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Terrorisme en gewapend conflict: een transnationaal strafrechtelijk kader
No full textArmed conflicts are governed by the law of armed conflict, commonly known as international humanitarian law (IHL). IHL applies not only to conflicts between States, so-called international armed conflicts, but also to conflicts involving non-state armed groups, known as non-international armed conflicts. Examples of such conflicts include the conflict between Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the conflict between Türkiye and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), and various conflicts in Syria and Iraq involving Salafi-jihadist groups.
Over the past decades, States have adopted numerous international conventions, regional legal instruments and national laws criminalizing terrorism. Increasingly, States qualify the activities of non-state armed groups and their affiliates related to armed conflict as terrorist offences. This trend raises the contentious question of the relationship between criminal law instruments on terrorism and IHL.
Many international conventions on terrorism contain clauses that exclude activities governed by IHL from their scope. Although less common, such armed conflict exclusion clauses also appear in regional legal instruments and domestic legislation. This study systematically identifies, clarifies and compares these clauses at the international, regional and national level.
The study then uses the armed conflict exclusion clause as a conceptual tool to draw the line between the scope of application of criminal law instruments on terrorism and that of IHL. Ultimately, it argues that criminal law instruments on terrorism should contain a clause providing that they do not apply to activities that are governed by IHL. To support the effective operation of this 'ideal' armed conflict exclusion clause, the study proposes several complementary measures. Acknowledging that States may not (yet) be willing or able to adopt this ideal version of the clause, the study contends that, at a minimum, they should adopt a 'pragmatic' armed conflict exclusion clause, providing that criminal law instruments on terrorism do not apply to activities that are in accordance with IHL.status: Publishe
Optomechanische Ultrasoonsensoren voor Fotoakoestische Beeldvorming
No full textPhotoacoustic imaging combines the deep penetration of ultrasound with the high contrast of optical imaging by converting pulsed light into sound waves. This non-invasive technique provides excellent optical contrast and deep ultrasound penetration, enabling detailed 3D molecular visualisation of optical absorption distributions in biological tissue. Traditional systems rely on bulky, high-energy pulsed lasers and piezoelectric transducers, which limit scalability, sensitivity, and miniaturisation. This work introduces optomechanical ultrasound sensors (OMUS) based on silicon photonics, featuring optical ring resonators coupled to acoustic membranes via a nanoscale air gap. Two types of OMUS sensors are investigated: single-membrane point-like detectors for 3D tomography and novel long OMUS for 2D cross-sectional imaging, offering a simpler and more scalable optical readout compared to conventional ultrasound heads. A comprehensive multiphysics model enables accurate performance predictions, showing excellent agreement with experimental results. The long OMUS device, consisting of 50 × Ø20 µm membranes with a pitch of 30 µm over an optical racetrack length of 1.5 mm, has a measured noise equivalent pressure below 0.75 mPa/√Hz up to 30 MHz. This demonstrates that the OMUS operates near the thermomechanical noise limit. The OMUS sensors show low-noise operation and broadband performance, both in laser and LED-based imaging systems. These advancements enable high-resolution, low-noise photoacoustic imaging with greater sensitivity and scalability. The long OMUS, with its elongated detection aperture, offers a significant reduction in the number of sensors required compared to single-membrane arrays, making it more cost-effective and easier to integrate at scale.
