Open Access Books

"This book focuses on the study of the remarkable new source of geographic information that has become available in the form of user-generated content accessible over the Internet through mobile and Web applications. The exploitation, integration and application of these sources, termed volunteered geographic information (VGI) or crowdsourced geographic information (CGI), offer scientists an unprecedented opportunity to conduct research on a variety of topics at multiple scales and for diversified objectives. The Handbook is organized in five parts, addressing the fundamental questions: What motivates citizens to provide such information in the public domain, and what factors govern/predict its validity?What methods might be used to validate such information? Can VGI be framed within the larger domain of sensor networks, in which inert and static sensors are replaced or combined by intelligent and mobile humans equipped with sensing devices? What limitations are imposed on VGI by differential access to broadband Internet, mobile phones, and other communication technologies, and by concerns over privacy? How do VGI and crowdsourcing enable innovation applications to benefit human society? Chapters examine how crowdsourcing techniques and methods, and the VGI phenomenon, have motivated a multidisciplinary research community to identify both fields of applications and quality criteria depending on the use of VGI. Besides harvesting tools and storage of these data, research has paid remarkable attention to these information resources, in an age when information and participation is one of the most important drivers of development. The collection opens questions and points to new research directions in addition to the findings that each of the authors demonstrates. Despite rapid progress in VGI research, this Handbook also shows that there are technical, social, political and methodological challenges that require further studies and research."

Differenzierung ist ein wichtiges Unterrichtsprinzip. Konzepte zur Leistungsdifferenzierung existieren jedoch hauptsächlich für inhaltliche Kompetenzen, Lesen, Schreiben und mathematische Kompetenzen. Differenzierung in Bezug auf prozedurale Kompetenzen wie Hypothesen aufstellen, Experimente planen, Experimente durchführen und Schlussfolgerungen ziehen wurde bisher kaum entwickelt. Dabei kann eine Kombination von Diagnostik und Scaffolding die Differenzierung beim Vermitteln prozeduraler Kompetenzen sehr gut unterstützen. Im Buch wird für diesen Zweck ein Differenzierungstool für die Sekundarstufe zum Experimentieren im Sinne von Inquiry-based Learning (Forschendes Lernen) für die Fächer Biologie, Chemie und Physik vorgestellt und mit Beispielen und Unterrichtsmaterial veranschaulicht.

Este texto ratifica que el conocimiento no pertenece a una disciplina ni a una región determinada del mundo. La Construcción Horizontal del Conocimiento se refiere al vigor que adquieren los conocimientos sociales cuando parten del diálogo disciplinar con las voces de los saberes múltiples que poseen quienes viven y superan los problemas sociales que les aquejan. La investigación que responde horizontalmente a las preguntas sociales aporta de dos maneras: produce nuevo conocimiento, y nuevas relaciones entre las personas.

« Il fallait bien y passer », telle est la phrase qui conclut l'évocation douloureuse des opérations chirurgicales que subirent naguère des générations d'enfants. Vers le début du XXe siècle, en quelques années, les amygdales, les végétations, l'appendice sont devenus des organes non seulement inutiles mais dangereux pour la croissance. Leur ablation se donne pour fin de débrider le corps et l'esprit enfantins. Et sur ce point mères et médecins se sont, pendant un long demi-siècle, accordés. La raison médicale de ces ablations systématiques n'a pas résisté à la critique scientifique sans qu'elles disparaissent pour autant. Ce qui reste parfois le « gagne-pain » de certains chirurgiens ne peut donc s'appuyer que sur une raison culturelle capable de justifier ces interventions. Suivant cette piste en anthropologue, Véronique Moulinié découvre qu'une série constamment enrichie d'opérations marque, de nos jours, les césures de l'âge. On opère moins les enfants mais on arrache les dents de sagesse, on sectionne, parfois systématiquement, le périnée des accouchées et, surtout, les ablations de l'utérus et de la prostate sont communément attendues et interprétées comme marques d'entrée dans la vieillesse. Quels principes organisent cette séquence chirurgicale ? Quelle efficacité la justifie ? Pour répondre à ces questions, Véronique Moulinié s'est mise patiemment à l'écoute d'un discours sur les temps de la vie qui, de nos jours, prend souvent la forme d'un savoir partagé sur les âges critiques du corps. Dans le milieu paysan et ouvrier aquitain où s'est déroulée son enquête, la chirurgie des âges est venue s'inscrire dans le schéma des rythmes de la physiologie, elle a contribué à le maintenir tout en le renouvelant. Mais ce savoir complexe reste l'apanage des femmes. Il leur permet tout autant de produire la différence entre filles et garçons que de lire selon une périodicité féminine la physiologie de leurs époux muets quant aux secrets du corps.

