Books published by Springer

This book explores various technical domains, including industrial engineering, computer sciences, process engineering, and system engineering, seamlessly integrated with management theories. It explores how this fusion of knowledge can drive improvements, transformations, and the design of new processes, products, or organizational structures, ultimately generating significant value for both society and the market. The book introduces the concept of management engineering and delves into its implementation process, including the development of new methodologies or frameworks designed to solve complex problems effectively. It provides a comprehensive perspective on the evolution of management engineering, presenting the most relevant strategies for assimilating this approach to generate value, especially in the context of emerging economies.

This volume provides a comprehensive overview of human echinococcosis, a zoonotic disease caused by tapeworm parasites of the genus Echinococcus. Both cystic- (hydatid disease) and alveolar echinococcosis are included, covering the most important disease forms of medical and public health relevance. Presented findings focus China and Europe and are at the same time of global significance for clinical management and control programs under the One Health approach.Echinococcosis is a relevant neglected tropical disease (NTD) and targeted for elimination by the WHO as a public health problem. The present book aids the critical actions for understanding the disease and its surveillance. In addition to fundamental information on tapeworm epidemiology, biology and immunopathogenesis, the chapters spotlight details on ultrasound diagnosis and staging, CT and MRI imaging. Moreover, molecular diagnostic tools, novel chemotherapeutics, and current vaccine research are discussed.The book is a valuable resource for human and veterinary medicine considering the Sustainable Development Goals research (SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being). Scientists, students, and medical professionals will find significant content on animal reservoirs, parasite transmission, prevention and treatment options.

This is the second edition of the first ever research monograph that explores the exciting field of augmented reality games and their enabling technologies. The new edition has been thoroughly revised and updated, with 6 new chapters included. As well as investigating augmented reality games in education, the book covers the gamification of medicine, healthcare, and art. It has been written by a team of 43 researchers, practitioners, and artists from 12 countries, pioneering in developing and researching the new type of computer games.This book deals with a systematic analysis of educational augmented reality games, the gamification of elementary and secondary education, teachers' novel key skills and new teaching methods in the classroom, creating immersive and playful reading experiences, augmented reality games for health promotion in old age and for transforming dental and physical education and practice, the gamification of augmented reality art, pervasive games, and gaming in public spaces, among other topics.Intended as a starting point for exploring this new fascinating area of research and game development, it will be essential reading not only for researchers, practitioners, game developers, and artists, but also for students (graduates and undergraduates) and all those interested in the rapidly developing area of augmented reality games.

This book collects together selected peer-reviewed contributions presented at the European Conference on Data Analysis, ECDA 2022, held in Naples, Italy, September 14-16, 2022. Highlighting the role of statistics in discovering novel and interesting patterns in the era of big data, it follows the motto of the conference: "Avoiding drowning in the data: recent trends and future challenges in learning from data". The central focus is on multidisciplinary approaches to data analysis, classification, and the interface between computer science, data mining and statistics. Both methodological and applied topics are covered. The former includes supervised and unsupervised techniques with particular emphasis on advances in regression and clustering analysis and constructing composite indicators. The applications are mainly in risk analysis, biology, and education. The volume is organized into four main macro themes: methodological contributions in the social sciences and education, multivariate analysis methods for big data, innovative contributions for applications inspired by biology, and strategies for analyzing complex data in finance.

This book explains and discusses in simple language the structure and function of botulinum toxin and other neurotoxins as well as the rational for its utility in different disease conditions. Safety, factors affecting efficacy and duration of action, as well as cost and insurance issues are also addressed. Updates to the new edition include information on new indications, new approvals by FDA, new positive information on childhood indications, as well as data on long-term use of botulinum toxins therapy in several medical ailments (particularly migraine) that demonstrate its safety when applied properly and according to the published guidelines, are all included. In addition, two new chapters cover botulinum toxin therapy in dentistry and in veterinary medicine.

