Open Access Books

"What are the most popular names of the Ambo people in Namibia? Why do so many Ambos have Finnish first names? What do the African names of these people mean? Why is the namesake so important in Ambo culture? How did the long independence struggle affect personal naming, and what are the latest name-giving trends in Namibia? This study analyses the changes in the personal naming system of the Ambo people in Namibia over the last 120 years, starting from the year 1883 when the first Ambos received biblical and European names at baptism. The central factors in this process were the German and South African colonisation and European missionary work on the one hand, and the rise of African nationalism on the other hand. Eventually, this clash between African and European naming practices led to a new and dynamic naming system which includes elements of both African and European origin. Dr. Minna Saarelma-Maunumaa is the Publishing Director of the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission and the Vice-President of the Finnish-Namibian Society. ""Within the field of onomastics, i.e. the scientific study of names, this study is a remarkable and extremely important one... I suspect that it will become a major and standard reference work in the future, not only regarding Ambo anthroponymy, but anthroponymy in general, particularly where cultures interact."" —Professor S.J. Neethling, University of the Western Cape, South Africa"

This book describes the coming about and first results of the AiREAS "healthy city" cooperative in the city of Eindhoven and Province of North Brabant in the Netherlands. AiREAS is an initiative focused on the multidisciplinary co-creation of healthy cities using the core human value of human health and air quality as guiding principle for profound regional innovation. The unique group process that followed uses the complexity of the city of Eindhoven as living lab. It is an anthropology based initiative that invites directly to the same table of core innovative responsibility the local government, innovative business partners, scientific insights and research, and civilian participation. The first phase is described here in which the consortium decided to want to make the invisible of air pollution and human exposure visible for the integral innovative participation of all city's core pillars (policy, education, infrastructure, culture and entrepreneurship). The experience is unique in the world and proceeding now with more phases in Eindhoven and the role out of the same working format in other cities. This Brief is made available to inspire the world to address together the most complex issues of our current era: pollution, climate and core human values.

Animal Narratology interrogates what it means to narrate, to speak—speak for, on behalf of—and to voice, or represent life beyond the human, which is in itself as different as insects, bears, and dogs are from each other, and yet more, as individual as a single mouse, horse, or puma. The varied contributions to this interdisciplinary Special Issue highlight assumptions about the human perception of, attitude toward, and responsibility for the animals that are read and written about, thus demonstrating that just as “the animal” does not exist, neither does “the human”. In their zoopoetic focus, the analyses are aware that animal narratology ultimately always contains an approximation of an animal perspective in human terms and terminology, yet they make clear that what matters is how the animal is approximated and that there is an effort to approach and encounter the non-human in the first place. Many of the analyses come to the conclusion that literary animals give readers the opportunity to expand their own points of view both on themselves and others by adopting another’s perspective to the degree that such an endeavor is possible. Ultimately, the contributions call for a recognition of the many spaces, moments, and modes in which human lives are entangled with those of animals—one of which is located within the creative bounds of storytelling.

When investigating the relationship that may have existed between Latin declamations and the Roman legal experience, the study of the lex inscripti maleficii Latin declamations and the Roman juridical experience, the study of the lex inscripti maleficii is something of a challenge. There is no trace of such a rule in legal texts and it is often presented as a paradigm of the activity of schools of rhetoric, detached from the real processes that took place in the forum. This study proposes a new analysis of the scholastic norm. It starts from the reflection that historiography has carried out on it and then examines in detail all the arguments used in the declamations that had it as a protagonist. It is on the basis of these arguments that new questions arise from which to analyse the law. New ways of questioning its connection with reality that point towards a particular relationship with the Roman juridical experience.

This volume summarizes over fifteen years of surveys on the breeding birds in the city of Milan, realized thanks to the contribution of dozens of volunteers. It provides a comprehensive overview of the distribution of 80 species in the period 2009-2024, integrating the results of several citizen science projects. The evolution of Milan's urban bird community highlighted contrasting trends: on the one hand, an increase in biodiversity, due to the progressive urbanization of several forest bird species, associated with the expansion of urban green species and an increase of mature trees; on the other hand, the expansion of non-native species and the decline of iconic urban bird taxa. The Atlas constitutes a valuable tool for integrating biodiversity conservation into future urban planning.

