This book takes an in-depth look at Louisiana as a state which is ahead of the curve in terms of extreme weather events, both in frequency and magnitude, and in its responses to these challenges including recovery and enhancement of resiliency.Louisiana faced a major tropical catastrophe in the 21st century, and experiences the fastest rising sea l...
This free book is the first comprehensive guide to a new soft computing technique which is used in complex forensic cases. The chapters include detailed technical and practical overviews, and discussions about the latest tools, open problems and ethical and legal issues involved. The book will be of interest to researchers and practitioners in fore...
This open access report presents findings from the five Latin American countries that participated in the second cycle of the IEA International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS 2016). ICCS 2016 investigated the ways in which a range of countries are preparing their young people to undertake their roles as citizens during the second decad...
Technology has made human lives incomparably better. Civilization as we know it would utterly collapse without it. However, if not properly managed, technology can and will be systematically abused and misuse and thereby become one of the biggest threats to humankind. This open access book applies proactive crisis management to the management of te...
This free book brings together discourse on children and peace from the 15th International Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace, covering issues pertinent to children and peace and approaches to making their world safer, fairer and more sustainable. The book is divided into nine sections that examine traditional themes (social con...
This free book explores questions such as why and how did the first biological cells appear? And then complex organisms, brains, societies and –now– connected human societies? Physicists have good models for describing the evolution of the universe since the Big Bang, but can we apply the same concepts to the evolution of aggregated matter –l...
This book explores the under-researched history of male mental illness from the mid-twentieth century. It argues that statistics suggesting women have been more vulnerable to depression and anxiety are misleading since they underplay a host of alternative presentations of 'distress' more common in men....
This book summarizes work being pursued in the context of the CIPRNet (Critical Infrastructure Preparedness and Resilience Research Network) research project, co-funded by the European Union under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). The project is intended to provide concrete and on-going support to the Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) r...
This free book explores the concept of Industry 4.0, which presents a considerable challenge for the production and service sectors. While digitization initiatives are usually integrated into the central corporate strategy of larger companies, smaller firms often have problems putting Industry 4.0 paradigms into practice. Small and medium-sized ent...
"This compact book argues that ideas about accountability and legitimation – drawn from work on environmental governance – can open up new analytical perspectives on what is holding back effective energy system transformation. With bite-size chapters and illustrative cases that draw on the work of five expert witnesses, this is a novel int...
This book is open access under a CC-BY licence. Cancer is perhaps the modern world's most feared disease. Yet, we know relatively little about this malady's history before the nineteenth century. This book provides the first in-depth examination of perceptions of cancerous disease in early modern England. Looking to drama, poetry and pole...
This free book presents a unique collection of practical examples from the field of pharma business management and research. It covers a wide range of topics such as: 'Brexit and its Impact on pharmaceutical Law - Implications for Global Pharma Companies', 'Implementation of Measures and Sustainable Actions to Improve Employee's...
This book looks at the major policy challenges facing developing Asia and how the region sustains rapid economic growth to reduce multidimensional poverty through socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable measures. Asia is facing many challenges arising from population growth, rapid urbanization, provision of services, climate change and t...
This book deals with the relevance of recognition and validation of non-formal and informal learning in education and training, the workplace and society. In an increasing number of countries, it is at the top of the policy and research agenda ranking among the possible ways to redress the glaring lack of relevant academic and vocational qualificat...
We must find new and innovative ways of conceptualizing transboundary energy issues, of embedding concerns of ethics or justice into energy policy, and of operationalizing response to them. This book stems from the emergent gap; the need for comparative approaches to energy justice, and for those that consider ethical traditions that go beyond the ...
This book explores how the socially disputed period of the Cold War is remembered in today's history classroom. Applying a diverse set of methodological strategies, the authors map the dividing lines in and between memory cultures across the globe, paying special attention to the impact the crisis-driven age of our present has on images of the...