This open access comprehensive methodological book offers a much-needed answer to the lack of resources and methodological guidance in learning analytics, which has been a problem ever since the field started. The book covers all important quantitative topics in education at large as well as the latest in learning analytics and education data mining. The book also goes deeper into advanced methods that are at the forefront of novel methodological innovations. Authors of the book include world-renowned learning analytics researchers, R package developers, and methodological experts from diverse fields offering an unprecedented interdisciplinary reference on novel topics that is hard to find elsewhere.The book starts with the basics of R as a programming language, the basics of data cleaning, data manipulation, statistics, and analytics. In doing so, the book is suitable for newcomers as they can find an easy entry to the field, as well as being comprehensive of all the major methodologies. For every method, the corresponding chapter starts with the basics, explains the main concepts, and reviews examples from the literature. Every chapter has a detailed explanation of the essential techniques and basic functions combined with code and a full tutorial of the analysis with open-access real-life data. A total of 22 chapters are included in the book covering a wide range of methods such as predictive learning analytics, network analysis, temporal networks, epistemic networks, sequence analysis, process mining, factor analysis, structural topic modeling, clustering, longitudinal analysis, and Markov models. What is really unique about the book is that researchers can perform the most advanced analysis with the included code using the step-by-step tutorial and the included data without the need for any extra resources.This is an open access book.

This monograph provides a comprehensive treatment of the classification of small fusion systems, that is, fusion systems with few essential subgroups. It demonstrates a broad range of techniques from local group theory and fusion systems, several of which can be applied in more general settings. Addressing research problems that have not been treated in the past, it is the first text to explicitly use the amalgam method in this context. Fusion systems offer an enticing way to unify various p-local methods employed in group theory, representation theory and homotopy theory; but as abstract constructions they are still somewhat mysterious. This book paves the way to a broad and systematic study of these categories by applying the amalgam method, thus modernizing a methodology widely used to understand the local structure of finite groups. With this comes an introduction to several vital techniques in local group theory, a generous survey of the structure and modular representation theory of some important families of finite groups, and a demonstration of the value of combinatorial methods in finite group theory and fusion systems. Primarily aimed at researchers active in fusion systems and group amalgams, the book will also be of interest to anyone working with finite groups and their modular representations, group actions on trees, or classifying spaces. The inclusion of preliminary chapters outlining the theoretical prerequisites make it ideal for a short lecture course or as a reading group text for early career researchers and graduate students.

This book offers a systematic introduction to the Hopf algebra of renormalization in quantum field theory, with a special focus on physical motivation, the role of Dyson-Schwinger equations, and the renormalization group. All necessary physical and mathematical constructions are reviewed and motivated in a self-contained introduction. The main part of the book concerns the interplay between Dyson-Schwinger equations (DSEs) and renormalization conditions. The book is explicit and consistent about whether a statement is true in general or only in particular renormalization schemes or approximations and about the dependence of quantities on regularization parameters or coupling constants. With over 600 references, the original literature is cited whenever possible and the book contains numerous references to other works discussing further details, generalizations, or alternative approaches. There are explicit examples and remarks to make the connection from the scalar fields at hand toQED and QCD. The book is primarily targeted at the mathematically oriented physicist who seeks a systematic conceptual overview of renormalization, Hopf algebra, and DSEs. These may be graduate students entering the field as well as practitioners seeking a self-contained account of the Hopf algebra construction. Conversely, the book also benefits the mathematician who is interested in the physical background of the exciting interplay between Hopf algebra, combinatorics and physics that is renormalization theory today.

