Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
Not a member yet
85081 research outputs found
Sort by
Mechanical Tribology and Surface Technology
No full textThe study of mechanical tribology and surface technology has become a critical focus in industrial research. This reprint highlights cutting-edge advancements in lubrication, sealing, friction, and surface engineering, compiling empirical studies and theoretical analyses on topics such as floating ring seals, circumferential graphite seals, tribological behavior, surface micro-texturing, and interface modeling. It explores key mechanisms, performance evaluations, and optimization strategies for friction pairs, as well as innovative surface modification techniques. By bridging fundamental research with practical applications, this reprint provides significant insights for researchers and engineers aiming to enhance material performance, reduce wear, and improve surface functionality in industrial systems
Rechtswissenschaften an der Saar
No full textThis volume documents the history of legal scholarship at Saarland University in the 20th and 21st centuries. In addition to introductory essays highlighting key developments, it presents 64 concise biographies of deceased jurists with ties to Saarland, complemented by personal recollections and interview notes. The book contributes to the European history of law and scholarship as well as to the regional history of Saarland.PublishedDer Band beleuchtet die Geschichte der Rechtswissenschaften an der Universität des Saarlandes im 20. und 21. Jahrhundert – nicht als reine Institutionengeschichte, sondern durch biografische Zugänge. In einem einleitenden Teil wird die Entwicklung der Fakultät in historischen Schlaglichtern nachgezeichnet. Es folgen 64 Kurzbiographien verstorbener Juristen mit Bezug zum Saarland, die ihr Wirken in Saarbrücken geprägt haben. Ergänzt wird der Band durch Erinnerungsbeiträge ehemaliger Fakultätsmitglieder und zeitgeschichtliche Gesprächsnotizen. Entstanden ist eine multiperspektivische Dokumentation, die nicht nur juristische Karrieren abbildet, sondern auch politische und gesellschaftliche Kontexte sichtbar macht. Der Band versteht sich als Beitrag zur europäischen Rechts- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte ebenso wie zur Landesgeschichte des Saarlandes
The Babushka Phenomenon
No full textThe Babushka Phenomenon examines the social production of ageing in post-Soviet Russia, highlighting the role of grandmothers as primary caregivers due to men's traditional estrangement from family life. This expectation places grandmothers, or babushkas, in a position where they prioritise childcare and housework over their careers, making them unpaid family carers reliant on the state and their children. Anna Shadrina situates older Russian women's experiences within the post-Soviet redefinition of the nation, analysing their portrayal in popular media and biographical narratives of women aged 60 and over in Russia and the UK. It addresses class and racial disparities, noting how some women outsource family duties to less qualified women, and emphasises age as a significant but overlooked axis of social inequality. From a feminist perspective, the book explores citizenship as both a status and a practice of inclusion and exclusion. By focusing on older women's rights to participate in private and public spheres, it discusses the new social inequalities that emerged after the USSR's collapse. Despite prioritising others' interests, older Russian women actively engage in economic citizenship, though their struggles for recognition are often excluded from formal economy and politics
Antimicrobial Resistance in Veterinary Science
No full textAntimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a complicated issue that threatens human and animal health and welfare, the economy, and security worldwide. The imprudent use of antibiotics in human clinical practice, veterinary medicine, and farmed animals is the leading source of the problem. There is mounting evidence that the non-judicious use of antibiotics for prophylactic and growth promotion purposes in animal agriculture significantly contributes to the development of AMR in animal-associated bacteria. The impact is immense; O'Neal’s report eminently predicted severe mortality, morbidity, and catastrophic economic losses due to AMR across the globe by 2050. There is a consensus that AMR should be managed from a One Health perspective, incorporating comprehensive information about antibiotic usage in humans, animals, the food chain, and the environment. Animals and wildlife ecosystems are potential reservoirs for multidrug-resistant (MDR) microorganisms and antimicrobial-resistant genes (ARGs) that can be transmitted to humans through the food chain or direct contact. The presence of plasmid-encoded resistant genes escalates the risk of the rapid dissemination of ARGs. It is essential to include and utilize the information collected from animal pathogens in AMR surveillance programs as a part of the One Health framework, since human and animal health is interconnected. This can reduce the acceleration of AMR and offer more options for antimicrobials for treating human disease
Fighting for a Living
No full textFighting for a Living investigates the circumstances that have produced starkly different systems of recruiting and employing soldiers in different parts of the globe over the last 500 years. It does so on the basis of a wide range of case studies taken from Europe, Africa, America, the Middle East and Asia. The novelty of Fighting for a Living is that it is not military history in the traditional sense (concentrating at wars and battles or on military technology) but that it looks at military service and warfare as forms of labour, and at the soldiers as workers. Military employment offers excellent opportunities for this kind of international comparison. Where many forms of human activity are restricted by the conditions of nature or the stage of development of a given society, organized violence is ubiquitous. Soldiers, in one form or another, are always part of the picture, in any period and in every region. Nevertheless, Fighting for a Living is the first study to undertake a systematic comparative analysis of military labour. It therefore speaks to two distinct, and normally quite separate, communities: that of labour historians and that of military historians
By Touch Alone
No full textBy Touch Alone demonstrates how reading by touch not only changed the lives of nineteenth-century blind people, but also challenged longstanding perceptions about blindness and reading. Over the course of the nineteenth century, thousands of blind people learned how to read by touch. Using fiction, essays, letters, and speeches authored by blind readers, By Touch Alone traces the ways in which literacy changed blind people's experiences of education, leisure, spirituality, and social engagement. Analyzing records of activism and innovation as well as frustration, this study documents the development of an inkless book culture shaped by blind readers’ preferences and needs. While By Touch Alone features the writing and ideas of an understudied community of nineteenth-century blind authors, innovators, and activists, it also engages the work of sighted authors such as George Eliot and Rudyard Kipling to explore the culture-wide effects of reading by touch. The emergence of a new category of readers who did not rely on sight to read prompted sighted people to reimagine blindness and adopt more progressive attitudes toward blind people. In our own era, one characterized by the increasing digitization of our reading lives, Vanessa Warne’s exploration positions scholars and blind readers to navigate present-day developments and shape the future of their reading lives. A carefully contextualized study of how reading by touch shaped Victorian culture, By Touch Alone adds new chapters to the history of disability and reading
