Open Access Books

Ist städtischer Raum für alle gleichermaßen zugänglich und erfahrbar? Welche Rolle spielen dabei Polizei und Soziale Arbeit? Das Buch untersucht empirisch, wie diese Institutionen durch ihr Handeln Raum konstituieren, ordnen und damit gesellschaftliche Teilhabe (mit-)strukturieren. Verhandelt werden Ein- und Ausschluss, die Wechselwirkung von Strukturkategorien und Raum sowie die Hervorbringung von Öffentlichkeit und Privatheit. Aus der Kontrastierung entsteht das Konzept einer Sozialen Arbeit als urbane Praxis: emanzipatorisch, kritisch, teilhabeorientiert.

Game studies is a rapidly developing field across the world, with a growing number of dedicated courses addressing video games and digital play as significant phenomena in contemporary everyday life and media cultures. Seth Giddings looks to fill a gap by focusing on the relationship between the actual and virtual worlds of play in everyday life. He addresses both the continuities and differences between digital play and longer-established modes of play. The 'gameworlds' title indicates both the virtual world designed into the videogame and the wider environments in which play is manifested: social relationships between players; hardware and software; between the virtual worlds of the game and the media universes they extend (e.g. Pokémon, Harry Potter, Lego, Star Wars); and the gameworlds generated by children's imaginations and creativity (through talk and role-play, drawings and outdoor play). The gameworld raises questions about who, and what, is in play. Drawing on recent theoretical work in science and technology studies, games studies and new media studies, a key theme is the material and embodied character of these gameworlds and their components (players' bodies, computer hardware, toys, virtual physics, and the physical environment). Building on detailed small-scale ethnographic case studies, Gameworlds is the first book to explore the nature of play in the virtual worlds of video games and how this play relates to, and crosses over into, everyday play in the actual world.

Die Solidarität ist im Vergleich zur Freiheit und zur Gerechtigkeit merkwürdig »theorielos«. Liegt dies an der Dominanz eines politischen Liberalismus aus vorindustriellen Zeiten, der unser Denken bis heute prägt? An die sozialphilosophischen Aufbrüche des französischen Solidarismus von Akteuren wie Léon Bourgeois, Alfred Fouillée und Charles Gide erinnernd, fragt Hermann-Josef Große Kracht, ob es nicht an der Zeit ist, die philosophischen Freiheitslektionen des 18. Jahrhunderts mit den soziologischen Solidaritätslektionen des 19. Jahrhunderts zu einem postliberalen Solidarismus zu verbinden.

In order to illustrate the difficulty for foreign language teachers of understanding how to position themselves in relation to proposals to modify our languages (in particular Italian and French languages) to allow for so-called ‘gender inclusion’, I include this question more generally in the issue of variation in language teaching, using dictionaries and metalexicographic reflection as a key to critical reading. In the same way that reference works such as general dictionaries or foreign language textbooks now take account of the different uses of language and contexts of communication on the basis of an objective norm and no longer on the basis of the subjective/imaginary norm of ‘good usage’ (whether ratified by academies or promoted by groups or organisations more or less legitimised by the ‘language market’) which reproduces a monovarietal vision of language, the language teacher deals with linguistic heterogeneity using a communicative-actional approach which relocates usages according to the context of use and the intentions of the speakers. The inclusion of connotation labels and pragmatic information in some French dictionaries is evidence of a change in the vision of variation that could serve as a model both for the most widely used Italian dictionaries and for foreign language teaching.

History

Accurate energy forecasting is important to facilitate the decision-making process in order to achieve higher efficiency and reliability in power system operation and security, economic energy use, contingency scheduling, the planning and maintenance of energy supply systems, and so on. In recent decades, many energy forecasting models have been continuously proposed to improve forecasting accuracy, including traditional statistical models (e.g., ARIMA, SARIMA, ARMAX, multi-variate regression, exponential smoothing models, Kalman filtering, Bayesian estimation models, etc.) and artificial intelligence models (e.g., artificial neural networks (ANNs), knowledge-based expert systems, evolutionary computation models, support vector regression, etc.). Recently, due to the great development of optimization modeling methods (e.g., quadratic programming method, differential empirical mode method, evolutionary algorithms, meta-heuristic algorithms, etc.) and intelligent computing mechanisms (e.g., quantum computing, chaotic mapping, cloud mapping, seasonal mechanism, etc.), many novel hybrid models or models combined with the above-mentioned intelligent-optimization-based models have also been proposed to achieve satisfactory forecasting accuracy levels. It is important to explore the tendency and development of intelligent-optimization-based modeling methodologies and to enrich their practical performances, particularly for marine renewable energy forecasting.

This Special Issue dives into the evolving realm of sports science by exploring innovative methods to enhance athletes' motor skills and performance. It showcases research studies aiming to discover validated strategies, cutting-edge approaches, and the intricate interplay of factors that shape athletic excellence. From training methodologies to technological advancements, this collection of empirical investigations and reviews offers valuable insights for both trainers and scientists. We invite readers to join us in uncovering the science behind peak athletic achievement.

As teachers of parasite biology, we are becoming increasingly aware of the lack of detailed information and experimental approaches about drugs and drug resistance in many medical schools and undergraduate courses. Therefore, this book discusses parasite biology, antimalarial drugs and their mechanism of action, and the dynamic situation of evolving drug resistance of parasites, which has become a pressing issue. It provides insight into the plasmodium species, the role of cytokines in activating immune response during malaria infection, the importance of antimalarials as a therapeutic option, issues of drug resistance and co-resistance, and validation of evolved resistance in humanized mouse models. It is a timely addition to the existing literature on malaria parasite biology and a useful resource for students, researchers, and those working in the field of parasite biology, drugs, drug resistance of infectious diseases in general, and human malaria parasites in particular and beyond.