Des démarches classiquement appliquées en géophysiques d’exploration profonde, combinant différentes méthodes sismiques et diagraphiques, peuvent techniquement se décliner pour certaines reconnaissances géotechniques, hydrogéologiques ou des caractérisations de site dans le cadre d’études d’aléa sismique. Aujourd’hui la mise en œuvre de ce type de reconnaissances géophysiques est tout à fait réaliste, si les enjeux le nécessitent. Après un état de l’art concernant les mesures en forage des vitesses de cisaillement du sous-sol, appliquées au domaine géotechnique, cet ouvrage illustre la faisabilité de réaliser pour ce même domaine des profils sismiques verticaux (PSV) et des diagraphies. Cette démarche, illustre également l’intérêt de la combinaison des mesures de vitesse des formations fournies par les outils de sismique en forage (PSV) et les outils acoustiques (soniques). Un exemple innovant d’application des méthodes sismiques en forage et des diagraphies est présenté ensuite par l’étude d’un aquifère calcaire karstifié, relativement proche de la surface (de 20 à 130 m). On y montre comment une description multi échelle du réservoir peut être réalisée en intégrants les informations fournies par différentes méthodes sismiques de surface 3D-THR, diagraphies acoustiques en champs total, PSV avec hydrophones, imageries de paroi et mesures de débitmétrie. Dans cet ouvrage, les auteurs donnent également aux lecteurs des clefs pour mener à bien ces opérations, aussi bien vis-à-vis de leurs acquisitions, que de leurs traitements et interprétations. Ainsi, les utilisateurs pourront puiser l’inspiration de poursuivre la transposition de techniques pétrolières ou innovantes pour les études de la proche surface.

This open access book examines places on the margins and the dynamics through which a marginal position of a place is created. Specifically, it explores how places, mostly in sparsely populated areas, often perceived as immobile and frozen in time, come into being and develop through interference of everyday mobilities and creative practices that cut across the spheres of culture and nature as usually defined. Through fieldwork and case studies from areas in Iceland, Finland, Greenland, and Scotland, the book’s twelve chapters draw out the multiple relations through which places emerge, where people compose their lives as best they can with their surroundings. A special concern is to explore the links between travelling, landscape, and material culture and how places and margins are enacted through mobilities and creative practices of humans and other beings. The emphasis on mobility disturbs the perception of a place as a bounded entity and offers a useful and necessary understanding of places as mobile and fluid. Mobilities on the Margins is a novel and timely contribution to the exploration of human and more-than-human interactions in a world of increasingly fluid mobilities and insistent crises.

Parmi les dix mille îles et îlots de Méditerranée, moins de trois cents seraient habités et seulement deux cents mesureraient plus de 5 km2. Ces îles sont des entités géologiques et géographiques complexes où coexistent des formations de roches très anciennes et d'autres créées très récemment (îles volcaniques). A la fois ouvertes sur l'horizon et les côtes continentales voisines, elles restent, paradoxalement, relativement fermées de par leur isolement, créant ainsi des spécificités quant à leur biodiversité et leur colonisation par les sociétés humaines. Les îles de Méditerranée forment ainsi un objet d'étude privilégié pour la géoarchéologie. Celte dernière emprunte les concepts, les méthodes et les techniques de disciplines relevant des sciences humaines et environnementales (l'archéologie, l'épigraphie, la philologie, la géographie. la paléoécologie, la paléontologie...). Cet ouvrage établit un premier état des connaissances dans le domaine de la géoarchéologie des îles de Méditerranée. L'éclatement géographique de ces dernières, ainsi qu'une histoire de l'occupation propre à chacune, démontrent toute la difficulté de globaliser ces espaces géographiques, progressivement transformés en territoires sous l'action répétée des sociétés humaines. Des spécialistes dressent ici les relations complexes entre les dynamiques et les processus paysagers et les logiques d'occupation humaine depuis la fin du Pléistocène. Le présent ouvrage recueille vingt-quatre contributions regroupées dans cinq parties intitulées « Anthropisation et mutations paysagères à la transition Paléolithique/Néolithique » ; « Mobilité et reconstitution des anciens niveaux marins depuis la fin de la dernière grande glaciation quaternaire » ; « Adaptation aux mutations paysagères à l'échelle intra-site : la nécessaire prise en compte des paramètres environnementaux » ; « Deltas, lagunes et marais : des interfaces propices à l'implantation des sociétés humaines » et « Matières premières ; exploitation et interactions ». Cet ouvrage s'adresse principalement à des spécialistes de géographie, d'archéologie et de paléoécologie mais aussi à un public plus large : étudiants des niveaux L-M-D, enseignants et simples néophytes souhaitant s'initier aux concepts, méthodes et techniques de la géoarchéologie.

