© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014. Creating agents that are capable of emulating similar socio-cultural dynamics to those found in human interaction remains as one of the hardest challenges of artificial intelligence. This problem becomes particularly important when considering embodied …

De onderhandelingen tussen de EU en de VS (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership - TTIP) begonnen in 2013. Ze hebben als doel het slechten van handelsbarrières en het harmoniseren en standaardiseren van voorschriften. In de thesis wordt onderzocht, in hoeverre de regelgeving in de EU op het …

Protective clothing is designed to protect humans against risks like fire, chemicals or blunt impact. Although protect¡ve clothing diminishes the effects of external risks, it may hinder people in functioning and it may also introduce new (internal) risks. Manufacturers are often not aware of the seriousness …

Biodiversity, including entire habitats and ecosystems, is recognized to be of great social and economic value. Conserving biodiversity has therefore become a task of international NGO’s as well as grass-roots organisations. The ‘classical’ model of conservation has been characterised by creation of …

What does it mean to position anthropos in the center? Questioning anthropocentrism is far more than an academic exercise of debating the dominant cultural motif of placing humans at the center of material and ethical concerns. It is a fertile way of shifting the focus of attention away from the problem-symptoms …

The recent shift towards the interdisciplinary study of the human-environment relationship is largely driven by environmental justice debates. This article will distinguish four types of environmental justice and link them to questions of neoliberalism and altruism. First, environmental justice seeks …

This article discusses the possibility of integrating deep ecology (DE) and animal rights (AR) perspectives within environmental education (EE) and education for sustainable development (ESD). The focus of this article is on three questions: why are DE and AR not currently central to EE/ESD debates? …

Over the past few years the terms 'fair trade', 'sustainable' and 'organic' have become more present in combination with tea products in the supermarkets. These terms are used for many different goals. Some suppliers actually try to provide the consumer with a product that has been produced following …

Lyme borreliosis, commonly known as Lyme disease, is a vector-borne disease that is caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato. Infected ticks can transmit this disease and infect humans. Decreasing human Lyme infections could be achieved by vegetation control , since mortality and questing …

In many countries the Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra) is extinct or numbers are declining; resulting in a classification as “near threatened” on the IUCN’s Red List. In one-third of the European countries, however, conservation efforts, enabled the return of the species or the improvement of weakened populations. …