Institutional Repository Universiteit Antwerpen
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Milieurechtvaardigheid in Vlaanderen: een blinde vlek
No full textAbstract: Deze bijdrage belicht hoe milieurechtvaardigheid zich in Vlaanderen ontwikkelt tussen belofte en realiteit. Ze laat zien dat juridische waarborgen \u2013 van de Grondwet, het omgevingsrecht tot het Aarhusverdrag \u2013 wel formele toegang bieden, maar zelden sociale ongelijkheid corrigeren. Op het terrein blijken milieulasten en -baten nog vaak ongelijk verdeeld, participatieprocedures complex en burgerkennis ondergewaardeerd. Middenveldorganisaties vervullen een cruciale, maar ook kwetsbare brugfunctie tussen burger en bestuur. De bijdrage analyseert hoe recht zowel hefboom als hindernis kan zijn voor verandering en pleit voor een recht dat niet alleen handhaaft, maar ook herverdeelt, erkent en herstelt. Milieurechtvaardigheid verschijnt zo als toetssteen voor de democratische geloofwaardigheid van het Vlaamse omgevingsbeleid
From demand deficit to development strategy : navigating mini-grid viability in a fragile context
No full textAbstract: Four in five people without access to electricity live in Sub-Saharan Africa, where mini-grids are seen as a key solution. Yet investment remains constrained by low and unpredictable demand, especially in fragile settings. We study electricity demand in North Kivu (Democratic Republic of Congo), using pre-grid census and survey data combined with six years of post-connection consumption records. Five key findings emerge: (i) demand is highly heterogeneous across and within localities, with pockets of low uptake; (ii) pre-grid covariates explain some variation but have limited predictive power for realized connection and consumption; (iii) SMEs consume far more per connection than households while making up a small share of connections; (iv) consumption rises after connection and then plateaus, indicating slow movement up the energy ladder; (v) conflict shocks temporarily depress consumption, but usage rebounds, highlighting resilience in the face of insecurity. We further examine how an integrated, demand-building strategy by the local operator can partially mitigate these challenges. The case highlights that mini-grid viability in fragile settings may depend less on improved demand forecasting and more on the capacity to build and coordinate demand alongside infrastructure, with implications for policy design, risk-sharing finance, and the role of public and donor support
A comparative assessment of environmental impacts of production, use, and disposal of a parabolic solar cooker and charcoal for cooking in Uganda
No full textAbstract: Solar cookers can substantially reduce reliance on charcoal, yet the comparative life-cycle impacts of a solar cooker with thermal energy storage (TES) versus charcoal cooking have not been quantified. We conducted an attributional life-cycle assessment (LCA) for Mbarara City, Uganda, using ecoinvent v3.10 and Environmental Footprint 3.0. The functional unit is cooking two meals per day over 10 years for a typical household (3\u20136 people). Three scenarios capture different charcoal consumption levels. The solar system comprises a parabolic dish with aluminium components, a vegetable-oil TES, and end-of-life (EoL) treatment. Across scenarios, solar cooking markedly lowers impacts: for most categories, burdens are ~8\u20139
7 lower than charcoal. Weighted single-score results range from 141.5\u2013302.9 points for charcoal and 64.4\u201382.3 points for the solar cooker (ratio ~2.2\u20133.7). The most influential categories are climate change, human toxicity (non-cancer), photochemical ozone formation, and water scarcity\u2014each lower for solar. The main exception is freshwater ecotoxicity, which is higher for the solar option due to aluminium production, EoL processing, and disposal of vegetable-oil residues from TES; repurposing these residues could mitigate this burden. In contribution analysis, freshwater ecotoxicity accounts for >67% of the solar cooker\u2019s weighted score, whereas climate change contributes >45% of the charcoal model. This study extends prior work by assessing a broad set of midpoint indicators and identifying five priority categories, four of which favour solar over charcoal. Overall, the parabolic solar cooker exhibits the lowest life-cycle impacts across categories and scenarios. Results are generalizable to regions with similar climatic, production, and distribution conditions; areas with >325 sunny days per year are likely to achieve even lower solar-cooking impacts. We recommend expanding ecoinvent coverage for Africa (particularly East Africa and tropical regions) to improve modelling accuracy
Data compression of large-scale FBG sensor networks for health monitoring applications
No full textAbstract: Fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors have attracted growing interest in road health monitoring due to their high sensitivity, accuracy, and resilience to harsh environmental conditions. Continuous monitoring is essential for identifying patterns in the collected data and FBG sensors meet this need by continuously measuring strain across multiple pavement layers at high sampling frequencies, creating an extensive, high-resolution dataset. However, such large data volumes present substantial challenges for transmission, storage, processing, and analysis in structural health monitoring (SHM). To address these challenges, this study introduces a data reduction approach grounded in probability theory. The proposed method utilizes a relative damage assessment framework to minimize the need for full data storage and processing. Instead of analyzing each strain measurement, this approach leverages the distribution of strain events to estimate potential structural changes. By focusing on cumulative strain event counts at specific threshold levels, it identifies shifts in strain distribution patterns that can be an indication of structural changes. Then, the effectiveness of this approach was validated through real-world data from an in-situ (field) monitoring campaign. This streamlined data interpretation process significantly reduces the volume of data for storage and processing, thereby enabling efficient real-time damage assessment of complex infrastructure systems. Overall, the probability-based data reduction method proposed provides a scalable and responsive solution for SHM systems utilizing FBG sensors, particularly in applications requiring dense sensor networks and continuous monitoring. This approach holds promise for enhancing the scalability and efficiency of SHM systems, especially in large-scale infrastructure projects
