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The aim of this study, which covers the period from 1991 to 2017, is to analyze the relationships between recovered paper consumption, human development index, urbanization rate, and forest footprint in the framework of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis in the 10 countries that consume the most recovered paper. Considering that wood is the raw material of paper, the study investigates whether the increase in the consumption of recovered paper has a positive effect on the forest footprint. Therefore, unlike other studies, the dependent variable of the EKC model is the forest footprint. The study is original in that it is the first to analyze the effects of recovered paper consumption on environmental degradation in the context of the EKC hypothesis. To analyze the relationships between the variables, we use panel cointegration tests based on AMG and CCE estimators, which allow analysis on both a country and group basis. According to the results, the EKC hypothesis is valid only in the Netherlands. While there is a statistically significant and negative relationship between recovered paper consumption and forest footprint in the Netherlands, there is a statistically significant and negative relationship between urbanization and forest footprint in Italy. Economic and ecological benefits and costs must be considered to measure the net benefit of waste management programs. In addition, to analyze how environmental impacts change over time, ecological footprint and gas emissions during waste generation or disposal should be measured similarly to carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The journal Oecologia has announced the winners of the Ehleringer and Hanski Prizes for outstanding papers published by student authors in 2022. The Ehleringer Prize, awarded in the field of plant ecology and plant-microbe-animal interactions, went to Peter Karssemeijer of Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands. His paper explores the impact of leaf-chewing herbivores on the oviposition choices and larval performance of root herbivores, revealing a connection between above- and belowground insect herbivores. The Hanski Prize, awarded in the field of animal ecology, was given to Rebecca A. McCabe from McGill University in Canada. Her research on snowy owls demonstrates that survival during irruption years is influenced by density-dependent factors. Congratulations to the winners and all authors of the Highlighted Student Papers in Oecologia for 2022. [Extracted from the article]

A scrapbook compiled between 1660 and 1687 by Gesina ter Borch (1631–1690), a female artist from the small town of Zwolle in the Netherlands, contains an intriguing painting on paper of a full-length portrait of a young Iranian. Although the figure wears the attributes in vogue at the Safavid court of Isfahan, certain elements seem rather incongruous and peculiar. The general composition appears static and rigid, an impression reinforced by an unusual black painted background. Stylistic differences within the painting were also observed, hinting at alterations to the original painting. To investigate the history of the painting and to reconstruct the original composition and identify the later additions, perhaps made by Gesina herself, the painting was examined with different imaging and analytic techniques available at the Conservation and Science Department of the Rijksmuseum. This allowed the research team to discriminate between pigments used for the original composition and pigments used to conceal damaged areas of the painting and added pictorial elements. After interpreting scientific results, as well as historical findings, it was possible to shed light on the use of specific pigments, namely lead white and smalt, and on the possible misinterpretation of some details, such as the cup held by the young man. The results of macro X-ray fluorescence scanning (MA-XRF) and lead isotope analysis, viewed in the light of information about the economic and cultural exchanges between Iran and the Netherlands in the seventeenth century, fed new theories about the origin and history of this painting. The painting, originally made in Iran in the style of Riza Abbasi, the head of the Emperor Shah Abbas' library, ended up in Gesina ter Borch's workshop and may have been 'restored' by the artist to improve its condition and to match her tastes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decades, the Dutch trauma care have seen major improvements. To assess the performance of the Dutch trauma system, in 2007, the Dutch Nationwide Trauma Registry (DNTR) was established, which developed into rich source of information for quality assessment, quality improvement of the trauma system, and for research purposes. The DNTR is one of the most comprehensive trauma registries in the world as it includes 100% of all trauma patients admitted to the hospital through the emergency department. This inclusive trauma registry has shown its benefit over less inclusive systems; however, it comes with a high workload for high-quality data collection and thus more expenses. The comprehensive prospectively collected data in the DNTR allows multiple types of studies to be performed. Recent changes in legislation allow the DNTR to include the citizen service numbers, which enables new possibilities and eases patient follow-up. However, in order to maximally exploit the possibilities of the DNTR, further development is required, for example, regarding data quality improvement and routine incorporation of health-related quality of life questionnaires. This would improve the quality assessment and scientific output from the DNTR. Finally, the DNTR and all other (European) trauma registries should strive to ensure that the trauma registries are eligible for comparisons between countries and healthcare systems, with the goal to improve trauma patient care worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) has evolved as an important part of the treatment of patients with cardiovascular disease. However, to date, its full potential is fairly underutilised. This review discusses new developments in CR aimed at improving participation rates and long-term effectiveness in the general cardiac population. It consecutively highlights new or challenging target groups, new delivery modes and new care pathways for CR programmes. These new or challenging target groups include patients with atrial fibrillation, obesity and cardiovascular disease, chronic coronary syndromes, (advanced) chronic heart failure with or without intracardiac devices, women and frail elderly patients. Also, the current evidence regarding cardiac telerehabilitation and loyalty programmes is discussed as new delivery modes for CR. Finally, this paper discusses novel care pathways with the integration of CR in residual risk management and transmural care pathways. These new developments can help to make optimal use of the benefits of CR. Therefore we should seize the opportunities to reshape current CR programmes, broaden their applicability and incorporate them into or combine them with other cardiovascular care programmes/pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a chronic inflammatory disease that frequently results in disability. It has a negative impact on patients' quality of life and puts an enormous budgetary and societal burden on society. The most effective treatment for AS has grown to be a significant issue worldwide. In order to pinpoint research focus and trends in this region, we performed a bibliometric analysis of the top 100 cited papers in this study. We searched