46622 research outputs found
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Negotiating Identity and Collective Memory in Czech Silesia
No full textThis study offers an ethnographic exploration of how memory, identity, and history are contested in the city of Opava and the surrounding Hlu.ín area – former sites of Austrian and Prussian rule shaped by post-imperial legacies, displacement, and shifting national narratives. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, the book investigates how local communities navigate dominant Czech nationalism and vernacular Silesian identities through memorials, oral histories, cultural expression, and tourism. Chapters explore themes such as Wehrmacht legacies, linguistic politics, and the branding of Silesian cuisine, revealing how cultural memory is selectively preserved, silenced, or commodified. Through rich case studies, the book highlights the tensions between official discourses and grassroots memory practices, showing how identity in this Central European borderland is continually reconstructed. Blending theoretical depth with lived experience, this study offers new insight into the role of collective memory in shaping belonging in post-imperial, post-socialist Europe
China’s Semiconductor Industry Strategy
No full textThis open access book investigates the global semiconductor industrial chain, innovatively integrating a Dynamic Security Assessment Model (PCA-Entropy-TOPSIS) with decade-long microdata (2015–2024) to systematically deconstruct the complex interplay of geopolitical tensions, technological competition, and supply chain resilience
An Environmental History of Knowledge and Politics
No full textIn February 2024 the designated body of the geological sciences rejected the proposition that humans have entered the Anthropocene epoch. Historians are yet to tell history as the interaction with materials and living beings. The history of forestry is a particularly promising subject to study. Environmental concerns and the large-scale commodification of forests, often with state participation, have been walking hand-in-hand since at least the mid-eighteenth century. Moreover, the history of the development of forestry’s standardised methodology is a global history. This book describes the efforts and experiences of trained foresters driven by competing priorities, as well as their impact on the society, landscape and politics of Hungary between about 1860 and 1975
Nature-Positive Cities: Adaptive Spatial Planning in Italy for an Ecological Urban Transition
No full textThis open access book underscores the importance of a multidisciplinary approach, framed within a broader trans-disciplinary perspective, to move from conventional urban development to nature-positive cities and planning. It is therefore fundamental to assess urban biodiversity, actually not largely investigated yet crucial for ecosystem services provision in urban areas, and urban soils, often overlooked, that plays a crucial role in biodiversity support and nature conservation, along with green and blue infrastructures, that are able to generate ecosystem benefits and contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation, as well as improve human health. The other critical step is to translate this commitment into urban planning goals, followed by the implementation and monitoring of actions to achieve the set goals. To support this transition, the book presents strategies for integrating nature and its elements into urban planning and policy design. The interdisciplinary nature of the book – ensured by multiple background and expertise in urban planning, architecture, forestry, ecology – ensures cross-sectoral insights that likely help advancing the awareness and knowledge of experts, decision-makers and citizens to ultimately drive the transition into nature-positive cities
Role of Ecosystem Services in Enabling Rural-Urban Synergies
No full textThis open access book elaborates on the role Ecosystem Services play in relation to establishing, and enhancing, rural-urban synergies. It draws on the concept of Ecosystem Services (ESS) as the ecological characteristics, functions, or processes that directly or indirectly contribute to human wellbeing, that is, the benefits that people derive from functioning ecosystems. The empirical and theoretical research that supports the various contributions in this book was developed in the context of the project H2020 ROBUST - Rural-Urban Outlooks: Unlocking Synergies (GA: 727988). The project was structured in five Communities of Practice (CoP), as groups of researchers sharing a common thematic interest. One of these CoP was dedicated to ESS and aimed to investigate its role in unlocking synergies across rural and urban territories. Strategic approaches to integrate ESS in spatial planning were developed associating ESS use and delivery to planning instruments and governance models at multiple scales. The approach assumes the engagement of multiple actors both as users of ESS but also in their position as planners, regulators, land owners or other type of decision-making role, to explore the role of ESS in enhancing rural-urban synergies. The purpose has been to ensure the balance between supply and demand of ESS, seeking instruments, and the governance models for public