Open Access Books

Huntington's Disease is one of the well-studied neurodegenerative conditions, a quite devastating and currently incurable one. It is a brain disorder that causes certain types of neurons to become damaged, causing various parts of the brain to deteriorate and lose their function. This results in uncontrolled movements, loss of intellectual capabilities and behavioural disturbances. Since the identification of the causative mutation, there have been many significant developments in understanding the cellular and molecular perturbations. This book, "Huntington's Disease - Core Concepts and Current Advances", was prepared to serve as a source of up-to-date information on a wide range of issues involved in Huntington's Disease. It will help the clinicians, health care providers, researchers, graduate students and life science readers to increase their understanding of the clinical correlates, genetic aspects, neuropathological findings, cellular and molecular events and potential therapeutic interventions involved in HD. The book not only serves reviewed fundamental information on the disease but also presents original research in several disciplines, which collectively provide comprehensive description of the key issues in the area.

Congenital anomalies occupy a field where developmental biology meets clinical interpretation. This volume introduces dysmorphology as both a diagnostic science and a reflective practice grounded in observation and reasoning. It traces the discipline’s evolution from descriptive morphology to its integration with cytogenetics and molecular genetics, clarifying how chromosomal, monogenic, and multifactorial factors shape abnormal development. Emphasis is placed on clinical method—anamnesis, examination, and pedigree analysis—as the foundation for diagnostic hypotheses and judicious genetic testing. Contemporary frameworks such as standardized phenotypic nomenclature and genomic sequencing are examined alongside their ethical and conceptual implications.

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The intersection of health care, politics, and policy is a controversial one, and this book of lively essays takes on many of today’s hot health topics: alternative medicine, health care reform, screening mammograms, taxes to change behavior, gun control, and many more. Former Assistant Surgeon General Douglas Kamerow, a family doctor, journal editor, and NPR commentator, combines evidence, opinion, and humor in 47 essays from his health policy columns in the medical journal BMJ and his nationally broadcast radio commentaries.

In a world where health personnel need to remain at the forefront of knowledge and advances in both research and technology to eradicate the high number of pathologies that haunt us every day, allowing us to improve life expectancy in different regions so that in the medium-term future we will be able to eradicate pathologies that today claim thousands of lives.

Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911), the great German humanist, remained a towering figure in Europe long into the twentieth century. Published in 1954, this translation by Stephen A. Emery and William T. Emery was the first English translation of Dilthey's "Das Wesen der Philosophie" (1907) as well as his first work to be translated completely into English, making Dilthey accessible to scholars of the English-speaking world.

In 1870 Rome was conquered without military resistance by the young Italian State, causing the Pope to react by organizing “the Catholic opposition” to the State (which lasted until 1929); it was modified in 1919 when Don Luigi Sturzo founded the “Italian Popular Party”, which was independent from the Church and immediately antifascist. The Pope exiled Don Sturzo, and the Catholic world split into the anti-fascist Popular Party and a prevailing party of clerical-fascist leaning. With the rise of the fascist dictatorship in 1926 the popular experience came to an end. In the fight for liberation, De Gasperi stands out as a figure who would lead, together with the Christian Democracy, the birth of the new republican democracy.

Outil métalinguistique à fonction prescriptive et normative, le dictionnaire s'est vu, à un moment particulier de son histoire, réinvesti par des auteurs qui, comprenant l'intérêt de sa structure et de son statut d'autorité, se sont plu à le détourner dans une perspective comique ou corrosive. En croisant des données liées au progrès relatif de l'instruction publique, à l'essor des sciences et au foisonnement du discours accompagnant celles-ci à l'aube du xixe siècle, cet ouvrage étudie le contexte qui a favorisé le développement d'une pareille parodie générique. Il cherche surtout, en cheminant des saillies dictionnairiques qui émaillent la petite presse jusqu'aux définitions onomastiques et potaches du Petit Bottin des lettres et des arts, en passant par le célèbre projet de Dictionnaire des idées reçues de Flaubert, à interroger les logiques, effets et enjeux de ces discours aussi faussement scientifiques que véritablement satiriques.

Despite the emphasis of the European Regional Policy on territorial cohesion, regional disparities have been increasing within Europe in the past years. The metropolitan areas in almost all countries are considerably growing while regions outside of agglomerations are stagnating or even declining. Against this background this book aims to provide an understanding of the underlying processes of polarisation and related regional and local policies. This open access volume contributes to the debates about polarisation and regional development by focussing on questions of spatial justice, power distribution and policy transfer. Theoretical and empirically grounded contributions show that European policies are indeed reproducing socio-spatial inequalities instead of challenging them. The book shows further the existing potentials and limits of individuals, economic, political and civil society actors to respond to polarisation on the regional and local level. In this book conceptual thoughts on polarisation, regional policy and regional development are combined with empirical research and resulting implications for policymaking. As such, it is a valuable source for early career students and researchers as well as professionals in the field of regional and economic development, policy consultants, and policy makers.

