Open Access Books

El sitio arqueológico de San Antonio Nogalar se encuentra aproximadamente a 110 km al noroeste de Tampico, en el municipio de Gonzalez, en Tamaulipas. Fue descubierto por Joaquín Meade en 1950; este historiador consideró que se trataba de la legendaria Tamaholipa, de la cual habla el misionero franciscano fray Andrés de Olmos en el siglo XVI. Meade tuvo el mérito de haber señalado el nombre del sitio que dio origen al estado de Tamaulipas. En los años de 1953-1954, Richard Mc Neish hace una serie de sondeos y recolección en la superficie; según estos estudios, la época de ocupación del sitio fue en la fase Laguna, situada en el preclásico final, es decir, en los últimos siglos antes de Cristo. En 1964 se descubre un cementerio indígena. En 1967 se realiza una visita de la misión francesa y se percatan de la importancia del sitio. Las excavaciones se llevan a cabo entre abril y mayo de 1968. La segunda etapa de excavaciones tuvo lugar en abril de 1969. El grupo que hace las primeras excavaciones estaba formado por Guy Stresser-Péan, Claude Stresser-Péan, Victor Lagarde (fotógrafo) y Cornelis Grootenboer (topógrafo y diseñador). La investigación se extendió a los sitios de Los Laureles y El Ojital, así como a los abrigos del Risco de las Cenizas y al Risco de Los Monos, donde se encontraron pinturas rupestres. El libro da cuenta de una exhaustiva investigación que no se detiene en lo arqueológico, sino que se extiende a lo histórico, botánico, zootécnico, lo mismo que al estudio de las osamentas encontradas en el lugar. El tema sigue siendo de actualidad dada la importancia del sitio arqueológico y el completo repaso histórico de los grupos que habitaron la región.

La història de Carlemany i la seva nissaga és un dels eixos vertebradors de la identitat d’Europa que ha determinat significativament la memòria històrica, religiosa i cultural dels països i les regions del continent formats en el si de l’imperi carolingi. El present volum recull un conjunt d’estudis sobre diversos temes re­lacionats amb la figura de Carlemany i el seu entorn, que conviden el lector a fer un recorregut cronològic i geogràfic per l’antiguitat tardana i la Mediterrània altmedieval, partint d’Itàlia —centre neuràlgic—, passant per França i la península Ibèrica, i fent especial atenció a Catalunya. Capdavanter en aquest tipus d’investigació en català, el llibre mostra les tendències actuals de la recerca internacional i integra Catalunya en el ric pa­norama de les múltiples identitats europees.

This open access book provides an overview of the progress in landslide research and technology and is part of a book series of the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL). It gives an overview of recent progress in landslide research and technology for practical applications and the benefit for the society contributing to understanding and reducing landslide disaster risk.

Soil contamination has been identified as one of the main threats to soil, inducing the degradation of global soils and driving long-term losses of the ecosystem services that they provide. As a result of human activities, the amount of soil contamination caused by heavy metal(loid)s has severely increased over the last few decades and has become a worldwide environmental issue that has attracted considerable public attention. Although many research efforts have highlighted how soil contamination is a global threat and provided an overview of the importance of healthy soil, there is still a great need for additional information from different regions around the world, and concrete strategies, which can be implemented to address the causes and impacts of this major threat, urgently need to be developed. In this context, this book was launched with the scope of bringing together articles presenting the development of novel science-based methods and applications that enhance the remediation of contaminated soil by focusing on the identification of the main sources of soil contamination caused by heavy metal(loid)s (HM)/potentially toxic elements (PTEs) in different soil types; the chemistry, potential mobility, and bioavailability of the contaminants that are commonly found in contaminated soils; the assessment of the negative impacts and risks associated with HM/PTE-induced soil contamination on crop yields; soil biota, food security, and human health; and the available methods and strategies for monitoring, assessing, and remediating soils that have been contaminated by HM/PTEs.

I saggi raccolti nel volume intendono sottoporre a un nuovo e approfondito esame un significativo ventaglio di temi e di aspetti relativi alla vitale presenza di autori “antichi” e “moderni” nell’opera di Boccaccio nonché all’eccezionale ricezione secolare della sua produzione letteraria: da Omero alla riflessione sulla poesia e sui poeti, da questioni metodologiche e tematiche sull’intertestualità alla centralità e risonanza della parola, in forma diretta e nella scrittura, dalla fortuna ai modi di trasformazione e riappropriazione in altre letterature e arti fino all’epoca contemporanea. Gli autori, nell’intreccio di voci di più ambiti disciplinari, sono studiosi di Letteratura italiana (Giancarlo Alfano, Johannes Bartuschat, Lucia Battaglia Ricci, Renzo Bragantini, Anna Maria Cabrini, Claude Cazalé Bérard, Elisabetta Menetti, Francesco Spera, Ilaria Tufano, Cristina Zampese); Filologia romanza (Beatrice Barbiellini Amidei, Alfonso D’Agostino); Letteratura spagnola (Maria Rosso); Linguistica italiana (Giuseppe Polimeni).

