Open Access Books

This reprint is dedicated to the study of brain activity related to emotional and attentional involvement as measured by Brain–computer interface (BCI) systems designed for different purposes. A BCI system can translate brain signals (e.g., electric or hemodynamic brain activity indicators) into a command to execute an action in the BCI application (e.g., a wheelchair, the cursor on the screen, a spelling device or a game). These tools have the advantage of having real-time access to the ongoing brain activity of the individual, which can provide insight into the user’s emotional and attentional states by training a classification algorithm to recognize mental states. The success of BCI systems in contemporary neuroscientific research relies on the fact that they allow one to “think outside the lab”. The integration of technological solutions, artificial intelligence and cognitive science allowed and will allow researchers to envision more and more applications for the future. The clinical and everyday uses are described with the aim to invite readers to open their minds to imagine potential further developments.

This Special Issue reprint compiles a series of articles focused on the latest advancements in optical coherence tomography (OCT) in ophthalmology. Initially developed to assess the posterior segment, particularly the macula and optic nerve, OCT has since expanded its applications to the anterior segment, enabling a detailed analysis of structures such as the cornea, anterior chamber, and iridocorneal angle. Recent innovations, such as intraoperative OCT, en face OCT, and wide-field OCT, have provided new insights into complex ocular structures such as the choroid, vitreous, lens, and ciliary muscle. These advancements have also improved surgical precision and postoperative evaluation in various ophthalmological subspecialties, including the retina, cornea, and glaucoma. This Special Issue reprint presents a collection of original research articles and reviews that discuss the current state of the art, address existing knowledge gaps, and highlight the clinical impact of OCT in enhancing the diagnosis, treatment, and management of a wide range of ophthalmic conditions.

The spreading antibiotic resistance of bacteria is one of the most important challenges of modern medicine, and a search for methods that could replace conventional treatments of bacterial infections is urgently needed. Bacteriophage therapy is considered one of the most important alternatives to commonly applied antibacterial strategies.This Special Issue, titled "Bacteriophage Therapy: Recent Developments and Applications of a Renaissance Weapon", collected eleven articles focused on different aspects of phage therapy. It includes five original articles, two case studies, and four reviews presenting research on the application of phages against pathogens posing a serious threat to human health, such as Salmonella enterica, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Vibrio cholerae, and Staphylococcus aureus. The published articles also relate to the practical aspects of phage application, such as the development of modern phage carriers or the employment of mathematical tools for predicting bacteriophage features and their antibacterial potential. Furthermore, an important research topic discussed in this Special Issue is the application of phages in food safety, where phages could potentially replace routinely used antibacterials.

Plastic and reconstructive surgery has evolved over the last two decades, with advances in anesthesiology, pharmacology, perioperative medicine, and novel monitoring devices contributing significantly to these patients being able to recover and live safely. Patients with chronic pathologies such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, obesity, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, congenital or trauma injuries, changes due to excessive weight loss and others, as well as patient-tourists who have traveled enormous distances are now able to receive cosmetic and reconstructive surgeries that in the past were rejected. The authors of this book also discuss various contemporary topics of anesthesia for plastic and reconstructive surgery that are especially interesting and controversial due to the latest developments on this subject.

Primer Encuentro Deporte y Sociedad: Debates en tránsito en las Ciencias Sociales en la Argentina actual held in Ensenada in november 2016.

This book uses three examples of violent biblical stories about women, explored through the lens of conceptual metaphor theory in relation to culinary language used within these texts, to examine wider issues of gender and sexual violence in the Hebrew Bible. Utilising the tools of conceptual metaphor theory, feminist criticism, and classic textual analysis, Brownsmith interrogates some of the most troubling biblical passages for women—neither by redeeming them nor by condemning them, but by showing how they are intrinsically shaped by the enduring metaphor of woman as food in the Hebrew Bible, ancient Near East, and beyond. The volume explores three main case studies: the Levite’s “concubine” (Judges 19); Tamar and Amnon (2 Sam 13); and the life and death of Jezebel (primarily 1 Kings 21 and 2 Kings 9). All depict violence toward a woman as perpetrated by a man, interwoven with culinary language that cues their metaphorical implications. In these sensitive but critical readings of violent tales, Brownsmith also draws on a broad range of interdisciplinary connections from Ricoeur to ancient Ugaritic epics to modern comic books. Through this approach, readers gain new insights into how the Bible shapes its narratives through conceptual metaphors, and specifically how it makes meaning out of women’s brutalized bodies. Gendered Violence in Biblical Narrative: The Devouring Metaphor is suitable for students and scholars working on gender and sexual violence in the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East more broadly, as well as those working on conceptual metaphor theory and feminist criticism.

