Open Access Books

Intelligent optimization is based on the mechanism of computational intelligence to refine a suitable feature model, design an effective optimization algorithm, and then to obtain an optimal or satisfactory solution to a complex problem. Intelligent algorithms are key tools to ensure global optimization quality, fast optimization efficiency and robust optimization performance. Intelligent optimization algorithms have been studied by many researchers, leading to improvements in the performance of algorithms such as the evolutionary algorithm, whale optimization algorithm, differential evolution algorithm, and particle swarm optimization. Studies in this arena have also resulted in breakthroughs in solving complex problems including the green shop scheduling problem, the severe nonlinear problem in one-dimensional geodesic electromagnetic inversion, error and bug finding problem in software, the 0-1 backpack problem, traveler problem, and logistics distribution center siting problem. The editors are confident that this book can open a new avenue for further improvement and discoveries in the area of intelligent algorithms. The book is a valuable resource for researchers interested in understanding the principles and design of intelligent algorithms.

Drug repurposing or drug repositioning is a new approach to presenting new indications for common commercial and clinically approved existing drugs. For example, chloroquine, an old antimalarial drug, showed promising results for treating COVID-19, interfering with MDR in several types of cancer, and chemosensitizing human leukemic cells.This book focuses on the hypothesis, risk/benefits, and economic impacts of drug repurposing on drug discovery in dermatology, infectious diseases, neurological disorders, cancer, and orphan diseases. It brings together up-to-date research to provide readers with an informative, illustrative, and easy-to-read book useful for students, clinicians, and the pharmaceutical industry.

Precious metals continue to have economic and sociocultural importance, as their usage evolves and diversifies over time. Today, the industrial application of precious metals is increasing with the development of scientific and technological innovations. Especially, the biological cycling of these metals is receiving more and more attention, as the microbiota may be key to a range of issues regarding exploration, ore-processing and metallurgy, and the processing of electron waste. In this volume, we focus on enhancing the fundamental understanding of the biological processes that drive noble metal cycling and examine how this knowledge may be turned into biotechnolical applications.

The study of DNA advanced human knowledge in a way comparable to the major theories in physics, surpassed only by discoveries such as fire or the number zero. However, it also created conceptual shortcuts, beliefs and misunderstandings that obscure the natural phenomena, hindering its better understanding. The deep conviction that no human knowledge is perfect, but only perfectible, should function as a fair safeguard against scientific dogmatism and enable open discussion. With this aim, this book will offer to its readers 30 chapters on current trends in the field of DNA replication. As several contributions in this book show, the study of DNA will continue for a while to be a leading front of scientific activities.

La Bibliografia Informatizzata Leopardiana (BIL) è il risultato di un progetto di ricerca che ha preso forma in occasione del secondo centenario della nascita del poeta e si è sviluppato nell'arco del biennio 2000-2002. Il progetto prevedeva l'ordinamento e la pubblicazione, in un corpus digitale, della sterminata bibliografia leopardiana fino allora disseminata, oltre che nei volumi della Bibliografia leopardiana, in altre bibliografie parziali, repertori, cataloghi, ecc. La sua attuazione ha visto impegnate quattro Unità di Ricerca degli Atenei di Firenze, Macerata, Cagliari, Roma «La Sapienza». Il libro contiene il Manuale d'uso della BIL (ver. 1.0) e la descrizione del progetto.

"Dionysos, with his following of satyrs and women, was a major theme in a big part of the figure painted pottery in 500-300 B.C. Athens. As an original testimonial of their time, the imagery on these vases convey what this god meant to his worshippers. It becomes clear that he was not only appropriate for wine, wine indulgence, ecstasy and theatre. Rather, he was presenton many, both happy and sad, occasions. The vase painters have emphasized different aspects of Dionysos for their customers inside and outside of Athens, depending on the political and cultural situation."

Cultural policy is often grounded in art and culture’s social effects and significance for the community. At the same time, the step from community to conflict is short: community can imply cohesion, but it can also create an “inside” and an “outside” that may become a seed of division. Which communities—and forms of exclusion—does cultural policy then support? And what is the relationship between art, culture, and community as a concept and cultural-policy value? Through seven articles, Community, Conflict and Politics: Tensions in the Arts and Cultural Field offers insight into some of the understandings of community, nuances, contexts, histories, and not least conflicts that are part of the arts and cultural field and cultural policy. The articles shed light on fundamental dimensions of community, the significance of cultural policy in the Scandinavian welfare states, and why “separatist” communities of non-white arts and cultural workers emerge today. They discuss how a songbook can contribute to nation-based negotiations of community, how literature provides insight into imaginaries of the national “we,” how art associations function in a tension between self-organized communities, artistic influence, and state cultural policy, and what happens when art museums seek to establish community with their audiences through global digital platforms. The book stems from the second phase of the research program “Art and Social Communities” (2021–2023), a collaboration between the Norwegian Arts Council and the Danish Arts Foundation.

Durch das 1985 verabschiedete Gramm-Rudman-Hollings-Gesetz wurde in den USA versucht, die hohe Neuverschuldung des Staates abzubauen. Feste Defizitgrenzen und die Drohung gleichmäßiger proportionaler Kürzungen aller Ausgaben sollten dieses Ziel erreichen. In der Arbeit wird untersucht, wo die Unzulänglichkeiten dieses Gesetzes lagen (es wurde Ende 1990 grundlegend verändert) und weshalb es gescheitert ist, ja scheitern mußte.