This book presents the 20th edition of the Inter-Academia Conference which aims to be a valuable resource for academic institutions in search for novel approaches for a global education, for industry partners exploring new fundamental research ideas, for government bodies seeking international projects that promote sustainable growth, and most certainly for the global scientific community, more and more invested in the multi-disciplinarity of modern research. Interdisciplinary research collaboration is crucial for solving many pressing issues and challenges facing society today. Bringing together researchers and educators from different disciplines allows a more holistic understanding of complex problems, providing also the opportunity for new learning and for collaboration on complex projects. Beyond its scientific merits and value, Inter-Academia also promotes a culture of intellectual diversity, innovative thinking, and global perspective that can foster breakthrough discoveries, unexpected advancements in research, and, last but not least, a sense of belonging to a global community. Being established in 2002, the Inter-Academia Community currently gathers researchers from 14 leading Universities in Eastern and Central Europe, together with Shizuoka University, in Japan. As such, the Inter-Academia Community serves as a strong bond across continents, allowing the development of a number of global projects for student and researcher mobility, with a significant impact on the broader scientific community. The peer-reviewed papers included in this book hopefully stimulate further interactions and collaborations covering both fundamental and applied research, with benefits for the global society.

This book provides higher education students with a comprehensive resource to assist them in their academic persistence in an online course or program. It addresses a wide selection of topics emphasizing a myriad of factors that impact a student's persistence, and ultimate success, in an online program or course. The book helps students to gain insight into the skills, knowledge, and attributes needed to succeed in the autonomous nature of an online learning environment. Thus, this book helps students to proactively engage in activities to prepare for online learning. Information presented in each chapter is drawn from theory and recent research centered on persistence of online students in higher education. It incorporates hands-on practical activities to promote application of theory and research, and encourages students to demonstrate their knowledge, skills, and abilities through the use of reflective and thought-provoking activities. Hence, this book provides online students with an up-to-date resource they can use to develop an awareness of their readiness and preparedness for online learning. Additionally, this book equips students with information and strategies aimed at helping them to address gaps in their skills and knowledge that may present them with barriers to academic success. The content of this book is aligned with widely used student learning outcomes and objectives of first-year student seminar courses and orientation programs for graduate and undergraduate students enrolled in online programs. Furthermore, it is deliberately organized and structured to support an online student's academic journey as they navigate the online learning environment. As such, these features make it an ideal book for use by students, instructors, and academic advisors or college and university academic support staff.

This volume elucidates international biographical and narrative perspectives on how COVID-19 influenced people¿s daily lives across different countries and contexts. It draws together global interdisciplinary scholarly contributions and conceptualizes the lived life as a complex, multilayered and multidimensional phenomenon that is constantly unfolding both in and across time. Significantly, this volume focuses on seldom-heard groups including persons diagnosed with HIV, COVID-19 dissenters, prisoners, essential workers, waste pickers, refugees and migrants. The chapters focus on the pandemic's multifarious impacts on people¿s lived realities in personal and professional domains, exploring the complexity of people¿s relationships with family, friends, interactions with colleagues and students and the centrality of emotions, to everyday human experiences, including grief, loss and loneliness as well as moments of joy and processes of personal renewal. This volume explores innovative questions, issues and challenges on the development and utilization of rich, biographical narrative methodologies during COVID-19, addressing important issues like power and voice, and pragmatic questions of how to do biographic research whilst socially distant. Contributions to this work illuminate the multidimensionality of human experiences, adaptability to adverse circumstances and the complexity of working through unanticipated global events whilst reimagining novel social futures.

Entrepreneurship depends on the decisions that people make about how to undertake that process; however, in recent years, entrepreneurship research has focused largely on the environmental characteristics influencing firm founding and the characteristics of entrepreneurial opportunities, ignoring the role of human agency. This book, therefore, focuses on how human motivations influence the entrepreneurial process. It argues that the attributes of people making decisions about the entrepreneurial process influence the decisions that they make. The book particularly investigates whether entrepreneurial role models, social valuation of entrepreneurship, perceived knowledge of entrepreneurial support and barriers to starting a business, entrepreneurial intention, and its determinants are related to entrepreneurial motivation.Featuring case studies that analyze the motivations that researchers have suggested should influence the entrepreneurial process, this book is beneficial to students, scholars, and practitioners in entrepreneurship.

