Open Access Books

The first book of this four-volume edition is dedicated to one of the most promising areas of photovoltaics, which has already reached a large-scale production of the second-generation thin-film solar modules and has resulted in building the powerful solar plants in several countries around the world. Thin-film technologies using direct-gap semiconductors such as CIGS and CdTe offer the lowest manufacturing costs and are becoming more prevalent in the industry allowing to improve manufacturability of the production at significantly larger scales than for wafer or ribbon Si modules. It is only a matter of time before thin films like CIGS and CdTe will replace wafer-based silicon solar cells as the dominant photovoltaic technology. Photoelectric efficiency of thin-film solar modules is still far from the theoretical limit. The scientific and technological problems of increasing this key parameter of the solar cell are discussed in several chapters of this volume.

Between 1860 and 1910, Australian governments sanctioned and then tried to stop the trafficking of South Sea Islanders ​to Queensland as forced labourers. Over 60,000 Islanders were lured from their villages: tricked, transported, forced to work in the harsh Queensland bush, and then repatriated. Most Islanders returned with little savings to find their communities deeply scarred by the blackbirding trade and the internecine tribal conflict it had provoked. Georges Baudoux (1865-1949) was brought up amongst the Islanders who experienced the raw and competing greed of French, British and Australian colonialism. Son of a French prison commander stationed in New Caledonia, Baudoux lead a colourful life amongst the Pacific islands and deep in the brousse (bush) before becoming an author and capturing the stories of his travels and, importantly, the experiences of friends and colleagues as life in the islands changed forever. In recognition of his work, he was awarded the esteemed Palmes Académiques, the French medal for literary and academic achievement. Jean M'Barai is one of his best works. Expertly translated by Dr Karin Speedy and published here in English for the first time, this book exposes the rich, complex and brutal world of a South Sea Islander caught up in the duplicitous trade that came to be known as Blackbirding. It is an exciting, provocative and often astonishing account, drawing on the lived experience of people known to the author. In her critical introduction, Dr Speedy uncovers not just the author and his intriguing life (a life that spanned the uprising of the Paris communards in 1870 to post-Second World War reconstruction in the Pacific), but also the challenges for scholars working in, and undertaking translations in, the Francophone/Anglophone colonial/postcolonial sphere. Here, where empires, languages and Pacific peoples collide, the nuances of culture and terminology really matter if we are to find meaning amongst the shifting tides of use. Accompanied by photographs, postcards, cartoons and maps, this is a book to read and re-read, to contemplate ingenuity and inhumanity and the price all cultures pay as they are tested by forces beyond their control. It is a story that still resonates today, as we reflect on the experiences and resilience of the Pacific South Sea Islanders who contributed to modern Australia: the many that left and the descendants of those who stayed.

A possibilidade de conservar e acumular alimentos teve a maior importância na história do homem e da civilização humana. A variedade de processos de preservado e armazenamento relaciona-se com a própria diversidade dos produtos e é condicionada por razões climáticas das diferentes regiões. No Portugal húmido, que compreende as províncias do Entre Douro e Minho, o distrito de Aveiro, na Beira Litoral, o distrito de Vila Real, em Trás-os-Montes e a parte ocidental da Beira Alta, o complexo agrícola é dominado pelo milho, que se colhe em espiga e requer secagem e armazenagem conveniente. As unidades agrícolas dessa área integram instaladas adequadas a essa função - eiras, alpendres, sequeiras e espigueiros - que se revestem de urna enorme riqueza de formas, por vezes com motivos ornamentáis que parecem sublinhar a natureza sagrada do pão.

