This volume focuses on the etiology and morphogenesis of congenital heart diseases. It reviews in detail the early development and differentiation of the heart, and later morphologic events of the cardiovascular system, covering a wide range of topics such as gene functions, growth factors, transcription factors and cellular interactions that are implicated in cardiac morphogenesis and congenit…
This open access textbook provides a concise introduction to economic approaches and mathematical methods for the study of water allocation and distribution problems. Written in an accessible and straightforward style, it discusses and analyzes central issues in integrated water resource management, water tariffs, water markets, and transboundary water management. By illustrating the interplay …
This open access Springer Brief provides a systematic analysis of current trends and requirements in the areas of knowledge and competence in the context of the project “(A) Higher Education Digital (AHEAD)―International Horizon Scanning / Trend Analysis on Digital Higher Education.” It examines the latest developments in learning theory, didactics, and digital-education technology in con…
This open access book contains a structured collection of complete solutions of all significant axially symmetric contact problems. It provides solutions for classical profiles such as the sphere, cone or flat cylindrical punch as well as a multitude of other technically relevant shapes, e.g. the truncated cone, the worn sphere, rough profiles, hollow cylinders, etc. Normal, tangential and tors…
Can the rules of the European Union’s E-Commerce Directive, which date back to the year 2000, continue to be valid with regard to the dissemination of content in view of the constantly evolving online environment and the changing role of platforms as a result of new business models?The relevant legal foundations in this respect at EU and national level are complex, and their interplay is ofte…
The hope and hype about African digital entrepreneurship, contrasted with the reality on the ground in local ecosystems. In recent years, Africa has seen a digital entrepreneurship boom, with hundreds of millions of dollars poured into tech cities, entrepreneurship trainings, coworking spaces, innovation prizes, and investment funds. Politicians and technologists have offered Silicon Valley–i…
There is to date no comprehensive treatment of eye disease texts from ancient Mesopotamia, and no English translation of this material is available. This volume is the first complete edition and commentary on Mesopotamian medicine from Nineveh dealing with diseases of the eye. This ancient work, languishing in British Museum archives since the 19th century, is preserved on several large cuneifo…
Concepts of ‘balance’ have been central to modern politics, medicine and society. Yet, while many health, environmental and social challenges are discussed globally in terms of imbalances in biological, social and ecological systems, strategies for addressing modern excesses and deficiencies have focused almost exclusively on the agency of the individual. Balancing the Self explores the div…
This book updates reader-response criticism as the foundation of aesthetic reading in the classroom by bringing it in line with cognitive theories in literary studies and linguistics. With the help of Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner‘s conceptual integration theory, which shares a surprising number of correspondences with Wolfgang Iser‘s The Act of Reading, it is possible to flesh out the …
This open access book presents novel theoretical, empirical and experimental work exploring the nature of mental representations that support natural language production and understanding, and other manifestations of cognition. One fundamental question raised in the text is whether requisite knowledge structures can be adequately modeled by means of a uniform representational format, and if so,…
This book proposes a conceptual framework for understanding measurement across a broad range of scientific fields and areas of application, such as physics, engineering, education, and psychology. The authors, who themselves span these disciplines, argue that the justification of the public trust attributed to measurement results can in principle apply identically to both physical and psychosoc…
The 'just about managing'. 'Hardworking families'. 'Alarm-clock Britain'. In recent years British political discourse has been filled with these slogans, as politicians claim to speak on behalf of families who are in work, but struggling to get by. This book allows us to hear from some of these families directly. At a time when the impact of austerity is more relevant than ever, Just Managin…
Today our societies face great challenges with water, in terms of both quantity and quality, but many of these challenges have already existed in the past. Focusing on Asia, Water Societies and Technologies from the Past and Present seeks to highlight the issues that emerge or re-emerge across different societies and periods, and asks what they can tell us about water sustainability. Incorporat…
Sometimes solving climate change seems impossibly complex, and it is hard to know what changes we all can and should make to help. This book offers hope. Drawing on the latest research, Mark Jaccard shows us how to recognize the absolutely essential actions (decarbonizing electricity and transport) and policies (regulations that phase out coal plants and gasoline vehicles, carbon tariffs). Rath…
In modern, policy-heavy democracies, blame games about policy controversies are commonplace. Despite their ubiquity, blame games are notoriously difficult to study. This book elevates them to the place they deserve in the study of politics and public policy. Blame games are microcosms of conflictual politics that yield unique insights into democracies under pressure. Based on an original framew…
What does pleasure have to do with morality? What role, if any, should intuition have in the formation of moral theory? If something is ‘simulated’, can it be immoral? This accessible and wide-ranging textbook explores these questions and many more. Key ideas in the fields of normative ethics, metaethics and applied ethics are explained rigorously and systematically, with a vivid writing…
Only ten years ago, there were more internet users in countries like France or Germany than in all of Africa put together. But much has changed in a decade. The year 2018 marks the first year in human history in which a majority of the world’s population are now connected to the internet. This mass connectivity means that we have an internet that no longer connects only the world’s wealthy.…
Only ten years ago, there were more internet users in countries like France or Germany than in all of Africa put together. But much has changed in a decade. The year 2018 marks the first year in human history in which a majority of the world’s population are now connected to the internet. This mass connectivity means that we have an internet that no longer connects only the world’s wealthy.…
Anthropological Explorations in Queer Theory offers a wide ranging fusion of queer theory with anthropological theory, shifting away from the discussion of gender categories and identities that have often constituted a central concern of queer theory and instead exploring the queer elements of contexts in which they are not normally apparent. Engaging with a number of apparently 'non-sexual' to…