The objective of this book is to help at-risk organizations to decipher the "safety cloud", and to position themselves in terms of operational decisions and improvement strategies in safety, considering the path already travelled, their context, objectives and constraints. What link can be established between safety culture and safety mod...
This Open Access biography chronicles the life and achievements of the Norwegian engineer and physicist Rolf Widerøe. Readers who meet him in the pages of this book will wonder why he isn't better known.The first of Widerøe's many pioneering contributions in the field of accelerator physics was the betatron. He later went on to build th...
This book collects 5 keynote and 15 theme lectures presented at the 2nd European Conference on Earthquake Engineering and Seismology (2ECEES), held in Istanbul, Turkey, from August 24 to 29, 2014. The conference was organized by the Turkish Earthquake Foundation - Earthquake Engineering Committee and Prime Ministry, Disaster and Emergency Managemen...
This book presents theoretical and practical research relating to the vast, publicly financed program for the construction of new schools and the reorganization of existing educational buildings in Italy. This transformative process aims to give old buildings a fresh identity, to ensure that facilities are compliant with the new educational and tea...
This book presents an incisive outline of the historical development and geography of cities. It focuses on three themes that constitute essential foundations for any understanding of urban form and function. These are: (a) the shifting patterns of urbanization through historical time, (b) the role of cities as centers of production and work in a ...
This book features essays written by philosophers, biologists, ecologists and conservation scientists facing the current biodiversity crisis. Despite increasing communication, accelerating policy and management responses, and notwithstanding improving ecosystem assessment and endangered species knowledge, conserving biodiversity continues to be mor...
This open access volume focuses on the development of a P5 eHealth, or better, a methodological resource for developing the health technologies of the future, based on patients' personal characteristics and needs as the fundamental guidelines for design. It provides practical guidelines and evidence based examples on how to design, implement, ...
This open access book provides an exploration of the consequences of the ontological differences between natural and social objects (sometimes described as objects of nature and objects of thought) in the workings of causal and agency relationships. One of its important and possibly original conclusions is that causal and agency relationships do no...
This book presents insights into the lived realities of children with disabilities in primary schools in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It examines specific cultural and societal characteristics of Ethiopia that influence the education of children with disabilities. The book presents findings drawn from interviews with, and participant observation of the s...
"A landmark study showing how empirical work, through the methodology of the social sciences, can come into contact with political philosophy and disability studies so as to make a meaningful contribution to policy. Dr. Victor Santiago Pineda's work will be read for decades, as a foundation for future research on the application of the ca...
This is an open access book. Lewis F Richardson (1981-1953), a physicist by training, was a pioneer in meteorology and peace research and remains a towering presence in both fields. This edited volume reviews his work and assesses its influence in the social sciences, notably his work on arms races and their consequences, mathematical models, the s...
This book examines key aspects of international cooperation to enhance nuclear safety, security, safeguards, and non-proliferation, thereby assisting in development and maintenance of the verification regime and fostering progress toward a nuclear weapon-free world. The book opens by addressing important political, institutional, and legal dimensio...
The proceedings of the international conference "SMSEC2014", a joint conference of the first "Social Modeling and Simulations" and the 10th "Econophysics Colloquium", held in Kobe in November 2014 with 174 participants, are gathered herein. Cutting edge scientific researches on various social phenomena are reviewed. Ne...
Based on a study among higher-educated adult children of lower-class Turkish and Moroccan immigrants in the Netherlands, this open access book explores processes of identification among social climbers with ethnic minority backgrounds. Using both survey data and open interviews with these 'minority climbers', the study details the context...
This open access book highlights the importance of visions of alternative futures in music teacher education in a time of increasing societal complexity due to increased diversity. There are policies at every level to counter prejudice, increase opportunities, reduce inequalities, stimulate change in educational systems, and prevent and counter pol...
This open access report explores the nature and extent of students' misconceptions and misunderstandings related to core concepts in physics and mathematics and physics across grades four, eight and 12. Twenty years of data from the IEA's Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and TIMSS Advanced assessments are anal...