Books on the topic 'Hybrid collectif'

Drawing on a rich array of textual and visual primary sources, including medicine, satires, play scripts, dictionaries, natural philosophy, and texts on collecting wonders, this book provides a fresh perspective on monstrosity in early modern European culture. The essays explore how exceptional bodies challenged social, religious, sexual and natural structures and hierarchies in the sixteenth, seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries and contributed to its knowledge, moral and emotional repertoire. Prodigious births, maternal imagination, hermaphrodites, collections of extraordinary things, powerful women, disabilities, controversial exercise, shapeshifting phenomena and hybrids are examined in a period before all varieties and differences became normalized to a homogenous standard. The historicizing of exceptional bodies is central in the volume since it expands our understanding of early modern culture and deepens our knowledge of its specific ways of conceptualizing singularities, rare examples, paradoxes, rules and conventions in nature and society.

Recently, public policies of urban regeneration have intensified and multiplied. They are being promoted with the aim to start social and economic dynamics within the local context which is subject to intervention. From the empirical analysis, we realise that such activities are mainly implemented by three subjects or by mixed coalitions (public institutions, actors of the third sector and companies). Within them, each player is moved by a multiplicity of interests and goals that go beyond their own nature – public interest, market and mutualism – and tend to redefine themselves, thus becoming hybrid forms of production of value (social, economic, cultural). By studying a number Italian and Catalan cases, this essay deals with the theory that, under specific conditions and configurations, a collaborative direction – of organization, production and design – would give life to successful procedures, even without the identification of a one-best-way. The collaboration is not simply a choice of operation, but a real production method which mobilises social resources to create hybrid solutions – between state, market and society – to complex issues that could not be faced solely with the use of the rationale of action of one among the three actors. In this framework, the systems of relations and interactions between players and shared capital become an essential condition for the success of every initiative of urban redevelopment, or failure thereof. Such initiatives are brought to life by the strategic role of individuals who foster connections as well as the dissemination of non-redundant information between social networks, and collective and individual actors which would otherwise be separated and barely able to communicate and collaborate with each other. In addition to the functions carried out by knowledge brokers, that have been extensively described in organisational studies and economic sociology, the aforementioned figures act as real social enzymes, that is to say, they handle the available information and function as catalysts of social processes of production of knowledge. Moreover, they increase the reaction speed, working on mechanisms which control the spontaneity.

This volume collects prominent voices in the debate on transdisciplinarity in a transdisciplinary manner. Its coincidence of content and form in presenting main papers and critical replies to them from a different discipline allows for a vivid discussion and new insights. These stylistically and thematically divergent contributions are linked by reservations about transdisciplinarity as an allround intellectual weapon and the conviction that its programmatic weight could be regained by approaching the subject from the margins—transdisciplinarity where it breaks down, fails, comes to an end. Unravelling transdisciplinarity’s contours by clarifying its limits.

While it is common to talk about an “organizational identity,” since its first formal conceptualization over 30 years ago, scholars have suggested that an organization may have more than one collective answer to the question “who are we?” I review two major conceptualizations of organizational identity plurality that have developed in the past few decades: (1) hybrid and (2) multiple organizational identities. Specifically, I summarize the major theoretical and empirical research in each of these conceptualizations, delineate the major differences between them, and discuss potential avenues for future research. I conclude the chapter with a discussion of whether and how unified conceptualizations of “who we are” as an organization can exist alongside organizational identity plurality.

This chapter provides an introduction to study design, data collection, and analysis in implementation science. Although the randomized controlled trial is frequently employed in implementation science, a number of alternatives are relied on for addressing the unique challenges present. Alternatives include the cluster randomized control trial, roll-out designs such as the stepped wedge, cumulative trial, and effectiveness–implementation hybrid designs. Data collection and data analytic techniques must also address the unique challenges present in implementation science. Often, implementation occurs over time, often, across complex, multilevel contexts. Implementation scientists frequently utilize mixed, qualitative, and quantitative methodologies for collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data. Data represent the outer context of service systems and the inner context of organizations such that the data are often nested and hierarchical in nature. This chapter highlights the previously mentioned topics, particularly as they relate to currently funded implementation studies focused on the cancer control continuum.

Shockley writes creatively in response to an inscription written on the side of the jar associated with the title of the collection. As a contemporary black woman and as a literary critic and a poet herself, Shockley seeks out her multifaceted relatedness to the person and legacy of Dave the Potter. In this hybrid of creative and scholarly writing, Shockley uses the format of the letter to imaginatively reply directly to “Dave.” In the process, Shockley transforms the terms of historical inquiry to better suit the diasporic terms of her relation to a “him” who is never finally in the past nor an object of impersonal history.

