Open Access Books

This book presents perspectives of the virtual world in the sphere of cultural heritage presentations in the museum environment. Virtual reality can be used in museums to not only present and educate but also help to protect cultural heritage assets for future generations.

International migration, particularly to Europe, has increased in the last few decades, making research on aspects of this phenomenon, including numbers, challenges, and successes, particularly vital. This Special Issue highlights this necessary and relevant area of research. It presents 37 articles including studies on diverse topics relating to the health of refugees and migrants. Most articles (28) present studies focusing on European host countries. The focus on Europe is justified if we take into consideration the increased number of refugees and migrants who have come to Europe in recent years. However, there are also articles which present studies from countries in other continents. The topics discussed in the Issue include healthcare utilization, infectious diseases, mother and child health, mental health, and chronic diseases. Finding from the included articles indicate that further development of guidelines and policies at both local and international levels is needed. Priorities must be set by encouraging and funding in-depth research that aims to evaluate the impact of existing policies and interventions. Such research will help us formulate recommendations for the development of strategies and approaches that improve and strengthen the integration of migrants and refugees into the host countries.

The current volume is dedicated to the inherently heterogeneous nature of language(s) as seen from the perspective of variationist linguistics and contact linguistics, which became established and internationally recognized sub-disciplines of (socio)linguistics during the latter half of the 20th century. Over the last few years, each paradigm has broadened the spectrum of the topics under investigation considerably, but there has not yet been an extensive and satisfactory exchange between the two scientific fields named. The present volume aims at giving an insight into the complex synergy between occurring linguistic contact constellation, on the one hand, and variation in the parlance, on the other hand.

Profile haben Konjunktur. Seit der Verbreitung von Social Networking Sites sind sie alltäglicher Ort der Selbstdarstellung. Doch die Praktiken und Techniken der Profilierung sind keineswegs neu. Schon lange beschreiben Profile potentielle StraftäterInnen. Nun bestimmen sie auch die potentielle Kreditwürdigkeit. Im Spannungsfeld zwischen Profil und Profilierung nehmen die Beiträge aus Medienwissenschaft, Soziologie, Geschichtswissenschaft und Informatik die vielschichtigen Dimensionen dieses zentralen Phänomens der digitalen Medienkultur in den Blick: Wie verändern sich Bedeutung und Bewertung des Profil-Begriffs? Wie stehen Profile in Zusammenhang mit Subjektivierung und Machtkonstellationen? Welche Wechselwirkungen zwischen Profilen und Privatheit sind gegenwärtig relevant?

The pictorial narrative of the Boer pioneers who conquered South Africa’s interior during the ‘Great Trek’ (1835-52) represents a crucial period of South Africa’s past. Forming the concept of the frieze both reflected on and contributed to the country’s socio-political debates in the 1930s and 1940s when it was made. The frieze is unique in that it provides rare evidence of the complex processes followed in creating a major monument. Based on unpublished documents, drawings and models, these processes are unfolded step by step, from the earliest discussions of the purpose and content of the frieze through all the stages of its design to its shipping to post-war Italy to be copied into marble and final installation in the Monument. The book examines how visual representation transforms historical memory in what it chooses to recount, and the forms in which it depicts this. It also investigates the active role the Monument played in the development of apartheid, and its place in post-apartheid heritage.

Philosophy sees two trends which position the self, or the mind, as exceeding beyond the typically accepted boundaries. Firstly – as the feeling of oneness with all being, the universe, nature or God, known through different cultures and ages. Romain Rolland called this the “oceanic feeling” and considered it the basis of spirituality. Secondly – as a series of more recent concepts, with a very broad understanding of the mind inclusive of some elements of the surroundings (Extended Mind Theory, the concept of embodied embedded mind, enactivism). Those two trends differ in their approach, origin and method. The oceaning feeling is very personal, felt rather than conceived, affecting the experience of one’s existence. Whereas the aforementioned concepts are objectified, they examine the mind externally, considering rational arguments and neuroscientific testimony. Despite these differences though, both trends focus on similar issues. What is interesting, the gradual radicalisation of the different concepts of an extended mind seems to follow similar stages as the gradual broadening of the sense of self in some types of meditative practice.

Type 2 diabetes is a complex metabolic disorder caused by several pathophysiologic mechanisms that affect about 10% percent of the global population. This book provides a comprehensive overview of this chronic clinical entity, focusing on early clinical signs and laboratory markers, risk of complications, and modalities for effective management. It includes fifteen chapters that address such topics as managing diabetes using lifestyle adaptation, physical exercise, metformin, incretin, or insulin preparations, gliflozins, complementary or alternative medication, or neurostimulation. Chapters also discuss gestational diabetes and diabetes in older age.