policy, market and science and technology, that will encourage alternative practices and policy integrated goals, thus enabling resilience and social well-being. Ultimately the purpose has been to generate transition processes towards the recognition of socio-ecological systems inclusive of new ESS based societal values leading rural-urban synergies. In other words, such inclusive of socio-ecological systems are seen as a condition for human well-being. Theoretical investigation in five core themes and its implementation in six different living laboratories form the more substantive content of this book. In addition, ESS is analysed in the context of its integration with other relevant themes in a cross-sectoral perspective. Overall the purpose of the book is to communicate the multiple and constructive roles played by ESS in rural-urban synergies, using multiple lenses, looking particularly into challenges and merits, and into different imaginative forms of making such as abstract concept more concrete, operational and recognized by stakeholders in the field
Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Knowledge Innovation and Invention, Volume 1
No full textThis volume represents the proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Knowledge Innovation and Invention 2024 (ICKII 2024). This conference is organized by IEEE Tainan Section Sensors Council, National Formosa University of Taiwan, and International Institute of Knowledge Innovation and Invention (IIKII), and held on August 16-18, 2024, in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan. The conference provided a unified communication platform for researchers in a range of topics, such as information technology, communication science & engineering, computer science, electrical & electronic engineering, automation engineering, big data computation, machine learning, and other engineering related fields. This proceedings volume enables interdisciplinary collaboration of science and engineering technologists in the academic and industrial fields, as well as networking internationally. This book is open access, which means that you have free and unlimited acces
Circular Approaches for the Ecodesign, Repair and Remanufacturing of Car and Mass Electronics
No full textThis open access book summarizes research being pursued within the CIRC-UITS project, funded by the European Union community under the Horizon Europe programme, the goal of which is to demonstrate the improvement of circularity of automotive and mass electronics sectors by recovering materials from waste products, as well as supporting the reuse and remanufacturing of electronic components into new (high value) products in these sectors. To this aim, the CIRC-UITS project wants to unlock the full potentials/benefits of circular practices through digital technologies. Specifically, within the project, digital twins, augmented reality, web platforms and simulation tools have been developed. Another important objective is the increase of resource efficiency/independency and reduction of the negative environmental footprint of electronics production processes through circular behaviors. To this aim, within the CIRC-UITS project a set of methodologies and decision-support tools for the assessment and advisory of sustainability and circularity performances have been developed. Another important objective is the improvement/standardization of information/data sharing/exchange among industrial leaders involved in the same and/or similar value chain. To this aim, the CIRC-UITS project’s consortium has been actively involved in the development of two CEN Workshop Agreements, one about the implementation of a Digital Product Passport (DPP) dedicated to electronic components and another dedicated to the application of the standard EN 45554 in the automotive industry. Finally, the CIRC-UITS project demonstrated the benefits coming from the adoption of a Digital Circular Economy through 4 pilots, one on Electronic Control Units (ECU), one on Tire Pressure Monitoring Sensors (TPMS), one on In-Mold Electronics (IME) and one on sorting of obsolete Printed Circuit Boards (PCB) from washing machines
Innovation, Resilience, Leadership and Sustainability in Higher Education
No full textThis open access book addresses relevant issues related to higher education and sustainable development goals (SDGs). The book has a high degree of originality and brings innovation to the contemporary solution for 21st century higher education, innovative contextualisation and conceptualisation of ICT-enabled critical thinking. It facilitates the achievement of the UN-defined SDGs and introduces a framework for SDG development that addresses both the national and international needs of current and future higher education. Addressing all 17 SDGs from different perspectives, the book provides a systemic view that enables students to increase their ability for transformative learning by developing a deeper self-awareness and a more open perspective, which may lead to a profound change in their worldview. Transformative learning combined with systems thinking are key to successfully educating future generations in innovation, resilience, leadership and sustainability. The activities proposed in the book embrace and strengthen active (non-traditional) pedagogy
