Open Access Books

The Software Product Line (SPL) is an emerging methodology for developing software products. Currently, there are two hot issues in the SPL: modelling and the analysis of the SPL. Variability modelling techniques have been developed to assist engineers in dealing with the complications of variability management. The principal goal of modelling variability techniques is to configure a successful software product by managing variability in domain-engineering. In other words, a good method for modelling variability is a prerequisite for a successful SPL. On the other hand, analysis of the SPL aids the extraction of useful information from the SPL and provides a control and planning strategy mechanism for engineers or experts. In addition, the analysis of the SPL provides a clear view for users. Moreover, it ensures the accuracy of the SPL. This book presents new techniques for modelling and new methods for SPL analysis.

This open access volume is the first academic book on the controversial issue of including spiritual care in integrated electronic medical records (EMR). Based on an international study group comprising researchers from Europe (The Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland), the United States, Canada, and Australia, this edited collection provides an overview of different charting practices and experiences in various countries and healthcare contexts. Encompassing case studies and analyses of theological, ethical, legal, healthcare policy, and practical issues, the volume is a groundbreaking reference for future discussion, research, and strategic planning for inter- or multi-faith healthcare chaplains and other spiritual care providers involved in the new field of documenting spiritual care in EMR. Topics explored among the chapters include: Spiritual Care Charting/Documenting/Recording/Assessment Charting Spiritual Care: Psychiatric and Psychotherapeutic Aspects Palliative Chaplain Spiritual Assessment Progress Notes Charting Spiritual Care: Ethical Perspectives Charting Spiritual Care in Digital Health: Analyses and Perspectives Charting Spiritual Care: The Emerging Role of Chaplaincy Records in Global Health Care is an essential resource for researchers in interprofessional spiritual care and healthcare chaplaincy, healthcare chaplains and other spiritual caregivers (nurses, physicians, psychologists, etc.), practical theologians and health ethicists, and church and denominational representatives.

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This Reprint showcases recent advances on heavy metal contamination across soil, water, sediments, air, and the food chain, with a focus on risks to ecosystems and human health as well as practical solutions. Contributors quantify exposure pathways and bioaccumulation, refine human health risk assessment, and link chemistry to biological effects using modern analytics and data-driven methods. Studies compare regulatory thresholds with real-world concentrations, highlight spatial and temporal monitoring strategies, and examine co-occurring stressors such as organic pollutants and microplastics. A major emphasis is on remediation and safe utilization. Papers evaluate physical removal, chemical stabilization, and emerging green technologies, including phytoremediation, microbial processes, engineered amendments, and circular approaches that recover resources while lowering toxicity. Case studies report field scale performance, life cycle considerations, and cost effectiveness, offering decision-ready evidence for practitioners and policy makers. Together, this Reprint provides a current, integrated view of heavy metal pollution and actionable routes to prevention, cleanup, and risk reduction.

This Special Issue focuses on the friction characteristics of bearings, carefully compiling 16 cutting-edge research studies. Through a research path combining experiments and simulations, this Special Issue explores the lubrication mechanism, performance optimization, and fault diagnosis of bearings under different working conditions. The papers cover a wide range of dimensions, from theoretical exploration to experimental verification, showcasing the latest developments in the field of bearing lubrication. The research covers various types, such as angular contact ball bearings, gas hydrostatic thrust bearings, cylindrical roller bearings, etc. Through advanced methods such as computational fluid dynamics, artificial neural networks, and mathematical models, the influence of nozzle position, biomimetic composite cavity structure, unbalanced estimation, and other factors on lubricant distribution, load-bearing capacity, and dynamic behavior was analyzed. In addition, attention was also paid to the power loss under oil lubrication, the improvement in friction characteristics and fatigue life by carbon nitrogen co-infiltration treatment, and the lubrication challenges of bearings under special conditions such as vacuum environments and ultra-low temperatures. These research results not only provide a scientific basis for bearing lubrication design but also contribute important findings that promote technological progress and industrial upgrades in related industries. This Special Issue aims to provide new insights and reflections for both the academic and industrial communities.

