Open Access Books

Food webs describe the structure of communities and their energy flows, and they represent interactions between species in ecosystems. Recently, we have witnessed rapid development of techniques for both experimental studies and theoretical/computational studies on food webs as well as species interactions. This reprint book is focused on food chains and food webs in aquatic ecosystems, with seven papers published in the corresponding Special Issue of Applied Sciences. The topics include empirical studies on food chains and food webs as well as effects of environmental factors on organisms in aquatic ecosystems.

A lively account of a controversial technology developed to mitigate earthquake risk and change how we live with threatening environments.The Sistema de Alerta Sísmica Mexicano is the world's oldest public earthquake early warning system. Given the unpredictability of earthquakes, the technology was designed to give the people of Mexico City more than a minute to prepare before the next big quake hits. How does this kind of environmental monitoring technology get built in the first place? How does its life-saving promise align with reality? And who shapes modern risk mitigation? In ¡Alerta!, Elizabeth Reddy surveys this innovation to shed light on what it means to imagine a world where sirens could sound out an ¡alerta sísmica! at any moment—and what it would be like to live in such a world.Proponents of earthquake early warnings havelong held that the technology can save lives and limit economic losses. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and archival data, Reddy conducts a thorough, qualitative analysis of these claims and considers the requirements and uses of the alert system. She embeds her study in a rich narrative of the engineers who designed the system in conjunction with contingent political and environmental conditions. The result demonstrates how addressing earthquake dangers is no small task: it means trying to change relationships between the environment, society, and technology. Doing so, she critiques universalist and techno-centric approaches to hazard risk mitigation and celebrates the potential of contextually appropriate and broadly supported efforts.¡Alerta! takes readers on a vivid journey into the world of Mexican earthquake risk mitigation, with critical insights for anthropologists and science and technology studies scholars, as well as specialists in the geosciences, engineering, and emergency management.

This Special Issue, titled “Complexity, Fractality and Fractional Dynamics Applied to Science and Engineering”, aims not only to present the state of the art in complex, fractal, and fractional dynamics and their applications, but also to explore the potential and broader applicability of these tools in modeling real-world phenomena. It includes 11 manuscripts addressing novel issues and specific topics that illustrate the potential and applicability of fractional calculus.

"From Stinky History to Fragrant Future. Waste water treatment of the metropolitan area - central decisions on the point of view of Espoo is written by Adjunct Professor, PhD Petri S Juuti. The book examines how water and waste water services started and developed in Espoo from the 1950s to the 2000s. Furthermore, it is discussed what are the challenges of the future looked from the point of view of the professionals of the water sector."

Doctors and scientists have been aware of the "phenomenom" of liver regeneration since the time of the ancient Greeks, illustrated by the mythic tale of Prometheus' punishment. Nevertheless, true insight into its intricate mechanisms have only become available in the 20th century. Since then, the pathways and mechanisms involved in restoring the liver to its normal function after injury have been resolutely described and characterized, from the hepatic stem/progenitor cell activation and expansion to the more systemic mechanisms involving other tissues and organs like bone-marrow progenitor cell mobilization. This book describes some of the complex mechanisms involved in liver regeneration and provides examples of the most up-to-date strategies used to induce liver regeneration, both in the clinic and in the laboratory. The information presented will hopefully benefit not only professionals in the liver field, but also people in other areas of science (pharmacology, toxicology, etc) that wish to expand their knowledge of the fundamental biology that orchestrates liver injury and regeneration.

Who were the non-Western women delegates who took part in the drafting of the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) from 1945-1948? Which member states did these women represent, and in what ways did they push for a more inclusive language than "the rights of Man" in the texts? This book provides a gendered historical narrative of human rights from the San Francisco Conference in 1945 to the final vote of the UDHR in the United Nations General Assembly in December 1948. It highlights the contributions by Latin American feminist delegates, and the prominent non-Western female representatives from new member states of the UN.

Focuses on a much discussed and controversial aspect of conservation: the commodification of nature. Can the successful marketization of what is generally perceived as wilderness help to provide for biodiversity conservation, economic development and social emancipation? At a time of profound anxiety about the impact of human activity on nature and the catastrophic effects of climate change, the "sixth mass extinction", invasive species and rapidly expanding zoonotic diseases, this volume engages with the practices, discourses, and materialities surrounding the commodification of "the wild". Focusing on the relationship between commodification and wilderness, the contributors pay particular attention to commodification's newer iterations in which human management plays a significant role, such as wildlife-park tourism, trophy-hunting, and trade in herbal medicines, perfumes and luxury exotic food items. Dominant neoliberal approaches have aimed to address global environmental challenges through the commodification and marketization of nature: by valorizing nature, they claim, biodiversity can be safeguarded and "wild" landscapes protected. This, it is thought, will not only open up a new frontier of sustainable, non-exploitative, participatory capitalist expansion, but invigorate rural livelihoods, reduce poverty, and add important assets to otherwise vulnerable rural economies. This important book challenges this future trajectory. Investigating a broad range of cases across southern and eastern Africa, from the illegal sandalwood trade to legal trade in devil's claw and honeybush, to trophy-hunting and wilderness safaris, the contributors reveal the pitfalls and challenges of commodification, what this means for the continent and beyond. OPEN ACCESS: This title is available under the Creative Commons license CC-BY-NC-ND

Chile and its foreign policy: Trance and transition from the Great War to the Cold War (1914-1964) is a collective book that brings together the advances and results of research related to the main problems that characterized Chile's international relations at the regional level. , continental and global from the vision that the Chilean political leaders and diplomats projected as part of a strategy of greater ties with the region and the world in a complex period of transition for Latin American countries. These States had to make decisions that impacted both politics and the economy, this being the main challenge that had to be faced during the time frame considered in the book, where the end of the belle époque, the development and consequences of the I World War, the emergence of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the birth of the League of Nations, the consolidation of European totalitarianism and American hegemony in America, the crisis of 1929, the outbreak of World War II and its end , brought with it the transition to a critical stage for the world, such as the emergence of the Cold War with bipolarity, political and military conflicts, and the latency of nuclear destruction.

