Open Access Books

Reinforcement Learning (RL) is a very dynamic area in terms of theory and application. This book brings together many different aspects of the current research on several fields associated to RL which has been growing rapidly, producing a wide variety of learning algorithms for different applications. Based on 24 Chapters, it covers a very broad variety of topics in RL and their application in autonomous systems. A set of chapters in this book provide a general overview of RL while other chapters focus mostly on the applications of RL paradigms: Game Theory, Multi-Agent Theory, Robotic, Networking Technologies, Vehicular Navigation, Medicine and Industrial Logistic.

Trabajo que ofrece al lector un panorama general de los procesos políticos y socioeconómicos que destacan en la historia de Belice, desde la fundación del asentamiento de cortadores de árboles a principios del siglo XVII, con sus formas de gobierno y organización, su transformación en colonia británica, la problemática económica, los partidos políticos y la lucha del movimiento independentista; hasta la disputa internacional entre México, Inglaterra, España y Guatemala por la obtención de su ...

Jorge Eduardo Eielson (Lima 1924 - Milan 2006) and Mario Vargas Llosa (Arequipa, Peru, 1936; Winner of the Nobel prize in 2010) are certainly two 'exemplary Peruvians', as they have both started by digging into the history and social conflicts of their country, before opening up to global culture and reality with an interdisciplinary and intercultural spirit: Vargas Llosa did so using fiction, theatre, non-fiction and journalism; Eielson used poetry, the visual arts, non-fiction and journalism. The volume offers a rich itinerary starting from an interview with Vargas Llosa by José Miguel Oviedo (Florence, 2008), and then goes through individual aspects of the work by the two authors. It is then accompanied by photographic records and a DVD with an elaboration of Eielson's visual works, paintings and poems.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. In order to think theoretically about our global age it is important to understand how the global has been conceived historically. 'Eurafrica' was an intellectual endeavor and political project that from the 1920s saw Europe's future survival - its continued role in history - as completely bound up with Europe's successful merger with Africa. In its time the concept of Eurafrica was tremendously influential in the process of European integration. Today the project is largely forgotten, yet the idea continues to influence EU policy towards its African 'partner'. The book will recover a critical conception of the nexus between Europe and Africa - a relationship of significance across the humanities and social sciences. In assessing this historical concept the authors shed light on the process of European integration, African decolonization and the current conflictual relationship between Europe and Africa.

Syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease was first described in 15th century, is caused by Treponema pallidum subsp. pallidum and occurs worldwide. This book is a collection of chapters presenting the novel knowledge about the T. pallidum and some historical and up to date information about venereal disease and syphilis. The collection of articles includes: immunological aspects recognition of T. pallidum by the pattern recognition receptors of the innate immune; the whole genome analysis of treponemes and new targets for its molecular diagnosis; some historical aspects of venereal diseases treatment; natural history of syphilis including clinical manifestation and epidemiology; a clinical aspects dealing with psychiatric manifestations of neurosyphilis; spatial and temporal patterns of primary syphilis and secondary syphilis described by the spatial and space-time scan statistics; a commonly used methods for laboratorial diagnosis, the serological response to treatment of syphilis and safety in blood transfusion. I hope this book will be useful for students and research fellows as well for the wide audience.

L’adaptation filmique a toujours été essentielle au septième art, qu’il s’agisse du recours aux textes littéraires classiques utilisés dès les premiers films pour donner au nouveau média une aura de respectabilité, de l’utilisation des romans noirs pour populariser la cinématographie des expressionnistes allemands, ou de la pratique actuelle d’adaptations visant à capter un public déjà acquis (par exemple les adeptes des romans de Jane Austen, ou de best-sellers comme Twilight ou des jeux vidéo comme Doom). Toutefois, l’adaptation a souvent été dénigrée : les amateurs des textes-sources déplorent le manque de fidélité du film, alors que les adeptes d’un cinéma « pur » regrettent que ce souci de fidélité aboutisse à un film « littéraire » qui n’explore pas ses possibilités proprement filmiques. Au-delà de ces clivages, cet ouvrage cherche à présenter les enjeux du phénomène : il réunit quinze spécialistes qui traitent des différents aspects de l’adaptation : ses raisons économiques, sa problématisation de la théorie de l’auteur chère à la Nouvelle Vague, et surtout, ce que l’étude comparative du texte et son image peuvent s’apporter mutuellement en termes de supplément de sens. Le livre se conclut avec trois articles qui proposent une méthodologie de l’étude de l’adaptation, incitant le lecteur à son tour à se livrer à des études d’adaptations.

Three members of the Milan-born Angielini family have bequeathed plans and views of fortified places at the border to the Ottoman Empire around 1570, amongst them three maps of Vienna. This basis serves for an analysis of Vienna’s development into a fortress city. Written sources and archaeological evidence are also used, as are insights from environmental history. Early modern fortress-construction in theory and practice and the cartographic documentation of the Hungarian area and Vienna, both seen in a supraregional context, compose further important chapters of the book.

