Open Access Books

The terrorist attacks of 9/11 plunged the United States into a determined counteroffensive against Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist network. This report details the initial U.S. military response to those attacks, namely, the destruction of al QaedaÂ's terrorist infrastructure and the removal of the ruling Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The author emphasizes several distinctive achievements in this war, including the use of precision air-delivered weapons that were effective irrespective of weather, the first combat use of Predator unmanned aerial vehicles armed with Hellfire missiles, and the integrated employment of high-altitude drones and other air- and space-based sensors that gave CENTCOM unprecedented round-the-clock awareness of enemy activity.

Neuronal function relies on the establishment of proper connections between neurons and their target cells during development. This basic statement involves several cellular processes, such as neuronal differentiation, the polarized outgrowth of axons and dendrites from differentiated neurons, and the pathfinding of axons towards target cells. The subsequent recognition of complementary synaptic partners finally triggers the formation, maturation, and maintenance of functional synapses. Morphogens are secreted signaling molecules commanding tissue patterning and cell identity during early embryonic development. Remarkably, growing evidence over the last years arising from different invertebrate and vertebrate model organisms has shown that, after cell fate has been established, morphogens also control the precise wiring and function in the developing and mature nervous system. Accordingly, dysfunctions of the signaling pathways activated by these molecules contribute to synaptic disassembly and altered function in diseases affecting the nervous system. We consider it timely to bring together cumulative evidence pointing to crucial roles for signaling activated by different morphogens in the establishment of precise contacts between neurons and their synaptic partners. Therefore, this research topic issue combines review and research articles aimed to cover the functional relevance of such morphogens on the different steps involved in synaptic assembly and function. Diverse model systems of physiological or pathological conditions have been included, as well as different cellular, biochemical and molecular approaches. Altogether, they contribute in different and complementary ways to build a holistic view of the roles that early development morphogens play during the assembly, maintenance and/or regeneration of functional synapses.

Reconhecendo as tensões, demandas e novas configurações que se apresentam para pensar o “ser mulher”, pesquisadoras de diferentes horizontes epistêmicos se reuniram nesta coletânea para alcançar, a partir de suas trajetórias individuais e estudos desenvolvidos, uma obra plural e convergente com a temática.

This book explores the human relationship with changing biodiversity. New animal and plant species arrive, and the ones previously existing may disappear. However, the historical and social perspectives of the matter have been understudied so far. The authors provide fresh insights into human-nature relations and explain why we need multidisciplinary approaches in order to fully understand their complexity.

Chemiebezogene Kompetenzen werden bereits im Sachunterricht der Grundschule entwickelt und sollen im Chemieunterricht der Sekundarstufe I aufgegriffen und weiterentwickelt werden. Ziel dieser Studie war es, die chemiebezogenen Kompetenzen der Schülerinnen und Schüler in der Übergangsphase zwischen Sachunterricht und Chemieunterricht zu analysieren. In einer Ergänzungsstudie wurden zusätzlich sowohl die Auswirkungen der Schulschließungen aufgrund der SARS-CoV-II Pandemie auf die Kompetenzen der Schülerinnen und Schüler als auch der Einfluss einer veränderten Testadministration untersucht. Insgesamt wurden die Kompetenzen von 2262 Lernenden der Jahrgangsstufen 5 bis 9 zu drei Messzeitpunkten analysiert. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die chemiebezogenen Kompetenzen sowohl zum Ende der Grundschulzeit als auch zu Beginn des Chemieunterrichts über alle Kompetenzbereiche hinweg sehr heterogen ausfallen. Dennoch sind sie zu Beginn des Chemieunterrichts in einigen Kompetenzbereichen höher ausgeprägt als zum Ende der Grundschulzeit. Nach den pandemiebedingten Schulschließungen waren die Kompetenzen ähnlich ausgeprägt wie in den gleichen Jahrgangsstufen vor den Schulschließungen. Eine während der Schulschließungen notwendige Bearbeitung der Testhefte von zu Hause aus führte vor allem bei den jüngeren Schülerinnen und Schülern zu besseren Testergebnissen als die Bearbeitung in der Schule. Um die Entwicklung chemiebezogener Kompetenzen in der Übergangsphase zu optimieren, sollte der Erwerb dieser Kompetenzen bereits im Sachunterricht einheitlicher gestaltet werden.

