Exploring pathways for sustainable water management in river deltas in a changing environment

Exploring adaptation pathways into an uncertain future can support decisionmaking in achieving sustainable water management in a changing environment. Our objective is to develop and test a method to identify such pathways by including dynamics from natural variability and the interaction between the water system and society. Present planning studies on long-term water management often use a few plausible futures for one or two projection years, ignoring the dynamic aspect of adaptation through the interaction between the water system and society. Our approach is to explore pathways using multiple realisations of transient scenarios with an Integrated Assessment Meta Model (IAMM). This paper presents the first application of the method using a hypothetical case study. The case study shows how to explore and evaluate adaptation pathways. With the pathways it is possible to identify opportunities, threats, timing and sequence of policy options, which can be used by policymakers to develop water management roadmaps into the future. By including the dynamics between the water system and society, the influence of uncertainties in both systems becomes clearer. The results show, among others, that climate variability rather than climate change appears to be important for taking decisions in water management

Effect analysis of transient scenarios for successful water management strategies

Recent scenario studies on water management focus on one or two projection years and the effects on the water system and functions. The future is however more complex and dynamic. Therefore, we analyse transient scenarios in order to evaluate the performance of water management strategies. Current available simulation tools are not suitable for this purpose. Therefore, we have developed and used a tool to simulate 50-100 year long time series and that is good and fast enough to simulate the effects of these scenarios and strategies on the water system and the interaction with the human system. We present the first step by means of a case study

Oncogenic senescence: a multi-functional perspective.

Cellular senescence is defined as an irreversible growth arrest with the acquisition of a distinctive secretome. The growth arrest is a potent anticancer mechanism whereas the secretome facilitates wound healing, tissue repair, and development. The senescence response has also become increasingly recognized as an important contributor to aging and age-related diseases, including cancer. Although oncogenic mutations are capable of inducing a beneficial senescence response that prevents the growth of premalignant cells and promotes cancer immune-surveillance, the secretome of senescent cells also includes factors with pro-tumorigenic properties. On June 23rd and 24th, 2016, the Division of Cancer Biology of the National Cancer Institute sponsored a workshop to discuss the complex role of cellular senescence in tumorigenesis with the goal to define the major challenges and opportunities within this important field of cancer research. Additionally, it was noted how the development of novel tools and technologies are required to accelerate research into a mechanistic understanding of senescent cells in carcinogenesis in order to overcome the current limitations in this exciting, yet ill-defined area

Baat het niet dan schaadt het wel: transparantie in multilateraal klimaatbeleid

In November 2021 nam ik deel aan de klimaattop in Glasgow als academisch correspondent. Gedurende twee weken volgde ik in raamloze zalen de onderhandelingen over het transparantiemechanisme van het klimaatakkoord van Parijs. Transparantie is centraal in multilateraal klimaatbeleid: het wordt gezien als de enige ‘stok achter de deur’ en hoe informatie gepresenteerd wordt kan een land in een goed of kwaad licht zetten. Ondertussen was de klimaattop ondervonden aan de grillen van corona(maatregelen): De onderhandelaar van Saudi Arabië was ontsteld dat er maar twee delegatieleden per land in de zaal mochten zijn, terwijl de Europese Unie erop wees dat een collega die in quarantaine zat problemen had om de sessie op het online platform te volgen. Ondanks deze uitdagingen slaagden onderhandelaars erin om tot compromissen te komen: tijdens de plenaire afsluiting in Glasgow werden- na zes jaar onderhandelen -gedetailleerde regels over het transparantie aangenomen. Maar zullen de nieuwe transparantieregels leiden tot beter multilateraal klimaatbeleid