Finnish civil procedure has a close connection with other Scandinavian legal systems and co-operation between the States is active. In addition, the legislation, case-law and scholarly doctrine are more and more influenced by European co-operation through the EU and Council of Europe. The principles of free disposition, free assessment of evidence, audiatur altera pars, and burden of proof form the basis for an oral and direct public hearing. It follows from these due process principles that no methods of proof are forbidden but their relevance depends on the court’s assessment. The procedural doctrine in Finland is well established and has roots in the Swedish code of civil procedure of 1734, although it has gone through extensive reforms. On February 10, 2015 the Parliament of Finland passed the reform of chapter 17 of code of civil procedure, which contains the legislation on law of evidence. The extensive reform systematically updates and streamlines the previous legislation on evidence in addition to introducing new regulation e.g. on anonymous witnesses and banning invocation of evidence, which has been obtained by illegal means. The reform of chapter 17 concludes the systematic reform.

Média ancien, fortement ancré dans les routines et les activités de la vie quotidienne, la radio est l'objet d'un fort investissement de la part des Français. Pourtant, l'intérêt scientifique à l'endroit des publics de la radio est relativement récent. On ne sait pas grand-chose de la structuration de cet univers, qui offre en France une diversité remarquable de stations privées musicales, jeunes (NRJ, Fun Radio, Skyrock...), adultes (Nostalgie, Virgin Radio, RTL2...), généralistes (RTL, Europe 1), de service public (France Inter, France Culture, France Bleu...) ou encore associatives. Appuyé sur une exploitation pionnière et inédite des données d'audience issues de Médiamétrie pour la décennie 2000, cet ouvrage intéressera les sociologues qui y trouveront une mise au jour du profil dominant de l'auditeur des radios privées musicales, une réflexion sur les investissements différentiels selon les types de radio, mais aussi une discussion serrée de la notion de grand public appliquée à cet objet, tout autant que les gens de radio qui y puiseront un outil de réflexion et de pilotage quant au champ de l'audience en France à travers le regard distancié et neutre de l'analyse. Enfin, cet ouvrage, sous-titre Sociologie d'une fragmentation, concernera tout citoyen souhaitant disposer du matériau nécessaire à une réflexion sur l'hétérogénéité contemporaine des publics d'un média - fortement structurée par l'âge en toute première instance - et désirant connaître le paysage français des affinités entre radios et groupes sociaux.

This open access book describes the serious threat of invasive species to native ecosystems. Invasive species have caused and will continue to cause enormous ecological and economic damage with ever increasing world trade. This multi-disciplinary book, written by over 100 national experts, presents the latest research on a wide range of natural science and social science fields that explore the ecology, impacts, and practical tools for management of invasive species. It covers species of all taxonomic groups from insects and pathogens, to plants, vertebrates, and aquatic organisms that impact a diversity of habitats in forests, rangelands and grasslands of the United States. It is well-illustrated, provides summaries of the most important invasive species and issues impacting all regions of the country, and includes a comprehensive primary reference list for each topic. This scientific synthesis provides the cultural, economic, scientific and social context for addressing environmental challenges posed by invasive species and will be a valuable resource for scholars, policy makers, natural resource managers and practitioners.

This open access book offers an original exploration of how the notion of pluriversalism, an anti-colonial concept that resounds throughout many decolonial methodologies and pedagogies, underlies many current attempts to develop more just and equitable approaches to social work teaching and research. Despite its prominence in other fields, pluriversalism has never been foregrounded in any full-length study of social work. This co-edited volume does just that, and in so doing, it codifies a thriving, but otherwise diffuse, subcurrent of alternative, othered ways of researching and teaching social work. It foregrounds local knowledges while maintaining a global scope and empirically grounded perspective, and in so doing it shows how pluriversal approaches open new spaces around the world for teaching and talking about social work in a manner that is more just, culturally sensitive, and attuned to structural power relations. In that same self-critical spirit, the chapters gathered here also engage critically with the risks of cultural appropriation endemic to pluriversal approaches, themselves, appropriations that would ultimately reproduce the exploitation mechanisms they aim to resist. This is a must-read for social work students, researchers, and practitioners interested in development studies, decolonial studies, and Indigenous studies. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Bloomsbury Open Collections Library Collective.