After stumbling upon a wooden box containing a complete set of miniature wax mold figurines of US presidents at a flea market, artist Alex Forman began photographing each little man, minus their pedestals. Presented for the first time in book format, Forman's elegant black and white portraits are accompanied by brief biographies composed entirely of appropriated texts cleverly cut and reassembled by the author. What emerges in Tall, Slim & Erect: Portraits of the Presidents is not the tired tale of legendary men and their mythical quest for democracy, but rather, a gossip's dream: Jefferson could not ride a horse for months due to boils on his backside; Hayes felt a crazed and tender devotion to his sister Fanny; Wilson remained a virgin until twenty-eight. While playfully shedding light on these powerful men, their quirks, bodily functions, and stained sheets, Tall, Slim & Erect ultimately asks the reader to question how history is written and built on hearsay, conjecture, rumor, and repetition.

The evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley (1887–1975) attempted to promote a “religion for the future,” which he would come to refer to as Transhumanism. Transhumanism was an attempt to unite a more traditional humanistic view of the human as containing some form of core essence or potential with an evolutionary point of view of humans as a work in progress. Before humans, natural selection had been responsible for the transformation of life. Through its ordering principles and through chance, it had given rise to humankind, which had ushered in a new phase of evolution. Humanity stood on the threshold of yet another critical point in evolution: The consciously purposive phase of evolution. This open access book explores the history of transhumanism by analyzing how Julian Huxley’s transhumanism develops and why it does at this particular point in time, by placing it firmly within the context of his specific scientific and sociopolitical milieu, starting roughly in the interwar years and stretching over the Second World War to the 1970s. Continuing, the study then focuses on the new transhumanists of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s and investigates continuity in mode of thinking, contributing to a more coherent understanding of transhumanism, its history and of modern projects of human enhancement. The book captures how scientific and technological development in relation to society and social order shapes images and expectations of the future and of what future is desirable.

George Sand inscrit la théâtralité au cœur de son œuvre. Elle explore les limites du théâtre et du roman comme elle interroge les frontières de l'être et du paraître. La théâtralisation de l'existence est chez elle l'obstacle à la rencontre sincère entre les êtres autant que le moyen d'inventer de nouvelles relations humaines. Si les travestissements vestimentaires de Sand ont pu évoquer une performance féministe avant l'heure, l'écrivaine a su créer des personnages chargés d'explorer tous les possibles du corps et de la voix, le plus souvent dans la pudeur et l'idéalisation, mais aussi dans le souci d'une critique sociale et d'un renouvellement des formes littéraires et artistiques. Le concept de performance permet d'interroger les stratégies esthétiques et les facettes dérangeantes des écritures sandiennes, dans leurs rapports au corps, au temps et à l'espace.

To tell the «chapters» of life of Giorgio La Pira (Pozzallo 1904-Florence 1977), we chose to follow a chronological order. Based on meticulous research and proposing extensive unpublished documentation, we describe the many commitments that – year after year – the Professor has found himself assuming and the various fields of his action, starting from his early years in Sicily. A very young university professor of Roman Law, intellectually engaged in the fight against fascism, constituent, parliamentarian, mayor, president of the World Federation of United Cities, La Pira has characterised his testimony in all these areas with fidelity to his deep faith and with concrete attention to the least, to the poor, to the defence of work, the right to housing, of social justice; and of the basic right to freedom and peace. For each year a summary of all the Professor’s activities is reported. The work is accompanied by over a thousand biographical cards and an extensive bibliography. A solid base to start new research from, and also a useful tool for reflection and study of the life and thoughts of Giorgio La Pira.

