Open Access Books

The dignity of cognitively disabled people and the ethics of representing their lives are at the heart of an extraordinary yet little-known book first published in the former German Democratic Republic. Was für eine Insel in was für einem Meer, or What Kind of Island in What Kind of Sea (Rostock, Hinstorff, 1986) depicts residents of a church-run institution for people with cognitive disabilities in astonishing black-and-white photographs by Dietmar Riemann and in a probing, poignant essay by esteemed German writer Franz Fühmann. This important text, which moved from a medical model to a historical and cultural view of disability as an aspect of human identity and experience, is translated into English for the first time by Elizabeth Hamilton and includes reflections on the book and its impact. As fuller, global histories of disability are now being written, What Kind of Island in What Kind of Sea opens an essential window onto a formerly shuttered world, demonstrating the power of the arts to hone our capacity to perceive and appreciate human difference.

Unfamiliar Acquaintances: What Else Can Dictionaries Tell Us? Vocabulary is considered to be first and foremost a linguistic and pedagogical field: it teaches readers to master the lexical units of their own or a foreign language better. Dictionaries are thus usually a kind of “applied" lexicology. However, a different approach is also possible, in which particular attention should be paid to clarifying the author's attitudes — not only philological, but also, more broadly, epistemological, taking also into account his views on the role of lexicographer (often extending far beyond his study). A dictionary is a special type of statements about words and the world, and the body of texts belonging to this type of discourse is an archive of knowledge (M. Foucault), shedding light not only on the history of words, but also on the history of the formation and development of concepts and ideas, on the history of society and on historical anthropology.

Analytical insight of materials provides a lucid pathway for further opportunities in the development of high-potential modified materials. The analytical assessment also enhances the probability of finding suitable materials for various applications. This book presents the latest advancements and applications of analytical chemistry in a systematic manner. It is an anthology of scientific findings and views of researchers from various research centers across the globe on emerging topics of instrumentation, energy, environment, biotechnology, and synthetic enhancement analysis techniques related to analytical chemistry. The volume contains twelve chapters containing discussion, analogies, and graphics for a better understanding of the presented concepts.

The Colonial Medical Service was the personnel section of the Colonial Service, employing the doctors who tended to the health of both the colonial staff and the local populations of the British Empire. Although the Service represented the pinnacle of an elite government agency, its reach in practice stretched far beyond the state, with the members of the African service collaborating, formally and informally, with a range of other non-governmental groups. This collection of essays on the Colonial Medical Service of Africa illustrates the diversity and active collaborations to be found in the untidy reality of government medical provision. The authors present important case studies covering former British colonial dependencies in Africa, including Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Zanzibar. They reveal many new insights into the enactments of colonial policy and the ways in which colonial doctors negotiated the day-to-day reality during the height of imperial rule in Africa.

Qui étaient les Lapita, ce peuple qui, il y a plus de 3 000 ans, a colonisé nombre des îles du Pacifique, pour certaines alors inconnues ? Qui étaient ces hommes, comment ont-ils navigué et peuplé ces îles vierges ? Qui étaient ces hommes, comment ont-ils navigué et peuplé ? Par quelles voies maritimes sont-ils venus depuis l’Asie du Sud-Est ? Les Lapita sont-ils les ancêtres de tous les Océaniens actuels ? Qui étaient ces hommes, comment ont-ils navigué et peuple ? Que signifient les fameux motifs qui caractérisent leurs poteries et qui dessinent le fil rouge permettant de retracer leur épopée ? Un mouvement de peuplement stupéfiant par son ampleur géographique, près de 4 500 kilomètres parcourus d’ouest en est, et par sa courte durée, moins de 700 ans. Premier travail de synthèse en français consacré aux Lapita, cet ouvrage dépeint cette grande aventure maritime et fait le point sur les plus récentes découvertes de l’archéologie. Les sites, les motifs céramiques et les différentes hypothèses sur l’histoire des Lapita sont présentés de manière simple et didactique. Les nouvelles interprétations des décors des poteries permettent d’éclairer la période sous un jour nouveau. Les études de linguistique historique et d’ethnologie, mais aussi les nouvelles méthodes de biogénétique viennent en complément de l’archéologie pour mettre en lumière la vie sociale et culturelle des Lapita : la parenté, l’organisation sociale, l’environnement naturel, la navigation et même les croyances sont autant de domaines permettant de proposer une esquisse de ces ancêtres des peuples océaniens. Rendant compte de tous les aspects de la recherche actuelle sous une forme claire et accessible, cet ouvrage s’adresse autant aux spécialistes qu’aux étudiants et aux amateurs intéressés par cette période cruciale de la préhistoire océanienne.

