Institutional Repository Universiteit Antwerpen
Not a member yet
161620 research outputs found
Sort by
De erfrechtelijke positie van samenwonende partners: een toetsing aan de grondslagen van het erfrecht
No full textAbstract: Steeds meer koppels verkiezen de wettelijke of feitelijke samenwoning boven het huwelijk, dat voor velen te beladen of complex wordt geacht. Het gezin blijft wel centraal staan, zij het in diverse vormen zoals nieuw samengestelde gezinnen. Ondanks fiscale gelijkstellingen leven er hardnekkige misvattingen: wettelijk en feitelijk samenwonenden genieten burgerrechtelijk nauwelijks vermogens- of erfrechtelijke bescherming, in contrast met gehuwden. Veel partners beseffen dit niet en overlijden zonder testament, waardoor het intestaatserfrecht geldt. De wettelijke samenwoning, oorspronkelijk ingevoerd als beperkte juridische omkadering van uiteenlopende tweerelaties, is inmiddels voorbijgestreefd in haar opzet en kent aanzienlijke lacunes en inconsistenties. In deze bijdrage wordt het erfrechtelijk statuut van wettelijk en feitelijk samenwonende partners getoetst aan de grondslagen van het intestaatserfrecht en worden voorstellen de lege ferenda geformuleerd
Age-stratified treatment variations in acute intracranial surgery for traumatic brain injury in Europe : a prospective observational study within CENTER-TBI
No full textAbstract: High-quality evidence to guide the practice of acute cranial surgery across age groups in traumatic brain injury (TBI) remains sparse. Current surgical guidelines generally do not consider age in their recommendations. The aim of the study is to evaluate acute cranial surgery rates and center treatment differences across age in TBI. Data were extracted from the prospective observational Collaborative European NeuroTrauma Effectiveness Research in TBI (CENTER-TBI) study. The CENTER-TBI study included patients with TBI between 2014 and 2017 from 65 level 1 trauma centers across Europe and Israel. Data from all 27,358 patients with TBI enrolled in the CENTER-TBI core study (n = 4509) and registry (n = 22,849) were considered. Eight patients with missing age were excluded, leading to a final analytic sample of 27,350 (core study n = 4504, registry n = 22,846). Variations in probability, defined as case-mix adjusted proportions, of acute surgical treatment of intracranial mass effect (primary decompressive craniectomy or craniotomy), performed within 24 h of initial injury, were expressed using median odds ratios (MORs). Adjusted odds ratios (aORs) were calculated using random-effects linear regression to assess the association between age and the probability of acute cranial surgery for acute subdural hematoma, epidural hematoma, or intracerebral hemorrhage/contusions. MORs and aORs were reported with 95% confidence interval (CI). The odds of acute surgery decreased with older age (aOR = 0.93, 95% CI: 0.92\u20130.95, per each interquartile range increase of 37 years [y]). Variations in center-specific surgery rates increased with age (15\u201324 y: MOR = 1.4; 25\u201344 y: MOR = 1.5; 45\u201364 y: MOR = 1.6; 65\u201379 y: MOR = 1.8; 6580 y: MOR = 3.3), except for patients aged <15 y (MOR = 2.9). Older patients with TBI were less likely to receive acute cranial evacuation surgery, independent from other (comorbidity) factors. Higher age was associated with more surgical treatment variation between centers. Neurosurgery for TBI can be improved by age-personalized treatment algorithms
Pain-related variables as contributing factors to physical activity after breast cancer surgery : a one-year follow-up study
No full textAbstract: Physical activity (PA) levels among breast cancer survivors following surgery are often low, with unclear roles played by pain-related factors. This study investigates the changes in PA and its contributing factors, including pain-related factors, in 184 breast cancer survivors throughout the acute post-operative stage of 1 week (T1), the sub-acute stage of 4 months (T4), and the long-term stage of 12 months (T12). A linear mixed model was utilized to evaluate PA changes in the first year post-surgery. Multivariate regression analyses explored associations between moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and patient characteristics, pain-related factors, emotional and physical functioning, and quality of life (QoL) at each timepoint separately and also explored factors in the acute and sub-acute stage contributing to MVPA at T12. Weekly minutes of MVPA and steps had a significant increase between T4 and T12. All models, adjusted for age and BMI, were significant (p < 0.01) but explained only small proportions of variance of MVPA at T1 (AdjR(2) :15%), at T4 (AdjR(2) :25%) and at T12 (AdjR(2) :26%). Pain-related factors, together with emotional and physical symptom burden, negatively impacted PA at various points in time. Despite these challenges, higher QoL and existential well-being were positive influences. Breast cancer survivors demonstrate increasing PA over the first year post-surgery. Contributing factors differ for each timepoint, highlighting the complex interplay of emotional and physical factors in promoting active lifestyles. Rehabilitation interventions need to hold the time-dependency of contributing factors into account and aim to address both immediate and long-term needs
