Hercules finances research infrastructure

In 2007 the Flemish government created a structural funding channel to support investment in research infrastructure: Hercules. On 15 October 2008 the Hercules Foundation approved a first list of investment proposals. In this article specific features of this first call are examined

MarBEF publishing revisited

Networking and integration served within a partnership approach and covered with a delicious sauce of free and open access to data and information is MarBEF’s main dish, and it is this recipe that has helped MarBEF to successfully bring marine biodiversity research to a European level. Numerous meetings, workshops, training courses and Responsive Mode Projects (RMPs) have brought together many scientists. This integration has created endless new possibilities for new initiatives – the MarBEF Publication Series and the MarBEF Open Archive, to mention just two. So, is this having any effect on the way we publish as a network today

Beyond geographic path dependencies: towards a post-structuralist approach of the port-city interface

Technological breakthroughs in the maritime transport industry gave rise to multimodality and global supply chains (Olivier & Slack, 2006). The high competitive character of this maritime transport industry induced transnational corporations (TNCs) to integrate their logistic processes horizontally and vertically. In order to keep attracting these TNCs, ports evolved downstream away from the city, followed by an economic, spatial and most recently by an institutional separation; resulting in less innovation due to the decreasing related variety between maritime and urban economics (Hall & Jacobs, 2012). Other emerging varying conditions are related to the sea level rise which reduces available space were port could further expand, leading to governance dilemmas between economy and ecology. Finally, as the burdens, such as congestion or a decreasing employment rate, are for the region, and the economic benefits are for a small group of TCNs, the ‘license to operate’ has become increasingly complex. The numerous different concepts and models trying to understand these changes are usually based on a historic-morphological approach that can be traced back to the so-called ‘anyport model’ and its modifications (Hoyle, 1989). The theoretical approach of these models is imbedded in structuralism and tries to generalize the observed evolution of the port city complex. An increasing number of researchers critiques the mainstream theories and their ambition for building universal understanding. Researchers emphasize the importance of the port city interface and its related variety. Therefore they point out the risk of facilitating the multidimensional separation by using a wrong assumption and a lack of understanding local processes with a global outlook. To tackle this risk, we have to move beyond this lock-in (Boelens & de Roo, 2014). There is a need to move towards a post-structural perspective of the port city interface, resulting in a more complex, actor-relational and co-evolving approach. This paper is the first step of a four year PhD-research on the theme of the port city interface. In the first part a literature framework is proposed of the previous research about the subject, questioning if existing studies have to be more attuned to regional and local characteristics. The second section focuses on the post-structuralist approach and explores its potential application for the study of the port city complexes. It will illustrate recent ideas of co-evolution and actor networks (Boelens & de Roo, 2014) applied on case studies in Belgium

Phase-fitted Discrete Lagrangian Integrators

Phase fitting has been extensively used during the last years to improve the behaviour of numerical integrators on oscillatory problems. In this work, the benefits of the phase fitting technique are embedded in discrete Lagrangian integrators. The results show improved accuracy and total energy behaviour in Hamiltonian systems. Numerical tests on the long term integration (100000 periods) of the 2-body problem with eccentricity even up to 0.95 show the efficiency of the proposed approach. Finally, based on a geometrical evaluation of the frequency of the problem, a new technique for adaptive error control is presented

On the Leading Error Term of Exponentially Fitted Numerov Methods

Second-order boundary value problems are solved with exponentially-fitted Numerov methods. In order to attribute a value to the free parameter in such a method, we look at the leading term of the local truncation error. By solving the problem in two phases, a value for this parameter can be found such that the tuned method behaves like a sixth order method. Furthermore, guidelines to choose between multi le possible values for this parameter are given

Three-stage two-parameter symplectic, symmetric exponentially-fitted Runge-Kutta methods of Gauss type

We construct an exponentially-fitted variant of the well-known three stage Runge-Kutta method of Gauss-type. The new method is symmetric and symplectic by construction and it contains two parameters, which can be tuned to the problem at hand. Some numerical experiments are given

The lockmaster's problem.

Inland waterways form a natural network that is an existing, congestion free infrastructure with capacity for more traffic.Transportation of goods by ship is widely promoted as it is a reliable, efficient and environmental friendly way of transport. A bottleneck for transportation over water are the locks that manage the water level. The lockmaster's problem concerns the optimal strategy for operating such a lock. In the lockmaster's problem we are given a lock, a set of ships coming from downstream that want to go upstream, and another set of ships coming from upstream that want to go downstream. We are given the arrival times of the ships and a constant lockage time; the goal is to minimize total waiting time of the ships. In this paper a dynamic programming algorithm (DP) is proposed that solves the lockmaster's problem in polynomial time. We extend this DP to different generalizations that consider weights, water usage, capacity, and (a fixed number of) multiple chambers. Finally, we prove that the problem becomes strongly NP-hard when the number of chambers is part of the input.Lock scheduling; Batch scheduling; Dynamic programming; Complexity;

Minority-specific Determinants of Mental Well-being Among Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Youth

This study discusses the impact of stress specific to being lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB), measured by means of the concepts of stigma consciousness and internalized homonegativity, on the mental well-being of LGB youth. Also, the effects of positive and negative social support were considered within the model. The sample consisted of 743 LGBs less than 26 years old who were recruited during the online ZZZIP survey in Flanders, Belgium. Hierarchical regression shows that LGB-specific unsupportive social interactions have the greatest direct effect on mental well-being of LGB youth, followed respectively by stigma consciousness, internalized homonegativity, and confidant support