232451 research outputs found
Sort by
Building the law:law-making and lobbying in Belgium’s construction sector (c. 1890-c. 1940)
No full textThis article zooms in on the legal activities of the Société Centrale d’Architecture en Belgique in the Belle Époque and Interbellum, analyzing the ways in which professional interest groups without a legal background could impact processes of law-making. scab developed publications for professionals and invested in strategic networking and in-house legal expertise. As a result, it not only became an important centre of information on construction legislation, but also effectively shaped areas of construction law, such as those concerning the arbitration of building conflicts, the architect’s fee, and the legal recognition of the title of architect
Counterplans in the jobs vs environment tension:Understanding participatory politics in the Hauts-de-France (France) and IJmond (Netherlands) regions
No full textThere is an ongoing tension between protecting jobs while safeguarding the environment. In order to address this tension, governments employ ‘just transition’ policies aiming to balance workers’ material needs with the environmental transition. However, these policies do not always cater to the needs of communities, and non-state actors often develop alternative plans. The existing literature has primarily looked at state-led participatory processes that aim to deliver a ‘just transition’. In this paper, we propose a broader understanding of participation that includes spaces where counterplans emerge. Counterplans have the potential to present new political and economic imaginaries to overcome the ‘jobs vs environment’ tension. We ask what the capacity of non-state actors is to organise such alternative forms of participation and how they develop counterplans. To answer these questions, we examine state-led participatory processes and actors’ counterplans in two European Just Transition regions, the Hauts-de-France region of France and the IJmond region of the Netherlands. Over the course of a year, we interviewed 60 actors from a range of governmental and non-governmental organisations including trade unions, environmental groups and residents groups involved in the making of regional ‘just transition’ policies. Our comparative analysis shows that state-led participatory processes failed to engage key actors while other groups were advancing their own counterplans. While we can question whether these counterplans overcome the ‘jobs versus environment’ tension, they offer alternative spaces where these dynamics can be temporarily disrupted
Conservatieve public interest litigation in Nederland:Mensenrechten onder druk of noodzakelijk tegenwicht?
No full textConservatievepublic interest litigation(ook welright wing legal mobilizationgenoemd)verwijst naar rechtszaken die worden aangespannen door conservatieve groepen om maatschappelijkeof politieke veranderingen te bewerkstelligen. Conservatievepublic interest litigationwordt vaak beschouwdals tegenreactie op de juridische successen van progressieve groepen. Het beoogt doorgaans verworvenrechten terug te draaien, bestaande normen te behouden of deze te versterken. In de Verenigde Statenis dit fenomeen zowel in de praktijk als de wetenschap sterk ingekaderd, maar voor Nederland is dit (nog)niet het geval. In deze bijdrage wordt een eerste aanzet gemaakt om conservatievepublic interest litigationvoor de Nederlandse rechtspraktijk en -wetenschap te duiden
Principal component copulas for capital modelling and systemic risk
No full textWe introduce a class of copulas that we call Principal Component Copulas (PCCs). This class combines the strong points of copula-based techniques with principal component analysis (PCA), which results in flexibility when modelling tail dependence along the most important directions in high-dimensional data. We obtain theoretical results for PCCs that are important for practical applications. In particular, we derive tractable expressions for the high-dimensional copula density, which can be represented in terms of characteristic functions. We also develop algorithms to perform Maximum Likelihood and Generalized Method of Moment estimation in high-dimensions and show very good performance in simulation experiments. Finally, we apply the copula to the international stock market to study systemic risk. We find that PCCs lead to excellent performance on measures of systemic risk due to their ability to distinguish between parallel and orthogonal movements in the global market, which have a different impact on systemic risk and diversification. As a result, we consider the PCC promising for capital models, which financial institutions use to protect themselves against systemic risk
Medical Risk Classification For Severe COVID-19 Based On Chronic Medical Conditions: A Comparative Analysis
