Ignoring God Triune? The Doctrine of the Trinity in Dutch Theology

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Research report: Effects of regulatory instruments and enforcement styles on citizen trust

This report presents the preliminary analysis of the six experiments on citizens’ trust conducted as part of the work package WP5. The experiments test the effects of regulatory enforcement style on citizens’ trust in both regulators and regulatees in six countries: the Netherlands, Germany, Israel, Norway, Denmark, and Belgium, and in three domains: food safety, finance, and data protection. In this document we first outline the structure and rationale of the experiments. We then report on the main analysis testing the effects of three dimensions of regulatory enforcement: formalism, coerciveness, and accommodation on citizens’ trust in regulators and regulatees in the three domains. Finally, we present a covariate analysis exploring the potential effects of a range of variables on the relationship between regulatory enforcement style and citizens’ trust. The findings show variations in the observed levels of trust: citizens’ trust in both regulatees and regulators in the three regulated sectors is the highest in the Netherlands and Norway, while the lowest in Israel. Regulators are consistently seen as more trustworthy than regulatees; and trust in the data protection and food safety sector is generally somewhat higher than trust in the finance sector. When it comes to the effects of the three dimensions of enforcement style on citizens’ trust, we observe a rather mixed picture. We find very limited evidence that the degree of formalism displayed by the regulator affects citizens’ trust in either the regulator or the regulatees. The evidence with regard to the positive effect of coerciveness on citizens’ trust is stronger in the case of regulators, but less so with regard to the regulatees. The level of accommodation affects the levels of trust in regulators and regulatees in different ways in different contexts. We find very limited evidence that enforcement in general increases trust in either regulators or regulatees. Curiously, we observe that the enforcement effects on trust are consistently stronger in the countries where the overall levels of trust are comparatively lower: Israel and Denmark. This suggests the presence of a ceiling effect. Finally, the covariate analysis indicated a consistent and positive relationship between generalized trust, preferences about (stronger) regulation, and knowledge of the work of the regulator with the levels of trust citizens place both in the regulator and the regulatees in the three investigated sectors

Research report: Citizen perceptions of regulatory instruments and enforcement styles

This report presents the data collection and preliminary analysis of the twelve focus groups on citizens’ trust in regulation, conducted as part of the TiGRE work package WP5 which focuses on regulatory instruments and enforcement styles of regulatory agencies and how they affect citizen trust in regulatory regimes. The focus groups explore citizens’ views on what constitutes a trustworthy regulator, perceptions regarding the trustworthiness of the food safety regulator, and citizens’ evaluations of particular enforcement styles in six countries: Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, and Norway. This data collection effort builds on the previous work in WP5, specifically, the survey experiment reported in the deliverable D5.21 , and aims to provide further insights on how citizens’ trust in regulatory agencies is shaped by the behaviours of the regulators. In this report we first discuss the rationale of the focus groups, the data collection approach, and the structure of the focus group discussions. We then present six country reports, which provide summaries of the focus group discussions in each of the six countries. Finally, we provide a preliminary comparative analysis, outlining the similarities and differences emerging from the country reports, and discuss their implications. The results show that citizens consider transparency, integrity, and expertise to be the key traits of a trustworthy regulator. The knowledge of citizens regarding the work of the food safety regulator in their country is rather limited, however, this does not appear to prevent them from placing high levels of trust in its work. When it comes to specific enforcement styles, it does not appear that they have a direct effect on citizens’ trust. What citizens consider to be an appropriate regulatory action in a given situation, would largely depend on the specifics of the situation

Multisite reliability of MR-based functional connectivity

Recent years have witnessed an increasing number of multisite MRI functional connectivity (fcMRI) studies. While multisite studies are an efficient way to speed up data collection and increase sample sizes, especially for rare clinical populations, any effects of site or MRI scanner could ultimately limit power and weaken results. Little data exists on the stability of functional connectivity measurements across sites and sessions. In this study, we assess the influence of site and session on resting state functional connectivity measurements in a healthy cohort of traveling subjects (8 subjects scanned twice at each of 8 sites) scanned as part of the North American Prodrome Longitudinal Study (NAPLS). Reliability was investigated in three types of connectivity analyses: (1) seed-based connectivity with posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), right motor cortex (RMC), and left thalamus (LT) as seeds; (2) the intrinsic connectivity distribution (ICD), a voxel-wise connectivity measure; and (3) matrix connectivity, a whole-brain, atlas-based approach assessing connectivity between nodes. Contributions to variability in connectivity due to subject, site, and day-of-scan were quantified and used to assess between-session (test-retest) reliability in accordance with Generalizability Theory. Overall, no major site, scanner manufacturer, or day-of-scan effects were found for the univariate connectivity analyses; instead, subject effects dominated relative to the other measured factors. However, summaries of voxel-wise connectivity were found to be sensitive to site and scanner manufacturer effects. For all connectivity measures, although subject variance was three times the site variance, the residual represented 60–80% of the variance, indicating that connectivity differed greatly from scan to scan independent of any of the measured factors (i.e., subject, site, and day-of-scan). Thus, for a single 5 min scan, reliability across connectivity measures was poor (ICC=0.07–0.17), but increases with increasing scan duration (ICC=0.21–0.36 at 25 min). The limited effects of site and scanner manufacturer support the use of multisite studies, such as NAPLS, as a viable means of collecting data on rare populations and increasing power in univariate functional connectivity studies. However, the results indicate that aggregation of fcMRI data across longer scan durations is necessary to increase the reliability of connectivity estimates at the single-subject level

