Open Access Books

Autism is a profoundly contested idea. The focus of this book is not what autism is or what autistic people are, but rather, it grapples with the central question: what does it take for autistic people to participate in a shared world as equals with other people? Drawing from her close reading of a range of texts, by autistic authors, filmmakers, bloggers, and academics, Anna Stenning highlights the creativity and imagination in these accounts and also considers the possibilities that emerge when the unexpected and novel aspects of experience are attended to and afforded their due space. Approaching these narrative accounts in the context of both the Anthropocene and neoliberalism Stenning unpacks and reframes understandings about autism and identity, agency and mattering, across sections exploring autistic intelligibility, autistic sensibility, and community-oriented collaboration and care. By moving away from the non-autistic stories about autism that have, over time, dominated public conception of the autistic experience and relationships, as well as the cognitive and psychoanalytic paradigms that have reduced autism and autistic people to a homogeneous group, the book instead reveals the multiplicity of autistic subjectivities and their subsequent understandings of oppression. It calls on readers to listen to what autistic people have to say about the possibilities of resistance and solidarity against intersecting currents and eddies of power, which endanger all who challenge the neoliberal conception of Life. A stirring and meaningful departure from atomized accounts of neurological difference,Narrating the Many Autisms ponders big questions about its topic and finds clarity and meaning in the sense-making practices of autistic individuals and groups. It will appeal to scholarly readers across the fields of disability studies, cultural studies, critical psychology, sociology, anthropology, and literature. 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.

Mit den erhöhten Migrations- und Fluchtbewegungen kamen um das Jahr 2015 viele Kinder und Jugendliche ohne Deutschkenntnisse nach Deutschland. Um diese neu migrierten Schüler:innen zu unterrichten, wurden bundesweit Vorbereitungsklassen spontan und improvisiert eingerichtet. Am Beispiel der Stadtgemeinde Bremen untersucht Lydia Heidrich in dieser qualitativen Studie, wie bildungsbehördliche und schulische Praktiken miteinander verflochten sind und dadurch ein Bildungsungleichheitsrisiko für neu Migrierte in Vorbereitungsklassen entsteht.; With the increased migration and refugee movements, many children and young people came to Germany around 2015 without any knowledge of German. Improvised preparatory classes were introduced to teach these pupils. In this qualitative analysis, the author examines how educational authority and school practices are intertwined and how this creates a risk of educational inequality for newly arrived migrants in preparatory classes.

As we face a revolutionary move towards e-learning and away from traditional face-to-face training, today's human resource manager implementing technology-supported training needs a concise, practical handbook outlining the choices that have to be made and the implications of each approach. 'Towards a learning organisation' brings human resource managers up-to-date with the various applications that are open to them, such as Electronic Learning Environments, Web based training, Videoconferencing, etc. This handbook provides user-friendly information about emerging technologies for training, checklists and other decision-making tools. Based on broad experience and peppered throughout with case studies and examples from leading European companies and institutions, it also offers plenty of background information including an onverview of network options as well as a handy glossary and further resources list.

Das vorliegende Open-Access-Buch untersucht die rechtlichen Rahmenbedingungen und Implikationen des Einsatzes von KI-Systemen in der Verwaltung. In Zeiten disruptiver technologischer Fortschritte stellt sich die Frage, ob und wie Künstliche Intelligenz in der öffentlichen Verwaltung eingesetzt werden kann. Durch eine umfassende Analyse bestehender Regelungen und der rechtlichen Diskussion zeigt die Arbeit auf, ob KI-Systeme im Verwaltungsverfahren eingesetzt werden können. Damit neben dem Fortgang des wissenschaftlichen Diskurses eine Hilfestellung für die Praxis erreicht wird, fokussiert sich die Arbeit insbesondere auf die verwaltungsrechtlichen Rahmenbedingungen.

This open access book provides an extensive overview of the usage of information and communication technologies in the tourism and hospitality industry. It presents the proceedings of the International Federation for IT and Travel & Tourism (IFITT)’s 30th Annual International eTourism Conference, which assembles the latest research presented at the ENTER2023 conference. The enclosed papers cover various topics within the field, including augmented and virtual reality, website development, social media use, e-learning, big data, analytics and recommendation systems.

Despite decades of study, fundamental aspects of the development of the Earth’s crust remain enigmatic. This book presents geophysical and geological studies obtained from different tectonic structures and geological time intervals. It contains three sections: “Crustal Evolution and Tectonic Problems”, “Geophysical Methods in Geological Applications” and “Seismic Forecasting, Seismotectonics and Geodynamic Evolution of the Himalayan Belt”. Chapters address such topics as the evolution of tectonic structures of Earth, how geophysical and geological data can be used for modelling this evolution, and the geodynamic processes in the Earth’s crust with the present tectonic activity.

