Literary Connections between South Africa and the Lusophone World connects literatures and cultures of South Africa and the Portuguese-speaking nations of Africa and beyond, and is set within literary and cultural studies. The chapters gathered in this volume reinforce the critical and ongoing conversations in comparative and world literature from perspectives of the South. It outlines some possible theoretical and methodological starting points for a comparative framework that targets, transnationally, literatures from the South. This volume is an additional step to renew the critical potentialities of comparative literary studies (Spivak 2009) as well as of humanistic criticism itself (Said 2004) as South Africa and the Lusophone world (except its former colonizer, Portugal) are outside the spatial and cultural dimension usually defined as European and/or North American. In this sense and due to the evident geographical and socio-historical links between these regions, critical scholarship on their literary connections can contribute to unprecedented perspectives of representational practices within a broader contextual dimension, and in so doing, provides the emergence of what Boaventura de Sousa Santos called "epistemologies of the South" (Santos 2016), as it considers cultural exchanges in the space of so-called "overlapping territories" and "intertwined histories" (Said 1993).

This book provides state-of-the-art scientific and engineering research findings and developments in the area of service robotics and associated support technologies around the theme of human-centric robotics. The book contains peer reviewed articles presented at the CLAWAR 2017 conference. The book contains a strong stream of papers on robotic locomotion strategies and wearable robotics for assistance and rehabilitation. There is also a strong collection of papers on non-destructive inspection, underwater and UAV robotics to meet the growing emerging needs in various sectors of the society. Robot designs based on biological inspirations are also strongly featured.

Is the dream of EU endangered? This book reviews classic and modern values and virtues, and uses them in order to rethink Europe's present politics and its future. The idea of the Republic was born with the political ethics of ancient Greece. The current international crisis obliges Europe to face the mirror of truth: What has become of the European Idea and how fares the European Constitution? It has been a long road from the Greek Politeia to the present lack of values and financial monomania in Europe, who seems to have lost any harmony between the spirit, the soul and the body of her Constitution: the will and values of the people (material constitution), the text of the Lisbon Treaty (formal constitution) and its current political interpretation and action (real constitution), making Europe a two-tier or three-tier club, far from the dream of the founding fathers. Without republican values and virtues, and failing to uphold the European social model, the European Union would devolve into moral, social and democratic bankruptcy.

Context-aware systems aim to deliver a rich user experience by taking into account the current user context (location, time, activity, etc.), possibly captured without his intervention. For example, cell phones are now able to continuously update a user's location while, at the same time, users execute an increasing amount of activities online, where their actions may be easily captured (e.g. login in a web application) without user consent. In the last decade, this topic has seen numerous developments that demonstrate its relevance and usefulness. The trend was accelerated with the widespread availability of powerful mobile devices (e.g. smartphones) that include a myriad of sensors which enable applications to capture the user context. However, there are several challenges that must be addressed; we focus on scalability (large number of context aware messages) and privacy (personal data that may be propagated). This book is organized in five chapters starting with an introduction to the theme raising the most important challenges. Then, chapter two presents several important definitions (establishing a common ground for the following chapters) and taxonomy. These are important to chapter three which describes some of the most relevant distributed context-aware systems that can be classified according to the taxonomy. Privacy is addressed in chapter four and chapter five presents some important conclusions. The audience for this book is wide; researchers, students and professionals interested in the areas addressed will find the most relevant information regarding scalability and privacy in distributed context-aware systems.

How music embodies and contributes to historical and contemporary nationalism What does music in Portugal and Spain reveal about the relationship between national and regional identity building? How do various actors use music to advance nationalism? How have state and international heritage regimes contributed to nationalist and regionalist projects? In this collection, contributors explore these and other essential questions from a range of interdisciplinary vantage points. The essays pay particular attention to the role played by the state in deciding what music represents Portuguese or Spanish identity. Case studies examine many aspects of the issue, including local recording networks, so-called national style in popular music, and music’s role in both political protest and heritage regimes. Topics include the ways the Salazar and Franco regimes adapted music to align with their ideological agendas; the twenty-first-century impact of UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage program on some of Portugal and Spain's expressive practices; and the tensions that arise between institutions and community in creating and recreating meanings and identity around music. Contributors: Ricardo Andrade, Vera Marques Alves, Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco, Cristina Sánchez-Carretero, José Hugo Pires Castro, Paulo Ferreira de Castro, Fernán del Val, Héctor Fouce, Diego García-Peinazo, Leonor Losa, Josep Martí, Eva Moreda Rodríguez, Pedro Russo Moreira, Cristina Cruces Roldán, and Igor Contreras Zubillaga