La question de l'État, dans les sciences sociales, ne peut se cantonner à étudier les rapports entre l'État et la société. Bien que souvent spontanément présente dans ces disciplines, une telle représentation les condamne de facto à démissionner devant l'État et à adopter des langages étrangers à leur épistémologie. Au mythe de la dissociation de l'État et de la société, les sciences sociales sont obligées d'opposer une autre conception de l'État qui le maintient dans une étroite dépendance de l'ensemble social dont il est un élément de différenciation. État et société ne sauraient par conséquent être considérés comme deux entités de nature équivalente, car l'un est contenu par l'autre. Cela n'empêche pas toutefois de reconnaître à l'État une place prééminente et de concevoir qu'il participe à la reproduction des rapports sociaux de pouvoir. La perspective sociologique donne ainsi à l'État une physionomie particulière. Elle fait porter des exigences fortes sur l'enquête empirique. Elle modifie également profondément le concept de l'État lui-même. Les contributions à ce volume, qui proviennent de la plume de juristes et de politistes, d'anthropologues, de sociologues et de philosophes, ont en commun d'assumer cette perspective dans ses attendus et ses conséquences. Elles jettent ainsi une lumière plus réaliste aussi bien sur la genèse historique de l'État, telle qu'elle procède de l'avènement des sociétés modernes, que sur l'expérience politique que nous faisons, dans la vie sociale telle que nous connaissons aujourd'hui, de l'État et du rôle qu'il y joue comme institution.

Recently, the University Library of Groningen received a handwritten book of hours from the 15th century as a gift. Such books were a popular means of private devotion in the Low Countries at the time. Many people wanted to be good believers and they believed that reading or reciting prayers was an effective way to achieve this. One of them was Brecht, the first owner of this book of hours. Her book has a remarkable history and connection with Groningen, which is revealed here by Jos Biemans and Anne Korteweg.

Desde la década del noventa hasta la actualidad, se han desarrollado en el ámbito educativo formas de privatización cada vez más complejas y amplias, que han llegado incluso al extremo de considerar a la educación como un servicio comercial en diversos tratados de libre comercio y en la Organización Mundial de Comercio. Estos procesos han provocado que el mercado y el sector económico tengan cada vez más injerencia en el sistema educativo en general, y en el superior universitario en particular. América Latina y el Caribe constituyen una de las dos regiones del mundo donde la educación superior se encuentra más privatizada: dos de cada tres universidades son privadas y, desde hace una década, la cantidad de estudiantes que se gradúan en el sector privado supera a la del público. Este libro desarrolla y analiza algunas tendencias y dimensiones de los procesos de privatización en el sistema universitario de la región.

Die freie Verfügbarkeit dieser E-Book-Ausgabe auf Basis einer CC BY 4.0-Lizenz wurde ermöglicht durch die ZBW – Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft.

The present study deals with the question of the organization of the stonemasonry production of funerary monuments in the interior of the former Roman province of Dalmatia. The aim of the research was to identify a model of stonemasonry production that originated in a mountainous and difficult to traverse area, where the possibilities of water transport of stone material are minimal. The author started from the assumption that production centres formed in some geographical areas during Roman rule, using local limestone sources for their operation. The study includes funerary monuments discovered in present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the western part of Serbia and Montenegro. By combining the methods of macroscopic petrographic analysis of the stone material and typological and spatial analysis, the existence of several production centres was proven. The results of the analyses indicate a very likely that they exploited the local limestone resources. Epigraphic data also made it possible to define their chronological aspect.

Wood composites have shown very good performance, and substantial service lives when correctly specified for the exposure risks present. Selection of an appropriate product for the job should be accompanied by decisions about the appropriate protection, whether this is by design, by preservative treatment or by wood modification techniques. This Special Issue, Advances in Wood Composites presents recent progress in enhancing and refining the performance and properties of wood composites by chemical and thermal modification and the application of smart nanomaterials, which have made them a particular area of interest for researchers. In addition, it reviews some important aspects in the field of wood composites, with particular focus on their materials, applications, and engineering and scientific advances, including solutions inspired biomimetrically by the structure of wood and wood composites. This Special Issue, with a collection of 13 original contributions, provides selected examples of recent Advances in Wood Composites