Books published by Springer Nature Switzerland AG

This book provides an up-to-date analysis of major issues in the field of sexual abuse, both established and emerging, and asks how we can develop the most evidence-based, fit-for-purpose approach in responding to and preventing it. Sexual abuse is a multi-disciplinary, international issue that exists at the crossroads of theory, practice, and research. Therefore, the book is future-facing and asks the reader to critically reflect upon current and future research and practice, and to ask: what next? In doing this the book examines the theory, research, and practice on a range of topics including, grooming behaviors, risk management, risk assessment, sexual fantasies, professional engagement, and policy development. These, and other essential topics for effective and efficient care for people who have committed sexual offenses, are addressed as part of the ultimate goal to reduce and even eliminate sexual victimizationin the future.

This book discusses the significant aspects of thermal transient testing, the most important method of thermal characterization of electronics available today. The book presents the theoretical background of creating structure functions from the measured results with mathematical details. It then shows how the method can be used for thermal qualification, structure integrity testing, determining material parameters, and calibrating simulation models. General practical questions about measurements are discussed to help beginners carry out thermal transient testing. The particular problems and tricks of measuring with various electronic components, such as Si diodes, bipolar transistors, MOS transistors, IGBT devices, resistors, capacitors, wide bandgap materials, and LEDs, are covered in detail with the help of various use cases. This hands-on book will enable readers to accomplish thermal transient testing on any new type of electronics and provides the theoretical details needed to understand the opportunities and limitations offered by the methodology. The book will be an invaluable reference for practicing engineers, students, and researchers.

This book describes the political, social, and economic connections between gender and the Covid-19 pandemic. The authors offer innovative ideas for recovery that will build a more prosperous, healthy, equitable, and sustainable future for African women and girls, targets identified under Goal 5 (Gender Equality and Women¿s Empowerment) of the United Nations¿ Sustainable Development Goals slated to be achieved by 2030. Within this context, authors identify issues related to the protection of women and girls from poverty, hunger, and gender-based violence; improved healthcare and healthcare workforce experiences; girl-child education; financial inclusion; and entrepreneurship opportunities for women in fintech, tourism, and information, communication and technology (ICT). The book concludes with a discussion of economic empowerment for women that focuses on normalising the ¿un-normal¿ outcome of the pandemic. The book will be of value to policymakers, non-profit organisations, practitioners, and scholars who understand the importance of gender equality and women empowerment in the African continent.

Literary Representations of Precarious Work, 1840 to the Present sheds new light on literary representations of precarious labor from 1840 until the present. With contributions by experts in American, British, French, German and Swedish culture, this book examines how literature has shaped the understanding of socio-economic precarity, a concept that is mostly used to describe living and working conditions in our contemporary neoliberal and platform economy. This volume shows that authors tried to develop new poetic tools and literary techniques to translate the experience of social regression and insecurity to readers. While some authors critically engage with normative models of work by zooming in on the physical and affective backlash of being a precarious worker, others even find inspiration in their own situations as writers trying to survive. Furthermore, this volume shows that precarity is not an exclusively contemporary phenomenon and that literature has always been a central medium to (critically) register forms of social insecurity. By retrieving parts of that archive, this volume paves the way to a historically nuanced view on contemporary regimes of precarious work.

This book discusses the merits of the theory of agonistic memory in relation to the memory of war. After explaining the theory in detail it provides two case studies, one on war museums in contemporary Europe and one on mass graves exhumations, which both focus on analyzing to what extent these memory sites produce different regimes of memory. Furthermore, the book provides insights into the making of an agonistic exhibition at the Ruhr Museum in Essen, Germany. It also analyses audience reaction to a theatre play scripted and performed by the Spanish theatre company Micomicion that was supposed to put agonism on stage. There is also an analysis of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) designed and delivered on the theory of agonistic memory and its impact on the memory of war. Finally, the book provides a personal review of the history, problems and accomplishments of the theory of agonistic memory by the two editors of the volume.

