OA eBooks Collection

AI Knowledge Transfer from the University to Society: Applications in High-Impact Sectors brings together examples from the “Innovative Ecosystem with Artificial Intelligence for Andalusia 2025” project at the University of Seville, a series of sub-projects composed of research groups and different institutions or companies that explore the use of Artificial Intelligence in a variety of high-impact sectors to lead innovation and assist in decision-making.
Key Features

Includes chapters on health and social welfare, transportation, digital economy, energy efficiency and sustainability, agro-industry, and tourism 
Great diversity of authors, expert in varied sectors, belonging to powerful research groups from the University of Seville with proven experience in the transfer of knowledge to the productive sector and agents attached to the Andalucía TECH Campus

This volume presents a range of research approaches to the exploration of ageing during a pandemic situation. One of the first collections of its kind, it offers an array of studies employing research methodologies that lend themselves to replication in similar contexts by those seeking to understand the effects of epidemics on older people. Thematically organised, it shows how to reconcile qualitative and quantitative approaches, thus rendering them complementary, bringing together studies from around the world to offer an international perspective on ageing as it relates to an unprecedented epidemiological phenomenon. As such, it will appeal to researchers in the field of gerontology, as well as sociologists of medicine and clinicians seeking to understand the disruptive effects of the recent coronavirus outbreak on later life.

This book discusses contemporary accountability and transparency mechanisms by presenting a selection of case studies.The authors deal with various problems connected to controlling public institutions and incumbents’ responsibility in state bodies. The work is divided into three parts. Part I: Law examines the institutional and objective approach. Part II: Fairness and Rights considers the subject approach, referring to a recipient of rights. Part III: Authority looks at the functional approach, referring to the executors of law. Providing insights into increasing understanding of various concepts, principles, and institutions characteristic of the modern state, the book makes a valuable contribution to the area of comparative constitutional change.It will be a valuable resource for academics, researchers, and policy-makers working in the areas of constitutional law and politics.

A nova edição de O Massacre de Manguinhos inaugura a Coleção Memória Viva, criada para tornar acessíveis aos leitores obras de reconhecida relevância acadêmica e institucional. A coleção é fruto do projeto “Acesso aberto e uso da literatura científica no ensino”, desenvolvido no Instituto de Comunicação e Informação Científica e Tecnológica em Saúde (Icict), da Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz), onde as políticas de acesso aberto têm sido encaradas como estratégicas para o fortalecimento da ciência e da saúde pública. O pesquisador Herman Lent narra a repressão da ditadura militar à atividade científica na Fundação Oswaldo Cruz.

“Over the past few years, narrative research as central method for empirical social research has broadened the view of interdisciplinary approaches. This also benefits the adult education research, as for example within the areas of literacy and basic education.
The exploration of (auto)biographical narrative styles and structures contributes greatly to the understanding of learning biographies. In this book the author combines several international studies and links them to issues from within adult education research. The studies thereby capture neurobiological, philosophical and pedagogical perspectives of narrative structures. They reveal links between biographies and educational processes and allow for the initiation of new teaching/learning settings.”

Wives and Wanderers in a New Guinea Highlands Society brings to the reader anthropologist Marie Reay’s field research from the 1950s and 1960s on women’s lives in the Wahgi Valley, Central Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Dramatically written, each chapter adds to the main story that Reay wanted to tell, contrasting young girls’ freedom to court and choose partners, with the constraints (and violence) they were to experience as married women.
This volume provides readable ethnographic material for undergraduate courses, in whole or in part. It will be of interest to students and scholars of gender relations, anthropology and feminism, Melanesia and the Pacific. The material in this book, which Reay had written by 1965 but never published, remains startlingly contemporary and relevant.
Marie Olive Reay was a social anthropologist who did research in Australian indigenous communities and in the Wahgi Valley in the Central Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Employed at The Australian National University from 1959 to 1988 when she retired, Reay passed away in 2004. In 2011 this manuscript was found in her personal papers, reconstructed, and edited by Francesca Merlan, augmented here by an additional introduction by eminent anthropologist of the Highlands, and of gender, Marilyn Strathern.
Had this manuscript appeared when Reay apparently completed it in its present form – around 1965 – it would have been the first published ethnography of women’s lives in the Central Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Its retrieval from Reay’s papers, and availability now, adds a new dimension to works on gender relations in Melanesian societies, and to the history of Australian and Pacific anthropology.