Global migration has become more diversified and also the settlement, citizenship and integration package has changed. These changes have important consequences for cultures and identity-definitions, for the socio-political conditions of collective action and claims-making, for established institutional policy-patterns and dealing with claims, for citizenship and democratic representation, and for theories of multiculturalism. My focus is on changing socio-political conditions of collective action because it seems to be the empirically least researched topic and because the competing, fashionable paradigms – ‘intersectionalism’, ‘transnationalism’, ‘mobility’ or ‘superdiversity’ – are kryptonormative, overgeneralized and misleading. I start with conceptual, theoretical, empirical and normative objections against the superdiversity paradigm because it seems to have rapidly increasing traction. Next, however, I proceed from the criticized assumption that superdiversity diagnoses would be empirically true: If, and to the degree to which, cultural practices get more radically flexible, hybrid and fluid and objective social positions, collective identity definitions, netness, groupness and organizations would get fluid and flexible, less stable claims-making can be expected: immigrant ethno-religious minorities of all kinds would loose collective voice. Contrary to the normative praise of superdiversity and ‘individualization’ and of ‘diversity-policies’ this would be – in the real world of structural power-asymmetries – not a praiseworthy utopia but a nightmare.

The digital Bible is often viewed as promising, with unparalleled accessibility to the biblical text through mobile and analytical technologies; it is also viewed as imperiling the reading of printed Bibles, undermining the reflective and collective practices that have shaped religious faith for hundreds of years. An idolatrous distraction by the overload of hypermedia Bibles, a prioritization of the individual’s consumerist choices, and a disengagement from community and conversation—all these challenges of the digital Bible are being addressed by a rise in hybrid reading practices that both retain printed Bibles for types of religious reading, and that utilize digital devices in “iDisciplines” supporting traditional and emerging practices of individual devotion and community formation.

Digital Culture is conceived as all kinds of knowledge, habits, values and skills acquired by human beings that are built and shared in the digital environment. In this sense, the collection Digital Culture in the Educational Context: a view between trends and challenges for the 21st century brings relevant theoretical and empirical notes around what the National Common Curricular Base – BNCC – whose competence is to stimulate the critical use of technological resources, inserting both educators and students in pedagogical practices in order to learn and dominate the digital universe. The first part of the work is dedicated to Theoretical Approaches, bringing notes about Media Education with the pandemic period and what has impacted the educational scenario, both in student learning and in the performance of teaching professionals. Therefore, the reader is asked: If remote education is educational chloroquine? It also brings relevant considerations about Information and Communication Technologies applied to Distance Education and Hybrid Education, such as: Literacy in Mathematics, as well as the use of computers and gamification combined with education. Finally, with the Digital Universe, it brings an alert regarding the impacts of cyberbullying. Entitled Narratives of Experiences, the second part of the collection covers various teaching experiences with respect to the Digital Age. Among them, in elementary school, it brings challenges in the process of Literacy and Literacy practices and the teaching perception in relation to Specialized Educational Service. Considerations are made about various pedagogical resources in times of adversity. Among them: the Youtube channel of storytelling, collaborating with the reinvention of teachers in Elementary Education; and, in Higher Education, the relevance of Hybrid Education the joint application of Sole and the Google Classroom. In addition to the teaching experience, finally, testimony of the dilemmas and challenges of managerial activity in the school segment of Early Childhood Education are brought up

The first inclusive collection to examine post-2008 developments in Balkan cinema, this book brings together a number of international scholars working within and beyond the region to explore its industrial contexts and textual dimensions. Exploring both mainstream and arthouse cinemas, the authors identify patterns, trends and common characteristics in the subject matter and aesthetics of films produced and distributed since the global economic crisis. With a focus on transnational links, global networks and cross-cultural exchanges, the book addresses the role of national and supranational institutions as well as film festival networks in supporting film production, distribution and reception. Through critical and comprehensive profiles of the cinematic output in each Balkan country, and with an equal focus on smaller and underrepresented cinemas from Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Albania, the collection argues for the continuing relevance of the concept of ‘Balkan cinema’. This study conceptualizes Contemporary Balkan Cinema as a hybrid, trans-national encounter that offers multifarious responses to political and social challenges in the region: gravitation and/or disillusionment toward the European Union; migration; political and social instability; and economic recession.