W pierwszej połowie siedemnastego stulecia Descartes należał jeszcze nie tyle do grona postępowych medyków, co raczej wizjonerów i planistów, torujących dla przyszłych pokoleń drogę prowadzącą do wyzwolenia od niedogodności nietrwałego ciała, której przeznaczeniem było nawiązanie przez człowieka ściślejszych relacji z całą przyrodą. To bowiem jest przewidywanym skutkiem działań z zakresu nauk, do których należą rozwiązania medyczne, że uzdrowione ciało ludzkie, nigdy nie będąc izolowane i stanowiąc genetycznie część całego materialnego uniwersum, ma zostać z nim lepiej zintegrowane. To owa nieograniczona fizyczna rozciągłość, której wspomniane ciało jest tylko fragmentem, stanowi dla Descartes’a jedyne pewne pole jego działań jako rzeczy myślącej. Mówiąc w skrócie: jako taka, dusza ludzka, z uwagi na swe naturalne uposażenie, jest zobowiązana do poświęcenia swojego czasu i zdolności na zaznajomienie się z warunkami umożliwiającymi przedłużanie zdrowia i życia materii, z jaką została połączona. Zjednoczona zaś jest z ciałem konkretnego człowieka, którego żywotne interesy zostają odtąd rozpoznane jako dające się szacować oraz diagnozować w pytaniu o to, jak się ów „człowiek cielesny” czuje. Dodajmy jeszcze jedno. Otóż, od chwili, kiedy możemy o sobie powiedzieć, że odczuwamy swoje ciało i się z nim utożsamiamy, przestaje ono być częścią materialnie rozumianego wszechświata, a zaczyna być naszą, palącą nas sprawą; tym, co określa nosze miejsce w przestrzeni tego świata, ale nie jako rzecz posiadającą rozmiary, lecz jako materię specyficznie odczutą, odczutą aż do bólu. W tym związku człowiek nie tylko nie łączy się już z resztą przedmiotów, ale nawet z którymkolwiek z innych ludzi. Jest sobie dany bez jakichkolwiek zapośredniczeń, ale dokonuje się to w objęciu wszechogarniającego go cierpienia, z którego może go uwolnić znający tajniki natury ciała lekarz. Ze Wstępu: Dlaczego medycyna?

This informative and state-of-the-art book on Infrared Spectroscopy is addressed to Researchers in Medicine as well as to Pharmaceutical Industry and Agriculture. It features 7 specialized chapters of MIRS and NIRS covering applications in proteins and biopolymers; food quality research and food safety applications; and medical applications, such as Down syndrome disorders of tooth, probing of brain oxygen, the role of CO2 in blood pressure and diagnosis of metastatic cancer. This book highlights the span of modern Infrared applications.

This book provides state of the art scientific and engineering research findings and developments in the field of humanoid robotics and its applications. It is expected that humanoids will change the way we interact with machines, and will have the ability to blend perfectly into an environment already designed for humans. The book contains chapters that aim to discover the future abilities of humanoid robots by presenting a variety of integrated research in various scientific and engineering fields, such as locomotion, perception, adaptive behavior, human-robot interaction, neuroscience and machine learning. The book is designed to be accessible and practical, with an emphasis on useful information to those working in the fields of robotics, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, computational methods and other fields of science directly or indirectly related to the development and usage of future humanoid robots. The editor of the book has extensive R&D experience, patents, and publications in the area of humanoid robotics, and his experience is reflected in editing the content of the book.

Forests are alive, filled with rich, biologically complex life forms and the interrelationships of multiple species and materials. Vulnerable to a host of changing conditions in this global era, forests are in peril as never before. New markets in carbon and environmental services attract speculators. In the name of conservation, such speculators attempt to undermine local land control in these desirable areas. Moral Ecology of a Forest provides an ethnographic account of conservation politics, particularly the conflict between Western conservation and Mayan ontological ecology. The difficult interactions of the Maya of central Quintana Roo, Mexico, for example, or the Mayan communities of the Sain Ka’an Biosphere, demonstrate the clashing interests with Western biodiversity conservation initiatives. The conflicts within the forest of Quintana Roo represent the outcome of nature in this global era, where the forces of land grabbing, conservation promotion and organizations, and capitalism vie for control of forests and land. Forests pose living questions. In addition to the ever-thrilling biology of interdependent species, forests raise questions in the sphere of political economy, and thus raise cultural and moral questions. The economic aspects focus on the power dynamics and ideological perspectives over who controls, uses, exploits, or preserves those life forms and landscapes. The cultural and moral issues focus on the symbolic meanings, forms of knowledge, and obligations that people of different backgrounds, ethnicities, and classes have constructed in relation to their lands. The Maya Forest of Quintana Roo is a historically disputed place in which these three questions come together.

