Open Access Books

La Ḥāfiẓiyya est une confrérie soufie de taille modeste, installée dans le sud du gouvernorat de Giza depuis le xixe siècle. Cette petite confrérie, affiliée à la Ḫalwatiyya, confrérie plus ancienne et aujourd’hui l’une des plus importantes d’Égypte, contribue à l’organisation de la vie religieuse locale par ses pèlerinages et ses rassemblements. La famille de son cheikh fondateur, ʿAbd al-Ḥāfiẓ (m. 1303/1886), dirige toujours la confrérie et a acquis une notabilité locale, au point d’exercer des fonctions politiques et d’arbitrage importantes. Une étude de terrain a permis de montrer l’ancrage d’une mémoire collective dans des pratiques confrériques héritées de l’enseignement du cheikh et ses descendants, se réclamant elles-mêmes de la tradition de la Ḫalwatiyya. Un manuel de soufisme, la Hidāyat al-rāġibīn fī al-sayr wa-l-sulūk ilā malik al-mulūk rabb al-ʿālamīn [La Bonne direction pour ceux qui désirent cheminer vers le Roi des rois Seigneur des mondes], assume ce rôle de transmission écrite ; l’étude de la tradition orale révèle quant à elle le travail de la mémoire et la formation d’une identité confrérique locale et originale. Faire l’histoire de la Ḥāfiẓiyya conduit à évoquer l’histoire sociale des campagnes égyptiennes et à comprendre comment s’articule l’identité locale d’une modeste confrérie de Moyenne-Égypte avec une tradition confrérique plus large et pluriséculaire.

The author examines the highly controversial issue of whether stock market prices are suitable for corporate valuation, analyzing the problem through the different concepts of value and valuation-relevant constellations. In doing so, he draws on current research findings from economics, psychology and neuroscience. On this basis, the author develops two models for an appropriate company valuation taking stock market prices into account, while also consulting US case law.

We live in a world increasingly defined by systemic, deepening and compounding crises. They threaten not only future human existence but also the planetary web-of-life. With the help of academics, creative practitioners and activists, this book explores some of the innovative ways in which different media, communicative fields, and creative practices are seeking to make a difference. From different forms of journalism and participative documentary to climate photography and ecosophical film; from radical theatre, eco-literature and eco-art to green festivals, popular music and immersive museums; and from journalism training in the climate emergency and sustainability education to communicating with ‘whole intelligence’ and ‘integrated intelligence’ beyond AI (artificial intelligence). This panoramic approach enables us to see how diverse communicative fields are engaging with some of the most critical concerns of our times – and what can be learned, shared and developed further in the challenging years ahead.

The collection of vernacular toponyms often requires gathering data directly from the voice of speakers who live in the territory being investigated. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, reminds us that fieldwork can become unfeasible under certain circumstances. The pandemic provided an opportunity to reflect on remote collection possibilities: this is how a project regarding the vernacular urban toponymy of an Italian town (Savigliano, Piedmont) became a case study in experimenting with new methods to gather toponymic data. Some features of the well-known web mapping service Google Maps provide an ideal set of useful tools for this purpose, and many are already employed in various scholarly works regarding different branches of knowledge. The specific feature explored in our case study is Google My Maps, an application that allows people to complete a map themselves by drawing areas and naming them with their corresponding place names. Each person that creates a map and shares it with the researcher (without meeting in person) becomes an informant. The experiment highlights some of the method’s strengths (no interpersonal contact; time and cost savings; no collector’s influence; easiness to export, store and analyse toponyms with IT tools). There are of course some weaknesses too (unbalanced sample, lack of oral communication, criticality when writing dialect forms, no contact between the researcher and the landscape). However, Google My Maps proves to be an excellent resource in supporting remote collection of toponyms, and it deserves to be considered not only during the pandemic emergency.

Sobriété, promotion de l’agriculture biologique, chasse au gaspillage… Ces principes bioéconomiques énoncés par Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen dans les années 1970 ont été à l’origine de l’association communément faite entre ses travaux et le mouvement de la décroissance. Cette affiliation s’avère pourtant réductrice. La participation de Georgescu- Roegen aux premiers débats écologiques et son appel à une réforme profonde de la théorie économique en font un acteur majeur des débats intellectuels de la seconde moitié du xxe siècle, bien au-delà des controverses de l’écologie radicale. La pensée de Georgescu-Roegen, à travers ses inspirations, sa clairvoyance, ses subtilités, mais aussi ses ambiguïtés et contradictions, offre un cadre de réflexion privilégié pour enraciner la réflexion économique dans la dynamique écologique. Cet ouvrage contient par ailleurs la réédition d’un texte méconnu de Georgescu-Roegen publié en 1978, « De la science économique à la bioéconomie », et riche en enseignements dans le contexte des préoccupations environnementales actuelles.

The idea behind TSP was conceived by Austrian mathematician Karl Menger in mid 1930s who invited the research community to consider a problem from the everyday life from a mathematical point of view. A traveling salesman has to visit exactly once each one of a list of m cities and then return to the home city. He knows the cost of traveling from any city i to any other city j. Thus, which is the tour of least possible cost the salesman can take? In this book the problem of finding algorithmic technique leading to good/optimal solutions for TSP (or for some other strictly related problems) is considered. TSP is a very attractive problem for the research community because it arises as a natural subproblem in many applications concerning the every day life. Indeed, each application, in which an optimal ordering of a number of items has to be chosen in a way that the total cost of a solution is determined by adding up the costs arising from two successively items, can be modelled as a TSP instance. Thus, studying TSP can never be considered as an abstract research with no real importance.