Die Autoren des vorgelegten Bandes zeigen, dass die jüdischen Lebenswelten nur als Teil der heterogenen, imperial überwölbten Herrschafts-, Rechts- und Gesellschaftsordnung des Römisch-Deutschen Reiches zu verstehen sind. Bei dem Versuch, die Juden als Individuen und als Gruppe in diesem strukturell vielschichtigen Gemeinwesen zu verorten, liegt der Fokus auf zwei ineinander greifenden Konstellationen: Schwerpunkt sind zum einen die Beziehungen zwischen jüdischem Binnenraum und nicht-jüdischer Umwelt, zum anderen das Spannungsverhältnis zwischen Landesherrschaft und den imperialen, durch Kaiser und Reich bestimmten Rahmenbedingungen jüdischer Existenz. Ansatzpunkt für das Ausloten jüdischer Handlungsräume sind die Rechtsverhältnisse der Juden sowie innerjüdisch beanspruchte Entscheidungsbereiche. Damit steht sowohl der Aspekt der Wahrung und Gewährung einer eigenen rechtlichen Sphäre im Zentrum des Bandes, als auch Fragen nach den Parametern jüdischer Handlungsspielräume, die in ihrer Begrenztheit nicht unilateral durch den Kaiser, die Landesherrschaften oder das jüdische Religionsrecht bestimmt wurden, sondern sich relationell aus den zwischen diesen Ebenen der Herrschaft und des Rechts bestehenden Spannungsverhältnissen ergaben.

Religion plays a central role in nearly every aspect in people’s life of most pre-modern cultures. Especially the interconnection between religion and politics is a common fact but the details of this relation and interacting processes behind this are not substantially studied. Therefore, this volume does not aim to confirm the linkage of religion and politics in general but to investigate its functionalities in political processes. A focus is placed on the political role of religious personnel beyond their religious and cultic tasks and their influence in pre-modern societies from a cross-cultural perspective. Specialists from various disciplines present their research based on case studies. Thereby this interdisciplinary volume covers a wide geographical and chronological range from ancient Egypt in the Bronze Age until medieval England. These papers are organised according to core functions questioning the instrumentalisation of religious personnel. ; Religion plays a central role in nearly every aspect in people’s life of most pre-modern cultures. Especially the interconnection between religion and politics is a common fact but the details of this relation and interacting processes behind this are not substantially studied. Therefore, this volume does not aim to confirm the linkage of religion and politics in general but to investigate its functionalities in political processes. A focus is placed on the political role of religious personnel beyond their religious and cultic tasks and their influence in pre-modern societies from a cross-cultural perspective. Specialists from various disciplines present their research based on case studies. Thereby this interdisciplinary volume covers a wide geographical and chronological range from ancient Egypt in the Bronze Age until medieval England. These papers are organised according to core functions questioning the instrumentalisation of religious personnel.

This book is a collection of 13 chapters divided into seven sections: Section I: "General Foundations of the Stress Field and Toughness" with one chapter, Section II: "Fractography and Impact Analysis" with two chapters, Section III: "Toughness Fracture" with three chapters, Section IV: "Fracture Behavior" with two chapters, Section V: "Natural and Hydraulic Fractures" with two chapters, section VI: "Fatigue" with one chapter and Section VII: "Fracture Biomaterials and compatible" with two chapters. This book covers a wide range of application of fracture mechanics in materials science, engineering, rock prospecting, dentistry and medicine. The book is aimed towards materials scientists, metallurgists, mechanical and civil engineers, doctors and dentists and can also be well used in education, research and industry.

Black Acting Methods seeks to offer alternatives to the Euro-American performance styles that many actors find themselves working with. A wealth of contributions from directors, scholars and actor trainers address afrocentric processes and aesthetics, and interviews with key figures in Black American theatre illuminate their methods. This ground-breaking collection is an essential resource for teachers, students, actors and directors seeking to reclaim, reaffirm or even redefine the role and contributions of Black culture in theatre arts.

The expression “poiesis of democracy” in the title refers to its central concern: to understand “democracy” not as a univocal and absolute concept, but as a result of historical permanencies and transformations inherent of both its Greek formulation and its contemporary uses, that is, as a problem whose answers derive from permanently meditated and mediated negotiation. Thus, the main problem dealt with in the volume is the analysis — preferably interdisciplinary and open to multiple theoretical methodological approaches — of the construction of the concept of Athenian democracy as a problematic political and cultural arena (and not as a goal, structure or program), perceptible in different authors and discourses of the classical period, as well as reflections that supplemented them throughout the fifth and fourth centuries BC.