This book explores modern European religious and non-religious rituals and their main features by focusing on music as a key element required for the full expression of beliefs. It specifically examines the relationship between religious, non-religious, pagan, cultural, celebratory, and traditional rituals. In doing so, this text focuses on the extent to which the rituals overlap, replace, or feed religious or pseudo-religious beliefs to create alternative beliefs (individual or collective) that systematically ignore any religion. The book further analyses the relationship between daily habits, holidays, sports, politics, culture, and other pagan rituals as forms that represent social feelings by identifying, enjoying, or impersonating emotions; and transversally, it explores how music facilitates and fosters those emotions. The volume also investigates how rituals coexist and mutually influence each other through a representation of religious and non-religious rituals, and how music plays a central role in that phenomenology. The author argues that music is a key part of various types of rituals (e.g. rites of passage), and that music supports and enriches the meaning of the ritual, to ultimately strengthen the bond of communication with the individual and the group. This monograph appeals to students and researchers working in religious studies and in music theory.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Smart Card Research and Advanced Applications, CARDIS 2023, held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, during November 14-16, 2023.The 13 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 28 submissions. They were organized in topical sections as follows: fault attacks; side-channel analysis; smartcards & efficient Implementations; and side-channel & neural networks.

This proceedings book contains the full papers of the 10th edition of the International Conference on Energy and Environment Research, ICEER 2023, that took place in Madrid, Spain during October 7-9, 2023. ICEER 2023 is a joint organization of the School of Engineering (ISEP) of the Polytechnic of Porto (P.Porto) and the SCIEI, with collaboration of the Dipartimento di Ingegneria of the Università degli studi "Roma Tre", CIETI and LEPABE research groups. This book includes all the well prepared full papers presented at ICEER 2023.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th IFIP TC 10 International Embedded Systems Symposium, IESS 2019, which took place in Friedrichshafen, Germany, in September 2019. The 16 full papers and 4 short papers presented in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 32 submissions. The papers were organized in topical sections on embedded real-time systems; estimations; architecture and applications; algorithms and System C; and analysis.

This book highlights recent research investigating psychological and neural mechanisms contributing to dysfunctional cognition in people with schizophrenia. The work on cognition in schizophrenia from the past 20 years is highlighted, and emphasis throughout the book is placed on utilizing the Research Domain Criterion framework. Thus, the book also covers animals work relevant to schizophrenia that assesses behaviors utilizing the same framework, enabling mechanistic studies and highlighting potential biomarkers of function. The book also includes important areas of research in the field of cognitive function in schizophrenia that have received less attention, such as cognitive side-effects of current treatments and olfactory-based cognition. Altogether, the book provides a translational perspective of the most-up-to-date research on cognition in schizophrenia to-date, but with identification of novel directions for research initiatives..

This book analyzes how the past and its representation in the public space have been a source of conflict in Chile since the end of the Pinochet regime. From a multi-disciplinary perspective (sociology, anthropology and history), it studies the work of seven organizations of memory and human rights in Santiago, Chile, the struggles in which they are engaged, and the main debates that have arisen in the country around the themes of impunity, truth and memory.Covering the period from 1998 to 2018, this book begins its analysis with the detention of Augusto Pinochet in London and concludes with the end of the second term of Michelle Bachelet. The seven organizations studied range from family groups and survivors to sites of memory and consciousness. Through analyses of the discourses produced by these organizations, it examines particular historical periods(1998-2000, 2001-2008, 2009-2010, 2011-2013 and 2014-2018) by focusing on strong debates and events of these conjunctures in order to highlight the struggles of meaning and the conflicts of legitimacy relating to these times. In concrete terms, particular attention is paid to the analysis of the main themes of litigation, the way in which the actors are mobilized, their objectives and how the past is evoked in the public space.Battles for Memory and Justice in Chile: Struggles for Remembrance, Legitimacy and Accountability will be of interest to researchers from different disciplines and fields of study within the human and social sciences, such as sociologists, historians and anthropologists working in fields such as Latin American studies, sociology of memory, sociology of social movements and human rights studies.