Between marriage and slavery : women, social mobility, and the making of Ngwana power in late-nineteenth-century Central Africa
No full textAbstract: This article reconstructs women\u2019s lives within the caravan networks that linked Central Africa to the Indian Ocean in the late nineteenth century, focusing on Kisangani (Stanley Falls) and its hinterland (today DRCongo) \u2013 a profoundly understudied region in research about the history of slavery. Combining oral history interviews with archival sources, the article offers micro-histories that illuminate how women \u2013 enslaved and free \u2013 anchored Ngwana and Arab trading groups locally. Drawing on Emily Lynn Osborn\u2019s \u2018household as statecraft\u2019 concept, the article shows how female reproductive and domestic labour, family ties, and marital alliances produced outsiders\u2019 authority in a context of blurred boundaries between slavery and kinship. It traces two main pathways of female mobility: internal, through advantageous marriages and household promotion; and external, through flight. The analysis also highlights the role of shoka (metal spearheads) as a currency for both ivory and bridewealth, tying commercial circuits to household politics. By foregrounding women\u2019s strategies and constraints, the article revises male-centred narratives about the early colonial period and confirms existing findings on the porous nature of slavery in East and Central Africa
Rechterlijke publicatieverboden in de 21ste eeuw: het absolute verbod op preventieve maatregelen herbekeken
No full textAbstract: De bijdrage stelt de vraag of de absoluutheid van de bescherming van \ue9\ue9n grondrecht - vrije meningsuiting- ten aanzien van andere mensenrechten vandaag nog houdbaar is. In conflicten tussen personen zal \u2018meer bescherming\u2019 voor de ene immers \u2018minder bescherming\u2019 betekenen voor de andere. Zowel het EHRM als het Grondwettelijk Hof vertrekken net van afweging en evenwicht, in het bijzonder door de rechter. Dat werk ik uit aan de hand van drie kernargumenten: 1) De Grondwet zelf, historisch en rechtsvergelijkend: noch uit de tekst, noch uit de debatten bij artikelen 19 en 25 Grondwet volgt rechtstreeks dat het censuurverbod geldt voor rechters. In Duitsland en Nederland is dat bijvoorbeeld niet zo. Ook de Belgische Grondwet is sinds 1831 verder ge\uebvolueerd in de richting van privacy en vertrouwen in de rechter (artt. 22 en 151 Gw.). 2) Het EU-recht: steeds meer Europese normen verplichten expliciet preventieve maatregelen door rechters (o.m. geneesmiddelenreclame, AVG, Digitaledienstenverordening, ...). Bij volledige harmonisatie kan een nationale grondwet daar volgens het Hof van Justitie niet meer van afwijken (Melloni). 3) De rechten van derden: enkel optreden achteraf schiet tekort in privacybescherming, beperkt effectieve toegang tot de rechter en kan zelfs botsen met positieve verplichtingen om toegang tot het publieke debat te garanderen
School leaders\u2019 and teachers\u2019 attributions in making sense of norm-referenced school performance data. Do benchmarks matter?
No full textAbstract: School performance data can inform school improvement. However, data-informed decision-making is a complex and fundamentally interpretative process. This study examines school leaders\u2019 and teacher\u2019 attributions when making sense of their norm-referenced school\u2019s performance on the Flemish central reading comprehension test. Our focus within these attributions lies on the dimensions of locus of causality and controllability. Framework analysis was applied to data from 24 semi-structured interviews. Findings reveal a dominance of external attributions, although internal factors were recognised as well, particularly at the teaching and school practice levels. Controllability emerged as a key factor for follow-up actions decisions. Furthermore, examination of attrbutional differences between population-referenced and group-referenced comparisons reveals that the latter tend to foster internal and external controllable attributions. By shedding light on the role of attribution processes, this study advances the broader discourse on data-informed decision-making for school improvement both theoretically and practically. Directions for further research are addressed
Historical allegiances or strategic alliances? Analyzing interest group-party interactions in the run-up to elections
No full textAbstract: The run-up to elections offers a critical window for interest groups to shape political agendas as parties draft their manifestos and prepare for governance. Yet, research on pre-electoral interactions between interest groups and political parties remains scarce, with most studies focusing on post-electoral or legislative stages. This paper examines how frequently and why interest groups interact with political parties during election campaigns, addressing both strategic cost\u2013benefit and historical explanations. Building on theories of transactional exchange and ideological alignment, we argue that longstanding organizational linkages rooted in societal cleavages continue to shape interactions in the pre-electoral phase. Using novel survey data from 237 Belgian interest groups collected before the 2024 national elections, we find that overall interaction levels are higher than prior research suggests. Our findings show that historical ties remain a key determinant of pre-electoral engagement, granting groups privileged access to ideologically aligned parties. These ties amplify the effect of issue-specific positional alignment and can even lead groups to interact with parties holding opposing positions and with limited coalition potential, showing that long-term relationships can outweigh short-term strategic considerations. As such, the study demonstrates how reliance on enduring organizational linkages may limit inclusiveness, raising broader normative questions about equal access and influence in interest representation