These results showcase the potential of OMUS technology for non-invasive imaging applications, including the monitoring of vascular diseases, brain imaging in freely moving mice, and point-of-care diagnostics. By combining high sensitivity, scalability, and cost-effectiveness, OMUS technology holds promise for advancing both (pre)clinical research and medical diagnostics.status: Publishe
Design of a Tunable, High-performance Mixed Matrix Membrane Platform for Gas Separations
No full textMembrane technology offers substantial economic and environmental benefits for energy-intensive chemical separations. Chabazite-type zeolite, possessing a 3-D channel system with molecular-sieving windows, can be an ideal membrane material, but conditions to synthesize zeolite-only membranes limit optimization strategies. Guided by advanced quantum chemistry calculations on inner-pore molecular interactions, zeolite properties are tailored for different separations and optimized particles incorporated in polyimide at very high loadings. A membrane platform is thus created that largely outperforms state-of-the-art membranes for a broad variety of industry-relevant applications, that is, carbon capture, natural gas/biogas purification, hydrocarbon, helium and hydrogen recovery. Accurate size-sieving of gas molecules is realized together with rational determination of optimal gas-zeolite interactions. Crucial for industrial applications, these well-tuned membranes displayed excellent non-aging properties, high flexibility and higher mixed-gas selectivities than ideal-gas selectivities. Moreover, they performed even better at low CO2-partial pressure in CO2-removal and can be made humidity-insensitive.sponsorship: X.T. and S.R. contributed equally to this work. X.T. thanks for PDM fellowship (PDMT223060) from KU Leuven and FWO fellowship (12A8X25N) from Research Foundation Flanders (FWO Vlaanderen). X.T. and I.V. gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Flemish Government and Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship (VLAIO) through the Moonshot projects MOONRISE (HBC.2020.2612) and SUPREME (HBC.2023.0564). X.T. and I.V. thank KU Leuven for Industrial Research Fund (IOF) (C3/23/017). I.V. thanks Hercules fund (AKUL/13/19). S.R., M.D. and T.V.A. thank the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO Vlaanderen) for funding (Grants G085220N and G0A0D24N). SACHEM is thanked for providing the organic structure-directing agent (TmAdamOH) and HUNTSMAN is thanked for providing Matrimid. The authors thank Prof. Dr. Maarten Roeffaers (KU Leuven) for providing the Raman Spectromicroscopy measurement, and Dr. Raymond Thuer and Dr. Daan Van Havere (KU Leuven) for valuable discussions, and K. Yan for illustration drawing. (KU Leuven, FWO fellowship from Research Foundation Flanders (FWO Vlaanderen), Flemish Government and Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship (VLAIO)|HBC.2023.0564, KU Leuven for Industrial Research Fund (IOF)|C3/23/017, Hercules fund|AKUL/13/19, Research Foundation Flanders (FWO Vlaanderen)|G085220N, Research Foundation Flanders (FWO Vlaanderen)|G0A0D24N, PDMT223060, 12A8X25N, HBC.2020.2612)status: Published onlin
Passivity, dynamic performance and current limitation of MMC-based CC-GFM with harmonic filtering
No full textsponsorship: This work was supported by TransnetBW GmbH (Germany), partly by the DIRECTIONS Project through the Energy Transition Fund (FOD Economy, Belgium). The work of Jie Song was also supported by Horizon Europe MSCA postdoctoral fellowship under grant 101153248 (EQUATOR). (TransnetBW GmbH (Germany) by the DIRECTIONS Project through the Energy Transition Fund (FOD Economy, Belgium), Horizon Europe MSCA postdoctoral fellowship|101153248)status: Accepte
Women With Higher GCT Levels but NGT Have a Similarly High Risk for Glucose Intolerance Postpartum as Women With GDM
No full textCONTEXT: More data are needed on the long-term postpartum metabolic risk of women with hyperglycemia in pregnancy less than gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) based on the 2013 World Health Organization criteria. OBJECTIVE: This work aimed to determine the association of different degrees of gestational glucose intolerance (GI) on the metabolic profile and risk for GI in women and offspring 3 to 7 years postpartum. METHODS: This multicentric prospective follow-up study of the Belgian Diabetes in Pregnancy study (BEDIP-N, which was a prospective observational study) included 334 women and 296 children. Groups were stratified according to antenatal glucose challenge test (GCT) and diagnosis of GDM based on the 2013 World Health Organization criteria: normal glucose tolerant women with normal GCT (normal GCT-NGT group), NGT with abnormal GCT (abnormal GCT-NGT group), and a GDM group. Logistic regression was performed to adjust for following confounders: time since participation in BEDIP-N, ethnicity, prepregnancy body mass index (BMI), age, and current BMI. RESULTS: The GCT cutoff with the highest Youden index to predict GI in mothers 5.7 years postpartum was greater than or equal to 8.3 mmol/L (≥150 mg/dL). NGT women with GCT greater than or equal to 8.3 mmol/L (abnormal GCT-NGT group, n = 39) had a similarly increased risk for GI as women with GDM (n = 82) with an adjusted odds ratio of 2.87 (1.47-5.60; P = .0020) compared to the normal GCT-NGT group (n = 213). β-Cell function decreased over the different gestational glucose tolerance groups, with similar β-cell dysfunction in the GDM and abnormal GCT-NGT groups. Offspring of women with hyperglycemia less than GDM did not have an increased risk for an adverse metabolic profile postpartum. CONCLUSION: NGT women with GCT greater than or equal to 8.3 mmol/L (≥150 mg/dL) in pregnancy have a similarly high risk for GI 5.7 years postpartum as women with GDM. These women also need postpartum follow-up to prevent GI.sponsorship: K.B. is the recipient of a Senior Clinical Research grant from "FWO Vlaanderen." We thank the research assistants, paramedics, and physicians of all participating hospitals for their support, and we thank all the women who participated in the study. (KU Leuven, FWO Vlaanderen)status: Publishe
The Dial-a-Ride problem with limited pickups per trip
No full textThe Dial-a-Ride Problem (DARP) is an optimization problem that involves determining
optimal routes and schedules for several vehicles to pick up and deliver items at minimum
cost. Motivated by real-world carpooling and crowdshipping scenarios, we introduce an
additional constraint imposing a maximum number on the number of pickups per trip.
