5,503 research outputs found

    A conceptual overview of What We Know About Social Entrepreneurship

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    This contribution aims to answer the question what we know about social entrepreneurship by summarizing the current state of knowledge. It first provides a broad description of what social entrepreneurship is. Next, a conceptual overview is given of different perspectives on social entrepreneurship. More specifically, four schools of thought on social entrepreneurship are presented and a description is given of the defining characteristics that distinguish these schools from one another. Subsequently some of the main findings of empirical studies from each of the four schools are summarized and discussed. �

    Studies on the degeneration and regeneration of the intervertebral disc

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    Bank, R.A. [Promotor]Wuisman, P.I.J.M. [Promotor]Helder, M.N. [Copromotor]Smit, T.H. [Copromotor

    Identifying Patient Groups based on Frequent Patterns of Patient Samples

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    Grouping patients meaningfully can give insights about the different types of patients, their needs, and the priorities. Finding groups that are meaningful is however very challenging as background knowledge is often required to determine what a useful grouping is. In this paper we propose an approach that is able to find groups of patients based on a small sample of positive examples given by a domain expert. Because of that, the approach relies on very limited efforts by the domain experts. The approach groups based on the activities and diagnostic/billing codes within health pathways of patients. To define such a grouping based on the sample of patients efficiently, frequent patterns of activities are discovered and used to measure the similarity between the care pathways of other patients to the patients in the sample group. This approach results in an insightful definition of the group. The proposed approach is evaluated using several datasets obtained from a large university medical center. The evaluation shows F1-scores of around 0.7 for grouping kidney injury and around 0.6 for diabetes

    Increasing weaning age of piglets from 4 to 7 weeks reduces stress, increases post-weaning feed intake but does not improve intestinal functionality

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    This study tested the hypothesis that late weaning and the availability of creep feed during the suckling period compared with early weaning, improves feed intake, decreases stress and improves the integrity of the intestinal tract. In this study with 160 piglets of 16 litters, late weaning at 7 weeks of age was compared with early weaning at 4 weeks, with or without creep feeding during the suckling period, on post-weaning feed intake, plasma cortisol (as an indicator of stress) and plasma intestinal fatty acid binding protein (I-FABP; a marker for mild intestinal injury) concentrations, intestinal morphology, intestinal (macro)molecular permeability and intestinal fluid absorption as indicators of small intestinal integrity. Post-weaning feed intake was similar in piglets weaned at 4 weeks and offered creep feed or not, but higher (P <0.001) in piglets weaned at 7 weeks with a higher (P <0.05) intake for piglets offered creep feed compared with piglets from whom creep feed was witheld. Plasma cortisol response at the day of weaning was lower in piglets weaned at 7 weeks compared with piglets weaned at 4 weeks, and creep feed did not affect cortisol concentration. Plasma I-FABP concentration was not affected by the age of weaning and creep feeding. Intestinal (macro)molecular permeability was not affected by the age of weaning and creep feeding. Both in uninfected and enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli-infected small intestinal segments net fluid absorption was not affected by the age of weaning or creep feeding. Creep feeding, but not the age of weaning, resulted in higher villi and increased crypt depth. In conclusion, weaning at 7 weeks of age in combination with creep feeding improves post-weaning feed intake and reduces weaning stress but does not improve functional characteristics of the small intestinal mucos

    Generalized Centrifugal Force Model for Pedestrian Dynamics

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    A spatially continuous force-based model for simulating pedestrian dynamics is introduced which includes an elliptical volume exclusion of pedestrians. We discuss the phenomena of oscillations and overlapping which occur for certain choices of the forces. The main intention of this work is the quantitative description of pedestrian movement in several geometries. Measurements of the fundamental diagram in narrow and wide corridors are performed. The results of the proposed model show good agreement with empirical data obtained in controlled experiments.Comment: 10 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication as a Regular Article in Physical Review E. This version contains minor change

    Mapping fly-Fishing Tourism in Southern Africa

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    Abstract: Research on fly-fishing tourism within the Southern African context is under-explored. This paper will seek to investigate fly-fishing destinations sourced from the Federation of South African Fly Fishers guide to fly-fishing destinations in Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean (2010). In addition, this paper will map out the different fly-fishing destinations over Southern Africa for different fish species as well as infrastructural initiatives put in place to support this kind of tourism. This information is augmented by a number of personal in-depth interviews with key stakeholders in the Southern African fly-fishing industry. In closing, this paper will pose suggestions in terms of how fly-fishing tourism can be developed as a form of niche market tourism in the Southern African context and highlighting the challenges faced

    Game-theoretical approach to decentralized multi-drone conflict resolution and emergent traffic flow operations

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    This paper introduces decentralized control concepts for drones using differential game theory. The approach optimizes the behavior of an ego drone, assuming the anticipated behavior of the opponent drones using a receding horizon approach. For each control instant, the scheme computes the Nash equilibrium control signal which is applied for the control period. This results in a multi-drone conflict resolution scheme that is applied to all drones considered. The paper discusses the approach and presents the numerical algorithm, showing several examples that illustrate the performance of the model. We examine at the behavior of the ego drone, and the resulting collective drone flow operations. The latter shows that while the approach aims to optimize the operation cost of the ego drone, the experiments provide evidence that resulting flow operations are very efficient due to the self-organization of various flow patterns. The presented work contributes to the state of the art in providing a generic approach to multi-drone conflict resolution with good macroscopic flow performance characteristics. The approach enables relatively straightforward inclusion of error due to sensing and communication. The approach also allows for including different risk levels (e.g., for malfunctioning of sensor and communication technology), priority rules, regulations, and higher-level control signals (e.g., routing, dynamic speed limits).Comment: Submitted to the TRB Annual Meeting 202
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