This book contains 20 chapters, which are divided into 5 sections. Section 1 covers different aspects of insecticide resistance of selected economically important plant insect pests, whereas section 2 includes chapters about the importance, development and insecticide resistance management in controlling malaria vectors. Section 3 is dedicated to some general questions in insecticide resistance, while the main topic of section 4 is biochemical approaches of insecticide resistance mechanisms. Section 5 covers ecologically acceptable approaches for overcoming insecticide resistance, such are the use of mycoinsecticides, and understanding the role of some plant chemical compounds, which are important in interactions between plants, their pests and biological control agents.

In the industrial manufacturing of metals, the achievement of products featuring desired characteristics always requires the control of process parameters in order to obtain a suitable microstructure. The strict relationship among process parameters, microstructure, and mechanical properties is a matter of interest in different areas, such as foundry, plastic forming, sintering, welding, etc., and regards both well-established and innovative processes. Nowadays, circular economy and sustainable technological development are dominant paradigms and impose an optimized use of resources, a lower energetic impact of industrial processes and new tasks for materials and products. In this frame, this Special Issue covers a broad range of research works and contains research and review papers.

The current book entitled Heterojunctions and Nanostructures is divided into two sections. In Section 1, the chapters are related to topological insulators where their theoretical aspects, their current experiments, and their applications are presented. A few presented topics are, among others, the topological phases of matter, band topology of insulators and also of Weyl semimetals, transport properties of 3D topological insulator quantum wires and the influence of disorder, transport properties of quasi-1D (and 2D) topological surface states, quantum coherence, and topological insulator thin-film Hall bar device. In Section 2, the chapters are related to light devices such as laser diodes and their fabrication techniques. This section includes, among others, topics such as semiconductor quantum nanowire laser diodes, solutions of Schrodinger equation in nanostructures, numerical methods, light-to-electricity conversion devices, photoexcited carrier transportation process in quantum wells and quantum dots, growth mode and characterization of heterostructure of large lattice mismatch, and photoionization cross section.

American Muslims play an important role in helping counter extremism, and are increasingly using social media to this end. RAND researchers identified challenges facing these Muslim activists, and identified ways to help empower these voices online.

Five of the top ten problems facing humanity (http://cnst.rice.edu/content.aspx?id=246) over the next 50 years (food, water, energy, environment and poverty) are directly related to the health of soil resources. Several different factors, including: (a) excessive tillage; (b) inappropriate crop rotations; (c) excessive grazing or crop residue removal; (d) deforestation; (e) mining and/or fracking; and (f) construction or urban sprawl, have contributed to the global problem of soil degradation. Understanding and implementing sustainable agricultural and land management practices that improve soil health is essential for mitigating and reversing these trends, if we are to successfully meet the needs of more than 9.5 billion people who will be sharing our fragile planet by the middle of the 21st century. The overall focus for this Special Issue was on agricultural factors contributing to soil degradation and suggested strategies for mitigating and reversing those trends. The discussion was anchored by invited contributions reflecting perspectives from Africa, Australia, China, Eastern Europe, India, Latin America, North America, Russia, and Western Europe. Voluntary contributions were evaluated, and incorporated into the issue to provide a global perspective on soil degradation and strategies to mitigate its devastating effects. This Special Issue draws upon published literature addressing soil quality and/or soil health, soil and crop management strategies to mitigate soil degradation, and future research needs and strategies that will steadily improve the fragile layer that lies between us and starvation. Your participation and contributions to this important endeavor were most welcome.

A comprehensive overview of holographic methods in quantum matter, written by pioneers in the field. This book, written by pioneers in the field, offers a comprehensive overview of holographic methods in quantum matter. It covers influential developments in theoretical physics, making the key concepts accessible to researchers and students in both high energy and condensed matter physics. The book provides a unique combination of theoretical and historical context, technical results, extensive references to the literature, and exercises. It will give readers the ability to understand the important problems in the field, both those that have been solved and those that remain unsolved, and will enable them to engage directly with the current literature. The book describes a particular interface between condensed matter physics, gravitational physics, and string and quantum field theory made possible by holographic duality. The chapters cover such topics as the essential workings of the holographic correspondence; strongly interacting quantum matter at a fixed commensurate density; compressible quantum matter with a variable density; transport in quantum matter; the holographic description of symmetry broken phases; and the relevance of the topics covered to experimental challenges in specific quantum materials. Holographic Quantum Matter promises to be the definitive presentation of this material.