Unter welchen Bedingungen wurde die »Frage der Identität« zu einer akzeptablen - mehr noch: dominanten - Problematisierungsweise sozialer Phänomene? In der diskursanalytischen Untersuchung wird die sozialwissenschaftliche Prägung der Begriffe Identität und Selbst in den Arbeiten von George H. Mead, Erik H. Erikson und Erving Goffman in Zusammenhang mit wissenschaftsgeschichtlichen Entwicklungen und sozialen Bewegungsdiskursen in den USA rekonsturiert. Die Studie ist ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Soziologie und zu den Gender Studies. Sie verankert feministische, queer und postkoloniale Theorien in Geschichte und Theorie der Sozialwissenschaften und präsentiert Diskursanalyse als ein wissenschaftsgeschichtliches Instrument.

During last couple of years there has been an increasing recognition that problems arising in biology or related to medicine really need a multidisciplinary approach. For this reason some special branches of both applied theoretical physics and mathematics have recently emerged such as biomechanics, mechanobiology, mathematical biology, biothermodynamics. This first section of the book, General notes on biomechanics and mechanobiology, comprises from theoretical contributions to Biomechanics often providing hypothesis or rationale for a given phenomenon that experiment or clinical study cannot provide. It deals with mechanical properties of living cells and tissues, mechanobiology of fracture healing or evolution of locomotor trends in extinct terrestrial giants. The second section, Biomechanical modelling, is devoted to the rapidly growing field of biomechanical models and modelling approaches to improve our understanding about processes in human body. The last section called Locomotion and joint biomechanics is a collection of works on description and analysis of human locomotion, joint stability and acting forces.

Les OGM suscitent, à tort ou à raison, les inquiétudes de l’opinion et sont l’enjeu de débats scientifiques, juridiques et politiques. La vivacité des réactions auxquelles donnent lieu leur autorisation et leur expérimentation incite à croiser les connaissances et à dépasser les divisions disciplinaires. D’autant que les OGM sont directement à l’origine de l’extension du principe de précaution du droit de l’environnement vers le droit de la santé et qu’ils conduisent inévitablement à s’interroger sur un éventuel excès de précaution dans la recherche permanente de risques potentiels qui viendrait limiter excessivement la liberté d’entreprendre. Cette biotechnologie est aussi emblématique de la protection des libertés individuelles puisque la loi garantit la liberté de produire et de consommer avec ou sans OGM. Ce livre s’efforce d’envisager les questionnements passés, actuels et futurs que pose l’évolution des cultures nourricières, et tente d’apporter des réponses nuancées.

This Special Issue focuses on dietary and nutrition surveys in Europe. Considerable progress has been made in harmonising the collection of food consumption data in Europe over the last decade. The European Commission and various national governments have supported the use of dietary surveys as part of regular monitoring and research projects. Guidance on the dietary survey methodology has been developed, enabling the achievement of comparable and harmonised studies across the continent, and thereby generating a common European food consumption database. While this is a basis for improving exposure assessments and ensuring more targeted risk management, food consumption data, alongside other studies focusing on the relationship between diet and health, are also important for assessing nutrient intake.The aim of this Special Issue was to provide a space for high-quality research studies based on nationally representative dietary and nutrition surveys across Europe. We were particularly focused on the intake of foods, nutrients and other bioactive food constituents, as well as on understanding the parameters affecting this intake. Other priorities also included validation studies, country-to-country comparisons, and methodological improvements related to nutritional epidemiology. The Special Issue includes 13 papers from a variety of European countries that have conducted food consumption studies using methodologies constructed in line with the recommendations of the EU Menu.

Restructure the LAPD Training Group to allow the centralization of planning; instructor qualification, evaluation, and retention; and more efficient use of resources.

Offers an arts-based, storying, textual and visual lens on gender-based violence in the UK and Mexico. This book is a unique image-based bilingual (English and Spanish) book of textual and visual narratives of gender-based violence (GBV) in the UK and Mexico, framed with a critical commentary that sets these stories in the context of GBV in both countries. Visual and textual stories convey the 'felt' experience of GBV, engaging readers and audiences in the apparently mundane as well as the shocking. Such stories help contest the prominence of crime statistics in evidencing GBV, statistics which often distort experience and reflect and maintain exclusionary policies and practices, particularly for minoritised communities. The transnational project on which this book is based invited artists and creative writers from diverse backgrounds in the UK and Mexico to respond to lived accounts of GBV in comic stories, short stories, poems, 3D installations, fine art photography, painting and film. This book brings together these visual and textual stories and sets out a series of readings and analyses that seek to further knowledge on GBV in different cultural contexts. This book is open access under a CC BY licence.