The Dutch version of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function-2 (BRIEF-2)

The BRIEF-2 (Gioia et al., 2015) is a widely used questionnaire to measure daily behavior related to executive function behaviors in the home and school environment of children between 5 and 18 years old. The current study was conducted to investigate the psychometric properties of the Dutch version of the BRIEF-2 in a representative Dutch-speaking norm sample. Using methods from classical test theory and network theory, we examined the reliability and validity of the BRIEF-2. The results indicated that the BRIEF-2 can be considered as a valid and reliable questionnaire that provides information on the role of executive function in the child’s and adolescent’s functioning in the home and school environment.</p

Hardware Sequencing of Inflatable Nonlinear Actuators for Autonomous Soft Robots

Soft robots are an interesting alternative for classic rigid robots in appli-cations requiring interaction with organisms or delicate objects. Elastic inflatable actuators are one of the preferred actuation mechanisms for soft robots since they are intrinsically safe and soft. However, these pneumatic actuators each require a dedicated pressure supply and valve to drive and control their actuation sequence. Because of the relatively large size of pres-sure supplies and valves compared to electrical leads and electronic control-lers, tethering pneumatic soft robots with multiple degrees of freedom is bulky and unpractical. Here, a new approach is described to embed hardware intelligence in soft robots where multiple actuators are attached to the same pressure supply, and their actuation sequence is programmed by the inter-action between nonlinear actuators and passive flow restrictions. How to model this hardware sequencing is discussed, and it is demonstrated on an 8-degree-of-freedom walking robot where each limb comprises two actua-tors with a sequence embedded in their hardware. The robot is able to carry pay loads of 800 g in addition to its own weight and is able to walk at travel speeds of 3 body lengths per minute, without the need for complex on-board valves or bulky tethers.ERC starting gran

The Belgian PCB and dioxin incident of January-June 1999: exposure data and potential impact on health.

In January 1999, 500 tons of feed contaminated with approximately 50 kg of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and 1 g of dioxins were distributed to animal farms in Belgium, and to a lesser extent in the Netherlands, France, and Germany. This study was based on 20,491 samples collected in the database of the Belgian federal ministries from animal feed, cattle, pork, poultry, eggs, milk, and various fat-containing food items analyzed for their PCB and/or dioxin content. Dioxin measurements showed a clear predominance of polychlorinated dibenzofuran over polychlorinated dibenzodioxin congeners, a dioxin/PCB ratio of approximately 1:50,000 and a PCB fingerprint resembling that of an Aroclor mixture, thus confirming contamination by transformer oil rather than by other environmental sources. In this case the PCBs contribute significantly more to toxic equivalents (TEQ) than dioxins. The respective means +/- SDs and the maximum concentrations of dioxin (expressed in TEQ) and PCB observed per gram of fat in contaminated food were 170.3 +/- 487.7 pg, 2613.4 pg, 240.7 +/- 2036.9 ng, and 51059.0 ng in chicken; 1.9 +/- 0.8 pg, 4.3 pg, 34.2 +/- 30.5 ng, and 314.0 ng in milk; and 32.0 +/- 104.4 pg, 713.3 pg, 392.7 +/- 2883.5 ng, and 46000.0 ng in eggs. Assuming that as a consequence of this incident between 10 and 15 kg PCBs and from 200 to 300 mg dioxins were ingested by 10 million Belgians, the mean intake per kilogram of body weight is calculated to maximally 25,000 ng PCBs and 500 pg international TEQ dioxins. Estimates of the total number of cancers resulting from this incident range between 40 and 8,000. Neurotoxic and behavioral effects in neonates are also to be expected but cannot be quantified. Because food items differed widely (more than 50-fold) in the ratio of PCBs to dioxins, other significant sources of contamination and a high background contamination are likely to contribute substantially to the exposure of the Belgian population