Words, Music, and the Popular: Global Perspectives on Intermedial Relations opens up the notion of the popular, drawing useful links between wide-ranging aspects of popular culture, through the lens of the interaction between words and music. This collection of essays explores the relation of words and music to issues of the popular. It asks: What is popularity or ¿the¿ popular and what role(s) does music play in it? What is the function of the popular, and is ¿pop¿ a system? How can popularity be explained in certain historical and political contexts? How do class, gender, race, and ethnicity contribute to and complicate an understanding of the ¿popular¿? What of the popularity of verbal art forms? How do they interact with music at particular times and throughout different media?

This non-technical biography of Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn (1851-1922) presents to the general reader the scientific life of the astronomer who pioneered the studies of the structure of the Milky Way Galaxy. In telling KapteynΓÇÖs story the author weaves in astronomy basics and uses modern astronomical images to show the developments of astronomical research from KapteynΓÇÖs times to the present. In particular the study of the distribution of stars in space has now culminated with spectacular new insights coming from the astrometric satellite GAIA, which is receiving much public attention today.The biography shows how KapteynΓÇÖs ideas influenced prominent astronomers worldwide. He is prominent as designer of the Kapteyn Universe, the alternative to the large system found by Harlow Shapley. He is the discoverer of KapteynΓÇÖs Star, still the second fastest moving star in the sky, which is now one of the nearest stars with a planet in the habitable zone. This fascinating hybrid of astronomy history and popular astronomy tells the story of the astronomy professor without an observatory who founded the first astronomical laboratory specializing in measuring photographic plates exposed elsewhere. Kapteyn took astronomy out of cataloguing stars to measuring distances and velocities in order to study their spatial distribution, systematic motions (KapteynΓÇÖs Star Streams) and the equilibrium between their gravity and motions. His legacy includes, in addition to the first application of Galactic structure and dynamics, Jan Hendrik Oort, the famous astronomer from Leiden, who as a student was so impressed by KapteynΓÇÖs lectures that he decided to become an astronomer.

This book proposes a novel approach to the design of accessible and inclusive sailing yachts, inspired by the principles of ΓÇ£Design for All.ΓÇ¥  The goal is to allow anyone, including users with disabilities and individuals belonging to the weaker segments, to sail without barriers. Starting from an analysis of existing pleasure boats, the author identifies a series of factors limiting the accessibility or usability of external and internal spaces. In turn, he discusses the most suitable solutions to each. By proposing an extensive set of design solutions applicable to the confined spaces on yachts, and which comply with the relevant anthropometric and dimensional rules, the book offers a timely snapshot of the potential benefits and applicability of an inclusive approach to yacht design, setting a new reference standard for inclusive and accessible nautical design.  

Criminology has until recently neglected the nature and levels of crime outside the urban realm. This is not a surprise as crime tends to concentrate in urban areas and the police directs resources where the problems are. Yet, there are many reasons why scholars, decision-makers and society as a whole should care about crime and safety in rural areas. First, low crime rates in rural areas are mistakenly taken as a sign that crime is not a problem for those living there (Yarwood, 2001). Second, we argue that crime is not simply an urban phenomenon; it embodies the very same characteristics of the environment it is embedded, in certain cases, crime commission is only possible at those situational rural contexts (e.g., Stassen and Ceccato, 2020). Finally, crime in rural areas are in constant transformation given local and global influences, imposing challenges for policing and not least, for the long term sustainability of rural areas.This book highlights 20 reasons why crime and safety in rural areas is a topic of relevance. We attempt to untangle currently simplistic views of the rural by discussing a number of facets of the countryside as both safe and criminogenic, and more importantly, a hybrid place worth to be examined in its own right. Then, the book critically reviews a rich body of English-language literature in rural criminology that extends over more than five decades¿a scholarship that has engaged researchers and practitioners in all continents. The books finishes with a discussion of the emergent research questions of the field, and offers suggestions for further reading. This is an open access book.