Medicines travel, transform, and multiply meanings across Asia's markets, temples, texts, and bodiesWhat makes something a medicine? To answer this deceptively simple question, Global Lives of Medicines offers twelve richly detailed biographies of medicinal substances across Asian history. From ginseng and frankincense to aconite, radish, and live leeches, contributors trace how materials moved through markets, temples, courts, homes, and laboratories while continually acquiring new meanings and uses.

Across the chapters, familiar categories begin to dissolve. Substances may function simultaneously as food, poison, ritual tool, or sacred object. Healing agents may be plant roots, minerals, aromatics, or even living creatures. Through these diverse case studies spanning East and South Asia, Global Lives of Medicines demonstrates how the boundaries between medicine, technology, religion, and commerce were constantly negotiated in different historical contexts. By placing these biographies in dialogue, it offers a new approach to the history of medicine-one that foregrounds the materiality, mobility, and cultural transformation of therapeutic substances across Asia.

With the ongoing development of immersive technologies, growing degrees of design flexibility, and integrated communicative tools, the metaverse presents new possibilities for facilitating language learning opportunities through meaningful social interactions. As the metaverse is still emerging, the edited volume identifies the key elements of metaverse-based language learning and teaching by placing them in the context of established theories and practices in second language acquisition. It also presents metaverse platforms and tools, and provides examples of how they might be used in the field of English Language Education.

The volume is divided into four parts (Foundations, Practical Applications, Socio-Emotional, Ethical and Sustainable Dimensions, and Future Directions), consisting of 13 internationally contributed chapters that address various aspects of the metaverse-based language teaching and learning. The volume provides valuable insights for language educators, researchers, and learners, and aims to enrich the language learning and teaching landscape in an increasingly digital world.

This book reconstructs and examines the complex history of Studia Logica, one of the world's leading journals in symbolic logic. While its origins can be traced to 1934, the journal has appeared as a continuous periodical since 1954. Its story is neither simple nor linear, shaped by shifting political contexts, intellectual alliances, and evolving research agendas, and in many ways more intricate than that of comparable journals beyond the Iron Curtain. This book recounts this history through the perspectives of those who shaped the journal-its editors, authors, reviewers, and readers highlighting how political change and academic networks influenced its development. The first part offers a chronological narrative of the journal's history, while the second turns to specific periods, from its early beginnings to its consolidation in the mid-twentieth century and its subsequent international expansion. This book provides both historians of logic and contemporary researchers with a deeper understanding of the role Studia Logica has played in the advancement of modern logic.

This book constructs a multi-dimensional international oil price forecasting and analysis indicator framework covering seven different dimensions: supply, demand, inventory, finance, institutional remarks, key events, and trading sentiment. It incorporates as many predictive factors as possible into the indicator set and uses multiple regression methods to forecast international oil price trends for six months or a year more completely and comprehensively, providing better explanatory power for abnormal fluctuations in international oil prices. This book aims to provide a reference for relevant units to deeply understand the evolution law of international oil prices and identify the dominant factors behind international oil price changes, while also indicating to investors which warning indicators they should focus on.

This edited volume explores the triple problem of striking a balance between energy transition, energy security, and energy justice. The book captures their intricate relationships using an interdisciplinary framework that combines economics, political science, and law. It examines theoretical underpinnings and provides comparative case studies across several jurisdictions, drawing on globally renowned academics and practitioners. By placing energy transition within frameworks of geopolitics, socioeconomics, and justice, the volume goes beyond traditional discussions. By highlighting fair access to energy and reasonable transitions in a world that is changing quickly, it helps define sustainable development in practice.

This work tackles humanity's most enduring questions, from the origins of the universe to the nature of just war, by proposing a revolutionary epistemological framework that transcends traditional academic boundaries. The study argues that no single approach, whether realist or liberal, scientific or artistic, can fully capture truth's complexity. Instead, the book introduces a comprehensive four-spiral methodology that integrates cognitive (scientific), affective (artistic), intuitive (subliminal), and divinitive (spiritual) ways of knowing.

