Open Access Books

Rapid urbanization and industrialization have progressively caused severe impacts on the mountainous, river, coastal environments, and have increased the risks for people living in these areas. Human activities have changed the ecosystems, and, hence, it is important to determine ways to predict these consequences to enable the preservation and restoration of these key areas. Furthermore, extreme events attributed to climate change are becoming more frequent, aggravating the entire scenario and introducing ulterior uncertainties for the accurate and efficient management of these areas to protect the environment, as well as the health and safety of people. Climate change is altering the rain and extreme heat, as well as inducing other weather mutations. All these lead to more frequent natural disasters such as flood events, erosions, and contamination and spreading of pollutants. Therefore, efforts need to be devoted to investigating the underlying causes, and to identifying feasible mitigation and adaptation strategies to reduce the negative impacts on both the environment and citizens. In support of this aim, the selected papers in this book covered a wide range of issues that are mainly relevant to the following: i) the numerical and experimental characterization of complex flow conditions under specific circumstances induced by the natural hazards; ii) the effect of climate change on the hydrological processes in the mountainous, river and coastal environments, iii) the protection of ecosystems and the restoration of areas damaged by the effects of the climate change and human activities.

Der Krankenhaus-Report, der jährlich in Buchform und als Open-Access-Publikation erscheint, analysiert 2020 im Rahmen seines Schwerpunktthemas „Finanzierung und Vergütung am Scheideweg“ die aktuellen Entwicklungen in der Krankenhausfinanzierung. Jedes System der Krankenhausfinanzierung und -vergütung setzt zwangsläufig positive und negative Anreize. Auch mit dem in Deutschland 2003 eingeführten Fallpauschalensystem waren bestimmte Ziele verbunden. Das als „lernendes System“ angelegte G-DRG-System erfuhr im Lauf der Zeit eine Vielzahl von Modifikationen und Ergänzungen, die Ausgliederung der Pflegekosten ab 2020 gilt allerdings als die wesentlichste Veränderung. Ziel des Krankenhaus-Reports 2020 ist es, das Finanzierungssystem zu analysieren und Perspektiven der Weiterentwicklung aufzuzeigen. Aus dem Inhalt Der Krankenhaus-Report 2020 thematisiert unter anderem: Anspruch und Wirklichkeit der DRG-Einführung in Deutschland Empirische Evidenz zu den Wirkungen des G-DRG-Systems Systeme der Krankenhausfinanzierung und ihre Anreizwirkungen Mengensteuerung Vergütung der Pflege Vergütung und Qualität Gewinne im Krankenhausmarkt Investitionsfinanzierung und Strukturprobleme Zusätzlich werden folgende Themen zur Diskussion gestellt: Krankenhausfinanzierung und -vergütung als politisches Handlungsfeld Wirksamkeit des Krankenhausstrukturfonds Ausrichtung der Krankenhausplanung am Patientennutzen Der Datenteil greift die Krankenhausbudgetentwicklung sowie die fallpauschalenbezogene Krankenhausstatistik des Statistischen Bundesamtes auf. Ergänzt werden diese Datenanalysen durch die Krankenhauspolitische Chronik.

Race talk is about language use as an anti-racist practice in multicultural city spaces. The book contends that attention to talk reveals the relations of domination and subordination in heterogeneous, ethnically diverse and multilingual contexts, while also helping us to understand how transcultural solidarity might be expressed. Drawing on original ethnographic research conducted on licensed and unlicensed market stalls in in heterogeneous, ethnically diverse and multilingual contexts, this book examines the centrality of multilingual talk to everyday struggles about difference, positionality and entitlement. In these street markets, Neapolitan street vendors work alongside documented and undocumented migrants from Bangladesh, China, Guinea Conakry, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal as part of an ambivalent, cooperative and unequal quest to survive and prosper. As austerity, anti-immigration politics and urban regeneration projects encroached upon the possibilities of street vending, talk across linguistic, cultural, national and religious boundaries underpinned the collective action of street vendors struggling to keep their markets open. The edginess of their multilingual organisation offered useful insights into the kinds of imaginaries that will be needed to overcome the politics of borders, nationalism and radical incommunicability.