Common mistakes in bone and soft tissue tumors
No full textAbstract: Accurate diagnosis of bone and soft tissue tumors is critical for effective management, yet radiologic errors remain a significant challenge and may lead to inappropriate interventions or delays in adequate treatment. This article describes common radiologic mistakes encountered in evaluating these tumors, including key errors such as mischaracterizing benign versus malignant lesions, overreliance on single imaging modalities, and failure to integrate clinical and histopathologic data. We focus on imaging features that help differentiate benign from malignant lesions. The article also highlights situations in which imaging alone cannot help with accurate differentiation
Exploring district heating and cooling cultures, a systematic literature review
No full textAbstract: District heating and cooling (DHC) is increasingly recognized as a viable technology to move away from fossil fuels for heating and cooling in dense urban areas. Due to its complexity as a large-scale technical system, research on DHC has predominantly focused on enhancing energy efficiency. This is often the case for energy transition policies aiming at increasing sustainability; they predominantly emphasize technological solutions, often neglecting broader societal and economic contexts. Nonetheless, recent research efforts have showed how social and technological aspects are inseparable. Within the DHC context too, there have been studies looking more closely into the social aspects. However, these efforts are scattered across both the technological and social literature. Therefore, this systematic review advances efforts to integrate social and technological perspectives in DHC research. Building on the Energy Cultures Framework (ECF), this literature review describes DHC cultures and identifies the factors that influence beliefs and actions regarding DHC. Based on the results, we identify the ownership model of the DHC network, aims and expectations, and citizen engagement as the three dominating factors that determine DHC cultures. Further, we add social networks to the ECF and clarify how it is a mediating factor in the ECF and helps to understand and change attitudes and actions regarding DHC. This review provides a more holistic perspective on DHC adoption, by looking beyond solely technological features and emphasizing these social dynamics
Balancing palliative care needs and medication appropriateness : initiation and reinitiation of medications at the end of life
No full textAbstract: Background: Medications deemed inappropriate and discontinued in the earlier stages of life-limiting disease may become relevant in palliative care context at the end of life. This study aims to determine the incidence of and factors associated with initiation and reinitiation of medications deemed inappropriate according to the STOPPFrail guideline. Methods: A retrospective cohort study using linked healthcare reimbursement data. We included nursing home residents aged >= 65 who died with a condition potentially amenable to palliative care between 2015 and 2019 in Belgium. Outcomes were: (1) reinitiation of previously discontinued STOPPFrail-listed medications; and (2) initiation of these medications, regardless of prior use, in the last three months. Log-binomial regression was used to estimate relative risks (RR) with 95 % confidence intervals (CI). Results: Among 158,689 decedents, 29.7 % had at least one medication initiated, and 16.96 % reinitiated among those with at least one medication discontinued (n = 13,724). By medication type, initiation and reinitiation were significantly higher for symptomatic medications than preventive ones (initiation: 25.5 % symptomatic vs. 6.7 % preventive; reinitiation: 20.3 % symptomatic vs. 11 % preventive). The risk was higher among residents with cancer, who were hospitalized, or taking >= 10 chronic medications. Conclusions: A significant proportion of residents undergo initiation or reinitiation of medications deemed inappropriate at the end of life per existing guidelines. Many were likely prescribed for palliative purposes. Thus, guidelines on medication appropriateness may need to more explicitly address palliative care contexts. A notable number also received preventive medications, suggesting inappropriate prescribing at the end of life that has received little attention
Nieuw licht op de stedelijke nacht. Digitaal speuren naar 'onzichtbare flaneurs' in de gebeurtenisboeken van Antwerpen (1876-1939)