the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-Expanded) on the Web of Science (WOS) and selected the top 100 cited papers based on AS. The pertinent literature from various years, journals, nations/regions, institutions, authors, keywords, and references were then examined. To construct knowledge maps, we used the VOSviewer, CiteSpace, and Scimago Graphica programs. Excel was then used to compile the information from the pertinent literature that we had retrieved, and we were able to make predictions about the focus and trends that were currently occurring in the field. Between 1999 and 2019, the top 100 cited papers appeared in 23 journals from 36 different nations and regions. Annals of the rheumatic diseases published the majority of the articles, while Lancet had the highest average number of citations per paper. Germany contributed the most publications, followed by the Netherlands and the USA. In terms of the total number of publications, Rheumazentrum Ruhrgebiet contributed the most papers, followed by University Hospital Maastricht and Leiden University. The three major categories are Rheumatology, Medicine, General & Internal, and Genetics & Heredity, whereas the top 5 co-occurrence of keywords included rheumatoid arthritis, double-blind, disease activity, efficacy, and infliximab. The cluster analysis results indicate that inflammation and immunology, safe and effective therapies, and placebo-controlled trials may be focus and trends for future AS research. Bibliometric analysis can swiftly and visually identify the focus and boundaries of AS research. Our findings imply that inflammation and immunology, safe and effective therapies, and placebo-controlled trials may be focus and trends for future AS research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emergency services worldwide face increasing cost pressure that potentially limits their existing resources. In many countries, emergency services also face the issues of staff shortage–creating extra challenges and constraints, especially during crisis times such as the COVID-19 pandemic–as well as long distances to sparsely populated areas resulting in longer response times. To overcome these issues and potentially reduce consequences of daily (medical) emergencies, several countries, such as Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands, have started initiatives using new types of human resources as well as equipment, which have not been part of the existing emergency systems before. These resources are employed in response to medical emergency cases if they can arrive earlier than emergency medical services (EMS). A good number of studies have investigated the use of these new types of resources in EMS systems, from medical, technical, and logistical perspectives as their study domains. Several review papers in the literature exist that focus on one or several of these new types of resources. However, to the best of our knowledge, no review paper that comprehensively considers all new types of resources in emergency medical response systems exists. We try to fill this gap by presenting a broad literature review of the studies focused on the different new types of resources, which are used prior to the arrival of EMS. Our objective is to present an application-based and methodological overview of these papers, to provide insights to this important field and to bring it to the attention of researchers as well as emergency managers and administrators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media reporting and academic research into young climate civil society organisations (CSOs) often focus on organisations using direct, confrontational and often controversial actions, but to what extent is this a true picture of young climate organisations? This paper examines the differences between young and old climate and environmental CSOs in the Netherlands. Drawing on niche theory, it uses set-theoretic typology building to examine the ways in which 39 young and old Dutch CSOs construct configurational organisational niches by narrowing down their membership and issue, using innovative strategies and developing stable financing sources. It finds that although there are significant differences between young and old CSOs in how they narrow down their membership and issues, their strategies are not significantly different: in other words, a focus on civil disobedience alone does not paint the whole picture of young climate groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the call for papers for the Eat and Drink and Be Merry? Cultural Meaning of Food and Drink in the 21st Century conference to be held at the Felix Meritis Keizersgracht in Amsterdam, Netherlands from June 3-5, 2002.

The dominant model of universities, especially in the social sciences, is often based upon academic disciplines, objectivity, and a linear knowledge-transfer model. It facilitates competition between academics, educating students for specific professions from an objective, descriptive, and neutral position. This paper argues that this institutional model of universities is inadequate to contribute effectively to societal transitions towards just and sustainable futures. Taking the Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR), the Netherlands, as an example, this paper illustrates the problems with the dominant (twentieth century) model of universities in the social sciences and explores what strategies universities can develop to transform. It introduces the notions of transformative research and transformative education: transdisciplinary, collaborative, and action-oriented academic work that explicitly aims to support societal transitions. It presents the design impact transition (DIT) platform as an 'institutional experiment' at the EUR and a concerted and strategic effort that lays bare current lock-ins of the dominant university model and the kind of institutional work needed to transform universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the ever-growing accessibility of case law online, it has become challenging to manually identify case law relevant to one's legal issue. In the Netherlands, the planned increase in the online publication of case law is expected to exacerbate this challenge. In this paper, we tried to predict whether court decisions are cited by other courts or not after being published, thus in a way distinguishing between more and less authoritative cases. This type of system may be used to process the large amounts of available data by filtering out large quantities of non-authoritative decisions, thus helping legal practitioners and scholars to find relevant decisions more easily, and drastically reducing the time spent on preparation and analysis. For the Dutch Supreme Court, the match between our prediction and the actual data was relatively strong (with a Matthews Correlation Coefficient of 0.60). Our results were less successful for the Council of State and the district courts (MCC scores of 0.26 and 0.17, relatively). We also attempted to identify the most informative characteristics of a decision. We found that a completely explainable model, consisting only of handcrafted metadata features, performs almost as well as a less well-explainable system based on all text of the decision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the Second Conference of the European Philosophy of Science Association, EPSA09, held in VU University Amsterdam, Netherlands in 2009. This was reportedly in tradition of organizing biennial meetings to discuss philosophy of science. Individuals contributed papers and also symposia were also programmed. Three invited speakers from different countries and different subfields also gave plenary lectures.