Through a cyclical process of observation, participation, and reflection, the book demonstrates how standing back to look, standing close to listen, taking part, and looking again creates an ever-deepening spiral of understanding. Each spiral, cognitive, affective, intuitive, and divinitive, offers unique insights that, when combined, reveal "radical wisdom as the truth about many truths." This methodology promises to bridge the gap between competing worldviews and provide a more complete framework for addressing life's fundamental questions.

The work challenges readers to move beyond the limitations of single-perspective thinking and embrace a pluralistic approach that honors both rational analysis and spiritual insight, empirical observation and emotional understanding.

This open access book draws on unique ethnographic fieldwork carried out in four Quebec?mental health courtrooms?to examine the role courts play in the organization and implementation of psychiatric coercion. It provides a much-needed critical and empirical analysis of these judicial practices at a time when social inequalities have been deepening and the legal devices that facilitate psychiatric coercion in hospitals or in the community have been multiplying, and where the voices of psychiatrically labeled individuals are marginalized.

Employing a cross-sectional and structural analysis of judicial practices across different?mental health?courtrooms, this research investigates the coercive and violent dimensions of a process that is considered therapeutic. The book offers a critical, intersectional analysis of judicial practices, highlights the multiple legal procedures and court orders individuals can be subjected too, and examines the development of a?mental health?justice market. The author argues that often the legal framework has little impact on judicial practices and demonstrates the impact of paternalistic conceptions of mental health and organizational constraints. This compelling work underscores the violence of a justice system that ignores and denigrates people’s experiential knowledge and disregards rights in favor of holding individuals accountable for their poor living conditions.

It will appeal to students and scholars of mental health, medical sociology, mad studies, the sociology of law and deviance, judicial ethnography and critical psychology and psychiatry, as well as to allied health and social care professionals.

This book explores the intricate relationship between time and politics, offering a comprehensive analysis of how temporal strategies have shaped political discourse in Poland from 1989 to 2024. By equating social time with political time, the monograph reveals the continuity of change despite attempts to disrupt it, providing a unique perspective on the socio-political transformations that have occurred since the fall of communism. Key concepts such as the manipulation of temporal strategies, the use of time as a political tool, and the impact of watershed moments are thoroughly examined. The book delves into how politicians have used time to influence public perception, create political narratives, and maintain power. By tracing the evolution of these strategies, the author uncovers the profound effects of temporal manipulation on political competition and societal change. Ideal for scholars, researchers, and students of political science and history, this monograph offers valuable insights into the dynamic interplay between time and politics. It is an essential resource for anyone seeking to understand the complexities of political discourse and the role of time in shaping political realities.

This book highlights the interdisciplinary nature of entrepreneurship in today’s rapidly changing global landscape. Written by leading scholars and industry experts, it examines how ethnicity shapes entrepreneurial practices among indigenous communities in Namibia. Drawing on diverse theoretical frameworks and real-world insights from local leaders, it offers a unique cultural perspective on entrepreneurship.

The volume explores how indigenous entrepreneurs balance modern economic demands with deep-rooted cultural values, while addressing the challenges and opportunities they face. By foregrounding authentic voices, it contributes to a deeper understanding of indigenous entrepreneurship. This book is an essential resource for researchers, students, practitioners, and communities interested in indigenous business and development.