En 1986-87, un groupe de médiévistes français s'est attaché à étudier, dans les cartulaires, quand et comment s'est élaboré le système anthroponymique moderne, prénom et patronyme, au cours des xie et xiie siècles. Après cette première phase centrée sur les points communs et les nuances régionales de cette évolution, l'enquête s'est élargie, en 1989 et 1990, aux autres pays européens qui feront l'objet de publications ultérieures et aux « résistances », dans l'espace français, à cette double dénomination. Une région résistante : la Bretagne, un mode de désignation spécifique, pour les clercs par leur fonction, pour les femmes par une relation familiale : ce sont les modalités de ces évolutions différentes qui font l'objet du volume II des Rencontres d'Azay-le-Ferron, publié aujourd'hui en deux tomes, par le même groupe de chercheurs. Le même principe, de comparaison régionale fondée sur un questionnement identique des sources, y est appliqué. Les « prénoms » des clercs sont-ils différents de ceux des laïcs ? Les femmes sont-elles identifiées par la famille où elles sont nées ou par celle à laquelle elles se sont alliées par mariage ? L'analyse de ces usages spécifiques permet de comprendre comment fonctionne, entre la norme et le concret, la désignation écrite des individus entre le xie et le xive siècle.

Concealing Agents addresses the invisibilization and concealment of people, knowledge and ideas in history and historiography. With studies ranging from modern to contemporary history, language and translation studies, and digital archival sciences, this book provides an interdisciplinary perspective to better understand how people become absent and marginalized, through the lens of bondage and dependency in Asia.

Immune responses within the brain are still scarcely explored. Nerve tissue damage is accompanied by the activation of glial cells, primarily microglia and astroglia, and such activation is responsible for the release of cytokines and chemokines that maintain the local inflammatory response and actively recruit lymphocytes and monocytes to the damaged areas. Theoretically, these responses are designed to repair the brain damage. However, alterations, or a chronic perpetuation of these responses may underlie a number of neuro-pathologies. It is thought that each inflammatory scenario within the brain have a specific biochemical footprint characterized by the release of determined cytokines, chemokines and growing factors able to define particular immunological responses. Alongside, glial cells transform their cell body, become larger and develop higher number of branches adopting an active morphological phenotype. These changes are related with the search of interactions with other cells, such as bystander resident cells of the brain parenchyma, but also cells homing from the blood stream. In this process, microglia and astrocytes communicates with other cells by the formation of specific intercellular connections that are still poorly understood. These interactions are complex and entail the arrangement of cytoskeletal compounds, secretory and phagocytic domains. In this particular crosstalk there is a two-way communication in which glial cells and target cells come together establishing interfaces with specific information exchange. This way, glial cells orchestrate the particular response recruiting cellular subsets within the central nervous system and organizing the resolution of the brain damage. In this Frontiers Research Topic, we compile a selection of articles unfolding diverse aspects of glial-derived inflammation, focused on neurodegenerative diseases and other nervous system disorders, with special emphasis on microglia/macrophages as leading actors managing neuro-immunity.