The term 'affordable housing' has been rapidly gaining currency over the last decade across Europe, both in policy and research circles. While it is often used as a synonym or close relative of the term 'social housing', more recently it is finding its own definition and policy instruments in specific cities and countries. However, boundaries between both concepts remain unclear. To shed light on recent developments of each of these terms, this paper presents findings from a study commissioned by the European Investment Bank, which investigated current trends in definitions, programmes and policies both in social housing and affordable housing. This paper focuses on findings for England, Italy, Poland and The Netherlands. Methods used included desk research and interviews with key informants in each of the four countries. In addition, in-depth information about Italy and The Netherlands was gathered through stakeholder workshops carried out between September and November 2016. Findings show that affordable housing in all four countries is becoming a more distinct field, in parallel to developments in social housing. In addition, the paper describes some innovative policies undertaken to develop affordable housing solutions. The paper concludes with a reflection on scenarios for future policy developments and an agenda for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: This study presents a global research scenario in the broad domain of osteoarthritis (OA) research, using quantitative and qualitative publication and citation indicators. Methods: The study is based on 45,368 global publications, sourced from the Scopus bibliographical database, covering three decades (1994–2023). We studied the performance of the top 12 developed and top 12 developing countries. The key countries, organizations and authors at national and international levels were identified. The broad subject areas and key journals contributing to global OA research were delineated, besides identifying the broad characteristics of highly cited papers in the field. Results: The United States and China were the most productive countries, while the Netherlands and Canada made the largest citation impact. Harvard Medical School and the University of Sydney made the most contribution, while Boston University and Pfizer Inc., USA registered the highest citation impact. Hunter DJ and Guermazi A were the most productive authors, while Lohmander LS, and Hochberg MC registered the highest citation impact. Osteoarthritis and Cartilage (n = 4879) and Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (n = 786) published the maximum papers, while Arthritis and Rheumatism and Nature Reviews Rheumatology registered the largest citation impact. The highly cited papers with 100 or more citations constituted 6.25% of the total publications. Conclusions: There has been a systematic growth of publications on OA. The research on OA was mainly done in developed countries, with the maximum publications coming from the United States of America, China and Canada. The most impactful publications on OA were from the Netherlands, Canada and the United States of America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an overview of the development of an integrated patient-centred cardiac care registry spanning the initial 5 years (September 2017 to December 2022). The Netherlands Heart Registration facilitates registration committees in which mandated cardiologists and cardiothoracic surgeons structurally evaluate quality of care using real-world data. With consistent attendance rates exceeding 60%, a valuable network is supported. Over time, the completeness level of the registry has increased. Presently, four out of six quality registries show over 95% completeness in variables that are part of the quality policies of cardiology and cardiothoracic surgery societies. Notably, 93% of the centres voluntarily report outcomes related to open heart surgery and (trans)catheter interventions publicly. Moreover, outcomes after implantable cardioverter-defibrillator and pacemaker procedures are transparently reported by 26 centres. Multiple innovation projects have been initiated by the committees, signalling a shift from publishing outcomes transparently to collaborative efforts in sharing healthcare processes and investigating improvement initiatives. The next steps will focus on the entire pathway of cardiac care for a specific medical condition instead of focusing solely on the outcomes of the procedures. This redirection of focus to a comprehensive assessment of the patient pathway in cardiac care ultimately aims to optimise outcomes for all patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Authors adopting socio-technical frameworks to study energy transitions argue that individual behavioural change and the uptake of social and technological innovations on higher-level scales are both imperative for sustainability transitions to come about. However, the way individuals are embedded in the larger system has remained largely unclear. To better understand individual embedment in energy transitions, this paper enriches sustainability transition research with the insights of memory studies. During energy transitions, social actors that enact these transitions change their identity. A core premise of memory studies is that individual and collective remembering cannot do without each other in the constitution of identity. To illustrate the role of memory in energy transitions, this paper conducts a historical case study of the role of housewives in the energy transition to gas and electricity in the Dutch household. By adopting a narrative approach, the historical narratives across the Monthly Magazine of the Dutch Association for Housewives (NVvH), published between 1913 and 1942, are explored. The results show how the master narrative prescribed the guiding principles of the historical narratives that emerged in the energy discourse. However, as part of the flexible nature of memory, a varied 'menu of stories' came forward that enabled individuals to identify with different historical narratives, incorporating differing energy sources and drawing on the transformative nature of memory by imagining different energy futures. It is concluded that individual agency in energy transitions moves beyond choices of use and consumption. It rests in the individuals' ability to identify with a historical narrative that adheres to the way the individual makes sense of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To identify the 100 top-cited meta-analyses of diagnostic accuracy studies published in radiology, medical imaging and nuclear medicine journals. Methods: A PubMed search with pre-defined criteria was performed. The 100 top-cited articles meta-analyses were retrieved, using a custom Python script and the Scopus Application Programming Interface (Elsevier). Publication, citation and affiliation details were extracted from each meta-analysis. No formal statistical analysis was performed. Results: The top meta-analysis was cited 394 times, the 100th meta-analysis 38 times. The USA was the top country represented in the papers (33 meta-analyses) followed by The Netherlands, China and Germany. The journal Radiology published 24 studies. The most common modality reported was positron emission tomography (PET) or PET computed tomography (36 instances), followed by magnetic resonance imaging (30 instances) and computed tomography (27 instances). Cardiac (19 meta-analyses), abdominal (18 meta-analyses), followed by neurological (12 meta-analyses) investigations were the most frequently encountered in the top 100 cited meta-analyses. Conclusions: The 100 top-cited meta-analyses encompass a broad range of imaging modalities and body regions. This may comprise a useful resource for identifying influential evidence-based diagnostic accuracy information in radiology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Engagement of clinicians in research is important for the integration of science and clinical practice. However, at this moment, there is a shortage of clinician-scientists. Success experiences can stimulate student interest in a research career. Conducting actual research leading to publication is a potential method to gain success experience. This study assessed whether publication as a medical student is associated with publication after graduation. We determined whether medical students in the Netherlands who are involved in research, as measured by publication in international journals before graduation: 1) are more likely to publish, 2) publish a greater number of papers, and 3) have higher citation impact scores after graduation. Methods: We matched 2005–2008 MD graduates (with rare names, n = 4145 in total) from all eight Dutch university medical centres to their publications indexed in the Web of Science and published between 6 years before and 6 years after graduation. For sensitivity analysis we performed both automatic assignment on the whole group and manual assignment on a 10% random sample. Results: Students who had published before graduation: 1) were 1.9 times as likely to publish, 2) published more papers, and 3) had a slightly higher citation impact after graduation. Discussion: Medical students who conducted research leading to a publication before graduation were more likely to be scientifically active after graduation. While this is not a causal relationship per se, these results cautiously suggest that successful early involvement in research could influence the long-term scientific activity of clinicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main issues in the debate on urban constitutionalism is how constitutions can recognize the increasingly important role of cities in relation to the nation-state. This paper examines what we talk about when we talk about city autonomy. This is a pressing question, particularly in the context of European unitary states. This paper pays special attention to the context of two of such states, namely the Netherlands and the United Kingdom (especially England). First, it explores the notion of subsidiarity, which implies that consideration should be given to the distinctiveness of the city as regards the allocation of power to the central and regional levels respectively. However, this idea in itself cannot justify the case for city autonomy, as the claim that the attribution of autonomous powers to cities may improve the quality of decision-making in the state as a whole needs additional empirical evidence. Second, it investigates the concept of city autonomy by exploring the fuzziness of the notion of the city. In addition, it introduces the concept of 'spatial identities' in order to explain the interdependence of (large) cities and their surrounding (rural) areas. Lastly, it concludes that if the importance of cities as constitutional actors is to be increased, it should be done so in an informal way rather than by the introduction of formal constitutional arrangements both from a pragmatic and a normative perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main focus of this paper is to put forward an argument about the value of asset-based, culturally relevant/responsive and sustaining pedagogies in science education, especially in former colonial contexts. Countering the framing hegemony of science education through a historically Euro-dominant lens, we call for a critical analysis of the state of science education in the Netherlands by exploring, specifically, the Dutch Caribbean community which includes Suriname and the former Dutch Antilles and Aruba and the need to respond with a more culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogical stance. In doing so, we provide a concrete example of a CR-SP-focused community-based STEAM program for young children and their parents in the north of the Netherlands. We hope that this paper will provide the foundation to springboard conversations among educators and researchers with an interest in designing, enacting and researching CR-SP-informed programs and curricula geared for historically marginalized families and children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a call for papers on aesthetics as a religious factor in Eastern and Western Christianity, for a conference in June 2004 organized by the Centre for Russian and Central European Studies of the University of Leeds and the Centre for Intercultural Theology and Ecumenics of the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. Incorporation of aesthetics in Christianity's expression of faith; Significance of Christian art; General themes of the conference.

