Open Access Books

The concept of the literary canon is one of the most debated and controversial in the western intellectual tradition. This book offers ten contributions by Italian scholars of Anglo-American culture addressing the way in which the concept of the literary canon holds out against areas traditionally considered as external or extraneous to it. The essays range over different topics: the etymological analysis of the term "canon"; the relations between canon and performativity; paraliterature – a universe populated by non-hierarchic genres; the relations between post-colonial literature and the canon; postmodern biofiction; studies on translation and finally gay and lesbian literature. The book ends with a meditation on the innovations wrought on the Anglo-American canon by the virtual world of Internet and with a reading proposal originating from a different area of literary studies. Taken as a whole, the intention of the book is to pave the way to democratisation and pluralism in literary studies, going beyond the limitations set by the traditional scale of values of the "western canon". It proposes a frequentation of the geographical and cultural borderlines and hence of the areas of resistance that such borderlines pose to the dominant conceptual hierarchies within and around us, enabling us to glimpse an original future for literature and for western culture in a broader sense.

Marine management requires approaches which bring together the best research from the natural and social sciences. It requires stakeholders to be well-informed by science and to work across administrative and geographical boundaries, a feature especially important in the inter-connected marine environment. Marine management must ensure that the natural structure and functioning of ecosystems is maintained to provide ecosystem services. Once those marine ecosystem services have been created, they deliver societal goods as long as society inputs its skills, time, money and energy to gather those benefits. However, if societal goods and benefits are to be limitless, society requires appropriate administrative, legal and management mechanisms to ensure that the use of such benefits do not impact on environmental quality, but instead support its sustainable use.

Étudier le financement et la logistique des croisades revient à s’intéresser aux moyens dont disposent les puissances civiles et ecclésiastiques, au Moyen Âge, pour venir à bout d’une entreprise complexe, qui doit être portée dans la durée et en concertation avec des partenaires qui souvent, sur d’autres terrains, sont concurrents, voire ennemis. D’une certaine manière, parce qu’elle touche à la question des finances royales ou pontificales et à celle des moyens militaires, terrestres et maritimes dont disposent les princes et les cités, la problématique du présent volume n’est pas sans rapport avec celle, ô combien féconde depuis plus d’une trentaine d’années, de la genèse de l’État « moderne ». Mais l’ouvrage en donne un aperçu en grande partie inédit. À travers une série de cas choisis dans toute l’Europe, les auteurs s’attachent à analyser la mise en œuvre pratique de l’esprit pragmatique et de la pensée administrative qui habitent les entrepreneurs de croisade à la fin du Moyen Âge. Il s’agit d’une réhabilitation : l’historiographie traditionnelle a souvent considéré les croisades tardives comme de simples rêveries passéistes ou comme des leurres destinés à influencer le cours des discussions diplomatiques entre souverains chrétiens. En dépit des tentatives avortées et de quelques sanglants échecs, elles appellent un tout autre jugement et une reconsidération : les contributions réunies ici témoignent des limites mais aussi de l’ambition des opérations déployées, à la fin du Moyen Âge, au nom de la défense de la chrétienté.

La France est souvent représentée comme « le pays de la littérature ». C'est pourquoi, si le volume retient du cliché « l'exception française » la notion culturelle, il privilégie l'exception dans les formes littéraires. La perspective générale du volume fait apparaître les deux dominantes. Une première partie, « Histoire, imaginaire », développe la relation entre histoire et société, exception nationale et culture. La seconde, « Littérature », s'attache aux oeuvres modernes et contemporai...

When we think about equality in the city, we are very likely to think first of the wide and growing divide between rich and poor, in material terms. Yet when we think more about a 'city of equals' it becomes apparent that how people feel treated by the city and those around them, and whether they can live according to their values, are much more central. Accordingly, combining their own reflections, a multi-disciplinary literature review, and, distinctively, more than 180 interviews in 10 cities in 6 countries, Wolff and de Shalit have derived an account of a city of equals based on the idea that it should give each of its city-zens a secure sense of place or belonging. Four underlying values structure this account. First, access to the goods and services of the city should not be based purely on the market. Second, each person should be able to live a life they find meaningful. Third, there should be diversity and wide social mixing. Fourth, there should be 'non-deferential inclusion': each person should be able to get access to what they are entitled to without being treated as less worthy than others. They should be able to enjoy their rights without bowing and scraping, waiting longer than others, or going through special bureaucratic hurdles. In sum, in a city of equals each person is proud of their city and has the (justified) feeling that their city is proud of (people like) them.