Chapter 30 defines transmedia storytelling as a hybrid of adaptation and transfictionality. Like the former, it involves several media; like the latter, it builds a storyworld through multiple narratives. Two types of transmedia storytelling are distinguished: top-down, the deliberate spreading of narrative content across multiple media; and bottom-up, the use of many media to develop a narrative originally conceived as mono-medial. If transmedia is to be a truly new mode of narration, it should proceed top-down, but actual examples are rare. The essay considers what kinds of phenomena can be regarded as transmedia storytelling; what are the relations between transmedia and interactivity; whether transmedia promote collective world creation; and whether the dispersion of content across multiple media is favorable or detrimental to the two basic elements of narrative: plot and storyworld.

Chapter 1 outlines the main research questions of the book, namely identifying a detailed map of verb movement across a wide selection of (non-)standard Romance varieties and showing that much more variation is attested than traditionally assumed. In order to achieve this goal, verb placement is tested with respect to a number of hierarchically ordered adverbs, as mapped by Cinque (1999), and taking into account not only present indicative lexical verbs, but also different verb typologies. Before proceeding with the investigation, a number of assumptions are presented, such as the methodological ones (e.g. the intonational and scope requirements of the tested adverbs), the theoretical ones (e.g. hybrid cartographic-minimalist framework), as well as some comments on the method of data collection (cf. guided translation task with native speakers).

This chapter explains the logic of the selection of Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay as the focus of analysis on exile, diaspora, and return, indicating the puzzling divergence of their paths from authoritarian rule into democratization. Against the background of regional closeness and cooperation, cycles of authoritarian dictatorships, and varied workings of democracy, we explore the role of key intellectual and political figures affecting the distinctive paths of the new and restored democracies. The chapter also positions this work as maintaining an analytical/theoretical and empirical dialogue with several interrelated corpuses of research in the humanities and social sciences; namely, the chapter addresses issues dealing with exile, expatriation, and forced migration; diaspora and transnationalism; processes of political transition, transitional justice, and cultural transformation; and the construction and reconstruction of collective identities, including hybrid identities. Finally, the chapter provides readers with a road map to the remaining chapters of the book.

Chapter 7 examines the subaltern lifeworld of the Andaman Ranchis by investigating ‘classical’ topics of social, religious, and economic anthropology. The first section focuses on the construction of a particular local form of collective diasporic belonging. The author argues that ‘Ranchi-ness’ must be regarded as a hybrid combination of values, norms, and practices incorporating both traits from Chotanagpur as well as the larger Andaman society. By engaging with the transformation of aspects such as ethnicity, language, religion, kinship, and marriage practices in the migration situation, he portrays the boundaries of this ethnic community-in-the-making. The second part of the chapter illuminates the Ranchis’ processes of place-making in the margins of the state. It is argued that the condition of marginality was conducive to the creation of a self-sufficient subaltern lifeworld, in which Ranchi socio-economic practices evolved in response to the specific ecological conditions set by the environment.

This collection reveals how, in Manchukuo (1932-1945), literature both furthered national aims while contesting them, as writers of varied ethnicities engaged in multivalent strategies to continue cultural production amidst difficult political circumstances. Studies of their work by transnational scholars today demonstrate that these writers faced factors influencing outcomes of their production, such as censorship, the Japanese puppet regime's propaganda aims, and even the market. In addition, particular hybrid language practices emerged, with writers engaging in transnational practices in a border region. This volume examines what we call "Manchukuo perspectives" unique to cultural producers in a state transformed by Japanese interests, but later shaped by more inclusive multivalent aims, reflected in the writings of Chinese, Korean, and Russian intellectuals who felt a keen loss of nation, which also included Japanese converted leftists who transformed their antipathy towards imperialist capitalism into support for a fascist state offering the utopian promises of a "right-wing proletarianism".

The key problems of nation- and state-building are revealed in the concept of the chronotope of the Ukrainian “long twentieth century,” which is a hybrid projection of the “long nineteenth century.” An essential feature of this stage in the history of Ukraine and Ukrainians is the realization of the intentions of socioeconomic, ethnocultural and political emancipation: in fact, the end of the Ukrainian revolution, which began in the context of World War I, and the destruction of the colonial system. The second book deals with the essential changes of the united Ukraine, which emerged within the framework of the Yalta-Potsdam system. Its fate in the era of World War II and the Cold War, the consequences of re-Sovietization, unconscious collective traumas and transgressions and their impact on modernity are the author's optics of studying the historical path of Ukraine in the era of confrontation of world systems and the collapse of communism, which enabled Ukraine's sovereignty. For a wide audience.

