, providing a new platform for development and further research. The reprint helps the researcher to fabricate polymeric nanoparticles and nanocomposites with detailed properties.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a [CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] License. It is free to read, download and share on Elgaronline.com. Exploring academic and policy thinking on e-participation, this book opens up the organizational and institutional 'black box' and provides new insights into how public administrations in 15 European states have facilitated its implementation.

Technological change is today central to the theory of economic growth. It is recognised as an important driver of productivity growth and the emergence of new products from which consumers derive welfare. It depends not only on the work of scientists and engineers, but also on a wider range of economic and societal factors, including institutions such as intellectual property rights and corporate governance, the operation of markets, a range of governmental policies (science and technology policy, innovation policy, macroeconomic policy,competition policy, etc.), historical specificities, etc. Given that technology is explicitly taken up in the strategies and policies of governments and firms, and new actors both in the national and international arenas become involved, understanding the nature and dynamics of technology is on demand. I anticipate that this book will decisively contribute in this regard.

The article is devoted to Western Balkans (territories to the north of the old Byzantine-Bulgarian border, west to the coasts of Ionian Sea and Adriatic, east to the Strymon valley, south to Hungary and Serbia) in the period from the 11th to the 15th c.

YouTube hosts one billion visitors monthly and sees more than 400 hours of video uploaded every minute. In “Thanks for Watching,” Patricia Lange offers an anthropological perspective on this heavily mediated social environment, demonstrating how core concepts from anthropology—participant-observation, reciprocity, and community—apply to sociality on YouTube and how to reconceptualize and update these concepts for video-sharing cultures. Drawing on 152 interviews with YouTube participants at gatherings throughout the United States, content analyses of more than 300 videos, observations of interactions on and off the site, and participant-observation (in which a researcher becomes part of the community she examines), Lange provides new insight into patterns of digital migration, YouTube’s influence on interactions even off-site, and how the loss of control over image makes users feel posthuman.

Zu experimentellen Zwecken eingerichtete Konzertaufführungen stellen eine Kuriosität dar. Indem künstlerische mit wissenschaftlichen Praktiken verbunden werden und Forschende, Kunstschaffende, Publikum sowie Forschungstechnologien neue Relationen eingehen, positionieren sich diese Versuchsanordnungen zwischen etablierten Kategorien des Experiments. Andreas Pirchner konzeptualisiert Laborkonzerte unter Berücksichtigung der beteiligten Apparaturen als eine Experimentalsituation der Musikforschung und entwickelt daraus Beiträge zu einer Theorie situierten Experimentierens. Der Band erschließt neue Perspektiven für die Forschungspraktiken der experimentellen Musikforschung, künstlerischen Forschung und Digital Humanities.

The book brings together a range of leading scholars and practitioners to compile an international account of water allocation policies supporting a transition to sustainable water use in regions where agriculture is the dominant water use. In Section 1, the collection canvasses five key cross-cutting issues shaping the challenge of sustainable water allocation policy, such as legal and economic perspectives, the role of politics, the setting of environmental flows, and the importance of indigenous rights. Section 2 presents 13 national, state and transboundary case studies of water allocation policy, covering cases from Europe, the Americas, Central Asia, the Middle East and the Pacific region. These case studies highlight novel and innovative elements of water allocation regimes, which respond to the cross-cutting issues addressed in Section 1, as well as local challenges and social and environmental imperatives. The book provides a comprehensive account of water allocation in a range of international settings and provides a reference point for practitioners and scholars worldwide wishing to draw on the latest advances on how to design and implement sustainable water allocation systems.

Dieser Band enthält eine zweisprachige Textausgabe (griech.-dt.) der "Weisheit Salomos" mit ausführlicher Einführung und erläuternden Essays zum Verständnis und zu den kulturellen Hintergründen des Werkes. Damit wird ein heute nur noch wenig bekannter Text der Bibel in seiner kulturgeschichtlichen und religiösen Bedeutung für interessierte, aber nicht speziell vorgebildete Leser erschlossen.

Published

The 43rd UID conference, held in Genova, takes up the theme of ‘Dialogues’ as practice and debate on many fundamental topics in our social life, especially in these complex and not yet resolved times. The city of Genova offers the opportunity to ponder on the value of comparison and on the possibilities for the community, naturally focused on the aspects that concern us, as professors, researchers, disseminators of knowledge, or on all the possibile meanings of the discipline of representation and its dialogue with ‘others’, which we have broadly catalogued in three macro areas: History, Semiotics, Science / Technology. Therefore, “dialogue” as a profitable exchange based on a common language, without which it is impossible to comprehend and understand one another; and the graphic sign that connotes the conference is the precise transcription of this concept: the title ‘translated’ into signs, derived from the visual alphabet designed for the visual identity of the UID since 2017. There are many topics which refer to three macro sessions: - Witnessing (signs and history) - Communicating (signs and semiotics) - Experimenting (signs and sciences) Thanks to the different points of view, an exceptional resource of our disciplinary area, we want to try to outline the prevailing theoretical-operational synergies, the collaborative lines of an instrumental nature, the recent updates of the repertoires of images that attest and nourish the relations among representation, history, semiotics, sciences.

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) plays an important role in supporting human activities. Man is concentrating more and more on intellectual work, and trying to automate practical activities as much as possible in order to increase their efficiency. In this regard, the use of drones is increasingly becoming a key aspect of this automation process, offering many advantages, including agility, efficiency and reduced risk, especially in dangerous missions. Hence, this Special Issue focuses on applications, platforms and services where UAVs can be used as facilitators for the task at hand, also keeping in mind that security should be addressed from its different perspectives, ranking from communications security to operational security, and furthermore considering privacy issues.

Concern around environmental issues facing society has grown significantly in recent years. Reduction in damages resulting from both industrial and domestic waste has become a key topic as a means to address environmental problems and the exhaustion of natural resources. Likewise, the use of materials of polymeric origin in applications such as tissue regeneration, controlled release of medicines, packaging, soil remediation, etc., makes the development of materials biodegradable in biological media increasingly important. Recently, significant progress has been achieved in the creation of biodegradable polymeric formulations with functionalities similar to those of non-biodegradable polymers, both of natural and of synthetic origin, extending their applicability to fields such as food packaging, electronics, production of health-related materials, agriculture, etc. In this context, biodegradable nanocomposites offer new and exciting possibilities. This book deals with the development of functional polymer nanocomposites that can undergo biodegradation in different media, including biological systems, soils, landfills, etc. Original and review articles covering aspects of polymer science and technology, such as synthesis, processing, characterization, properties, and applications of functional biodegradable nanocomposites for different applications, are included in this book.

The main assumption of this book is that Locke’s methaphysical considerations spread throughout his works build a coherent metaphysical theory about the essence of things. Contrary to prevalent opinions, Locke thereby proves to be a philosopher who not only criticised the metaphysical systems of the late scholasticism, but also advanced them in a very interesting way.

The most complete, nonpartisan source of information on this hot agronomic topic available today, this book brings together a diverse group of papers and data to resolve the debate between sedimentologists and soil scientists and agronomists over whether the effects of soil erosion on carbon and atmospheric CO2 is beneficial or destructive. Divided into four sections, it offers data on how soil erosion affects soil, water, and air quality. Topics include mineralization rate, inundation, sediment deposition, and global warming potential, as well as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide emissions, and the implications of soil erosion on the global carbon cycle and carbon budget.