Open Access Books

The Edition of the Minutes of the Cabinet Meetings Figl I constitutes an important contribution to research 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. The minutes of the cabinet meetings have to be regarded as central source materials on this early and complex phase of the Second Republic. Volume 9 of the Edition encompasses the minutes of meeting No. 97 of January 27, 1948 to meeting No. 105 of March 23, 1948 as well as the accompanying minutes of the Wirtschaftliches Ministerkomitee from that period of time.

Do the same laws and rules apply in the literary domain as they do in normal social interaction? Does a literary writer, as writer, have a responsibility toward society? After the liberation of the Netherlands, these general issues led to the urgent question to what extent a writer could be held accountable for having been literarily active during ‘the New Order.’ Although the postwar purge of the Dutch literary field was carried out by uncontroversial literary figures, it was contested from the start. In this book, Ted Laros analyzes the purge process and the fierce battle between the cultural, political, and juridical elites that were involved.

Between the 11th and the 20th century, the monastery of San Miniato al Monte in Florence played a leading role in the religious and cultural life of the city. The volume analyses for the first time the historical and documentary evolution of this regular institute, famous almost only from the architectural and artistic points of view. The book focuses the period of the bishop’s patronage in the 11th century, when the monastery and some of its members emerged in the context of the ecclesiastical reform, and continues with the study of the the Olivetan monks community, during the 14th-16th centuries, to arrive at the important structural and functional, but also semantic, transformations of the monument between the 18th century and the contemporary times.

"In the decade since Kevin Hylton’s seminal book ‘Race’ and Sport: Critical Race Theory was published, racialised issues have remained at the forefront of sport and leisure studies. In this important new book, Hylton draws on original research in contemporary contexts, from sport coaching to cyberspace, to show once again that Critical Race Theory is an insightful and productive tool for interrogating problematic social phenomena. Inspired by W.E.B. Du Bois’ statement that ""the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the colour line"", this book sheds a critical light on the way sport perpetuates racism, while identifying opportunities to challenge its insidious presence. Exploring and explaining the ways in which notions of ‘race’ are expressed and contested at individual, institutional and societal levels, it addresses key topics such as whiteness, diversity, colourblindness, unconscious bias, identity, leadership, humour and discourse to investigate how language can be used as a device for resistance against racism in sport. Contesting ‘Race’ and Sport: Shaming the Colour Line is vital reading for all sport studies students, academics and those with an interest in race, ethnicity and society."

"In recent years there has been an increased focus on the importance of the environment for the development of elite athletes. In order to understand the factors that contribute to or limit an athlete’s sporting development, it is not enough to study only the individual but the whole environment in which the athlete develops. The purpose of this chapter is to investigate what characterizes a successful elite sport environment in Danish badminton. An elite sports environment that continuously manages to create senior results at the highest international level and win medals at the European championships, the World championships and the Olympics. The study was organized as a case study of the national elite sports center in Badminton Denmark (BD). Data was based on interviews with players, coaches and managers, observations on training and in competitions, meetings and analysis of documents. The environment was centered on self-understanding based on “us against the rest of the world” and a fundamental value in the environment was to create intelligent players while focusing on individual development through high training quality. The organizational culture was characterized by being: 1) a well documented, quality oriented and dialogue-based learning environment, 2) an environment with hard competition and 3) an environment with proximal role models."

Der Übergang zur Europäischen Währungsunion (EWU) bedeutet für die beteiligten Staaten die Aufgabe ihrer geldpolitischen Souveränität. Konnten die nationalen geldpolitischen Entscheidungsträger bislang auf die jeweiligen monetären Erfordernisse und Zielpräferenzen ihrer Volkswirtschaften Rücksicht nehmen, so muß die Europäische Zentralbank ihre Entscheidungen an den Gegebenheiten des gesamten Währungsgebiets ausrichten. Daher lassen sich die Bedingungen einer Übereinstimmung der monetären Erfordernisse, einer Angleichung der geldpolitischen Transmissionsmechanismen und einer Konvergenz der Zielpräferenzen in den EWU-Staaten als zentrale Voraussetzungen für den Erfolg der vergemeinschafteten europäischen Geldpolitik ableiten. Die Überprüfung der Erfüllung dieser Bedingungen dient somit als wesentliche Grundlage zur Abschätzung der ökonomischen Erfolgsaussichten der EWU.

What meaning does recognition have in the context of the rehabilitation of tyranny? This volume provides answers.

Thirty years passed before it was accepted, in West Germany and elsewhere, that the Roma (Germany's Gypsies) had been Holocaust victims. And, similarly, it took thirty years for the West German state to admit that the sterilisation of Roma had been part of the 'Final Solution'. Drawing on a substantial body of previously unseen sources, this book examines the history of the struggle of Roma for recognition as racially persecuted victims of National Socialism in post-war Germany. Since modern academics belatedly began to take an interest in them, the Roma have been described as 'forgotten victims'. This book looks at the period in West Germany between the end of the War and the beginning of the Roma civil rights movement in the early 1980s, during which the Roma were largely passed over when it came to compensation. The complex reasons for this are at the heart of this book.