Today, thin films are near-ubiquitous and are utilised in a very wide range of industrially and scientifically important areas. These include familiar everyday instances such as anti-reflective coatings on ophthalmic lenses, smartphone optics, photovoltaics, decorative, and tool coatings. A range of somewhat more exotic applications also exists, such as astronomical instrumentation (e.g., ultra-low loss dielectric mirrors and beam splitters in gravitational wave detectors, such as laser interferometer gravitational-wave observatory (LIGO)), gas sensing, medical devices and implants, and accelerator coatings (e.g., coatings for the large hadron collider (LHC), and compact linear collider (CLIC) experiments at European organization for nuclear research (CERN)). This Special Issue will provide a platform for researchers working in any area within this highly diverse field to share and exchange their latest research findings. The Special Issue contains novel studies encompassing material characterisation techniques, a range of thin-film coating deposition processes and applications of such technology.

In the fields of management and organization, there is an ongoing debate about different ontological assumptions about people in and around organizations, and the dangers of self-fulling prophecies, i.e., the phenomena in which unsubstantiated, unethical, or dysfunctional assumptions about people can lead to adverse practical consequences. This open access book advances this debate, but in a self-reflexive direction, asking: Who do we, as scholars in the fields of management and organization, think we are? What ontological assumptions about ourselves do we live by? Do we think we are something “special”, a 'Homo Academicus', distinctively separated from the life-world of managers and employees but linked with other academics such as, say, philosophers and sociologists? If so, what are the consequences and implications of such assumptions? Part of the popular Palgrave Debates in Business and Management series, each of the chapters disclose, problematize, and criticize different ontological assumptions about 'Homo Academicus' that underpins research in the fields of management and organization. It will be of great interest to management and organization scholars and students, as well as those with a broader interest in methodology and critical studies.

Im Bauwesen wurde Mitte der 90er Jahre begonnen, singuläre Gestaltungsprinzipien und Methoden der Lean Production zu adaptieren sowie neue bauspezifische Methoden zu entwickeln (Lean Construction). In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden die bisweilen einzeln betrachteten Methodenbausteine zu einem Ganzheitlichen Produktionssystem Modell für Bauproduktions-Unternehmen zusammengeführt und vervollständigt. Dieses Bau-PSM ist ein Ordnungsrahmen für die Transformation in ein ""leanes"" Bauunternehmen.

Il contributo ripercorre la lunga esperienza di Giovanni Cherubini nell’Università di Firenze, dal tempo della sua tesi di laurea in Storia medievale con Ernesto Sestan nel 1961 sino al suo collocamento a riposo nel 2009, e oltre. Un arco di quasi mezzo secolo in cui l’Università di Firenze ha dato molto a Giovanni Cherubini, ma molto di più ha ricevuto in cambio, grazie alla sua attività scientifica.

Both in his novels, such as Illazioni su una sciabola (1984), Un altro mare (1991) and Alla cieca (2005), and in his travel writing, such as Danubio (1986), Microcosmi (1997) and L’infinito viaggiare (2005), Claudio Magris outlined a poetics of space that questions about the diachronic depth and the narrative meaning of places. The essay examines the topic of travel in Magris’ work, as a means of metaliterary exploration, in order to reflect on the sense of history and on the identity of the writing subject.

This open access book provides an overview of the work developed within the SODALITE project, which aims at facilitating the deployment and operation of distributed software on top of heterogeneous infrastructures, including cloud, HPC and edge resources. The experts participating in the project describe how SODALITE works and how it can be exploited by end users. While multiple languages and tools are available in the literature to support DevOps teams in the automation of deployment and operation steps, still these activities require specific know-how and skills that cannot be found in average teams. The SODALITE framework tackles this problem by offering modelling and smart editing features to allow those we call Application Ops Experts to work without knowing low level details about the adopted, potentially heterogeneous, infrastructures. The framework offers also mechanisms to verify the quality of the defined models, generate the corresponding executable infrastructural code, automatically wrap application components within proper execution containers, orchestrate all activities concerned with deployment and operation of all system components, and support on-the-fly self-adaptation and refactoring.

Migration patterns are usually very complex. In addition to traditional immigration, there are various forms of multi-directional and multiple temporary migrations as well as cross-border life references of all kinds. Individual migration projects and the associated integration orientations also change over time. This results in major challenges for those involved in local integration management. Using the example of various groups of migrants from Romania and Bulgaria, their expectations and needs are presented, the close connection between migration orientations and integration is explained and suggestions are made for differentiated integration management in the municipalities of arrival and origin.

The game is on. Do you know how to play? Game theory sets out to explore what can be said about making decisions which go beyond accepting the rules of a game. Since 1942, a well elaborated mathematical apparatus has been developed to do so; but there is more. During the last three decades game theoretic reasoning has popped up in many other fields as well - from engineering to biology and psychology. New simulation tools and network analysis have made game theory omnipresent these days. This book collects recent research papers in game theory, which come from diverse scientific communities all across the world; they combine many different fields like economics, politics, history, engineering, mathematics, physics, and psychology. All of them have as a common denominator some method of game theory. Enjoy.