Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
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Planetarity from Below
No full textWhat can migrant ecologies teach us about collective planetary futures? In Planetarity from Below, Emily Yu Zong argues that modern freedom has framed migration in anthropocentric terms, neglecting that migration is also an ecological process. Analyzing a diverse body of migration literature across Australia, North America, and China, she explores how these works unlearn modern capitalist systems of property, individualism, and freedom while imagining collaborative and ecological survival from the margins. Through short stories, memoirs, speculative fiction, poetry, and documentary films, Zong unpacks a decolonial migrant ecopoetics, revealing a pluralist method of worldmaking—from Australia’s oceanic refugee camps, Indigenous Canadian land, and Chinese migrant worker sweatshops, to climate futures. These migrant ecologies imagine freedom “from below” not simply as individual survival or assimilation but as an unruly and contingent process of shared creativity with animals, waters, minerals, waste, and technology. Shifting environmental ethics from individual morality to a political ecology of sustaining life in precarity, Zong introduces decolonial knowledges, imaginations, and praxes that help us expand justice and freedom beyond the human, asking how borderland subjectivities can open new possibilities for multispecies flourishing
Kinderschutz im Kontext Schule
No full textWoran orientieren pädagogische Fachkräfte ihr Handeln im Verdacht einer Kindeswohlgefährdung? Was verstehen sie darunter? Der Schutz von Kindern und Jugendlichen wird im Kontext Schule maßgeblich durch die fachliche Einschätzung der dort tätigen Lehrkräfte und (sozial-)pädagogischen Fachkräfte geprägt. Das Buch zeigt geteilte (Handlungs-)Orientierungen dieser Fachkräfte auf und leitet daraus Implikationen für den Kinderschutz an Schulen ab.; What guidelines do educational professionals follow when they suspect that a child's welfare is at risk, and what does this entail? In a school context, the protection of children and young people significantly depends on the professional judgement of these professionals. This book highlights shared action guidelines, which are used alongside content analysis findings to derive implications for child protection in schools
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
Micro- and Nano-plastics in Soil and Crop Systems
No full textThis book is an open access book on micro- and nano-plastics (MNPs) in soil and crop systems addresses a critical knowledge gap as plastic pollution increasingly infiltrates terrestrial ecosystems. It compiles the information on how MNPs enter agricultural systems through practices like plastic mulching, wastewater irrigation, and sludge application, offering insights into their long-term environmental effects. This book also highlights the potential disruptions MNPs cause to soil health, such as reduced fertility, impaired nutrient cycling and altered water retention. It also investigates their effects on crop growth, including their uptake by plants and the potential for these pollutants to enter the food chain, raising concerns about human health. This resource is crucial for researchers, policymakers and agricultural practitioners, offering practical solutions to mitigate plastic contamination in farming. It provides evidence-based recommendations for sustainable agricultural practices and contributes to developing environmental policies aimed at reducing plastic pollution in soils, ensuring food security and protecting ecosystem health
Der Beginn der kulinarischen Moderne
No full textSeit dem frühen 19. Jahrhundert etablierte sich in Metropolen wie Paris, Wien, London und St. Petersburg sowie in Residenzstädten wie Dresden eine neue Kochweise, die bis heute die exquisite Küche Europas prägt. Bereits 1822 griff der Kunsthistoriker und Literat Carl Friedrich von Rumohr (1785-1843) diesen Trend auf und publizierte mit seinem »Geist der Kochkunst« die erste systematische Kochkunsttheorie. Die Beiträger*innen des Bandes diskutieren das gastrosophische Werk und seinen Autor im Kontext der Ernährungsgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Dabei bieten sie einen interdisziplinären Überblick zur Produktion von Nahrungs- und Genussmitteln, zur Alltagskost, zur Geschichte des Weins sowie zur exquisiten Kochkunst und Tafelkultur am Beginn der kulinarischen Moderne
Explainable Artificial Intelligence
No full textThis open access five-volume set constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second World Conference on Explainable Artificial Intelligence, xAI 2025, held in Istanbul, Turkey, during July 2025. The 96 revised full papers presented in these proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected from 224 submissions. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: Volume I: Concept-based Explainable AI; human-centered Explainability; explainability, privacy, and fairness in trustworthy AI; and XAI in healthcare. Volume II: Rule-based XAI systems & actionable explainable AI; features importance-based XAI; novel post-hoc & ante-hoc XAI approaches; and XAI for scientific discovery. Volume III: Generative AI meets explainable AI; Intrinsically interpretable explainable AI; benchmarking and XAI evaluation measures; and XAI for representational alignment. Volume IV: XAI in computer vision; counterfactuals in XAI; explainable sequential decision making; and explainable AI in finance & legal frameworks for XAI technologies. Volume V: Applications of XAI; human-centered XAI & argumentation; explainable and interactive hybrid decision making; and uncertainty in explainable AI