Erving Goffman was among the most prominent sociologists of the twentieth century. An unmatched observer of everyday human interaction, he has only grown in influence in the 45 years since his untimely 1980 death. We know surprisingly little about his life. Yves Winkin’s biography, translated from the French (D’Erving à Goffman: Une œuvre performée?, 2022, MkF éditions), is an elegantly written and deeply informed account of the sociologist’s life, by one of the world’s leading Goffman scholars. From Erving to Goffman reads Goffman’s life through his performances on stage, at the lectern, before an audience. Winkin treats the lecture—Goffman’s own conference talks, his writings on the lecture form, and even a lecture on the lecture—as a reflexive device to draw out how the Canadian-born Erving became Goffman the American sociologist. We learn how Goffman, the quintessential observer of performance in everyday life, performed himself into professional existence. In talk after talk, he managed the impressions he gave off with often-eccentric care. From Erving to Goffman is a biography in miniature, with an account of the scholar’s life joined to a collection of conference-vignettes from his visits around the world. It is a story of a sociologist made in performance, with photographers banned and appearances—on and off-stage—orchestrated. It is fitting that, in a book about self-exemplifying self-making, Winkin concludes with an eloquent account of his own decades-long project to write a full biography, still retracing Goffman’s steps forty years on. From Erving to Goffman, the latest installment in the Goffman in the Open series, is an unusually perceptive portrait-in-fragments of the sociologist who became Goffman.

In sub-Saharan Africa a number of national theatres were established from the 1950s onwards. Their construction involved British colonial administration, American philanthropy and Chinese development aid. While each history is particular, they share certain common experiences that can be read as an allegory of postcolonial history. This narrative is bracketed by the seemingly contradictory terms modular modernity and cultural heritage: modernity with its promise of the new, cultural heritage with its ideology of preservation. While apparently oppositional terms, they are in fact two points on a continuum of Western and Asian influence on the African continent. There is a direct through-line connecting modular modernity with cultural heritage discourse of the post-Cold War period. This chapter’s main example is the National Theatre in Uganda which can read as a test case of shifting discourses and agendas in the context of the Cultural Cold War and its long-term implications.

À peine avait-on annoncé le déclin de la famille que celle-ci revient au galop. Un temps, l’augmentation du nombre des divorces, la baisse du nombre des mariages et des naissances avaient laissé présager sa désagrégation. Or elle s’impose à nouveau dans le paysage de la société, mais sous des formes renouvelées parfois difficiles à cerner, et plus encore à nommer. En effet, grâce à l’allongement de la vie et à l’amélioration de la condition des retraités, trois voire quatre générations coexistent, ce qui renforce le rôle des réseaux familiaux, dont les fonctions sociales se développent et se diversifient. Sur un mode souterrain, qui s’oppose tant au discours démocratique qu’aux exigences technocratiques, cette influence se fait partout sentir : dans l’art ou la politique, pour l’emploi ou le logement. Pourtant, paradoxalement, la parenté est aussi de plus en plus souvent revendiquée, comme en témoignent l’engouement pour la généalogie, l’attachement à la maison de famille ou l’invention de nouvelles logiques parentales dans les familles “en kit”, recomposées. Attentifs à sa réémergence, des ethnologues et des sociologues dévoilent le rôle et le poids de cette parenté élargie, en soulignant l’importance de son rôle symbolique et social dans la société contemporaine.

What might one expect for the future of mobility in the United States in 2030? Mobility is defined as the ability to travel from one location to another, regardless of mode or purpose. RAND researchers used a six-step scenario development process to develop two thought-provoking scenarios that address this question. The six steps are (1) select influencing areas (domains that affect mobility directly; here, demographics, economics, energy, transportation funding and supply, and technology); (2) elicit projections on descriptors (via expert workshops); (3) integrate into scenario frameworks (using two analysis methods and a computer-based tool); (4) produce scenario narratives (based on the clusters produced by the tool); (5) draw consequences for future mobility (by estimating future growth in travel modes based on the projections); and (6) create wild-card scenarios (by looking at events that might disrupt trends). Three key drivers differentiate the resulting scenarios: the price of oil, the development of environmental regulation, and the amount of highway revenues and expenditures. In scenario 1, No Free Lunch, oil prices for consumers and business increase because of greenhouse gas–reduction legislation, and states and localities implement road pricing, which results in higher revenues. Mobility in this scenario is lower because of the higher costs of driving. Scenario 2, Fueled and Freewheeling, assumes that oil prices remain steady, no major environmental legislation is passed, and highway revenues decline, which results in generally higher mobility, especially miles driven. By making potential long-term mobility futures more vivid, the authors' aim is to help planners and policymakers at different levels of government and in the private sector better anticipate and prepare for change and, in the process, make better decisions now to affect the future of mobility in the United States.

