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The Process of Enterprise Risk Management
Authors: Kok Boon Oh, Bruce Ho, Pham Le Thu Nga, Huang Yejing and Jianmei Wang (School of Business, La Trobe University, Melbourne, AU, and others)
This book provides an introduction to enterprise risk management. It presents a holistic view of the fundamentals right at the start that will aid the reader in understanding the concepts of risk and why they need to be analyzed to more advanced topics of strategic risk management. The author does this by adopting a widely accepted risk framework that uses financial risk as a common thread weaving through the entire enterprise risk management process to illustrate its workings. Therefore, the aim of this book is three-fold: First, it discusses the concept in a generic analytical framework of managerial decision-making. As the basic principles of risk management have been intermeshed with the generally accepted enterprise risk management framework, this implicitly warrants the discussion of the corporate environments in which risks exist, namely, the operational and financial systems. The second objective is to detail the enterprise risk management process in the context of a firm with a focus on financial risk exposure. Third, the risk management strategies are discussed; their relevance, methods and application are presented. This book also provides a framework for analyzing key financial risks and a guide for implementing risk controls in an enterprise risk management context.
Strategic Advances in Environmental Impact Assessment: Challenges of Unconventional Shale Gas Extraction
Authors: Afsoon Moatari-Kazerouni (Lecturer, Department of Geology-Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa)
Shale gas is natural gas that is tightly locked within low permeability sedimentary rock. Recent technological advances are making shale gas reserves increasingly accessible and their recovery more economically feasible. This resource is already being exploited in South Africa, China, the United States and Canada. Shale gas is being produced in large volumes, and will likely be developed in coming years on every continent except Antarctica. Depending on factors such as future natural gas prices and government regulations, further development of shale gas resources could potentially span many decades and involve the drilling of tens of thousands of hydraulically fractured horizontal wells.
This development is changing long-held expectations about oil and gas resource availability; several observers have characterized it as a game changer. Abundant, close to major markets, and relatively inexpensive to produce, shale gas represents a major new source of fossil energy. However, the rapid expansion of shale gas development over the past decade has occurred without a corresponding investment in monitoring and research addressing the impacts on the environment, public health, and communities. The primary concerns are the degradation of the quality of groundwater and surface water (including the safe disposal of large volumes of wastewater); the risk of increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (including fugitive methane emissions during and after production), thus exacerbating anthropogenic climate change; disruptive effects on communities and land; and adverse effects on to human health. Other concerns include the local release of air contaminants and the potential for triggering small- to moderate-sized earthquakes in seismically active areas. These concerns will vary by region. The shale gas regions can be found near urban areas, presenting a large diversity in their geology, hydrology, land uses, and population density. The phrase environmental impacts from shale gas development masks many regional differences that are essential to understanding these impacts.
This development is changing long-held expectations about oil and gas resource availability; several observers have characterized it as a game changer. Abundant, close to major markets, and relatively inexpensive to produce, shale gas represents a major new source of fossil energy. However, the rapid expansion of shale gas development over the past decade has occurred without a corresponding investment in monitoring and research addressing the impacts on the environment, public health, and communities. The primary concerns are the degradation of the quality of groundwater and surface water (including the safe disposal of large volumes of wastewater); the risk of increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (including fugitive methane emissions during and after production), thus exacerbating anthropogenic climate change; disruptive effects on communities and land; and adverse effects on to human health. Other concerns include the local release of air contaminants and the potential for triggering small- to moderate-sized earthquakes in seismically active areas. These concerns will vary by region. The shale gas regions can be found near urban areas, presenting a large diversity in their geology, hydrology, land uses, and population density. The phrase environmental impacts from shale gas development masks many regional differences that are essential to understanding these impacts.
Disaster Social Work from Crisis Response to Building Resilience
Authors: H C. Johnston Wong (Beijing Normal University and Hong Kong Baptist University, United International College, Zhuhai, China)
Occurrences of disasters are becoming more frequent and serious. Other than natural disasters, humanity is faced with new challenges of city fires, car accidents, disease outbreak, industrial accidents, radioactive exposure, terrorist attacks, environmental hazards and other unimaginable incidents. Social workers and other city emergency response teams – notably medical teams, firemen, police officers and mental health workers – are all called upon to mitigate and minimize disaster effects. Of course, saving lives is of the utmost importance; saving minds, however, cannot be neglected. This book describes the processes of crisis intervention, community mental health promotion and post traumatic growth. Putting resilience at heart has led to the ACT-R approach which can be learned not just by social workers, but by all response workers.
