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Paperwork has always been a central part of bureaucratic work. Over the last few years, bureaucratic procedures have become increasingly standardised and digitalised. Based on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork within welfare offices in Switzerland and Belgium, we reflect on the way evidence is constructed within social policy and cases built for or against noncitizen welfare recipients in order to show how paper truths are established and challenged. The focus on digital practices within public policy implementation highlights how it contributes to enhanced control mechanisms on the implementation level and how migration law continues to guide welfare governance for noncitizens. This allows targeting of the most marginalised groups, whose rights to access state support are institutionally impeded. Through database information flows, official forms, paper reports and face-to-face meetings, we further show how a hybrid form of bureaucratic work emerges, where direct contact with the client is still key, yet highly influenced by standardisation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deliberative minipublics—participatory processes combining civic lottery with structured deliberation—are increasingly presented as a solution to address a series of problems. Whereas political theory has been prolific in conceiving their contributions, it remains unclear how the people organizing minipublics in practice view their purposes, and how these conceptions align with the theory. This paper conducts a thematic analysis of the reports of all the minipublics convened in Belgium between 2001 and 2021 (n = 51) to map whether and how justifications coincide with the theory. The analysis reveals an important gap: minipublics are in practice predominantly presented as contributions to policymaking, while more deliberative functions remain peripheral. Some common practical purposes also remain under-theorized, in particular their capacity to bridge the gap between citizens and politics. This desynchronization, combined with a plethora of desired outcomes associated with minipublics, indicates the creation of a minipublic bubble which inflates their capacity to solve problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For about 20 years, Belgium has successfully implemented working-time reduction policies for the older workforce. However, the impact of such policies on health has not been explored yet. Using longitudinal data from Waves 5 and 6 of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) (N = 1,498), the paper assesses whether working-time reduction in late career is associated with a change in self-perceived health, depression (EURO-D) and quality of life (CASP-12). For that purpose, ordered logit and ordinary least squares regressions are performed, using four different models for defining working-time reductions. Results show that people reducing working time with or without additional social benefits tend to have a poorer self-perceived health at follow-up compared with people keeping the same or increasing working time. By comparison, people moving to retirement are more likely to present a better self-perceived health, depression level and quality of life compared to people increasing or keeping the same working-time level. Although, introducing an interaction effect, the paper shows that the change in quality of life for respondents reducing working hours in addition to social benefits tends to be less negative for those who wished to retire early at baseline than for those who did not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been long suggested that public pension wealth may crowd out household savings. However, there remains controversy about the extent of this displacement effect. In this paper we use an original microsimulation model based on retrospective survey data collected through the third wave of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to estimate the displacement effect of public pension wealth on other wealth in Belgium. Combining this rich dataset with an accurate estimation of the individual pension entitlements allows us to circumvent some of the main measurement error problems faced by previous studies. We estimate that an extra euro of public pension wealth is associated with about 14–25 cent decline in households' non-pension wealth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research shows that older people tend to not only be underrepresented on television (TV), but also to be represented within a number of fixed types. These correspond to cultural myths about ageing, which emphasise vulnerability and decline but also increasingly stress the individual's responsibility for successful ageing. This paper analyses the representation of older people on Flemish public TV, using qualitative content analysis to identify patterns of representation in a sample of 44 programmes broadcast in 2019 and 2020, including the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. To complement our own analysis, we also interviewed eight experts on ageing. Our research shows that representations of older people on Flemish public TV tend to gravitate towards two types related to different age groups: vulnerable and passive old-old people (over 80 years old), particularly those in nursing homes who feature prominently in reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic; and dynamic and active young-old people (65–80 years old), connected to the ideals of successful ageing. The two predominant types correspond to cultural myths about ageing and are also connected to recurrent themes: sexual intimacy, loneliness and death. Our research highlights the need for a more diverse representation, reflecting the variety of individual life conditions and the functional age of older people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adoption of a new funerary ritual with all its social and cognitive meanings is of great importance to understanding social transformations of past societies. The first known occurrence of cremation in the territory corresponding to modern Belgium dates back to the Mesolithic period. From the end of the Neolithic onward, the practice of cremation was characterized by periods in which this rite was predominant and periods of contractions, defined by a decrease in the use of this funerary ritual. This paper aims to quantify such phenomenon for the first time by modeling discontinuities in burial practices through kernel density analysis of 1428 radiocarbon (14C) dates from 311 archaeological sites located in Belgium from the Mesolithic to the Middle Ages. Despite possible taphonomic and sampling biases, the results highlight the existence of periods with a large uptake of cremation rite followed by periods of contractions; such discontinuities took place in correlation with changes in the socio-economical structure of local communities, as, for example, during the later Middle Bronze Age and at the end of the Roman Period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the common argument proposed by opponents of the legalization of euthanasia that permitting ending a patient's life at their request will lead to the eventual legalization of terminating life without request. The author's examination of data does not support the conclusion that a causal connection exists between legalizing ending of life on request and an increase in the number of cases without request. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, many European governments have passed pension reforms to incentivise participation in private pension plans. However, we still have minimal understanding of whether participation in such plans is concentrated in certain groups or spread uniformly across society, or what their stability over time is. To illuminate the social selectivity of these plans and potential changes in that selectivity over time, we analyse six waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) in ten European countries: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Specifically, we focus on participation gaps in individual and occupational plans of workers across six dimensions: gender, education, age, social class, income, and risk preference. The results indicate large and persistent social divides in participation rates. As expected, rates are significantly higher among workers who are not close to retirement, those with an upper service occupation and those with high income. Importantly, these divides did not shrink significantly over the period considered – 2006 to 2021. Social selectivity is not consistently smaller in contexts of more mature private pension provision, whereas it is consistently smaller in countries with more generous public pensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds on ethnographic fieldwork in Belgian welfare administrations to identify daily practices of resistance among Belgian 'welfare bureaucrats' who interrogate the new welfare and immigration law reforms that further restrict migrants' access to social assistance. The contestation strategies are used to circumvent and sometimes break the formal and informal policy guidelines while still allowing them to perform and remain loyal to the state and to higher principles such as a commitment to the fundamental right to human dignity. Three main contestation strategies are identified: failing to provide certain services to demonstrate the absurdity of certain guidelines, writing reports against the administration and in favour of the user, and encouraging litigation against the federal agencies that employ them. These strategies show Belgian welfare workers' commitment to providing a form of public service that aligns with their professional ethos rather than enforcing specific government policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender penalties in pension outcomes are widely acknowledged and have been documented for majority populations in various settings. A recurring finding is that the gendered impact of family formation on work–care trajectories adversely affects women's accumulation of pension rights over the lifecourse relative to men. Although maternal employment is particularly low in migrant populations, few papers have explicitly addressed pension protection of migrant women. Using longitudinal microdata from the Belgian Social Security Registers, we analyse whether entry into parenthood differentially affected the build-up of first pillar pension rights of working-age migrant women compared to natives between 1998 and 2010, further distinguishing by origin group and migrant generation. The results show that native women are most likely to build up pension rights through full-time employment both before and after parenthood. In contrast, first-generation women and women of Turkish and Moroccan origin are more likely to build up pension rights though assimilated periods or rely on derived pension rights after parenthood, even when controlling for type of pension build-up before parenthood. We conclude that policies reinforcing individualisation of pension rights based on employment or decreasing the importance of derived rights may erode pension protection of groups having limited access to the labour market, and require co-ordination with employment and family policies that support the combination of work and care responsibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoting healthy snacking is important in addressing malnutrition, overweight and obesity among an ageing population. However, little is known about the factors underlying snacking behaviour in older adults. The present study aimed to explore within- and between-person associations between determinants (i.e. intention, visibility of snacks, social modelling and emotions) and snacking behaviours (i.e. decision to snack, health factor of the snack and portion size) in older adults (60+). Conducting a two-part intensive longitudinal design, data were analysed from forty-eight healthy older adults consisting of (1) an event-based self-report ecological momentary assessment (EMA) diary every time they had a snack and (2) a time-based EMA questionnaire on their phone five times per day. Analysis through generalised linear mixed models indicated that higher intention to snack healthily leads to healthier snacking while higher levels of social modelling and cheerfulness promote unhealthier choices within individuals. At the between-person level, similar results were found for intention and social modelling. Visibility of a snack increased portion size at both a within- and between-person level, while the intention to eat a healthy snack only increased portion size at the between-person level. No associations were found between the decision to snack and all determinants. This is the first study to investigate both within- and between-person associations between time-varying determinants and snacking in older adults. Such information holds the potential for incorporation into just-in-time adaptive interventions, allowing for personalised tailoring, more effective promotion of healthier snacking behaviours and thus pursuing the challenge of healthy ageing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the reconstruction of social identity in which Polish pendulum migrants to Belgium engage, and pays specific attention to the civic components of this process. Social identity is here understood as an interactional, changing, and contextual phenomenon. Migration means being in a world in which neighbouring families and surrounding actors represent completely different cultures with different customs, traditions and lifestyles. The reconstruction of identity is an essential condition for adaptation and assimilation in the new place of settlement. This process of identity reconstruction, based on changes in stereotypes, is linked with the acceptance of pluralism as an important feature of the socio-cultural reality. The acceptance of a pluralist world brings migrants to a wider tolerance of diversity. This paper examines different circumstances of the processes mentioned in concrete empirical reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on scientific observation methods in expeditionary and sedentary contexts to demonstrate how the fields of meteorology and geomagnetism were intimately intertwined. It emphasizes the role of Adolphe Quetelet, the director of the Brussels Observatory in Belgium. It reevaluates the participation of the French scientific community in the German and British geomagnetic explorations, moving beyond the popular story of Arago's opposition to these activities. This paper attempts to contribute to a better historical comprehension of the revival of the earth sciences during the second quarter of the 19th century.