In-flight measurements of energetic radiation from lightning and thunderclouds

In the certification procedure aircraft builders carry out so-called icing tests flights, where the zero degree Celsius altitude is deliberately sought and crossed in or under thunderstorms. Airbus also used these flights to test ILDAS, a system aimed to determine lightning severity and attachment points during flight from high speed data on the electric and magnetic field at the aircraft surface. We used this unique opportunity to enhance the ILDAS systems with two x-ray detectors coupled to high speed data recorders in an attempt to determine the x-rays produced by lightning in-situ, with synchronous determination of the lightning current distribution and electric field at the aircraft. Such data are of interest in a study of lightning physics. In addition, the data may provide clues to the x-ray dose for personnel and equipment during flights. The icing campaign ran in April 2014; in six flights we collected data of 61 lightning strikes on an Airbus test aircraft. In this communication we briefly describe ILDAS and present selected results on three strikes, two aircraft initiated and one intercepted. Most of the x-rays have been observed synchronous with initiating negative leader steps, and as bursts immediately preceding the current of the recoil process. Those processes include the return stroke. The bursts last one to four micro-second and attain x-ray energies up to 10 MeV. Intensity and spectral distribution of the x-rays and the association with the current distribution are discussed. ILDAS also continuously records x-rays at low resolution in time and amplitude.Comment: 28 pages, 9 figure

Collateral benefits of Internet use: explaining the diverse outcomes of engaging with the Internet

This article examines the extent to which economic, cultural, social, and personal types of engagement with the Internet result in a variety of economic, cultural, social, and personal outcomes. Data from a representative survey of the Dutch population are analyzed to test whether engagement with a certain type of activity is related to “collateral” benefits in different domains of activities, independent from the socioeconomic or sociocultural characteristics of the person. The results show that what people do online and the skills they have affect outcomes in other domains and that this is independent of the characteristics of the person. This means that policy and interventions could potentially overcome digital inequalities in outcomes through skills training and providing opportunities to engage online in a broad variety of ways. A semiologic rather than an economistic approach is more likely to be effective in thinking about and tackling digital inequalities

Isolating crosscutting concerns in system software

This paper reports upon our experience in automatically migrating the crosscutting concerns of a large-scale software system, written in C, to an aspect-oriented implementation. We zoom in on one particular crosscutting concern, and show how detailed information about it is extracted from the source code, and how this information enables us to characterise this code and define an appropriate aspect automatically. Additionally, we compare the already existing solution to the aspect-oriented solution, and discuss advantages as well as disadvantages of both in terms of selected quality attributes. Our results show that automated migration is feasible, and can lead to significant improvements in source code qualit

An evaluation of clone detection techniques for identifying crosscutting concerns

Code implementing a crosscutting concern is often spread over many different parts of an application. Identifying such code automatically greatly improves both the maintainability and the evolvability of the application. First of all, it allows a developer to more easily find the places in the code that must be changed when the concern changes, and thus makes such changes less time consuming and less prone to errors. Second, it allows a developer to refactor the code, so that it uses modern and more advanced abstraction mechanisms, thereby restoring its modularity. In this paper, we evaluate the suitability of clone detection as a technique for the identification of crosscutting concerns. To that end, we manually identify four specific concerns in an industrial C application, and analyze to what extent clone detection is capable of finding these concerns. We consider our results as a stepping stone toward an automated 'concern miner' based on clone detection

Developing performance tests to measure digital skills: lessons learned from a cross-national perspective

This article discusses the development of task-based performance tests designed to measure digital skills among children aged between 12 and 17 years old. The tasks reflect authentic everyday situations to evaluate skill levels. The primary objective is to design performance tests that provide a comprehensive understanding of children’s digital skills. The tests cover three distinct skill dimensions: (1) information navigation and processing; (2) communication and interaction; and (3) content creation and production. These include several subdimensions, offering a detailed perspective on children’s digital skills. The development process itself revealed several methodological challenges that needed to be addressed, yielding valuable lessons for future applications. Key lessons from our cross-national experiences include the importance of involving children early in the design process, using a combination of open-ended and closed tasks, and allocating ample time to walk through the coding scheme