Open Access Books

Intellectual Property discusses issues pertaining to intellectual property rights, specifically patents and patent-related issues. It considers divergent issues related to patents starting from invention to filing of a patent and the issues that come along with it. Written by authors from all over the world, this book discusses such topics as writing and defending patent applications; national and legal rules and policies regarding intellectual property rights; the laws, regulations, rules, and procedures of appeals in major patent offices in Europe and the United States; and more.

Entre 1935 et 1955, Henri Calet compose une somme impressionnante de textes : chroniques, romans, nouvelles, critiques, pièces radiophoniques, scénarios, reportages… Il trace ainsi son sillon d’écrivain, faussement léger et légèrement désespéré. Dans les entretiens qu’il accorde à la presse et à la radio, c’est également de cette façon qu’il évoque son travail d’écriture et sa position dans le monde littéraire. Mais Henri Calet ne se raconte jamais si bien que dans ses silences ou ses à-côtés – à côté de la question, à côté du sujet, à côté de lui-même, parfois. Michel P. Schmitt réunit pour la première fois ces prises de parole, auxquelles il apporte un indispensable éclairage historique et biographique. Et il complète cet ensemble d’un inventaire exhaustif de l’œuvre de l’auteur.

The recognition of same-sex marriage in Costa Rica constitutes one of the most significant milestones in the recent history of LGBTIQ human rights in the region. However, far from being an isolated event or the sole result of state will, this realization of a right must be understood as part of a complex and dialectical social process, marked by political disputes, cultural resistance, and profound reconfigurations surrounding citizenship and legal equality. Based on a critical reading of Advisory Opinion OC-24/17, the role of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the internal dynamics of the Costa Rican state, this work demonstrates how legal transformations occur in dialogue—and tension—with repertoires of mobilization, advocacy strategies, and identity-building processes promoted by diverse activist movements. This book offers the reader an analytical approach that articulates the theoretical elements, the socio-historical context, and the results of fieldwork, inviting an understanding of same-sex marriage not only as a legal achievement, but as a social transformation that continues to question the limits of democracy, heteronormativity, and contemporary policies of recognition.

Capitalism, in order to reproduce itself, must allocate more and more resources to the enhancement of the wealth already produced, rather than to increasing productive investments. The strategies for absorbing the surplus range from the reduction of supply to the creation of waste, from public spending to financialization. With the prevalence of these strategies, capitalism renounces to the maximum possible economic expansion in favour of its maximum expansion on society. It is a change that has consequences for environmental issues. The model of pure capitalism, in which the entire surplus is directed towards growth, is ecologically unsustainable. In today's historical capitalism, the goal of economic growth remains important, but it falls within that of increasing social power. Whether this is good or bad news for our biosphere will be discussed in other Chapters. Here we analyze the novelty.

Chapter 18: This chapter presents how the war was experienced on the home front in Japan, and how that experience is remembered today. Taking an elongated periodization of the Second World War from the Manchurian Incident of 1931 to the end of the Tokyo Trials in 1948, it discusses the Japanese war experience in three main phases: early victories (to 1942); the tide turns (to 1945); and repatriations and reckonings (to 1948). The key ways in which the war affected the lives of civilians will be discussed, including war work, conscription, settler life, civilians in the battle zone (Okinawa, Karafuto), air raids, repatriation, and the struggle for survival post-defeat. By continuing the discussion up to the end of the Tokyo Trials, the chapter presents the mechanisms by which narratives of Japanese civilian victimhood became so prominent in Japanese memories of the conflict by discussing how Japanese war guilt was addressed at the Trials and beyond. Finally, the chapter discusses the contemporary representation of the civilian experience in Japanese war and peace museums.

The evolution of 5G and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies is leading to ubiquitous connections between humans and their environment, such as autopilot transportation, mobile e-commerce, unmanned vehicles, and healthcare applications, bringing revolutionary changes to our daily lives. Moreover, the computing environment results in the requirement for support of an increasing range of functionality: multi-sensory data processing and analysis, complex systems control strategies, and, ultimately, artificial intelligence. After several years of development, edge computing for deep learning has shown incomparable practical value in the IoT environment. Pushing computing resources to the edge in closer proximity to devices enables low-latency service delivery for both safety and applications. This Special Issue, “Deep Learning and Edge Computing for Internet of Things”, addresses existing awareness of the surrounding environment and support for services in the advanced development of smart scheduling, privacy protection, and environment-aware ability globally. It includes eleven peer-reviewed papers that focus on deep learning and edge computing for the Internet of Things.

In spring 2020, the COVID-19 virus and subsequent lockdown demanded that university institutions across the globe undertake an emergency migration to online teaching. To secure the continuation of university teaching, Emergency Remote Teaching (Bozkurt and Ramesh, 2020)—prompt rethinking and adjustment among university teachers—had to be managed. On the one hand, this abrupt change is associated with a certain digital and pedagogical potential for change due to the necessary adaptation efforts. On the other hand, it also poses an extraordinary organisational and pedagogical challenge. From an empirical perspective, it is therefore crucial to ask how university teachers and universities are tackling the coronavirus situation against the backdrop of the goal to maintain high-quality teaching. Furthermore, the adjustment and well-being of students in the context of hybrid and distance learning situations must remain in focus. The aim of this Special Issue was to provide unique insights into organisational, pedagogical, and psychological challenges related to digital transition in Higher Education institutions in different countries resulting from university lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also discusses digital and pedagogical potentials evolving through the adaptation efforts related to the situation of Emergency Remote Teaching at universities.

