Open Access Books

A vast amount has been written about petroleum fuels, including books and guidelines; hence, we thought it timely to produce a book Petroleum Fuels: Recent Updates, which covers the most important areas in the topic. In its pages, we tried to include advances toward green and sustainable viable products in terms of biodiesel production and chemical transformation. The book contains rich extracts from experts in the fuel field, including technical/environmental and econometric aspects.

Laser processing has become more relevant today due to its fast adaptation to the most critical technological tasks, its ability to provide processing in the most rarefied and aggressive mediums (vacuum conditions), its wide field of potential applications, and the green aspects related to the absence of industrial cutting chips and dust. With the development of 3D production, laser processing has received renewed interest associated with its ability to achieve pointed to high-precision powder melting or sintering. New technologies and equipment, which improve and modify optical laser parameters, contribute to better absorption of laser energy by metals or powder surfaces and allow for multiplying laser power that can positively influence the industrial spread of the laser in mass production and advance the existing manufacturing methods. The latest achievements in laser processing have become a relevant topic in the most authoritative scientific journals and conferences in the last half-century. Advances in laser processing have received multiple awards in the most prestigious competitions and exhibitions worldwide and at international scientific events. The Special Issue is devoted to the most recent achievements in the laser processing of various materials, such as cast irons, tool steels, high entropy alloys, hard-to-remelt materials, cement mortars, and post-processing and innovative manufacturing based on a laser.

The Edition of the Minutes of the Cabinet Meetings of the first government of Leopold Figl constitutes an important contribution to historical knowledge on the early years of Austria’s Second Republic and the reconstruction and renewal of the state and its political components after World War II. Volume 7 of the Edition encompasses the minutes of meeting No. 89 of November 25, 1947 to meeting No. 96 of January 20, 1948 as well as the accompanying minutes of the Wirtschaftliches Ministerkomitee from that time period. In terms of content, the discussions between the members of government documented therein pertain to a broad thematic spectrum, including matters of foreign, domestic and economic policy and reconstruction and the difficult relations between the Austrian government and the four great powers; there is particular emphasis on the ever-present matter of securing the basic level of nutrition for the Austrian and especially the Viennese population, on the ongoing deliberations on the Austrian State Treaty and on legislative measures to stabilize Austria’s currency. The volume documents the many steps undertaken by the Austrian government to transform Austria once again into a sovereign state, integrated into the international community.

Unbestritten kommt der Ausstattung und Qualität des Humankapitals eine immer größere Rolle für die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit eines Landes oder eines einzelnen Unternehmens zu. Dabei kann der Bestand an Humankapital zwar sowohl auf private als auch auf betriebliche oder staatliche Bildungsinvestitionen zurückgehen, diese sind aber alle sehr weitgehend durch die institutionellen Rahmenbedingungen der nationalen Bildungssysteme geprägt. Vor diesem Hintergrund hat sich der Bildungsökonomische Ausschuss auf seiner 26. Jahrestagung, die im März 2001 am Institut für Arbeitsrecht und Arbeitsbeziehungen in der europäischen Gemeinschaft in Trier stattfand, mit der Analyse nationaler Bildungssysteme und ihrer Rückwirkungen auf betriebliche Bildungs- und Beschäftigungsstrategien sowie die individuelle Bereitschaft zur Teilnahme an betrieblichen Bildungsangeboten im internationalen Vergleich beschäftigt. Die Autoren betrachten zum einen das Bildungssystem in Deutschland oder ein ausländisches Bildungssystem, um indirekt Schlussfolgerungen über den Einfluss institutioneller Rahmenbedingungen abzuleiten. Zum anderen erfolgen klassische internationale Vergleiche, die mithilfe quasi-experimenteller Untersuchungsdesigns die Bildungs- und Beschäftigungspraktiken in zwei Ländern unter kontrollierten Bedingungen vergleichen und so versuchen, den Zusammenhang zwischen betrieblichen Strategien und institutionellen Rahmenbedingungen direkt nachzuweisen. Die Aufsätze umfassen rein theoretische, von formalen Modellen lebende Analysen einerseits bis zu schwerpunktmäßig empirischen, von ausgefeilten ökonometrischen Verfahren getragene Analysen andererseits.