As a fundamentally hybrid medium, cinema has always been defined by its interactions with other art forms such as painting, sculpture, photography, performance and dance. Taking the in-between nature of the cinematic medium as its starting point, this collection of essays maps out new directions for understanding the richly diverse ways in which artists and filmmakers draw on and reconfigure the other arts in their creative practice. From pre-cinema to the digital era, from avant-garde to world cinema, and from the projection room to the gallery space, the contributors critically explore what happens when ideas, forms and feelings migrate from one art form to another. Giving voice to both theorists and moving image practitioners, Cinematic Intermediality: Theory and Practice stimulates fresh thinking about how intermediality, as both a creative method and an interpretative paradigm, can be explored alongside probing questions of what cinema is, has been and can be.

This volume, the first sustained critical work on the writing of the French political philosopher Etienne Balibar, collects essays by sixteen prominent philosophers, psychoanalysts, anthropologists, sociologists, and literary critics who each identify, define, and explore a central concept in Balibar’s thought. The contributors examine “Balibar and the Philosophy of the Concept” (Warren Montag), “Anthropological” (Bruce Robbins), “Border-concept” (Stathis Gourgouris), “Civil Religion” (Judith Butler), “Concept” (Etienne Balbar), “Contre- / Counter-” (Bernard E. Harcourt), “Conversion” (Monique David-Ménard), “Cosmopolitics” (Emily Apter), “Interior Frontiers” (Ann Laura Stoler), “Materialism” (Patrice Maniglier), “The Political” (Adi Ophir), “Punishment” (Didier Fassin), “Race” (Hanan Elsayed), “Relation” (Jacques Lezra), “Rights” (J.M. Bernstein), and “Solidarity” (Gary Wilder). The result is a hybrid lexicon-engagement that makes clear the depth and importance of Balibar’s contribution to the most urgent topics in contemporary thought. Each lexical entry/essay makes a startling, novel intervention in current debates, and as a whole Thinking with Balibar offers a model of collaborative critico-political reading of great importance to global academic culture.

This is the third book in the EPT Teaching, Research and Extension Collection. The purpose of the seminar is to dialogue with researchers in the field of EFA, enabling the exchange of interinstitutional experiences. The organization of this work consists of a transcript of the opening conference given by the respected professional education researcher, Prof. Dr. Dante Henrique Moura (IFRN), who provided master students, teachers and other participants, a class on the advances and setbacks in EPT. The exquisite debate of the researcher professor, Dr. Alexandre Ferry (Cefet-MG) was also transcribed, which in a very didactic way, provides a better understanding of the terminological inaccuracies that make up the EFA. The other texts that consolidate the collection are the results of research carried out by teachers and students, the Master in Technological Education (Cefet-MG) and the Master in Professional and Technological Education (ProfEPT) from IFMG and IF Sudeste de Minas. And, also, by professors from the Federal University of Uberlândia (UFU), from other courses at Cefet-MG, as well as from other institutions such as Faculdade Pitágoras and Puc-Minas. The themes that make up this volume are quite variable and broad, as is the field of professional and technological education. The idea of the subtitle: multidisciplinary views, translates well the meaning of the work. It is a network of knowledge that gets mixed up in a hybrid connection, showing the reader that science is not linear, nor is it watertight.

When Herodotus wrote his Histories during the Archidamian War, the Spartans were widely successful with their propaganda of ‘Freedom for all Hellenes’ against the Athenian imperialism. The aim of this paper is to show that in his stories Herodotus blamed not only the Athenians for their hybris towards the Greeks, but even-handedly the Spartans for their anxiety, hesitancy, parochialism, and, as a consequence of all that, double-dealing in foreign affairs. Spartan selfishness is exemplified in his stories about single Spartan kings as well as the Spartans as collective actor. Especially their behaviour towards the Plataeans, Corinthians, Tegeans, Argives, and Ionians, as Herodotus depicts it for the years before and during the Persian Wars, is astonishingly similar to their conduct during the Pentecontaetia and the Archidamian War. So Herodotus might have intended to warn the Spartans’ actual and potential allies not to put much trust in them.

