Open Access Books

This book celebrates Professor Margaret Brazier’s outstanding contribution to the field of healthcare law and bioethics. It examines key aspects developed in Professor Brazier’s agenda-setting body of work, with contributions being provided by leading experts in the field from the UK, Australia, the US and continental Europe. They examine a range of current and future challenges for healthcare law and bioethics, representing state-of-the-art scholarship in the field.

Published

COVID-19 sparked the largest global crisis of the 21st century, extending well beyond public health. For some, the impact was swift and dramatic, with the pandemic pushing tens of millions into poverty and creating extreme food insecurity; for others, the transformations are still bubbling under the surface. Efforts to arrest the spread of COVID-19 entailed far-reaching forms of government intervention and the extensive use of new technologies. Questions thus remain as to whether the societal changes brought about by COVID-19 will endure in the post-pandemic period. The return of geopolitics, along with the war in Ukraine and tensions in Asia, have further complexified an already complex global situation.Since March 2020, there has been an explosion of analyses about the short-term impacts and future global consequences of COVID-19. Parallels to the 1930s collapse of Europe have been made, as recounted by Stefan Zweig in his famous memoir, The World of Yesterday. While most commentators are pessimistic, some are looking for positive change. Faced with this unprecedented crisis, we have been propelled to think about how, in the “next world,” we can strengthen economic prosperity, social justice, the environment, gender relations, public health, and political institutions—or at least ensure that these features of our world do not continue to deteriorate.In The Afterworld, 50 professors from four Montreal universities, among the foremost experts in their fields, propose progressive, pragmatic, and social science-based ideas with the potential to improve international cooperation, security, human rights, and sustainable prosperity beyond the pandemic.

The Aulic Council is one of the most outstanding European supreme courts of its time and one of the most important institutions of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in the early modern period (16th-18th century). In close proximity to the emperor, it dealt with legal disputes and fiefdom, privilege matters and the requests of individuals for help, protection and mediation. The systematic and detailed listing of the records of the Aulic Council preserved in the Austrian State Archives in Vienna provides a comprehensive insight into the tasks of maintaining legal peace with which the Aulic Council had to deal. The records cover not only politically highly explosive conflicts over rule, denomination and territories between the powerful of the Empire; they also make visible everyday disputes over debts, inheritances and provisioning, which were brought before the emperor by nobles and commoners, clergy and laymen, women and men from the entire Empire. The record thus becomes a productive aid both for legal and constitutional history and for the entire intellectual and cultural history of the Old Empire and Europe.

Im Rahmen des Projekts Duncker & Humblot reprints heben wir Schätze aus dem Programm der ersten rund 150 Jahre unserer Verlagsgeschichte, von der Gründung 1798 bis zum Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs 1945. Lange vergriffene Klassiker und Fundstücke aus den Bereichen Rechts- und Staatswissenschaften, Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, Geschichte, Philosophie und Literaturwissenschaft werden nach langer Zeit wieder verfügbar gemacht – und zwar sowohl gedruckt als auch in elektronischer Form. Einige Titel sind bereits erschienen. Täglich kommen weitere hinzu. Bis Ende des Jahres wird das »Duncker & Humblot reprints«-Programm auf ca. 1.500 Bände anwachsen. Möchten Sie regelmäßig über Neuerscheinungen aus dem reprints-Programm informiert werden? Dann abonnieren Sie unseren E-Mail-Benachrichtigungsdienst.

Pour contribuer à une meilleure représentation des espaces de pratiques physiques et sportives, nous avons souhaité remonter aux sources. Avec ce livre, nous voulons décrire et comprendre la constitution d’une pratique de l’activité physique pour les enfants et adolescents déficients intellectuels. Il s’agit de repérer et analyser la façon dont se sont constitués et agencés les savoirs : « L’épistémologue doit donc trier les documents recueillis par l’historien. Il doit les juger du point de vue de la raison et même du point de vue de la raison évoluée » (Gaston Bachelard, La Formation de l’esprit scientifique). Nous voulons comprendre le présent par une étude du passé essentiellement critique.

Imaginons une société dans laquelle les hommes seraient en majorité plus petits que les femmes (ou les femmes plus grandes que les hommes, selon le point de vue). Impossible, pensons-nous ? Parce que tout ce que fait la Nature est « bien fait »? Et si, en la matière, la Nature était loin de produire des adaptations positives ? Et si, en plus, cette différenciation morphologique n'était pas l'œuvre de la Nature ? Si elle était plutôt l'indice de sélections non naturelles constituées par une entreprise de catégorisation sociale millénaire : le genre ? L'auteur discute dans cet ouvrage des explications évolutives du dimorphisme sexuel de taille corporelle entre mâles et femelles dans le monde vivant. Elle attire l'attention sur l'absence d'un modèle robuste qui rende compte de l'écart sexué de la stature dans l'espèce humaine; en confrontant des données et des modèles disponibles dans des champs disciplinaires éloignés, elle fait peu à peu émerger une hypothèse inédite. Cette recherche illustre le besoin de questionnements transdisciplinaires qui se montrent seuls ici capables de renouveler les termes d'une investigation remarquablement gelée depuis le xixe siècle.