Randomized response (RR) is a well-known interview technique designed to eliminate evasive response bias that arises from asking sensitive questions. The most frequently asked questions in RR are either whether respondents were "ever" carriers of the sensitive characteristic, or whether they were carriers in a recent period, for instance, "last year". The present paper proposes a design in which both questions are asked, and derives a multinomial model for the joint analysis of these two questions. Compared to the separate analyses with the binomial model, the model makes a useful distinction between last year and former carriers of the sensitive characteristic, it is more efficient in estimating the prevalence of last year carriers, and it has a degree of freedom that allows for a goodness-of-fit test. Furthermore, it is easily extended to a multinomial logistic regression model to investigate the effects of covariates on the prevalence estimates. These benefits are illustrated in two studies on the use of anabolic androgenic steroids in the Netherlands, one using Kuk and one using both the Kuk and forced response. A salient result of our analyses is that the multinomial model provided ample evidence of response biases in the forced response condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online abuse and threats towards politicians have become a significant concern in the Netherlands, like in many other countries across the world. This paper analyses gender differences in abuse received by Dutch politicians on X (formerly Twitter), while taking into account the possible additional impact of ethnic minority status. All tweets directed at party leaders throughout the entire year of 2022 were collected. The effect of gender and ethnic minority status were estimated for six different linguistic measures of abuse, namely, toxicity, severe toxicity, identity attacks, profanity, insults, and threats. Contrary to expectations, tweets directed at male politicians scored higher on all forms of abuse. Significant interaction effects between gender and ethnic minority status were found for a number of abuse measures. Tweets directed at ethnic minority female politicians scored higher on severe toxicity, identity attacks, and profanity, compared to those directed at ethnic majority female politicians. Importantly, female ethnic minority politicians received the highest levels of threats compared to all groups. Given that online abuse and threats are reported to have a negative effect on political participation and retention, these results are particularly worrying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Navigating the complex landscape of 21st-century agriculture involves overcoming numerous obstacles, such as changing dietary trends, food safety issues, and health concerns due to soil inconsistencies, climatic fluctuations, and varied agricultural practices. The global population surge, climate change, and resource depletion compound these issues. For various stakeholders, including farmers and policymakers, precise crop yield predictions at diverse spatial levels can be immensely advantageous. The value of these forecasts heightens when they are available at multiple spatial resolutions. However, accurately predicting the complex interplay between many data sources and regional yields presents a significant challenge. Conventional methods often fall short, delivering inconsistent results that are difficult to generalize due to their limited ability to incorporate spatial and temporal features, insufficient understanding of market trends, and challenges with scalability and nonlinearity. This paper proposes an innovative Deep Learning approach that adeptly captures and integrates spatial and temporal features, marking a substantial enhancement over traditional methodologies that often grapple with these aspects. This approach forecasts crop yields with a minimal error rate, leveraging the robustness of a unique WaveNet and LSTM hybrid architecture, introducing a fresh perspective to agricultural yield predictions. The novelty of our methodology lies in its two-tier design: the preliminary phase involves pre-processing similar to existing models, and the second phase harnesses the combined power of WaveNet and LSTM for Feature Extraction and regression, enabling precise predictions. The model has been tested on four crops in the Netherlands using varied data splitting criteria, demonstrating stellar performance by offering predictions with minimal error rates. When compared against prevailing machine learning methodologies using an identical Netherlands dataset, our approach outperforms them, highlighting its efficacy and potential practical application in real-world agricultural settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: At the COP21, cities were recognised as key actors in combatting climate change. In supporting cities, climate city networks such as transnational climate networks (TCNs) and national climate networks (NCNs) have emerged to enable cities in building capacities and formulating climate policy whilst also encouraging citizen engagement and participation in public decision-making. This paper addresses the question whether and how TCN or NCN membership enables municipalities to implement citizen participation in public decision-making. Six propositions are presented addressing: presumed influence of TCN membership on citizen participation, organization of citizen participation, initiator capacity, goal setting, involvement of stakeholders, participatory methods used, and planning processes. A multi-case study research design is used to verify these propositions, comprising of four medium-sized cities in the Netherlands and three in Belgium. Results: Results of the analysis of four cities in The Netherlands show that municipalities having membership to climate city networks only to a low extent empower citizen participation via local climate agendas. Citizen participation emerges rather bottom-up via local initiatives or capacity building via EU framework programs—outside TCNs or NCNs—that better suit financial needs and provide more immediate benefits to municipalities. None of the six propositions were confirmed. A more positive image resulted from the Belgian cases that moderately confirmed four out of six propositions (i.e., organizing citizen participation, goal setting, selection of methods, and planning), and featured indirect empowerment via externally funded implementation projects following firm integration of participation in local climate policy through TCN influence. Conclusions: In terms of citizen participation selected municipalities in the Netherlands having TCN and/or NCN membership only to a small extent differ from those not having membership. This is partly due to poor implementation of TCNs and NCNs—with Covenant of Mayors and 'Klimaatverbond' lacking support structure and capacity—having lost importance during the past years. However, there is reason to believe that context makes a difference as revealed by the cases from Belgium, which revealed more positive results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few decades, large food banks that collect, warehouse, and redistribute food have become institutionalized across Europe. Although food banks gained increased visibility as important food relief mechanisms during the covid pandemic in 2020 and 2021, the crisis also highlighted their structural weaknesses and the fragility of the charity-based emergency food system. In particular, many European food banks faced higher costs, lower