About the publication Dilapidated public school infrastructure can be found across the country, but the problem is particularly acute in the Eastern Cape where the majority of the so called 'mud schools' are located. On 04 February 2011, following court action on the issue of mud schools, the Legal Resources Centre, acting on behalf of 7 schools and the Centre for Child Law, concluded a landmark settlement with the National Department of Basic Education in which the Department committed to spend R8.2-billion from 1 April 2011 to 1 March 2014 to eradicate mud schools and improve infrastructure of schools throughout South Africa. The Centre for Child Law commissioned Cornerstone Economic Research, to track school infrastructure spending and delivery. The aim of the research was to assess what progress has been made in addressing the issues that brought about the litigation. This study, amongst other things, makes the concerning finding that the Department has woefully underspent the allocated school infrastructure funding for two years running. The target for the number of schools to be built in 2011/2012 and 2012/2013 was 49. However, only 10 schools had been completed at the end of the first year. About the authors: Carmen Abdoll has experience in public sector finance management, budget analysis, and various tax policy issues, including issues related to value-added tax, excise duties and all sub-national taxes. She has also worked on various projects related to the structure of the intergovernmental fiscal system in South Africa. Carmen has a particular interest in policy and services impacting on the lives of orphan children. Conrad Barberton is a development economist, policy researcher and trainer. He has experience in the design of intergovernmental fiscal processes, public sector finance management, budget presentation design and analysis, the costing of policies, strategic planning, monitoring and evaluation, and the design of governance accountability systems. Table of Contents PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY A LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS 1. Introduction Part one: Status of school infrastructure 2. Responsibility for school infrastructure planning 3. Sources of information on school infrastructure 3.1 Number of public ordinary schools 3.2 Number of classrooms in public ordinary schools 4. Backlogs in school infrastructure 4.1 Planning to address backlogs in school infrastructure 4.2 Backlogs in schools and classrooms 4.3 Inappropriate school structures (so-called mud schools) 4.4 Backlogs in basic services 4.5 Backlogs in maintenance Part two: National and provincial funding of school infrastructure 5. Determinants in the demand for school infrastructure 6. National government allocations to school infrastructure 6.1 Education Infrastructure Grant 6.2 School Infrastructure Backlogs Grant 7. Provincial allocations to school infrastructure 7.1 Total spending by provinces on school infrastructure 7.2 Provinces’ allocations of own funding to school infrastructure Part three: Performance in the delivery of school infrastructure 8. Performance of the School Infrastructure Backlogs Grant 8.1 Planning related to the grant 8.2 Spending and delivery progress of the SIBG 8.3 Likely timeframes for eradicating inappropriate school structures 9. Performance of the Education Infrastructure Grant 9.1 Planning related to the grant 9.2 Spending and delivery progress of the EIG 10. Concluding points

This thematic issue on advanced simulation tools applied to materials development and design predictions gathers selected extended papers related to power generation systems, presented at the XIX International Colloquium on Mechanical Fatigue of Metals (ICMFM XIX), organized at University of Porto, Portugal, in 2018. In this issue, the limits of the current generation of materials are explored, which are continuously being reached according to the frontier of hostile environments, whether in the aerospace, nuclear, or petrochemistry industry, or in the design of gas turbines where efficiency of energy production and transformation demands increased temperatures and pressures. Thus, advanced methods and applications for theoretical, numerical, and experimental contributions that address these issues on failure mechanism modeling and simulation of materials are covered. As the Guest Editors, we would like to thank all the authors who submitted papers to this Special Issue. All the papers published were peer-reviewed by experts in the field whose comments helped to improve the quality of the edition. We also would like to thank the Editorial Board of Materials for their assistance in managing this Special Issue.

The leitmotif running through this book is a meditation on the various iconographic representations constructed in the course of research and during the drafting of planning instruments on various scales. There is special focus on the structure of drafting processes, a number of illustrative methodological syntheses and the attempt to adequately record the legends of the maps. The aim of all this is to restore the central role of the production of images in the experience recounted, and their importance within the project for the territory. To this extent, we can say that this book is an illustrated – through the products of research and the operational activities of what are frequently large and articulated groups – approach to the task of construction and organisation of the knowledge of local contexts, materialising in the attempt to delineate guidelines and scenarios for a sustainable future. Representations that are diversified in terms of method and of scale, of users and of aims, offer the cue for addressing issues that are central to the discipline, such as the need to render interpretations explicit and restore the quality of the contexts, the need to construct shared visions collectively, and from grassroots, the need to ensure that the graphic documentation can efficaciously perform differently modulated regulatory tasks. This is a process not necessarily oriented towards ameliorating the iconographic quality of the images, but rather towards consolidating and refining the languages, as well as achieving an enhanced awareness of the potential – and obviously also the limitations – of this type of disciplinary product.

