There is growing awareness that pointing can take various forms, and may not be restricted to humans or other primates with arms and hands to extend. Elephants are one such animal that may use other body parts to point. African savannah (Loxodonta africana), forest (Loxodonta cyclotis) and Asian (Elephas maximums) elephants often hold their trunks in a way that looks like they are pointing, but how do we know if this is really their intention? This chapter interrogates the evidence for elephant pointing, beginning with an assessment of whether elephants can follow and understand the pointing gestures of humans. It then considers experimental and observational evidence of possible pointing in wild elephants and evaluates what would be required from this evidence to determine if elephants are using these gestures intentionally. The chapter ends by discussing possible future avenues of research that illuminate this question further.

Chapter 4 contextualizes the earliest explorations in the domain of electronic music in Yugoslavia. Besides Malec and Kelemen, who left Yugoslavia in 1955 and worked in electronic music studios abroad, a decade later, a handful of other composers traveled to learn techniques of electroacoustic music at the newly formed studios in Europe and the US. Rajko Maksimović, Natko Devčić, and Aleksandar Obradović went to the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York City to study with Vladimir Ussachevsky, James Randall, and Milton Babbitt. Ludmila Frajt, the first woman in Yugoslavia to work in the domain of electronic (and film) music, went to the Experimental Music Studio of Czechoslovak Radio Plzeň. Vladan Radovanović was trained at the Polish Radio Experimental Studio in Warsaw before returning home to establish the first electronic studio in Yugoslavia – a state-of-the-art, third-generation digital-analog Electronic Studio of the Third Program of Radio Belgrade (EMS). This ethnographic study with interviews with the founder of the studio reveals a compelling, yet little-known story of the formation of the electronic studio in Yugoslavia, the acquisition of the legendary Synthi 100 – the first custom-made instrument designed by Peter Zinovieff and David Cockerell at EMS in London – and how EMS Radio Belgrade became the center for creation, collaboration, and experimentation in electroacoustic music both within and outside the borders of Yugoslavia.

1.1 Introduction

“Thermodynamics” is the branch of science that deals with the macroscopic properties of matter. In this branch of physics, concepts about heat and work and their inter-conversion, energy and energy conversion, and working principle of heat engines with their efficiency are mainly discussed. The name “thermodynamics” was originated from two Greek words: “therme” means “heat” and “dynamics” means “power” or “energy”. Thus, matter related to heat and energy is primarily paid attention in this subject. Further, it is believed that the term “thermodynamics” arises from the fact that the macroscopic thermodynamic variables used to describe a thermodynamic system depend on the temperature of the system.

Thermodynamics is the branch of physics in which the system under investigation consists of a large number of atoms and molecules contributing to the macroscopic matter of the system. The average physical properties of such a thermodynamic system are determined by applying suitable conservation equations such as conservation of mass, conservation of energy, and the laws of thermodynamics in equilibrium. The equilibrium state of a macroscopic system is achieved when the average physical properties of the system do not change with time and the system is not driven by any external driving force during the course of investigation. The interrelationships among the various physical properties are established with the help of associated thermodynamic relations derived from the laws of thermodynamics. These average (macroscopic) properties of thermodynamic systems are determined from the macroscopic parameters such as volume 𝑉 , pressure 𝑃 , and temperature 𝑇 , which do not depend on the detailed positions and ocities of the atoms and molecules of the macroscopic matter in the system. These macroscopic quantities are called thermodynamic coordinates, variables or parameters. Further, these macroscopic properties depend on each other. Therefore, from the measurements of a subset of these properties, the rest of them can be calculated using the associated thermodynamic relations.

This chapter considers three significant New Negro Renaissance poets: Georgia Douglas Johnson, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, and Anne Spencer, and analyzes how they discussed themes of racism and gender inequality in their poetry. Although the critics of their day dismissed their poetry as raceless and apolitical, this chapter demonstrates how New Negro women writers utilized the domestic sphere of writing and wrote poetry that allowed them to articulate and explore their unspeakable desires. Black women poets were able to express their wholeness and sexual self-determination. Even though their writings may not have garnered critical acclaim and success, Black women writers were present and actively advancing Black feminist ideas. Extending the analysis of such scholars as Maureen Honey, Cheryl Wall, and Gloria T. Hull, this chapter illustrates that Black women writers fashioned a poetics that enabled them to discuss such subjects as sexuality and Black women’s right to autonomy and self-fashioned happiness. Their writings represent a profound yearning for freedom and sexual fulfillment, challenging the prevailing ideology that women’s primary realm of power was in the home.