Water potential is a significant natural wealth of most parts of the Balkans, and it has given rise to a surge in hydropower investments unparalleled across Europe. As part of the process, a dam was planned to be built on the Una River, which runs through the Bosnian town of Bihać. This prospect alarmed the city’s residents, culminating in a protest in 2015. The book begins with this protest, and it explores how the threat of dam construction transformed the seemingly apolitical love of the river into a powerful political force around which thousands of people mobilized: riverine citizenship. The book is based on interviews with participants, archival research, and over twenty years of ethnographic research. Azra Hromadžić focuses on the tension between ecological sustainability efforts in favor of renewable energy, on the one hand, and citizens’ historically shaped, deeply-felt, love for the river, on the other. She shows how the language and promises of green transition can mask the forces of capitalist accumulation that drive this change — whether in the form of building hydroelectric dams or promoting eco-tourism — and thus set in motion another cycle of environmental degradation, social dispossession, and economic exploitation.

What Politics? Youth and Political Engagement in Africa examines the diverse experiences of being young in today’s Africa. It offers new perspectives to the roles and positions young people take to change their life conditions both within and beyond the formal political structures and institutions.

In this volume the contributors use Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to reassess both historic and contemporary Asian countries and traditionally Islamic areas. This highly illustrated and comprehensive work highlights how GIS can be applied to the social sciences. With its description of how to process, construct and manage geographical data the book is ideal for the non-specialist looking for a new and refreshing way to approach Islamic area studies.

Published

Atopic Dermatitis is a common disease characterized by inflamed, itching and dry skin. This relapsing allergic disorder has complex etiology and shows a remarkably high clinical heterogeneity which complicates the diagnosis and clinical management. This book is divided into 4 sections. The first section (Disease Etiology) describes some of the physiological mechanisms underlying Atopic Dermatitis, including alterations in the immune system and the skin-barrier function. The important role of host-microorganism interactions on the pathophysiology of Atopic Dermatitis is discussed in the second section (Microorganisms in Atopic Dermatitis). An overview of the clinical diagnostic criteria and the disease management protocols commonly used is given in the third section (Diagnosis and Clinical Management). The last section (New Treatments) describes new therapeutic approaches that are not widely used but are currently being studied due to preliminary evidence showing a clinical benefit for Atopic Dermatitis.

In recent years there has been a substantial increase in the number of diseases with the inflammatory component such as such as allergy, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowl disease (IBD, which includes ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease), chronic sinusitis, and many other conditions. The majority of these diseases are multifactorial, with the contribution of genetic and environmental factors. Among the latter, the role of certain microorganisms and viruses in triggering or sustaining the inflammatory process is most controversial. In rheumatoid arthritis, for example, the following bacteria and viruses have been implicated in triggering the disease: Mycoplasma spp., Proteus mirabilis, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus spp., Bordetella spp., Acinetobacter spp., the parvoviruses, Epstein-Barr virus, and retroviruses. The list of putative microbial triggers of rheumatoid arthritis is still growing, and it becomes essentially impossible to make a causation link between certain infectious agents and the disease. In the light of these disappointing results there are calls for even larger studies with the use of more advanced and large-scale technologies. The primary function of the immune system is the maintenance of body homeostasis and protection against any threats to it via several lines of elaborate and complex immune defense. Given even higher complexity that involves the microbiota and the corresponding host-microbe interaction, the conditions for this equilibrium become even more challenging. In the absence of a defined pathogen, for example, the spectrum of microorganisms involved in triggering inappropriate immune responses may include polymicrobial communities or the cumulative effect of several microbial/viral factors. Under the normal circumstances there is a fine-tuned balance between commensal microbiota and the host’s immune responses. However, when this balance is compromised, for example in IBD, a massive immune response is launched against commensal microbiota resulting in chronic inflammation. Besides the microbial/viral factors, the balance of the immune system can be compromised by other causes. Given, for example, the close and inclusive interaction of the immune, nervous and endocrine systems, the list of these provoking factors can expand even more. For instance, it has been demonstrated that even mild sleep deprivation may increase the production of interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein. Understanding the complex role of microbial and environmental factors in inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, therefore, is the main subject of this topic.

Dutch scholarship has played an important role in philology since the early days of Leiden University. This volume illuminates how philology and its focus on the critical examination of classical texts—a tradition that had previously exerted considerable influence across fields as diverse as theology, astronomy, law, and politics—began an accelerated process of specialization in the 1800s. As former subareas like linguistics and history branched off into independent fields with their own methodologies, philology found its authority narrowing in scope within newly defined boundaries. Providing a fresh perspective on the evolution of Dutch philology as a discipline in the humanities, this is a fascinating look at a historically vital field of thought.