Policymakers like to make use of age criteria, because they provide a transparent and seemingly objective standard. In reality, however, age limits are not as innocent as they appear: distinctions on the basis of age are often irrelevant and the actual age thresholds tend to be arbitrary. Age limits can also be criticised from a theoretical perspective: how can the heterogeneity of today's older people be reconciled with uniform age-defined classes? In response to a European Union Directive of 2000, Belgium implemented strict anti-discrimination legislation. This provides all the more reason to ascertain the prevalence and justification of the use of age criteria in legislation. Belgium is a federal state with three communities and three regions, and the scrutiny has been restricted to the Flemish community and region. All legislation has been screened for the use of 50 or more years as an age criterion, and all occurrences have been critically examined. The paper focuses on three fields of statutory regulation: early retirement, concessionary public transport fares, and the different care entitlements of people with disabilities and of older people. Evidence of age discrimination was found, although often in a form that benefits older people. The justification of the age criterion was often inadequate, so the adoption often appears no more than convenient standard practice. The paper concludes that policy makers should consider the systematic replacement of age thresholds by other criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The end-Ordovician mass extinction, linked to a major glaciation, led to deep changes in Hirnantian–Rhuddanian biotas. The Hirnantia Fauna, the first of two Hirnantian survival brachiopod-dominated communities, characterizes the lower–mid Hirnantian deposits globally, and its distribution is essential to understand how the extinction took place. In this paper, we describe, illustrate, and discuss the first macrofossiliferous Hirnantia Fauna assemblage from Belgium, occurring in the Tihange Member of the Fosses Formation at Tihange (Huy), within the Central Condroz Inlier. Six fossiliferous beds have yielded a low-diversity, brachiopod-dominated association. In addition to the brachiopods (Eostropheodonta hirnantensis, Plectothyrella crassicosta, Hirnantia sp., and Trucizetina? sp.), one trilobite (Mucronaspis sp.), four pelmatozoans (Xenocrinus sp., Cyclocharax [col.] paucicrenulatus, Conspectocrinus [col.] celticus, and Pentagonocyclicus [col.] sp.), three graptolites (Cystograptus ancestralis, Normalograptus normalis, and ?Metabolograptus sp.), together with indeterminate machaeridians and bryozoans were identified. The graptolite assemblage, from the Akidograptus ascensus-Parakidograptus acuminatus Biozone, indicates an early Rhuddanian (Silurian) age, and thus, an unexpectedly late occurrence of a typical Hirnantia Fauna. This Belgian association may represent an additional example of relict Hirnantia Fauna in the Silurian, sharing characteristics with the only other known from Rhuddanian rocks at Yewdale Beck (Lake District, England), although reworking has not been completely ruled out. The survival of these Hirnantian taxa into the Silurian might be linked to delayed post-glacial effects of rising temperature and sea-level, which may have favored the establishment of refugia in these two particular regions that were paleogeographically close during the Late Ordovician–early Silurian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many Western countries local welfare agencies retain large responsibilities in the practical organisation of means-tested support. While this may lead to substantial differences in the application trajectories of prospective claimants, what has garnered little empirical research is how local agencies use their discretion to implement practices that may encourage or discourage take-up. In addition, we know little on the extent to which variation in local implementation is attributable to differences in local conditions. Focusing on Belgium as an interesting case, this article addresses this gap by mapping the variation in local implementation practices in specific aspects of social assistance that are relevant in terms of limiting non-take-up. We assess whether certain local political, socio-demographic or economic characteristics favour implementation practices, using structural equation modelling on custom-collected data on the practical organisation of social assistance application trajectories in 119 Belgian municipalities. The results show that local welfare agencies implement coherent practices regarding information provision, accessibility, trust and the locus of initiative in the claiming process. We find the political orientation of the municipality and the share of foreigners in the municipality to be related with, respectively, shifting the locus of initiative away from the welfare claimant and a focus on information provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After decennia of research on economic voting, it is now established that the state of the economy affects voting behaviour. Nevertheless, this conclusion is the result of a focus on predominantly national-level economies and national-level elections. In this paper, we show that at a local level as well, mechanisms of accountability linked to the economy are at work. The local economic context affected voting behaviour in the 2012 Belgian municipal elections, with a stronger increase of unemployment rates in their municipality significantly decreasing the probability that voters choose an incumbent party. Additionally, we observe that voters are not opportunistically voting for incumbents who lower tax rates. Instead, voters seem to be holding local incumbents accountable for local economic conditions. We hence conclude that voters care about economic outcomes, not about what specific policies are implemented to reach these outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate the link between monetary reforms and prices on the art market, this article focuses on the aftermath of the Gutt plan, a monetary purge implemented in Belgium just after World War II. On the basis of an original database of close on 3,000 artworks sold between 1945 and 1951, this article shows that, following the implementation of the Gutt plan, real prices on the art market experienced a massive drop suggesting that real prices on the art market are significantly influenced by money supply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been suggested that the language problems encountered in specific language impairment (SLI) arise from basal ganglia abnormalities that lead to impaired procedural memory. However, recent serial reaction time (SRT) studies did not reveal any differences between the SLI and typically developing (TD) groups on the measures of procedural memory linked to visual sequence learning. In this paper, 16 children with and without SLI were compared on two versions of SRT tasks: a visual task and an auditory one. The results showed that children with SLI were as fast as their TD peers in both modalities. All of the children obtained similar specific sequence learning indices, indicating that they were able to detect regularities in both modalities. Although children with SLI were as accurate as their TD peers for the visual SRT task, they made more errors than their TD peers in auditory SRT conditions. The results indicate that, in relation to procedural memory, the core of the impairment in SLI is not linked to difficulties in the detection of regularities. We argue that when children with SLI present some difficulties, the children's weaknesses might depend on the type of processing involved (e.g., tasks involving auditory sequences). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objective: To compare soft-tissue complications following implantation of different bone conduction hearing devices. Methods: Adults who underwent implantation of different bone conduction hearing devices, between January 2008 and December 2016, were included in the study. Five groups were identified depending on the soft-tissue approach: (1) split-thickness skin flap with use of dermatome; (2) Sheffield 'S'-shaped incision with skin thinning; (3) linear incision without skin thinning (hydroxyapatite-coated abutment); (4) 'C'-shaped full-thickness incision for passive transcutaneous bone conduction hearing devices; and (5) post-aural incision for active transcutaneous bone conduction hearing devices. The main outcome measures were different soft-tissue complications. Results: The study comprised 120 patients (group 1 = 20 patients, group 2 = 35, group 3 = 35, group 4 = 20, and group 5 = 10). Soft tissue related problems were encountered in 55 per cent of patients from group 1, 26 per cent in group 2, 3 per cent in group 3, and 0 per cent in groups 4 and 5. Conclusion: There was a reduction in soft tissue related complications with reduced soft-tissue handling. In addition, there was a shift from an initial skin-penetrating (percutaneous) approach to a non-skin-penetrating (transcutaneous) approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes the quality of life in the neighbourhood as a starting point and appeals to the framework of Age-friendly Cities to gain insights in how ‘the neighbourhood as a physical surrounding’ can either promote or hinder feelings of unsafety in later life. It examines the impact of the perceived design of the neighbourhood on feelings of unsafety in later life. Literature on the relationship between feelings of unsafety and the neighbourhood mainly concentrates on incivilities and disorder. Other physical-spatial features of the neighbourhood are rarely taken into consideration. Using data generated from the Belgian Ageing Studies (N=25,980) multivariate analyses indicate that a neighbourhood which is perceived to be physically adapted to the needs of older people (in terms of accessibility and distance to services) heightens feelings of safety. The findings demonstrate the need to reduce behaviour constraints by redesigning fear-related physical features. This conclusion raises practical implications and formulates a number of policy recommendations to tackle feelings of unsafety in an ageing society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The present paper will use fat mass percentage (FM%) obtained via BOD POD® air-displacement plethysmography (FMADP%) to examine the relative validity of (1) anthropometric measurements/indices and (2) of FM% assessed with equations (FMeq%) based on skinfold thickness and bioelectrical impedance (BIA). In 480 Belgian children (aged 5–11 years) weight, height, skinfold thickness (triceps and subscapular), body circumferences (mid-upper arm, waist and hip), foot-to-foot BIA (Tanita®) and FMADP% were measured. Anthropometric measurements and calculated indices were compared with FMADP%. Next, published equations were used to calculate FMeq% using impedance (equations of Tanita®, Tyrrell, Shaefer and Deurenberg) or skinfold thickness (equations of Slaughter, Goran, Dezenberg and Deurenberg). Both indices and equations performed better in girls than in boys. For both sexes, the sum of skinfold thicknesses resulted in the highest correlation with FMADP%, followed by triceps skinfold, arm fat area and subscapular skinfold. In general, comparing FMeq% with FMADP% indicated mostly an age and sex effect, and an increasing underestimation but less dispersion with increasing FM%. The Tanita® impedance equation and the Deurenberg skinfold equation performed the best, although none of the used equations were interchangeable with FMADP%. In conclusion, the sum of triceps and subscapular skinfold thickness is recommended as marker of FM% in the absence of specialised technologies. Nevertheless, the higher workload, cost and survey management of an immobile device like the BOD POD® remains justified. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, the impact of lifecourse family and labour market experiences on household incomes of older people in Belgium and the United Kingdom (UK) is analysed. To this end, panel data and life-history information from the Panel Study of Belgian Households and the British Household Panel Survey are combined. The results show that old-age income is indeed influenced by previous lifecourse experiences, and that differences between Belgium and the UK can be explained in terms of (the development over time of) welfare regime arrangements. Family experiences have a larger impact on old-age incomes in 'male-breadwinner' Belgium, while in Britain labour market events are more important. As social transfers in Britain are more aimed at poverty prevention and less at income replacement, a 'scarring effect' of unemployment persists even into old age. Also, the more of one's career is spent in blue-collar work or self-employment/farming, the lower the income in old age. A new finding is that, notwithstanding the high level of 'de-commodification' achieved by the Belgian welfare state, this effect turns out to be significantly stronger in Belgium than in the UK. Compared to the market, the welfare state is hence a more efficient 'mechanism' of stratification for incomes in old age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recollecting Landscapes is a rephotographic survey project which documents a century of landscape transformation in Belgium. It is based on the successive photography of sixty sites at three moments in time between 1904 and 2004 [1, 2]. This paper takes the project as a starting point to investigate the subject of the image and its presentation. This means that the text develops some thoughts on how the images in the project are displayed and read, rather than on the content they display. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper deals with the residences of public authority across Europe from the emergence of the state system to the present. It is concerned with the addresses, the buildings, their surroundings and the symbolic significance from the point of view of builders and the public. The building styles have been heavily influenced by the examples of imperial and papal Rome, and a dominant model of a European capital city building has evolved. There are also some systematic differences, particularly for those countries with a dramatic history of constitutional change and for those with a decentralized process of state-building in the early stages of the process. In the second half of the 19th century, and probably again currently, the residences of public authority should be read in conjunction with the positioning of a series of civic institutions. The display of state authority has been increasingly accompanied by the representation of national identity. More recently, however, a touch of cosmopolitanism has been added in many capitals. The reading of these capitals is therefore now more ambiguous. This will probably intensify under the impact of the emerging European multilevel