Entre fascination et peur, enthousiasme et hostilité, la nouvelle migration chinoise questionne. Les travaux sur « la Chine en Afrique » ont occulté l'importance de l'émergence de la Chine pour ses voisins les plus proches. Cette omission est particulièrement flagrante dans le cas de l'Asie du Sud-Est qui a toujours été le principal théâtre des engagements commerciaux de la Chine avec le monde. Considérée comme l'arrière-cour naturelle de la Chine, l'Asie du Sud-Est est un laboratoire complexe et hétérogène des circulations et des identités en construction à l'aube du « siècle chinois ». La question des relations entre la Chine et le reste du monde est tantôt pensée en termes de domination, de menace, d'exploitation, et de soutien aux régimes autoritaires, tantôt en termes d'aubaine et d'opportunités de développement. Cette recherche propose de dépasser cette approche binaire en décrivant les stratégies mises en œuvre par les acteurs locaux pour atténuer l'inégalité des rapports de force, négocier l'asymétrie, contourner l'hégémonie, embrasser, résister ou manipuler les termes dictés par les capitaux chinois. Le présent Carnet, centré sur les pays de l'ancienne Indochine française - le Cambodge, le Viêt Nam et le Laos - constitue la première étape d'un projet éditorial plus large qui se donne pour ambition de relever ce défi.

This open access book offers a thorough examination of the most important ac­tor in schooling children from the Indigenous Sámi during the nineteenth century, namely the Swedish Missionary Society (SMS). In the late 1830s, the SMS created its first schools for Sámi children and youth in small rural villages in the northern inlands of Sweden. The missionary schools enrolled several thousand children in the approximately eighty-year-period they operated, for many decades being the predominant school for the Sámi. The impulse behind the creation of the SMS came from evangelical move­ments such as British Methodism, which helped to initiate the Stock­holm-based society in 1835, and aided the startup of a school in the Swed­ish colony of Saint-Barthélemy in the West Indies. The society was supported by private donations, as well as financial aid and supervision from the Swedish Evangelical-Lutheran state church. It kept in operation between five to ten schools and or­phanages until the so-called ‘nomadic school’ reform in 1913, when the mission­ary schools were either shut down, modified to become Swedish primary schools, or subsumed under the new and expanding state-governed nomadic school sys­tem. By examining school practice aimed at Sámi pupils in Sweden, this book provides valuable insights into the overall organisation and curriculum of the mis­sionary schools, their ideological driving forces, and their relation to global devel­opments and the ongoing formation of the Swedish primary school sys­tem. Such knowledge helps deepen our understanding of the long-term organisation of Sámi education in Sweden, and more broadly within the Nordic countries. Through its analysis, this book seeks to develop the history of missionary educa­tion, as well as research into settler colonial and Indigenous schooling.

Graphene is proving to be the magic material of the 21th century. It is widely accepted that it is the strongest material ever studied and can be an efficient substitute for silicon. Besides, fascinating properties of graphene, such as the highest electrical conductivity among the discovered substances, have dramatically shocked science and technology world. Graphene is a carbon based layer with high atomic density. Its extraordinary characteristics such as extremely high mechanical strength, hardness, and adjustable thermal and electrical conductivity, as well as excellent surface and optical feature through chemical marking, have received great deal of attention by many researchers. This book collects new advances of this interesting nanomaterial.

Solid oxide fuel cells offer great prospects for the sustainable, clean and safe conversion of various fuels into electrical energy. In this thesis, the performance-determining loss processes for the cell operation on reformate fuels are elucidated via electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Model-based analyses reveal the electrochemical fuel oxidation mechanism, the coupling of fuel gas transport and reforming chemistry and the impact of fuel impurities on the degradation of each loss process.

This Reprint brings together a curated selection of recent studies investigating the role of dietary supplements and naturally derived bioactive compounds in supporting human health. The contributions examine both potential benefits and safety considerations, with particular attention to mechanisms of action, interactions with physiological and pathological processes, and implications for clinical or functional applications. The articles encompass a broad spectrum of topics, including plant extracts with estrogen-like activity for the management of menopausal symptoms; myo-inositol supplementation for anxiety; epigenetic alterations induced by high-fat diets, highlighting EZH2 as a potential pharmacological target in metabolic dysfunction; and a comprehensive evaluation of the composition, bioaccessibility, pharmacokinetic interactions, and cellular effects of berberine-containing botanicals. Additional studies explore the therapeutic potential of purple corn extract in dry eye disease and the antiadipogenic activity of Euscaphis japonica fruit extract in models of adipocyte differentiation. Two further contributions investigate the impact of natural compounds in humans, examining the effect of mulberry fruit extract on postprandial glycemia in individuals with type 2 diabetes and the influence of lutein supplementation—both in free and esterified forms—on visual outcomes in healthy subjects. Together, these studies offer an integrated perspective on the opportunities and limitations of dietary supplements, underscoring the need for rigorous experimental and clinical approaches to assess their efficacy safety in human health.

