Open Access Books

Il volume raccoglie una serie di contributi presentati nel convegno omonimo svoltosi presso il Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici dell’Università Ca’ Foscari nell’ottobre 2014; in essi si affronta il tema della rappresentazione dell’alterità negli scritti di autori e autrici del XIX e XX secolo. Il carattere poliedrico e sfaccettato della letteratura di viaggio assume in questa raccolta particolare pregnanza: i saggi, dal carattere marcatamente interdisciplinare, si incentrano infatti sia su testi attribuibili alla letteratura odeporica nell’accezione più tradizionale del termine, sia su opere che ricorrono alla nozione di viaggio in senso metaforico. Attraversa l’intera raccolta il tentativo di discutere e problematizzare il rapporto, talvolta controverso, con ciò che viene considerato l’altro da sé, a partire da una eterogeneità di voci e punti di vista.

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Historical and political analysis of the Chilean cycle 1968-1988, an era that marked the outstanding of contemporary Chilean society

This book on gestational diabetes does not claim to cover all aspects of this complex and ever-evolving medical condition. It is an attempt by the group of authors to provide an overview, highlight important features, and bring to light certain recent advances in the diagnosis, screening, and understanding of gestational diabetes mellitus. As the book provides an overview of the condition, we are sure that reading it would provide medical undergraduates and postgraduates a quick revision for their exams. The current concepts section of the book may inspire more exploration into this area.It has been a pleasure to work with experts, both senior and junior, for this endeavor but we are particularly grateful to the publisher IntechOpen who have shown commitment and perseverance in completing this work. This new book deserves to be a success and we are sure it will be.

Workplace injuries happen every day and can profoundly affect workers, their families, and the communities in which they live. This textbook is for workers and students looking for an introduction to injury prevention on the job. It offers an extensive overview of central occupational health and safety (OHS) concepts and practices and provides practical suggestions for health and safety advocacy. Foster and Barnetson bring the field into the twenty-first century by including discussions of how precarious employment, gender, and ill-health can be better handled in Canadian OHS. Although they address the gendered and racialized dimensions of new work processes and structures in contemporary workplaces, Foster and Barnetson contend that the practice of occupational health and safety can only be understood if we acknowledge that workers and employers have conflicting interests. Who identifies what workplace hazards should be controlled is therefore a product of the broader political economy of employment and one that should be well understood by those working in the field.

There are almost 10,000 shopping centres in Europe, and in the United States there are over 100,000, many of which have entered the end-of-life phase due to growing e-retail. Therefore, the issue of how customers perceive the value of these facilities and customer engagement in the relationship with the shopping centre is becoming increasingly important. In this book, the authors evaluate the relationship between the perceived value of a shopping centre and customer engagement by identifying consumer motives, purchase behaviour and responsiveness to marketing strategies. It offers an analysis of the conceptualisation and history of shopping centres and utilises both theoretical and empirical research, presenting results from extensive studies and building a framework for value creation in retail spaces. The book will find a wide audience among scholars interested in marketing and retail management. The practical implications discussed will also provide further research opportunities and insights for astute practitioners.

Le colloque ArCoGE, qui s’est tenu les 26 et 27 septembre 2019, a permis de faire le point sur l’état et les conditions de la recherche en archéologie du bâti en région Grand Est. Une soixantaine d’acteurs et partenaires de l’archéologie (universités, SRA, collectivités territoriales, Inrap, architectes) s’étaient ainsi donné rendez-vous, à Nancy, à la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme de Lorraine.Les actes du colloque présentés ici regroupent les articles des différents auteurs selon trois thématiques. La première, « Enjeux, méthodes et techniques de l’archéologie de la construction », rappelle les cadres légaux et les dernières avancées méthodologiques dans la région. Cette thématique reste essentielle au renouvellement des questionnements formulés sur les bâtiments non seulement pour leur compréhension, mais également pour offrir de nouveaux arguments de réflexion aux professionnels de la restauration et de la conservation du patrimoine.En second lieu, « Les usages du bois » illustrent l’importance de ce matériau tant dans la construction médiévale que dans la compréhension d’édifices quelquefois très transformés. Si la recherche en ce domaine reste tournée vers les techniques d’assemblage et de mise en œuvre, les questions afférentes aux réseaux d’approvisionnement, aux provenances, aux transports sont maintenant posées. La part des données archéométriques est prépondérante dans cette évolution, mettant en évidence les données relatives aux essences, et les modalités de gestion des populations forestières.Le troisième thème s’intitule « La pierre et le chantier ». Impossible en effet d’ignorer le matériau pierre, qui est la plupart du temps le seul encore présent dans les édifices. Il doit être redécouvert sans cesse, à la lumière des avancées méthodologiques, des évolutions historiographiques et des opportunités d’investigation. L’objectif est ici de montrer que les considérations inhérentes au chantier de construction lui-même commencent peu à peu à être prises en compte dans les opérations archéologiques.Ces contributions sont, espère-t-on, les témoins des passerelles qui commencent à se cimenter, en vue d’une meilleure synergie entre les différents acteurs de l’archéologie, lors des interventions de terrain comme dans la législation ou dans la définition de programmes-cadres de la recherche sur la construction.

