Open Access Books

À l’image d’un territoire urbain fixé dans ses contours depuis la fin du XVIe siècle, les structures de la propriété vénitienne sont dotées, aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, d’une remarquable stabilité au bénéfice du patriciat. Elles n’en ont pas moins évolué sous l’effet de la conjoncture économique, de l’évolution démographique et des difficultés financières rencontrées par certaines familles entraînant une circulation des biens par la voie de la transmission intrafamiliale, des échanges matrimoniaux et des ventes. Ce sont ces mécanismes de circulation que ce livre entend explorer en portant, d’abord, l’attention sur le marché immobilier, sur son mode de fonctionnement dans le cadre d’une économie ancienne et sur son activité dont la relative atonie démontre la vigueur des mécanismes de conservation de la propriété. La reconstitution de la généalogie de maisons permet ensuite, à une micro-échelle, d’individualiser des espaces soustraits aux échanges et des biens qui ont vocation à circuler plus que les autres. Cette différenciation s’éclaire à la lumière des comportements patrimoniaux dont se dégagent, au-delà de la myriade des configurations et des mobiles individuels, des régularités dans le traitement appliqué aux biens au moment de partager l’héritage, de constituer la dot et d’arbitrer entre biens ruraux et biens urbains accréditant l’idée d’une hiérarchie interne au patrimoine. Enfin, le suivi des propriétaires permet de saisir l’articulation, différente selon les milieux, entre les pratiques d’accumulation et le cycle de vie, entre la part des investissements et celle de l’héritage dans la formation du patrimoine, entre la position dans l’échelle des fortunes et l’intensité des transformations qui contribuent à renouveler les propriétaires sans que la répartition de la propriété par groupe social en sorte transformée. Comprendre le rapport des hommes aux biens, c’est tenir compte de l’interaction constante entre des structures, des comportements économiques et des représentations sociales.

The unprecedented Covid-19 crisis revealed the scale and scope of a new type of economy taking shape in front of our very eyes: the digital economy. This book presents a concise theoretical and conceptual framework for a more nuanced analysis of the economic and sociological impacts of the technological disruption that is taking place in the markets of goods and services, labour markets, and the global economy more generally. This interdisciplinary work is a must for researchers and students from economics, business, and other social science majors who seek an overview of the main digital economy concepts and research. Its down-to-earth approach and communicative style will also speak to businesses practitioners who want to understand the ongoing digital disruption of the market rules and emergence of the new digital business models. The book refers to academic insights from economics and sociology while giving numerous empirical examples drawn from basic and applied research and business. It addresses several burning issues: how are digital processes transforming traditional business models? Does intelligent automation threaten our jobs? Are we reaching the end of globalisation as we know it? How can we best prepare ourselves and our children for the digitally transformed world? The book will help the reader gain a better understanding of the mechanisms behind the digital transformation, something that is essential in order to not only reap the plentiful opportunities being created by the digital economy but also to avoid its many pitfalls.

Life expectancy is often associated with economic, educational, and public health development. These factors were previously thought to be the exclusive privilege of the developed countries of the world, but the outbreak of COVID-19 seemingly evened the global playing field. COVID-19, the Ebola virus, and HIV and AIDS were considered “rare diseases” at the time of their occurrence and their outbreaks led to new thinking about public health issues. Technological advancements in telecommunication, aviation, industrial processing, agriculture, military armaments, and more, along with their impacts on climate and environment, have led to increasing levels of contaminants, posing a major public health problem. Exposure to toxins and chemicals via processed foods, work/occupation, or the environment is increasingly causing rare diseases that are difficult to diagnose and treat, especially in undeveloped areas of the world with inadequate health facilities and diagnostic skills. This book examines some of these rare diseases. It includes nine chapters that discuss conditions such as Behcet’s disease, malignant mesothelioma, dentofacial anomalies, neuropathic pruritus, lipoatrophia semicircularis, and short QT syndrome.