While consent tends to be most commonly foregrounded in discourse surrounding sex and sexuality, Consent: Legacies, Representation, and Frameworks for the Future seeks to unpack the term in all its wide-ranging social, ideological, and cultural entanglements. With its diverse conceptual scope, commitment to cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural research, this edited collection works to broaden the conception of ‘consent’ as an evolving entity in both theory and practice by foreground disciplinary diversity. The chapters are grouped into five sections: ‘Culture and Resistance’; ‘Consent on Screen’; ‘Coercion and Violence’; ‘Practice and Pedagogies’; and ‘Futures of Consent’, each presenting plural articulations of consent as it circulates across contemporary life, from media and cultural production to technology and pedagogy. Consent: Legacies, Representation, and Frameworks for the Future is of value to undergraduate and graduate students studying gender studies, sociology, media studies and law.

The uprising which shook France in May 1968 also had a revolutionary effect on the country's most prominent film journal. Under editors Jean-Louis Comolli and Jean Narboni, Cahiers du cinéma embarked on a militant turn that would govern the journal's work over the next five years. With a Marxist orientation inspired by the thinking of Louis Althusser, Jacques Lacan and Roland Barthes, the "red years" of Cahiers du cinéma produced a theoretical outpouring that was formative for the establishment of film studies as an academic discipline in the 1970s, and is still of vital relevance for the contemporary audiovisual landscape. It was also the seminal experience for a generation of critics who have dedicated the following half-century to the task of critically responding to the cinema. The Red Years of Cahiers du Cinéma (1968-1973) gives a historical overview of this period in the journal's history, combining biographical accounts of the critics who were involved with Cahiers in the post-1968 and theoretical explorations of the text they wrote.

Très soucieux de sa gloire, Louis XIV s’intéressa particulièrement aux affaires militaires, en allant sur le front à la tête de ses armées et surtout en prenant de plus en plus en charge la direction de la guerre. À l’aide de ses secrétaires d’État de la Guerre, notamment Louvois, il a ainsi mis en place la « stratégie de cabinet », qui consiste à contrôler étroitement l’action des généraux depuis Versailles. Très critiquée dès le Grand Siècle, cette manière de diriger les opérations est aujourd’hui encore l’objet de controverses, à propos de ses origines, de son évolution, de son efficacité ou du degré d’autonomie laissée aux généraux. Alors que la stratégie de cabinet n’est évoquée que pour l’armée de terre, il semble intéressant d’examiner si elle fut également appliquée sur mer et de comparer la direction de l’armée de terre avec celle de la marine. Cela permet enfin de mieux connaître les idées stratégiques et géopolitiques des dirigeants français, le processus de prise de décision militaire, la conception des plans d’opérations et leur application sur le terrain, sans oublier les contraintes logistiques, financières et géostratégiques qui limitèrent considérablement le champ des possibles.

Sharp and witty observations of academic life that range from the local to the global, from PowerPoint to the halls of power. Is a university education still relevant? What are the forces that threaten it? Should academics ever be allowed near Twitter? In Academic Diary, Les Back has chronicled three decades of his academic career, turning his sharp and often satirical eye to the everyday aspects of life on campus and the larger forces that are reshaping it. Presented as a collection of entries from a single academic year, the diary moves from the local to the global, from PowerPoint to the halls of power. With entries like “Ivory Towers” and “The Library Angel,” these smart, humorous, and sometimes absurd campus tales not only demystify the opaque rituals of scholarship but also offer a personal perspective on the far-reaching issues of university life. Commenting on topics that range from the impact of commercialization and fee increases to measurement and auditing research, the diary offers a critical analysis of higher education today. At the same time, it is a passionate argument for the life of the mind, the importance of collaborative thinking, and the reasons that scholarship and writing are still vital for making sense of our troubled and divided world.