food stocks, uneven food donations, and lower numbers of volunteers and personnel as demand for food relief increased sharply. Also, many food banks lacked personal health and safety equipment for front-line staff and volunteers, many of whom were vulnerable or aged, thus forcing the closure of some charities due to health concerns. Yet, the impact of the pandemic was uneven across the continent as the covid pandemic strengthened some food banks while others were weakened. To explore these dynamics in detail, this paper utilizes in-depth interviews and surveys of key food bank operators in the Netherlands, Norway, and Greece to analyze how and why European food bank systems fared so differently from the pandemic. In short, the findings in this paper reveal how the Norwegian food bank system leveraged its position to increase fundraising and visibility, while the Netherlands food bank system suffered from long-term structural weaknesses, and the Greek food bank system was further embroiled in government tensions that threatened its existence. The preexisting structure of food bank systems, broader political economy, and historical context significantly impacted how food relief networks fared during the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transformative change is necessary to reach a circular bioeconomy. In this context, a variety of societal and business initiatives have emerged, which in their everyday practices aim to increase their circular impact. These emerging circular initiatives, so-called small wins, continuously spread, deepen and broaden and as such contribute to transformative change. A small win spreads by becoming larger and more numerous, deepens by becoming more radical and circular, and broadens by connecting with other themes and domains. This paper explores how mechanisms drive these processes and, more in particular, how circular initiatives stay or become more transformative while developing. By building on existing literature about mechanisms that contribute to the development of initiatives—we extend the small wins framework by focusing on the interplay between mechanisms and spreading, deepening and broadening. We applied this framework to two illustrative cases in the Netherlands: a circular laying hen farm, Kipster, and the community farming initiative, Herenboeren. We empirically explored how the interplay of mechanisms constitutes continuous transformative change. The results indicate that deepening the small win is mainly driven by learning by doing; spreading takes place through professionalization and broadening by partnering. Both case studies indicate that the energizing and logic of attraction mechanisms are key in continuous transformative change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renewable energy production is one of the most important policy instruments to fight climate change. However, despite global benefits, renewable energy production entails some local challenges, such as requiring more space per unit production capacity. In this paper, we study the external effects of large-scale conventional and renewable electric power generation facilities on local house prices. We combine information of all coal, gas, and biomass plants, as well as all wind turbines in the Netherlands, with 1.5 million housing transactions over a period of 30 years. Using a difference-in-difference as well as a repeated sales model, we study the effects of facility openings and closings. Our results show negative external price effects for gas plants and wind turbines, but positive effects for biomass plants, conditionally upon ex-ante lower priced locations. The external effects of power generating facilities on local housing markets are important to consider, especially with the current focus of public policies on the expansion of renewable energy generation. Our paper is one of the first to present a large-scale study, using detailed information, and comparing several different energy sources in one framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the summer of 2020 the Dutch government and social partners have agreed on a pension reform involving the transformation of occupational pensions from the current defined-benefit (DB) based contract into a new defined contribution (DC) contract with some additional collective features. This involves a unique operation as all current DB entitlements—also those already built up—are expected be converted into DC type capital accounts. With the transition to DC accounts the redistribution due to 'uniformity pricing' that was implicit in the DB contract will be abolished and solvency requirements adjusted. This paper analyses how the transformation affects different generations. Special attention will be given to the modelling of the collective add-on to the contract (in the form of a solidarity reserve) that aims to strengthen risk sharing among generations. The effects of the reform will be analyzed for three outcome measures: pension results (in terms of replacement rates), market valuation of pensions net of contributions ('net benefit'), and welfare measured in certainty equivalent consumption (measured through equivalent replacement rates). How the reform impacts different generations proves to be very sensitive to the measure used. There is little consensus neither in economic theory—nor in politics—on what is the best measure. It is sensitive to perspectives, and different traditions in economics focus on different measures. This paper will discuss how economic analysis can still be useful for actual policy making in such a sensitive domain as a pension reform. Finally, by investigating alternative parametrizations of the contract the paper aims to provide insight into the robustness of the results under alternative measures, and on how the new contract could be further improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies intertemporal changes in the value of travel time (VTT) and investigates whether the change of VTT over time can be studied based on national VTT data, collected at two points in time. We use repeated national VTT data from the Netherlands and Sweden, collected 13 and 14 years apart. The results show mostly a declining VTT for a given income level. The results show also a large within-country heterogeneity across modes and purposes, in the cross-sectional income elasticity of the VTT, and in its development over time. The explanation most consistent with our results and those of others is that the VTT has in fact increased due to income increases, but that the repeated stated choice data cannot detect this given the data, methodology and population changes. In particular, it seems that the response rate has dropped considerably in the later surveys partly due to a higher share of (busy) respondents declining to be recruited. The main contribution of this paper is to document the differences between the studies carried out in different years, indicating the reasons why it is difficult to identify temporal changes in the VTT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the conduct of a study by researcher Rasmus Voss at Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands on the formation of one type of supernova. Voss and a colleague and theoretical astronomer Gijs Nelemans sought to develop a model which suggested that the presence of X-ray signals could precede a type Ia supernova, which is an exploding star astronomers use to measure the expansion of the universe. Their work may help supernova specialists to use X-ray data in the conduct of their research.

