Less meat initiatives at Ghent University : assessing the support among students and how to increase it

In this study, we conducted a survey among Business Administration students at Ghent University to assess their support for six less meat initiatives (LMIs) to be implemented in student restaurants. We examined associations between the support and variables related to meat curtailment and additionally examined the effect of providing information about the climate impact of meat on the support for the LMIs. We find that the support is rather limited among the students we surveyed. Students have different appraisals of the different LMIs, which may be due to differences in intervention strength and types of meat curtailment. We found that higher environmental concern is associated with a higher support for all LMIs. Female students and students with lower meat consumption levels indicate a higher support for four of six LMIs. Simply providing information about the climate impact of meat had no remarkable effect on the support. More integrated approaches are recommended to inform students

The Case for Developing and Deploying an Open Source Electronic Logistics Management Information System

Summarizes efforts to strengthen health information systems in low- and lower-middle-income countries, including development of common requirements. Outlines models for collaboration among stakeholders, national leaders, and health information users

Contribution of agronomy to land management issues - A Comparison of five interdisciplinary PhD theses

An introductory literature review highlights the growing attention within the processes taking place at farming region and landscape scale beside the classical spatial scales at cultivated/experimental plot level. This recent evolution in agronomy finds its origin in newly emerging land management issues. Meanwhile, geography and other disciplines are stressing the need for a greater integration of multifunctional agricultural activities into the decision-making processes at the various levels of land management, such as provinces, municipalities or watersheds. This requires also that studies on farmland management include explicitly the different environmental and social contexts influencing farming activities. In this paper we aim to analyse how recent agronomic oriented research are facing and supporting various land management issues. We have compared five interdisciplinary PhD theses examining their definitions and methods of analysis for: the farming system, the local land management issues at stake, the spatial scale selected for the study, the stakeholders' involvement and the interaction with other disciplines. Common issues which emerged from this comparison are delivery of agro-environmental services, sustainable land management and landscape conservation. Multiple spatial levels were considered, which included at least one administrative unit of policy decision/implementation. Consequently, the explicit (re)definition of some agronomic concepts and methods was needed. Regarding the interdisciplinary framework, the theses have stressed the interactions among agronomy, geography and ecology. All theses aimed at delivering tools for decision-making support, mainly in the form of cartography. Nevertheless the participation of local stakeholders was generally included as a final step; herewith the settings of stakeholders' involvement were various. In conclusion, we discuss how the produced knowledge has enhanced the land management issues in local planning tools. On these bases, we stress finally the issues at stake to strengthen the roles and contributions of agronomic oriented education and research to agricultural land management and development. (Résumé d'auteur

Joint Spectral Radius and Path-Complete Graph Lyapunov Functions

We introduce the framework of path-complete graph Lyapunov functions for approximation of the joint spectral radius. The approach is based on the analysis of the underlying switched system via inequalities imposed among multiple Lyapunov functions associated to a labeled directed graph. Inspired by concepts in automata theory and symbolic dynamics, we define a class of graphs called path-complete graphs, and show that any such graph gives rise to a method for proving stability of the switched system. This enables us to derive several asymptotically tight hierarchies of semidefinite programming relaxations that unify and generalize many existing techniques such as common quadratic, common sum of squares, and maximum/minimum-of-quadratics Lyapunov functions. We compare the quality of approximation obtained by certain classes of path-complete graphs including a family of dual graphs and all path-complete graphs with two nodes on an alphabet of two matrices. We provide approximation guarantees for several families of path-complete graphs, such as the De Bruijn graphs, establishing as a byproduct a constructive converse Lyapunov theorem for maximum/minimum-of-quadratics Lyapunov functions.Comment: To appear in SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization. Version 2 has gone through two major rounds of revision. In particular, a section on the performance of our algorithm on application-motivated problems has been added and a more comprehensive literature review is presente

Moving beyond a limited follow-up in cost-effectiveness analyses of behavioral interventions

Background Cost-effectiveness analyses of behavioral interventions typically use a dichotomous outcome criterion. However, achieving behavioral change is a complex process involving several steps towards a change in behavior. Delayed effects may occur after an intervention period ends, which can lead to underestimation of these interventions. To account for such delayed effects, intermediate outcomes of behavioral change may be used in cost-effectiveness analyses. The aim of this study is to model cognitive parameters of behavioral change into a cost-effectiveness model of a behavioral intervention. Methods The cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) of an existing dataset from an RCT in which an high-intensity smoking cessation intervention was compared with a medium-intensity intervention, was re-analyzed by modeling the stages of change of the Transtheoretical Model of behavioral change. Probabilities were obtained from the dataset and literature and a sensitivity analysis was performed. Results In the original CEA over the first 12 months, the high-intensity intervention dominated in approximately 58% of the cases. After modeling the cognitive parameters to a future 2nd year of follow-up, this was the case in approximately 79%. Conclusion This study showed that modeling of future behavioral change in CEA of a behavioral intervention further strengthened the results of the standard CEA. Ultimately, modeling future behavioral change could have important consequences for health policy development in general and the adoption of behavioral interventions in particular

Introducing Linear Matrix Inequalities in a Control Course

7TH IFAC SYMPOSIUM ON ADVANCES IN CONTROL EDUCATION 21/06/2006 MadridThe important role that linear matrix inequalities have attained in the last years makes it compulsory to include them in the education of a control engineer. As the development of efficient semidefinite programming algorithms date from the early nineties, there is a lack of teaching experience in this field (at least when it is compared with other well established aspects of control theory). This paper proposes a simple way to introduce linear matrix inequalities in a control course. The main objective of the paper is to show that in the formulation of (robust) control problems as linear matrix inequalities a very reduced number of elementary technical results are required. It is illustrated how to introduce, in a progressive way, these technical results along with motivating examples. All of this is done in such a way that it facilitates the assimilation of this important subject. The presented methodology has been successfully applied for more than four years in a doctoral course on control theory