This book examines the role of civil society in guarding Indonesia's democracy, with a spotlight on the 2024 general elections. The 2024 election was characterized by the incumbent's significant influence in shaping electoral outcomes, even prior to election day, including bureaucratic involvement aimed at favouring specific candidates aligned with the regime, thereby undermining procedural democratic norms. Within this context, this book considers how far civil society plays a role in safeguarding Indonesia's democracy. This book is guided by two main considerations: the general picture of Indonesia's democracy based on the 2024 general elections process, and the role of civil society in guarding the electoral process of the 2024 general elections. It looks at participation in electoral political competition vis-a-vis identity politics, such as affiliations with Islamic figures or leveraging Chinese ethnic identity, and the actions of Indonesian religious organizations such as Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, as well as, the role of women's NGOs in ensuring implementation of the quota for women's representation in the 2024 elections. It also illustrates how young Muslims, utilizing digital platforms and contemporary cultural movements, have rejuvenated Islamism into a dynamic and adaptable force that effectively responds to modern challenges while upholding democratic ideals, which are marked by inclusivity, justice, and civic engagement. The central finding, however, is that this broad civic action is undermined by fragmentation within an increasingly closed and transactional political system. Ultimately, the book concludes that this diversity within civil society, despite its challenges, represents the most distinctive opportunity for safeguarding and revitalizing Indonesian democracy beyond 2024.

Not mere biological entities, bodies are conceptual and political battlegrounds, either instruments of domination or avenues of liberation. Throughout history and across cultures, bodies have been used to express social, racial, class, and gender differences. They have also been imagined as means: means for reproducing life and labor, means understood to be inscribed within a "natural" order. This concept has run through the entire history of Western metaphysics and culture, and its persistence and development has contributed to the establishment of cultural and political dominance by Western rationality and the white men who conceived it.

This book asks us to reconsider the theoretical and political power of means in relation to bodies. Stimilli problematizes the role of means in a hypertechnological era in which politics has come to be seen merely as administration, with no pretence of elaborating higher meanings or purposes. Are means, she asks, truly instruments subordinate to purposes unrelated to them, or could they be something else?

In a philosophical investigation into the meaning of means, Stimilli elaborates the political power of bodies as means, arguing that they are never neutral and lie at the origin of collective phenomena whose potential is still to be explored. From the United States to South America and Europe, from North Africa to the Middle East and beyond, bodies are at the center of enormous transnational and intersectional movements as non-instrumental means for new forms of social reproduction. A new sexuation of the world is now the order of the day.

This book presents a multidisciplinary exploration of artificial intelligence (AI) and its transformative impact across diverse sectors, from logistics and agriculture to architecture, social media, management, law, and ethics. Through selected papers from the ICAIS'24 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Studies under the theme of "Future Trends in AI: Academy Meeting with Industry", the book examines real-world applications and theoretical implications of AI technologies, offering insights into GPU-accelerated object detection, precision agriculture, interior design, digital HR practices, and equitable anti-money laundering solutions. The selected papers also address pressing ethical concerns and legal frameworks surrounding AI, including prohibited systems and jurisdictional differences in case prediction. Designed for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers, this collection fosters a deeper understanding of AI's evolving role in shaping sustainable, inclusive, and technologically advanced societies.

Die Arbeit untersucht die ungeklaerte materielle Reichweite des Herkunftslandprinzips in den Geltungsbereichen der ECRL und des DSA im Vergleich zur Reichweite des Sendestaatprinzips der AVMD-RL. Zudem werden die Auswirkungen des Herkunftslandprinzips im DSA auf die landesrechtliche Regulierung von Medienintermediaeren in Deutschland behandelt und bestehende regulatorische Spielraeume im Rahmen des MStV, JMStV, JuSchG und NetzDG analysiert. Beide Fragen sind dringlich, da der DSA als unmittelbar anwendbare Verordnung gilt und Vorrang gegenueber entgegenstehendem Landesrecht in Deutschland hat.

This book examines how major shocks-the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic-accelerated long-running shifts in international finance, from the rise of Asia's capital markets to tighter banking regulation and the rebalancing of global capital flows. Bringing together comparative evidence on international financial centres, external balance sheets, and market microstructure, the book traces changes in equity and fixed-income issuance, the expansion of corporate bond finance, and currency trading dynamics since 2000.