»Separate Assignment of Joint and Several Debts – On the Possibility, Requirements and Consequences of an Assignment to Take Effect only against Individual Joint and Several Debtors« When claims from a joint and several debt are assigned it is often unclear, if all debtors change creditors or only some. The author clarifies this, examining accessory and ancillary rights and interpreting typical assignment contracts. He uses the structure of a joint and several debt to justify why an isolated assignment is possible and answers practical questions such as the necessity of consent from debtors or ways of performance and recourse in a joint and several debt which has been split.

This collection offers the first sustained, multidisciplinary legal analysis of deepfakes and their far‑reaching consequences. Deepfake technology has moved with disorienting speed from fringe curiosity to a global social, political, and legal problem. Once the preserve of Hollywood studios, the ability to fabricate hyper‑realistic images, audio, and video is now available to anyone with a smartphone. Its most prevalent and devastating use remains the creation of non‑consensual sexually explicit content targeting women. Yet deepfakes also fuel political disinformation, destabilise democratic processes, enable fraud and identity theft, and contribute to a broader post‑truth climate in which the authenticity of all digital evidence becomes contestable. In this landscape, one of the most urgent tasks is simply to begin the right conversations about how law and society should respond. Across three sections, various international scholars examine how synthetic media challenges foundational assumptions about privacy, image rights, evidential truth, and democratic integrity. These essays explore deepfakes’ profound impact on the individual dignity of both the living and the dead, their capacity to generate epistemic uncertainty, and the structural difficulties they pose for courts, regulators, and lawmakers. Bringing together theoretical, doctrinal, and comparative insights, the book illuminates a fragmented regulatory landscape and articulates both the pressing need for more coherent, principled governance of synthetic media, and some of the difficulties that will necessarily be encountered by those designing regulatory measures. This is a timely and vital volume for scholars, jurists, and legislators concerned with the future of truth, autonomy, and accountability in an increasingly synthetic world.

Recent atrocities have ensured that terrorism and how to deal with terrorists legally and politically has been the subject of much discussion and debate on the international stage. This book presents a study of changes in the legal treatment of those perpetrating crimes of a political character over several decades. It most centrally deals with the political offence exception and how it has changed. The book looks at this change from an international perspective with a particular focus on the United States. Interdisciplinary in approach, it examines the fields of terrorism and political crime from legal, political science and criminological perspectives. It will be of interest to a broad range of academics and researchers, as well as to policymakers involved in creating new anti-terrorist policies.

Hermann Kurz (1813–1873) was among the founders of German historical, realistic, and social narrative in the period before the March Revolution of 1848. The study uses innovative textual interpretation to evaluate the whole continuum of his early works through all genres. It reveals Kurz’ use of a poetics derived from both contemporary literature (Schiller, Uhland, Schwab, and Mörike) and earlier works (Gottfried von Straßburg, Grimmelshausen).

This Special Issue aims to bring together the various aspects of plant cell tissue and organ culture with a special emphasis on the production of phytochemical compounds, considered therapeutically valuable for their antioxidant, antiviral, antibacterial, and anti-inflammatory properties. Secondary metabolites play a key role in the diverse defense mechanisms of the plant organism in response to environmental stimuli, such as climatic fluctuations, pathogenic organisms, predatory herbivores, and competing plants. Therefore, by providing the opportunity for controlled modifications of environmental conditions, in vitro culture is an easy-to-manage experimental system that can be utilized as a source of secondary metabolites for industrial applications, as well as for food, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical purposes. This Special Issue will highlight the modern use of different plant cell tissue and organ culture approaches for successfully producing plant secondary metabolites, particularly those with high economic value.

An economic development model analyzes the adoption of alternative strategy capable of leveraging the economy, based essentially on RES. The combination of wind turbine, PV installation with new technology battery energy storage, DSM network and RES forecasting algorithms maximizes RES integration in isolated islands. An innovative model of power system (PS) imbalances is presented, which aims to capture various features of the stochastic behavior of imbalances and to reduce in average reserve requirements and PS risk. Deep learning techniques for medium-term wind speed and solar irradiance forecasting are presented, using for first time a specific cloud index. Scalability-replicability of the FLEXITRANSTORE technology innovations integrates hardware-software solutions in all areas of the transmission system and the wholesale markets, promoting increased RES. A deep learning and GIS approach are combined for the optimal positioning of wave energy converters. An innovative methodology to hybridize battery-based energy storage using supercapacitors for smoother power profile, a new control scheme and battery degradation mechanism and their economic viability are presented. An innovative module-level photovoltaic (PV) architecture in parallel configuration is introduced maximizing power extraction under partial shading. A new method for detecting demagnetization faults in axial flux permanent magnet synchronous wind generators is presented. The stochastic operating temperature (OT) optimization integrated with Markov Chain simulation ascertains a more accurate OT for guiding the coal gasification practice.

The recognition of states is a crucial element in many international conflicts that requires moral evaluation. This thesis offers the first systematic approach to the political philosophy of state recognition. It outlines the praxis of state recognition and highlights the increasing influence of moral considera-tions in international law. It presents and criticizes existing moral approaches to state recognition and offers a new approach based on a hybrid theory of justice and efficiency.