A revisionist account of African masquerade carnivals in transnational context that offers readers a unique perspective on the connecting threads between African cultural trends and African American cultural artifacts In recent decades, there has been an explosion of scholarly interest in African-styled traditions and the influence of these traditions upon the African diaspora. In this important new analysis, author Raphael Njoku explores the transnational connections between masquerade narratives and memory over the past four centuries to show how enslaved Africans became culture carriers of inherited African traditions. In doing so, he questions the scholarly predisposition toward ethnicization of African cultural artifacts in the Americas. As Njoku's research shows, the practices reenacted by the Igbo and Bight of Biafra modelers in the Americas were not exact replicas of the African prototypes. Cultural modeling is dynamic, and the inheritors of West African traditions often adapted their customs to their circumstances--altering and transforming the meaning and purpose of the customs they initially represented. With the Bantu migrations serving as a catalyst for ethnic mixing and change prior to the trans-Atlantic slave trade, African-themed cultural activities in the New World became dilutions of practices from several ethnic African and European nations. African cultures were already experiencing changes through Bantuization; in this well-researched and engagingly written scholarly work, the author explores the extension of this process beyond the African continent. This book is openly available in digital formats thanks to a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Coatings offer the unique opportunity to create architectures that combine the functionality of two or more materials, conferring unique properties to objects with an extremely large palette of solutions. For this flexibility, thick and thin films have terrific impacts on the most relevant societal challenges. Computers, food packaging, airplanes, and cars, to mention a few familiar objects from everyday life, rely heavily on coatings. To celebrate the key role that coatings have in society, and in science and technology, this book collects a selection of relevant reviews and original research articles published in “Coatings” in 2017 and 2018. Papers have been selected based on their broad impact and balancing between the two major aspects of coatings science and technology: deposition and characterization.

Throughout his philosophical works, George Berkeley (1685–1753) emphasises the role that sign-usage, particularly in language, plays in human life, connecting it to our relationship with God—a central issue in his thought. This volume explores the myriad ways that he built on such insights to better understand a range of philosophical issues: epistemology, language, perception, mental representation, mathematics, science, and theology.

Contemporary art of Africa reached a wider audience in the aftermath of the Magiciens de la Terre exhibition (Paris 1989). This study of fourteen artists from Ivory Coast and Benin is based on ethnographic fieldwork in both countries (1997), during which I worked with several artists. In order to consider the reception of contemporary art of Africa in the European/North American art world, researches in London, Paris, and New York followed (1997, 1998). In Ivory Coast, I focused on a group of academically trained artists who belong to the Vohou Vohou movement which started in the early 1980s, and reached prominence in the 1990s. In Benin, I worked with artists who were not academically trained. One needs, however, to differentiate, as some had training as traditional artists, like the iron sculptures Calixte and Théodore Dakpogan, and adapted in the early 1990s their acquired skills to the creation of contemporary sculptures. Others, like Romuald Hazoumè and Georges Adéagbo, are self-trained. But they too interact with academically trained artists during residencies in various, West African or European countries. In the major part of the volume, I am presenting the artists: which materials they are working with, what are their stylistic characteristics, which ideas and reflections are informing their work. In a following chapter, I try to trace the artists’ trajectories, the connections they are using in their work, be it to traditional stylistic canons, materials, techniques, and concepts, or to European modernism. In doing so, I adopt a situated perspective from these local art worlds (Abidjan and Cotonou/Porto Novo), in order to show the complexity of these creative artistic practices. Other chapters of the volume deal with the notions of the art world (Becker’s sociological one and Danto’s cognitive). From an anthropological viewpoint I argue for a combination of both notions. Becker’s is important as to show the social, cultural, and economic aspects of the local art world. These aspects concern what is possible, or what is restricting the artistic endeavour. Danto’s concept needs an adaptation, in as far as it is not an embedding of the works of these artists within the grand narrative of Occidental art history. Rather, the notion is used in the plural, as the focus is on local, regional, and transcultural connections of artistic practices. I thereafter argue against a universalising, hegemonic narrative of the European/North American art world. The other notion, which is discussed in the volume, is the one of ‘contemporary African art.’ Instead of analysing the notion from a theoretical perspective, I follow the artists, how they explain their art and its possible African character. This approach shows a wide continuum between a clear African dimension and one that considers contemporary art practices as encompassing without any regional specification. The final chapter deals with reflections about a modern, contemporary anthropology of art. Such an anthropology does not restrict itself to the study of ethnic arts but considers all art as its subject. In particular, it has to deal with contemporary art in its present, multiple expressions on the basis of ethnographic fieldwork. It may participate in wider discussions about global art (although the notion is not dealt with in the volume), from locally situated gazes. Context is a major topic in that respect. While former studies in the anthropology of art contextualised works of art by considering their functions and meanings, context is here as well considered as related to artistic practices, the connections to other skills, techniques, materials, styles, or ideas which are visualised in the work of art. I would like to express my gratitude to the ‘Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung’ (FWF) which enabled the fieldworks, archival researches, and the publication of the present volume.