No full textBackground: The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) provides listings of medical conditions conferring high- or moderate-risk for severe COVID-19. In addition, individual European countries developed their own risk classifications for severe COVID-19 to select individuals recommended for annual COVID-19 vaccination. We assessed the discordance between the European and respective national medical risk classifications in assigning children and adults to risk groups for developing severe COVID-19 in populations of the Netherlands and Norway.Methods: This multi-country, healthcare data-linkage study covered 17.4 million inhabitants of the Netherlands and 5.6 million inhabitants of Norway by 1 January 2020. Medical conditions were defined based on ICD-10 hospital discharge codes in the European and Dutch classifications, and on ICD-10 and ICPC-2 primary care codes in the Norwegian classification. Subjects were classified as high-, moderate-, or low-risk. Discordance was calculated as the proportion of the population with a different risk status in the respective national compared to the European classification.Findings: The overall discordance between European and national risk classification was 12.0% in the Dutch and 13.8% in the Norwegian population. The European classification assigns more individuals to high-risk (9.0% and 9.2% of the Dutch and Norwegian populations, respectively) than the national classifications (1.5% and 3.0%, respectively). National classifications define more individuals as moderate-risk (11.3% and 12.7%, respectively) than the European classification (1.0% and 1.3%, respectively). Classification discordances most frequently involved subjects with cardiovascular disease, lung disease, and diabetes mellitus.Interpretation: The European classification defines a substantially larger percentage of the population as high-risk for severe COVID-19 than the national classifications. This may have implications for post pandemic vaccination programs. Further research should assess to what extent the medical conditions responsible for the classification discordances determine the risk of developing severe COVID-19
Who uses self‑management apps from the OncoAppstore:description of characteristics, symptoms, and functioning of a real‑world user population
No full textPurpose The rising prevalence of cancer in the Netherlands challenges resource allocation and sustainable care delivery. eHealth interventions, such as self-management applications, may reduce healthcare utilisation. To enhance access to selfmanagement tools, the OncoAppstore was launched in July 2023. This study evaluates the sociodemographic and healthrelated quality of life (HRQoL) characteristics of OncoAppstore users. Methods User data from the OncoAppstore and HRQoL data were integrated with clinical data from the Netherlands Cancer Registry. Descriptive analyses were used to describe sociodemographic and clinical characteristics. Chi-square and Mann-Whitney U tests compared OncoAppstore users with the Dutch adult cancer population. Results A total of 3620 users requested a health credit, and 4333 applications were purchased. Most users were highly educated (61%), had breast cancer (50%) and a high socioeconomic position (53%). Compared to non-users, OncoAppstore users were younger (56 vs 69), predominantly female (78% vs 55%), more often received primary treatment, and were diagnosed earlier. The majority indicated clinically significant distress levels and approximately half reported substantial functional impairments. Symptom burden was highest in the fatigue, pain, and nausea/vomiting domains. Conclusion and Implications for Cancer Survivors The OncoAppstore is primarily utilised by highly educated users who seek applications targeting cancer-related fatigue. Insights into the characteristics of users who are receptive to online selfmanagement tools contribute to the improvement of self-management infrastructure and its long-term integration into Dutch cancer care. By providing self-management tools to those who are able to use it, we can potentially save scarce resources for those who are unable to profit from self-management alone
The positive and negative impact of cancer on daily life > 2 years after diagnosis:Results from a survey among 5,710 patients with various cancer types
No full textPurpose This study aimed to understand the positive and negative long-term impact of cancer and its treatment on survivors more than two years post-diagnosis. Methods The Dutch Federation of Cancer Patient Organisations (NFK), with input from patient representatives and researchers, created a national online survey. It was distributed via email, websites, and social media to patient organization members, with additional promotion by partner organizations. Participants shared their experiences regarding the physical and psychological effects of cancer on daily life. Results A total of 5,710 cancer survivors participated. Of these, 73% felt proud of how they coped, 66% reported that cancer reshaped their priorities, 44% saw new opportunities, and 35% enjoyed life more. However, 58% could not be worry-free,and 49% struggled to resume life. Long-term symptoms were common: 55% experienced both physical and psychological symptoms, 33% reported only physical symptoms, and 2% only psychological. The most frequent physical symptoms included fatigue (56%), reduced fitness (47%), neuropathy (32%), sexual issues (25%), and sleep disturbances (24%). Common psychological symptoms were memory/concentration issues (32%), acceptance struggles (19%), depressive feelings (19%), planning issues (18%), and anxiety (16%). Conclusion Cancer survivors often face persistent physical and psychological symptoms, with cancer continuing to affect heir lives significantly Implications for cancer survivors Greater awareness of these long-term consequences among healthcare providers and patients is essential