Since the Second World War, constitutional justice has spread through much of the democratic world. Often it has followed in the wake of national calamity and historical evil—whether fascism or communism, colonialism or apartheid. Unsurprisingly, the memory of such evils plays a prominent role in constitutional adjudication. This book explores the intersection of constitutional justice and collective memory. It focuses on three jurisdictions—the United States, Germany, and South Africa—and on three towering evils—Nazism, apartheid, and slavery. It argues that courts tend to approach historic evil through one of two principal modes of memory: the redemptive mode, which treats the evil past as an aversive reference point against which the new constitutional order must aggressively define itself; and the parenthetical mode, which treats the evil past as an aberration from an otherwise noble tradition. The redemptive mode emphasizes caesura, the redemptive mode continuity. Most courts deploy both modes at various times. But some tend to emphasize one over the other, and some tend to fuse the two in something of a hybrid. These emphases have consequences. They help shape the stability of a constitutional regime, and they profoundly influence a polity’s capacity to come to terms with its past.

Framed in debates about the crisis of democracy, the book analyzes one of the most influential social movements of recent times: Spain’s “Indignados” or “15-M” movement. In the wake of the global financial crisis and harsh austerity policies, 15-M movement activists occupied public squares across the country, mobilized millions of Spanish citizens, gave rise to new hybrid parties such as Podemos, and inspired pro-democracy movements around the world. Based on access to key participants in the 15-M movement and Podemos, and extensive participant observation, the book tells the story of this remarkable movement, its emergence, evolution, and impact. In so doing, it challenges some of the core arguments in social movement scholarship about the factors likely to lead to movement success. Instead, the book argues that movements organized around autonomous network logics can build and sustain strong movements in the absence of formal organizations, strong professionalized leadership, and the ability to attract external resources. The key to understanding its power lies in the shared political culture and collective identity that emerged following the occupation of Spain’s central squares. These protest camps sustained the movement by forging reciprocal ties of solidarity between diverse actors, and generating a shared set of critical master frames across a diverse set of actors and issues (e.g., housing, education, pensions, privatization of public services, corruption) that enabled the movement to effectively contest hegemonic narratives about the crisis, austerity, and democracy, influencing public debate and the political agenda.

The Practice of Socialist Internationalism examines the efforts of British, French, and German socialist parties to cooperate with one another on concrete international issues. Drawing on archival research in twelve countries, it spans the years from the First World War to the early 1960s, paying particular attention to the two post-war periods (1918 to the late 1920s and 1945 to the mid-1950s), during which national and international politics were recast. During these years, European socialists operated simultaneously in national and transnational spaces, and the book explores the ways in which these two spaces overlapped. In addition to highlighting a neglected dimension of twentieth-century European socialism, it provides novel perspectives on two related subjects: the history of internationalism and the history of international politics. Scholars of internationalism focus either on state or on non-state actors (INGOs), but socialist parties constituted something of a hybrid: rooted more firmly in national politics than most INGOs, they were also more self-consciously internationalist than state actors. Just as importantly, European socialists sought to forge a new practice of international relations, one that would emerge from their collective efforts to work out ‘socialist’ approaches to pressing issues of European politics such as post-war reconstruction, European integration, and decolonization. While the extent of their success is debatable, the efforts of European socialists to identify distinct approaches act as a spotlight, illuminating obscure yet vital aspects of an issue.

The First Edition of this book, which appeared in 2013, serves as a problem text for Part I (Fundamentals of Chemical Bonding) and Part II (Symmetry in Chemistry) of the book Advanced Structural Inorganic Chemistry published by Oxford University Press in 2008. A Chinese edition was published by Peking University Press in August in the same year. Since then the authors have received much feedback from users and reviewers, which prompted them to prepare a Second Edition for students ranging from freshmen to senior undergraduates who aspire to attend graduate school after finishing their first degree in Chemistry. Four new chapters are added to this expanded Second Edition, which now contains over 400 problems and their solutions. The topics covered in 13 chapters follow the sequence: electronic states and configurations of atoms and molecules, introductory quantum chemistry, atomic orbitals, hybrid orbitals, molecular symmetry, molecular geometry and bonding, crystal field theory, molecular orbital theory, vibrational spectroscopy, crystal structure, transition metal chemistry, metal clusters: bonding and reactivity, and bioinorganic chemistry. The problems collected in this volume originate from examination papers and take-home assignments that have been part of the teaching program conducted by senior authors at The Chinese University of Hong Kong over nearly a half-century. Whenever appropriate, source references in the chemical literature are given for readers who wish to delve deeper into the subject. Eight Appendices and a Bibliography listing 157 reference books are provided to students and teachers who wish to look up comprehensive presentations of specific topics.