In this chapter, we examine the experiences of neurodivergent autistic people and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) individuals around menstruation and the life transition of menopause. The chapter is informed by personal insights from neurodivergent individuals with first-hand encounters of menstrual and menopausal challenges, our ‘experts by experience’. In doing so, we aim to inform and empower clinicians to appropriately support these patients with their menstrual and menopausal health. We begin by discussing what autism and ADHD are, the features of these conditions, and why they are particularly relevant and important in regard to health needs and for healthcare, and the shared interpersonal-environmental and intrapersonal factors of autistic people and ADHD individuals (ADHDers). We then individually consider autistic and ADHD experiences of menstruation and menopause with narrative from our experts by experience. Based on this information, we provide point-by-point advice for health professionals supporting neurodivergent people with menstruation and menopause health.

Dolpo is a Himalayan Indigenous minority community currently settled within the northern political boundary of Nepal, bordering Tibet, China. Since the territorial conquest of Mustang and other regions within the Himalayas, initiated by King Prithivi Narayan Shah and his forces under Bahadur Shah during the 1800s AD, the Dolpo community, primarily composed of semipastoralists engaged in subsistence farming and barter exchanges, appears to have followed a trajectory akin to that of Mustang (Regmi 1995). Subsequently, the Nepalese government exerted active control over northern border points with China by the 1950s, largely in response to the increasing presence of the Khamba rebellion in the border areas (McGranahan 2018). Prior to this governmental oversight, the people of Dolpo predominantly adhered to their customary governance system, sustaining subsistence-based agriculture, relative autonomy, and trans-Himalayan trade for nearly a century. Upon the consolidation of territorial control, the rural region witnessed not only the presence of Indian police and officials from the Nepali government, but also the segmentation of Dolpo communities into various political administrative divisions, including village development committees (VDCs) and wards, which were subsequently integrated into the district-level administrative entity known as Dolpa. These mechanisms emerged as a moral framework to proselytize the recalcitrant raite (subject). Despite the inclusion of certain community members within these lower-level structures, Hindu authorities implemented these social and political realities without consulting the Dolpo community.

With the strengthening of Indigenous movements during the 1990s and the subsequent institutionalization of the National Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (NFDIN) in the early 2000s, the Nepalese government recognized the Dolpo as one of the 59 Indigenous nationalities.

Psychiatrists have responded nationally and internationally to the growing scientific evidence on spirituality and psychiatry and to concerns about bad professional practice, by developing good practice guidelines/policies and by way of continuing professional development initiatives (special interest groups, conferences, etc.). Professional boundaries have historically been understood as keeping psychiatry, as a secular concern, separate from patients’ spiritual and religious concerns. However, as earlier chapters demonstrated, this is unrealistic in light of the entanglements of spirituality and psychiatry, and unlikely to be helpful for many patients. It does not address the importance of religion to patients worldwide or the transition in Western countries from a secular to a post-secular age. The Jungian concept of temenos is taken up as a way of understanding boundaries as protecting safe therapeutic spaces for psychological and spiritual transformation. Boundaries in clinical practice are thus created not to keep the psychological and spiritual domains separate but to protect a safe psychological and spiritual space within which positive therapeutic change may occur.

This chapter examines the pervasive issue of media capture within the European Union (EU) and its detrimental effects on media freedom and democratic governance. Using a theoretical model of media capture consisting of four critical components (control over national media regulators, manipulation of public service media, misuse of state funds for media control, and the consolidation of private media ownership by government-aligned businesses), it maps past and ongoing EU interventions in those areas. Despite the EU’s legal frameworks such as the European Media Freedom Act and the Audiovisual Media Services Directive, significant gaps remain in enforcement and oversight, limiting the Union’s ability to address these challenges. The analysis highlights the EU’s struggles to effectively intervene in safeguarding media independence due to constrained competences, weak enforcement tools, and reliance on politicised national regulatory authorities. The chapter underscores the need for enhanced regulatory mechanisms and stricter monitoring to counteract media capture and uphold democratic principles in EU Member States.

Chapter 5 is a case study of two notable pioneers of electronic music in Yugoslavia – Vladan Radovanović and Ludmila Frajt. Even though Frajt joined the Communist Party early on, which enabled her to hold some of the most powerful positions in the country, her creative process was not guided by the doctrine of socialist realism. Rather, she was seeking innovative ways to expand her sound palette. Her distinctive oeuvre of film, instrumental, electronic, and vocal music is derived simultaneously from Yugoslav folk and Western avant-garde elements. Thus, although she was particularly drawn to Lutosławski’s aleatory processes, Penderecki’s use of clusters and nonstandard treatment of instruments, and György Ligeti’s micropolyphony, Frajt also presented these techniques within the Yugoslav folk idiom. Radovanović was a true catalyst for change. His oeuvre pushed the limits of every art form – in addition to his advances in the domains of electroacoustic and computer music, Radovanović pursued poetry and visual arts, which he synthesized with acoustic elements. In his other works, Radovanović also incorporated kinetic features, created conceptual and polymedia projects, and devised working with the body as an object, tactile art, plastic art, meta-art, transmedia, transmodalism, metamusical projects, and computerized music based on Stochastic principles.