This book emphasizes on five different sections of rhinology, namely, 'Surgical Anatomy', 'Dental-Related Diseases', 'Radiological Imaging', 'Nasal Spaces' and 'Surgical Training'. It incorporates new clinical and research developments as well as future perspectives in the ever-expanding field of rhinology. I dedicate this book to those of you who pick up the torch and by continued research, close clinical observation and the high quality of clinical care as well as publication and selfless teaching, further advance knowledge in rhinology from this point forward. This is intended to be a guide for other books to follow. General otolaryngologist, rhinologist, researchers, specialists, trainees and general practitioners with interest in otolaryngology will find this book useful and interesting.

Quels liens subtils rapprochent le personnel du cycle romanesque de Solal, la voix lyrique des monologues intérieurs de Belle du Seigneur, les instances narratives des essais et le discours épidictique dédié à Winston Churchill ? Question a priori complexe. Foisonnante, parfois débordante dans sa polyphonie, l'œuvre de Cohen s'organise pourtant autour d'une ligne de force qui n'est pas immédiatement perceptible, celle de la table. Constituant un réseau de signes qui affleurent dans les textes, le champ de la nourriture se transforme en un langage porteur d'obsessions récurrentes. Poids des origines, héritage des traditions, comédie de l'amour, questionnements métaphysiques, tous les domaines s'évaluent à l'aune du comestible. Manger, c'est donner un sens à son existence. Mordre dans un chocolat, c'est goûter le présent et ses gourmandises, mais aussi renouer avec un passé inquiétant. De cet univers ambigu émerge cependant Mangeclous, le « vainqueur éternel ». Conviant les Valeureux à partager maints festins plus ou moins transgressifs, le personnage excède les contours de la figure burlesque pour sublimer le prosaïque. C'est par son regard que surgit la vision d'un monde dont la quête est celle d'une sagesse à hauteur d'homme. Refusant les codes d'une bourgeoisie vaudevillesque, Mangeclous élève l'appétit au rang de vertu, prône avec ironie les mérites du mensonge et érige le plaisir de manger en règle de vie. Nouvel avatar des géants rabelaisiens, ce prophète comique ne s'épanouit que dans le paradoxe et l'amour des nourritures.

The subject of this book is ""Biofuel and Bioenergy Technology"". It aims to publish high-quality review and research papers, addressing recent advances in biofuel and bioenergy. State-of-the-art studies of advanced techniques of biorefinery for biofuel production are also included. Research involving experimental studies, recent developments, and novel and emerging technologies in this field are covered. This book contains twenty-seven technical papers which cover diversified biofuel and bioenergy technology-related research that have shown critical results and contributed significant findings to the fields of biomass processing, pyrolysis, bio-oil and its emulsification; transesterification and biodiesel, gasification and syngas, fermentation and biogas/methane, bioethanol and alcohol-based fuels, solid fuel and biochar, and microbial fuel cell and power generation development. The published contents relate to the most important techniques and analyses applied in the biofuel and bioenergy technology.

