Open Access Books

Leukopenia is an essential part of the clinical course of acute radiation sickness and is a side effect of anti-cancer treatment. In both situations, the main factors which determine the survival are the degree of bone marrow suppression and gastrointestinal tract damage due to the presence of a large pool of fast-dividing cells. Leuko- and neutropenia are main limiting factors which may contribute to chemotherapy failure. Hematopoietic cytokines the part of conventional therapy in this field, but their effects require boosting. That is why the use of means and methods of adsorption therapy is considered promising. Sorption therapy creates a basis for sorption detoxification, a doctrine of curative measures directed to the removal of toxic endogenous or exogenous compounds from body fluids. The most widely used types are the purification of blood or its components (hemosorption), oral administration of sorption materials (enterosorption) and application-sorption therapy of wounds and burns. In this chapter, the results of early and recent research and prospects for the use of carbon adsorption therapy for the treatment of acute radiation sickness and cytostatic myelosuppression are discussed.

The literature indicates a disadvantage of reading comprehension in digital mode compared to reading comprehension in print mode. The shallowing hypothesis explains this disadvantage by suggesting that on digital, readers adopt a superficial reading mode that is not conducive to deep comprehension of what they read. At the same time, the cognitive load theory argues that digital carries a greater cognitive load than paper, which affects the effectiveness of understanding what is read. Existing studies showing the disadvantage of digital over paper focus mainly on adults, neglecting school-age, a crucial period for the development of reading comprehension. Executive Functions, crucial for reading comprehension, reach a peak in development during school age, influencing the effect of the medium (paper or screen) on performance on reading comprehension tasks. This contribution aims to fill some of the gaps in the literature by exploring the differences in digital and paper-based reading comprehension in school-age children and investigating the role of Executive Functions in supporting reading comprehension in both modalities.

Freinage, refus d'obtempérer, conflits manifestes ou masqués, la permanence et le renouvellement des formes contestataires dans le monde du travail sont des faits attestés comme en témoigne le développement récent des travaux sur le sujet. Les désigner tout comme les définir ne va cependant pas de soi. Pourquoi mobiliser le terme de résistance pour rendre compte des pratiques observées ? Qu’apporte-il à l’analyse et à la compréhension des réalités sociales ? Cet ouvrage collectif propose des ...

The fact that Snow did not sneak into “red China” to gather information constituting the basis of his Red Start over China all alone is in many instances misunderstood even by scholars. Mao Zedong’s biography has been the subject of an international mountain of commentary in China and elsewhere. Biographies praising Mao and those slandering him are all based on the American journalist Edgar Snow’s (1905–1972) account in Red Star over China for the route Mao traveled from early childhood through his youth. How the “Red Star” Rose introduces the image of Mao and the biographical information made known to the world through the publication of Red Star, and with its publication the circumstances which they fundamentally undermined. Ishikawa Yoshihiro uses Mao Zedong as raw material to examine from whence and how ordinary historical information and images which we habitually use unconsciously come into being. He desires to help readers to reconsider the historicity of the generation of not only Mao’s image but of that of “historical materials.”

In the aftermath of a global pandemic, amidst new and ongoing wars, genocide, inequality, and staggering ecological collapse, some in the public and political arena have argued that we are in desperate need of greater empathy — be this with our neighbours, refugees, war victims, the vulnerable or disappearing animal and plant species. This interdisciplinary volume asks the crucial questions: How does a better understanding of empathy contribute, if at all, to our understanding of others? How is it implicated in the ways we perceive, understand and constitute others as subjects? Conversations on Empathy examines how empathy might be enacted and experienced either as a way to highlight forms of otherness or, instead, to overcome what might otherwise appear to be irreducible differences. It explores the ways in which empathy enables us to understand, imagine and create sameness and otherness in our everyday intersubjective encounters focusing on a varied range of "radical others" – others who are perceived as being dramatically different from oneself. With a focus on the importance of empathy to understand difference, the book contends that the role of empathy is critical, now more than ever, for thinking about local and global challenges of interconnectedness, care and justice.

