Open Access Books

This book scrutinizes the body as represented in literature of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in and around East Asia: China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia. The scope of the volume is thematic: saturated bodies, repressed bodies, reappropriated bodies, trans-formed bodies. The methodology combines as many disciplines as possible: narratology, anthropology, psychoanalysis, cultural history of the body, etc. History’s vicissitudes of history in the area concerned do not erase old conceptions of the body, as well as related discourses and legends, but the shock of modernization splits the body between an anatomized one, in search of identity mostly repressed by the nation, and a virtual one, generated by the cyberspace. Literature most often accounts for the phenomenon as if the autonomy of the body, still at stake, conditioned the so-called autonomy of writing. Two tendencies also appear in writing: a classical one, still restoring the body's deficiencies and excesses ; an experimental one, which manages to renew the link of the body with an alienating world, even if that implies breaking the language. An experience that is quite similar, all in all, to that of the West. A number of unpublished and translated extracts illustrate the whole.

A rare look at the role of special effects in creating fictional worlds and transmedia franchises From comic book universes crowded with soaring superheroes and shattering skyscrapers to cosmic empires set in far-off galaxies, today’s fantasy blockbusters depend on visual effects. Bringing science fiction from the studio to your screen, through film, television, or video games, these special effects power our entertainment industry. More Than Meets the Eye delves into the world of fantastic media franchises to trace the ways in which special effects over the last 50 years have become central not just to transmedia storytelling but to worldbuilding, performance, and genre in contemporary blockbuster entertainment. More Than Meets the Eye maps the ways in which special effects build consistent storyworlds and transform genres while traveling from one media platform to the next. Examining high-profile franchises in which special effects have played a constitutive role such as Star Trek, Star Wars, The Matrix, and The Lord of the Rings, as well as more contemporary franchises like Pirates of the Caribbean and Harry Potter, Bob Rehak analyzes the ways in which production practices developed alongside the cultural work of industry professionals. By studying social and cultural factors such as fan interaction, this book provides a context for understanding just how much multiplatform storytelling has come to define these megahit franchises. More Than Meets the Eye explores the larger history of how physical and optical effects in postwar Hollywood laid the foundation for modern transmedia franchises and argues that special effects are not simply an adjunct to blockbuster filmmaking, but central agents of an entire mode of production.

The book examines the impact of verbal semantics – telicity and affectedness, mostly – on differential object marking (DOM) in Spanish. It presents two studies providing empirical evidence for earlier claims and, additionally, integrates the results into an explanatory model based on the concept of prominence.

In the educational discourse video games are often regarded as a vital risk for young people. Especially excessive gaming of adolescents troubles teachers, educators and parents. The lack of knowledge about digital gaming worlds, as well as the lack of own gaming experience can lead to misjudgement and ignorance of resources acquired by young gamers. This is the starting point of the Gamepaddle project: identifying young people’s game-related resources and helping them to benefit from them in other primarily non-game-related contexts such as school, intergenerational dialogue, creative activity or civic commitment.

The volume, dedicated to the 44th International Conference of the Italian Union for Drawing, investigates the theme of ‘Transitions’, which particularly effectively represents our time and the current condition of the discipline of Drawing. The term, beyond its generic meaning of an intermediate stage in a process in which a condition changes from one state to another, has always been used in various fields, from music to geophysics. In fact, the disciplines of drawing have always been confronted with themes and issues relating to transitions from one condition to another. The history of representation tells us of transformations, even epochal ones, relating to ‘drawing’, with all that such transitions entail: suffice it to think of the evolution of forms of representation, of instrumental apparatuses, of the mutability of supports, of the analogical-digital transition underway, of the new modes of communication on platforms, of the hypertrophic offer of images also on the net that confirms Guy Debord’s intuitions relating to the new spectacularisation of society. Similarly, representation triggers transitions in the prefiguration and communication of design, the anticipation and foreshadowing of future events.The challenges posed by the digital pose open questions whose scope can only be glimpsed, such as the relationship between drawing and the act of modelling, and the construction of new paradigms of visual language and communication. ‘Transitions’, almost implicitly, points to possible futures, the evolution of technique and the search for new modes of expression; at the same time, however, it can suggest silences and reflections in a process of connection between history, theory, criticism and construction.

This open access book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Symposium on Frontiers of Combining Systems, FroCoS 2025, held in Reykjavik, Iceland, during September 29–October 1, 2025. The 21 full papers included in the proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected from 32 submissions. They were organized in topical sections as follows: Description logics; beyond classical logic; satisfiability modulo theories; term rewrite systems; theorem proving; specific reasoning procedures; and proof checking.

The book Ebola is a relevant resource of knowledge about various aspects of the Ebola virus (EBOV) and the related disease. Many experts from different fields of science and from different parts of the world contributed to the creation of this book. The book contains valuable information about firsthand experience of managing Ebola virus disease (EVD) in Third World countries and offers the best practices to handle possible pandemic outbreaks of Ebola. Detailed analysis of EBOV genome is also given, with the description of EBOV pathology supported with structural information, and in addition, the various tasks and strategies for the development of an effective anti-Ebola cure are proposed.