Almost 80 million people globally are forcibly displaced. A small number reach wealthy western countries and seek asylum. Over half are children. Wealthy reception countries have increasingly adopted restrictive reception practices including immigration detention. There is an expanding literature on the mental health impacts of immigration detention for adults, but less about children. This scoping review identified 22 studies of children detained by 6 countries (Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Netherlands, the UK and the US) through searches of Medline, PsychINFO, Emcare, CINAHL and Scopus data bases for the period January 1992–May 2019. The results are presented thematically. There is quantitative data about the mental health of children and parents who are detained and qualitative evidence includes the words and drawings of detained children. The papers are predominantly small cross-sectional studies using mixed methodologies with convenience samples. Despite weaknesses in individual studies the review provides a rich and consistent picture of the experience and impact of immigration detention on children's wellbeing, parental mental health and parenting. Displaced children are exposed to peri-migration trauma and loss compounded by further adversity while held detained. There are high rates of distress, mental disorder, physical health and developmental problems in children aged from infancy to adolescence which persist after resettlement. Restrictive detention is a particularly adverse reception experience and children and parents should not be detained or separated for immigration purposes. The findings have implications for policy and practice. Clinicians and researchers have a role in advocacy for reception polices that support the wellbeing of accompanied and unaccompanied children who seek asylum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the experiences of safety and security management students, enrolled in an undergraduate course in the Netherlands, and present quantitative data from an online survey that aimed to explore the factors that have contributed to students' satisfaction with, and engagement in, online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic. The main findings suggest an interesting paradox of technology, which is worth further exploration in future research. Firstly, students with self perceived higher technological skill levels tend to reject online education more often as they see substantial shortcomings of classes in the way they are administered as compared to the vast available opportunities for real innovation. Secondly, as opposed to democratising education and allowing for custom-made, individualistic education schedules that help less-privileged students, online education can also lead to the displacement of education by income-generating activities altogether. Lastly, as much as technology allowed universities during the COVID-19 pandemic to continue with education, the transition to the environment, which is defined by highly interactive and engaging potential, may in fact be a net contributor to the feelings of social isolation, digital educational inequality and tension around commercialisation in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Countries have pledged to different national and international environmental agreements, most prominently the climate change mitigation targets of the Paris Agreement. Accounting for carbon stocks and flows (fluxes) is essential for countries that have recently adopted the United Nations System of Environmental-Economic Accounting - ecosystem accounting framework (UNSEEA) as a global statistical standard. In this paper, we analyze how spatial carbon fluxes can be used in support of the UNSEEA carbon accounts in five case countries with available in-situ data. Using global multi-date biomass map products and other remotely sensed data, we mapped the 2010–2018 carbon fluxes in Brazil, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Sweden and the USA using National Forest Inventory (NFI) and local biomass maps from airborne LiDAR as reference data. We identified areas that are unsupported by the reference data within environmental feature space (6–47% of vegetated country area); cross-validated an ensemble machine learning (RMSE=9–39 Mg C ha - 1 and R 2 =0.16–0.71) used to map carbon fluxes with prediction intervals; and assessed spatially correlated residuals (<5 km) before aggregating carbon fluxes from 1-ha pixels to UNSEEA forest classes. The resulting carbon accounting tables revealed the net carbon sequestration in natural broadleaved forests. Both in plantations and in other woody vegetation ecosystems, emissions exceeded sequestration. Overall, our estimates align with FAO-Forest Resource Assessment and national studies with the largest deviations in Brazil and USA. These two countries used highly clustered reference data, where clustering caused uncertainty given the need to extrapolate to under-sampled areas. We finally provide recommendations to mitigate the effect of under-sampling and to better account for the uncertainties once carbon stocks and flows need to be aggregated in relatively smaller countries. These actions are timely given the global initiatives that aim to upscale UNSEEA carbon accounting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well documented that the public is often poorly informed about the economy. In the domain of fiscal policy, this may make voters susceptible to favour spending, while underestimating its costs (fiscal illusion). While politicians may have more information to judge the need for prudent economic policies, voters may be less inclined to support prudent fiscal policy if they do not believe that these politicians act in their best interest—an idea that in recent decades has become more prevalent. Using a novel dataset from the Netherlands, this paper examines whether strong populist ideas lead to more expansionary fiscal preferences, thereby reinforcing the risk of fiscal illusion. The findings indicate that respondents' populist attitudes significantly predict their fiscal preferences. Additionally, higher literacy and information provision contribute to more prudent fiscal preferences. However, the impact of literacy is conditioned by the level of populist sentiment. Poorly literate respondents show higher support for tax relief only when holding strong populist attitudes, not when expressing lower levels of populist sentiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution discusses the development of the Data Ethics Decision Aid (DEDA), a framework for reviewing government data projects that considers their social impact, the embedded values and the government's responsibilities in times of data-driven public management. Drawing from distinct qualitative research approaches, the DEDA framework was developed in an iterative process (2016–2018) and has since then been applied by various Dutch municipalities, the Association of Dutch Municipalities, and the Ministry of General Affairs (NL). We present the DEDA framework as an effective process to moderate case-deliberation and advance the development of responsible data practices. In addition, by thoroughly documenting the deliberation process, the DEDA framework establishes accountability. First, this paper sheds light on the necessity for data ethical case deliberation. Second, it describes the prototypes, the final design of the framework, and its evaluation. After a comparison with other frameworks, and a discussion of the findings, the paper concludes by arguing that the DEDA framework is a useful process for ethical evaluation of data projects for public management and an effective tool for creating awareness of ethical issues in data practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food fraud is an emerging field of study in academic literature. The aim of this paper is to evaluate whether current understanding of food fraud in literature is in congruence with incidents of food fraud in the Netherlands. The discussion that follows is based on an analysis of 53 empirical cases on food fraud investigations conducted at the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA), the nationwide enforcement body tasked with investigating food fraud. The findings elucidate the differences between food fraud and other (food) crime and highlight the discrepancies with academic definitions to date, most notably with respect to incidents of 'food laundering' and by emphasizing the existence of intentional facilitators. We thus suggest adjusting the scope of what type of behavior can be considered as food fraud by conceptualizing three forms of food fraud: food laundering, fraudulent food enhancement, and facilitative food fraud. Food laundering encompasses the use of illegal material as food, whereas fraudulent food enhancement describes a situation where legal food is value-enhanced through deceitful cost-cutting measures. Facilitative food fraud captures the role of facilitative actors that operate illegally and intentionally for economic advantage. Based on these concepts, we suggest a modified definition as follows: food fraud