Open Access Books

This book will be kept in the collective memory. It is the record of how much we underestimate the power of words, that is until we come up close with the term pandemic. Language has shown us its strength in these eight letters, which weave a web of dualities: they divide us, but they unite us; they distress us and, in contrast, fill us with hope; they bring us back to simplicity and require us to project ourselves. Words are also the means to talk about emotions that the virus has overwhelmed and that readers who come to this book want to express. It is a way of understanding the present and the future the public health situation that so many countries of the world go through and a means to understand ourselves and put ourselves in the place of others. Will it be that you will feel identified with any of the authors? Surely yes.

The following chapter is concerned with the ways in which political, social and cultural contexts shape the performance and perceptions of surgery, especially under nineteenth-century colonial empires.

Typically, innovation in public governance is limited to reforming existing institutions. Beyond Instrumentalised Politics characterises a novel political system. It articulates the evaluative principles required for politics that considers all people to be of equal value rather than dehumanising them. Such a system, this book argues, should be a participatory democracy, and it outlines how this should function in practice.

What is an education or training curriculum? How do they relate to programs, syllabuses and reference frameworks? What are their components, contents, methods of implementation and evaluation? How do they relate to other disciplines, educational activities and systems? How are they developed? What are their morphologies? How are they taken up and used by those involved? These are just some of the questions addressed in this book, which brings together previously unpublished texts by 24 academics who have agreed to pool their research on curricula. They come from 14 universities in the French-speaking world. This dual diversity of specialization and geographical location ensures that the book provides the balance needed to understand curricula, while the scientific rigor of the writings also preserves it from any doctrinaire or militant leanings. Its aim is to help readers assimilate the concepts, research issues and investigative methodologies of curricula, paying particular attention to content, while crossing this didactic perspective with sociological, historical, political and anthropological points of view. At a time when Western societies are being shaken out of their old-fashioned certainties by both technological innovations and internal changes, Les mots-clés des curricula provides a clear presentation of a wide range of elements that make up curricula, enabling readers (students, teachers, researchers, politicians, citizens) to understand their complexity and the conditions under which they are designed and implemented.

This open access book illustrates how systemic theory, as both a meta-theory and a relational organic theory, can be a suitable framework for understanding and appreciating the new horizons of systemic practice with children and families in their various contexts. The different chapters shed light on how systemic perspectives, as they are presented in their varying contexts, promote hope by giving room for reflections on uncertainty, change, opportunities, interconnections, and differences. The authors describe and reflect on how systemic approaches can be useful for practitioners and make space for a multiplicity of different perspectives that address the needs of children and those assisting them in their various settings, where children grow and develop in the context of their unique needs and challenges. It covers safeguarding children’s rights through parental separation and divorce; families experiencing anticipatory grief; parents struggling with substance use problems; gender incongruence; eating disorders; systemic perspectives on psychiatric diagnosis; children with disabilities; and systemic practice in school. The book will be a source of inspiration, as the purpose is to illustrate the systemic field in constant motion, which encourages, maybe even requires a plurality of theories, perspectives and approaches. But, most importantly, it demonstrates how working with children and families is a privilege.

Every uniformed service member must complete general military training requirements prescribed by his or her service and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). DoD wants to reduce cyclic mandatory training requirements, reducing the training burden on the services and making the most of available training time. This report examines mandatory training requirements and options to standardize requirements and reduce the training burden.

At the core of this book is a seemingly simple question: What is Asia? the answer involves an investigation of the multifarious discursive and material constructions of Asia within the region and in the West. It reconstructs regional constellations, intersections and relations in their national, transnational and global contexts. Moving far beyond the more well-known Japanese Pan-Asianism of the first half of the twentieth century, the chapters investigate visions of Asia that have sought to provide common meanings and political projects in efforts to trace, and construct, Asia as a united and common space of interaction. By tracing the imagination of civil society actors throughout Asia, the volume leaves behind state-centered approaches to regional integration and uncovers the richness and depth of complex identities within a large and culturally heterogeneous space.

Biomimetics research on living systems attempts to transfer their properties and functions to engineering applications. Biological materials, structures, and processes are predominantly based on the combination of various effects at different scales: from the nano- to the micro-, meso-, and, finally, macroscale. This Special Issue is devoted to the latest advances in biomimetics in all its subfields: (1) materials and structures; (2) designs, constructions, and devices; (3) surfaces and interfaces; (4) locomotion and bioinspired robotics; and (5) the development of biomimetic methodology. This Special Issue contains papers from biological fields focusing on the proper identification of the underlying structure and functional principles in nature, which explains the observed properties of biological systems. Manuscripts that apply these to modern technologies are included as well.

Photocatalysis is a hot topic because it is an environmentally friendly approach toward the conversion of light energy into chemical energy at mild reaction environments. Also, it is well applied in several major areas such as water splitting, bacterial inactivation, and pollutants elimination, which is a possible solution to energy shortage and environmental issues. The fundamental knowledge and the frontier research progress in typical photocatalytic materials, such as TiO2-based and non-TiO2-based photocatalysts, are included in this book. Methods to improve the photocatalytic efficiency and to provide a hint for the rational design of the new photocatalysts are covered.