Diabetes is a worldwide public health problem that can be explained by the classic model of the determinants of health. Thus, success in preventing diabetes mellitus and its associated complications not only depends on the individual but also on social and community networks as well as general socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental conditions. For that reason, we need to create conditions that ensure good health and social care for an entire population through the development and implementation of preventive strategies, promotion of healthy lifestyles, protection from diseases, and the design of targeted screening strategies. This aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development goal number 3, good health and well-being, which includes the achievement of universal health coverage and access to quality essential healthcare services. In addition, this also has a direct link to goal number 10, which focuses on reducing inequalities within and among countries. Pathological Mechanisms in Diabetes is a compilation of high-quality scientific evidence aimed at unraveling the molecular mechanisms involved in the association between diabetes and comorbidities and at describing their clinical and therapeutic implications. The variety of updated topics included from different approaches shows the need for more efficient preventive activities to reduce the incidence of this disease and its related complications.

A uniquely comprehensive analysis of human rights, that combines historical, philosophical, and legal perspectives with cutting edge research from psychology and the cognitive sciences. Provides accessible resources to understand the deep ethical point of human rights and to criticize deficiencies in current human rights theory and practice.

Der Ausbruch der Coronakrise verunsichert, aber Verträge sind in der Welt. Was hat Bestand, was bedarf der Anpassung? Der Tagungsband dokumentiert die Beiträge der Online-Tagung „Vertragsrecht in der Coronakrise“ in zitationsfähiger Form. Von grundlegenden dogmatischen Aspekten wie dem allgemeinen Leistungsstörungsrecht über das massenhaft relevante Verbraucher- sowie Mietrecht bis hin zu Spezialfragen in der Insolvenz beantworten Rechtsexperten die drängenden Fragen in der Pandemie, z.B. Wer trägt die Hotelkosten, wenn ein Pauschalreisender wegen Flugausfällen an der Rückreise gehindert ist? Können Arbeitnehmer auf erhöhte Schutzvorkehrungen im Betrieb pochen? Wer haftet, wenn eine Warenlieferung an der Landesgrenze durch überlange Kontrollen verspätet eintrifft oder zwischenzeitlich verdirbt? Herausgeber und Autoren Herausgegeben von PD Dr. Daniel Effer-Uhe und Dipl.-Psych. Alica Mohnert, Mag. iur., LL.M. (CUPL). Mit Beiträgen von Dr. Caspar Behme, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München; Dr. Jonas Brinkmann, Universität Bielefeld; Dr. Ann-Marie Kaulbach, Universität zu Köln; Stephan Klawitter, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin; Jun.-Prof. Dr. Andreas Maurer, Universität Mannheim; PD Dr. Patrick Meier, Notarassessor, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg; Jun.-Prof. Dr. Jens Prütting, Rechtsanwalt, Bucerius Law School Hamburg; Prof. Dr. Thomas Riehm, Universität Passau; Prof. Dr. Jens M. Schmittmann, Rechtsanwalt, Mitglied des Senats für Anwaltssachen des Bundesgerichtshofs, FOM Hochschule Essen; Dipl.-Kfm. Dr. Bernd Scholl, Rechtsanwalt, Universität zu Köln.

In this heavily illustrated book, Mike Milligan has captured the still developing story of one of those remote, but no longer secluded, corners of the Colorado Plateau. Upstream from Moab on the Colorado River, near the Colorado state line, there is a relatively short, deep canyon that has become one of the most popular river-running destinations in America. The canyon is known as Westwater. Its popularity is largely due to the thrill provided by one of the most dangerous and challenging stretches of white water on the Colorado---Skull Rapid. Near the head of the canyon are the remnants of the tiny town of Westwater, which has had an interesting and eventful history of its own, partly because of the river and canyon, partly because of the railroad that passes through it, and partly because of its remoteness. It has attracted over the years more than its fair share of colorful characters---government explorers and agents, boosters and get-rich-quick dreamers, cattle and sheep men, outlaws and bootleggers, and, of course, river runners. Mike Milligan, who came to know the area as a river guide, has written a thorough history of this out-of-the-way place. While it has a colorful history that makes its story interesting in and of itself, Westwater's significance derives more from a phenomenon of the modern West-thousands of recreational river runners. They have pushed a backwater place into the foreground of modern popular culture in the West. Westwater seems to represent one common sequence in western history: the late opening of unexplored territories; sporadic, often unsuccessful attempts to develop them; renewed obscurity when development doesn't succeed; their attraction of a marginal society of misfits or loners; and modern rediscovery due to new cultural motives, especially outdoors recreation, which has brought a great number of people into thousands of remote corners of the West.

