51628 research outputs found
Sort by
Dutch Penal Protection Orders in Practice
Full text linkPenal protection orders (PPOs) aim to protect initial victims from repeat victimisation and in a broader sense from any danger for his or her dignity or psychological and sexual integrity and may therefore be important instruments for victim safety. However, knowledge on the actual practice of the PPOs and the successes, dilemmas and challenges involved is scarce. In this article, we describe the legal framework and actual enforcement practice of Dutch PPOs. The theoretical framework leading our explorative analyses regards Lipsky’s notion of ‘street-level bureaucracy’ and the succeeding work of Maynard & Musheno and Tummers on coping strategies and agency narratives of frontline workers. Using interview data from criminal justice professionals, victims and offenders, we describe the conditions of the enforcement practice and answer the question which coping mechanisms and types of agencies the professionals tend to apply in order to meet the legislative aims and to protect victims as effectively as possible. Results show that the five conditions described by Lipsky are clearly present. So far, in almost all situations the process of monitoring violations is reactive and because knowledge on risk indicators for violent escalation is still limited, it is difficult for frontline workers to decide how many and what type of resources should be invested in which cases. This results in a ‘moving away from clients’ strategy. However, within this context in which reactive enforcement is the default, we also found several examples of coping that represent ‘moving towards clients’ strategies
Victim-Offender Contact in Forensic Mental Health
Full text linkCrime victims have gained a stronger position in all phases of the criminal procedure, including the post-sentencing phase. It is in this phase specifically that victims’ needs and interests relating to acknowledgement interplay with the offenders’ needs and interests relating to resocialisation. In the Netherlands, offenders who suffer from a mental disorder at the time of the offence limiting their criminal accountability and pose a significant safety threat, can be given a TBS order. This means that they are placed in a forensic psychiatric hospital to prevent further crimes and receive treatment aimed at resocialisation. As resocialisation requires the offender to return to society, contact with the victim might be a necessary step. This article focuses on victim-offender contact during the execution of this TBS order, and looks at risks and opportunities of victim-offender contact in this context, given the particular offender population. Offenders are divided into three groups: those with primarily psychotic disorders, those suffering from personality disorders and those with comorbidity, especially substance abuse disorders. The TBS population is atypical compared to offenders without a mental disorder. Their disorders can heighten the risks of unsuccessful or even counterproductive victim-offender contact. Yet, carefully executed victim-offender contact which includes thorough preparation, managing expectations and choosing the right type of contact can contribute to both successful resocialisation as well as victim acknowledgement
Demand Management for Attended Home Delivery – A Literature Review
Full text linkGiven the continuing e-commerce boom, the design of efficient and effective home delivery services
is increasingly relevant. From a logistics perspective, attended home delivery, which requires the
customer to be present when the purchased goods are delivered, is particularly challenging. To
facilitate the delivery, the service provider and the customer typically agree on a specific time window
for service. In designing the service offering, service providers face complex trade-offs between
customer preferences and profitable service execution. In this paper, we map these trade-offs to
different planning levels and demand management levers, and structure and synthesize corresponding
literature according to different demand management decisions. Finally, we highlight research gaps
and future research directions and discuss the linkage of the different planning levels
Why Do People Eat the Same Breakfast Every Day? Goals and Circadian Rhythms of Variety Seeking in Meals
No full textPeople exhibit a circadian rhythm in the variety of foods they eat. Many people happily eat the same foods for breakfast day after day, yet seek more variety in the foods they eat for lunch and dinner. We identify psychological goals as a driver of this diurnal pattern of variety seeking, complementing other biological and cultural drivers. People are more likely to pursue hedonic goals for meals as the day progresses, which leads them to seek more variety for dinners and lunches than breakfasts. We find evidentiary support for our theory in studies with French and American participants (N = 4481) using diary data, event reconstruction methods, and experiments. Both endogenously and exogenously induced variation in hedonic goal activation modulates variety seeking in meals across days. Hedonic goal activation predicts variety seeking for meals when controlling for factors including time devoted to meal preparation and eating, the presence or absence of other people, and whether people ate a meal inside or outside their home. Goal activation also explain differences in time spent on meals, whereas increasing time spent on meals does not increase variety seeking. Finally, we observed that a similar increase in hedonic goal activation enacts a larger increase in variety seeking at breakfast than at lunch than at dinner, suggesting a diminishing marginal effect of hedonic goal activation on variety seeking.</p
