Open Access Books

How is human embodiment transformed in an age of algorithms? How do post-cinematic media technologies such as AI, VR, and robotics target and re-shape our bodies? Post-Cinematic Bodies grapples with these questions by attending both to mundane devices—such as smartphones, networked exercise machines, and smart watches and other wearables equipped with heartrate sensors—as well as to new media artworks that rework such equipment to reveal to us the ways that our fleshly existences are increasingly up for grabs. Through an equally philosophical and interpretive analysis, the book aims to develop a new aesthetics of embodied experience that is attuned to a new age of predictive technology and metabolic capitalism.

This volume challenges current thinking on post-pandemic public health reform, which assumes that public health systems will naturally be strengthened in light of the shortcomings exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, this volume asks why public health is such an intractable and difficult area for effective public policy initiatives and suggests two kinds of answers. The first is 'because of the very nature of public health', which is difficult to clearly define and conceptualize. The second answer is 'because of the specific contextual features of each discrete healthcare system within which public health is situated.'This comparative analysis examines how the public health systems of eight major jurisdictions are structured, the key public health challenges exposed by the pandemic, and the kinds of political constraints or policy directions informing public health reforms. The analyses interrogate the extent to which public health reform is constrained or facilitated by the larger international context, the key policy tensions or trade-offs in pursuing public health reform, and the way in which public health reforms fit into wider social and political priorities or narratives.

Asakawa, Hashimoto and Hirahara explores the widening inequality and its social consequences in Tokyo Metropolitan area by using two approaches, one from social class and social stratification theory and the other from urban sociology. The book uses social atlases to visualize the socio-spatial structure of Tokyo, the most populous metropolitan area in the world using the analysis from the 1990, 2000 and 2010 National Census data. Until the 1970s, Japanese society had relatively small economic disparity between social classes. Today, Japan is a society of great inequality, with a huge number of people with low socio-economic status and many problems caused by poverty. The socio-spatial structure of thirty years of widening inequality in the metropolitan Tokyo area, which is fraught with many social problems, such as urban polarization, emergence of underclasses and health disparities are explored in this book. The structure and dynamics of class disparities among Tokyo Metropolitan area residents is also analyzed. Overall, this book visualizes three decades of widening inequality.A vital resource for researchers, graduate students, undergraduates, urban policy makers and urban planners who are interested about Tokyo as a metropolis in East Asia and those keen on understanding the widening inequality and its social consequences in Tokyo Metropolitan area.

A provocative and eye-opening history of how we have studied and theorized social interaction. In this ambitious, wide-ranging book, anthropologist Michael Lempert offers a conceptual history that explores how, why, and with what effects we have come to think of interactions as “scaled.” Focusing on the sciences of interaction in midcentury America, Lempert traces how they harnessed diverse tools and media technologies, from dictation machines to 16mm film, to study communication “microscopically.” In looking closely, many hoped to transform interaction: to improve efficiency, grow democracy, curb racism, and much else. Yet their descent into a microworld created troubles, with some critics charging that these scientists couldn’t see the proverbial forest for the trees. Exploring talk therapy and group dynamics studies, social psychology and management science, conversation analysis, “micropolitics,” and more, Lempert shows how scale became a defining problem across the behavioral sciences. Ultimately, he argues, if we learn how our objects of study have been scaled in advance, we can better understand how we think and interact with them—and with each other—across disciplinary and ideological divides. Even as once-fierce debates over micro and macro have largely subsided, Lempert shows how scale lives on and continues to affect the ethics and politics of language and communication today.

Rights and Right-Holding presents a rigorous philosophical investigation of the two phenomena mentioned in its title. With a lengthy exposition of the analysis of legal and moral positions that was propounded in the early twentieth century by the American legal theorist Wesley Hohfeld, it plumbs the logical relationships among such positions, and it amplifies the Hohfeldian analysis by showing how logical quantification has to be incorporated into Hohfeld’s schema. The volume then ponders the longstanding debates over the Interest Theory of right-holding versus the Will Theory of right-holding, as it champions the Interest Theory while undertaking some lengthy and innovative critiques of the Will Theory. Finally, it considers at length the ethical and analytical questions involved in ascertaining what sorts of beings are capable of holding claim-rights at all. In so doing, the book delves deeply into some foundational matters of moral and political philosophy even while it continues to engage with subtle points of logical quantification and analysis. It concludes that the beings capable of holding claim-rights include not only human adults of sound mind but also all other living human beings, many dead people, all future generations of people, and most non-human animals.