Posthumanism in Young Adult Fiction: Finding Humanity in a Posthuman World, edited by Anita Tarr and Donna White, is a collection of twelve essays analyzing young adult science fiction and fantasy in terms of how representative contemporary YA books’ authors describe and their characters portray elements of posthumanist attitudes. The authors give a brief survey of theorists’ discussions of how posthumanism rejects—but does not entirely forsake—liberal humanist tenets. Primarily, posthumanism calls for embracing the Other, eliminating binaries that separate human and nonhuman, human and nature, organic and inorganic, stressing the process of always-becoming. Due to technological enhancements, we should recognize that our species is changing, as it always has, becoming more networked and communal, fluid and changeable. Posthumanism does not mandate cyborgs, cloning, genetic enhancement, animal-human hybrids, mutations, advanced prosthetics, and superhuman strengths—although all of these are discussed in the collected essays. Posthumanism generally upholds liberal humanist values of compassion, fairness, and ethical responsibility, but dismantles the core of anthropocentrism: the notion that humans are superior and dominant over all other species and have the right to control, exploit, destroy, or marginalize those who are not the ideal white, able-bodied male. The more we discover about humans, the more we question our exceptionality; that is, since we co-evolved with many other organisms, especially bacteria, there is no DNA genome that is uniquely human; since we share many traits with animals, there is no single trait that defines us as human or as not human (such as using tools, speaking language, having a soul, expressing emotions, being totally organic, having a sense of wonder). The twelve essayists do not propose that YA fiction should offer guidelines for negotiating posthumanist subjectivity—being fragmented and multiple, networked vulnerable—though many of the novels analyzed actually do this. Other novelists bring their adolescent characters to the brink, but do not allow them to move beyond the familiar structures of society, even if they are rebelling against those very structures. Indeed, adolescence and posthumanism share many elements, especially anxieties about future possibilities, embracing new ideas and new selves, and being in a liminal state of in-between-ness that does not resolve itself. In other words, young adult fiction is the ideal venue to explore how we are now or we might in the future maintain our humanity in a posthuman world.