No full textAbstract: This article presents my ongoing PhD research on the social (in)equalities in Antwerp\u2019s nightlife during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While historical research on the urban night has traditionally focused on the top-down modernisation of urban infrastructure such as street lighting and police surveillance, recent studies have shifted attention to the lived experiences of urban spaces. Building on this historiographical shift, my project employs a data-driven approach to analyse an extensive corpus of local police reports. I use computational techniques such as handwritten text recognition and named entity recognition to semi-automatically map individuals who navigated the city at night. By examining their gender, age, class, and origin, I aim to shed new light on the social dynamics that shaped the nocturnal urban landscape during its modernisation period
Good explanations and the causal metasemantics of inductive concepts
No full textAbstract: A metasemantic theory tells us why a particular concept has its particular content, for example, why the concept orang-utan has orang-utans as its content, rather than Sumatran orang-utans or apes. Many believe that the content of a concept has some important causal explanatory connection to that concept. But a plethora of properties stand in a causal explanatory connection to our concepts without being their contents-this is the Filtering Problem. In this paper, I leverage work from the general philosophy of science on causal explanation to make progress on the Filtering Problem. The working hypothesis is that a concept's content is the property that best explains why that concept was formed. I use the explanatory virtues of proportionality, homogeneity, and distal balance to weed out problematic contents. The picture that emerges is one where much of the work of metasemantics can be accomplished by appealing to general principles in the theory of good explanation rather than the particularities of mental representation itself
Comparing machine learning-based crime predictions across micro-geographic units : street segments, rectangular grids, and hexagonal grids
No full textAbstract: This study examines the potential of alternative micro-geographic units of analysis compared to the widely used rectangular grid for predicting (monthly) micro-geographic crime risks using a machine learning approach. Specifically, this study compares the prediction performance of machine learning models (XGBoost) in deriving monthly micro-geographic risk predictions for three crime types across rectangular and hexagonal grids of varying resolutions, as well as street segments, using the hit rate, precision, and F1-score as key performance measures. Police-registered data on residential burglary, aggressive theft, and battery (2013-2018), along with environmental and seasonal data on crime predictors were used to train the models and evaluate their performance across different units of analysis and performance measures. Results show that street segments generally achieve higher hit rates compared to grid-based units, but only marginally when compared to high-resolution grids (0.0025 km(2)). This study thus finds no clear advantage of street segments over small grids in terms of model hit rate. In addition, using street segments and small grids comes at the cost of lower model precision, resulting in more false positive predictions. Grids with resolutions from 0.04 km(2) to 0.25 km(2) offer a more balanced performance. Further, no substantial differences were found between rectangular and hexagonal grids, indicating grid shape does not affect prediction performance. Future work should explore how model performance should be defined and operationalised within the context predicting crime risks at specific micro-geographic levels and what the implications are of employing specific micro-geographic units of analysis within the context of crime prevention
Intuitive decisions, self-efficacy, and conservation of resources theory : proposing a two-pathway model
No full textAbstract: This paper contributes to existing explanations of using intuition in decision-making. Acknowledging the relevance that extant scholarly literature has attributed to context- and individual-level characteristics as antecedents of using intuition in strategic decision-making, this paper additionally focuses on the role of previous decision outcomes. Reflecting the dynamics of intuitive decision-making, this research builds on Akinci\u2019s (2014) Intuitive Judgment and Decision Outcome Framework and proposes how intuitive hits (desirable decision outcomes) and intuitive misses (undesirable decision outcomes) could influence subsequent decision behaviors differently. Integrating Self-efficacy and Conservation of Resources theory, the study introduces a twopathway logic that provides different explanations of how positive and negative intuitive decision outcomes influence managers\u2019 future reliance on intuition. Combining the two-pathway logic with individual traits, decision/task-specific characteristics, organizational factors, and environmental conditions allows for a more comprehensive understanding of intuitive decision-making