This results in the Dial-a-Ride Problem with Limited Pickups per Trip (DARP-LPT).
We apply a fragment-based method for DARP-LPT, where a fragment is a partial path.
Specifically, we extend two formulations from Rist & Forbes (2021): the Fragment Flow
Formulation (FFF) and the Pickup-Space Fragment Formulation (PSFF). Furthermore,
our results show that PSFF outperforms FFF, which in turn surpasses traditional arcbased formulations in both solution quality and computational efficiency. Additionally, we
compare several existing fragment sets that differ in the length of their partial paths and
find that the sets with shorter partial paths yield the best solution times when used with
PSFF. In addition, we propose a new mixed fragment set, which is useful when the sets
with longer partial paths become too large. In such cases, it yields the lowest CPU time.sponsorship: We are grateful for the valuable suggestions provided by the two anonymous reviewers. Reviewer #2 in particular has given a number of recommendations that have significantly strengthened our work and led to improved algorithmic performance. Kai Wang's research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China via Grants 72322002, 72331001, and 72361137001. Wenchao Wei's work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China Grant 71801013. (National Natural Science Foundation of China|71801013, National Natural Science Foundation of China|72322002, National Natural Science Foundation of China|72331001, National Natural Science Foundation of China|72361137001)status: Publishe
Witness to a World in Crisis: An Interview with René Aguigah
No full textRemo Verdickt interviews cultural journalist and author René Aguigah on the occasion of the publication of his German-language monograph James Baldwin: Der Zeuge. Ein Porträt (C. H. Beck, 2024).status: Publishe
Systematic review of research on pedagogical content knowledge in mathematics: Insights from a topic-specific approach
No full textOne of the most important characteristics of mathematics teachers is their knowledge enabling them to provide learning experiences that promote students' understanding, defined as pedagogical content knowledge by Shulman in 1986. In recent decades, the number of studies on mathematics teachers' pedagogical content knowledge has steadily increased. The current review captures the results of 237 studies published in the last ten years (2013-2022), thematically addressing two components included in all definitions of pedagogical content knowledge - knowledge of instructional strategies and representations and knowledge of student learning difficulties. We approach this review from a topic-specific perspective presenting results of PCK research on nine mathematical topics, the most research relating to rational numbers, geometry and algebra. Altogether 83 unique topic-specific learning difficulties were mentioned in PCK measures including procedural and conceptual difficulties or combinations of them. Teaching strategies were reported less frequently and some strategies such as the use of manipulatives and visualizations were mentioned in relation to many mathematical topics.status: Publishe
Frederiek Depoortere, "In een wankele wereld: Over zingeving in de moderne tijd" (Gent: Owl Press, 2025), blz. 544, € 40,00, ISBN 9789493387775.
No full textstatus: Published onlin
The Event Study Methodology: A Pathway to Financial Insights about Service Management
No full textsponsorship: We extend our gratitude to Lina Altenburg for her valuable contributions to the development of the R code. We also thank Alexander Edeling for his insightful comments and suggestions on an earlier version of the manuscript. The first and third author gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO, grant no. G0B2621 N). During the preparation of this work, the authors used ChatGPT 3.5 for language editing, using the prompt "Please copyedit the following paragraph." No large language models, including ChatGPT, were used for any other purposes. All content was reviewed and edited by the authors, who take full responsibility for the final publication. (Research Foundation Flanders (FWO))status: Publishe