The majority of carbon stored in the soils of the world is stored in forests. The refractory nature of some portions of forest soil organic matter also provides the slow, gradual release of organic nitrogen and phosphorus to sustain long term forest productivity. Contemporary and future disturbances, such as climatic warming, deforestation, short rotation sylviculture, the invasion of exotic species, and fire, all place strains on the integrity of this homeostatic system of C, N, and P cycling. On the other hand, the CO2 fertilization effect may partially offset losses of soil organic matter, but many have questioned the ability of N and P stocks to sustain the CO2 fertilization effect.

In recent years, the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and global conflicts have caused major uncertainty in the economy, society, and energy sectors. These events have introduced new and ongoing challenges in transportation. The central question regarding the future of transportation is as follows: Which new trends will emerge? Governments, organizations, and citizens share the common goal of creating cities with less congestion, reduced pollution, increased accessibility, and better infrastructure. This Special Issue provides a comprehensive examination of these themes, offering critical insights into current advancements and future challenges in transportation. The contributions encompass a range of topics, including the relationship between urban form and movement patterns, the integration of technologies such as electromobility and autonomous vehicles, and the impact of these trends on both regional and global scales. Ultimately, the goal is not just efficient and clean transportation, but a systemic transition that is technologically innovative, politically viable, and socially just. This collection of contributions aims to guide us toward more sustainable, resilient, and equitable future transportation systems that enhance the lives of urban communities.

This report finds parallels in U.S. prisoner and detainee operations in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq: underestimation of the number to be held, hasty scrambling for resources, and inadequate doctrine and policy. Later, attempts to educate and influence prisoners and detainees are often made. The authors recommend that detailed doctrine should be in place prior to detention and that detainees should be interviewed when first detained.

In a world where the coordinates of meaning—political, economic, cultural, ecological, and epistemological—are shifting, the effort to gather, organize, and compare the traditions of Latin American thought responds not only to an academic concern but also to a historical urgency and an unavoidable intellectual task. This is why a collective work such as this, which seeks to share a comprehensive view and a provisional assessment of the theoretical and critical contributions made so far this century, is so relevant and timely. This book emerges at a moment when Western-centrism and the values ​​of classical modernity have entered a profound crisis, giving way to the need to formulate alternative approaches from "other epistemologies" that account for our situated and unique realities.

If parapolitics, a branch of radical criminology that studies the interactions between public entities and clandestine agencies, is to develop as an academic discipline, then it must develop a coherent theory of aesthetics in order to successfully perform its primary function: to render perceptible extra-judicial phenomena that have hitherto resisted formal classification. Wilson offers the work of H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) as an example of the relevance of subversive literature—in this case, cosmic horror and the weird tale—to the parapolitical criminologist. Cosmic horror is a form of writing that relies heavily upon the epistemological assumption of a radical and irreconcilable disjunction between appearance and reality, perception and truth. In many ways, the well-constructed weird tale strongly resembles the hard-boiled detective story or the noir thriller in that the resolution of the narrative hinges upon a dramatically shattering confrontation with an unspeakable reality. Apart from its obvious utilization of conspiracy theory, the primary attraction of the Lovecraftian text lies with its remarkably sophisticated utilization of two central tropes of classical aesthetic theory—the sublime and the grotesque. Not only does Lovecraft’s oeuvre represent a remarkable use of both of these motifs, but the raw literary power of the Lovecraftian weird tale serves as an outstanding exemplar for the parapolitical scholar to emulate in formulating an alternative mode of discourse, or poetics.

S'il est vrai que le catch est au sport de combat ce que Guignol est au théâtre ou Chariot au cinéma, ce livre est une invite à percer un secret de polichinelle mais qui ne se laisse pas facilement dévoiler par l'enquête de vérité. Comment la grande geste du chiqué se fabrique-t-elle à la salle d'entraînement où rôdent souvent les marchands de spectacles ? Comment donne-t-elle à voir, en pleine lumière, les frasques et les destinées violentes de son petit théâtre d'illusions ? Comment son mimodrame est-il interprété et ressenti dans la salle, par le jeu convenu de la participation et les émotions qu'elle attise ? Des tréteaux de la baraque de foire jusqu'au show des superstars en passant par les hauts lieux parisiens de la variété télégénique, “le monde où l'on catche” est ici débusqué conjointement par le témoignage historique, l'enquête ethnographique et le reportage photographique.

Africa, Cape of Good Hope, maritime security, naval history, piracy, Suez Canal

Digital transformation is an unavoidable force that is redefining society. However, beneath a surface of technological optimism, deep inequalities can be observed. How can we ensure that all share the benefits of digitisation? The book Digital Equity and Literacy is a valuable contribution that addresses these critical questions, serving as a reference for navigating the complex intersection between technology, society, and justice. This work presents a compilation of global perspectives from international experts who study the concept of digital divide. Based on an in-depth analysis, frameworks are proposed that consider digital literacy a human right, expanding its definition to include artificial intelligence. This work explores the experienced dimensions of digital inclusion and pedagogical strategies for empowering citizens with critical thinking and ethical skills. The analysis of high-level challenges, including governance and ethical dilemmas in sectors such as health, as well as the risks associated with financial transformation, is complemented by the presentation of concrete case studies on policies and strategies implemented in diverse countries and contexts. This work provides conceptual tools and practical evidence, offering policymakers, educators, researchers, and citizens a roadmap for fostering a more equitable, fair, and inclusive digital future.