De l’invention du Purgatoire à la formation et à la consolidation de l’État moderne, le diable, être de parole et de discours, investit le champ littéraire pour devenir un personnage familier ou un interlocuteur ordinaire des hommes. Tantôt révélateur d’une irréductible altérité, tantôt miroir du même selon une parole à double détente et à double entente, il est également un puissant opérateur poétique et rhétorique. Au cœur de dispositifs propices à la démultiplication des potentialités énonciatives, narratives et stylistiques de sa parole, la présence de cette personna à l’ethos complexe témoigne de profonds enjeux théologiques, éthiques, politiques, idéologiques, esthétiques ou encore épistémologiques. Sur une période allant du milieu du Moyen Âge aux dernières lueurs du XVIIIe siècle, et dans le cadre géographique, linguistique et culturel de l’arc méditerranéen (Espagne, France et Italie), les études réunies dans cet ouvrage interrogent, avec une perspective pluridisciplinaire, les représentations littéraires et iconographiques du diable afin de mettre au jour les raisons et les mécanismes du vertige herméneutique causé par ses apparitions.

Orthogonalität ist eine besondere Eigenschaft Boolescher Funktionen. Die Orthogonalisierung einer Booleschen Funktion vereinfacht die Transformation in eine andere äquivalente Form. In dieser Arbeit werden zwei neue allgemeingültige, logische operative Verknüpfungsmethoden die 'orthogonalisierende Differenzbildung ⊝' und das 'orthogonalisierende Verodern v' vorgestellt, welche Ergebnisse in orthogonaler Form ermöglichen. Darüber hinaus weisen die algorithmischen Implementierungen beider neuen Verknüpfungsmethoden geringere Rechenzeiten und Vorteile im Hinblick auf den Speicherplatzbedarf im Vergleich zu den Kompositionen aus einer herkömmlichen bekannten Operation und einer anschließenden Orthogonalisierung auf. Durch die inhärente Orthogonalisierung werden weitere Verarbeitungsschritte in der TVL-Arithmetik, wie das Boolesche Differentialkalkül, erheblich vereinfacht. Ternär-Vektor-Listen werden als rechnerinterne Darstellung für binäre Funktionen verwendet und sind für die Behandlung Boolescher Probleme vorteilhafter. Daneben werden in dieser Arbeit zwei neue mathematische Boolesche Gleichungen zur Orthogonalisierung Boolescher Funktionen bzw. Ternär-Vektor-Listen disjunktiver Normalformen hergeleitet, welche jeweils auf den neuen Methoden basieren. Zum ersten Mal wird damit die Problematik der Orthogonalisierung mathematisch behandelt und einfache Gleichungen zur Berechnung der orthogonalen Form vorgestellt. Zudem werden die beiden neuen Methoden in der Bestimmung von Testbelegungen für kombinatorische Schaltungen zur Verifizierung möglicher logischer Fehler in der TVL-Arithmetik eingesetzt. Ihre implementierten Algorithmen weisen Vorteile bezüglich Rechenzeit und Speicherplatzbedarf auf und ermöglichen damit die Berechnung von minimierter Menge an Testbelegungen. Mit der geringeren Rechenzeit der Algorithmen und der ermittelten minimalen Menge an Testsätzen wird eine Einsparung in Testzeit und die damit verbundenen Testkosten erreicht werden können. Die Anwendungsbreite der neuen Methoden zur Orthogonalisierung beschränkt sich nicht nur auf die Ermittlung von Testbelegungen. Ähnliche Vorteile können auch für die Anwendungen in der Kryptologie erwartet werden, was aber nicht Gegenstand dieser Arbeit ist. Die in dieser Arbeit vorgestellten neuen Methoden können eventuell ihren Einsatz da finden, wo die Anwendung Boolescher Funktionen und ihre Orthogonalisierung von Bedeutung ist, wie z.B. in der Logik, Schaltalgebra, Aussagenlogik, Zuverlässigkeitsanalyse, Game Theory.

The article offers an overview of the scholarly publications by Italian Slavists that appeared during the period 1991-2021 on to the subject of Serbocroatistics

Biotechnology including medical applications depends on the yeast as biofermenter to produce many industrial products including pharmaceutical ones. Although yeasts are first known as useful microorganisms, some of them are identified as pathogens for plants, animals, and humans. Due to the simple cellular structure of the yeast among other microbial groups, it is used in the earliest investigations to determine the features of eukaryotic molecular biology, cell biology, and physiology. The economic income of some countries mainly depends on yeast for producing the economic products, such as France that depends on yeast for wine production. This book throws light on yeast and its important role in the medical applications.