This book examines issues of improving the efficiency of the control technological parameters of textile materials through with computerized systems with the application of non-contact methods as only they allow to react quickly to changes of technological parameters during production. The original models, algorithms, software and hardware of the developed system for the control technological parameters of textile materials are presented. Also, the book presents new methods for measuring the technological parameters of textile materials, which do not need require taking into account the constant readjustment of the system to controlled samples of materials with different structure and porosity. The developed model of the computerized system allows contactless control of basis weight and porosity of fabrics in the course of their production. This book contains six chapters, for researchers, engineers, as well as lecturers and postgraduates of higher education institutions dealing with ultrasonic control engineering equipment.

This book brings together the insights from three different areas, Information Seeking and Retrieval, Cognitive Psychology, and Behavioral Economics, and shows how this new interdisciplinary approach can advance our knowledge about users interacting with diverse search systems, especially their seemingly irrational decisions and anomalies that could not be predicted by most normative models.The first part "Foundation" of this book introduces the general notions and fundamentals of this new approach, as well as the main concepts, terminology and theories. The second part "Beyond Rational Agents" describes the systematic biases and cognitive limits confirmed by behavioral experiments of varying types and explains in detail how they contradict the assumptions and predictions of formal models in information retrieval (IR). The third part "Toward A Behavioral Economics Approach" first synthesizes the findings from existing preliminary research on bounded rationality and behavioral economics modeling in information seeking, retrieval, and recommender system communities. Then, it discusses the implications, open questions and methodological challenges of applying the behavioral economics framework to different sub-areas of IR research and practices, such as modeling users and search sessions, developing unbiased learning to rank and adaptive recommendations algorithms, implementing bias-aware intelligent task support, as well as extending the conceptualization and evaluation on IR fairness, accountability, transparency and ethics (FATE) with the knowledge regarding both human biases and algorithmic biases.This book introduces a behavioral economics framework to IR scientists seeking a new perspective on both fundamental and new emerging problems of IR as well as the development and evaluation of bias-aware intelligent information systems. It is especially intended for researchers working on IR and human-information interaction who want to learn about the potential offered by behavioral economics in their own research areas.

This book covers the work of Erik W. Aslaksen who continues to develop the view of society and its evolution published in earlier work - The Social Bond (Springer 2018), The Stability of Society (Springer 2020), and Measures of Social Evolution (Springer 2021), bringing together core material of that work with the results of recent investigations in order to present the evolution of society as an integrated and continuous story leading right up to the present time. A story of human action driven by our beliefs, desires, and an ideology arising out of our ability to transform and exploit our environment through the development and application of technology. The distinguishing feature of the work is the treatment of society as an information-processing system and applying the system methodology for handling complexity, as it is applied, e.g., in engineering. This focus on information is particularly pertinent in the current circumstances, where the world has arrived at a critical point in its history through the conjunction of a number of issues that appear to be spiralling out of control: Global warming and the associated climate change, the destruction of our environment through such processes as land clearing and industrialisation with associated loss of biodiversity, the rapidly increasing visibility of the inequality in the quality of life with associated tensions, and above all, the determination of the US-led Western alliance to cling to its hegemonial role, apparently at all cost. With the sophistication and proliferation of nuclear weapons, the latter has the potential to bring on the end of civilisation as we know it. The resolution of any of these issues depends on the information available to all parties involved, and hence, the availability and quality of information is seen as the crucial and overarching issue of the present time. A number of aspects of this issue, including the role of education, economic inequality, and the control of the media, are treated in some detail, and proposals for some small steps in the right direction are put forward.