Das vorliegende Open-Access-Buch widmet sich den Desiderata, Design-Kriterien für sprachsensiblen Fachunterricht am Beispiel des Geographieunterrichts zu entwickeln sowie Erkenntnisse über dessen Wirksamkeit hinsichtlich der Zielvariablen Fachwissen und Fachsprache von Schüler*innen zu erlangen. Zusammenhänge zwischen Fachkompetenz und Fachsprache legen nahe, sprachliche Anforderungen in Form von sprachsensiblem Fachunterricht auch in Sachfächern zu adressieren. Im methodischen Rahmen von Design-Based Research werden Design-Kriterien entwickelt, die in einer Unterrichtsreihe operationalisiert und über mehrere Design-Zyklen beforscht werden. Die Datenerhebungen erfolgt je Zyklus im Prä-Post-Follow-up-Design mit Experimental- und Kontrollgruppe. Beide Gruppen behandeln den gleichen Inhalt im gleichen zeitlichen Umfang; als unabhängige Variable wird das Maß an Sprachsensibilität variiert. Zentrale Erkenntnis bezüglich der Effekte des Treatments ist, dass die Experimentalgruppe in Hinblick auf den Erwerb von Fachwissen und Fachsprache statistisch signifikant und mit mittlerer Effektgröße vom sprachsensiblen Geographieunterricht profitiert.

The aim of this third Eng Special Issue was to collect experimental and theoretical research relating to engineering science and technology. The topics included in Eng are as follows: electrical, electronic, and information engineering; chemical and materials engineering; energy engineering; mechanical and automotive engineering; industrial and manufacturing engineering; civil and structural engineering; aerospace engineering; biomedical engineering; geotechnical engineering and engineering geology; and ocean and environmental engineering. Many of these topics have been selected with the idea of contributing to the circular economy and sustainable development. Therefore, these aspects are being addressed from various points of view and are supported in the field of engineering and its applications.

Les sciences politiques françaises et, plus largement, continentales sont restées largement imperméables à une dynamique théorique majeure de ces dernières années : la montée en puissance du paradigme du choix rationnel en Grande Bretagne et aux Etats-Unis. Cet ouvrage regroupe les contributions d’auteurs de divers horizons théoriques qui s’interrogent de manière critique et réflexive sur les raisons de cette résistance. A-t-on raison de voir dans le choix rationnel le bras armé de l’idéologie néolibérale dans le monde académique ? Notre faible intérêt pour cette approche découle-t-il d’une fascination « historiquement construite » pour la culture lettrée ? Un usage « instrumental » et parcimonieux de ce paradigme est-il possible ?

Applied functional analysis has an extensive history. In the last century, this field has often been used in physical sciences, such as wave and heat phenomena. In recent decades, with the development of nonlinear functional analysis, this field has been used to model a variety of engineering, medical, and computer sciences. Two of the most significant issues in this area are modeling and optimization. Thus, we consider some recently published works on fixed point, variational inequalities, and optimization problems. These works could lead readers to obtain new novelties and familiarize them with some applications of this area.

Visual calculating in shape grammars aligns with art and design, bridging the gap between seeing (Coleridge's “imagination”) and combinatoric play (Coleridge's “fancy”). In Shapes of Imagination, George Stiny runs visual calculating in shape grammars through art and design—incorporating Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poetic imagination and Oscar Wilde's challenging corollary to see things as they aren't. Many assume that calculating limits art and design to suit computers, but shape grammars rely on seeing to prove otherwise. Rules that change what they see extend calculating to overtake what computers can do, in logic and with data and learning. Shape grammars bridge the categorical divide between seeing (Coleridge's “imagination, or esemplastic power”) and combinatoric play (Coleridge's “fancy”). Stiny shows that calculating without seeing excludes art and design. Seeing is key for calculating to augment creative activity with aesthetic insight and value. Shape grammars go by appearances, in a full-fledged aesthetic enterprise for the inconstant eye; they answer the question of what calculating would be like if Turing and von Neumann were artists instead of logicians. Art and design are calculating in all their splendid detail.

Les politiques éducatives (les réformes des dispositifs et des curricula, les propositions méthodologiques) ne cachent pas leur inspiration néo-libérale. L'école et l'université sont désormais sommées d'intérioriser les valeurs du marché, de sorte que l'entreprise peut apparaître aujourd'hui (après la religion et l'État) comme une source nouvelle de valeurs éducatives. L'idéologie néo-libérale semble porteuse d'un bon sens difficilement critiquable et sans alternatives possibles. Comment refuser une saine gestion, une évaluation au mérite ? Peut-on ignorer la relation entre formation et emploi ? Peut-on vouloir enseigner des savoirs parfaitement inutiles ? Par quelles ruptures historiques (idéologiques, politiques, économiques) en sommes-nous arrivés là ? De quelles ambiguïtés les nouvelles orientations pédagogiques sont-elles porteuses ? Le néo-libéralisme dessine-t-il un monde unidimensionnel ou permet-il au contraire une multiplicité de jeux de langages dans un monde ouvert ? Quelles pourraient être les conditions d'une posture critique qui ne soit ni nostalgique ni utopique ? Autant de questions auxquelles cet ouvrage tente d'apporter des réponses.