This open access book provides important insights into the integration of digitalisation and green economy into the platform economy, and how these processes can contribute to the improvement of legal labour regulations and processes in the EU and Eastern Europe. It addresses the following key topics: the impact of digitisation on the labour market, including the impact of robotics and automation on the changing nature of work; the organisation of work through digital platforms; the relationship between workers and employers; the challenges of implementing the Green Deal strategy in the labour market; the specifics and types of platform work; problems concerning labour regulation on digital platforms in Eastern and Southern European countries, such as Moldova, Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Albania; and the results of an empirical survey. The topics are highly relevant in the contemporary context, as the European Parliament adopted the Platform Work Directive in 2024 after several years of debate. This Directive aims to sift out the working patterns of the platform sector, introducing clear criteria on what is considered to be an individual activity and what is considered to be an employment relationship. The EU Directive calls upon each EU country to develop its own criteria for assessing whether certain work carried out via platforms is based on an employment relationship or merely constitutes an individual activity. One of the book’s main objectives is to present possible business models for digital platform work that offer greater social protection for the worker by analysing the theoretical aspects of digitalisation and the integration of the green economy into the labour market, and the legal framework for digital labour market platforms in Eastern and Southern European countries. The book will be of interest to policymakers responsible for regulation of the labour market, trade unions, university lecturers and students of economics and law who are interested in delving into the characteristics and regulation of the digital economy and the digital labour market, labour platform workers and employers.

This Topic explores the role of biophilic cities and communities; participating journals include Buildings, Forests, Land, and Sustainability. It comprises thirty-seven papers involving biophilic-related studies touching on natural resources and environmental and social sustainability in Asia, Europe, and America. This collection addresses three fields of research: (1) Biophilic urbanism and processes. This research field focuses on land use/cover change, spatial–temporal trends, geodesign, bioclimatic design, sustainable urban–rural planning, etc. (2) Natural resource conservation and management. This field focuses on urban ecosystems, ecological patterns and processes, environmental education and policies, forest management, nature-based solutions, etc. (3) Computational social science and human behavior. This last field of research addresses multi-sensory interaction, social and historical sensing, mental health and well-being, big data and cognitive computing, etc.

This reprint is a collection of the Special Issue "Advance in Energy Harvesters/Nanogenerators and Self-Powered Sensors" published in Nanomaterials, which includes one editorial, six novel research articles and four review articles, showcasing the very recent advances in energy-harvesting and self-powered sensing technologies. With its broad coverage of innovations in transducing/sensing mechanisms, material and structural designs, system integration and applications, as well as the timely reviews of the progress in energy harvesting and self-powered sensing technologies, this reprint could give readers an excellent overview of the challenges, opportunities, advancements and development trends of this rapidly evolving field.

Production ergonomics – the science and practice of designing industrial workplaces to optimize human well-being and system performance – is a complex challenge for a designer. Humans are a valuable and flexible resource in any system of creation, and as long as they stay healthy, alert and motivated, they perform well and also become more competent over time, which increases their value as a resource. However, if a system designer is not mindful or aware of the many threats to health and system performance that may emerge, the end result may include inefficiency, productivity losses, low working morale, injuries and sick-leave. To help budding system designers and production engineers tackle these design challenges holistically, this book offers a multi-faceted orientation in the prerequisites for healthy and effective human work. We will cover physical, cognitive and organizational aspects of ergonomics, and provide both the individual human perspective and that of groups and populations, ending up with a look at global challenges that require workplaces to become more socially and economically sustainable. This book is written to give you a warm welcome to the subject, and to provide a solid foundation for improving industrial workplaces to attract and retain healthy and productive staff in the long run.

This open access book offers the first full-length, empirical deep-dive into everyday policework in the Democratic Republic of Congo. At the same time, its findings go well beyond the DRC and Africa, ultimately providing a new, startlingly nuanced theoretical framework for understanding what police practice and reform efforts tell us about states anywhere in the world. Following officers from the classroom to the station and the street, Michel Thill offers five narrative-driven chapters rich with historical detail and thick description that show how the police force, as an institution, struggles to coordinate practice with training, coercion with persuasion and reconciliation, and the need to make ends meet with the duty to serve the public. By delving into the convoluted repercussions of police reform, Thill identifies the tensions that shape everyday policework, thereby offering new ways of thinking about police reform while offering practical guidance for practitioners and policymakers. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Bloomsbury Open Collections Library Collective.