governance system. At the same time, this governance system has become increasingly based in Brussels. For this city to symbolically represent Europe is a very difficult ambition in the context of its multiple capital roles. However, Brussels has a long history of dealing successfully with such urban challenges in spite of major conflicts and drawbacks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Non-take-up of means-tested benefits is a widespread phenomenon which undermines the effectiveness and fairness of social policies. The digitalisation of the welfare state creates new opportunities for proactively contacting people who are potentially entitled to benefits, but do not take up their social rights. In this study, we report on how new data flows were used to reach out to potential beneficiaries of the Increased Reimbursement of health care, a programme targeted at low-income households in Belgium. By randomizing the period in which potential beneficiaries were contacted, we were able to identify a three- to four-fold increase in take-up among those contacted as a result of the outreaching activities. Households that did not respond to the intervention, the never takers, have lower pre-intervention healthcare expenditures. This suggests that non-take-up was reduced primarily among those who would expect to benefit most from receiving the Increased Reimbursement. Exploiting the combination of rich administrative data with experimental evidence, we also find that early responders are mostly older and have higher historic health expenditures than late responders. Furthermore, results point to the need for balancing well the inclusiveness of the intervention with an increased number of applications by ineligible people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the creation of regions and communities in the second half of the 20th century for resolving ethnic tensions between the French- and Flemish-speaking communities, provinces are still relevant to understand contemporary Belgian politics. Observing provincial political dynamics is essential to understand multi-level political elite dynamics and territorial cleavages in contemporary Belgium. For instance, political parties are internally structured in provincial federations, and federal elections rely on provincial electoral districts. Combined with constitutional factors such as language and region, this article investigates the provincial origins of ministerial elites in all Belgian federal cabinets between 1980 and 2020. It observes that provinces are far from being perfectly present in a balanced manner in the federal government: some provinces are overrepresented while others – in particular large provinces – are underrepresented. This provincial imbalance is stable over time and independent on the types of cabinet but can be explained by party strategies and vote-seeking considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I explore the cultural impact of the First World War by analysing the work of libraries and librarians in different settings, from German-occupied Belgium and prisoner-of-war camps to Germany's own public and private libraries. By examining the work of German, Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, and American librarians, the article makes a case for applying the notion of a 'long' First World War to cultural and intellectual history. Considering ephemeral and established libraries, along with new types of collections generated by the war itself, the article sheds light on the changes to library work as a result of mobilization, censorship, and the growth of mass readership. While these changes concerned librarians in all belligerent states, German librarians were particularly affected after the burning of the Leuven library during the city's occupation by German forces. This singular event damaged Germany's national reputation and thereby laid the groundwork for a significant politicization of library work all the way to the Second World War. In addition to tracing the importance of librarians for German foreign policy, the article reconstructs how this professional community, whose intellectual formation was ultimately supranational, responded to the First World War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated the predictive processing of grammatical number information through stem-vowel alternations in German strong verbs by adult first language (L1) speakers and Dutch-speaking advanced second language (L2) learners of German, and the influence of working memory and awareness (i.e., whether participants consciously registered the predictive cue) thereon. While changed stem vowels indicate a singular referent (e.g., /ε/ in f ä llt 3SG, "falls"), unchanged vowels indicate plural (e.g., /a/ in f a llt 2PL, "fall"). This target structure presents a challenge for L2 learners of German due to its subregularity and low salience. With their eye movements being tracked, participants matched German auditory sentences (VSO order) with one of two pictures, displaying identical action scenes but varying in agent number. The number cue provided by the strong verbs allowed participants to predict whether the upcoming subject would be singular or plural. The analyses revealed significant prediction, measured as predictive eye movements toward the target picture and faster button-press responses. Prediction in the L2 group was weaker than in the L1 group and present in the eye movement data only. Higher working memory scores were linked to faster predictive presses. Approximately half of the participants had become aware of the predictive cue, and being aware facilitated prediction to a limited extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the matrimonial and reproductive behaviour of Italians who migrated to Belgium after the Second World War. Migrants were either already married, or later became married, to other Italians. Among the children of migrants, men equally chose Italian or Belgian wives but women tended to prefer Italian partners. Italian-Belgian marriages were more frequent among the better educated groups. Family size is smaller among migrants marrying after migration and in heterogamous marriages. Significant differences in birth intervals are found when marriage occurred before or after migration, between generations, and between homogamous and heterogamous marriages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article narrates the history of Belgian Sinology both before and since the birth of Sinology (1814) and of Belgium (1830). The overview also embraces a broader group of scholars by including Sinologists who were from Belgium but did not necessarily work there. The first part of the article focuses on Sinological practices by the early missionaries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The second part covers the nineteenth and twentieth centuries until the Open-Door Policy of the 1970s. This part combines a broad chronological perspective with the history of individual persons and institutions. It includes topics such as the development of oriental studies and studies of religion, the teaching of Chinese language for commercial reasons, and the establishment of Chinese and Oriental institutes within and outside the universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Résumé: Cet article présente une analyse multifactorielle du comportement des consonnes liquides post-obstruantes en position finale de mot en