Weder in der Technikphilosophie noch in der technischen Bildung besteht Übereinkunft hinsichtlich der Verwendung des Begriffs Technik. Da verwundert es nicht, dass auch die empirische Erforschung des Technikbegriffs von Kindern und Jugendlichen ein Forschungsdesiderat darstellt.Im Rahmen der hier vorgelegten Arbeit soll diesem Desiderat nachgegangen werden. Mittels Alltagssprachlichem Struktur-Lege-Spiel und Fragebogen wird untersucht, welche subjektiven Vorstellungen Kinder und Jugendliche bezüglich des Begriffs Technik zum Ausdruck bringen und wie stabil diese Begriffe sind. Die Aussagen der Kinder und Jugendlichen werden mittels strukturierender Inhaltsanalyse ausgewertet. Im Zentrum steht dabei das entwickelte Kategoriensystem, mit dem die Technikbegriffe aus den kindlichen bzw. jugendlichen Aussagen erfasst werden. Zusammenfassend lässt sich festhalten, dass keine typischen Technikbegriffe aus dem Datenmaterial herausgearbeitet werden können. Die Technikbegriffe der befragten Kinder und Jugendlichen unterscheiden sich stark. Allerdings kann gezeigt werden, dass die Kinder und Jugendlichen zum Teil scharfsinnige Gedanken über Technik zum Ausdruck bringen.

Providing a holistic overview of general chemistry and its foundational principles, this textbook is an essential accompaniment to students entering the field. It is designed with the reader in mind, presenting the historical development of ideas to frame and center new concepts as well as providing primary and summative sources for all topics covered. These sources help to provide definitive information for the reader, ensuring that all information is peer-reviewed and thoroughly tested. Features: The development of key ideas is presented in their historical context All information presented is supported through citations to chemical literature Problems are incorporated throughout the text and full, worked-out solutions are presented for every problem International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry style and technical guidelines are followed throughout the text The problems, text, and presentation are based on years of classroom refinement of teaching pedagogy This textbook is aimed at an advanced high school or general college audience, aiming to engage students more directly in the work of chemistry. William Tucker’s passion for chemistry was inspired by his high school teacher Gary Osborn. He left Maine to pursue Chemistry at Middlebury College, and after graduating in 2010 he decided to pursue a PhD in Organic Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he worked in the laboratory of Dr. Sandro Mecozzi, where he developed semifluorinated triphilic surfactants for hydrophobic drug delivery. After earning his PhD in 2015, he took a fellowship at Boston University as a Postdoctoral Faculty Fellow. There he co-taught organic chemistry while working in the laboratory of Dr. John Caradonna. In the Caradonna l boratory, he worked on developing a surface-immobilized iron-oxidation catalyst for the oxidation of C–H bonds using dioxygen from the air as the terminal oxidant. Throughout all of this work, his passion has always been for teaching and working with students both in and out of the classroom. He has been lucky for the past six years to work at Concord Academy, where his students have, through their questions, pushed him to think deeper and more critically about chemistry. Their curiosity inspires him, and their inquisitiveness inspired his writing.

In May 12, 2008, the Wenchuan County earthquake caused devastating loss of human life and property. Applying all the remote sensing technology available, the Chinese Academy of Sciences immediately launched into action, making full use of its state-of-the-art facilities, remote sensing planes, and satellites to amass invaluable optical and radar data. This unprecedented use of comprehensive remote sensing techniques provided accurate, up to the minute information for disaster management and has left us with a visually stunning and beautiful record that is as much a scientific achievement as it is an artistic one. Based on the accumulated data and images collected by the Project Team of Remote Sensing Monitoring and Assessment of the Wenchuan Earthquake, Atlas of Remote Sensing of the Wenchuan Earthquake documents the events as they happened in real time. The book covers the disaster from six aspects: geological, barrier lakes, collapsed buildings, damaged roads, destroyed farmland and forests, and demolished infrastructure. It also demonstrates that the Dujiangyan Irrigation Project, which has been standing for 2000 years, remains fully functioning, and keeps the Chengdu Plain operating optimally even after the earthquake. Translated into English for the first time, the Atlas presents a pictorial summation of this unique project. It chronicles the event with over 280 before and after color images from a range of perspectives. This volume dramatically demonstrates the value of remote sensing for understanding how an earthquake unfolds and the potential of remote sensing in helping coordinate emergency relief. A pictorial record of events as they unfolded, this book provides a systematic documentation of earthquake damage that can be used to prepare for future seismic events.