Puppetry and Dramaturgy
No full textThis open access book presents the results and conclusions of research conducted by the author, and assisted by a team of young researchers brought together in the PuppetPlays project funded by the European Research Council. It is the first international survey to examine Western European puppetry through a systematic study of its repertoires, composed by writers or by the puppeteers themselves. From improvised farces to the refined Baroque operas, from the parodies of institutional stages to the experiments of Modernism, from chivalric epics to contemporary dramaturgy, puppet repertoires are extraordinarily diverse. Their performances have been for centuries the only kind of theatre that many people could attend, but also a means of dramaturgical innovation. Their plays have crossed linguistic, geographical and social boundaries, adapting and spreading the great myths and classics of Western culture, and helping to build Europe's cultural identity. The analysis of these repertoires sheds new light on the history of theatre and society. When and how did puppet theatre compete with actors’ theatre? When and how did it serve as a laboratory for new dramaturgies? Why do writers and performing artists chose to use them today? These questions can only be answered through a close examination of the many forgotten or unpublished sources collected by the PuppetPlays project
Creative Belonging
No full textChina is a multicultural country home to fifty-five ethnic minority groups, yet due to linguistic and cultural barriers many of these groups remain understudied or unknown in the West. The Qiang, one of modern China’s officially recognized ethnic minorities, is also China’s longest-standing ethnoracial identity marker that has existed since the earliest recorded history of China. Creative Belonging investigates the formation and evolution of the Qiang as a people, a concept, and a cultural history in China. It further examines how the contemporary Qiang ethnic group interacts strategically with mainstream Chinese society, challenging the historically entrenched hierarchies between the sociocultural “centers” of China and its ethnic “peripheries.” This book is based on years of ethnographic and textual-archival research in the Himalayan regions of southwest China, where the contemporary Qiang group resides. Drawing on a diverse range of official and local political discourses and previously unstudied literary, historiographical, and cinematic works, Yanshuo Zhang illuminates how the Qiang have carved out spaces of “creative belonging” within the parameters of multiculturalism in contemporary China. Rooted in ethnographic and textual-archival research, the book presents original materials produced by Qiang indigenous writers, scholars, artists, grassroots village cultural activists, and entrepreneurs at both the local and the global levels. Creative Belonging invites readers to rethink ethnicity and national belonging in China by centering minority groups’ efforts to expand the meanings and implications of “Chinese culture.
Shaping Circular Transitions in the Built Environment
No full textThis open access book explores how to operationalise circular economy principles in the built environment by turning barriers into enablers of systemic change. Drawing on research from the COST Action CircularB, it examines technical, regulatory, economic, and cultural obstacles while highlighting the enabling role of digital tools, innovative business models, and harmonised indicators. The book examines how circularity is integrated into European and national policies, public procurement, and urban strategies, offering a comparative analysis of best practices and policy gaps. It also addresses the need for standardised terminology and frameworks to support the integration of circularity in design, assessment, and construction. Featuring a curated glossary of over 400 terms, the book fosters shared understanding across disciplines. Combining critical analysis with actionable insights, it equips professionals and policymakers with tools to support a regenerative and resource-efficient transition in the construction and urban sectors
Mediation in der Wissenschaft
No full textDieses Open-Access-Buch begründet den besonderen Wert der Mediation in der Wissenschaft. Zunächst hilft Mediation einer guten Kommunikations- und Fehlerkultur. Die Methoden der Mediation unterstützen aber auch Perspektivwechsel und helfen dadurch, den sowohl in der Wissenschaft wie auch in Konflikten vorkommenden Bias zu reduzieren. Das Buch gibt einen Überblick über etablierte Instanzen des Konfliktmanagements, stellt den Prozess und verschiedene Methoden der Mediation vor und beschreibt Elemente einer mediativ organisierten Wissenschaftseinrichtung. Ergänzt wird der Überblick durch einige Interviews mit Verantwortungsträgern aus Wissenschaftseinrichtungen sowie aus der Beratungspraxis. Es richtet sich an wissenschaftliche Verantwortungsträgerinnen und Verantwortungsträger, die die Qualität der Zusammenarbeit und der erzielten Forschungsergebnisse in ihren Wissenschaftseinrichtungen stärken wollen