Visualizing the Street
No full textFrom user-generated images of streets to professional architectural renderings, and from digital maps and drone footages to representations of invisible digital ecologies, this collection of essays analyses the emergent practices of visualizing the street. Today, advancements in digital technologies of the image have given rise to the production and dissemination of imagery of streets and urban realities in multiple forms. The ubiquitous presence of digital visualizations has in turn created new forms of urban practice and modes of spatial encounter. Everyone who carries a smartphone not only plays an increasingly significant role in the production, editing and circulation of images of the street, but also relies on those images to experience urban worlds and to navigate in them. Such entangled forms of image-making and image-sharing have constructed new imaginaries of the street and have had a significant impact on the ways in which contemporary and future streets are understood, imagined, documented, navigated, mediated and visualized. Visualizing the Street investigates the social and cultural significance of these new developments at the intersection of visual culture and urban space. The interdisciplinary essays provide new concepts, theories and research methods that combine close analyses of street images and imaginaries with the study of the practices of their production and circulation. The book covers a wide range of visible and invisible geographies — From Hong Kong's streets to Rio's favelas, from Sydney's suburbs to London's street markets, and from Damascus' war-torn streets to Istanbul's sidewalks — and engages with multiple ways in which visualizations of the street function to document street protests and urban change, to build imaginaries of urban communities and alternate worlds, and to help navigate streetscapes
Dis:connectivity and Globalisation
No full textThe volume explores key concepts that illuminate globalisation from a dis:connective perspective. Dis:connectivity refers to a more complex understanding of globalization that encompasses both connectivity as well as disruption, delay and deceleration. With this collection of short essays, we propose a new vocabulary for globalisation research, which emphasises the intricate relations between connections and disconnections
Surviving Revolution
No full textSurviving Revolution explores how two wealthy and well-connected families with roots in Lyon responded to the French Revolution and the resulting transformations. In building a new political system based on liberty, equality, and fraternity, the French Revolution encouraged both individuals and families to recognize their power to shape the world through political action, rethink their strategies in negotiating intimate relations and family life, and assess both terrifying new risks and enticing opportunities for advancement. Denise Z. Davidson traces two families' trajectories and weaves together the strategies they employed to survive and hopefully thrive in the decades that followed the Revolution. Their private correspondence shows that affect and interest, intimacy and property, are mutually constitutive, and cannot be "thought" separately. Her analysis reveals what it meant to be bourgeois, how gender played a role in the formation of class identities, and how family and emotional life overlapped with other arenas. These social and cultural themes are woven into the narrative through the stories told in the families' letters. By viewing dramatic historical events through the eyes of people who lived through them, Surviving Revolution illuminates how the practices of everyday life shaped emerging notions of bourgeois identity
Security in Eurasia
No full textPublishedEurasia is gaining prominence globally due to its evolving and dynamic power balances, contributing to its strategic significance. This study, titled “Security in Eurasia: Threats, Challenges, and Opportunities”, aims to analyze shifting power dynamics and security frameworks in the region and explore how changes in Eurasia have global implications. The dynamics in this crucial region can escalate and impact global circumstances in a relatively brief timeframe. Similarly, alliances and partnerships formed within a region can be powerful enough to influence international politics. Therefore, ensuring security in Eurasia is of critical importance for world security.
In the contemporary world, Eurasia is emerging as a key region for international trade routes and military-security strategies. Additionally, the region is rich in global energy reserves, making it even more important. These factors collectively render Eurasia a fragile zone on a global scale, underscoring the importance of maintaining regional stability.
When considering security threats in Eurasia, issues such as cyber threats, local conflicts, geopolitical power struggles, energy security, and migration problems stand out. With the rapid advancement of technology, the cyber domain has become an increasingly important arena for power struggles, transforming into a significant national security challenge for states. Moreover, ongoing conflicts and wars in the region not only directly impact regional security but also worsen migration, which, in turn, further destabilizes the region. Another major threat to Eurasia is terrorism, particularly radicalism. Terrorist organizations, such as ISIS, actively recruit from the region and perform activities that can undermine the region’s stability. Finally, the efforts of major powers, including Russia, China, the United States, and the European Union, to expand their influence in the region directly threaten Eurasian security.
Eurasia presents a wealth of opportunities within its diverse geography. The region possesses noteworthy potential concerning energy resources and infrastructure initiatives, positioning it as a crucial area for fostering international collaboration. Agreements and partnerships focused on these objectives in the region can also play a key role in enhancing security in the Middle East. Because international trade routes pass through the region and infrastructure projects contribute to connectivity, Eurasia has become a crucial junction for global trade.
In conclusion, ensuring security in Eurasia affects not only the region but also its regional actors and can create global repercussions. Security issues within a region can lead to far-reaching consequences. Given the complexity of this security environment, understanding developments in Eurasia has become increasingly challenging. This study aims to enhance understanding of security dynamics in the Eurasian region by thoroughly examining pertinent issues and challenges. It seeks to provide readers with a nuanced perspective on contemporary security concerns while offering insights into potential developments in this strategically significant area