Rijkswaterstaat:Guardian of the Dutch Delta

Founded in 1798, Rijkswaterstaat, the Dutch government’s agency for infrastructural works, brought flood security, navigable waterways and highways to the Netherlands. It is an iconic institution within Dutch society, best known for its ‘battle against the water’. The Zuiderzee Works (1920–1968) and the Delta Works (1954–1997) brought worldwide acclaim. This chapter tells the story of a humble semi-military organization that developed into a formidable institution of civil engineers with a strong technocratic mission mystique. It also recounts the institutional crisis the agency experienced in the 1970s–1990s when it was too slow to adapt to major sociocultural and political changes. To ride the waves of change, it eventually developed several proactive adaptation strategies and reinvented its mission mystique in managerial terms. Adaptation to climate change now presents another key challenge, for which Rijkswaterstaat will have to develop a new ‘social license to operate’

Transitioning to Affordable and Clean Energy

Transitioning to Affordable and Clean Energy is a collective volume which combines original contributions and review papers that address the question how the transition to clean and affordable energy can be governed. It will cover both general analyses of the governance of transition, including policy instruments, comparative studies of countries or policies, and papers setting out scientifically sound visions of a clean and just energy system. In particular, the following aspects are foregrounded: • Governing the supply and demand side transformation • Geographical and cultural differences and their consequences for the governance of energy transitions • Sustainability and justice related to energy transitions (e.g., approaches for addressing energy poverty) Transitioning to Affordable and Clean Energy is part of MDPI's new Open Access book series Transitioning to Sustainability. With this series, MDPI pursues environmentally and socially relevant research which contributes to efforts toward a sustainable world. Transitioning to Sustainability aims to add to the conversation about regional and global sustainable development according to the 17 SDGs. The book series is intended to reach beyond disciplinary, even academic boundaries

Body size, socioeconomic status and training background of a select group of U16 South African rugby union players (2010-2013): The impact on national selection

Background: Rugby Union is an international sport characterized by bouts of short duration, high intensity exercise in which players frequently collide into one another while running at high speeds. Players are commonly required to engage in phases of play involving contact such as tackling, rucking, mauling and scrumming. These phases of play require certain physical qualities, including strength, aerobic power, speed and explosive power. Perhaps, the growth and professionalization of the game has resulted in more emphasis being placed on the physical preparation of the players. Physical preparation of players not only happens at elite senior levels, but has also filtered down into the junior ranks, where it is common for school teams to be trained by professional strength and conditioning coaches. The rules of the game have changed, which have influenced the physical demands. For example, ball-in-play time has increased, players are covering more distance per game, making more tackles and engaging in more scrums. It is therefore important to identify the various physical characteristics that are required to be successful at a particular level of rugby union. The socioeconomic status and ethnicity of the player in association with the physical characteristics can determine the success of an adolescent rugby player. Objective: To determine the association between body mass and stature (referred to as physical characteristics for this study), race, socioeconomic status, and weight training (referred to as non-physical characteristics for this study) on the chances of success among U16 provincial rugby union players. In particular, size, socioeconomic status and ethnicity of players in the U16 national training squad were compared to players who represented their provinces but did not get selected for the national squad. Methods: Data were collected for each player who attended the Coca Cola National Grant Khomo week from 2010 to 2013. Players participating in this tournament had already undergone a process of selection trials to be selected to represent their province at U16 level. The national squad players were chosen based on performances at the Coca Cola National Grant Khomo week. The characteristics of the players selected for the national squad vs. players who did not get selected for the squad from 2010 to 2013 were compared using an ANOVA and the magnitude of the differences were quantified using effects sizes. Results: White players are heavier (ES = 0.59) and taller (ES = 0.8 2) than black players as well as heavier (ES = 0.8 7) and taller (ES = 0.8 2) than coloured players over the four-year period from 2010 to 2013. Players selected into the National squad were on average heavier (ES = 0.5 0) and taller (ES = 0.4 0) than those players not selected into the National squad. White players were the heaviest and tallest of the race groups selected into the National squad (p < 0.0000 2). Players with a high socioeconomic status were heavier (ES = 0.3 0), taller (ES = 0.4 0), and had more playing experience (ES = 0.3 0), than players from a low socioeconomic status background. Grouping according to socioeconomic status did not differentiate between race groups and selection for the national squad. Conclusion: This study showed that the taller and heavier players were more likely to get selected for the national U 16 squad. Since size was also associated with socioeconomic status, the players with a high socioeconomic status had an advantage over players with a low socioeconomic status. These findings have implications for transforming the game to ensure that the representative teams reflect the composition of the South African population

21st century skills, problem based learning and the university of the future

In this paper we focus on the ‘university of the future’, and in particular we aim to explore what the role and relevance of PBL might be in this imagined university of the future. We explore the potential of PBL in the development of 21st century skills in a higher education environment that is on the brink of profound changes, and that consequently requires a continuously adaptive approach to education renewal at all levels. Of course many of these changes are already underway. We appear to be in the midst of profound disruptions to higher education, not in the least due to fast changing technologies and the possibilities they afford. The internet and the World Wide Web have had huge impacts, which in turn have influenced the social fabric of our lives through the growing ubiquity of social media and mobile media tools. In education in general, and in higher education in particular, these changes have ushered in an age characterised by a rapidly increasing evolution of online learning with integration of online, hybrid, and collaborative learning, and most recently, phenomena such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), the rise of big data analytics driving learning, and personalised learning. Each of these developments have the potential to cause major disruptions in the way we operate in higher education. It is important to recognise and respect that these changes are here to stay, some evolutionary, some revolutionary. So we need to respond in adaptive and agile ways, and importantly, with imagination and creativity. In this paper, we explore the potential of PBL to address some of the unknown and uncertain challenges of the 21st century

Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Kinanthropology

Proceedings of the 12th Conference of Sport and Quality of Life 2019 gatheres submissions of participants of the conference. Every submission is the result of positive evaluation by reviewers from the corresponding field. Conference is divided into sections – Analysis of human movement; Sport training, nutrition and regeneration; Sport and social sciences; Active ageing and sarcopenia; Strength and conditioning training; section for PhD students

Air Force Institute of Technology Research Report 2007

This report summarizes the research activities of the Air Force Institute of Technology’s Graduate School of Engineering and Management. It describes research interests and faculty expertise; lists student theses/dissertations; identifies research sponsors and contributions; and outlines the procedures for contacting the school. Included in the report are: faculty publications, conference presentations, consultations, and funded research projects. Research was conducted in the areas of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Electro-Optics, Computer Engineering and Computer Science, Systems and Engineering Management, Operational Sciences, Mathematics, Statistics and Engineering Physics