“Peacebuilding” serves as a catch-all term to describe efforts by an array of international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and agencies of foreign states to restore or construct a peaceful society in the wake—or even in the midst—of conflict. Despite this variety, practitioners consider themselves members of a global profession. In The Distinction of Peace, Catherine Goetze investigates the genesis of peacebuilding as a professional field of expertise since the 1960s, its increasing influence, and the ways it reflects global power structures. Goetze describes how the peacebuilding field came into being, how it defines who belongs to it and who does not, and what kind of group culture it has generated. Using an innovative methodology, she investigates the motivations of individuals who become peacebuilders, their professional trajectories and networks, and the “good peacebuilder” as an ideal. For many, working in peacebuilding in various ways—as an aid worker on the ground, as a lawyer at the United Nations, or as an academic in a think tank—has become not merely a livelihood, but also a form of participation in world politics. As a field, peacebuilding has developed techniques for incorporating and training new members, yet its internal politics also create the conditions of exclusion that often result in practical failures of the peacebuilding enterprise. By providing a critical account of the social mechanisms that make up the peacebuilding field, Goetze offers deep insights into the workings of Western domination and global inequalities.

citizenships; conflict; experiences; proposals

Get the most out of this foundational reference and improve the productivity of your software teams. This open access book collects the wisdom of the 2017 "Dagstuhl" seminar on productivity in software engineering, a meeting of community leaders, who came together with the goal of rethinking traditional definitions and measures of productivity. The results of their work, Rethinking Productivity in Software Engineering, includes chapters covering definitions and core concepts related to productivity, guidelines for measuring productivity in specific contexts, best practices and pitfalls, and theories and open questions on productivity. You'll benefit from the many short chapters, each offering a focused discussion on one aspect of productivity in software engineering. Readers in many fields and industries will benefit from their collected work. Developers wanting to improve their personal productivity, will learn effective strategies for overcoming common issues that interfere with progress. Organizations thinking about building internal programs for measuring productivity of programmers and teams will learn best practices from industry and researchers in measuring productivity. And researchers can leverage the conceptual frameworks and rich body of literature in the book to effectively pursue new research directions. What You'll Learn Review the definitions and dimensions of software productivity See how time management is having the opposite of the intended effect Develop valuable dashboards Understand the impact of sensors on productivity Avoid software development waste Work with human-centered methods to measure productivity Look at the intersection of neuroscience and productivity Manage interruptions and context-switching Who Book Is For Industry developers and those responsible for seminar-style courses that include a segment on software developer productivity. Chapters are written for a generalist audience, without excessive use of technical terminology. ; Collects the wisdom of software engineering thought leaders in a form digestible for any developer Shares hard-won best practices and pitfalls to avoid An up to date look at current practices in software engineering productivity

Bringing together leading scholars and practitioners, Rethinking Writing Education in the Age of Generative AI offers a timely exploration of pressing issues in writing pedagogies within an increasingly AI-mediated educational landscape. From conceptual and empirical work to theory-guided praxis, the book situates the challenges we face today within the historical evolution of writing education and our evolving relationship with AI technologies. Covering a range of contexts such as L2/multilingual writing, first-year writing, writing centers, and writing program administration and faculty development, the book examines various AI-informed writing pedagogies and practices. Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives from writing studies, education, and applied linguistics, the book bridges theory and practice to address critical questions of innovation, ethics, and equity in AI-supported teaching. This book is essential for writing educators and researchers looking to leverage AIs to facilitate the teaching and learning of writing in critical and transformative ways.

Placing Empire examines the spatial politics of Japanese imperialism through a study of Japanese travel and tourism to Korea, Manchuria, and Taiwan between the late nineteenth century and the early 1950s. In a departure from standard histories of Japan, this book shows how debates over the place of colonized lands reshaped the social and spatial imaginary of the modern Japanese nation. In turn, this sociospatial imaginary affected the ways in which colonial difference was conceptualized and enacted. The book thus illuminates how ideas of place became central to the production of new forms of colonial hierarchy as empires around the globe transitioned from an era of territorial acquisition to one of territorial maintenance.