This book provides a thorough and detailed analysis of how the figure of the ‘autonomous learner’ shapes educational practices. It unpacks the impact of current educational reform discourse that focuses on the individual pupil as a learner, while neglecting the social dimensions of classroom practices. In view of the yet unknown requirements of the knowledge economy, students are demanded to take more responsibility for their learning and to become self-reliant, independent, lifelong learners. In turn, teachers are asked to tailor education to the individual needs of their students and to foster their individual learning trajectories. Based on in-depth fieldwork and long-term observation of interactions in classrooms and other scholastic settings, scholars from three European countries – France, Germany and Switzerland – show how the translation of the figure of the ‘autonomous learner’ into classrooms is shaped by distinct cultural traditions. Chapters analyse teaching routines and conceptions of self-reliance involved in autonomy-oriented settings and discuss how these change the sociality of the classroom. They scrutinize how autonomy is used to differentiate between students and how it contributes to the reproduction of social inequality. The book brings into dialogue two neighbouring research traditions that research autonomous learning from a sociological perspective and which have largely ignored each other until now. In so doing, the contributions engage a critical perspective for a careful empirical analysis in order to better understand what is being done in the name of autonomy. Providing insight into the many facets of developing and nurturing self-standing pupils across various educational contexts, this is ideal reading for scholars in the field of education, as well as teachers and decision-makers across the educational sector.

Nanochemistry: Chemistry of Nanoparticle Formation and Interactions provides an overview of the chemistry aspects of nanoparticle science, including nanoparticle synthesis, chemical properties, stability, applications and self-assembly behavior. The critical concepts discussed in this book represent the necessary toolbox for enabling the rational design of nanoparticle-based materials for target applications. After an introduction to standard analytical techniques used for nanoparticle characterization, four separate chapters cover inorganic, organic, polymer nanoparticles, and carbon nanostructures to highlight the synthetic protocols, structural intricacies, and chemical properties specific to each of these material classes. Finally, physicochemical phenomena governing self-assembly behavior of nanoparticles are also discussed in detail separately. This book is intended for senior undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students and research scientists in nanoscience and nanotechnology, material science, chemistry, physics, biomedical sciences and relevant engineering fields that want to develop a deeper understanding of the governing chemical principles on the nanoscale.

This book provides a thorough and detailed analysis of how the figure of the ‘autonomous learner’ shapes educational practices. It unpacks the impact of current educational reform discourse that focuses on the individual pupil as a learner, while neglecting the social dimensions of classroom practices. In view of the yet unknown requirements of the knowledge economy, students are demanded to take more responsibility for their learning and to become self-reliant, independent, lifelong learners. In turn, teachers are asked to tailor education to the individual needs of their students and to foster their individual learning trajectories. Based on in-depth fieldwork and long-term observation of interactions in classrooms and other scholastic settings, scholars from three European countries – France, Germany and Switzerland – show how the translation of the figure of the ‘autonomous learner’ into classrooms is shaped by distinct cultural traditions. Chapters analyse teaching routines and conceptions of self-reliance involved in autonomy-oriented settings and discuss how these change the sociality of the classroom. They scrutinize how autonomy is used to differentiate between students and how it contributes to the reproduction of social inequality. The book brings into dialogue two neighbouring research traditions that research autonomous learning from a sociological perspective and which have largely ignored each other until now. In so doing, the contributions engage a critical perspective for a careful empirical analysis in order to better understand what is being done in the name of autonomy. Providing insight into the many facets of developing and nurturing self-standing pupils across various educational contexts, this is ideal reading for scholars in the field of education, as well as teachers and decision-makers across the educational sector.

This book collects papers presented during the European Workshop on High Order Nonlinear Numerical Methods for Evolutionary PDEs (HONOM 2013) that was held at INRIA Bordeaux Sud-Ouest, Talence, France in March, 2013. The central topic is high order methods for compressible fluid dynamics. In the workshop, and in this proceedings, greater emphasis is placed on the numerical than the theoretical aspects of this scientific field. The range of topics is broad, extending through algorithm design, accuracy, large scale computing, complex geometries, discontinuous Galerkin, finite element methods, Lagrangian hydrodynamics, finite difference methods and applications and uncertainty quantification. These techniques find practical applications in such fields as fluid mechanics, magnetohydrodynamics, nonlinear solid mechanics, and others for which genuinely nonlinear methods are needed.

Between 1991 and 2015, Josef Koudelka completed an epic journey across twenty countries bordering the Mediterranean, stopping at over 200 Greek and Roman archaeological sites, relentlessly researching the beauty of the ancient world. Before the Magnum photographer, nobody had attempted to make such a comprehensive photographic record of these artefacts with so much persistence and so little assistance. In this book, produced in close collaboration with the photographer, Koudelka’s aim was to use art to re-appropriate a world that is escaping us and that we could lose – a world where the mind alternates between reason and faith, law and liberty.