Sheela-na-gigs


Book Description

A study of the mysterious stone carvings of naked females exposing their genitals on medieval churches all over the British Isles.




Smart Water Utilities


Book Description

Today there is increasing pressure on the water infrastructure and although unsustainable water extraction and wastewater handling can continue for a while, at some point water needs to be managed in a way that is sustainable in the long-term. We need to handle water utilities “smarter”. New and effective tools and technologies are becoming available at an affordable cost and these technologies are steadily changing water infrastructure options. The quality and robustness of sensors are increasing rapidly and their reliability makes the automatic handling of critical processes viable. Online and real-time control means safer and more effective operation. The combination of better sensors and new water treatment technologies is a strong enabler for decentralised and diversified water treatment. Plants can be run with a minimum of personnel attendance. In the future, thousands of sensors in the water utility cycle will handle all the complexity in an effective way. Smart Water Utilities: Complexity Made Simple provides a framework for Smart Water Utilities based on an M-A-D (Measurement-Analysis-Decision). This enables the organisation and implementation of “Smart” in a water utility by providing an overview of supporting technologies and methods. The book presents an introduction to methods and tools, providing a perspective of what can and could be achieved. It provides a toolbox for all water challenges and is essential reading for the Water Utility Manager, Engineer and Director and for Consultants, Designers and Researchers.




Age Inclusive Public Space


Book Description

New public spaces tend to over-represent attentions for the young and middle-aged, whereas elderly citizens are often neglected by contemporary urban design practice. This publication is a dialogue between architects and academic contributors from a variety of disciplines: by collecting examples and showcasing architectural case studies as well as age-inclusive design methodology, it provides practitioners with inspiration as well as theoretical and practical knowledge on how to design public space to meet the needs of people of all ages. The drawings, photographs and illustrations of contemporary built environments, historic gardens, art installations and atmospheric landscapes cater to the reading habits of spatial practitioners at large.




Digital Cities


Book Description

On the way towards the Information Society, global networks such as the Internet, together with mobile computing, have made wide-area computing over virtual communities a reality. Digital city projects, with the goal of building platforms to support community networking, are going on worldwide. This is the first book devoted to digital cities. It is based on an international symposium held in Kyoto, Japan, in September 1999. The 34 revised full papers presented were carefully selected for inclusion in the book; they reflect the state of the art in this exciting new field of interdisciplinary research and development. The book is divided into parts on design and analysis, digital city experiments, community network experiments, applications, visualization technologies, mobile technologies, and social interaction and communityware.




The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism


Book Description

Few discussions in modern social science have occupied as much attention as the changing nature of welfare states in western societies. Gosta Esping-Andersen, one of the most distinguished contributors to current debates on this issue, here provides a new analysis of the character and role of welfare states in the functioning of contemporary advanced western societies. Esping-Andersen distinguishes several major types of welfare state, connecting these with variations in the historical development of different western countries. Current economic processes, the author argues, such as those moving towards a post-industrial order, are not shaped by autonomous market forces but by the nature of states and state differences. Fully informed by comparative materials, this book will have great appeal to everyone working on issues of economic development and post-industrialism. Its audience will include students and academics in sociology, economics and politics.




Scandinavism


Book Description

"Despite its failure as a political mobilizer, Scandinavism as a cultural movement would have a great impact on national consciousness-raising in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden by stressing common ethnolinguistic, mythological and historical roots. This cultural vision is traced in the long 19th century, specifically in its interactions and overlaps with the various nationally specific manifestations of cultural nationalism. Through an in-depth analysis of an extensive corpus of cultural products - ranging from novels and poetry to public commemorations, painting and street name signs - this book demonstrates that cultural Scandinavism was successful in forging a common pan-Scandinavian identity that supplemented and strengthened national-identity formation in the three nationalities it aimed to unify"--




Friendship, Love, and Brotherhood in Medieval Northern Europe, c. 1000-1200


Book Description

In this book, Lars Hermanson discusses how religious beliefs and norms steered attitudes to friendship and love, and how these ways of thinking affected social identity and political behaviour. With examples taken from eleventh- and twelfth-century northern Europe, the author investigates why friendship was praised both by brotherhoods of aristocratic warriors and by brethren within monastery walls. Social and political functions rested on personal connections rather than a strong central state in the High Middle Ages. This meant that friendship was an important pragmatic instrument for establishing social order and achieving success in the game of politics.




The Northernmost Ruins of the Globe


Book Description

An important part of the heritage of Count Eigil Knuth (1903-1996) is his archaeological archive contaning contextual information on prehistoric sites gathered during six decades of research in High Arctic Greenland. The finds and observations are a key to the understanding of human life under extreme conditions in a long-term perspective and represent a unique piece of evidence concerning the early cultural history of the Eastern Arctic. Knuth's expeditions from 1932 to 1995 took him to Greenland and Canada, in particular High Arctic Greenland. In a number of important articles Knuth published the findings dating back to the earliest human settlement in Greenland. However, he never managed to present the complete body of information and results from his many investigations. The present authors have thus compiled a computer database on the basis on his archive, which constitutes the starting point of the present book. The book focuses on Knuth's most substantial contribution to archaeology: the prehistory of Peary Land and adjacent areas. In the catalog, emphasis has been placed on topographical and architectural information, site structure, artefact statistics and radiocarbon dates. A total of 154 archaeological sites are presented. Fifty-one sites with a total of 244 features are Independence I sites (c. 2460-1860 cal. BC), twenty-three sites with a total of 416 features belong to Independence II (c. 900-400 cal. BC) and sixty-three sites with a total of 626 features are of Thule origin (c. 1400-1500 ca. AD). This study presents some new information on the faunal material from Peary Land based on Christyann Darwent's recent analyses as well as new data on the dwelling features on the Adam C. Knuth Site, which was visited by a multidisciplinary team in 2001. It also offers an introduction presenting an overview and evaluation of Knuth's remarkable curriculum vitae as an independent arctic archaeologist. In the concluding chapters some basic statistics on the archaeological sites are presented. We evaluate Knuth's radiocarbon datings of the Independence I, Independence II and Thule cultures in High Arctic Greenland, and settlement distributions and settlement patterns for the three cultures represented in Peary Land are discussed.




Post-Roman Towns, Trade and Settlement in Europe and Byzantium: Byzantium, Pliska, and the Balkans


Book Description

In this collection leading international authorities analyse the structures and economic functions of non-agrarian centres between ca. 500 and 1000 A.D. - their trade, their surrounding settlements, and the agricultural and cultural milieux. The thirty-one papers presented at an international conference held in Bad Homburg focus on recent archaeological discoveries in Central Europe (Vol. 1), as well as on those from southeastern Europe to Asia Minor (Vol. 2).




Castles at War


Book Description