This reprint is devoted to fundamental and applied research in the field of implementing the principles of the circular economy in energy transition, and it substantiates the need for its transformation in the context of sustainable development. Of particular interest are promising areas for the use of secondary energy resources in the economy to create closed production cycles. Specific technologies are considered, and their environmental and economic assessments of scenarios for the introduction of low-carbon technologies in the circular economy, the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals through the introduction of a circular economy, and the development of regional cooperation are given. Particular attention is paid to the possibility of using eco-innovations for the national transition to decarbonization in the integrated European energy system, Green intellectual capital as a support for corporate environmental development, a sustainable value chain for the industrial consumption of biocomposites, and various options for programs to reduce CO2 emissions.

Der Zins-Pass-Through, also die Geschwindigkeit, mit der Geschäftsbanken einen Geldmarktimpuls an ihre Kunden weitergeben, ist aus zwei Gründen wirtschaftspolitisch relevant. Zum einen ist er eine wichtige Determinante für die Wirksamkeit der Geldpolitik, da er die erste Stufe der geldpolitischen Transmission darstellt. Zum anderen lässt er auf den Wettbewerb auf dem Bankenmarkt schließen. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird die Weitergabe von Zinsimpulsen in theoretischer, institutioneller und empirischer Hinsicht untersucht. Ein besonderes Augenmerk liegt dabei auf der Frage, ob sich Großbanken, Sparkassen, Kreditgenossenschaften und Regionalbanken in ihrer Reaktionsgeschwindigkeit unterscheiden. Dabei werden jeweils die Zinsen von vier Retail-Produkten geprüft. Zunächst wird der theoretische Rahmen der empirischen Messung entwickelt. Flankierend werden die aus der Literatur bekannten Determinanten des Zins-Pass-Through zusammengestellt. An ihnen orientiert werden die vier Institutsgruppen verglichen. Die empirische Analyse erfolgt im Rahmen eines Panel-Fehlerkorrekturmodells. Insgesamt zeigen die Schätzungen, dass Großbanken und Sparkassen fast gleich - und deutlich schneller als Regional- und vor allem Genossenschaftsbanken - auf Geldmarktimpulse reagieren. Erklärt werden kann dies durch institutionelle Unterschiede und die jeweilige Ausrichtung auf Geschäftsfelder und Kundengruppen. Bei den Sparkassen wären jedoch größere Ähnlichkeiten mit den Kreditgenossenschaften als mit den Großbanken zu vermuten gewesen. Die sofortige Anpassung der Hypothekenzinsen in allen untersuchten Bankengruppen kann als Hinweis darauf gelten, dass der Wettbewerb im deutschen Bankenmarkt grundsätzlich funktioniert, allerdings je nach Produkt in unterschiedlicher Intensität.

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This open access book addresses a question fundamental to the histories of empire and Africa: at the point of the colonial encounter, how was knowledge made? How did different communities, with little or no prior contact, construct meaning about one another? Amidst huge changes in the politics and economics of a continent, on the cusp of almost complete colonization at the hands of European powers at the end of the nineteenth century, how do the specifics of personality and contingency affect knowledge production? An obvious challenge in addressing this sort of question is the frequent lack of African-produced source material; here, we must work within the ‘archives of oppression’ and read both along and against the colonial grain in an attempt to restore African agency to this process of knowledge production. Drawing on the previously never-used diaries of explorer Frank Oates, who travelled throughout Matabeleland in the 1870s, the use of a single traveller’s experiences in detail affords us the means to consider the fine details of the interactions between Europeans and Africans. Therefore, this study seeks to enhance existing work on race and empire of the nineteenth century by asking: what place do the fragilities, uncertainties, and contingencies of encounters between individuals have in our understanding of how knowledge is made?

The term “Cyberlearning” is used in the United States to describe a community of researchers, largely funded by the US National Science Foundation, who are exploring the integration of computer science research with learning sciences research. The Cyberlearning community is parallel to the EC-TEL community and the purpose of this poster is to foster mutual engagement between the communities. The paper describes the origin of the term, the conception of the field, the kinds of research being conducted, and some of the exemplary projects. The paper will also introduce the Center for Innovative Research in Cyberlearning (CIRCL), which is the hub of the knowledge network (research community) for cyberlearning and hosts a useful collection of resources.