Bones are multifunctional passive organs of movement that supports soft tissue and directly attached muscles. They also protect internal organs and are a reserve of calcium, phosphorus and magnesium. Each bone is covered with periosteum, and the adjacent bone surfaces are covered by articular cartilage. Histologically, the bone is an organ composed of many different tissues. The main component is bone tissue (cortical and spongy) composed of a set of bone cells and intercellular substance (mineral and organic), it also contains fat, hematopoietic (bone marrow) and cartilaginous tissue. Bones are a tissue that even in adult life retains the ability to change shape and structure depending on changes in their mechanical and hormonal environment, as well as self-renewal and repair capabilities. This process is called bone turnover. The basic processes of bone turnover are: • bone modeling (incessantly changes in bone shape during individual growth) following resorption and tissue formation at various locations (e.g. bone marrow formation) to increase mass and skeletal morphology. This process occurs in the bones of growing individuals and stops after reaching puberty • bone remodeling (processes involve in maintaining bone tissue by resorbing and replacing old bone tissue with new tissue in the same place, e.g. repairing micro fractures). It is a process involving the removal and internal remodeling of existing bone and is responsible for maintaining tissue mass and architecture of mature bones. Bone turnover is regulated by two types of transformation: • osteoclastogenesis, i.e. formation of cells responsible for bone resorption • osteoblastogenesis, i.e. formation of cells responsible for bone formation (bone matrix synthesis and mineralization) Bone maturity can be defined as the completion of basic structural development and mineralization leading to maximum mass and optimal mechanical strength. The highest rate of increase in pig bone mass is observed in the first twelve weeks after birth. This period of growth is considered crucial for optimizing the growth of the skeleton of pigs, because the degree of bone mineralization in later life stages (adulthood) depends largely on the amount of bone minerals accumulated in the early stages of their growth. The development of the technique allows to determine the condition of the skeletal system (or individual bones) in living animals by methods used in human medicine, or after their slaughter. For in vivo determination of bone properties, Abstract 10 double energy X-ray absorptiometry or computed tomography scanning techniques are used. Both methods allow the quantification of mineral content and bone mineral density. The most important property from a practical point of view is the bone’s bending strength, which is directly determined by the maximum bending force. The most important factors affecting bone strength are: • age (growth period), • gender and the associated hormonal balance, • genotype and modification of genes responsible for bone growth • chemical composition of the body (protein and fat content, and the proportion between these components), • physical activity and related bone load, • nutritional factors: – protein intake influencing synthesis of organic matrix of bone, – content of minerals in the feed (CA, P, Zn, Ca/P, Mg, Mn, Na, Cl, K, Cu ratio) influencing synthesis of the inorganic matrix of bone, – mineral/protein ratio in the diet (Ca/protein, P/protein, Zn/protein) – feed energy concentration, – energy source (content of saturated fatty acids - SFA, content of polyun saturated fatty acids - PUFA, in particular ALA, EPA, DPA, DHA), – feed additives, in particular: enzymes (e.g. phytase releasing of minerals bounded in phytin complexes), probiotics and prebiotics (e.g. inulin improving the function of the digestive tract by increasing absorption of nutrients), – vitamin content that regulate metabolism and biochemical changes occurring in bone tissue (e.g. vitamin D3, B6, C and K). This study was based on the results of research experiments from available literature, and studies on growing pigs carried out at the Kielanowski Institute of Animal Physiology and Nutrition, Polish Academy of Sciences. The tests were performed in total on 300 pigs of Duroc, Pietrain, Puławska breeds, line 990 and hybrids (Great White × Duroc, Great White × Landrace), PIC pigs, slaughtered at different body weight during the growth period from 15 to 130 kg. Bones for biomechanical tests were collected after slaughter from each pig. Their length, mass and volume were determined. Based on these measurements, the specific weight (density, g/cm3) was calculated. Then each bone was cut in the middle of the shaft and the outer and inner diameters were measured both horizontally and vertically. Based on these measurements, the following indicators were calculated: • cortical thickness, • cortical surface, • cortical index. Abstract 11 Bone strength was tested by a three-point bending test. The obtained data enabled the determination of: • bending force (the magnitude of the maximum force at which disintegration and disruption of bone structure occurs), • strength (the amount of maximum force needed to break/crack of bone), • stiffness (quotient of the force acting on the bone and the amount of displacement occurring under the influence of this force). Investigation of changes in physical and biomechanical features of bones during growth was performed on pigs of the synthetic 990 line growing from 15 to 130 kg body weight. The animals were slaughtered successively at a body weight of 15, 30, 40, 50, 70, 90, 110 and 130 kg. After slaughter, the following bones were separated from the right half-carcass: humerus, 3rd and 4th metatarsal bone, femur, tibia and fibula as well as 3rd and 4th metatarsal bone. The features of bones were determined using methods described in the methodology. Describing bone growth with the Gompertz equation, it was found that the earliest slowdown of bone growth curve was observed for metacarpal and metatarsal bones. This means that these bones matured the most quickly. The established data also indicate that the rib is the slowest maturing bone. The femur, humerus, tibia and fibula were between the values of these features for the metatarsal, metacarpal and rib bones. The rate of increase in bone mass and length differed significantly