Zoekresultaten

Who ensures that Society has the professionals it needs? Differences in the policy directions of three European countries

Abstract (165)European policy makers consider higher education essential for the development of high-level employable professionals but who is responsible for ensuring that Europe has the professionals that it needs. In this article, we examine how policy from three European countries – the Netherlands, Germany and England – position the responsibility for producing professionals in the interplay between higher education, society and the economy. Our findings show substantial differences between the three countries, which highlight possible opportunities and risks for students, within a single European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Differences in who decides, and at which level of detail the design of higher education is defined challenges the rights all European citizens to have similar educational opportunities for employment. Given that the EHEA was created to ensure equality and comparability between European societies, this finding underlines the necessity of not only looking at formal and legislative arrangements but also at the strategic and visionary perspective of European legislation to gain a common understanding of higher education across the EHEA.

Current state of research: Face detection still has problems with darker faces

Scientific research on the quality of face detection systems keeps finding the same result: no matter how, when, and with which system testing is done, every time it is found that faces of people with a darker skin tone are not detected as well as the faces of people with a lighter skin tone.

The telephone lifestyle intervention 'Hartcoach' has modest impact on coronary risk factors

BACKGROUND: Unhealthy diets and inactivity are still common among patients with cardiovascular diseases. This study evaluates the effects of the telephonic lifestyle intervention 'Hartcoach' on risk factors and self-management in patients with recent coronary events.DESIGN: This was a randomised trial in five Dutch hospitals.METHODS: Patients (18-80 years), less than eight weeks after hospitalisation for acute myocardial infarction or (un)stable angina pectoris were randomised to the Hartcoach-group, who received telephonic coaching every four weeks for a period of six months (in addition to usual care), and a control group receiving usual care only. Simple random allocation was used (without relation to prior assignment). Measurements were taken by research nurses blinded for group allocation. Differences after six months of participation were compared using linear or logistic regression models with treatment-group and baseline score for the outcome under analysis as covariates, resulting in adjusted mean change (b).RESULTS: Altogether 374 patients were randomised (173 Hartcoach + usual care, 201 usual care only). Follow-up was obtained in 331 patients who still participated after six months. Hartcoach had significant favourable effects on body mass index (BMI) (b = -0.32; 95% CI:(-0.63- -0.003)), waist circumference (b = -1.71; 95% CI:(-2.73- -0.70)), physical activity (b = 15.08 (score); 95% CI:(0.13, 30.04)) daily intake of vegetables (b = 13.41; 95% CI:(1.10-25.71)), self-management (b = 0.11; 95% CI:(0.00-0.23)) and anxiety (b = -0.65; 95% CI:(-1.25- -0.06)). Hartcoach slightly increased the total number of risk scores on target (b = 0.45; 95% CI:(0.17-0.73)).CONCLUSIONS: Hartcoach has modest impact on BMI, waist circumference, physical activity, intake of vegetables, self-management and anxiety. Therefore, it may be a useful maintenance programme in addition to usual care, to support patients with recent coronary events to improve self-management and reduce risk factors.

What has neighbourhood cohesion to do with informal care?

The Social Support Act came into effect on 1 January 2007. The purpose of the new legislation is to enable citizens who are dependent on the support of the Municipality and those living around them to be able to live independently for as long as possible. Organizing informal care is one of the main targets of this policy. In the realization of this act several assumptions about informal care giving were implied. In this paper three of them are examined. The first assumption is that neighbourly cohesion will lead to exchanging neighbourly support. On the other hand it is assumed that a lack of neighbourly cohesion impedes neighbourly support. The second assumption is that there is an imminent shortfall in the supply of informal care. The third assumption is that healthy people (are expected to) help the vulnerable and that they have to be stimulated to do so. The findings are based on qualitative in-depth interviews, conducted in a small Dutch neighbourhood in Eindhoven, called Drents Dorp. It is argued that all three assumptions need revision in order that informal care policy can be more effective. This study shows that the relationship between neighbourhood cohesion and informal care is not clear cut. Neighbourliness is individualized, but this doesn't mean that neighbours don't support each other: they do, but on an individual one-to-one basis. Furthermore, the most vulnerable inhabitants are not reached by social interventions aimed at enhancing social cohesion. The assumed shortfall in the supply of informal care turns out to be a shortage in the demand of informal care. Due to their fear of dependency and pursuit of autonomy and independence, people hesitate to ask for support. This is far more an impediment for informal care than the alleged shortfall in supply. The assumption that the strong will support the vulnerable also needs adjustment. At least an important part of the exchange of support takes place between vulnerable people mutually.

Systemic constellations work has entered the university

Has the tweet become a meme?

The days where memes were plain image macros (an image that consists out of an imagecombined with text) are long behind us. New meme formats, some more obscure than others,are popping up like weeds. Memetic logics are also moving beyond the image into ‘the realworld’ (whatever that may be), but that’s a story for another time.In January 2022, when I was a participant in the Digital Methods Winter School of theUniversity of Amsterdam, my teammates and I came to an interesting conclusion. Inspired bythe forthcoming paper by Richard Rogers and Giulia Giorgi, called ‘What is a Meme TechnicallySpeaking’, we analyzed various meme collections taken from different software environments.1After a close reading of the dominant types of images, their ontology and epistemology, one ofthe most interesting findings, at least for me, was that our meme datasets were full of tweetscreenshots – which felt rather counterintuitive at first. However, once I started thinking aboutit, I realized that I have been noticing meme admins posting tweet screenshots on their pagesfor months now. One of my meme muses even told me that she did not know what her memepage has become, seeing all the tweets and other content she has been sharing lately. It hadme wondering. When leaving the technical and data driven context aside for a minute, has thetweet in its screenshot form become a viral image? Has the tweet become an actualmeme?