Sowohl in Expertenkreisen als auch in der Öffentlichkeit wird schon länger kontrovers über die anhaltenden Niedrigzinsen diskutiert. Liegt die Ursache dieser Niedrigzinsphase an der ultralockeren Geldpolitik der Zentralbanken oder sind die Zentralbanken selbst Getriebene einer bereits länger bestehenden realwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, die man mit dem Begriff »säkulare Stagnation« charakterisieren könnte? Die These von der säkularen Stagnation ist eng mit dem amerikanischen Ökonomen Alvin Hansen verbunden, der das Thema in den späten 1930er Jahren aufwarf. Allerdings haben sich bereits klassische Ökonomen wie D. Ricardo und J. St. Mill damit befasst. Im vorliegenden Band werden Vergleiche zwischen älteren und jüngeren Erklärungsansätzen wirtschaftlicher Stagnation und Deflation vorgestellt.»Theories of Economic Stagnation and Deflation« Originally, the idea of secular stagnation was proposed by the American economist Alvin Hansen in the late 1930s. In 2013, Larry Summers took up this idea in a speech to the IMF. Classical economists such as D. Ricardo and J. St. Mill have also dealt with this topic in detail. This volume presents comparisons between older and more recent approaches explaining economic stagnation and deflation.

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Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Chilean table became a privileged stage for modernity, distinction, and symbolic power. *Food Design and Culture: Menus and Wines in the Chilean Belle Époque (1884–1925)* offers an innovative interpretation of this process, exploring how menus, wines, labels, banquets, and gastronomic spaces functioned as true design interfaces long before the concept of Food Design was formulated as a discipline.

La réflexion sur la définition d’une « identité », quelle soit nationale, groupale ou communautaire, et, en contrepoint, les difficultés engendrées par la reconnaissance de multiples formes de « diversité » ont pris une place centrale dans le débat public de la plupart des pays européens au cours des dernières années. Ces questions font par ailleurs l’objet d’un nombre croissant de créations artistiques, particulièrement révélatrices des tensions inhérentes au double mouvement d’affirmation et de différenciation identitaires. La question de l’exil et de l’intégration soulevée par l’intensification des flux de migration internationale contribue à mettre en évidence les paradoxes de la rencontre, voire de la confrontation, entre maints aspects de la culture d’origine et de la culture du pays d’accueil. Cet ouvrage aborde les thèmes de l’identité et de la diversité en croisant les regards des chercheurs en sciences sociales et littérature contemporaine avec ceux d’acteurs de la « diversité » dans une perspective comparative internationale, et vise à proposer des pistes de réflexion sur ces notions controversées, fluctuantes, polymorphes.

The Global Governance Forum and the Global Challenges Foundation collaborate in this collection in their concern that the UN Charter and the contemporary infrastructure for international cooperation are no longer fit for purpose and lack the instruments, resources and legitimacy to address the catastrophic risks threatening our future. Twenty-eight contributors offer thoughtful proposals for reforming existing international institutions and creating new ones to build a more peaceful, prosperous and just world, covering themes such as the management of weapons of mass destruction, collective security arrangements, justice and equity in economics, human rights, migration and refugees, climate mitigation, and food security, all bearing on the health of both people and planet. The vital project of this century is building institutions that will underpin global governance in coming decades, requiring imagination, persistence, empathy, and confidence that we will find a path to enhanced mechanisms of binding international law and the resources to make that happen. The volume is essential reading for scholars and researchers on international politics and public policy and indispensable for diplomats and government agencies.

Computer Vision (CV) have seen a massive rise in popularity in the remote sensing field over the last few years. This success is mostly due to the effectiveness of deep learning (DL) algorithms. However, remote sensing data acquisition and annotation, as well as information extraction from massive remote sensing data, are still challenging. This reprint collected novel developments in the field of deep learning and computer vision methods for remote sensing. Papers dealing with fundamental theoretical analyses, as well as those demonstrating their application to real-world problems, have been published. With practical examples and real-world case studies, this reprint provides a valuable resource for researchers, professionals, and students seeking to harness the power of deep learning in the field of remote sensing. Here are some major topics that are addressed in this reprint: Satellite image processing and analysis based on deep learning; Deep learning for object detection, image classification, and semantic and instance segmentation; Deep learning for remote sensing scene understanding and classification; Transfer learning, deep reinforcement learning for remote sensing; Supervised and unsupervised representation learning for remote sensing environments.

Rynek pracy jest konglomeratem wielu subrynków, a jednym z kluczowych kryteriów podziału jest kryterium przestrzenne. Problematyka niniejszej monografii obejmuje szerokie spektrum zagadnień związanych z ilościową analizą rynku pracy w Polsce w ujęciu powiatowym. Badania przeprowadzone z zastosowaniem zróżnicowanych metod ilościowych (m.in. eksploracyjna analiza danych przestrzennych, metody wielokryterialnej klasyfikacji obiektów, niestrukturalne metody prognozowania) pozwoliły na identyfikację homogenicznych pod względem profilu gospodarczego klastrów powiatów oraz krótkookresową prognozę zatrudnienia w wyodrębnionych klastrach. Poszczególne działy gospodarki charakteryzują się odmiennymi prawidłowościami rozwojowymi i odmienną wrażliwością na zmiany koniunkturalne. Perspektywy rozwoju nie są jednakowe dla wszystkich rodzajów działalności gospodarczej, co determinuje sytuację na rynku pracy. Monografia stanowi nowatorskie oraz rzetelne opracowanie dotyczące modelowania sytuacji na regionalnych rynkach pracy. […] Podjęta w pracy problematyka jest istotna nie tylko dla rozważań teoretycznych prowadzących do nowych rozwiązań dla funkcjonowania rynku pracy, ale przede wszystkim dla przestrzennych badań ekonomicznych.