À l'aube des temps modernes, les monarchies espagnole et française se profilent comme les deux plus puissantes d'Europe occidentale. Rivales, elles sont néanmoins liées par d'innombrables liens, politiques et culturels. La volonté de s'affirmer, tant à l'intérieur qu'à l'extérieur de leurs états, impose à leurs princes de s'appuyer sur des individus capables de rendre visible, voire présente, leur autorité et leur dignité. Les vice-rois hispaniques, comme les gouverneurs français, ont alors p...

Research in linguistics, as in most other scientific domains, is usually approached in a modular way – narrowing the domain of inquiry in order to allow for increased depth of study. This is necessary and productive for a topic as wide-ranging and complex as human language. However, precisely because language is a complex system, tied to perception, learning, memory, and social organization, the assumption of modularity can also be an obstacle to understanding language at a deeper level. This book examines the consequences of enforcing non-modularity along two dimensions: the temporal, and the cognitive. Along the temporal dimension, synchronic and diachronic domains are linked by the requirement that sound changes must lead to viable, stable language states. Along the cognitive dimension, sound change and variation are linked to speech perception and production by requiring non-trivial transformations between acoustic and articulatory representations.

In this book we have experts writing on various neuroscience topics ranging from mental illness, syndromes, compulsive disorders, brain cancer and advances in therapies and imaging techniques. Although diverse, the topics provide an overview of an array of diseases and their underlying causes, as well as advances in the treatment of these ailments. This book includes three chapters dedicated to neurodegenerative diseases, undoubtedly a group of diseases of huge socio-economic importance due to the number of people currently suffering from this type of disease but also the prediction of a huge increase in the number of people becoming afflicted. The book also includes a chapter on the molecular and cellular aspects of brain cancer, a disease which is still amongst the least treatable of cancers.

The concept of vectors is often difficult for students to grasp and tricky for teachers to tackle in class. Vectors are included in the mathematics and science syllabuses from the second year of general, technological and vocational secondary school. The concept of vectors stems from the intertwined histories of physics and mathematics, but are the same vectors taught in the physical sciences and mathematics in secondary schools? A cross-section of practices and concepts between general and vocational lycées is relevant. As is often the case, a look at history sheds light on and gives meaning to this teaching, and helps to answer the questions: where do vectors and the scalar product come from, and why were they invented?

The study focuses on the coevolution of visual media and the critical reorientation of postmodern historical novels. By establishing categories of analysis that combine narratological aspects with aporias of historiography, the added value of postmodern historical fiction in recourse to modes of visual representation and to attributions of photographic and filmic visuality is outlined. „Geschichte zerfällt in Bilder, nicht in Geschichten“ – so verwies Walter Benjamin bereits 1940 auf die Relevanz von Visualität für die Darstellung von Geschichte. Benjamin hat damit vorweggenommen, was sich in der Folge nicht nur zunehmend im wissenschaftlichen, sondern auch im literarischen Diskurs etabliert hat: Zwischen verschiedenen Medien können Varianten des Zusammenspiels bestehen und besonders die Darstellung vergangener Realität gewinnt durch den textuellen Rekurs auf Visualität an Aussagekraft. Für die Darstellung von Geschichte im postmodernen historischen Roman bietet der Rekurs auf Modi visueller Repräsentation und auf Zuschreibungsmerkmale fotografischer und filmischer Visualität einen signifikanten Mehrwert. Narratologische Aspekte sind bei der Analyse entsprechender Werke ebenso zu beachten wie deren Auseinandersetzung mit den Aporien der traditionellen Historiografie. In diesem Band wird ein hierauf zugeschnittenes Analyse- und Beschreibungsmodell vorgestellt.

Esta obra trata de : 1. Problemas fundamentales de la industrialización de México. 2. Evolución tecnológica e industrialización racional. 3. La industria de transformación. 4. La industria textil de México y la política económica del Estado de 1933 a 1943. La situación en 1944. Las perspectivas. 5. La industria química nacional