The opening paragraph of this dissertation originates from Mozambican writer Mia C outo’s1 famous novel The Last Flight of the Flamingo (O Último Voo do Flamingo in Portuguese original). It plays at the end of Mozambique’s civil war, when the Italian United Nations officer Massimo R isi is sent to the village of Tizangara to investigate the mysterious deaths of local United Nations …
In 2007, in a speech before the Indian Parliament, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe brought back to light an ancient Asian geographical vision: the so-called “confluence of the two seas”. It referred to the idea of linking the Pacific with the Indian Ocean, as Japanese policymakers conceived the concept at the time. That would later become the “Indo-Pacific …
The COVID-19 pandemic has reorganized existing methods of exchange, turning comparatively marginal technologies into the new normal. Multipoint videoconferencing in particular has become a favored means for web-based forms of remote communication and collaboration without physical copresence. Taking the recent mainstreaming of videoconferencing as its point of departure, this anthology examines…
In the sequence and division of the smart materials shown here some special points had to be taken into account. Classification in accordance with influencing factors and changing properties does not make things absolutely clear, as with some smart materials changes may be triggered by two, three, or more different influences or in other cases stimulation by a single influence can result in sev…