Cardiovascular disease is the main cause of death in the West, and vascular disease is the most common cardiovascular clinical problem. The disease results in serious morbidity and mortality, and carries economic cost implications. While conventional risk factors are well established, and their biomarkers regularly monitored, patients may continue to suffer subclinical active disease, even in the absence of risk factors, until they present with sudden cardiac death or stroke. Early disease detection using direct imaging has shown to be more accurate in identifying vulnerable patients and unstable plaques than conventional risk factors. This IJMS issue deals with the current opinion concerning the state-of-the-art imaging technologies available for clinical applications and their unique value over the sole use of conventional risk factor analysis, in identifying vulnerable patients, recommending aggressive treatments, prognosticating, and in assessing related nutritional and environmental issues.

W prezentowanym tomie Autorzy poszczególnych rozdziałów przeanalizowali bardzo istotną kwestię z punktu widzenia funkcjonowania wojska, jaką jest wpływ uwarunkowań środowiska naturalnego na prowadzenie różnego typu działań wojskowych od okresu starożytności po początki XXI stulecia. Oryginalne refleksje zawarte w publikacji są efektem wykorzystania nowych źródeł lub tych już znanych, do których sformułowano inne pytania badawcze. W książce przedstawiono zagadnienia dotychczas słabo jeszcze przebadane, w czym tkwi wartość naukowa i poznawcza tej pozycji. Różnorodność omawianej tematyki stanowi niewątpliwie atut tomu, który jest wysiłkiem intelektualnym siedemnastu Autorów. Poprzez stawiane przez nich pytania i postulaty udało się wskazać szereg nowych aspektów badawczych, które warto podjąć lub zgłębiać. Redaktorom tej publikacji – o tak szerokiej rozpiętości tematycznej i chronologicznej – pozostaje mieć nadzieję, że będzie ona dla Czytelników ciekawa, wartościowo i inspirująca. Uzupełnieniem podjętej tematyki stanie się tom drugi monografii zawierający również blisko dwadzieścia tekstów.

The use of medical devices (e.g., catheters, implants, and probes) is a common and essential part of medical care for both diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. However, these devices quite frequently lead to the incidence of infections due to the colonization of their abiotic surfaces by biofilm-growing microorganisms, which are progressively resistant to antimicrobial therapies. Several methods based on anti-infective biomaterials that repel microbes have been developed to combat device-related infections. Among these strategies, surface coating with antibiotics (e.g., beta-lactams), natural compounds (e.g., polyphenols), or inorganic elements (e.g., silver and copper nanoparticles) has been widely recognized as exhibiting broad-spectrum bactericidal or bacteriostatic activity. So, in order to achieve a better therapeutic response, it is crucial to understand how these infections are different from others. This will allow us to find new biomaterials characterized by antifouling coatings with repellent properties or low adhesion towards microorganisms, or antimicrobial coatings that are capable of killing microbes approaching the surface, improving biomaterial functionalization strategies and supporting tissues’ bio-integration.

This timely Handbook provides a groundbreaking collection of anthropological research on artificial intelligence (AI), examining how anthropology can help to comprehend and critique its development. Evaluating the limits, hopes and fears of AI, leading experts explore its influence as a sociocultural phenomenon rather than a discrete technological system.

This edited volume investigates how Gulf women negotiate spaces of dissent through their writing. The focus on women’s narratives offers critical perspectives on how women in the Gulf construct themselves as gendered selves and authors, how they exist within public and private spaces, and how voice and agency are part of their conversations in various spheres. In the process, the book engages readers in theoretical reflections and conversations with literary works, media, the law, disability studies, and oral narratives from the Gulf. This timely volume fills in a serious gap in research and contributes to countering stereotypes and prejudices about Muslim and Arab women, specifically those located in the Arabian Gulf. The chapters gathered here challenge narratives of submissiveness, powerlessness, and victimization in order to uncover women’s social, cultural, and political contributions in their countries of origin or residence. The editors and contributors are specialists of the area, with the majority of them being from the Gulf. They include scholars and students, practitioners and entrepreneurs, all writing from a position of insight that stems from long-term engagement with the region. This offers a wide range of voices and perspectives that enrich the volume with a variety of topics, methodologies, and formats. This multidisciplinarity makes for the book’s broad appeal to the general reading public as well as specialists, practitioners, members of the press and civil society, as well as policymakers. This volume will also be a valuable resource to international audiences with an interest in the region.

Wenngleich das Konzept der pädagogischen Verantwortung von hoher erziehungspraktischer Relevanz ist, wird es theoretisch mit großer Skepsis behandelt. Dieser Spannung widmet sich dieser Band aus verschiedenen Perspektiven: So werden allgemeinpädagogische Fassungen mit einem systematischen Interesse typisiert und hinsichtlich ihrer historischen Gewordenheit und Ambivalenz diskutiert. Zudem wird eine anerkennungstheoretische Perspektivierung vorgenommen, um zum einen pädagogische Interaktionen auf die Hervorbringung von Verantwortungsrelationen untersuchen zu können und um zum anderen mögliche Neu-Justierungen des Konzepts anzubahnen.