Triple helix networks matching knowledge demand and supply in seven Dutch horticulture Greenport regions

This paper investigates the triple helix (industry, knowledge workers and governments) cooperation on knowledge co-production and valorisation for innovation, which took place in seven horticultural regions in the Netherlands. It thus provides more empirical insight into the functioning of this form of cooperation. Based on a secondary multiple case study analysis, this paper sets out to ascertain what enabled triple helix cooperation in the seven regions with respect to the organisation, the formulation and support for goals and action on knowledge co-production and valorisation. The results indicate that in order to stimulate innovation through triple helix cooperation, the different partners fi rst need to build a proper working relationship and a common language. In order to accomplish this, primary aims for innovation should not be formulated too ambitiously (i.e. too far beyond the entrepreneurs’ daily practice, in particular SMEs). Knowledge workers and policy makers often want to stimulate knowledge co-production and valorisation more radically and quickly. Hence, they have to temper their ambitions. Procedures regarding the cooperation should be rather simple and fl exible. Once a steady working relationship and a common language are developed, then the triple helix collaboration can focus on taking the innovation ambition to a higher level in order to realise more valuable change. At first, entrepreneurs have to experience how they can profit from the cooperation and learn to incorporate knowledge co-production and valorisation step-by-step in their business strategy, including fi nancial investments

ArCo: the Italian Cultural Heritage Knowledge Graph

ArCo is the Italian Cultural Heritage knowledge graph, consisting of a network of seven vocabularies and 169 million triples about 820 thousand cultural entities. It is distributed jointly with a SPARQL endpoint, a software for converting catalogue records to RDF, and a rich suite of documentation material (testing, evaluation, how-to, examples, etc.). ArCo is based on the official General Catalogue of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities (MiBAC) - and its associated encoding regulations - which collects and validates the catalogue records of (ideally) all Italian Cultural Heritage properties (excluding libraries and archives), contributed by CH administrators from all over Italy. We present its structure, design methods and tools, its growing community, and delineate its importance, quality, and impact

Innovatie- en Democentrum Kas als Energiebron: Samenvattende eindrapportage periode 2007-2012

Het project Innovatie en Demonstratie Centrum Kas Als Energiebron is in 2005 gestart met de ontwerpwedstrijd “Kas als Energiebron” en is tot en met 2012 een van de belangrijke middelen geweest binnen het Programma Kas Als Energie Bron. Het doel van het Innovatie- en Democentrum was om katalysator te zijn voor technologische innovaties en de primaire focus lag daarmee op demonstreren van techniek en ontwikkelingen gericht op het terugdringen van het absolute fossiele energiegebruik. Gedurende de looptijd van het IDC is het accent iets verschoven van uitsluitend op technieken gekoppeld aan de gedachte van “netto Energie producerende kas”, naar de totale doelstelling van het energiebesparings- en efficiëntieonderzoek binnen het programma Kas als Energiebron. Naast het verzamelen van kennis, was kennisverspreiding een uitdrukkelijke taak. Door efficiënte inzet van middelen en verschuivingen van budget binnen de oorspronkelijke begroting kon de oorspronkelijke looptijd met één jaar worden verlengd tot en met 2012. Gedurende deze tijd heeft het IDC gefungeerd als een aandachtstrekker en stimulator rond energiezuinige en –leverende kassen én het “Nieuwe telen”

Praktijknetwerken voorzien in kennisbehoefte

Wat is nodig om te doen wat je doet? Geld, mensen, maar vooral kennis. Welke kennis is belangrijk, hoe sla je kennis op, wat deel je ervan met anderen? Vragen en antwoorden in de serie Kennis. In deze veertiende en laatste aflevering Marijke Dijkshoorn/Dekker, onderzoekster bij LEI Wageningen UR, over kennisverwerving in deze tijd

Clonal diversity of Acinetobacter baumannii from diabetic patients in Saudi Arabian hospitals

Carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (CR-AB) represents a major health-care problem causing high rates of morbidity and mortality. This study investigated the clonality of CR-AB isolated from diabetic patients from different regions in Saudi Arabia as well as the relatedness of the β lactamases genes. A total of 64 non-repetitive CR-AB clinical isolates were collected from 16 different regions in Saudi Arabia from intensive care patients. Isolates were identified phenotypically by Vitek 2 compact system and genotypically by amplification of blaOXA-51-like gene. The target sequences were amplified by PCR and the clonal diversity of the isolates was explored by PFGE. Resistance studies revealed that the prevalence of imipenem and meropenem resistance was 92% and 96%, respectively, while the vast majority of the isolates were susceptible to tigecycline and colistin. In addition, blaVIM and blaOXA-23 were the most prevalent genes in the isolates under investigation while ISAba1 was the most dominant insertion sequence. PFGE results showed 13 clusters; clone H was dominant comprising 20 isolates from four hospitals followed by clones C and F comprising 11 isolates each from 3 and 6 hospitals, respectively. Moreover, the current study signified the clonal diversity of CR-AB in Saudi Arabia and showed the ability of some clones to infect patients in many different cities

Crowd vs Experts: Nichesourcing for Knowledge Intensive Tasks in Cultural Heritage

The results of our exploratory study provide new insights to crowdsourcing knowledge intensive tasks. We designed and performed an annotation task on a print collection of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, involving experts and crowd workers in the domain-specific description of depicted flowers. We created a testbed to collect annotations from flower experts and crowd workers and analyzed these in regard to user agreement. The findings show promising results, demonstrating how, for given categories, nichesourcing can provide useful annotations by connecting crowdsourcing to domain expertise

Do Biofilm Formation and Interactions with Human Cells Explain the Clinical Success of Acinetobacter baumannii?

BACKGROUND: The dramatic increase in antibiotic resistance and the recent manifestation in war trauma patients underscore the threat of Acinetobacter baumannii as a nosocomial pathogen. Despite numerous reports documenting its epidemicity, little is known about the pathogenicity of A. baumannii. The aim of this study was to obtain insight into the factors that might explain the clinical success of A. baumannii. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We compared biofilm formation, adherence to and inflammatory cytokine induction by human cells for a large panel of well-described strains of A. baumannii and compared these features to that of other, clinically less relevant Acinetobacter species. Results revealed that biofilm formation and adherence to airway epithelial cells varied widely within the various species, but did not differ among the species. However, airway epithelial cells and cultured human macrophages produced significantly less inflammatory cytokines upon exposure to A. baumannii strains than to strains of A. junii, a species infrequently causing infection. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: The induction of a weak inflammatory response may provide a clue to the persistence of A. baumannii in patients

Are area-level and individual-level socioeconomic factors associated with self-rated health in adult urban citizens? Evidence from Slovak and Dutch cities

Background: Evidence shows that living in disadvantaged areas is associated with poor health. This may be due to the socioeconomic (SE) characteristics of both these residents and the areas where they live. Evidence regarding this on Central European (CE) countries is scarce. Our aim was to assess whether the prevalence of poor self-rated health (SRH) was higher in deprived urban areas, whether this can be explained by individual SE status (SES) and whether this differed between Slovakia and the Netherlands per age group. Methods: We examined the association of urban-level data and individual-level SE factors from different urban areas in different countries (Slovakia, the Netherlands) using comparable urban health indicators and area indicators. We also obtained unique data from the EU-FP7 EURO-URHIS 2 project. Results: Multilevel logistic regression showed that poor SRH was associated with area deprivation in both countries. Regarding age by country, poor SRH occurred more frequently in the more deprived areas for the younger age group (>= 64) in the Netherlands but for the older age group (>= 65 years) in Slovakia. Moreover, Slovak citizens reported poor SRH significantly more often than Dutch residents. Individual SES was significantly associated with poor SRH in both age groups and both countries for most area-level SE measures. Conclusion: Individual SES is associated with SRH more strongly than area deprivation. Therefore, it is important to account for relative deprivation at an individual level when considering health-enhancing activities. Moreover, the effect of urban-area deprivation seems to differ between CE and WE countries