The purpose of this book is to explain the process of establishing the seven Spanish grand colleges where a large part of the State and the Church elite servants were educated in the 16th and 17th centuries. To this end those colleges are considered, first, in the framework of the European collegiate movement, before placing them in the Spanish one. A study of the institutional system of those foundations follows and, in the process, several given truths are challenged. The book closes with an analysis of the careers of the individuals educated in those ‘schools’ for high bureaucrats – labelled as ‘schools of empire’ – which, with the time, became a power within the State thus causing its disappearance.---El propósito de esta obra es explicar el proceso de creación de los siete colegios mayores, en los que se formó gran parte de la elite que gestionó las principales instituciones del Estado y de la Iglesia en la España de los siglos XVI y XVII. Para ello, se sitúan primero los colegios en el contexto general del movimiento colegial europeo, antes de considerar específicamente el movimiento colegial español. Se describe después el sistema institucional de esas fundaciones, consideradas como un todo, y se cuestionan algunos planteamientos generalmente aceptados en torno a las mismas. En la tercera parte se analiza la proyección profesional de los colegiales formados en esas “escuelas” de formación de altos burócratas –a las que se denomina “escuelas de imperio”– los cuales, con el tiempo, acabarán convirtiéndose en una potencia dentro del Estado, provocando así su desaparición.

Published

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is a naturally occurring signaling molecule produced in vivo and plays a pivotal role in regulating a wide array of physiological processes. Additionally, emerging findings have illuminated that many of the biological effects initially attributed to H2S may actually stem from other reactive sulfur species (RSS), including hydropersulfides (RSSH) and various higher-order polysulfur species (RSSnH, RSSnR, and HSnH, where n > 1). These studies have underscored the contributions of these species to essential cellular processes, such as the efficient scavenging of reactive oxygen species and electrophiles, and their influence on mitochondrial function. Nonetheless, the chemistry of RSS remains challenging due to their inherently reactive nature, and their precise measurement within biological systems continues to pose a formidable challenge. This compilation of reprints focuses on recent advancements in the field of H2S/RSS chemical biology. It encompasses original research studies and comprehensive reviews, all geared towards exploring the therapeutic potential of H2S/RSS donors in the treatment of various conditions, including cancer, neurological disorders, and cardiovascular disease. Furthermore, it delves into the molecular mechanisms and physiological roles played by RSS along with the development of methodologies for quantifying and measuring the distribution of RSS within biological systems.

In the prospect of the COP21 held in Paris in December 2015, the French Centre for Ethiopian Studies (CFEE) organised a scientific conference on environmental and climatic changes in the horn of Africa, with a decisive financial support of the Institut français (Fonds d’Alembert), Paris. The conference was part of a larger event, called “the Road to Paris” and organised by the French Embassy to Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa Regional Environment Centre and Network (HoA-REC&N), Addis Ababa University, in HoA-REC&N headquarters at Gullele Botanic Gardens, Addis Ababa, from 7 to 9 April 2015. In this event, our first purpose was to set aside from the pressure of short-term and policy-oriented concerns raised by the international bureaucracies and bilateral donors, as to try to explore diverse, cross-disciplinary dimensions related to environmental change in the region in a wider way, wider in time and also wider in the elements observed. In a way, the Road to Paris event has also showed, with the various stakeholders and speakers it has gathered, that the issue of climate change has “solidified” automatic discourses, supporting wishful intentions and thinking, and clearly embedded in the building of professional opportunities and international careers. These discourses, indeed, are everything but close to the reality observed on the ground. In this new, competitive, social field, priority may not be easily given to scientific exploration that is not directly policy-oriented and that requires a longer time to produce strong data than what the political and bureaucratic agendas allow. One could not state, though, that interest for science is totally absent in these arenas on climate change. But, invariably, public expectations appear to be much too high in scope and in time, compared to what intellectual curiosity and scientific processes and protocols can produce on a day-to-day basis. Improving awareness on environmental changes should start here: to give a better understanding on the complexity and multiplicity of factors involved in the relation between human evolution, societal choices and developments, and natural environments. The French Centre for Ethiopian Studies (CFEE) in Addis Ababa was quite well equipped to initiate, with its partners, such a cross-disciplinary exploration.

How the global financial services sector has been transformed by artificial intelligence, data science, and blockchain. Artificial intelligence, big data, blockchain, and other new technologies have upended the global financial services sector, creating opportunities for entrepreneurs and corporate innovators. Venture capitalists have helped to fund this disruption, pouring nearly $500 billion into fintech over the last five years. This book offers global perspectives on technology-fueled transformations in financial services, with contributions from a wide-ranging group of academics, industry professionals, former government officials, and current government advisors. They examine not only the struggles of rich countries to bring the old analog world into the new digital one but also the opportunities for developing countries to “leapfrog” directly into digital. The book offers accessible explanations of blockchain and distributed ledger technology and explores big data analytics. It considers, among other things, open banking, platform-based strategies for banks, and digital financial services. Case studies imagine possible future fintech-government interaction, emphasizing that legal and regulatory frameworks can help to create trust in financial processes. The contributors offer novel takes and unexpected insights that will be of interest to fintech experts and nonexperts alike. Contributors Ajay Bhalla, Michelle Chivunga, John D'Agostino, Mark Flood, Amias Moore Gerety, Oliver R. Goodenough, Thomas Hardjono, Sharmila Kassam, Boris Khentov, Alexander Lipton, Lev Menand, Pinar Ozcan, Alex Pentland, Matthew Reed, David L. Shrier, Markos Zachariadis