Fairness in welfare:Applying Article 6 ECHR to benefit sanctions
No full textThis article examines the procedural rights of benefit recipients facing social security sanctions, focusing on the potential effects of applying additional protection from Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to benefit sanctions. While applicable to all Council of Europe member states, it primarily draws on examples from the Netherlands. The research explores whether extending this criminal law protection - which is currently limited to punitive sanctions - to cases of benefit sanctions could address disparities in procedural fairness. This issue is analysed within the broader context of increased conditionality and automation in social security, which has intensified the repressive nature of welfare systems. Drawing on European Court of Human Rights case law and social security literature, the study argues that the existing difference in legal guarantees pertaining to punitive sanctions and to benefit sanctions may be undesirable, given the severe impact that benefit sanctions have on recipients. Findings suggest that Article 6 ECHR safeguards, such as the presumption of innocence, the right to an interpreter and the right to a full review of a judicial body with full jurisdiction, could strengthen the procedural position of benefit recipients and thus help to restore the balance between rights and obligations affected by the trend towards conditionality. Extending Article 6 ECHR procedural guarantees to those facing benefit sanctions could help create a better balance, promoting fairness in welfare
The smoke-detector principle of pathogen avoidance:A test of how the behavioral immune system gives rise to prejudice
No full textMotivations to avoid infectious disease seem to influence prejudice toward some groups, including groups not explicitly associated with infectious disease. The standard explanation for this phenomenon is based on signal detection theory and proposes that some prejudices partially arise from pathogen detection mechanisms that are biased toward making false alarms (false positives) in order to minimize misses (false negatives). Therefore, pathogen detection mechanisms arguably categorize a broad array of atypical features as indicative of infection, which gives rise to negative affect toward people with atypical features. We tested a key hypothesis derived from this explanation: specific appearance-based prejudices are associated with tendencies to make false alarms when estimating the presence of infectious disease. While this hypothesis is implicit in much work on the behavioral immune system and prejudice, direct tests of it are lacking and existing relevant work contains important limitations. To test the hypothesis, we conducted a cross-sectional study using a large U.S. sample (N = 1450). Using signal detection theory methods, we assessed tendencies to make false alarms when identifying infection threats. We further assessed prejudice toward multiple relevant social groups/categories. Results showed weak evidence for the key hypothesis: for only one of four tested target groups were tendencies to make false alarms in sickness detection significantly associated with prejudice. However, this relation was not significant when controlling for a potential confound. These results cast doubt on the notion that individual differences in appearance-based prejudices arise from individual differences in tendencies to make false alarms in assessing pathogen threats
What happened to Wilhelm?:The Life and Times of a Police Officer in the Balkans 1944-1945
No full textThe role of the German police in the Balkans during World War II has not received much attention from historians of the military and police. On the basis of a private archive we can reconstruct the work and life of Wilhelm Z. in the period 1944-1945. The first two sections show his career as a police officer in the Weimar Republic and the early years of the Third Reich, and in occupied France. The third section reconstructs his work as a police officer at war in the Balkans and his collaboration with SS units during battles with the Yugoslav partisans. The fourth section displays how he experienced his time in the Balkans on the basis of the letters he wrote to his wife: his absence from home, his collaboration with the locals, and his work under dangerous circumstances