Die Gesellschaft, in der wir leben, ist divers – selten spiegelt sich diese Diversität jedoch im Kunst- und Kulturbereich wider. Was muss sich bereits in der Ausbildung ändern und was muss ver_lernt werden, damit vielfältige Geschichten, Rollen und Musiken ihren Platz auf sowie hinter der Bühne finden? Eine kritische Diversitätspraxis setzt bei der Veränderung von Strukturen und den ihnen zugrunde liegenden Machtverhältnissen an – dies betrifft Kunsthochschulen und -universitäten ebenso wie die mit den Künsten verbundenen Berufsfelder. Die Beiträger*innen werfen einen Blick auf die inhaltlichen, strukturellen und personellen Verflechtungen beider Bereiche und versammeln wissenschaftliche, praxisreflektierte sowie handlungsleitende Konzepte, die den Weg zu einer diskriminierungskritischen und diversitätsreflektierten Kunstausbildung und Arbeitspraxis ebnen.

With the world marching inexorably towards the fourth industrial revolution (IR 4.0), one is now embracing lives with artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoTs), virtual reality (VR) and 5G technology. Wherever we are, whatever we are doing, there are electronic devices that we rely indispensably on. While some of these technologies, such as those fueled with smart, autonomous systems, are seemingly precocious; others have existed for quite a while. These devices range from simple home appliances, entertainment media to complex aeronautical instruments. Clearly, the daily lives of mankind today are interwoven seamlessly with electronics. Surprising as it may seem, the cornerstone that empowers these electronic devices is nothing more than a mere diminutive semiconductor cube block. More colloquially referred to as the Very-Large-Scale-Integration (VLSI) chip or an integrated circuit (IC) chip or simply a microchip, this semiconductor cube block, approximately the size of a grain of rice, is composed of millions to billions of transistors. The transistors are interconnected in such a way that allows electrical circuitries for certain applications to be realized. Some of these chips serve specific permanent applications and are known as Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICS); while, others are computing processors which could be programmed for diverse applications. The computer processor, together with its supporting hardware and user interfaces, is known as an embedded system.In this book, a variety of topics related to microchips are extensively illustrated. The topics encompass the physics of the microchip device, as well as its design methods and applications.

El cerro de Alarcos (Ciudad Real): Formación y desarrollo de un oppidum ibérico presents the results of archaeological work which has been carried out since 1997 in so-called Sector III of the Alarcos site, located on a hill next to the Guadiana river, a few kilometres from Ciudad Real. These archaeological campaigns have made it possible to obtain essential information to understand the communities that, from the end of the Bronze Age to the end of the Iron Age, inhabited this large town and its surrounding area. An interesting set of structures and other evidence of material culture have been recovered, which allow us to characterize the daily activities of people between the 10th-11th century BC and, in addition, they enable us to understand the paleoenvironment of this territory and the nature of the economy and the food transformation activities of these protohistoric populations. The use of this territory has been determined over the centuries, being originally a residential area which later, in Iberian times, assumed economic functionality, as it was intended for grain storage, grinding and cooking food. The documentation of a wide and varied repertoire of ceramic materials and an interesting set of foreign ceramics corroborates the dynamism this settlement achieved, during both the Pre-Iberian period and the full Iberian period.

The Great Hymns and Prayers are a group of Akkadian literary compositions renowned for their sophisticated style and language. This book presents updated critical editions of the Great Prayer to Nabû and the Great Prayer to Ištar, incorporating new interpretations and newly discovered fragments for more accurate reconstructions. In addition to philological analysis, the book explores intertextual relationships with other literary and non-literary texts and provides an in-depth study of the poetics of the corpus.

The here collected contributions relating to the 46th International Conference of the Representation Disciplines Teachers, organized jointly by Sapienza University of Rome, Roma Tre University, and San Raffaele Roma University, aim to offer the scientific community a reflection on the theoretical and methodological aspects related to the concept of èkphrasis, a term that, in the field of representation, concerns descriptive, analogical, and digital activities that generate new knowledge in several areas of application. The Conference aims to place at the center of the discussion an interpretation of the concept of research that, without neglecting an idea of study, protection, and enhancement of environmental and cultural heritage, focuses on the needs of contemporary society and its possible developments, making use of innovative theoretical, methodological, and operational activities, including those characterized by an interdisciplinary approach. According to this interpretation, research can also be seen as a foreshadowing of the definition and testing of experimental proposals aimed at exploring new areas of investigation: this opens up imaginative and utopian perspectives in the relationship between the sciences, the arts, and the disciplines that contribute to common goals, through the experimentation of methods, techniques, and languages for conceiving, prefiguring, designing, and representing.