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Wie Prüfungen und Prüfungsszenarien an Hochschulen innovativ und digital gestaltet werden können, steht im Fokus dieses Sammelbandes. Die Beiträge stellen Ergebnisse des Projekts „Prüfung hoch III Drei. Didaktik - Technik - Vernetzung" (gefördert durch den Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft) vor. Im Rahmen des Verbundvorhabens der FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, der RWTH Aachen und des Karlsruher Instituts für Technologie (KIT) wurden Maßnahmen zur Digitalisierung von Prüfungen an Hochschulen in ganz Deutschland unterstützt. Die Beiträge des Bandes stellen unterschiedliche Ansätze, Ideen und Konzepte für digitale Prüfungsszenarien vor und fokussieren dabei jeweils eines der Handlungsfelder Didaktik, Technik oder Vernetzung. Neben der Bestandsaufnahme sowie dem hochschulübergreifenden Erfahrungsaustausch stehen die Entwicklung didaktischer Szenarien, die Erprobung und Entwicklung innovativer Technologien und Ansätze der Vernetzung im Vordergrund. An der Schnittstelle von Forschung zu digitalen Prüfungsszenarien und deren praktischer Umsetzung richtet sich der Band an Lehrende und Mitarbeitende des lehrstützenden Bereichs an Hochschulen.

The Salish Archipelago includes more than 400 islands in the Salish Sea, an amalgamation of Canada's Georgia Strait, the United States’ Puget Sound, and the shared Strait of Juan de Fuca. The Salish Sea and Islands are named for the Coast Salish Indigenous Peoples whose homelands extend across the region. Holiday homes and services have in many places displaced pristine ecosystems, Indigenous communities, and historic farms. Will age-old island environments and communities withstand the forces of commodity-driven economies? This new, major scholarly undertaking provides the geographical and historical background for exploring such questions. Salish Archipelago features sections on environment, history, society, and management, accompanied by numerous maps and other illustrations. This diverse collection offers an overview of an embattled, but resilient, region, providing knowledge and perspectives of interest to residents, educators, and policy makers.

The office work is being completely reorganized in the current digital transformation. Central to this are concepts such as »lean production« and »agile methods«. The book shows the implications of this development for the workforce of employees through case studies from the areas of software development, engineering, metal and electrical industry. A fundamental change in employee work with an uncertain outcome is discernible. Is office work on the digital assembly line or a departure into a new humanization of the world of work? The book provides answers to these questions and shows that the result of development depends on our conscious design.

Presents results of a one-year follow-up to a survey on Know the Signs, a California mass media suicide prevention campaign, and examines the effect of campaign exposure on respondents’ confidence to intervene with someone at risk for suicide.

This open access volume addresses major challenges in research policy and provides advice on how to approach them. With chapters designed as accessible policy briefs, the book serves as an essential resource for new actors in research policy. It offers evidence-based recommendations on approaching research governance, funding, and evaluation challenges by covering these topics: Identifying and facilitating high quality research Evaluating transdisciplinary research quality Evaluating societal impact The dilemmas of grant peer review How citations relate to research quality Reforming research assessment The use of metrics in academic recruitment Quality criteria and concentration of research funding Balancing basic and external research funding Designing performance-based research funding systems Strategic steering of research at universities The consequences of paying to publish Each chapter combines research with practical advice and provides an overview of the state-of-the-art in research on the specific topic, as well as references for further reading.

The book New Approaches in Automation and Robotics offers in 22 chapters a collection of recent developments in automation, robotics as well as control theory. It is dedicated to researchers in science and industry, students, and practicing engineers, who wish to update and enhance their knowledge on modern methods and innovative applications. The authors and editor of this book wish to motivate people, especially under-graduate students, to get involved with the interesting field of robotics and mechatronics. We hope that the ideas and concepts presented in this book are useful for your own work and could contribute to problem solving in similar applications as well. It is clear, however, that the wide area of automation and robotics can only be highlighted at several spots but not completely covered by a single book.

Today, the software industry is regarded as one of the most creative and dynamic industries in the world. New, innovative products are constantly being launched, and known established paths for analogue solutions are being challenged and abandoned. Sheltering software through copyright and patent law has been a major point of contention for the past 40 years. A particular difficulty lies in determining the scope of protection in intellectual property law. While the legal framework is highly standardized through several multinational codes, its practical application differs significantly among the various jurisdictions. Economists and lawyers have tried to make the present protection system more balanced and at the same time more efficient. Unfortunately, these analyses often neglect the technical realities – the practicalities and needs of software developers and right holders. The discourse is frequently limited to one particular closed discipline. This doctoral thesis examines the rapidly changing and complex software development market and discusses some pressing legal issues. The aim is to analyse how computer programs are developed and commercialized nowadays, and to evaluate to what extent copyright and patent law are able to reflect these structures. Based on these conclusions, it is then explored what an optimal protection scope for computer programs could look like in copyright and patent law. In 12 expert interviews, technical in-house specialists were questioned about how software companies work today, how they proceed in developing their programs, how they commercialize them through sales and services, and to what extent they use legal measures to protect their software. The results of these qualitative interviews were then evaluated systematically and legally reintegrated. The main achievement of this thesis is to provide the necessary basic scientific research regarding how the software industry works today and how this might affect copyright and patent law. From a legal perspective, it offers novel insights and points of view on existing doctrines. Further, it acknowledges some prevailing trends in the software industry which have so far been largely unaddressed by copyright and patent law. It also discusses possible approaches to how these problems could be tackled in the future.