Scholars, critics, and creators describe certain videogames as being “poetic,” yet what that means or why it matters is rarely discussed. In Game Poems: Videogame Design as Lyric Practice, independent game designer Jordan Magnuson explores the convergences between game making and lyric poetry and makes the surprising proposition that videogames can operate as a kind of poetry apart from any reliance on linguistic signs or symbols. This rigorous and accessible short book first examines characteristics of lyric poetry and explores how certain videogames can be appreciated more fully when read in light of the lyric tradition—that is, when read as “game poems.” Magnuson then lays groundwork for those wishing to make game poems in practice, providing practical tips and pointers along with tools and resources. Rather than propose a monolithic framework or draw a sharp line between videogame poems and poets and their nonpoetic counterparts, Game Poems brings to light new insights for videogames and for poetry by promoting creative dialogue between disparate fields. The result is a lively account of poetic game-making praxis. “Everyone who loves the true power of games will benefit from the treasure trove of insights in Game Poems.” — Jesse Schell, author of The Art of Game Design “Magnuson shines a sensitive and incisive light on small, often moving, videogames.” — D. Fox Harrell, Ph.D., Professor of Digital Media, Computing, and Artificial Intelligence, MIT “[Game Poems] tells a new story about games— that games can be lyrical, beautiful, emotionally challenging—to inspire creators and critics alike.” —Noah Wardrip-Fruin, author of How Pac-Man Eats “Even as the news swells with impending doom for creativity, writing, and text itself, this literate and crafty book pursues poetry not through implacable algorithms but in concrete and personal play. It should be an indispensable guide for anyone who aims to maintain the true, human promise of technical poetics.”—Stuart Moulthrop, coauthor of Twining: Critical and Creative Approaches to Hypertext Narratives “For far too long videogames have flourished – and commanded both capital and attention – in a kind of counterculture that they seem to have created as if ex nihilo for themselves and their players. But we are these players, and their culture has always been integrated with all of our own. In this evenhanded artist-scholar’s ars poetica Jordan Magnuson respects the material cultural specificity of videogames while regarding them through the ‘lens of poetry’ in order to discover – and help create – a practice and an art of Game Poems within the wider field. Magnuson formally, int(erv)entionally embraces this art as lyrically poetic.”—John Cayley, Brown University “In Game Poems, Magnuson listens carefully to videogames, and hears them speak to questions of art, language, and meaning that connect our written past to our software future. Read this book and you will hear it too.”—Frank Lantz, Director, NYU Game Center “Jordan Magnuson has created a work that ties together the worlds of poetry and videogames in a deep and enlightening way. For those of us who care about the potential of poetic games, Jordan greatly improves the language of how we talk about them and expands our ability to see what this unique form can become. This is one of my favorite books on game design and I apologize in advance to those whom I will end up cornering and not being able to stop talking to about it.”—Benjamin Ellinger, Game Design Program Director, DigiPen Institute of Technology “A groundbreaking and accessible book that helps us think about games as poems. With patient tenacity, Magnuson teases out what he felt for years as he engaged in his own practice of making videogames. His mission to help us apply a ‘lyric reading’ to games so that our engagement with, and appreciation of, games can be enhanced feels deeply personal. Drawing from a wide range of games and computational media scholars, poetry scholars, game creators, and poets, Magnuson provides a rigorous, balanced, and unique interdisciplinary contribution. A must-read for videogame scholars, practicing game makers, and anyone interested in the potential of ‘game poems.’”—Susana Ruiz, University of California, Santa Cruz “This book tenaciously wrenches videogame hermeneutics from the insatiable maws of rhetoric and narratology—to the cheers of poets everywhere. In elucidating the lyric characteristics of the ""game poem,"" Magnuson demonstrates not just that poetry is a useful lens for understanding videogames, but also that videogames can be a useful lens for understanding poetry. A rewarding text for scholars, game designers, poets, and anyone in between.”—Allison Parrish, Interactive Telecommunications Program and Interactive Media Arts, NYU “A concise, passionate articulation - and defense! - of an artistic space between poems and videogames. If game scholars wish to prove that they are not engaged merely in an apologetics for violent pornography, they need only to teach this book.”—Chris Bateman, author of Imaginary Games and 21st Century Game Design “I feel I've found a kindred spirit in Jordan Magnuson and his practical recommendations for creating distilled, compelling, personal videogames – throw out the conventions of game design one at a time? Yes, please! The revelation for me in this book, however, is the heat and power of the language of poets and poetry brought close to videogame design. There's much in here worth pursuing to kindle the fires of new and exciting videogame poems, and Jordan is a capable and delightfully humble guide.”—Pippin Barr, author of How to Play a Video Game and The Stuff Games Are Made Of “With Game Poems, Jordan Magnuson lays to rest any last vestige of the notion that the implicit limits of games are as ‘entertainment products’. By taking games seriously as successors of the lyric poetry tradition, he opens up new avenues for how game designers can think about what they do, how critical game theorists can approach their many-faceted object of study, and how players can more fully engage with videogames.”—Soraya Murray, author of On Video Games “Game Poems shines an important light on a neglected area of videogame theory and provides unique guidance for those interested in exploring the poetic potential of videogames.”—Jenova Chen, designer of Flow, Flower, Journey, and Sky: Children of the Light “Popular frameworks for video game scholarship consistently fail to account for the most avant-garde and affective works of interactive art. With Game Poems, Jordan Magnuson provides not only a lens to understand these diverse and important titles but also a guide to constructing the next generation of personal and incisive games. With numerous examples from decades of experimental games, including Magnuson's own minimalist and insightful work, this book is an excellent introduction to the form for neophytes as well as finally providing words to describe a movement that many experienced game poets previously understood only intuitively.”—Gregory Avery-Weir, creator of The Majesty of Colors and Looming “Jordan Magnuson is one of a surprisingly small group of artists who see in the technology of videogames a versatile medium capable of expressing much more than conventional games.”—Michaël Samyn, co-founder, Tale of Tales; co-creator of Sunset, The Graveyard, and The Path “So much has been written about what games are, and yet there’s always a new way of thinking about them. In Jordan Magnuson’s Game Poems we discover that games are also a lyrical form of art; that games can be understood as poetry, and that the making games as poetry creates new modes of artistic expression. Jordan Magnuson’s book is a fascinating exploration of games as poetry, and the poetry of play.”—Miguel Sicart, author of Play Matters, Beyond Choices: The Design of Ethical Gameplay, and Playing Software “In Game Poems, I found a new perspective on the kind of videogames that are dearest to me: short, personal, poetic games. By looking at games through the lens of lyric poetry, Jordan Magnuson puts into focus the workings of that mysterious hodgepodge of audio, visuals, and interactivity: the language of videogames. Both experienced and novice game makers will find approachable, practical advice on the craft of videogames. And anyone who plays short games will find new ways of appreciating and talking about them. I know I will be returning to it for inspiration when making my own small games!”—Adam Le Doux, creator of Bitsy “As a creator and researcher, Jordan Magnuson has been able to demonstrate through the utmost visual simplicity, by enhancing basic geometric forms, the empathetic capacity of the videogame medium. Game Poems explores this idea and the reconfiguration of the videogame beyond its ludic component, highlighting the artistic and poetic potential of games.”—Antonio César Moreno Cantano, University Complutense of Madrid “Poems ask us to slow down, pay attention, and take the time to appreciate our experiences. Emerging from Magnuson's need to find ways to talk about his own creative practice, this book is all about discovering ways to do this with videogames. Magnuson explores what it means to view videogames as poetry, and provides insight, as a practitioner, on how to make game poems that enable and encourage this type of reflection. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from literature and philosophy to game studies and game design, this book covers a lot of material, but always remains grounded in concrete examples and solid theory. The book ends with a call to “go make some game poems!” After reading the book, I was keen to do exactly that. I urge you to do the same!”—Alex Mitchell, National University of Singapore “To many, poetry is a dying – or dead – art form. Few people sit down at night to open their favorite poet’s chapbook with the latest streaming service at hand or their favorite videogame console sitting nearby. Spectacle seems to be the cultural norm, and this can be no more evident than in videogames: when the latest and greatest offers 60+ hours of spine-tingling excitement, why would someone want to launch a smaller-form game about expressions such as love, death, loneliness, or even God? But, as Jordan Magnuson, in his new book Games Poems, shows, poems have always been an integral piece of forming human culture. Poems have the ability to get right to the heart of the matter and, in fact, pierce the heart of the reader. Poems can be a form of cultural resistance, and even launch revolutions. Magnuson’s book highlights what it means to use the medium of game design as poetry. Magnuson presents several examples of the intricacies of poetry in general, as well as work that fuses the ideals of poetry with game design. Magnuson succinctly examines how the imagination, rhythm, intensity, style – and brevity – of poetry can enlighten the game design process in order to form possibility spaces within videogames that are pointed and powerful.”—Tim Samoff, Games and Interactive Media Program Director, Azusa Pacific University"