Religious conflict in the ancient world|Religious persecution in the ancient world|Religious conflict in late antiquity|Religious persecution in late antiquity|Religious violence in late antiquity|Religious violence in the ancient world|Iconoclasm in the ancient world|Iconoclasm in the late antiquity|The Funerary Speech for John Chrysostom|John of Ephesus’s Church History|Disability and early christianity|Deformity and early christianity|Religious persecution and early christianity|Religious violence and early christianity|Religious conflict and early christianity|pseudo-Clementine Homilies|Religious Violence in Late Antique Egypt|destruction of the Serapeum at Alexandria|Abbot Shenoute|Closure of temple of Isis Philae|Panopolis|Cologne Mani Codex|Manichaean Kephalaia|Gnostic-Manichaean Christianity|Hagiasma of Chonai|Jan Bremmer|Pieter J. J. Botha|Chris L. de Wet|Christine Shepardson|Alan H. Cadwallader|Christoph Stenschke|Maijastina Kahlos|Jitse H. F. Dijkstra|Peter Van Nuffelen|Elizabeth DePalma Digeser|Gerhard van den Heever

A critical exploration of travel, animals and shape-changing in fin de siècle literature. Bats, beetles, wolves, butterflies, bulls, panthers, apes, leopards and spiders are among the countless creatures that crowd the pages of literature of the late nineteenth century. Whether in Gothic novels, science fiction, fantasy, fairy tales, journalism, political discourse, realism or naturalism, the line between the human and the animal becomes blurred. Beastly Journeys examines these bestial transformations across a range of well-known and less familiar texts and shows how they are provoked not only by the mutations of Darwinism but by social and economic shifts that have been lost in retellings and readings of them.

Schlüsselkompetenzen sind zentrale Bausteine einer transformativen Hochschullehre und stellen Lehrpersonen vor neue didaktische Anforderungen. Der Sammelband bündelt Ergebnisse einer Zukunftswerkstatt im Rahmen der dghd-Jahrestagung 2025 und fragt, welche hochschuldidaktischen Kompetenzen notwendig sind, um Schlüsselkompetenzen wirksam zu vermitteln. Der Band vereint theoretische Einordnungen, empirische Perspektiven und praxisnahe Beiträge aus der Hochschuldidaktik. Im Mittelpunkt stehen Co-Creation-Prozesse, didaktische Strategien sowie institutionelle Rahmenbedingungen zur Förderung von Schlüsselkompetenzen und Future Skills. Die Ergebnisse der Zukunftswerkstatt werden systematisch analysiert und in konkrete Handlungsempfehlungen für die Gestaltung lernwirksamer Hochschulsettings überführt. Die Publikation richtet sich an Hochschuldidaktiker:innen, Lehrende, Hochschulentwickler:innen sowie Verantwortliche in Studium und Lehre, die Schlüsselkompetenzen nachhaltig und zukunftsorientiert in der Hochschullehre verankern möchten.

This open access book is the first volume of proceedings of the 1st Electrical Artificial Intelligence Conference (EAIC 2024). Artificial intelligence and low-carbon economy are two vibrant research fields in the world today. To achieve the goal of carbon neutrality not only signifies a significant transformation in the economic growth mode and a profound adjustment of energy systems but also has equally significant implications for the global economic and social transformation. In the wave of the rapid development of digital economy, artificial intelligence has become an important driving force for promoting high-quality economic and social development. In the path to the “dual carbon” goals, which are the “peak carbon dioxide emissions” goal and the “carbon neutrality” goal, artificial intelligence will play an important role, especially in energy conservation and carbon reduction in the electrical field, which is worthy of in-depth exploration and research. In order to promote the deep integration of the electrical engineering and artificial intelligence, successfully achieve the "dual carbon" goals, and promote green, low-carbon, and high-quality development, the China Electrotechnical Society and relevant units jointly held the 1st Electrical Artificial Intelligence Conference in Nanjing, China during the December 6–8, 2024. The conference invited well-known experts with significant influence in the fields of electrical engineering and artificial intelligence to jointly explore the application of artificial intelligence in the optimization design, fault diagnosis, intelligent control, and optimized operation of electrical equipment, promote the integration of artificial intelligence innovations and various application scenarios, and actively lead the trend of technological innovation.