français. Plus précisément, nous nous intéressons au phénomène par lequel un ou final dans la transcription orthographique d'un mot n'est pas prononcé dans la parole continue, p. ex. comme dans les items « découvre » et « terrible », respectivement prononcés [dekuv] et [teʁʁb] au lieu de [dekuvʁʁ] et [teʁʁibl]. Au total, plus de 2500 items comportant un cluster obstruante+liquide en fin de mot ont été extraits d'un corpus de parole d'une durée de 13 heures, qui a été étiqueté à différents niveaux. Ce corpus comprend les productions de 120 locuteurs originaires de 3 pays francophones (Belgique, France et Suisse), enregistrés dans deux tâches différentes (lecture et conversation). Pour déterminer ce qui affecte la (non-)prononciation de ou dans ces contextes, une douzaine de prédicteurs de différentes natures sont testés dans un même modèle statistique. Les caractéristiques phonétiques telles que le lieu et le mode d'articulation, le contexte droit, le statut prosodique et le taux d'articulation; mais aussi les prédicteurs liés aux locuteurs (pays d'origine, sexe, âge, classe sociale) et au style de parole sont pris en compte. Des modèles mixtes linéaires généralisés révèlent que seulement la moitié d'entre eux ressortent comme jouant un rôle significatif sur la variable à l'étude. Les résultats sont discutés à la lumière dʼétudes antérieures portant sur les aspects sociolinguistiques des variantes de prononciation en français. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Our aim was to evaluate the implementation process of a comprehensive cardiovascular disease prevention program in general practice, to enhance understanding of influencing factors to implementation success and sustainability, and to learn how to overcome barriers. Background: Cardiovascular disease and its risk factors are the world's leading cause of mortality, yet can be prevented by addressing unhealthy lifestyle behavior. Nevertheless, the transition toward a prevention-oriented primary health care remains limited. A better understanding of factors facilitating or hindering implementation success and sustainability of prevention programs, and how barriers may be addressed, is needed. This work is part of Horizon 2020 project 'SPICES', which aims to implement validated preventive interventions in vulnerable populations. Methods: We conducted a qualitative process evaluation with participatory action research approach of implementation in five general practices. Data were collected through 38 semi-structured individual and small group interviews with seven physicians, 11 nurses, one manager and one nursing assistant, conducted before, during, and after the implementation period. We applied adaptive framework analysis guided by RE-AIM Qualitative Evaluation for Systematic Translation (RE-AIM QuEST) and Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR). Findings: Multiple facilitators and barriers affected reach of vulnerable target populations: adoption by primary health care providers, implementation and fidelity and intention to maintain the program into routine practice. In addition, our study revealed concrete actions, linked to implementation strategies, that can be undertaken to address identified barriers. Prioritization of prevention in general practice vision, ownership, and shared responsibility of all team members, compatibility with existing work processes and systems, expanding nurse's roles and upskilling competence profiles, supportive financial and regulatory frameworks, and a strong community – health care link are crucial to increase implementation success and long-term maintenance of prevention programs. COVID-19 was a major barrier to the implementation. RE-AIM QuEST, CFIR, and participatory strategies are useful to guide implementation of prevention programs in primary health care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To use normalization process theory (NPT) to build a strategy for the implementation of goal-oriented care (GOC) in primary care in Flanders, Belgium. Background: GOC is a possible approach to more coordinated and integrated care and tailors care to patients' personal life goals. The concept has gained interest among policy makers and researchers, but the main drivers for successful implementation are the primary healthcare professionals (PHCPs) who need to see added value of GOC in order to embed it into their daily practice. NPT, developed to understand the processes of implementing new ways of organizing care, offers a useful lens to understand adoption of GOC in primary care practice. Method: PHCPs (n = 131) who participated in a 2-hour community meeting on GOC were asked to complete the Normalization MeAsure Development survey. This 23-item survey is based on NPT and describes participants' views about how an intervention would impact their work, their expectations about it, and whether it could become a routine part of their work. Findings: The NPT constructs coherence (sense-making work) and cognitive participation (relational work) showed positive tendency toward implementation of GOC. The participants had an initial understanding on GOC and there was much interest in supporting and start working with this approach. The other constructs collective action (operational work) and reflexive monitoring (appraisal work) will need further efforts to trigger implementation. A common ground is needed to integrate GOC as a common practice which can be achieved by intensive interprofessional collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Labour markets for personal and household services (PHS) are rife with informal employment. Some policies aim to combat informality in PHS with subsidized service vouchers, but their effects are poorly documented. This contribution evaluates the Belgian service vouchers (1) documenting their formalization effectiveness, and (2) accounting for the persistence of informal employment. To this end, we exploit several types of data and methods. A first analysis, based on Eurobarometer data, brings in evidence that informal PHS purchased were approximately halved under the policy introduced in 2001. Second, a discrete choice experiment shows that households prefer formal employment, including those that currently employ informally. Third, a survey in the Brussels metropolitan area shows that the persistence of informal employment lies in the relationship of informal employers with their domestic, from whom they are not willing to part. They nevertheless intend to switch to formal employment in the case of turnover. One thus expects partially delayed effects of formalization policies in general, and of the service voucher system in particular. Overall, these results are in line with Portes' claim that informality is facilitated by strong social relationships, and by differences in price and transaction costs. Belgian service vouchers are found to reduce informal domestic work substantially. Our evidence suggests surviving informality is due to strong relationships between household and domestic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To fully understand and exploit the contents of stock exchange official price lists, an in-depth knowledge of local stock exchange regulations and practices is required. This article offers a comparative perspective on price discovery and quotation on the two most important Belgian stock exchanges, Brussels and Antwerp, from their establishment in 1801 up to the reform of 1935. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the effect of retirement on memory using the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). The availability of a panel data-set allows individual heterogeneity to be controlled for when estimating the effect of transitions into retirement on a commonly employed memory measure, word recall. We control for endogeneity of the retirement decision applying an instrumental variable technique to our fixed-effects transformation. Our main finding is that, conditional on the average non-linear memory age path of the typical individual, time spent in retirement has a positive effect on word recall. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Socio-legal studies in Belgium represent a diverse patchwork of many topics studied from many angles. This paper first presents a brief historical account of socio-legal studies and their organisation, in the north and south of the country. It has no ambition to give a full overview of socio-legal studies in Belgium, let alone be exhaustive. It merely focuses on the content and features of two topics that have constituted major strands of research over the last thirty years: courts and dispute processing, and public opinion about law and justice. It ends with some reflections on the nature of Belgian socio-legal research, as well as some recommendations on future orientations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although often theorized, empirical research on the relationship between MPs' parliamentary behaviour and their chances to realize career ambitions is relatively scarce. This article holistically analyses the effect of MPs' (1) party loyalty, (2) activity level and (3) the quality of their parliamentary work on MPs' prospects for re-election and their promotion to higher parliamentary office. Based on a unique combination of behavioural and peer assessment data on 325 federal and regional MPs in Belgium (2014–2019), we find that particularly MPs' loyalty and activity level improve their career prospects in the subsequent term, in contrast to more qualitative aspects of their parliamentary work. These findings provide important new insights into how and to what degree legislators are rewarded for their parliamentary performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has shown a clear link between childhood disability and child poverty. This is related to the fact that parents of disabled children (1) need to provide more care, which impedes their employment participation; and (2) more often belong to disadvantaged social categories. However, the adverse relationship between childhood disability and child poverty can be cushioned by cash support systems. Hitherto, the literature lacks insight into how the receipt of different cash support systems is related to parental employment and social background, and what joint role these three factors play in understanding the poverty risk of these children. To fill this gap, a case study on Belgium is performed using unique and large-scale register data. The results show that disabled children have a lower income poverty risk than non-disabled children, even when parental employment and social background are taken into account. This can be explained by the targeted cash support disabled children receive. However, previous research showed that a substantial group of disabled children does not receive the benefit. Hence, more could be achieved if the non-take-up would be addressed, in particular among the most vulnerable children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Statistics originally meant state-istics, a scientific representation of the state for governmental purposes. It did not just cover the growing need for information in the emerging nation-states, but also contributed to establishing a new idea of government. This paper analyzes the rearticulation of the household within modern state-istics. The Belgian population censuses, which were first organized by Adolphe Quetelet, provide the material for our analyses. More particularly, we focus on the period from the mid-nineteenth until the mid-twentieth century, when the welfare state started to develop alternatives to household dependence. We discuss how the orientation shifted from the de facto to the de jure population; the state became involved in redefining the conditions for household membership. Two types of co-residential units were distinguished: family household and collective household. But inmates of collective households caused much concern; statisticians tried to reassign them administratively to households considered more appropriate. We also discuss the articulation of intrahousehold relations. Changes in the notion of “belongingness” show how the state articulated its expectations regarding the proverbial cornerstones of society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study investigates to what extent affective polarization, and more specifically hostility towards opposing party supporters, finds its roots in ideological differences. We look into the way out-groups are constructed when there are more than two political parties, and at the role of ideology in this process. Hereby we position ourselves in the discussion between those who argue that affective polarization finds its root more strongly in group attachments vs. those who argue that it is mostly rooted in ideological differences. We conduct our study in the context of the highly fragmented multi-party system of Belgium which enables us to analytically disentangle party label cues from ideological distance. Our findings demonstrate that affective polarization is largely rooted in ideological differences between party electorates in Belgium. Additionally, we find that this particularly holds for citizens who are more ideologically invested, namely those with higher political interest and more extreme ideological views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sub-surface clay samples are difficult to characterize using conventional methods so non-invasive Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) techniques were used to evaluate in a preserved state the pore structure, porosity, water mobility, and affinity of various clay systems. Within the CLAYWAT project launched by the NEA Clay Club, some of the most advanced NMR techniques were applied to samples from 11 clay-rich sedimentary formations (Boom Clay, Yper Clay (both Belgium); Callovo-Oxfordian shale, Upper Toarcian (both France); Opalinus Clay from two sites (Switzerland); Queenston Fm., Georgian Bay Fm., Blue Mountain Fm. (all Canada); Boda Clay (Hungary); and Wakkanai Fm. and Koetoi Fm. (Japan)). The degree of induration within this suite of samples varies substantially, resulting in a wide porosity range of 0.02–0.6. The key finding is the determination of pore-size distribution by NMR cryoporometry in the range of 2 nm–1 μm with the native fluid present in the pore space for most samples. The water volume in pore sizes of <2 nm could also be measured, thus providing a full description of the porosity system. A specific preparation by sample milling was applied to the preserved original cores minimizing disturbances to the samples in terms of water loss. The water content measured by NMR relaxation was comparable to values obtained by drying at 105°C. In general, the narrow T2 distributions indicate that water was diffusing throughout the pore network during the magnetization lifetime, implying that T2 