How could nanotechnology not perk the interest of any designer, engineer or architect? Exploring the intriguing new approaches to design that nanotechnologies offer, "Nanomaterials, Nanotechnologies and Design" is set against the sometimes fantastic sounding potential of this technology. Nanotechnology offers product engineers, designers, architects and consumers a vastly enhanced palette of materials and properties, ranging from the profound to the superficial. It is for engineering and design students and professionals who need to understand enough about the subject to apply it with real meaning to their own work.
*World-renowned author team address the hot-topic of nanotechnology
*The first book to address and explore the impacts and opportunities of nanotech for mainstream designers, engineers and architects
*Full colour production and excellent design: guaranteed to appeal to everyone concerned with good design and the use of new materials

How music embodies and contributes to historical and contemporary nationalism What does music in Portugal and Spain reveal about the relationship between national and regional identity building? How do various actors use music to advance nationalism? How have state and international heritage regimes contributed to nationalist and regionalist projects? In this collection, contributors explore these and other essential questions from a range of interdisciplinary vantage points. The essays pay particular attention to the role played by the state in deciding what music represents Portuguese or Spanish identity. Case studies examine many aspects of the issue, including local recording networks, so-called national style in popular music, and music’s role in both political protest and heritage regimes. Topics include the ways the Salazar and Franco regimes adapted music to align with their ideological agendas; the twenty-first-century impact of UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage program on some of Portugal and Spain's expressive practices; and the tensions that arise between institutions and community in creating and recreating meanings and identity around music. Contributors: Ricardo Andrade, Vera Marques Alves, Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco, Cristina Sánchez-Carretero, José Hugo Pires Castro, Paulo Ferreira de Castro, Fernán del Val, Héctor Fouce, Diego García-Peinazo, Leonor Losa, Josep Martí, Eva Moreda Rodríguez, Pedro Russo Moreira, Cristina Cruces Roldán, and Igor Contreras Zubillaga

Com prefacio e introducao dos jornalistas Paulo Ferreira e Luis Rosa, este livro compila as cronicas de Jose Diogo Madeira publicadas no jornal i, entre 2012 e 2014. O autor questiona dogmas ideologicos, com uma autonomia e liberdade de pensamento que nao e catalogavel em nenhuma das tradicionais chaves de classificacao que opoem a direita a esquerda, a iniciativa individual a responsabilidade dos agentes publicos, a existencia de um Estado Social a reforma desse mesmo Estado. E todo o tempo em que alguem nos obriga a pensar e tempo bem empregue."

Maat, traduite par les egyptologues par deesse de la Verite Justice est un concept demeure obscur, malgre l'abondance des sources archeologiques a notre disposition. Comment se fait-il qu'il soit si difficile de cerner l'idee de justice des anciens egyptiens ? Les specialistes estiment que la raison essentielle tient a ce que l'univers de pensee de l'ancienne Egypte nous est etranger. Ils ont parfaitement raison. En effet, que peut-il y avoir de commun au regard de la justice entre un peuple qui s'interesse avant tout a la la force de vie et a sa juste circulation et un peuple centre avant tout sur la gestion et le partage de la matiere ? Pour comprendre pleinement ce qu'etait la justice de l'ancienne Egypte, il convient de se replacer dans le contexte psychologique de cet ancien peuple et de regarder ses images symboliques sans y projeter nos propres conceptions de la justice et de la vie. En s'aidant de son experience prealable dans le domaine du droit romain archaique qui plonge ses racines aux sources de l'Ancienne Egypte, l'auteur apporte ici une contribution remarquable tant a l'egyptologie qu'a la philosophie du droit. Une fois comprise, Maat eclaire alors d'un jour nouveau la civilisation de la vallee du Nil dont, faute de comprendre sa justice, la veritable sagesse nous a toujours echappe. Anna Mancini, Docteur en Droit