During the Reichspogromnacht between November 9th and 10th, 1938, in Germany and Austria 1400 synagogues and other Jewish institutions as well as thousands of Jewish homes and shops were destroyed. More than 30.000 men were deported, and at least 100 killed.This pogrom, frequently referred to as ,,Reichskristallnacht, marked the beginning of political and economic persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany, and an increasingly brutal treatment of the Jewish minority, thus paving the way for the Holocaust.With regards to the 75th annual recurrence of the Reichspogromnacht, the Landesarchiv Schleswig-Holstein in 2013 presented an exhibition centered around the events of that night in Northern Germany. This exhibition was prepared in close cooperation with the University of Flensburg and the Landeszentrale für politische Bildung Schleswig-Holstein. It was accompanied by a series of lectures that are included in this book as well as some of the illustrations displayed."

The volume combines recent research trends, investigating the Italian city communes in light of the key concepts „actors“, „artifacts“, and „processes“. These analytical categories specifically address newly emerging and particularly dynamic research approaches, offering a novel perspective on the development of the commune. By revealing previously overlooked interdependencies and areas of interaction, as well as hitherto neglected communication channels and transformations, the contributions enable a better understanding of relational networks and the evolution of daily life within the communes.

Este libro ofrece el primer estudio histórico integral sobre la teología de la liberación en Ecuador. Al indagar más allá del llamado »Obispo de los Indios« (L. Proaño), la obra desmitifica las narrativas dominantes sobre el activismo católico postconciliar en los Andes. Este estudio, a partir de la investigación de archivo y la historia oral, explora los entrelazamientos entre el catolicismo progresista latinoamericano, el activismo religioso local, y la formación del movimiento indígena. Repensar la Revolución del Poncho arroja nuevas luces sobre las expresiones locales de un fenómeno transnacional, y sus vínculos con los discursos sobre derechos humanos y la cooperación internacional para el desarrollo.

Industrial systems face increasing threats, particularly through network-connected Operational Technology (OT) components such as controllers and actuators. These components rely on standard internet protocols, making strong security essential. However, existing blackbox testing tools, crucial for securing OT, struggle to meet the unique demands of such components. This work enhances blackbox testing by leveraging available information, leading to the discovery of eight critical vulnerabilities.

This open access book… During more than 10 years, from 1989 until 2000, the LEP accelerator and the four LEP experiments, ALEPH, DELPHI, L3 and OPAL, have taken data for a large amount of measurements at the frontier of particle physics. The main outcome is a thorough and successful test of the Standard Model of electroweak interactions. Mass and width of the Z and W bosons were measured precisely, as well as the Z and photon couplings to fermions and the couplings among gauge bosons. The rst part of this work will describe the most important physics results of the LEP experiments. Emphasis is put on the properties of the W boson, which was my main research eld at LEP. Especially the precise determination of its mass and its couplings to the other gauge bosons will be described. Details on physics effects like Colour Reconnection and Bose-Einstein Correlations in W-pair events shall be discussed as well. A conclusive summary of the current electroweak measurements, including low-energy results, as the pillars of possible future ndings will be given. The important contributions from Tevatron, like the measurement of the top quark and W mass, will round up the present day picture of electroweak particle physics. This is an open access book. ; During more than 10 years, from 1989 until 2000, the LEP accelerator and the four LEP experiments, ALEPH, DELPHI, L3 and OPAL, have taken data for a large amount of measurements at the frontier of particle physics. The main outcome is a thorough and successful test of the Standard Model of electroweak interactions. Mass and width of the Z and W bosons were measured precisely, as well as the Z and photon couplings to fermions and the couplings among gauge bosons. The rst part of this work will describe the most important physics results of the LEP experiments. Emphasis is put on the properties of the W boson, which was my main research eld at LEP. Especially the precise determination of its mass and its couplings to the other gauge bosons will be described. Details on physics effects like Colour Reconnection and Bose-Einstein Correlations in W-pair events shall be discussed as well. A conclusive summary of the current electroweak measurements, including low-energy results, as the pillars of possible future ndings will be given. The important contributions from Tevatron, like the measurement of the top quark and W mass, will round up the present day picture of electroweak particle physics.

Icelandic literature, Nordic civil wars, saga, the Age of Sturlungar, thirteenth-century Iceland, Þórður kakali Sighvatsson