El estudio hace parte de un trabajo de investigación que tuvo como finalidad analizar la inteligencia emocional desde una perspectiva humanizadora de la educación en tiempos de postpandemia; se fundamentó en autores como Goleman (2022), Granda y Granda (2021), Valenzuela y Portillo (2018). La intensión investigativa surge de una situación vista en algunas instituciones de Venezuela y Colombia donde se observó poco rendimiento académico y mucha tensión en los estudiantes, esto como resultado de las medidas implementadas durante la pandemia (COVID 19). Considerando la temática de estudio y las implicaciones vivenciales del fenómeno se asumieron los procedimientos del paradigma postpositivista con enfoque cualitativo fenomenológico. Para el análisis de la información en primera instancia se hizo una reducción de ésta, extrayendo los significados que permitieran llegar a nueva categoría, construyendo después una ruta interpretativa de las categorías, finalmente cada nueva categoría fue triangulada desde tres fundamentos: el empírico, el teórico y el descriptivo. Los hallazgos demostraron la necesidad de implementar un modelo pedagógico enfocado en el estudiante como ser humano en todas sus dimensiones, donde las prácticas pedagógicas se centren en sus necesidades cognitivas, afectivas, emocionales y hasta económicas, de manera que se sienta atendido y se desarrolle de forma integral.