Unter Joseph II. wurde 1785 das Josephinum eröffnet und beheimatete die medizinisch-chirurgische Josephs-Akademie, die ausschließlich der Ausbildung für zukünftige Feldchirurgen und als Modell für mehrere Chirurgenschule in Europa diente. Im Laufe ihrer 90-jährigen Geschichte durchlief die militärärztliche Ausbildung, bedingt durch die Entwicklung in der Medizin als auch in der universitären ärztlichen Ausbildung, mehrere grundlegende Veränderungen. Diese führten zu Reformen der Studienpläne an der Akademie. Sie mussten aber zusätzlich berücksichtigen: „dass das Wesen eines wahren Feldarztes stets aus zwei Elementen bestehen müsse, nämlich aus dem ärztlichen-wissenschaftlichen und dem militärischen.“ (Ignaz Traugott Dreyer 1843). Auch wenn in der Medizin- und Militärgeschichte die Josephs-Akademie fast vergessen ist, so haben wichtige Persönlichkeiten an ihr gelehrt und bekannte Schüler ausgebildet.

Philosophy of Education; Religion and Society; Philosophy of Religion; Judaism

The here collected contributions relating to the 46th International Conference of the Representation Disciplines Teachers, organized jointly by Sapienza University of Rome, Roma Tre University, and San Raffaele Roma University, aim to offer the scientific community a reflection on the theoretical and methodological aspects related to the concept of èkphrasis, a term that, in the field of representation, concerns descriptive, analogical, and digital activities that generate new knowledge in several areas of application. The Conference aims to place at the center of the discussion an interpretation of the concept of research that, without neglecting an idea of study, protection, and enhancement of environmental and cultural heritage, focuses on the needs of contemporary society and its possible developments, making use of innovative theoretical, methodological, and operational activities, including those characterized by an interdisciplinary approach. According to this interpretation, research can also be seen as a foreshadowing of the definition and testing of experimental proposals aimed at exploring new areas of investigation: this opens up imaginative and utopian perspectives in the relationship between the sciences, the arts, and the disciplines that contribute to common goals, through the experimentation of methods, techniques, and languages for conceiving, prefiguring, designing, and representing.

This book presents 23 successful arts-based efforts to respond to social problems experienced by disadvantaged communities. The arts are a powerful means of fighting discrimination, marginalisation, neglect and even poverty. The educational programmes described in these chapters help stakeholders find solutions which are research-based, adaptable, repeatable and sustainable. Social problems that are addressed in this book include children living with physical challenges; suffering from financial and educational poverty; elderly women suffering from solitude; migrants facing a strange and not always welcoming cultural context; Roma youth fighting negative stereotypes and many more. Revealing the interconnectedness between social, economic and cultural exclusion, contributors planned interventions to develop skills, strengthen identities and build communities. This book will be of interest to scholars working in the visual arts, art education, design education, drama and theatre education and museum pedagogy. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

'Clinical Flow Cytometry - Emerging Applications' contains a collection of reviews and original papers that illustrate the relevance of flow cytometry for the study of specific diseases and clinical evaluations. The chapters have been contributed by authors from a wide variety of countries showing the broad application and importance of this technology in medicine. Examples include chapters on autoimmune disease, cancer, and the evaluation of new drugs. The book is intended to give newcomers a helpful introduction, but also to provide experienced flow cytometrists with novel insights and a better understanding of clinical cytometry.

The ANZUS Alliance was a defence arrangement between Australia, New Zealand and the United States that shaped international policy in the aftermath of the Second World War and the early stages of the Cold War. Forged by influential individuals and impacting on global events including the Japanese Peace Treaty, the Korean War and the Suez Crisis, the ANZUS Alliance was a crucial factor in the seismic changes that took place in the second half of the twentieth century. In this compact and accessible study Andrew Kelly lays out the tensions that underpinned the formation of the Alliance, as each power sought to extract maximum influence and prestige, and examines how the ANZUS powers worked together (or failed to do so) when responding to massive global events including the rise of the People’s Republic of China and the waning of the British Empire. Kelly comprehensively explores the reasons why Australia and New Zealand disagreed so regularly about mutual security issues, how US global leadership shaped ANZUS, and the British impact on the trilateral relationship, and outlines how these issues set the foundations for today’s world order. ANZUS and the Early Cold War is essential reading for historians of Australian, New Zealand and American international relations in the twentieth century. Its concise format and readable style will also appeal to general readers interested in the history and foreign policies of these nations, and to anyone who wants to know more about the individual and geopolitical tensions that beset any major alliance.

The series Material Text Cultures is the publication organ of the Collaborative Research Center 933 of the same name at Heidelberg University, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The series publishes collections and monographs dedicated to the Collaborative Research Center’s main focus of research – that is, the materiality and presence of writing in non-typographic societies.

Bryophytes, a group of plants present in all terrestrial biomes of the Earth, play a significant role in ecosystems and have potential use in many life domains. They can be used in the cosmetic, pharmaceutical, and healthcare domains and can help to improve air quality, create bio-repellents and bio-pesticides, and help cure both human and animal diseases. This book discusses novel aspects of fundamental and applicative bryophyte biology.

A hitherto unpublished scripture of Buddhist dharani literature, the Vajratuṇḍasamayakalparāja has been recently discovered in five Nepalese manuscripts. This rare Sanskrit text from around the fifth century focuses on the ritual practice of thaumaturgic weather control for successful agriculture by the vidyadhara spell-master, linking the incantation tradition to the economic power of the Nepalese Buddhist community.