Open Access Books

The contributors to this volume explore the intertwined relationship of imagining and practicing from different fields of study (sociology, philosophy, literary and cultural studies), complementing practice and theoretical approaches with interdisciplinary insights into the entanglements of doings and imaginations. They build a bridge between sociological research and cultural studies and thus challenge perspectives which characterize imagining as an individual and solitary activity. Rather, imagining is situated and shaped by its placement in specific contexts and communities.

A Companion to Geoffrey of Monmouth brings together scholars from a range of disciplines to provide an updated scholarly introduction to all aspects of his work. Arguably the most influential secular writer of medieval Britain, Geoffrey (d. 1154) popularized Arthurian literature and left an indelible mark on European romance, history, and genealogy. Despite this outsized influence, Geoffrey’s own life, background, and motivations are little understood. The volume situates his life and works within their immediate historical context, and frames them within current critical discussion across the humanities. By necessity, this volume concentrates primarily on Geoffrey’s own life and times, with the reception of his works covered by a series of short encyclopaedic overviews, organized by language, that serve as guides to further reading.

Originated from the “Seminar on Human Rights and New Rights in Contemporaneity”, promoted by the Study Group “PACTO – Peace, Culture and Tolerance”, held on the premises of the Faculty of Philosophy and Sciences of the Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp), campus of Marília, in the city of Marília/SP, on May 4, 2018, this work aims to publish works of an academic-scientific nature on the fundamental theme of human rights and emerging rights in this contemporary era. Adds, among the authors who sign the chapters, researchers from different institutions of higher education, from various academic levels and from fun areas of humanistic knowledge, so that there is ample reflection and analysis of such themes of recognized national and international importance, notably with regard to human rights. The one that we presume to run through the articles is that contemporary society, in Brazil and around the world, undergoes numerous large-scale changes, in customs and values, which have an impact on the issue of rights, and, therefore, demand consideration and investigation. In this sense, New Rights in Contemporaneity, vol. I reveal the university fulfilling its role of stimulating reflection and discussion of themes with dual sexuality: academic-scientific and for society in general. Undoubtedly a rich, thought-provoking read. Whoever walks it carefully will reap tasty and valuable fruits.

The constant search for innovative magnetic materials increasingly leads to the creation of highly engineered systems built in different forms (films, wires, particles), structured on the nanoscale in at least one spatial direction, and often characterized by the coexistence of two or more phases that are magnetically and/or structurally different. In magnetic systems, the nanometric structural characteristics of the constituent elements, together with the type and strength of the magnetic interactions between them, determine the overall magnetic behavior and can lead to the appearance of unexpected and amazing magnetic phenomena. Indeed, the study of the magnetic properties of nanomaterials continues to arouse great interest for their intriguing fundamental properties and prospective technological applications. This Special Issue contributes to broadening the knowledge on magnetic nanomaterials, demonstrating the breadth and richness of this research field as well as the growing need to address it through an interdisciplinary approach. The papers collected in this book (two reviews and eight regular articles) report cutting-edge studies on the production and characterization of a variety of novel magnetic nanomaterials (nanoparticles, nanocomposites, thin films and multilayers), which have the potential to play a key role in different technologically advanced sectors, such as biotechnology, nanomedicine, energy, spintronics, data storage, and sensors.

This open access book empirically analyses the competences (input), moderators (process), and disclosure (output) of board chair succession practices for publicly listed organisations in Switzerland. As primus inter pares (Latin for first among equals), the chair of the board of directors holds a unique organisational position. For fulfilling the non-transferable duties pursuant to Article 716a revCO, it is essential that the chair is a person who has rational economic and socio-emotional skills. To date, however, it is unclear how organisations structure the search for a chairperson. On the one hand, this ambiguity arises from a legal perspective, as succession-related formal regulations (hard law) or best-governance principles (soft law) are rare and often lack specificity, and, on the other hand, from a business perspective, as there is a lack of sufficient attention and diligence. Previous research on board governance has primarily focused on the dyadic relationship between board composition and organisational performance (board effectiveness research). However, as board succession is a dynamic process, the research focus should go beyond a pure output/performance paradigm.

The Hedgehog signaling pathway is an evolutionarily conserved pathway that governs complex developmental processes, including stem cell maintenance, proliferation, differentiation, and patterning. Several recent studies have shown that the aberrant activation of Hedgehog signaling is associated with neoplastic transformation, cancer cell proliferation, metastasis, multiple cancers’ drug resistance, and survival rates. This book focuses on several aspects of Hedgehog signaling in organogenesis and the tumor microenvironment, and presents reviews and original papers on recent efforts in the field of Hedgehog signaling.

For the first time, this book provides the global history of labor in Central Eurasia, Russia, Europe, and the Indian Ocean between the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries. It contests common views on free and unfree labor, and compares the latter to many Western countries where wage conditions resembled those of domestic servants. This gave rise to extreme forms of dependency in the colonies, not only under slavery, but also afterwards in form of indentured labor in the Indian Ocean and obligatory labor in Africa. Stanziani shows that unfree labor and forms of economic coercion were perfectly compatible with market development and capitalism, proven by the consistent economic growth that took place all over Eurasia between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries. This growth was labor intensive: commercial expansion, transformations in agriculture, and the first industrial revolution required more labor, not less. Finally, Stanziani demonstrates that this world did not collapse after the French Revolution or the British industrial revolution, as is commonly assumed, but instead between 1870 and 1914, with the second industrial revolution and the rise of the welfare state.