Questioning Jewish Caribbean Identity
Authors: Karen Carpenter (Director, Caribbean Sexuality Research Group, Kingston, Jamaica, West Indies)
Questioning Jewish Caribbean Identities lends a fresh, psychological approach to identity and Jewishness in the Caribbean. It explores the ways in which individuals in the islands have maintained their connections to Judaism as lineage, as a religion and as a culture. Transported overseas from Spain and Portugal in the 1500s while fleeing the Inquisition, and later during the second wave of exodus from Europe under threat of World War II, the Caribbean provided safe harbours for a number of Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews. There is no doubt that their presence in the Caribbean and Latin America over the last 500 years has had a tremendous impact on the growth and development of industry, modern commerce and culture. Their contribution to their new island homelands has been a lasting one. From the technology for the cultivation of sugar and the development of trade and commerce across the Atlantic, to the arts and education, Jewish life within the region has left and continues to leave an indelible mark.
For the author, there have been many stops along the way in completing this book. She has travelled and interacted with Jews across the globe, and these encounters were the genesis of the questions she asked herself about Jews of all descriptions. Indeed, many of the questions and their answers arise from an existential need to rationalise her own thoughts about her personal identity. This is a pattern that the author has noted among a number of the theorists included in this work. From Erickson with his Danish-Jewish background and the subsequent elaboration of his psychosocial theory; to Stuart Hall’s cultural theory, born out of his own mixed heritage and later inter-ethnic marriage; and Nathan Blumenthal, who changes his rather Jewish name to Nathaniel Branden as he becomes known for his psychology of self-esteem. Of course, it is impossible to speak of identity without acknowledging the seminal contribution of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory as a way of making meaning for ourselves in the world. Common to these theorist and many others, readers will encounter their own struggle with national, personal and ethnic identities while exploring the pages of this book. Claiming an identity suggests an autonomous act of loyalty to chosen identity, and for some this can mean the abandonment of previous ways of seeing themselves. This is the central threat of acts of identity; it signals, “I am with them” and equally, “I have no allegiance to you”. These are the sentiments over which battles are waged, causing people who appear indistinguishable from each other to obliterate neighbouring nations. This book is a story of the survival of a people, practice, culture, and religion.
For the author, there have been many stops along the way in completing this book. She has travelled and interacted with Jews across the globe, and these encounters were the genesis of the questions she asked herself about Jews of all descriptions. Indeed, many of the questions and their answers arise from an existential need to rationalise her own thoughts about her personal identity. This is a pattern that the author has noted among a number of the theorists included in this work. From Erickson with his Danish-Jewish background and the subsequent elaboration of his psychosocial theory; to Stuart Hall’s cultural theory, born out of his own mixed heritage and later inter-ethnic marriage; and Nathan Blumenthal, who changes his rather Jewish name to Nathaniel Branden as he becomes known for his psychology of self-esteem. Of course, it is impossible to speak of identity without acknowledging the seminal contribution of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory as a way of making meaning for ourselves in the world. Common to these theorist and many others, readers will encounter their own struggle with national, personal and ethnic identities while exploring the pages of this book. Claiming an identity suggests an autonomous act of loyalty to chosen identity, and for some this can mean the abandonment of previous ways of seeing themselves. This is the central threat of acts of identity; it signals, “I am with them” and equally, “I have no allegiance to you”. These are the sentiments over which battles are waged, causing people who appear indistinguishable from each other to obliterate neighbouring nations. This book is a story of the survival of a people, practice, culture, and religion.
Global Shia: A Contemporary Perspective
Authors: Norman C. Rothman (Department of History, University of Maryland University College, Adelphi, MD, US)
This book examines the role of Shia Islam in the world today. It covers several regions and nearly two dozen countries from both a contemporary and historical perspective. It deals with various divisions of Shia Islam, but concentrates on the majority sect of Twelver Islam. Through this narrative, Global Shia examines the critical role played by groups such as the Khojas and Lebanese immigrants as well as post-revolutionary Iran in global Islam. Global Shia concludes with an analysis of the present global status of Shia.