The article deals with wordgraphy in the Polish book art for children (compositions employing equally important words and images). The starting point of the study is the analysis of the books created in the 1930s by a couple of avant-garde artists, Franciszka and Stefan Themerson. It was only the last two decades that have seen a creative continuation of the verbo-visual concepts and artistic intuitions of the pair. In the second part of the article the author analyses different wordgraphic compositions by contemporary writers and illustrators: Iwona Chmielewska, Aleksandra (Machowiak) Mizielińska and Daniel Mizieliński, Ola (Aleksandra) Cieślak, Grażka (Grażyna) Lange.

One of the most significant global events in the last forty years has been the rise of China— economically, technologically, politically, and militarily. The question on people's minds for decades has been whether China will replace the United States as a superpower in the near future. But for China, this power must be comprehensive — having strong economic and militant forces are only two pieces of the puzzle. China must also possess soft power, such as attractive ideologies, values, and culture. China as Number One? explores China’s soft powers through the eyes of Chinese citizens. Utilizing data from the World Values Survey, the contributors to this collection analyze the potential soft power of a rising China by examining its residents' social values. A comprehensive study of changes and continuities in the political and social values of Chinese citizens, the book examines findings in the context of evolutionary modernization theory and cross-national comparison.

Monografia dotyczy roli informacji oraz wiedzy rynkowej i marketingowej w zarządzaniu organizacją. Cechą współczesnego otoczenia biznesu jest niepewność i złożoność, a przedsiębiorstwa, chcąc ograniczyć wzrost ryzyka związanego z prowadzeniem działalności gospodarczej, muszą posiadać sprawny system pozyskiwania informacji i przekształcania ich w wiedzę. Funkcję wspierającą procesy zarządcze w organizacji pełni m.in. Market Intelligence - praktyczny program działań, umożliwiający skuteczne pozyskiwanie informacji o rynku i jego uczestnikach. Publikacja ma charakter teoretyczno-empiryczny. Autorzy, opierając się na studiach literaturowych oraz wynikach badań empirycznych przeprowadzonych w przedsiębiorstwach, wyjaśniają istotę i określają rolę Market Intelligence w generowaniu użytecznej wiedzy na potrzeby wsparcia decyzji menedżerskich we współczesnych organizacjach. Książka jest adresowana do pracowników nauki zajmujących się zarządzaniem wiedzą oraz nowymi technologiami, a także do przedstawicieli praktyki gospodarczej. Może być również wykorzystywana w dydaktyce, na różnych poziomach studiów, w ramach przybliżania problematyki dotyczącej zarządzania wiedzą, badań rynkowych i marketingowych.

Land degradation which is caused by multiple forces—extreme weather conditions and anthropogenic activities that pollute or degrade the quality of soils and land utility—negatively affects food production, livelihoods, and the provision of other ecosystem goods and services. Land degradation can also lead to climate change and affect human health. The problem is more pronounced in least developing countries due to overdependence of natural resources for survival. Sustainable ways to reduce land degradation and desertification demand research and advocacy of sustainable land management practices. This book is organized into two sections. The first section covers three major aspects, viz., an understanding of patterns of land degradation and desertification for developing mitigation strategies, land-atmosphere interaction from response of land cover to climate change effects of Karst rocky desertification, and the effect of unprecedented human activity into land degradation and desertification processes using natural and human-induced landscape research. The last section dwells on the relationship between soil degradation and crop production and an examination on how land degradation impacts the quality of soil in communal rangelands. Environmentalists, land-use planners, ecologists, pedologists, researchers, and graduate students will find this book to be an essential resource.

The monograph pays attention to the problems and prospects of innovative development of the road and transport complex. In Ukraine, the road and transport complex is classified as a priority system. And taking into account its key role in the defense of the state, the need to carry out scientific developments and practical recommendations for the development of the road and transport system as a whole is becoming urgent. Factors affecting the transport infrastructure of the area and the economic consequences of their implementation have been systematized, and a system of management of the transport infrastructure has been developed. The stages of formation and implementation of entrepreneurial strategies, which determine the sustainable innovative development of road and railway transport enterprises, have been developed. The methodical approach to the development of the list of indicators of preventive anti-crisis management of the road enterprise has been improved thanks to the comprehensive consideration of the results of the study of the quantitative and qualitative composition of the indicators of the CVP analysis. The personnel management system of the motor vehicle enterprise has been formed on the basis of a holistic approach, and a methodology for assessing the effectiveness of the enterprise's personnel control was proposed, which helps to identify the weakest points in the existing control system. In order to determine the objects of innovative activity, the urgency and timeliness of the application of functional-cost analysis has been proven. In order to achieve an economic and ecological effect in defined strategy improve cars for earthy road construction works. The proposed theoretical, methodological and applied aspects of the development of the road and transport complex are of theoretical and practical interest for scientists, entrepreneurs and state administration bodies.