Gaussian Copula Regression in the Presence of Thresholds
Full text linkPark and Gupta’s (2012) introduction of the Gaussian Copula (GC) approach to deal with endogeneity has made a significant impact on empirical marketing research with many papers using this approach. Recent studies have however started to explore and examine the approach and its underlying assumptions more closely, resulting in a more critical picture of it. A particular challenge is the non-testable assumption that the dependency structure between the endogenous regressor and the error term should be described by a Gaussian copula. In general, there exists a limited understanding of what this assumption implies, what causes its violation, and potential remedies. Our study addresses this explicitly. We provide a detailed discussion of the dependency structure assumption and how thresholds in the data can lead to its violation and biased results. We use real and simulated data to show how threshold detection before applying the GC approach can overcome this problem and thereby provide researchers with a useful tool to increase the likelihood of the GC approach’s assumptions being met
Cognition and Incentives in Cooperatives
Full text linkWe extend the results of Feng and Hendrikse (2012) by investigating the relationship between cognition and incentives in cooperatives versus investor-owned firms (IOFs) in a multi-tasking principal-agent model. The principal chooses the incentive intensity as well as the precision of monitoring, while the agent chooses the activities. We establish that a cooperative is uniquely efficient when either the synergy between the upstream and downstream activities or the knowledgeability of the members regarding the cooperative enterprise is sufficiently high
How manufacturing firms respond to energy subsidy reforms?
Full text linkEnergy prices increased several folds due to the 2010 Iranian Energy Subsidy Reform. This study assesses the impact of the reform on the performance of manufacturing firms using a detailed micro-panel dataset at the 4-digit ISIC level for the period 2009 to 2013. Since the reform universally affected all firms, the analysis relies on a quasi-experimental framework implementing first an explorative before-after design with structural fixed-effects and second a difference-in-difference analysis exploiting energy-sensitivity. The subsidy removal caused a shrinkage in output and manufacturing value-added of at least 3 and 7%, respectively. This results in a deterioration of profits by nearly 9%. Manufacturing firms have been affected through three channels: increasing costs of direct energy inputs, pass-through costs for inputs from upstream firms and an energy-price-induced demand contraction. To successfully implement an energy subsidy reform while maintaining growth in the manufacturing sector, not only the direct but also the indirect, pass-through effects have to be considered since capital or technology-led responses to mitigate negative repercussions in the short-run are unlikely at large scale. The results can inform price reforms that aim to mitigate climate change
Socio-demographic characteristics associated with emotional and social loneliness among older adults
Full text linkBackground: International studies provide an overview of socio-demographic characteristics associated with loneliness among older adults, but few studies distinguished between emotional and social loneliness. This study examined socio-demographic characteristics associated with emotional and social loneliness. Methods: Data of 2251 community-dwelling older adults, included at the baseline measure of the Urban Health Centers Europe (UHCE) project, were analysed. Loneliness was measured with the 6-item De Jong-Gierveld Loneliness Scale. Multivariable logistic regression models were used to evaluate associations between age, sex, living situation, educational level, migration background, and loneliness. Results: The mean age of participants was 79.7 years (SD = 5.6 years); 60.4% women. Emotional and social loneliness were reported by 29.2 and 26.7% of the participants; 13.6% experienced emotional and social loneliness simultaneously. Older age (OR: 1.16, 95% CI: 1.06–1.28), living without a partner (2.16, 95% CI: 1.73–2.70), and having a low educational level (OR: 1.82, 95% CI: 1.21–2.73), were associated with increased emotional loneliness. Women living with a partner were more prone to emotional loneliness than men living with a partner (OR: 1.78, 95% CI: 1.31–2.40). Older age (OR: 1.11, 95% CI: 1.00–1.22) and having a low educational level (OR: 1.77, 95% CI: 1.14–2.74) were associated with increased social loneliness. Men living without a partner were more prone to social loneliness than men living with a partner (OR: 1.94, 95% CI: 1.35–2.78). Conclusions: Socio-demographic characteristics associated with emotional and social loneliness differed regarding sex and living situation. Researchers, policy makers, and healthcare professionals should be aware that emotional and social loneliness may affect older adults with different socio-demographic characteristics