L'étude de Dalal el-Bizri, chercheur et professeur associé à l'Université libanaise, s'inscrit dans un programme de recherche du CERMOC consacré à la vie publique et ses expressions dans les sociétés du Moyen- Orient (voir les Cahiers du CERMOC n° 5, 7, 8, 9, 12). Souvent traitée (plus souvent maltraitée par les représentations courantes) la situation des musulmanes dans les sociétés arabes est abordée ici à propos du Liban sur lequel on ne disposait d'aucune étude de terrain, particulièreme...

“How would the global socio-economic scenario be today if the economy took as an example the scientific models of learning, dialogue and co-certification of astrophysics?”. The space-time journey started from one question and it has led to the first ‘interstellar guide for a new dimension of energy’, aiming to create innovative solutions for the future, for holistic sustainability including the environment, the economy and the entire society. A journey that brings together many subjects, from art in its various forms to science, economics, sociology, and engineering, thus confirming an important paradigm: modernity requires solutions originating from multiple fields, from an inter- and multi-disciplinary or even more ‘anti-disciplinary’ approach. Along the ride is the constant presence of Albert Einstein and his wise advice, “we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”. Therefore, the book, written by twelve young Ca’ Foscari graduates (six women and six men), brings together twelve topics and focuses on relevant current issues: the environment, economy and sociality. How? By talking about Keynesian multiplier, startups, scaleups and unicorns, fintech and finance, equity crowfunding, social networking as an educational tool for sustainability, sustainability as added value, evolution from Energy Service Company to Energy Social Company, the new professional roles of the Energy and the Sustainability Manager, energy communities and smart grid, Energy Efficiency, enabling technologies and innovative business models, and renewable energy sources. The mission of the book is to share a method, the Y method, that Infinityhub applies in implementing energy efficiency projects that educate on sustainability with an extraordinary result: all participants win and the benefit extends from the environment to the economy to society as a whole. Human intelligence, that precious ability to investigate things, allows us to design a new future, realising that ‘everything is linked’ and ‘we can only go upward by going toward each other’, that ‘energy results by multiplying the mass (us) for enlightenment’. This book paves the way and it is up to us to walk it together, starting with words in order to achieve works.

This eBook is a collection of articles from a Frontiers Research Topic. Frontiers Research Topics are very popular trademarks of the Frontiers Journals Series: they are collections of at least ten articles, all centered on a particular subject. With their unique mix of varied contributions from Original Research to Review Articles, Frontiers Research Topics unify the most influential researchers, the latest key findings and historical advances in a hot research area! Find out more on how to host your own Frontiers Research Topic or contribute to one as an author by contacting the Frontiers Editorial Office: frontiersin.org/about/contact