Cloud, Fog, and Edge: Technologies and Trends in Telecommunications Industry
Authors: Abdulrahman Yarali (Murray State University, Professor of telecommunications Systems, Murray, KY, US)
The 21st century has marked the arrival of new digital technologies that transform the way enterprises operate and people live their lives. From social media sites and smartphone technology to video streaming and cloud computing, there has been a bevy of new applications that are impacting society and business seemingly on a daily basis. Considering technology and networking is a constantly changing field, some of its aspects need to be changed to conform to newly set trends. Even though prior network management frameworks have proved efficient in the past years, change is inevitable. More and more people use the internet and more scalable network management architecture needs to be developed. In that respect, the telecommunication industry has seen tremendous growth accompanied by various challenges. Ideally, the expectations of all these include the quality of service and customer services as well as mitigating any threats that are affecting the service providers. With many opportunities being granted, telecommunication has a wide range of emerging content. For instance, there is the exponential growth of the Internet of Things devices and 5G network data, and the acceleration of cloud-based network adoption. More so, there are smart cities, mobile broadband, massive connectivity, artificial intelligence, and automation. Moving on to trends in big data, the development of the Internet of Things has brought into the picture countless innovative sources of big data. Cloud computing has served as one of the biggest trends in the last ten years and fog computing exhibits greater prospects. Cloud computing is changing the way we access applications and hardware as well as the business and healthcare environments. Even though there is presently a considerable amount of work underway at cloud data centers, the fog computing trend is bound to change things. Many of the important and disruptive IoT trends are taking place in the industrial setting in terms of transport, manufacturing, and utilities. In terms of smart living, turning regular homes into smart homes is a developing trend that is progressively getting bigger every single day. Automation and pervasive networks emerge from the combination of virtualization, IoT, densification, and 5G to replace today's atomistic networks. All of these trends are coined from the dynamism that is witnessed in computerized systems that have the unending need to offer improved and more efficient services. In this book, the author has discussed the future roadmap of telecommunications and the major disruptions that will drive the most change in this industry. The focus of this book concerns the cloud, fog and edge computing with their benefits, and challenges.
Exotic Algebraic and Geometric Structures in Theoretical Physics
Authors: Steven Duplij (Institute of Mathematics, University of Münster, Germany)
This collection presents original mathematical ideas and unusual constructions in theoretical physics. They were developed locally at Kharkov University, Ukraine, and now can be presented to Western readers. The subjects are broad and cover an array of ideas, from regular generalization of supermanifolds and category theory, coalgebras, the Yang-Baxter equation and Hopf algebras, to nontrivial aspects of nilpotent mechanics, fermionic gravity and multigravity, the constraintless Hamiltonian approach to singular theories, and the application of polyadic structures to representation theory and quantum groups. The book can attract researchers and post-graduate students who are interested in new developments and methods in modern theoretical physics and related directions in mathematics.
Isoprenoids: Polyprenols and Polyprenyl Phosphates as Physiologically Important Metabolic Regulators
Authors: Alexander N. Narovlyansky, Alexander V. Pronin, Alexander V. Sanin, Vladimir V. Veselovsky, Leonid L. Danilov, Alexander M. Sedov and Felix I. Ershov
This book defines and classifies polyisoprenoids, describes the characteristics of polyprenols, dolichols and their phosphates, and the metabolism of polyprenols and their derivatives, discusses the biological role of polyprenols, and analyzes the function of polyprenols in the regulation of cholesterol synthesis and the role of phytosterols in the suppression of cholesterol absorption in the gastrointestinal tract. It also describes the hepatoprotective and anti-inflammatory effect of polyprenols and separately discusses the current understanding of the mechanisms of dyslipidemia and metabolic syndrome development. This review contains background information on the newly developed drugs based on polyprenols and polyprenyl phosphates, which are highly promising in veterinary and human medicine.
Organic and Medicinal Chemistry
Editors: Bimal K. Banik, Ph.D. (Community Health Systems of SouthTexas, Edinburg, TX, US)
Organic and Medicinal Chemistry discusses the principal branches of chemistry, as they are more widely studied than any other subjects in chemistry. Very often, organic and medicinal chemistry have been defined collectively as a hybrid discipline of many other subjects, particularly biology, chemistry, medicine and pharmacy. The synthesis of molecules, mechanism of a process, studies of new reagents, natural products, and biological and pharmacological evaluation of molecules against different components of cells are the key subjects in these two areas. On the basis of unlimited possibilities, one can imagine several scopes that exist for students, researchers and industrialists to study and explore organic and medicinal chemistry. In this book, an attempt has been made to include diverse research topics to benefit the readers from different standpoints. This book has eighteen chapters from active authors who hail to different nations.
