Catastrophes used to be regarded as Acts of God, but nowadays tend to be blamed as Acts of Man. Although human error is a cause in the majority of accidents, it is seldomly the sole cause. Major accidents are usually the result of several errors made at different moments by different people that coincide in an extraordinary way.

Errors are common and inevitable. Humans make them regularly. But, when made in interaction with devices that can "crash, sink, burn, or explode," errors can have cat...

Around 1600 the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands was in the middle of a war with Spain that would last for eighty years (1568-1648). Thousands of immigrants came to Amsterdam and greatly influenced the development of the Republic. Kiliaen van Rensselaer was among them. Growing up in a small eastern town on the war front he became part of the culture of this rapidly developing city, where he was trained as a jeweler and merchant by wealthy relatives. He would work together within this ...

HNLMS Zuiderkruis (1975-2012) was the second Fast Combat Support Ship of the

Royal Netherlands Navy. Primarily intended for Replenishment At Sea (RAS=UNREP operations) fueling Nl Task Group and NATO units. As a modern design Zuiderkruis enabled a “one stop replenishment” and carried also AVCAT, fresh water and

stores/spare parts. A helicopter deck facilitated VERTREP.

The Islands of Paros and Naxos during the Late Antique and Early Byzantine Centuries

The aim of this book is to offer a fresh approach to the history and archaeology of the Cyclades in Late Antiquity and the Byzantine Early Middle Ages in light of current archaeological investigations. It is an attempt to interpret human-environmental interaction in order to "read" the relationship between islands, settlements, landscapes and seascapes in the context of the diverse and highly interactive Medit...

After World War II huge land consolidation projects measuring thousands of hectares were carried out in West-Frisia. Large scale excavations of Bronze Age settlement sites were carried out resulting in a convincing model for the Bronze Age habitation of West-Frisia. This model envisaged settlement sites situated on creek ridges in an open almost treeless landscape. After a sudden change in climate c. 800 cal BC parts of the landscape were inundated, peat bogs developed and West-Frisia was aba...

This pioneering study charts the one-way traffic of cultural and historical objects during five centuries of European colonialism. It presents abundant examples of disappeared colonial objects and systematises these into war booty, confiscations by missionaries and contestable acquisitions by private persons and other categories. Former colonies consider this as a historical injustice that has not been undone.Former colonial powers have kept most of the objects in their custody. In the 1970s ...

The Aarhus Convention entered into force more than 20 years ago. It lays down the pillars of environmental democracy, that is a governance systems where citizens and civil society organisations are fully involved in the decisions affecting the environment we all live in. On the one hand the Convention drew on the experience of those jurisdictions where environmental concerns run deeper. On the other hand, once enacted, it was expected to bring about important changes in those jurisdictions wh...

ITIL® Intermediate Release, Control and Validation – 4 days

The four courses in Service Capability is aimed at students who need deep knowledge of the processes and the roles of ITIL. Service Lifecycle covered in the course but the primary focus is on processes, functions, roles and activities of its application and use by lifecycle. The courses within the Service Capability is role-based modules, each with a separate certification. Each course includes a grouping of processes and roles wi...

Religion and science on paranormal events.

Described as 'the hand of God', as 'pathological' or even as 'a clever trick', exceptional corporeal phenomena such as miraculous cures, stigmata, and incorrupt corpses have triggered heated debates in the past. Depending on their definition as either 'supernatural', 'psycho-somatic' or 'fraudulent', different authorities have sought to explain these enigmatic occurrences by stimulating inquiries and claiming jurisdiction over them. As a consequence,...

An in-depth analysis of oracular divination in Plutarch's thought.

Oracular divination was of special concern for Plutarch of Chaeronea (45-120 AD), Platonic philosopher as well as priest at the oracle of Apollo in Delphi. The peculiar nature of Delphic divination as an (im)perfect intermediary between the material and the immaterial world is fathomed in a thorough study of Plutarch's Delphic dialogues. This in-depth philosophical-conceptual analysis will disclose an original interpretation o...