is committed by any actor who is intentionally involved in illegal acts for economic advantage, thus causing or facilitating illegal food to be laundered into the supply chain or for food to be fraudulently value-enhanced. Future research should focus on testing these concepts and this definition with empirical studies from different regions and regulatory settings, and introduce additional data sources outside of enforcement, such as employee or victim surveys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The multi-level perspective has been criticized for being functionalistic and paying little attention to actor-based perspectives. Nevertheless, for the identification and assessment of potential change agents in a sustainability transition, a clear conceptual and methodological approach is necessary. This paper, thus, develops a multi-dimensional typology of niche, regime, and hybrid actors, which is conceptually grounded in transition studies and empirically illustrated by a cluster analysis based on a survey of pig and poultry farmers in Germany, France, and the Netherlands. Animal husbandry is chosen as a case study because a significant share of the environmental impact within the agri-food system is attributed to this sector and there is evidence for resistance to change by mainstream actors. Conceptually, the paper provides a framework of constitutive elements for different kinds of actors and contributes to an extension of the niche–regime dichotomy by adding the group of hybrid actors. The empirical results show that cluster analysis is a suitable approach to identify conceptually meaningful differences among interviewed farmers. Among pig and poultry farmers, the regime actors are by far the largest group. The smaller group of hybrid actors, however, has large potential to act as boundary spanners. A particularly interesting finding is that several larger farms are among the group of niche actors which hints at the possibility that larger farms are not necessarily resistant to change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: A paper reporting the development of the ICECAP-O was published in 2006. Since then, there has been increasing interest in the use of capability-based measures within health economics and the ICECAP-O has been suggested for use in economic evaluation by decision-making bodies in the Netherlands and UK.Methods: A systematic review of studies published between January 2006 and October 2018 which have assessed the psychometric properties of ICECAP-O or utilised the measure within economic evaluation.Results: Twenty-four studies explored the psychometric properties of ICECAP-O and 21 have utilised the measure within economic evaluation; one study reported psychometric properties as well as utilising the measure within economic evaluation. The ICECAP-O has good construct validity and responsiveness, but there is evidence of some issues relating to content validity. In the context of economic evaluation, the ICECAP-O has, to date, mainly been included as a secondary economic measure and the reporting of results is brief with minimal detail and often no discussion. Five of the economic evaluation studies combined scores from ICECAP-O with time, but each used different terminology to describe this result.Conclusion: Focus, in terms of publications, appears to have shifted now from assessment of psychometric properties to the utilisation of the ICECAP-O within economic evaluation. Further research is needed with respect to a decision-rule for the ICECAP measures. This additional research should also guide users in terms of appropriate analysis, terminology and presentation of results, which are in-keeping with the conceptual framework underpinning the ICECAP-O. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Quality & Quantity was established in 1967 and in 2017 it completed its half century. The journal is interdisciplinary in nature and it mainly discusses methodological application of mathematics and statistics in the social sciences, particularly sociology, economics, and social psychology. It was created with the idea of advancing methodology of the various social studies. This study looks back journey of the journal from 1967 to 2017 aims to develop a bibliometric analysis of all the publications of the journal. Web of Science Core Collection database is used to collect data. The present study discovered the significant contributions of the journal in terms of impact, topics, authors, universities and countries. Utrecht University of Netherlands is the most productive university. Asian Universities are emerging and growing quickly in the recent years. Although USA leads among the countries but Europe leads among the six supranational regions. Finally, the visualization of similarities viewer software is used to present network visualization of the bibliographic coupling, co-citation, citation, co-authorship and co-occurrence of keywords. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amputation of a limb may have a negative impact on the psychological and physical well-being, mobility and social life of individuals with limb amputations. Participation in sports and/or regular physical activity has a positive effect on the above mentioned areas in able-bodied individuals. Data concerning participation in sports or regular physical activity together with its benefits and risks for individuals with limb amputations are scarce. No systematic review exists that addresses a wide range of outcomes such as biomechanics, cardiopulmonary function, psychology, sport participation and sport injuries. Therefore, the aim of this article is to systematically review the literature about individuals with limb amputations and sport participation. MEDLINE (PubMed), EMBASE, CINAHL® and SportDiscus® were searched without time or language restrictions using free text words and MeSH terms. The last search date was 31 March 2010. Books, internet sites and references of included papers were checked for papers relevant to the topic under review. Papers were included if the research topic concerned sports and a minimum of ten individuals with limb amputations were part of the study population. Papers were excluded if they included individuals with amputations of body parts other than upper or lower limbs or more distal than the wrist or ankle, or if they consisted of case reports, narrative reviews, books, notes or letters to the editor. Title, abstract and full-text assessments were performed by two independent observers following a list of preset criteria. Of the 3689 papers originally identified, 47 were included in the review. Most of the included studies were older than 10 years and had cross-sectional designs. Study participants were generally younger and often had more traumatic amputations than the general population of individuals with limb amputations. Heterogeneity in population characteristics, intervention types and main outcomes made data pooling impossible. In general, sports were associated with a beneficial effect on the cardiopulmonary system, psychological well-being, social reintegration and physical functioning. Younger individuals with unilateral transtibial amputations achieve better athletic performance and encounter fewer problems when participating in sports compared with older individuals with bilateral transfemoral amputations. Regardless of their amputation level, individuals with limb amputations participate in a wide range of recreational activities. The majority of them were not aware of the sport facilities in their area and were not informed about available recreational activities. Sport prosthetic devices were used mostly by competitive athletes. For football, the injury rate and pattern of the players with an amputation were similar to those of able-bodied players. Individuals with limb amputations appear to benefit both physically and psychologically from participation in sports and/or regular physical activity. Therefore, sports should be included in rehabilitation programmes, and individuals with limb amputations should be encouraged to pursue a physically active life following hospital discharge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Appropriate use criteria (AUC) for echocardiography based on clinical scenarios were previously published by an American Task Force. We determined whether members of the Dutch Working Group on Echocardiography (WGE) would rate these scenarios in a similar way. Methods: All 32 members of the WGE were invited to judge clinical scenarios independently using a blanked version of the previously published American version of AUC for echocardiography. During a face-to-face meeting, consensus about the final rating was reached by open discussion for each indication. For reasons of simplicity, the scores were reduced from a 9-point scale to a 3-point scale (indicating an appropriate, uncertain or inappropriate echo indication, respectively). Results: Nine cardiologist members of the WGE reported their judgment on the echo cases ( n = 153). Seventy-one indications were rated as appropriate, 35 were rated as uncertain, and 47 were rated as inappropriate. In 5% of the cases the rating