Bhalla and his group have written five chapters in this book. In the first chapter, Bhalla et al. have reported recent trends in nitrone-olefin cycloaddition reaction for the preparation of biologically active molecules. In the second chapter, Bhalla and Narula have reported the synthesis of medicinally important compounds via several organic transformations using DDQ. In the third chapter, Saini and Bhalla have described a benzoxazole scaffold for effective drug design in therapeutic drug design. In the fourth chapter, Berry and Bhalla have demonstrated recent progress on the pharmacological profile of pyrazole and imidazole conjugates. In the fifth chapter, Kumari and Bhalla have explored the synthesis of optically active beta lactams. Sahoo et al. have reported the therapeutic potential of pyrimidine-related new drug in Chapter Six. Sahoo et al. have demonstrated the new medicinal and pharmacological importance of thiazolidinones in Chapter Seven. Sahoo and Banik have explored the new quinazolines synthesis and their medicinal and pharmacological properties in Chapter Eight. Perchyonok has described natural biomaterials for veterinary therapy through an in vitro approach in the ninth chapter. In Chapter Ten, Perchyonok et al. have reported studies on cytotoxicity biomaterials containing chitosan hydrogels. Philips has demonstrated the synthesis and applications of pharmacologically relevant phosphonates and phosphinites in Chapter Eleven. Basu and Banik have explored apoptosis in the inhibition of cancer in Chapter Twelve. In Chapter Thirteen, Maiti et al. have investigated the synthesis and medicinal chemistry of isoxazolines and their analogues. Maji and Ganguly have demonstrated the use of mushroom as a food in Chapter Fourteen. Bandyopadhyay et al. have studied key enzymes that are responsible in cancer and their mechanism of action in Chapter Fifteen. The Chapters Sixteen through Eighteen are written by Banik and his group. In Chapter Sixteen, they have explored the synthesis of biologically active pyrroles through a variety of methods. In Chapter Seventeen, an exploration of novel polyaromatic compounds is described by this group. In Chapter Eighteen, Banik et al. have reported the preparation of diverse glycosides using the Ferrier rearrangement.
Scientists would be convinced that organic and medicinal chemistry have no boundary in science. The application of these chemical and medicinal sciences is huge and they are related to many significant discoveries. This book will be useful for chemists, biologists, clinicians, pharmacists, biotechnologists, industrialists and engineers who are working in the field of interdisciplinary science as well as specific chemical and medicinal science.
Bhalla and his group have written five chapters in this book. In the first chapter, Bhalla et al. have reported recent trends in nitrone-olefin cycloaddition reaction for the preparation of biologically active molecules. In the second chapter, Bhalla and Narula have reported the synthesis of medicinally important compounds via several organic transformations using DDQ. In the third chapter, Saini and Bhalla have described a benzoxazole scaffold for effective drug design in therapeutic drug design. In the fourth chapter, Berry and Bhalla have demonstrated recent progress on the pharmacological profile of pyrazole and imidazole conjugates. In the fifth chapter, Kumari and Bhalla have explored the synthesis of optically active beta lactams. Sahoo et al. have reported the therapeutic potential of pyrimidine-related new drug in Chapter Six. Sahoo et al. have demonstrated the new medicinal and pharmacological importance of thiazolidinones in Chapter Seven. Sahoo and Banik have explored the new quinazolines synthesis and their medicinal and pharmacological properties in Chapter Eight. Perchyonok has described natural biomaterials for veterinary therapy through an in vitro approach in the ninth chapter. In Chapter Ten, Perchyonok et al. have reported studies on cytotoxicity biomaterials containing chitosan hydrogels. Philips has demonstrated the synthesis and applications of pharmacologically relevant phosphonates and phosphinites in Chapter Eleven. Basu and Banik have explored apoptosis in the inhibition of cancer in Chapter Twelve. In Chapter Thirteen, Maiti et al. have investigated the synthesis and medicinal chemistry of isoxazolines and their analogues. Maji and Ganguly have demonstrated the use of mushroom as a food in Chapter Fourteen. Bandyopadhyay et al. have studied key enzymes that are responsible in cancer and their mechanism of action in Chapter Fifteen. The Chapters Sixteen through Eighteen are written by Banik and his group. In Chapter Sixteen, they have explored the synthesis of biologically active pyrroles through a variety of methods. In Chapter Seventeen, an exploration of novel polyaromatic compounds is described by this group. In Chapter Eighteen, Banik et al. have reported the preparation of diverse glycosides using the Ferrier rearrangement.