This book is a collection of studies focused on the exploitation of enzyme stereoselectivity for the synthesis of relevant chemicals, such as innovative materials, chiral building blocks, natural products, and flavor and fragrance compounds. Different catalytic approaches are reported. The first study describes a resolution-based process for the stereoselective synthesis of the enantiomeric forms of the flavor compound linaloyl oxide, whereas other enantiomeric enriched aroma compounds were obtained through a novel microbial approach based on solid-state fermentation. Two relevant works exploit the potential of the biocatalyzed reduction reactions. The first of these contributions describes the enantioselective synthesis of ?-nitroalcohols by enzyme-mediated reduction of ?-nitroketones, whereas a second contribution reports the preparation of chiral 1,4-diaryl-1,4-diols through ADH-catalyzed bioreduction of the corresponding diketones. Concerning enantioenriched alcohol derivatives, natural hydroxy fatty acids are prepared by means of the biocatalytic hydration reaction of natural fatty acids using the probiotic bacterium Lactobacillus rhamnosus as a whole-cell biocatalyst. Further studies describe the use of modified pullulan polysaccharide for lipase immobilization and the recent advances in synthetic applications of ?-transaminases for the production of chiral amines.

Mit dem Mikroskop wurde in den 1620er Jahren ein neues Instrument in die Naturforschung eingeführt, dessen Möglichkeiten man zunächst geradezu euphorisch begrüßte, gegen Ende des Jahrhunderts dann jedoch mit zunehmendem Zweifel bedachte. Beobachten mit dem Mikroskop entwickelte sich innerhalb dieser Jahre zu einer hoch spezialisierten Form der Naturforschung: Die Beobachtungen lösten sich zunehmend von den Fragestellungen traditioneller Kontexte von Wissenschaft wie Naturphilosophie, Naturgeschichte und Medizin. Die Untersuchungsobjekte wurden zunächst über Vergleiche beschrieben, dann aber in ein dichter werdendes Netz aus Analogien eingebunden. Ferner wurden beständig neue Techniken entwickelt oder an die Gegebenheiten angepasst. Die Untersuchungen entwickelten hinsichtlich dieser Aspekte einerseits eine produktive Eigendynamik, andererseits hatten die zunehmend individuellen Ziele und Vorgehensweisen der Akteure mit zur Folge, dass die Überprüfung der Beobachtungen oder eine Kooperation kaum noch möglich waren. - Die Bände der Serie Studies sind zentralen Themen der Geschichte und Entwicklung des Wissens gewidmet. Perspektiven aus unterschiedlichen Bereichen werden zusammengebracht, und auf Quellen gestützte empirische Forschung wird mit theoretisch ausgerichteten Ansätzen verknüpft. Die einzelnen Bände behandeln typischerweise neue, integrative Ansätze interdisziplinärer Forschergruppen. Sie berühren so unterschiedliche Themen wie die Globalisierung des Wissens oder die Entwicklung des räumlichen Denkens.

Urinary tract infection (UTI) is a problem so common and so significant in routine clinical practice that accurate diagnostics are especially important. In particular, complicated UTI is associated with an increased rate of therapy failures, as a result of possible biofilm formation on foreign elements and antibiotic resistance, as well as the increased possibility of an infection recurrence. These are the arguments for the constant search for novel diagnostic tools and techniques. These and many other vital topics regarding UTI complications, management, and treatment, in addition to antibiotic resistance and bacterial virulence traits allowing us to mitigate or avoid antibiotic action, are presented in this book.

Les travaux du séminaire international font le point sur les diverses temporalités qui structurent les processus de recherche dans le champ des didactiques disciplinaires. Le cadrage de ce questionnement est assuré par le texte de François Audigier « Temps subi, Temps construit ». Les contributions qui suivent ont été regroupées autour de trois thèmes : - les variations des indicateurs et des critères durant une recherche « longue » ; - la gestion des échelles de temps adoptées ; - l’articula...

This thematic issue of Skriftkultur is about literature and literature didactics. Researching how we teach literature requires taking into consideration the changing circumstances for literature and reading: Students read less now than they did before, and they prefer to read short texts both at school and in their free time, according to several PISA and PIRLS surveys. This has led to a marginalization of reading longer, often complex, texts that require endurance and cognitive patience. At the same time, governing powers and policymakers are concerned with prioritizing reading, and initiatives to stimulate more long-form reading and subsidize schools’ purchase of physical textbooks and literature in schools have been implemented. Against this background, discourse within teacher education and schools on the position of literature and teaching literature, past and present, and how teaching can also stimulate creativity, as well as motivation for and the joy of reading, is vital. The place-based nature of literature is also central to the work of creating relevance and meaning, both analog and digital, and across national boundaries and educational institutions, while the school library can be a literary arena for fostering a vibrant reading culture in schools.