Umami is now commonly identified as the fifth “basic” taste quality, joining sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. It must be emphasized that the term taste quality refers to human (and perhaps other species) psychological representations, not to the ligands that elicit those representations; for example, NaCl elicits a salty taste in humans, but sodium chloride itself is not …
Freshwater is sustaining life on our planet but is under increasing pressure due to popula-tion growth, increased water consumption and pollution as well as climate change. Facing freshwater scarcity is one of the major challenges of the 21st century and included in the Sustainable Development Goals as a fundamental target of the international community UN (2015). …
In many countries, the political backlash against neoliberalism has mainly been a retreat from democracy, with a decline in independence of the judiciary and the monetary authorities, increased control of the media, and manipulation of elections for purposes of authoritarian control. The economic dynamics and the impact of neoliberalism, i.e. deregulation and liberalized markets, is just one ca…
Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) is a multidisciplinary research field that integrates disciplines such as engineering, psychology, sociology, philosophy, and more1. Collaboration between different disciplines is necessary to achieve goals (such as developing robotic systems for human-aware navigation), but can be com-plicated as each discipline has a different jargon, uses different methods, and …
Water is not only the beginning of all things, as the old Greeks had alreadyrealized, but without water, no life on earth is possible, and clean water is also aprecondition for any form of sustainable development. There is enough availablefreshwater on earth (about 91,000 km3) to supply every individual on earth (about7.5 billion in 2020) approx. 12,000l, more than enough to live decently. Howe…
Questions of responsibility arise at all levels of health care. Most prominent has been the issue of patient responsibility. Some health conditions that risk death or serious harm are partly the result of lifestyle behaviours such as smoking, lack of exercise, or extreme sports. Are patients with such conditions responsible for them? If so, might healthcare providers, be they state-run systems …
What are the implications of digital representation on intellectual property and ownership of cultural heritage? Are aspirations to preservation and accessibility in the digital space reconcilable with cultural sensitivities, colonized history, and cultural appropriation? This volume brings together different perspectives from academics and practitioners of Cultural Heritage, to address current…
A huge variety of terrestrial and aquatic species are included in this class, with over 5000 species recorded worldwide. All mammals share a basic feature: the presence of mammary glands that produce milk to feed their offspring. In contrast to birds, fish and reptiles, mammals have hair or fur. This may sometimes be barely visible or only present in newborn animals. Mammals also have a region …
Water is not only the beginning of all things, as the old Greeks had alreadyrealized, but without water, no life on earth is possible, and clean water is also aprecondition for any form of sustainable development. There is enough availablefreshwater on earth (about 91,000 km3) to supply every individual on earth (about7.5 billion in 2020) approx. 12,000l, more than enough to live decently. Howe…
The journey motif is what enables Melville’s Ishmael to assert his independence, just as it helps Huck Finn escape from the constric-tions of Southern society, an unjust and restrictive social order. This legendary motif functions as a characteristic element in the literary construction of American experience – and of the United States as a distinct geographic and cultural space. …