Scientists would be convinced that organic and medicinal chemistry have no boundary in science. The application of these chemical and medicinal sciences is huge and they are related to many significant discoveries. This book will be useful for chemists, biologists, clinicians, pharmacists, biotechnologists, industrialists and engineers who are working in the field of interdisciplinary science as well as specific chemical and medicinal science.
Waste-to-Energy (WtE)
Editors: Eduardo Jacob-Lopes, Leila Queiroz Zepka and Maria Isabel Queiroz (Federal University of Santa Maria, Santa Maria, RS, Brazil)
The supply of sufficient quantities of energy with minimal environmental impact are among the key challenges of the macroenergy world. The search for fossil energy substitutes that meet the energy requirements of sustainability directs the development to renewable energies. In this way, a waste-to-energy (WtE) approach has been considered as potentially attractive alternatives for the development of new sources of energy. The use of industrial and domestic wastes to produce energy and fuels is associated with a high yield per unit area, use of non-edible materials, use of non-agricultural land, use of non-potable water sources, parallel production of co-products and the potential for mitigation of pollutants. Thus, biomass and bioproducts supported in wastes, when processed by physical, chemical and/or biological operations may provide different types of bioenergy, including primarily biodiesel, biohydrogen, bioethanol, biomethane, synthesis gas, volatile organic compounds and electricity. Independent of the technological aspects, fundamental elements such as life cycle assessment, the bioeconomy of the processes, the process integration, the process intensification and the biorefinery concept were considered in the book. Given the book’s breadth of coverage and extensive bibliography, it offers an essential resource for researchers and industry professionals working with energy from waste.
Advances in Pattern Recognition Research
Editors: Thomas Lu, Ph.D. and Tien-Hsin Chao (Propulsion Lab/California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, US)
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a popular research topic recently. Pattern recognition (PR) is an important part of an AI system. If the AI is considered as the digital “brain”, then the PR is the visual and auditory “cortex” that converts the optical signals from the eyes and the acoustic signals from the ears to meaningful symbolic texts that the brain can digest. Over the past 40+ years, the processing speed of a digital computer has increased from kbits/s to tera floating point operations per second (TFLOPS), a 109 times acceleration. PR research has made significant advancements along the advancement of digital hardware, especially the graphical processing unit (GPU) technology that helps the rapid processing of complex images. In this book, the authors have collected the latest work from leading researchers in the PR fields. The topics are broad, which include optical implementation of various filters, digital implementation of state-of-the-art neural network (NN) training methods, and the latest deep leaning (DL) models. We also included applications of PR in various fields.
In Chapter One, an optical implementation of an advanced multi-stage automatic target recognition (ATR) processor is introduced. The grayscale optical correlator (GOC) has been implemented in a compact and rugged 2x2x2 inch3 cube. It is the world’s smallest optical correlator. Combined with a neural network (NN) classifier, the system becomes an efficient embedded vision system that learns to detect multiple targets embedded in large images with unknown backgrounds.
The deep neural network (DNN) learning model has become a phenomenal research topic. In Chapter Two, state-of-the-art DNN architectures are introduced. Applications of DNN in object segmentation, recognition and augmented reality are presented.
In Chapter Three, recent trends on invariant pattern recognition via joint transform correlation (JTC) are presented. Enhanced correlation filters such as logarithmic fringe-adjusted filter (LFAF), phase-encoded fringe-adjusted JTC (PJTC), shifted PJTC (SPJTC), Gaussian filtering based SPJTC (G-SPJTC) and Gaussian filter based logarithmic fringe-adjusted JTC (G-LFJTC) are discussed and tested for face recognition and texture identification.
In Chapter Four, a class of optical synthetic filters, the optimal trade-off maximum average correlation height (OT-MACH) filter is investigated. The spatial domain OT-MACH (SPOT-MACH) filters are compared to the frequency domain filters for PR in infrared (IR) images with poor contrast or large illumination gradients.
Cyber security has become an important research topic. Most cyber-attacks follow a certain pattern. Chapter Five discusses the applications of DL models as a PR technique to exploit this underlying characteristic of the cyber-attack data in information security.
Chapter Six discusses the recognition of handwritten numerals in the Modified National Institute of Standard (MNIST) database using probabilistic neural network (PNN) models.
Chapter Seven discusses several training methodologies of the artificial neural network (ANN) models. In Chapter Eight, the ANN training models are used in extracting spatial features for printed characters recognition.