Celem artykułu jest prezentacja teorii, która umożliwia wyjaśnienie obowiązywania prawa. Teoria ta nosi nazwę: konceptualizm prawniczy – ogólna teoria prawa. Opisywana teoria umożliwia wyjaśnienie obowiązywania prawa, jest również teorią wyjaśniającą istnienie zjawisk takich jak prawo i obowiązek. Pytanie o to, dlaczego obowiązuje prawo, powinno skutkować pytaniem o to, czym prawo jest. Już nawet tylko badanie empiryczne, np. badanie źródeł prawa lub aktów stosowania prawa, pozwala stwierdzić, że prawo jest pewnym systemem. Powstaje jednak natychmiast pytanie o to, czego systemem prawo jest. Co stanowi składowe tego systemu? I znów, badania empiryczne wskazują, że w przepisach czytamy zwykle o obowiązkach lub uprawnieniach, czasem o wolnościach. U źródeł badań leży moja nieufność co do trafności pozytywizmu, normatywizmu i prawa natury. Proponowana teoria stanowi nowe podejście do obowiązywania prawa i (po części) również do jego wykładni. Celem nie jest krytyka teorii zastanych. Teorie te krytykowane były, szczególnie bliska jest mi krytyka normatywizmu dokonana przez J. Wróblewskiego1. Wskazane teorie odrzucam nie tyle dlatego, że uważam, iż są one nietrafne, ale raczej dlatego, że mam wątpliwość, czy są trafne.

This book discusses the implications of the 2009 EU Commission’s Pharmaceutical Sector Inquiry on originator’s opportunities to apply Intellectual Property related measures in defending against generic competition. It argues that on the one hand recent developments in EU competition law do indeed impose potential limitations on an originator’s ability to block or delay generic market entry. On the other hand, the book calls for a differentiated assessment of the rather broad allegations made by the sector inquiry. The book thereby presents and thoroughly analyzes six key issues identified by the EU Commission in the inquiry’s final report: Blocking/defensive patenting, patent thickets, patent-related disputes and litigation, follow-on innovation, authorized generic entries and patent settlement agreements as well as interventions into generic marketing authorization. The analysis aims at reducing legal uncertainty by providing a clearer picture of legal boundaries between legitimate and problematic conduct under Arts. 101 and 102 TFEU. The book also puts the sector inquiry’s findings into a forward-looking perspective by highlighting industry trends with the potential to transform traditional originator and generic business models. The author studied economics and law, has gained substantial expertise about strategy development as a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry and currently leads strategic research management at a large life sciences public research organization in Germany.

For this book, the term "desalination" is used in the broadest sense of the removal of dissolved, suspended, visible and invisible impurities in seawater, brackish water and wastewater, to make them drinkable, or pure enough for industrial applications like in the processes for the production of steam, power, pharmaceuticals and microelectronics, or simply for discharge back into the environment. This book is a companion volume to "Desalination, Trends and Technologies", INTECH, 2011, expanding on the extension of seawater desalination to brackish and wastewater desalination applications, and associated technical issues. For students and workers in the field of desalination, this book provides a summary of key concepts and keywords with which detailed information may be gathered through internet search engines. Papers and reviews collected in this volume covers the spectrum of topics on the desalination of water, too broad to delve into in depth. The literature citations in these papers serve to fill in gaps in the coverage of this book. Contributions to the knowledge-base of desalination is expected to continue to grow exponentially in the coming years.

Published

Die historische Forschung erachtet die hof- und staatsnahe Historiographie der frühen Neuzeit als parteiisch, methodisch veralteten Modellen verpflichtet und im Bereich der Öffentlichkeit als dysfunktional und ineffizient. Zurecht? Die europäischen Höfe erzeugten in der Genealogie und im Zeremoniell für die Geschichtsschreibung systemrelevantes historisches Wissen. Über Hof- und Staatshistoriker konnten Geschichtsbilder" entworfen werden, die im nationalen wie übernationalen Rahmen durchaus Erfolg hatten. Gerade die offiziöse Geschichtsschreibung erweist sich als präzises Meßinstrument für die Verfaßtheit der jeweiligen Öffentlichkeit. Aufschlußreich sind zudem die Strategien und Investitionen der Regierungen im Bereich der historischen Repräsentation. Es wird deutlich, daß die Geschichtsschreibung auch eine vielseitige Vermittlerin von politischen, ästhetischen und wissenschaftlichen Programmen war. Somit wirkt sie nicht nur bei der Artikulation eines gesamteuropäischen Geschichtsraumes mit, sie fordert auch zur Suche nach Parallelphänomenen in außereuropäischen Gesellschaften auf."

The field of application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) is fast-paced being at the very forefront of modern nanoscale fabrication—and presents a deeply engaging career path. ASICs can provide us with high-speed computation in the case of digital circuits. For example, central processing units, graphics processing units, field-programmable gate arrays, and custom-made digital signal processors are examples of ASICs and the transistors they are fabricated from. We can use that same technology—complementary metal-oxide semiconductor processes—to implement high-precision sensing of or interfacing to the world through analog-to-digital converters, digital-to-analog converters, custom image sensors, and highly integrated micron-scale sensors such as magnetometers, accelerometers, and microelectromechanical machines. ASIC technologies—now transitioning toward magneto-resistive and phase-changing materials—also offer digital memory capacities that have aided our technological progress. Combining these domains, we have moved toward big data analytics and the new era of artificial intelligence and machine learning. This book provides a small selection of chapters covering aspects of ASIC development and the surrounding business model.

This book presents recent research on risk management in the construction industry. It consists of eight chapters, each of which contains valuable information on specified areas of risk management engineering. Topics addressed include identifying, analyzing, assessing, controlling, and monitoring risk for planning and construction stages; risk management methods used in the construction industry and case studies; risk management for buildings, dams, highways, railways, nuclear power plants, underground structures, energy facilities, and their appurtenant structures. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the latest information in risk management in the construction industry.