Chapters survey the evolution of the Basel Capital Accord (Basel I-III) and the debate around the so-called "Basel IV" output-floor reforms; analyze asymmetric resilience and global imbalances; and assess BIS-based trends in FX turnover and instrument composition, including the growing role of swaps and the renminbi. Across regions, the book highlights how regulatory convergence, market depth, breadth, and volatility have reshaped competitive positioning between established Western hubs and emerging Asian centres.

Written for scholars and advanced students of international finance, macro-finance, and global capital markets, as well as policy practitioners, the book offers an empirically grounded synthesis that connects structural change to crises-driven policy responses and the organisation of global markets. It provides updated datasets through 2023 and integrated analysis across banking regulation, foreign exchange, and corporate debt, offering measured insights without overstating novelty or reach.

Drawing on an impressive array of archival sources, from colonial criminal records to historical maps and expose journalism, this book brings to light the overlooked history of ethnic Chinese enclaves in Korea during the era of Japanese colonialism. Situated within a global circuit of Chinese migration, the Japanese empire produced a structure of anti-migrant violence unique to colonial Asia while reproducing racial ideas that shaped the Chinatowns of North America and Europe. Each chapter of the book analyzes a site of Chinese migration as a constitutive part of the Japanese colonial infrastructures of racialization: ships and ports that served as conduits for Chinese migrants; shophouses that spread across Asia to accommodate new types of colonial labor; writings that circulated Chinese racial archetypes; streets and homes vulnerable to ethnic violence and destruction; and Japanese police photographs created to surveil Chinese migrants and their environments.

The title of the book, Traveling Chinatowns, indicates the transimperial infrastructures of Asian racialization that made Chinatowns both material and ideological spaces across multiple continents. Locating Korea's Chinatowns within transnational histories of anti-migrant racism and violence, this book challenges the prevailing view that sees Chinatowns as exclusively the creation of white settler racism, and instead sheds light on the complexity inherent in Chinatowns as spaces that are reflective of histories of empire and labor migration that have linked people, goods, and ideas across continents.

After nearly two decades, blockchain technology and its native implementation, represented by cryptocurrencies, have gone through substantial development, and their role in financial markets has grown considerably. Evolving from their original objective as a medium of exchange to encompass more sophisticated functionality, an important question emerges: Do cryptocurrencies represent a new investable asset class? This book seeks to explore how cryptocurrencies operate, the underlying blockchain technology, and the heterogeneous functionalities they exhibit today, providing investors with a general overview of this emerging investment opportunity. Moreover, the book offers a systematic review of the academic literature on the role of cryptocurrencies as financial assets, followed by an empirical analysis examining the risk-return characteristics of digital assets and their contribution in terms of diversification to traditional investment portfolios.

This book offers a comprehensive exploration of contemporary issues in consumer law. Organized by the International Association of Consumer Law (IACL) and presented at the 18th World Consumer Law Conference in Hamburg, it examines multifaceted challenges across various jurisdictions and sectors. It begins with an analysis of the integration of consumer protection into financial services, featuring insights into Brazilian over-indebtedness frameworks and South African corporate responsibility. A significant portion is devoted to trade obligations and faulty goods, including comparative studies involving Ghana, the UK, and the EU, alongside discussions on product durability.
The volume adopts an interdisciplinary approach, exploring the intersection of consumer law with competition law, gender studies, and intellectual property. It brings together international perspectives, ranging from gender protection in Argentina to trademark analysis in China. In the digital context, the book addresses evolving challenges such as Online Dispute Resolution (ODR), blockchain, and the liability of online platforms under EU and Turkish law. It also examines the impact of artificial intelligence in healthcare, deceptive design practices, and the important link between consumer protection and environmental sustainability.
Covering emerging areas such as food law and the protection of international tourists, this book is an essential resource for legal scholars, practitioners, and policymakers navigating the complex landscape of modern consumer protection.