was opposite to that in the original (appropriate compared with inappropriate and vice versa), whereas in 20% judgements differed by 1 level of appropriateness. After the consensus meeting, the appropriateness of 7 (5%) cases was judged differently compared with the original paper. Conclusions: Echocardiography was rated appropriate when it is applied for an initial diagnosis, a change in clinical status or a change in patient management. However, in about 5% of the listed clinical scenarios, members of the Dutch WGE rated the AUC for echocardiography differently as compared with their American counterparts. Further research is warranted to analyse this decreased external validity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The transition to carbon neutral mobility will require a lot of carbon neutral energy, but a lot of space as well. In many countries, it will be a challenge to find this space or to import enough energy. Land use indicators related to sustainable mobility usually focus on space for transport infrastructure and parking, i.e. direct land use, and do not include energy supply. Existing literature on the emerging research field of 'energy landscapes' has not covered the transport sector. Objective: The aim of this paper is to estimate the order of magnitude of land or sea area required for carbon neutral mobility. Method: In a well-to-wheel analysis, we investigate the land use for the production, transport, storage, distribution, and charging/refuelling of carbon neutral energy carriers for various modes of transport. The analysis focuses on the Netherlands, but part of the results are expected to be broadly applicable to other countries as well. Findings: The results show that electricity from wind or solar energy supplied to electric vehicles is the most space efficient. Use of hydrogen and synthetic fuels in vehicles takes 2–5 times more land, while use of biofuels from energy crops takes 100 times more land compared to the electricity route. We also conclude that the indirect land use for energy supply for carbon neutral road transport in the Netherlands is in the same order of magnitude as the current direct land use of road mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People with mild to borderline intellectual disabilities face many barriers toward their sexual health. To promote sexual health and overcome these barriers, they need individualized forms of sexuality support and education. To align sexuality support and education insight is needed on their understanding of sexual health. The current paper aims to provide greater insight in what sexual health consists of according to people with mild to borderline intellectual disabilities. Nine people with a mild to borderline intellectual disability participated in a concept mapping procedure, consisting of brainstorming, sorting, and ranking the statements. The resulting clusters and concept map were interpreted by an expert group. Analysis resulted in five clusters which participants considered important for their sexual health. According to people with mild to borderline intellectual disability cluster pertaining to romantic relationships and sexual socialization were the most important. These were followed by clusters on sexual health and lastly sexual selfhood. These results have implications for the development of sexuality support and education, as well as further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into the benefits of underwritten issues has been conducted primarily in settings that exhibit information asymmetries between issuing firms, financial intermediaries, and investors. This paper examines, during the interwar period, an era characterized by longstanding relationships between issuers, banks, and investors, the pricing and choice of method for offering shares of Dutch IPOs. Offering method in this setting is related mainly to the volume of the issue open for subscription prior to listing. The larger the volume, the more firms tended towards an underwritten offering. The pricing is found to be unrelated to offering method as well as to variables that theoretically proxy information asymmetries. The relatively low level of underpricing largely fluctuates with past investor sentiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities increasingly envision sustainable future food systems. The realization of such futures is often understood from a planning perspective, leaving the role of entrepreneurship out of scope. The city of Almere in the Netherlands provides a telling example. In the neighborhood Almere Oosterwold, residents must use 50% of their plot for urban agriculture. The municipality formulated an ambition that over time, 10% off all food consumed in Almere must be produced in Oosterwold. In this study, we assume the development of urban agriculture in Oosterwold is an entrepreneurial process, i.e. a creative (re)organization that is ongoing and intervenes in daily life. To understand how this entrepreneurial process helps to realize sustainable food futures, this paper explores what futures for urban agriculture residents of Oosterwold prefer and deem possible and how these futures are organized in the present. We use futuring to explore possible and preferable images of the future, and to backcast those images to the present day. Our findings show residents have different perspectives of the future. Furthermore, they are capable in formulating specific actions to obtain the futures they prefer, but have trouble committing to the actions themselves. We argue this is the result of a temporal dissonance, a myopia where residents have trouble looking beyond their own situation. It shows imagined futures must fit with the lived experiences of citizens in order to be realized. We conclude that urban food futures need planning and entrepreneurship to be realized since they are complementary social processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) is a new seismic monitoring technology. DAS generates a large amount of data, necessitating the development of new technologies to allow for cost-effective processing and handling. The raw seismic data is noisy and must be processed. The curvelet transform is an excellent choice for processing seismic data due to its localized nature, as well as its frequency and dip characteristics. However, its capabilities are limited in case of noise other than white. This paper proposes a denoising method based on a combination of the curvelet transform and a whitening filter, as well as a procedure for estimating noise variance. The whitening filter is included to improve the performance of the curvelet transform in both coherent and incoherent noise cases, as well as to simplify the noise variance estimation method and make it easier to use standard threshold methodology without delving into the curvelet domain. Two data sets are used to validate the suggested technique. Pseudo-synthetic data set created by adding noise to the actual noise-free data collection from the Netherlands offshore F3 block and the on-site data set (with ground roll noise) from east Texas, USA. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm achieves the best results under various types of noise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various biological disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (bDMARDs) have been applied for treating axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA). However, there is a glaring absence of a bibliometric analysis on bDMARDs against axSpA. Articles related to use of bDMARDs in treating axSpA published from 2004 to 2022 were searched from the Web of Science Core Collection. VOS viewer 1.6.18 and CiteSpace 6.1.R2 were used to analyze and visualize the quantity and citations of publications, as well as to identify "research hotspots" and trends in this field. BibExcel version 1.0.0 and gCLUTO version 1.0 were used to build matrices for bi-clustering analysis. A total of 2546 articles referring to bDMARDs for treatment of axSpA were included in this bibliometric analysis. Overall, the number of publications has been increasing steadily annually. The USA (23.21%, 591 publications) ranked first with the largest output of papers, followed by Germany, and the Netherlands. Rheumazentrum Ruhrgebiet ranked first as the most frequent publisher (119 articles). Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases published the most documents (6.76%, 172 publications) in this field. The predominant hotspots have been "tuberculosis," "IL-17," and "quality of life" in the field until 2020. Since 2015, "biosimilar pharmaceuticals" has retained the popularity. Current research hotspots are "spinal radiographic progression," Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitors, and adverse events (AEs). Machine learning has become popular gradually. Globally, there has been a steady increase in the number of studies on bDMARDs use against axSpA. JAK inhibitors, spinal radiographic progression, biosimilar pharmaceuticals, and AEs are current research hotspots. Machine learning is emerging research hotspots and trends in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]