Society has recently demonstrated a high level of awareness and responsibility concerning environmental issues. The interest in bioactive compounds extracted from natural sources has increased due to their potential application as active ingredients in several industries, particularly the cosmetic, food, and pharmaceutical industries. Plants are rich sources of phenolic compounds that have been widely studied due to their health-promoting properties, namely antioxidant, anti-carcinogenic, and anti-inflammatory activities, among others. Extraction is usually the limiting analytical step in the yield of bioactive compounds. From a green point of view, many extraction techniques have been employed as potential candidates to replace conventional methods, such as ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE), pressurized liquid extraction (PLE), microwave-assisted extraction (MAE), supercritical fluid extraction (SFE), pulsed electric field extraction, and enzyme-assisted extraction. In this Special Issue, we focus our attention on the chemical characterization of plant extracts and their bioactive composition, focusing also on in-vitro cell assays and molecular tools. The issue comprises original research articles, as well as a review, on topics such as phenolic profile, radical scavenging capacity, in vitro cell assays, comet assay, and antimicrobial capacity. We close this Special Issue with a review paper that focuses on the pharmacological activities of quercetin, one of the principal polyphenols. With this, we aim to provide a contemporary overview of the advantages of bioactive compounds extracted from plants.

This Special Issue aims at reporting current investigations on emerging materials and devices taking up the challenge of pursuing a significant improvement in the energy performance of buildings and indoor comfort. What is the contribution of innovative technologies in the epochal transition to low environmental impact buildings? This is the question addressed in this Special Issue, in order to offer a wide and heterogeneous amount of data to readers, along with results of high scientific impact concerning the application of innovative technologies in construction. The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change following the COP 21 Conference on Climate Change, organized by United Nations, required the States to reduce carbon emissions in the building stock. In the European Union, almost 50% of final energy consumption is used for heating and cooling; out of this huge amount, 80% is used in buildings. It makes sense, then, that the Union’s goals are inherently linked to the real effort to renovate the building stock. To do this, in the EU and worldwide, the priority is to enhance energy efficiency, by deploying low-cost renewable energies and innovative technologies, especially those derived from recent achievements in the field of nanomaterials research, with special reference to building integration of novel technologies, spanning from chromogenics to semitransparent photovoltaics, super-insulating materials, and phase change materials. Articles here proposed deal with every construction or plant component of the building organism, taking advantage of novel technologies to improve their performance, from the envelope to structures, HVAC, and other technical systems, as well as indoor climate analyses in buildings and indoor environmental quality (IEQ), as well as visual comfort indoors.

Weather control. Juxtaposing those two words is enough to raise eyebrows in a world where even the best weather models still fail to nail every forecast, and when the effects of climate change on sea level height, seasonal averages of weather phenomena, and biological behavior are being watched with interest by all, regardless of political or scientific persuasion. But between the late nineteenth century—when the United States first funded an attempt to “shock” rain out of clouds—and the late 1940s, rainmaking (as it had been known) became weather control. And then things got out of control. In Make It Rain, Kristine C. Harper tells the long and somewhat ludicrous history of state-funded attempts to manage, manipulate, and deploy the weather in America. Harper shows that governments from the federal to the local became helplessly captivated by the idea that weather control could promote agriculture, health, industrial output, and economic growth at home, or even be used as a military weapon and diplomatic tool abroad. Clear fog for landing aircraft? There’s a project for that. Gentle rain for strawberries? Let’s do it! Enhanced snowpacks for hydroelectric utilities? Check. The heyday of these weather control programs came during the Cold War, as the atmosphere came to be seen as something to be defended, weaponized, and manipulated. Yet Harper demonstrates that today there are clear implications for our attempts to solve the problems of climate change.

In der Reihe Slavistische Beiträge werden vor allem slavistische Dissertationen des deutschsprachigen Raums sowie vereinzelt auch amerikanische, englische und russische publiziert. Darüber hinaus stellt die Reihe ein Forum für Sammelbände und Monographien etablierter Wissenschafter/innen dar.