This report presents the results of a conference of 38 national experts in nutrition and public health who met to develop performance standards that could guide restaurants toward facilitating healthier choices among consumers and that local communities or states could use as a model for developing and implementing either voluntary or mandatory certification programs.

Lignocellulosic wastes has been widely discussed as a promising natural chemical source and alternative feedstock for second-generation biofuels. However, there are still many technical and economic challenges facing its utilization. Lignin is one of the components of lignocellulosic biomass, and is the most rigid constituent and can be considered as a glue providing the cell wall with stiffness and the plant tissue with compressive strength. In addition, it provides resistance to chemical and physical damage. Resistance of lignocelluloses to hydrolysis is mainly from the protection of cellulose by lignin and cellulose binding to hemicellulose. The present book provides basic knowledge and recent research on different applications of biomass, focusing on the bioenergy and different pretreatment methods that overcome the aforementioned hurdles.

Traffic congestion has long been a problem for many cities and commuters around the world, which causes long commuting hours, increases traffic crash rates and results in significant economic and productivity losses. Correctly predicting traffic congestion can help alleviate several problems that traffic congestion causes on a recurrent basis. With the advances in data collection, artificial intelligence (AI) becomes an ideal tool for short-term and long-term congestion forecasting. This chapter reviews the latest developments in machine learning and deep learning methodologies for traffic congestion prediction in a systematic way, covering literature over the last decade. The main findings are structured based on different AI methodologies, datasets and prediction time periods. The chapter also discusses the advantages and drawbacks of current AI methodologies and describes the research gaps that must be overcome to enable real-world implementation of AI methodologies for traffic congestion prediction.

Over the past decade, major advances have been made in global research on the critical role of large igneous provinces (LIPs) in major geodynamic processes. These include the formation and evolution of the lithosphere and mantle, supercontinent breakup, dramatic climate change events (including mass extinctions), and the genesis of major ore deposits. This Special Issue highlights recent progress in LIP research through eight papers arranged by LIP age. The contributions include insights into source chemistry for the young (16 Ma) Columbia River LIP, the plumbing system of the 118–114 Ma Rajmahal flood basalts in the context of the Kerguelen plume, mechanisms by which plume-related LIPs drive continental breakup, magnetic fabric studies used to determine magma flow in parts of the 252 Ma Siberian Traps LIP, characterization of an intrusion associated with the poorly understood ca. 260 Ma Khangai LIP, application of U–Pb garnet dating to alkaline ultramafic complexes in the ca. 645–625 Ma Eastern Sayan Province, and linking Neoproterozoic redbeds to hydrothermal fluids derived from the 940–890 Ma Dashigou LIP.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of ozonated Aloe Vera gel on the growth inhibition of Enterococcus faecalis according to application time. It was quasi-experimental, longitudinal and applicative. In a first instance, the Aloe Vera gel was collected. Once obtained, it was subjected to ozonation, for which the ozonation patterns of the water are taken. It was then applied to Enterococcus faecalis samples by means of diffusion disks and applied directly. The results were not very encouraging, showing inhibition halos no larger than 10 mm and 0 mm in diameter in several cases. For this reason, Aloe Vera gel was diluted in 70° alcohol and chloroform, obtaining better results. The sample consisted of Petri dishes incubated with Enterococcus faecalis, at a rate of 35 Petri dishes for each study group and application time. The gel was applied to the samples by diffusion of filter discs and by direct application. After several tests, the ozonated gel at 24 hours showed the best results with inhibition halos of 40-45 mm. In conclusion, the Ozonized Aloe Vera gel is a product that demonstrated a high effectiveness when applied on Enterococcus faecalis to extract its greatest properties, it is necessary to dilute them in 70° alcohol and chloroform, so it presents a high level on the bacteria.