Reliability of functional magnetic resonance imaging activation during working memory in a multi-site study: Analysis from the North American Prodrome Longitudinal Study

Multi-site neuroimaging studies offer an efficient means to study brain functioning in large samples of individuals with rare conditions; however, they present new challenges given that aggregating data across sites introduces additional variability into measures of interest. Assessing the reliability of brain activation across study sites and comparing statistical methods for pooling functional data is critical to ensuring the validity of aggregating data across sites. The current study used two samples of healthy individuals to assess the feasibility and reliability of aggregating multi-site functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from a Sternberg-style verbal working memory task. Participants were recruited as part of the North American Prodrome Longitudinal Study (NAPLS), which comprises eight fMRI scanning sites across the United States and Canada. In the first study sample (n = 8), one participant from each home site traveled to each of the sites and was scanned while completing the task on two consecutive days. Reliability was examined using generalizability theory. Results indicated that blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal was reproducible across sites and was highly reliable, or generalizable, across scanning sites and testing days for core working memory ROIs (generalizability ICCs = 0.81 for left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, 0.95 for left superior parietal cortex). In the second study sample (n = 154), two statistical methods for aggregating fMRI data across sites for all healthy individuals recruited as control participants in the NAPLS study were compared. Control participants were scanned on one occasion at the site from which they were recruited. Results from the image-based meta-analysis (IBMA) method and mixed effects model with site covariance method both showed robust activation in expected regions (i.e. dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, supplementary motor cortex, superior parietal cortex, inferior temporal cortex, cerebellum, thalamus, basal ganglia). Quantification of the similarity of group maps from these methods confirmed a very high (96%) degree of spatial overlap in results. Thus, brain activation during working memory function was reliable across the NAPLS sites and both the IBMA and mixed effects model with site covariance methods appear to be valid approaches for aggregating data across sites. These findings indicate that multi-site functional neuroimaging can offer a reliable means to increase power and generalizability of results when investigating brain function in rare populations and support the multi-site investigation of working memory function in the NAPLS study, in particular

Reliability of an fMRI paradigm for emotional processing in a multisite longitudinal study

Multisite neuroimaging studies can facilitate the investigation of brain-related changes in many contexts, including patient groups that are relatively rare in the general population. Though multisite studies have characterized the reliability of brain activation during working memory and motor functional magnetic resonance imaging tasks, emotion processing tasks, pertinent to many clinical populations, remain less explored. A traveling participants study was conducted with eight healthy volunteers scanned twice on consecutive days at each of the eight North American Longitudinal Prodrome Study sites. Tests derived from generalizability theory showed excellent reliability in the amygdala ( Eρ2 = 0.82), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG; Eρ2 = 0.83), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC; Eρ2 = 0.76), insula ( Eρ2 = 0.85), and fusiform gyrus ( Eρ2 = 0.91) for maximum activation and fair to excellent reliability in the amygdala ( Eρ2 = 0.44), IFG ( Eρ2 = 0.48), ACC ( Eρ2 = 0.55), insula ( Eρ2 = 0.42), and fusiform gyrus ( Eρ2 = 0.83) for mean activation across sites and test days. For the amygdala, habituation ( Eρ2 = 0.71) was more stable than mean activation. In a second investigation, data from 111 healthy individuals across sites were aggregated in a voxelwise, quantitative meta-analysis. When compared with a mixed effects model controlling for site, both approaches identified robust activation in regions consistent with expected results based on prior single-site research. Overall, regions central to emotion processing showed strong reliability in the traveling participants study and robust activation in the aggregation study. These results support the reliability of blood oxygen level-dependent signal in emotion processing areas across different sites and scanners and may inform future efforts to increase efficiency and enhance knowledge of rare conditions in the population through multisite neuroimaging paradigms

Association of Thalamic Dysconnectivity and Conversion to Psychosis in Youth and Young Adults at Elevated Clinical Risk

Severe neuropsychiatric conditions, such as schizophrenia, affect distributed neural computations. One candidate system profoundly altered in chronic schizophrenia involves the thalamocortical networks. It is widely acknowledged that schizophrenia is a neurodevelopmental disorder that likely affects the brain before onset of clinical symptoms. However, no investigation has tested whether thalamocortical connectivity is altered in individuals at risk for psychosis or whether this pattern is more severe in individuals who later develop full-blown illness

The genetic architecture of the human cerebral cortex

The cerebral cortex underlies our complex cognitive capabilities, yet little is known about the specific genetic loci that influence human cortical structure. To identify genetic variants that affect cortical structure, we conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis of brain magnetic resonance imaging data from 51,665 individuals. We analyzed the surface area and average thickness of the whole cortex and 34 regions with known functional specializations. We identified 199 significant loci and found significant enrichment for loci influencing total surface area within regulatory elements that are active during prenatal cortical development, supporting the radial unit hypothesis. Loci that affect regional surface area cluster near genes in Wnt signaling pathways, which influence progenitor expansion and areal identity. Variation in cortical structure is genetically correlated with cognitive function, Parkinson's disease, insomnia, depression, neuroticism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Incarnatie en navolging. De christologie van de kerk sinds het Tweede Vaticaans concilie

status: publishe