The tropical forests of Oceania are an enduring source of concern for indigenous communities, for the migrants who move to them, for the states that encompass them within their borders, for the multilateral institutions and aid agencies, and for the non-governmental organisations that focus on their conservation. Grounded in the perspective of political ecology, contributors to this volume approach forests as socially alive spaces produced by a confluence of local histories and global circulations. In doing so, they collectively explore the multiple ways in which these forests come into view and therefore into being. Exploring the local dynamics within and around these forests provides an insight into regional issues that have global resonance. Intertwined as they are with cosmological beliefs and livelihoods, as sites of biodiversity and Western desire, these forests have been and are still being transformed by the interaction of foreign and local entities. Focusing on case studies from Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and the Gambier Islands, this volume brings new perspectives on how Pacific Islanders continue to creatively engage with the various processes at play in and around their forests.

Japan is quintessentially by geography a maritime country. Maritime surveillance capabilities – underwater, shore-based and airborne – are critical to its national defence posture. This book describes and assesses these capabilities, with particular respect to the underwater segment, about which there is little strategic analysis in publicly available literature.
Since the end of the Cold War, Chinese oceanographic and navy vessels have intruded into Japanese waters with increasing frequency, not counting their activities in disputed waters such as around the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands and Okinotorishima where China and Japan have overlapping territorial claims. These intrusions have increasingly involved warships, including submarines, sometimes acting quite aggressively.
Japan maintains an extraordinary network of undersea hydrophone arrays, connected to shore-stations which are typically equipped with electronic intelligence (ELINT) systems, for monitoring, identifying and tracking submarine and surface traffic in its internal straits and surrounding seas. Some parts of this network are operated jointly with, and are of crucial importance to, the US Navy.
Japan’s superlative submarine detection capabilities would be of decisive advantage in any submarine engagement. But the relevant facilities are relatively vulnerable, which makes them very lucrative targets in any conflict. This introduces compelling escalatory dynamics, including the involvement of US forces and possible employment of nuclear options.

This catalogue presents works by three prominent Australian artists – Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd and Narritjin Maymuru – featured in the exhibition Three Creative Fellows, at the Drill Hall Gallery from 9 August – 16 September 2007.

All three artists were recipients of ANU Creative Arts Fellowships, and the authors of the essays presented in this volume are prominent ANU scholars. Dr Mary Eagle writes about Sidney Nolan’s and Arthur Boyd’s reflections on creativity, while Professor Howard Morphy contributes a moving essay about the creation stories painted by Narritjin Maymuru.

Bruce Hamon’s They Came to Murramarang, first published in 1994, provides a unique combination of local history and personal recollections from a writer who witnessed the transformation of the Murramarang region from the timber era to modern times. This new edition retains the original character of Bruce’s engaging prose with additional chapters relating to Bruce’s life, the writing of the book, the Indigenous history of the region and the transformation of the area since the book was written. The book has also been enhanced by the insertion of additional photographs.

This volume explores the complexity, diversity and interwoven nature of taxonomic pursuits within the context of explorations of humans and related species. It also pays tribute to Professor Colin Groves, whose work has had an enormous impact on this field. Recent research into that somewhat unique species we call humankind, through the theoretical and conceptual approaches afforded by the discipline of biological anthropology, is showcased. The focus is on the evolution of the human species, the behaviour of primates and other species, and how humans affect the distribution and abundance of other species through anthropogenic impact. Weaving together these three key themes, through the considerable influence of Colin Groves, provides glimpses of how changes in taxonomic theory and methodology, including our fluctuating understanding of speciation, have recrafted the way in which we view animal behaviour, human evolution and conservation studies.