This book addresses current topics on pathogenic Vibrio spp. from a comprehensive and holistic perspective. Here, experts in the field provide timely chapters, ranging from genomics, pathogen emergence, and epidemiology to pathogenesis, virulence regulation and host colonization. Questions addressed include: How does climate change affect the spread of these bacteria? What is the status of current vaccines? Are there novel therapeutic options to treat Vibrio infections? Is there likelihood of emergence of new pathogenic strains or species? Can insights from mathematical models and epidemiology lead to prediction of pathogen outbreaks?Recent decades have seen a steady increase in Vibrio spp. infections originating in aquatic and marine habitats, driven by higher human population densities, warming of polluted oceans, natural and human-made disasters, and mass seafood production. These conditions increase the likelihood of pathogenic Vibrio spp. coming into contact with humans, making their study even more timely and relevant as these problems escalate over time. This book is a valuable resource for health management professionals, experienced microbiologists/ microbial ecologists, and early career scientists alike who want to learn more about these important environmental human pathogens. The ideas and technologies presented in this book for preventing, controlling, and monitoring Vibrio spp. infections contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goal 3: Good Health and Well-Being.

This book investigates the unresolved issue of democratic legitimacy in contexts of pervasive disagreement and contributes to this debate by defending a relational version of political liberalism that rests on the ideal of co-authorship. According to this proposal, democratic legitimacy depends upon establishing appropriate interactions among citizens who ought to ascribe to one another the status of putative practical and epistemic authorities. To support this relational reading of political liberalism, the book proposes a revised account of the civic virtue of reasonableness along with an investigation of the epistemic-specific dimension of political equality. By engaging with political epistemology and social theory, this book explores ways to address inherent tensions within the liberal paradigm, using the following strategies of addressing these tensions: first, it defends a twofold model of legitimacy that distinguishes the goals, methodologies, and justificatory tasks of both ideal and nonideal phases of the two-level justificatory framework; second, it contends that democratic legitimacy requires an engaged and contextual critical appraisal of the injustices that characterize our daily social lives, illustrating how structural forms of injustice represent a profound betrayal of the liberal ideal of democratic legitimacy.

This book presents recent advances of Bayesian inference in structured tensor decompositions. It explains how Bayesian modeling and inference lead to tuning-free tensor decomposition algorithms, which achieve state-of-the-art performances in many applications, includingblind source separation;social network mining;image and video processing;array signal processing; and,wireless communications.The book begins with an introduction to the general topics of tensors and Bayesian theories. It then discusses probabilistic models of various structured tensor decompositions and their inference algorithms, with applications tailored for each tensor decomposition presented in the corresponding chapters. The book concludes by looking to the future, and areas where this research can be further developed.Bayesian Tensor Decomposition for Signal Processing and Machine Learning is suitable for postgraduates and researchers with interests in tensor data analytics and Bayesian methods.

Emerging contaminants (ECs) are predominantly unregulated anthropogenic chemicals that occur in air, soil, water, food, and plant/animal tissues in trace concentrations. ECs are persistent in the environment, capable of perturbing the physiology of target receptors and, therefore, are increasingly regarded as a subject of concern. This volume aims to enhance understanding of emerging contaminants' effects on plants and the environment and to highlight and address the need of sustainable and eco-friendly approaches in mitigating and remediating the effects of ECs. The book comprises chapters from diverse areas dealing with biotechnology, microbial technology, nanotechnology, molecular biology, remediation, and more. This volume will be useful to remediation practitioners, researchers, regulators and graduate students.

This book provides readers with a comprehensive, state-of-the-art reference for miniaturized More-than-Moore systems with a broad range of functionalities that can be added to 3D microsystems, including flexible electronics, metasurfaces and power sources. The book also includes examples of applications for brain-computer interfaces and event-driven imaging systems. Provides a comprehensive, state-of-the-art reference for miniaturized More-than-Moore systems;Covers functionalities to add to 3D microsystems, including flexible electronics, metasurfaces and power sources;Includes current applications, such as brain-computer interfaces, event - driven imaging and edge computing.