distributions cannot be considered as proxies for the pore-size distributions. For the set of samples considered, the T1/T2 varied between 1.7 and 4.6, implying variable surface affinity. Finally, for most samples, a pore-shape factor of ~2.4, intermediate between a sheet (1) and a cylinder (4), was deduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Organised medicine in a number of advanced industrial countries resisted the post-war trend toward more state involvement in the funding and organisation of medical care. While there were eight doctors' strikes during the peak of reform efforts in the 1960s, two of the most prolonged and bitter struggles took place in Canada and Belgium. This comparative analysis of the two strikes highlights the philosophy, motives, and strategies of organised medicine in resisting state-led reform efforts. Although historical and institutional contexts in the two countries differed, organised medicine in Canada and Belgium thought and responded in very similar ways to the perceived threat of medical insurance reform. While the perception of who won and who lost the respective doctors' strikes differed, the ultimate impact on the trajectory of public healthcare on the medical profession was remarkably similar. In both countries, the strike would have a long-standing impact on future reform efforts, particularly efforts to reform physician remuneration in order to facilitate more effective primary healthcare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess the relationship between exposure to social media food messages and self-reported adolescent eating outcomes (including food intake, perceived norms and food literacy).Design: A cross-sectional survey was used to assess reported exposure to core and non-core food messages (including marketing messages) on social media, as well as reported food intake, perceived norms, food literacy, attitudes, self-regulation, among others.Setting: 18 secondary schools across Flanders, Belgium.Participants: 1002 adolescents 11-19 years of age.Results: Self-reported exposure to food marketing and overall food messages on social media was positively associated with eating attitudes, behaviours, perceived norms and food literacy among adolescents. Interestingly, the relationship between food exposure and intake was shaped differently depending on food type; descriptive norms mediated the positive relationship between non-core food social media exposure and non-core food intake (e.g. indirect effect estimate on self-reported sweets consumption is 0·005, se 0·002, P < 0·01), while food literacy mediated the positive relationship between core food social media exposure and core food intake (e.g. indirect effect estimate on self-reported vegetable consumption is 0·01, se 0·003, P < 0·000).Conclusions: This study highlights the significance of social media in relation to adolescent eating. There is an opportunity for health professionals to use social media in the promotion of core food among adolescents. We call for relevant policy actions to regulate the marketing of non-core food to adolescents on social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The preponderance of women among persons who request and receive euthanasia and assisted suicide based on a psychiatric condition, as shown by data from The Netherlands and Belgium, is virtually unexplored. We provide a critical discussion of this gender gap, and propose that it can inform a key debate point in the controversy over the practice, namely its conflict with suicide prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Belgium is often seen as an outlier in the international experience with the coronavirus disease 2019. We summarize the unfolding of the pandemic in Belgium from February to December 2020, discuss the countermeasures that were implemented and provide some explanations why the numbers indicate a stronger pandemic in Belgium than in its neighbouring countries. To some extent, the seemingly poor performance of Belgium is a measurement artefact. Yet, there were indeed particular factors in Belgium that unnecessarily increased the toll of the pandemic. In the first wave insufficient priority was given to protect care homes. The second wave was larger than necessary due to a failure to timely implement restrictive measures. The latter can, at least partly, be explained by a unique political situation: a temporary, minority government in the middle of a major crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess food insecurity and its association with changes in nutritional habits among Belgian adults during confinement due to COVID-19.Design: Three cross-sectional online health surveys were conducted during March-May 2020. Multinomial logistic regression models were used to determine associations between self-reported changes in fruit, vegetable, soft drink and sweet and salted snack consumption or weight as dependent variables and food insecurity indicators as independent variables, adjusted for gender, household composition, educational attainment and household income.Setting: Belgium.Participants: In total, 8640 adults recruited by convenience sampling.Results: About 10·4 % of Belgians often or sometimes feared food shortages, 5·0 % were often or sometimes short of food without money to buy more and 10·3 % often or sometimes could not afford to eat a healthy diet during confinement. These percentages were highest among single-parent families (26·7, 14·4 and 23·4 %, respectively). Adults who often or sometimes feared that food would run out during confinement had significantly higher odds of decreased v. unchanged fruits (3·53; 95 % CI = 2·06, 6·05) and vegetables (5·42; 95 % CI = 2·90, 10·11) consumption and significantly higher odds of increased v. unchanged soft drink consumption (3·79; 95 % CI = 2·20, 6·54). Similar results were found for adults who often or sometimes ran out of food and for adults who often or sometimes were not able to afford a healthy diet.Conclusion: Food insecurity during the COVID-19 confinement measures in Belgium was associated with adverse changes in most dietary behaviours. A strong government response is needed to tackle malnutrition and food insecurity to protect public health from ongoing and future pandemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly popular in the public sector to improve the cost-efficiency of service delivery. One example is AI-based profiling models in public employment services (PES), which predict a jobseeker's probability of finding work and are used to segment jobseekers in groups. Profiling models hold the potential to improve identification of jobseekers at-risk of becoming long-term unemployed, but also induce discrimination. Using a recently developed AI-based profiling model of the Flemish PES, we assess to what extent AI-based profiling 'discriminates' against jobseekers of foreign origin compared to traditional rule-based profiling approaches. At a maximum level of accuracy, jobseekers of foreign origin who ultimately find a job are 2.6 times more likely to be misclassified as 'high-risk' jobseekers. We argue that it is critical that policymakers and caseworkers understand the inherent trade-offs of profiling models, and consider the limitations when integrating these models in daily operations. We develop a graphical tool to visualize the accuracy-equity trade-off in order to facilitate policy discussions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]