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La estructura y el dinamismo del mercado de tecnología tienen relaciones de causa y efecto sobre el grado de dependencia tecnológica de la industria mexicana. La complejidad de esta interacción, así como el tipo de política -y sus limitaciones- que ella requiere, pueden diferir de una rama industrial a otra y en el transcurso del tiempo. El autor aborda esta problemática, específicamente la referente al poliéster, los hilados, los tejidos, el acabado textil y la ropa. Su análisis se basa principalmente en la revisión de evidencias de 76 empresas.

Should digital technology be viewed as a new life form, sharing our ecosystem and coevolving with us?Are humans defining technology, or is technology defining humans? In this book, Edward Ashford Lee considers the case that we are less in control of the trajectory of technology than we think. It shapes us as much as we shape it, and it may be more defensible to think of technology as the result of a Darwinian coevolution than the result of top-down intelligent design. Richard Dawkins famously said that a chicken is an egg's way of making another egg. Is a human a computer's way of making another computer? To understand this question requires a deep dive into how evolution works, how humans are different from computers, and how the way technology develops resembles the emergence of a new life form on our planet.Lee presents the case for considering digital beings to be living, then offers counterarguments. What we humans do with our minds is more than computation, and what digital systems do—be teleported at the speed of light, backed up, and restored—may never be possible for humans. To believe that we are simply computations, he argues, is a “dataist” faith and scientifically indefensible. Digital beings depend on humans—and humans depend on digital beings. More likely than a planetary wipe-out of humanity is an ongoing, symbiotic coevolution of culture and technology.

Heinrich Triepel (1868-1946), Berliner Ordinarius und Begründer der deutschen Staatsrechtslehrervereinigung, Vernunftrepublikaner und wilhelminisch geprägter Herzensmonarchist, kommentierte die Verfassungsgeschichte Weimars durchgängig: von 1918 bis 1933, und hob dabei grundlegende Entwicklungen hervor, die auch heute noch diskutiert werden: verfassungspolitische Ausgangsfragen, Probleme der föderalen Struktur und Entwicklungstendenzen zur Ausnahmegesetzgebung, zum Parteienstaat und zur Verfassungsgerichtsbarkeit. Anders als andere Autoren des "Richtungsstreits" wurden seine Weimarer Schriften nach 1945 nicht erneut publiziert. Die vorliegende Sammlung bündelt die wichtigsten Texte, ergänzt sie um einige Nachweise und Kommentare und kontextualisiert sie einleitend; sie wirft die Frage nach der verfassungspolitischen Stellung und Prägung auf, betrachtet Triepels historisch abgeklärte Texte aber auch als Lehrstücke verfassungspolitischer Argumentation von bleibendem Interesse.Mit Beiträgen vonReinhard Mehring (Einleitung) und Heinrich Triepel.

This Special Issue on ‘Advances in Cereal Crops Breeding’ comprises 10 papers covering a wide range of subjects, including the expression-level investigation of genes in terms of salinity stress adaptations and their relationships with proteomics in rice, the use of genetic analysis to assess the general combining ability (GCA) and specific combining ability (SCA) in promising hybrids of maize, the use of DNA markers based on PCR in rice, the identification of quantitative trait loci (QTLs) in wheat and simple sequence repeats (SSR) in rice, the use of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in cereals, and Nanopore direct RNA sequencing of related with LTR RNA retrotransposon in triticale prior to the genomic selection of heterotic maize hybrids.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. It is free to read, download and share on Elgaronline.com. This innovative book sets out the concept and potential of reflexive urban governance. It argues that combining the practices of urban governance with continuous reflexivity on the assumptions underlying urban policies allows stakeholders to develop collaborative problem-solving capacity and to learn from the successes, failures and outcomes of policy interventions.