She said she was in the family way' examines the subject of pregnancy and infancy in Ireland from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. It draws on exciting and innovative research by early-career and established academics, and consider topics that have been largely ignored by historians in Ireland. The book will make an important contribution to Irish women’s history, family history, childhood history, social history, crime history and medical history, and will provide a reference point for academics interested in themes of sexuality, childbirth, infanthood and parenthood.

From 1832 to the present day, from the countryside in Wales to the Comintern in Moscow, from America to Finland and Ireland to Australia, from the girls’ school to the stage, women’s suffrage was the most significant challenge to the constitution since 1832, seeking not only to settle demands for inclusion and justice but to expand and redefine definitions of citizenship. This collection advances ongoing debates within suffrage history whilst also drawing on a range of new sources, different intellectual techniques and methodological approaches, which challenge established interpretations. With its focus on politics and political activism in its broadest sense, this collection makes a timely and substantial contribution to understanding the meaning of politics and political activism across the UK (and indeed, across the world) in this period, particularly as defined and experienced by women at the grassroots. This collection is a reminder of the ways in which women have often encountered and battled a hostile political climate, but pushed forward with determination, skill, tenacity and optimism: resonating with the renewed interest in women’s history and feminist politics today.

In Ontological Catastrophe, Joseph Carew takes up the central question guiding Slavoj Žižek philosophy: How could something like phenomenal reality emerge out of the meaninglessness of the Real? Carefully reconstructing and expanding upon his controversial reactualization of German Idealism, Carew argues that Žižek offers us an original, but perhaps terrifying, response: experience is possible only if we presuppose a prior moment of breakdown as the ontogenetic basis of subjectivity. Drawing upon resources found in Žižek, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and post-Kantian philosophy, Carew thus develops a new critical metaphysics—a metaphysics which is a variation upon the late German Idealist theme of balancing system and freedom, realism and idealism, in a single, self-reflexive theoretical construct—that challenges our understanding of nature, culture, and the ultimate structure of reality.

"The Chinese economy is currently undergoing a profound institutional transformation—a quiet revolution. In a regulated environment geared to the requirements of state-owned enterprises, the successs of the private sector as the main focus for economic growth is remarkable. State-owned enterprises are currently being restructured based on market conditions in which private firms are now permitted to play an important role. Fascinated by the implications of this reform within the Chinese economy, the Asia-Pacific School of Economics and Management of The Australian National University, in conjunction with the China Center for Economic Research of Peking University research team, conducted a large sample survey. Four study sites were chosen: Beijing, Chengdu, Shunde and Wenzhou. Leading economists analyse the nature and dynamics of private sector reform within the Chinese economy and make recommendations for policy which support opportunities for growth and investment. This work, originally published by Asia Pacific Press, is reproduced here in the interests of maintaining open access to high-quality academic works no longer in print."

The exchange of orbit information is becoming more important in view of the increasing population of objects in space as well as the increase in parties involved in space operations. The aim of this thesis was to investigate how orbit information maintained by a space surveillance system can be provided to its users. Services like collision avoidance require very accurate information, while other services might be less stringent. An approach was studied, which allows to derive orbit and covariance information of predetermined accuracy from a reference orbit. Using Chebyshev polynomials, continuous state vector and covariance matrix information can be provided. The major advantage is that no inter- or extrapolation on the user's side is required. A method to reduce the data amount by interpolating the variance envelope functions was also studied. The proposed method in this thesis gives access to highly accurate information from the catalogue, where this information is required. On the other hand it can also provide less accurate information, where requirements are less restrictive, thereby allowing for a significantly reduced amount of data to be transferred and stored.

Die Situation der Erwachsenen- und Weiterbildung in Österreich wird in der neuen Auflage des Länderporträts anhand aktueller Daten und Informationen vorgestellt. Nach einer historischen Einführung folgen Informationen über rechtliche Grundlagen, Steuerungsmechanismen, Institutionen, Qualitätssicherung, Finanzierung, Angebote und Teilnahme. Auch die Themen Professionalisierung, hochschulische Weiterbildung, Internationalität und Perspektiven werden kurz zusammengefasst. Für Wissenschaft, Praxis und Verwaltung ist das österreichische Länderporträt eine gute Informationsbasis."

Feminist AI: Critical Perspectives on Algorithms, Data and Intelligent Machines is the first volume to bring together leading feminist thinkers from across the disciplines to explore the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and related data-driven technologies on human society. Recent years have seen both an explosion in AI systems and a corresponding rise in important critical analyses of these technologies. Central to these analyses has been feminist scholarship, which calls upon the AI sector to be accountable for designing and deploying AI in ways that further, rather than undermine, the pursuit of social justice. Feminist AI showcases the vital contributions of feminist scholarship to thinking about AI, data, and intelligent machines as well as laying the groundwork for future feminist scholarship on AI. It brings together scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, from computer science, software engineering, and medical sciences to political theory, anthropology, and literature. It provides an entry point for scholars of AI, science, and technology into the diversity of feminist approaches to AI, and creates a rich dialogue between scholars and practitioners of AI to examine the powerful congruences and generative tensions between different feminist approaches to new and emerging technologies.