Do cyber-birds flock together? Comparing deviance among social network members of cyber-dependent offenders and traditional offenders

The distinct setting in which cyber-dependent crime takes place may reduce the similarity in the deviance of social network members. We test this assumption by analysing the deviance of the most important social contacts of cyber-dependent offenders and traditional offenders in the Netherlands (N = 344 offenders; N = 1131 social contacts). As expected, similarity in deviance is weaker for cyber-dependent crime. Because this is a strong predictor of traditional offending, this has important implications for criminological research and practice. Additionally, for both crime types the offending behaviour of a person is more strongly linked to the deviance of social ties if those ties are of the same gender and age, and if the offender has daily contact with them. Implications and future criminological research suggestions are discussed

Future proofing

Drastic improvements in growing technology in the Netherlands have achieved a large reduction in energy use and a striking increase in production

Redesign and cascade tests of a supercritical controlled diffusion stator blade-section

A supercritical stator blade section, previously tested in cascade, and characterized by a flat-roof-top suction surface Mach number distribution, has been redesigned and retested. At near design conditions, the losses and air turning were improved over the original blade by 50 percent and 7 percent respectively. The key element in the improved performance was a small blade reshaping. This produced a continuous flow acceleration over the first one-third chord of the suction surface which successfully prevented a premature laminar separation bubble. Several recently available inviscid analysis and one fully viscous (Navier-Stokes) analysis code were used in the redesign process. The validity of these codes was enhanced by the test results

First-Order Provenance Games

We propose a new model of provenance, based on a game-theoretic approach to query evaluation. First, we study games G in their own right, and ask how to explain that a position x in G is won, lost, or drawn. The resulting notion of game provenance is closely related to winning strategies, and excludes from provenance all "bad moves", i.e., those which unnecessarily allow the opponent to improve the outcome of a play. In this way, the value of a position is determined by its game provenance. We then define provenance games by viewing the evaluation of a first-order query as a game between two players who argue whether a tuple is in the query answer. For RA+ queries, we show that game provenance is equivalent to the most general semiring of provenance polynomials N[X]. Variants of our game yield other known semirings. However, unlike semiring provenance, game provenance also provides a "built-in" way to handle negation and thus to answer why-not questions: In (provenance) games, the reason why x is not won, is the same as why x is lost or drawn (the latter is possible for games with draws). Since first-order provenance games are draw-free, they yield a new provenance model that combines how- and why-not provenance

Aerodynamic performances of three fan stator designs operating with rotor having tip speed of 337 meters per second and pressure ratio of 1.54. Relation of analytical code calculations to experimental performance

A hub-to-shroud and a blade-to-blade internal-flow analysis code, both inviscid and basically subsonic, were used to calculate the flow parameters within four stator-blade rows. The produced ratios of maximum suction-surface velocity to trailing-edge velocity correlated well in the midspan region, with the measured total-parameters over the minimum-loss to near stall operating range for all stators and speeds studied. The potential benefits of a blade designed with the aid of these flow analysis codes are illustrated by a proposed redesign of one of the four stators studied. An overall efficiency improvement of 1.6 points above the peak measured for that stator is predicted for the redesign

Fear of exercise and health-related quality of life in patients with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator

Several studies have reported improved survival rates thanks to the use of an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) in the treatment of patients with life-threatening arrhythmia. However, the effects of the ICD on health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) of these patients are not clear. The aim of this study is to describe HR-QoL and fear of exercise in ICD patients. Eighty-nine ICD patients from the University Hospital in Groningen, the Netherlands, participated in this study. HR-QoL was measured using the Rand-36 and the Quality of Life After Myocardial Infarction Dutch language version questionnaires. Fear of exercise was measured using the Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia, Dutch version and the Fear Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire, Dutch version. Association between outcome variables was analysed by linear regression analyses. Study results show that the HR-QoL of patients with ICDs in our study population is significantly worse than that of normal healthy people. Furthermore, fear of exercise is negatively associated with HR-QoL corrected for sex, age and number of years living with an ICD. After implantation of the ICD, patients with a clear fear of exercise should be identified and interventions should be considered in order to increase their HR-QoL

Het Nieuwe Telen voor groente-opkweek

Het Nieuwe Telen (HNT) is als systeem ontwikkeld voor de primaire productie bedrijven. Voor de opkweekbedrijven, die in korte teelten het basis uitgangsmateriaal maken is dit systeem niet één op één toepasbaar. Om de in Kas als Energiebron opgedane kennis te laten landen bij plantenkwekerijen moet een analyse en een vertaalslag gemaakt worden. In het project ‘Het Nieuwe Telen voor groente-opkweek’ is door middel van gesprekken met 10 opkweekbedrijven, een workshop en literatuurstudie in kaart gebracht waar de kansen en knelpunten liggen

Why not model spoken word recognition instead of phoneme monitoring?

Norris, McQueen & Cutler present a detailed account of the decision stage of the phoneme monitoring task. However, we question whether this contributes to our understanding of the speech recognition process itself, and we fail to see why phonotactic knowledge is playing a role in phoneme recognition.