In this volume, experts in specialised communication research from nine countries present their latest AI‑related projects in both research and teaching. Their contributions focus on: modelling and conceptual frameworks, AI literacy and competence development, terminology and knowledge structures, specialised translation and interpreting, and the teaching of specialised language in higher education. With an eye to the future quality of research and instruction in specialised communication, the authors explore both the potential and the risks associated with using artificial intelligence.

Entre le xive et le xviiie siècle, la lettre est au cœur de transformations qui affectent l’identité individuelle et collective, les formes et les modalités des transactions politiques, et la perception de la réalité. La pratique épistolaire redéfinit insensiblement les sphères du privé et du public, redessine les contours de la domination territoriale, facilite l’émergence de nouvelles formes de relations politiques. Cette enquête collective étudie et replace la « révolution épistolaire », souvent inaperçue, dans l’espace extraordinairement dense des anciens États italiens. Le choix de l’Italie se révèle riche d’enseignements sur la lettre en elle-même, sur les réseaux de correspondance et sur le discours qu’elle véhicule. L’héritage humaniste a favorisé une réflexion sans précédents sur les formes de l’écriture épistolaire. Le caractère composite de ces États, la place qu’y occupent les mécanismes de patronage et de clientélisme, l’extrême volatilité des relations diplomatiques tant internes qu’externes à la péninsule, contribuent à donner aux correspondances un rôle essentiel dans les processus de communication politique et de construction de l’État moderne.

Remote sensing data and techniques have been widely used for disaster monitoring and assessment. In particular, recent advances in sensor technologies and artificial intelligence-based modeling are very promising for disaster monitoring and readying responses aimed at reducing the damage caused by disasters. This book contains eleven scientific papers that have studied novel approaches applied to a range of natural disasters such as forest fire, urban land subsidence, flood, and tropical cyclones.

Published

La folie dans la place se définit par opposition à la folie dans les murs. Ravages de l'entourage. Perturbations de l'accord usuel entre posture et place. La « maladie mentale » commence par s'exposer. Au jugement du sens commun et dans les catégories de l'intelligence partagée. Dans ce moment d'émergence, ce n'est pas l'altérité radicale du délire mais le caractère intermittent du désordre qui menace les ressources d'autorégulation du milieu proche. La folie fait irruption au cœur de la réciprocité, comme pathologie du lien et des échanges, dans le langage, comme trouble de la conversation, dans l'action conjointe, comme modification systématique de l'attention, de la perception et de la représentation de l'intention.

In childhood and youth, an engagement with aesthetic modes of representation and perception is of great importance. The significance of aesthetic positionings – for instance through the choice of clothing or accessories, through make-up or gadgets – can on the one hand be interpreted as signs of a successful commercialization of childhood and youth. On the other hand, however, they testify to the savvy with which children and teenagers make their daily world their own and develop their design aesthetics. In order to consider the related social conditions of aesthetics, economies, and inter-generational relationships, this transdisciplinary volume brings together a range of research perspectives on everyday aesthetics in childhood and youth.

By the 2010s, the view that state mismanagement and inefficiencies underlay the Congo’s economic malaise had become so commonplace as to permeate nearly all thinking about development in the country. The aim of this chapter is to challenge this line of thinking and question the Consensus wisdom of moving from domestic-owned to foreign-owned industrial mining based on a belief in the superior efficiency of the latter. By charting the rise and fall of Belgian-owned SOMINKI (1976-1997) and Canadian-owned Banro (1995-2019) in eastern Congo, its main line of argument is that foreign-owned and managed mining corporations are no less vulnerable to mismanagement, firm inefficiencies, and volatile prices than their state-owned counterparts. This included, in the case of Banro, rent-seeking behaviour, redirecting value to overseas directors and shareholders at the expense of productive capacity and to the detriment of the Congolese state and Congolese firms and labour.