Sorcery and witchcraft practices and beliefs are pervasive across Melanesia. They are in part created by, and give rise to, a wide variety of poor social and developmental outcomes. These include uneven economic development, low public health, lack of social cohesion, crime, fear and insecurity. A further very visible problem is the attacks on men and women who are accused of being practitioners of witchcraft or sorcery, which can lead to serious bodily harm, banishment and sometimes death. Today, many communities, individuals, church organisations and policymakers in Melanesia and internationally are exploring ways to overcome the negative social outcomes associated with witchcraft and sorcery practices and beliefs. This book brings together a collection of chapters written by a diverse range of authors, both Melanesian and non-Melanesian, providing crucial insights both into how these practices and beliefs are playing out in contemporary Melanesia, and also the types of interventions that are being trialled or debated to address the problems associated with them.

The Struggle of the Shi‘is in Indonesia is a pioneering work. It is the first comprehensive scholarly examination in English of the development of Shiism in Indonesia. It focuses primarily on the important period between 1979 and 2004 – a period of nearly a quarter of a century that saw the notable dissemination of Shi’i ideas and a considerable expansion of the number of Shi’i adherents in Indonesia. Since Islam in Indonesia is overwhelmingly Sunni, this development of Shiism in a predominantly Sunni context is a remarkable phenomenon that calls for careful, critical investigation. There is also an important examination of the principal ideas underlying the Madhab Ahl al-Bayt, the Imamate and Imam Madhi, Ja‘fari jurisprudence and ritual piety. Appropriately, in his discussion, Zulkifli provides a succinct outline of contrasts with Sunni ideas and practice. He also examines the publishing efforts that underpinned the dissemination of Shi’i ideas and the founding of IJABI (Ikatan Jamaah Ahlul Bait Indonesia) in July 2000 for the propagation of Ahl al-Bayt teachings. Given the Indonesian context, Zulkifli is also concerned with Sunni reactions to these Shi’i developments – a story that continues to unfold to the present. This book as a work of great value and significance for the continuing understanding of the richness and complexity of Indonesian Islam.

For nearly four decades, Ian Keen has been an important, challenging, and engaging presence in Australian anthropology. Beginning with his PhD research in the mid-1970s and through to the present, he has been a leading scholar of Yolngu society and culture, and has made lasting contributions to a range of debates. His scholarly productivity, however, has never been limited to the Yolngu, and he has conducted research and published widely on many other facets of Australian Aboriginal society: on Aboriginal culture in ‘settled’ Australia; comparative historical work on Aboriginal societies at the threshold of colonisation; a continuing interest in kinship; ongoing writing on language and society; and a set of significant land claims across the continent. In this volume of essays in his honour, a group of Keen’s former students and current colleagues celebrate the diversity of his scholarly interests and his inspiring influence as a mentor and a friend, with contributions ranging across language structure, meaning, and use; the post-colonial engagement of Aboriginal Australians with the ideas and structures of ‘mainstream’ society; ambiguity and indeterminacy in Aboriginal symbolic systems and ritual practices; and many other interconnected themes, each of which represents a string that he has woven into the rich tapestry of his scholarly work.

In this collection of essays, we reflect on what it means to practise the social sciences in the twenty-first century. The book brings together leading social scientists from the Asia-Pacific region. We argue for the benefit of dialogue between the diverse theories and methods of social sciences in the region, the role of the social sciences in addressing real-world problems, the need to transcend national boundaries in addressing regional problems, and the challenges for an increasingly globalised higher education sector in the twenty-first century. The chapters are a combination of theoretical reflections and locally focused case studies of processes that are embedded in global dynamics and the changing geopolitics of knowledge. In an increasingly connected world, these reflections will be of global relevance

This collection of papers is the fifth in a series of volumes on the work of the Comparative Austronesian Project. Reflecting the unique experience of fourteen ethnographers in as many different societies, the papers in this volume explore how people in the Austronesian-speaking societies of the Asia-Pacific have traditionally constructed their relationship to land and specific territories. Focused on the nexus of local and global processes, the volume offers fresh perspectives to current debate in social theory on the conflicting human tendencies of mobility and emplacement.