between the examined bones, but in all cases it was lower (coefficient b <1) than the growth rate of the whole body of the animal. The fastest growth rate was estimated for the rib mass (coefficient b = 0.93). Among the long bones, the humerus (coefficient b = 0.81) was characterized by the fastest rate of weight gain, however femur the smallest (coefficient b = 0.71). The lowest rate of bone mass increase was observed in the foot bones, with the metacarpal bones having a slightly higher value of coefficient b than the metatarsal bones (0.67 vs 0.62). The third bone had a lower growth rate than the fourth bone, regardless of whether they were metatarsal or metacarpal. The value of the bending force increased as the animals grew. Regardless of the growth point tested, the highest values were observed for the humerus, tibia and femur, smaller for the metatarsal and metacarpal bone, and the lowest for the fibula and rib. The rate of change in the value of this indicator increased at a similar rate as the body weight changes of the animals in the case of the fibula and the fourth metacarpal bone (b value = 0.98), and more slowly in the case of the metatarsal bone, the third metacarpal bone, and the tibia bone (values of the b ratio 0.81–0.85), and the slowest femur, humerus and rib (value of b = 0.60–0.66). Bone stiffness increased as animals grew. Regardless of the growth point tested, the highest values were observed for the humerus, tibia and femur, smaller for the metatarsal and metacarpal bone, and the lowest for the fibula and rib. Abstract 12 The rate of change in the value of this indicator changed at a faster rate than the increase in weight of pigs in the case of metacarpal and metatarsal bones (coefficient b = 1.01–1.22), slightly slower in the case of fibula (coefficient b = 0.92), definitely slower in the case of the tibia (b = 0.73), ribs (b = 0.66), femur (b = 0.59) and humerus (b = 0.50). Bone strength increased as animals grew. Regardless of the growth point tested, bone strength was as follows femur > tibia > humerus > 4 metacarpal> 3 metacarpal> 3 metatarsal > 4 metatarsal > rib> fibula. The rate of increase in strength of all examined bones was greater than the rate of weight gain of pigs (value of the coefficient b = 2.04–3.26). As the animals grew, the bone density increased. However, the growth rate of this indicator for the majority of bones was slower than the rate of weight gain (the value of the coefficient b ranged from 0.37 – humerus to 0.84 – fibula). The exception was the rib, whose density increased at a similar pace increasing the body weight of animals (value of the coefficient b = 0.97). The study on the influence of the breed and the feeding intensity on bone characteristics (physical and biomechanical) was performed on pigs of the breeds Duroc, Pietrain, and synthetic 990 during a growth period of 15 to 70 kg body weight. Animals were fed ad libitum or dosed system. After slaughter at a body weight of 70 kg, three bones were taken from the right half-carcass: femur, three metatarsal, and three metacarpal and subjected to the determinations described in the methodology. The weight of bones of animals fed aa libitum was significantly lower than in pigs fed restrictively All bones of Duroc breed were significantly heavier and longer than Pietrain and 990 pig bones. The average values of bending force for the examined bones took the following order: III metatarsal bone (63.5 kg) <III metacarpal bone (77.9 kg) <femur (271.5 kg). The feeding system and breed of pigs had no significant effect on the value of this indicator. The average values of the bones strength took the following order: III metatarsal bone (92.6 kg) <III metacarpal (107.2 kg) <femur (353.1 kg). Feeding intensity and breed of animals had no significant effect on the value of this feature of the bones tested. The average bone density took the following order: femur (1.23 g/cm3) <III metatarsal bone (1.26 g/cm3) <III metacarpal bone (1.34 g / cm3). The density of bones of animals fed aa libitum was higher (P<0.01) than in animals fed with a dosing system. The density of examined bones within the breeds took the following order: Pietrain race> line 990> Duroc race. The differences between the “extreme” breeds were: 7.2% (III metatarsal bone), 8.3% (III metacarpal bone), 8.4% (femur). Abstract 13 The average bone stiffness took the following order: III metatarsal bone (35.1 kg/mm) <III metacarpus (41.5 kg/mm) <femur (60.5 kg/mm). This indicator did not differ between the groups of pigs fed at different intensity, except for the metacarpal bone, which was more stiffer in pigs fed aa libitum (P<0.05). The femur of animals fed ad libitum showed a tendency (P<0.09) to be more stiffer and a force of 4.5 kg required for its displacement by 1 mm. Breed differences in stiffness were found for the femur (P <0.05) and III metacarpal bone (P <0.05). For femur, the highest value of this indicator was found in Pietrain pigs (64.5 kg/mm), lower in pigs of 990 line (61.6 kg/mm) and the lowest in Duroc pigs (55.3 kg/mm). In turn, the 3rd metacarpal bone of Duroc and Pietrain pigs had similar stiffness (39.0 and 40.0 kg/mm respectively) and was smaller than that of line 990 pigs (45.4 kg/mm). The thickness of the cortical bone layer took the following order: III metatarsal bone (2.25 mm) <III metacarpal bone (2.41 mm) <femur (5.12 mm). The feeding system did not affect this indicator. Breed differences (P <0.05) for this trait were found only for the femur bone: Duroc (5.42 mm)> line 990 (5.13 mm)> Pietrain (4.81 mm). The cross sectional area of the examined bones was arranged in the following order: III metatarsal bone (84 mm2) <III metacarpal bone (90 mm2) <femur (286 mm2). The feeding system had no effect on the value of this bone trait, with the exception of the femur, which in animals fed the dosing system was 4.7% higher (P<0.05) than in pigs fed ad libitum. Breed differences (P<0.01) in the coross sectional area were found only in femur and III metatarsal bone. The value of this indicator was the highest in Duroc pigs, lower in 990 animals and the lowest in Pietrain pigs. The cortical index of individual bones was in the following order: III metatarsal bone (31.86) <III metacarpal bone (33.86) <femur (44.75). However, its value did not significantly depend on the intensity of feeding or the breed of pigs.