Hildegarde, abbesse du monastère de Bingen, vécut au temps des Croisades et de l'empereur Barberousse. De nos jours célèbre pour ses visions, ses écrits médicaux ou naturalistes, elle fut en son temps recherchée pour ses capacités prophétiques ainsi que pour la sagesse et le bon sens de ses conseils. Inexpérience visionnaire, le souci personnel d'échapper aux calomnies ou aux suspicions, ajoutés au désir bien compréhensible de ses proches d'exalter sa sainteté et de souligner l'exceptionnelle originalité de sa vie ont à terme produit une image déformée. Miracles et prophéties furent mis en exergue, la correspondance remaniée, voire manipulée, l'image de la sainte utilisée à des fins aléatoires. D'une œuvre en partie rédigée sous le signe de l'Apocalypse, on retient les aspects les plus spectaculaires, au détriment d'une approche exacte de la bénédictine. Il était certes plus facile de transformer l'abbesse en prophétesse enflammée que de scruter ses écrits, plus facile de basculer dans la légende que de faire son histoire. C'est en revenant aux sources, aux textes, que ce livre entend dresser un portrait de la visionnaire, une première approche qui puisse servir d'introduction. Hildegarde de Bingen ne fut pas une mystique mais une visionnaire, elle ne dévoila pas l'avenir pas plus qu'elle n'a anticipé sur nos découvertes scientifiques, mais elle lutta inlassablement contre les maux du temps, contre l'indignité des prêtres, l'impiété des empereurs ou la subversion cathare. Ranimant les énergies défaillantes, secouant les âmes inconstantes ou faibles, elle a préparé ses contemporains à la fin des temps, sans chercher à les effrayer inutilement. A ses yeux l'eschatologie n'est que le désir de faire retour aux origines sacrées et incorruptibles du monde, de s'y réfugier, d'échapper à la mort. Hildegarde resta toute sa vie une femme d'Église, respectueuse des institutions, une abbesse infatigable rappelant le message des Écritures, bref une femme de son temps, qui sut se faire entendre et respecter.

En 429 ap. J.-C., Théodose II, qui règne alors à Constantinople, décide de réaliser un recueil des lois émises depuis Constantin. Promulgué en 438, le Code Théodosien entre en vigueur en janvier 439. Source précieuse pour l’histoire de l’Antiquité tardive, ce code, qui rassemble plus de 2 500 constitutions, n’a cependant jamais fait l’objet d’une traduction française, une tâche de longue haleine à laquelle s’est attelé un groupe de savants français. Les multiples problèmes que pose le Theodosianus ont conduit les responsables de cette entreprise à l’accompagner de rencontres internationales pluridisciplinaires. Ce sont les résultats des journées tenues à Lille - les deuxièmes du genre - qui font l’objet du présent volume, au fait des derniers développements de la recherche. Il s’ouvre par un ensemble de six contributions offrant de nouvelles réflexions sur la question cruciale des conditions dans lesquelles ce recueil a été élaboré, réalisé, publié et diffusé. Scrutant avec soin les pratiques de gouvernement, les politiques de maintien de l’ordre, l’organisation de l’administration et l’action de l’État, les neuf contributions de la deuxième partie bousculent un certain nombre d’idées reçues sur le fonctionnement de l’Empire tardif. Quant aux contributions de la troisième partie, au nombre de neuf également, elles renouvellent la lecture de diverses lois relatives d’une part à la fiscalité, à l’économie et à l’approvisionnement de Rome, d’autre part au personnel des mines, aux esclaves et aux femmes.