Emojis sind allgegenwärtig - auch das Recht ist mit den bunten Gesichtern, Gesten und Symbolen immer häufiger konfrontiert. Davon zeugt eine stattliche, in den letzten Jahren immer stärker wachsende Zahl an Urteilen aus dem In- und Ausland sowie aus den unterschiedlichsten Rechtsbereichen. Straf-, Arbeits- und Markenrecht bilden ebenso Schauplätze von Emoji-Rechtsprechung wie Schuld-, Familien- und Äußerungsrecht. Vor dem Hintergrund der rechtsvergleichenden Bestandsaufnahme bereitet Matthias Pendl die technischen und (psycho-)linguistischen Hintergründe von Emojis auf. Anschließend analysiert er bislang kaum beachtete privatrechtliche Implikationen der Verwendung von Emojis. Dabei berücksichtigt er die Lehren von der Auslegung von Willenserklärungen sowie von der Auflösung von Übermittlungsfehlern und widmet sich überdies Verletzungen des Persönlichkeitsrechts durch den Einsatz von Emojis. Darüber hinaus gibt der Autor einen Ausblick auf weitere Bereiche des (Privat-)Rechts, in denen Emojis künftig ebenfalls eine größere Rolle spielen können. Die Auswahl fällt dabei auf das Arbeits-, das Marken- und das Kapitalmarktrecht.

This reprint is a compilation of cutting-edge knowledge in the field of bariatric surgery. It addresses the growing obesity epidemic and provides in-depth insights into the latest innovations in bariatric surgery and its future prospects. The content of the work includes a comprehensive review of modern surgical techniques. Additionally, it explores key aspects of preoperative assessment, postoperative follow-up, and the management of potential complications. The reprint highlights the benefits of bariatric surgery in improving the health and quality of life of morbidly obese patients. The reprint also addresses emerging trends in research and technology, such as robotic surgery and gene therapy, which hold the promise of further revolutionizing the field.

pAt the beginning of the new millennium, the Chinese government launched the Great Opening of the West, a development strategy targeted at remote areas inhabited mainly by indigenous ethnic groups. Intended to modernize infrastructure and halt environmental degradation, its tactics in western China have resulted in the displacement of pastoral Tibetans to urban residence and sedentary livelihoods, causing massive social and economic shifts and uncertainty and eventually leading to signs of discontent in ethnically Tibetan regions./p pBased on more than a decade of fieldwork, emExile from the Grasslands/em documents the viewpoints of both the people affected-Tibetan pastoralists in Qinghai Province-and the Chinese officials charged with relocating and settling them in newly constructed housing projects. As China's international influence expands, the welfare of its ethnic minorities and its handling of environmental issues are receiving close media scrutiny. Jarmila Ptáčkova's study documents a politically and ecologically significant process that is happening-unlike events in Lhasa or Xinjiang-largely outside the view of the wider world./p

El clientelismo político en Colombia, desde hace unas cuatro décadas, se ha venido configurado como objeto de estudio de antropólogos, sociólogos, historiadores y politólogos, incluso, se ha configurado como materia de discusión de periodistas y abogados. Los escándalos de corrupción en instituciones públicas, asociados erróneamente con el clientelismo, han suscitado el interés de muchos estudios de caso, que corroboran la existencia de racionalidades útiles a quienes detentan el poder, pero ineficientes dentro de las lógicas de un Estado moderno regido por la trasparencia, meritocracia y la participación ciudadana en defensa de lo público.

Este libro muestra que en la región andina los movimientos indígenas apelan simultáneamente a un sentido de identificación étnica y de pertenencia nacional que sustenta su movilización política. En contraste con lo que ocurre en otras áreas del mundo, donde los movimientos étnicos adquieren tintes más exclusivistas que a veces han acarreado el estallido de conflictos violentos, en los Andes se ha conformado un tipo de identificación étnica más permisiva, que discurre a través del reclamo de pertenencia a la nación. La diferencia étnica, de esa manera, se reivindica a través de la demanda de participación en la comunidad nacional más amplia y no a partir de una plataforma reivindicativa exclusivista, formulada estrictamente en términos étnicos. Una imagen que puede permitir describir este sentido peculiar de la movilización étnica en los tres países centroandinos analizados en el presente libro de Ramón Pajuelo, es la que da título al volumen: Reinventando Comunidades Imaginadas. Si las naciones, de acuerdo a la conocida formulación de Benedict Anderson, pueden ser consideradas como «comunidades imaginadas», entonces lo que vienen haciendo los movimientos indígenas andinos es una auténtica reinvención (discursiva y práctica) de tales comunidades.