The multidisciplinary contributions to this collection of papers look at Rome as the cultural and Milan as the political capital in the 4th and 5th centuries. In the literature of the time both cities were perceived as spaces in which the political and clerical power struggles, and the political and cultural changes which were so important for the Latin West took place. The cities are thereby understood as "stages" upon which the world theatre of the politics of power, culture and the church was produced. The reconstruction of both "stage settings" is based on texts, inscriptions and archaeological remains.; Therese Fuhrer, Freie Universität Berlin.

The present work was born with a twofold objective: to go deeper into the knowledge of an urban landmark and, at the same time, to outline a future scenario aligned to its value, starting from a proper recovery of the multiform and valuable architecture that compose it. The deepening arises from the need to study multiple actions and themes: to examine the background project of the Mostra d'Oltremare identified in the new studies, not only in the city debate on a suitable space for exhibitions to be preferably located to the west, but also in authorial preliminary solutions, until now unknown, which have conditioned the final conformation; to highlight the specificity of the single elements of the complex, the survived and the disappeared ones, without limiting the study to the best known and most celebrated cases, but also to the less investigated and difficult to interpret ones, without neglecting the open spaces and the green areas; to deepen also those architectures that cannot be interpreted in the line of modernity but equally emblematic of that phase, therefore worthy of preservation; not limiting attention to the heroic, albeit debatable, phase of the first foundation, but analyzing with the same acumen the subsequent ones, starting with the problematic reconstruction and redefinition of the post-war period; not stopping at the systematic reconnaissance of indirect sources that have not been investigated until now - from the many archives, not only on a city but also on a national scale, to the newspapers and the press of the time - but questioning the same material consistency of the buildings with a scientific method; finally, not focusing only on the past and on the history of the Exhibition and of the single architectures, but projecting it into the future by identifying the best strategies of recovery, restoration and preservation.

« Savez-vous où habite Philippe Soupault ? », demandait Philippe Soupault aux passants. En cherchant ainsi à convertir la poésie en acte, le jeune poète Dada révélait son goût pour une identité errante et spectrale. Déjà se dessinait l'autoportrait de l'artiste en fantôme qu'il léguera à la postérité. Ce méconnu célèbre a peut-être été victime de sa légende de dandy désinvolte. S'il fonde le surréalisme avec Breton, il s'éloigne bientôt du groupe sans alimenter pour autant les controverses. Écrivain en vogue tout au long des années vingt, il quitte l'avant-garde pour le journalisme. À l'égard d'une œuvre aussi diverse qu'abondante, qui réunit poèmes, romans, essais et théâtre, il manifeste une indifférence souvent mal comprise. Voyageur, homme de radio, grand témoin de son époque dans les dernières années de sa vie, Soupault l'ondoyant a longtemps déjoué la saisie critique. Le centenaire de sa naissance a permis de prendre une mesure nouvelle d'une œuvre placée sous le signe du double et de reconnaître l'importance d'un créateur aux multiples facettes. Ce volume recueille les actes du colloque international qui s'est tenu au Centre culturel de Cerisy-la-Salle du 23 au 30 juin 1997, à l'occasion du centenaire de la naissance de Soupault (1897-1990).Vingt chercheurs abordent l'œuvre de l'écrivain dans sa diversité et sa longévité, réévaluant la place de Soupault dans notre siècle, au sein comme en marge du surréalisme. Le livre est enrichi d'un ensemble d'inédits de l'auteur (poésie, correspondance) qui révèle quelques-uns des aspects de l'œuvre, restés dans l'ombre.

Few books for health and social care students, professionals and practitioners are written by the very people impacted by a condition. Usher syndrome is a diverse collection of types, subtypes and complexities. It has been called ‘a life of adjustments’, and this book unpacks these and explains how you can help support and communicate with us and others who live with Usher syndrome. The three authors all have lived experience, expertise and knowledge of life with Usher syndrome for individuals, parents, families, partners, siblings and supporters. Lived experiences inform and imbue each chapter. The lived expertise that comes from being clinicians, colleagues, researchers, peer supports, advocates, parents of and parents with Usher syndrome directs content to reflect what the community wants you, the reader, to know about Usher: the basics, the genetics, diagnoses, diversity, extended family impacts, life-long adjustments, downsides and upsides. We give the reader blueprints for better communication, better health and well-being and solutions for every day. Usher syndrome is complex and challenging, but we are capable contributors when well supported. This book is strong evidence of this.

Beni-Amer cattle owners in the western part of the Horn of Africa are not only masters in cattle breeding, they are also knowledge sovereign, in terms of owning productive genes of cattle and the cognitive knowledge base crucial to sustainable development. The strong bonds between the Beni-Amer, their animals, and their environment constitute the basis of their ways of knowing, and much of their knowledge system is built on experience and embedded in their cultural practices. In this book, the first to study Beni-Amer practices, Zeremariam Fre argues for the importance of their knowledge, challenging the preconceptions that regard it as untrustworthy when compared to scientific knowledge from more developed regions. Empirical evidence suggests that there is much one could learn from the other, since elements of pastoralist technology, such as those related to animal production and husbandry, make a direct contribution to our knowledge of livestock production. It is this potential for hybridisation, as well as the resilience of the herders, at the core of the indigenous knowledge system.

Applied optics