In Chapter One, an optical implementation of an advanced multi-stage automatic target recognition (ATR) processor is introduced. The grayscale optical correlator (GOC) has been implemented in a compact and rugged 2x2x2 inch3 cube. It is the world’s smallest optical correlator. Combined with a neural network (NN) classifier, the system becomes an efficient embedded vision system that learns to detect multiple targets embedded in large images with unknown backgrounds.
The deep neural network (DNN) learning model has become a phenomenal research topic. In Chapter Two, state-of-the-art DNN architectures are introduced. Applications of DNN in object segmentation, recognition and augmented reality are presented.
In Chapter Three, recent trends on invariant pattern recognition via joint transform correlation (JTC) are presented. Enhanced correlation filters such as logarithmic fringe-adjusted filter (LFAF), phase-encoded fringe-adjusted JTC (PJTC), shifted PJTC (SPJTC), Gaussian filtering based SPJTC (G-SPJTC) and Gaussian filter based logarithmic fringe-adjusted JTC (G-LFJTC) are discussed and tested for face recognition and texture identification.
In Chapter Four, a class of optical synthetic filters, the optimal trade-off maximum average correlation height (OT-MACH) filter is investigated. The spatial domain OT-MACH (SPOT-MACH) filters are compared to the frequency domain filters for PR in infrared (IR) images with poor contrast or large illumination gradients.
Cyber security has become an important research topic. Most cyber-attacks follow a certain pattern. Chapter Five discusses the applications of DL models as a PR technique to exploit this underlying characteristic of the cyber-attack data in information security.
Chapter Six discusses the recognition of handwritten numerals in the Modified National Institute of Standard (MNIST) database using probabilistic neural network (PNN) models.
Chapter Seven discusses several training methodologies of the artificial neural network (ANN) models. In Chapter Eight, the ANN training models are used in extracting spatial features for printed characters recognition.
Andalusia: History, Society and Diversity
Editors: Eva Bermúdez-Figueroa and Beltran Roca (Sociology Area, General Economics Department, University of Cádiz, Spain)
This book, edited by Eva Bermúdez-Figueroa and Beltrán Roca, explores different dimensions of Andalusian society. Despite the plurality of topics and approaches, a common thread connects all the chapters. Andalusian culture, in its multiple manifestations, is clearly shaped by its semi-peripheral position within Spain, the European Union, and the world-system. The semi-peripheral position of Andalusia manifests in religiosity, migration, collective action, poverty, social policy, and economic activities such as fishing and tourism, among others. While some of these manifestations can be understood as forms of resistance to situations of oppression derived from economic and sociopolitical dependency, they tend to reproduce this dependency at the same time. This is why Andalusian culture is extremely ambiguous, inconsistent, and complex (especially for a foreign observer).
The book includes several studies on different aspects of the Andalusian reality. The authors belong to different scientific disciplines, in particular to sociology, social and cultural anthropology, social work, and economics. In addition, they work in different academic institutions: The University of Seville, the University of Cádiz, the University Pablo de Olavide, and the Autonomous University of Madrid. This book has been divided into three parts; they have been titled as History, Society, and Diversity. Each section consists of three chapters. These sections were selected because the chapters in them focus on different dimensions of the reality of Andalusia: Its historical backgrounds, critical current dynamics of its social reality, and the presence of a growing cultural diversity as a destination for international migration (a tendency especially meaningful since the beginning of the 21st century). The reader must be warned that some chapters could fit into other sections—for example, addressing historical insights and cultural trends at the same time. However, they have been organized with the aim of facilitating an international audience’s understanding of the main features and complexities of the Andalusian culture.
The book includes several studies on different aspects of the Andalusian reality. The authors belong to different scientific disciplines, in particular to sociology, social and cultural anthropology, social work, and economics. In addition, they work in different academic institutions: The University of Seville, the University of Cádiz, the University Pablo de Olavide, and the Autonomous University of Madrid. This book has been divided into three parts; they have been titled as History, Society, and Diversity. Each section consists of three chapters. These sections were selected because the chapters in them focus on different dimensions of the reality of Andalusia: Its historical backgrounds, critical current dynamics of its social reality, and the presence of a growing cultural diversity as a destination for international migration (a tendency especially meaningful since the beginning of the 21st century). The reader must be warned that some chapters could fit into other sections—for example, addressing historical insights and cultural trends at the same time. However, they have been organized with the aim of facilitating an international audience’s understanding of the main features and complexities of the Andalusian culture.