The book's objective is to present the energy transition process in Brazil over time and offer new perspectives on this process in the eyes of a sustainable future. The book unfolds over 15 chapters covering historical, geopolitical, technological, and economical aspects, as well as aspects conceptually familiar to the energy transition such as public perception, low-carbon technologies, digitalization, Sustainable Development Goals, and even recent topics such as the pandemic of COVID-19. The Brazilian electricity and transport sectors and climate change governance are the main focus of this book. The paths taken throughout this book demonstrate the particularities of Brazil and present this country in a unique and differentiated way in terms of the various approaches to the energy transition. It is a book that brings a multidisciplinary, innovative vision and information published for the first time.

This book contains extended versions of  the works and new research results presented at the 14th International Joint Conference on Knowledge-based Software Engineering (JCKBSE2022). JCKBSE2022 was originally planned to take place in Larnaca, Cyprus. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic forced it to be rescheduled as an online conference.  JCKBSE is a well-established international biennial conference that focuses on the applications of Artificial Intelligence on Software Engineering. The 14th International Joint Conference on Knowledge-based Software Engineering (JCKBSE2022) was organized by the Department of Informatics of the University of Piraeus, Greece. This book is a valuable resource for experts and researchers in the field of (knowledge-based) software engineering. It is also valuable to general readers in the fields of artificial and computational intelligence and, more generally, computer science, wishing to learn more about the exciting field of (knowledge-based) software engineering and its applications. An extensive list of bibliographic references at the end of each chapter helps readers to probe deeper into the application areas of interest to them.

This book offers a new perspective on international law, which was, for centuries, male-dominant and gender-blind. However, this gender blindness has led to many injustices, the failure to recognize certain rights, and to impunity for serious crimes. The book examines the development of gender perspectives in various branches of international law, while also discussing and explaining certain universal standards. However, particular attention is paid to the European human rights system. Accordingly, the book provides detailed explanations of the EU's external policies in relation to sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Also, there is a special focus on the relevant jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights in relation to gender and sexual orientation, female reproduction, and sexuality. The authors explain not only the importance of an adequate legal framework for combating gender inequality but also the detrimental effects of deeply rooted gender stereotypes and prejudices. Subsequently, the development of particular branches is presented, such as a gender-sensitive approach to the prevention of war crimes, gender perspectives in refugee law, and the evolution of gender-sensitive environmental law. In addition, the problematic situation of discrimination in the workplace is addressed from various perspectives. Many discussions, especially among EU member states, are reserved for the issue of women's participation in managerial boards, while the growing awareness of gender equality in international trade agreements represents another interesting topic. Lastly, the book offers a historical perspective on the development of international law in the interwar period, with a particular focus on the situation in Yugoslavia.The book critically reconsiders the dominant molds of legal knowledge and presents innovative gender-sensitive and gender-competent insights on a variety of issues in international law, in order to introduce readers to new research topics relevant to gender equality and to stimulate the development of an international legal and institutional framework for achieving greater gender equality in practice. The collection of essays presented here will be of interest to all those working in the field of international law, as well as students and academics looking to broaden and deepen their research on a range of issues in international law from gender perspectives.

This volume 6 of the Collected Works comprises 27 papers by V.I.Arnold, one of the most outstanding mathematicians of all times, written in 1991 to 1995. During this period Arnold's interests covered Vassiliev's theory of invariants and knots, invariants and bifurcations of plane curves, combinatorics of Bernoulli, Euler and Springer numbers, geometry of wave fronts, the Berry phase and quantum Hall effect. The articles include a list of problems in dynamical systems, a discussion of the problem of (in)solvability of equations, papers on symplectic geometry of caustics and contact geometry of wave fronts, comments on problems of A.D.Sakharov, as well as a rather unusual paper on projective topology. The interested reader will certainly enjoy Arnold's 1994 paper on mathematical problems in physics with the opening by-now famous phrase "Mathematics is the name for those domains of theoretical physics that are temporarily unfashionable." The book will be of interest to the wide audience from college students to professionals in mathematics or physics and in the history of science. The volume also includes translations of two interviews given by Arnold to the French and Spanish media. One can see how worried he was about the fate of Russian and world mathematics and science in general.