TULTECH House of Books

Proceedings of Selected Papers from the 1st International Conference on Industrial and Systems Engineering (ICISE 2026)

2026-10-05T10:08:43+02:00

This book is the Proceedings of Selected Papers from the 1st International Conference on Industrial and Systems Engineering (ICISE 2026) held on April 16–17, 2026, in Tirana, Albania. It is our great pleasure to present this volume, which brings together innovative research, original studies, and insightful analyses reflecting the dedication and scholarly rigor of our contributors. ICISE 2026 aims to bridge theory and practice, with a strong emphasis on sustainability, digital transformation, and systems thinking. The conference serves as a platform for both established experts and emerging researchers from around the world, fostering the exchange of knowledge and diverse perspectives across the fields of industrial and systems engineering. Organized by the Albanian Mechanical Engineering Association, the conference transcends geographical and disciplinary boundaries, creating a global forum for dialogue on the challenges and opportunities shaping modern industry and society. As issues related to development, employment, education, research, and business become increasingly interconnected, the conference provides an opportunity to share experiences and insights from a wide range of institutional and national contexts.

Empowering Traditional Crafts – Vol. 1: Heritage, Identity and Material Traditions

2026-09-12T16:49:24+02:00

This Volume gathers nine chapters that document, in different registers, the living material culture of India's craft communities. The volume opens in the Thar Desert with the quilted gudris of the Kalbelia, a community whose association with snake-charming has long overshadowed a parallel tradition of pieced and embroidered textile, and closes in a university conservation studio with the careful stabilisation of a single Parsi ceremonial cap, the Vaatko — a deliberate span, from the open field to the museum bench, that frames the volume's central concern: how craft knowledge is documented, and by whom, before it is lost. Between these two poles sit case studies of considerable range. A review of traditional Indian garment construction recovers a shared technical vocabulary — gusset, gore, godet, sinjaf, magazi — that underlies pattern-making traditions across the subcontinent, largely undocumented in design curricula. The resist-dyed geometry of Ajrakh block printing in Kutch is traced from its Sindhi origins through post-earthquake revival to contemporary collaborations that test how far a centuries-old craft grammar can be extended without breaking. A practice-based study in Delhi turns pre-consumer textile waste into tasselled, unstitched garment forms, arguing that upcycling can be a method of construction in its own right rather than a compromise. The ritual masks of Chhau dance are documented stage by stage in a single Purulia workshop, alongside the economic precarity of the handful of families who still make them. In Kutch, the mud-and-mirror relief work known as Lippan Kaam is traced from bhunga wall to gallery panel, its motifs catalogued for what may be the first time in one place. A study from Nagaland turns to agricultural rather than decorative craft, examining jhum, terrace, and horticultural livelihood as their own form of inherited technical knowledge. A more theoretical chapter considers flow — the psychological state of absorbed attention — as the common thread linking Kalamkari, Kantha, and batik practice across otherwise unconnected regions and materials.

THREADS OF FATE: Myths, Minds, and the Ancient World

2026-07-15T20:08:56+02:00

If Greek and Roman myths were just a pile of stories about magical transformations and family feuds on a mountain, there'd be little reason to spend much time on them. The names are a lot. The family trees are a tangled mess. So why bother? Because these aren't just stories — they're the ancient world's operating system. Their way of explaining everything from why the sun rises to why your chest tightens with jealousy. The archetypes they invented — the hero on a quest, the wronged woman, the god who is both powerful and terrifyingly unpredictable — never actually left us. When a psychologist talks about an “Oedipus complex” or calls someone a “narcissist,” they're reaching straight into this three-thousand-year-old toolbox, because nobody has ever found better words for these particular truths about people.