Across diverse academic fields, scholars and practitioners are engaged in developing interventions to promote outcomes like health and quality of life. Indeed, such is the apparent efficacy of such interventions, that there are many policy-led initiatives to implement these at national and international scales. However, few scholars or practitioners have thought in any systematic and critical way about the importance of contextualizing these interventions, i.e., considering how the impact of such interventions may be affected and mediated by specific sociocultural factors (from gender, to ethnicity and socio-economics). The aim of the Research Topic “The Sociocultural Context of Psychosocial Interventions” was to address this lacuna. As such, we tried to help bringing a more ‘contextual’ mindset to the implementation of health and wellbeing interventions. This may help to shift the way such interventions are designed and implemented, both at a granular local level (i.e., influencing individual practitioners) and at a large-scale macro level (e.g., influencing policy makers). Themes within this Research Topic have concerned both macro-sociocultural as well as meso-and micro-layers, and the peculiarities of implementing real world research based on these levels. There has been room for physical and mental health, for family relationships, for educational contexts and even for the effects of crime. Some works have included interesting methodological discussions on the integration of different ecological layers or the modal distribution of our interests. For us it has been very important to work giving a greater diffusion to these issues since, considering psychosocial interventions in the context in which they occur, goes beyond an epistemological or methodological discussion. Rather, these considerations seriously affect the ability of practitioners to really reach the people who need their interventions, listening to their needs and respecting their preferences. For the editors of this book, then, the contextualization of interventions means considering the people who receive them as full citizens immersed in complex societies where factors such as social justice and health or well-being do not float apart in space but affect each other dialectically. We therefore think that the duty of both academics and practitioners is not to forget that it is as important to evaluate the direct effect of our interventions as the influence we have in the society as a whole when we carry them out. We hope you enjoy reading these works and that their dissemination stimulates new lines of research committed to both good practice and social transformation.

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 via Elgaronline. This timely book explores how digital transformations are rapidly reshaping modern societies, including public service, business, educational, health and welfare systems. Leading experts in the field investigate the ways in which digital technologies increase both the demand for and promise of new solutions to crucial societal, economic and ecological challenges.

Data acquisition systems have numerous applications. This book has a total of 13 chapters and is divided into three sections: Industrial applications, Medical applications and Scientific experiments. The chapters are written by experts from around the world, while the targeted audience for this book includes professionals who are designers or researchers in the field of data acquisition systems. Faculty members and graduate students could also benefit from the book.

Cardiometabolic risk factors and type 2 diabetes are the largest contributors to the global disease burden and disease-related mortality. Visceral obesity drives the progression of multiple cardiometabolic risk factors and type 2 diabetes, and behavioral lifestyle weight loss interventions are important strategies for the prevention of these metabolic alterations. Despite the consistent evidence that the greater the body weight loss, the greater the preventive effect on cardiometabolic risk factors or diabetes, too radical strategies might be unfeasible on a large scale, and the long-term maintenance of weight reduction following restricted calorie diets represents a major challenge. Changes in diet composition acting on nutrient quality independently of changes in energy intake may be effective in cardiometabolic and diabetes risk prevention, offering a more feasible and safe alternative treatment to energy restriction. The aim of the present Special Issue is to summarize recent evidence on "Diet Quality and Risk of Cardiometabolic and Diabetes". More specifically, the impact of diet quality in terms of micro- or macronutrient composition, beyond the effect of diet restriction, on the prevention of cardiometabolic and diabetes risk as well as diabetes management, will be discussed. Personalized quality dietary interventions for cardiometabolic health and diabetes prevention, as well as possible underlying mechanisms, will also be addressed in this Special Issue.

Wer sich im frühneuzeitlichen Bern, in Königsberg, Dorpat oder Trient als Deutscher bezeichnete, verband damit keine herrschaftliche Zuordnung. Gemeint waren eher ethnisch-kulturelle Gemeinsamkeiten. Gerade der europäische Vergleich zeigt die Besonderheiten dieser offen deutschen Nationsbildung, die in der Frühen Neuzeit weit über den politischen Rahmen des Alten Reiches hinausgriff, ohne daraus staatliche Integrationsansprüche abzuleiten. Das Buch versammelt 15 Beiträge renommierter Wissenschaftler, die die Entwicklung der frühneuzeitlichen deutschen Nation in den europäischen Kontext stellen. Diskutiert werden Fragen der politischen Ordnung, der kulturellen Identität sowie des Austauschs mit den Nachbarn. Beiträge von Astrid Ackermann, Hans-Jürgen Bömelburg, Horst Carl, Meinrad von Engelberg, Daniel Fulda, Alfred Kohler, Dieter Langewiesche, Thomas Maissen, Michael North, Klaus Pietschmann, Alexander Schmidt, Georg Schmidt, Luise Schorn-Schütte, Siegrid Westphal, Joachim Whaley, Peter Wilson, Martin Wrede.