Managing work-life policies in the European Workplace: explorations for future research

In this paper we focus on the implementation and management of work-life policies in the workplace and the key role of managers in this context. We review the existing literature, enabling us to set a research agenda focused on explaining managerial attitudes and behaviour toward work-life policies in different organisational and national contexts. The evidence found in several studies suggests that managers often receive mixed messages about the implementation of work/life policies because these policies are not embedded in the workplace; managers are often unaware of such policies and lack training in them, leading to inconsistency in implementation and short-term thinking rather than a long-term perspective that cherishes human capital. Our review points to the need for more research allowing a full understanding of managerial attitudes and behaviour in different organisational and national contexts. Although a few interesting studies do exist, research in the field is still in its infancy. More research is needed, in particular systematic studies with well-developed theoretical frameworks. Keywords Line managers, work-life policies, allowance decisions, European workplac

Working Parents' Use of Work-Life Policies

In this paper, we examine working parent’s use of work-life policies in three financial sector organizations in the Netherlands. We analyse the barriers and support regarding the actual take up of work-life policies by working parents and to what extent this in turn influence their experienced work-life balance. We collected survey data in three Dutch financial sector organizations: one public sector organization and two private firms. All three differ considerably regarding their organizational culture and working practices. Two of the organizations are characterised by a contradictory work-life culture, and one by an approving work-life culture. Findings point out that household characteristics and the work-life culture in the organization determine the take up of work-life policies. With respect to the work-life balance of working parents, organizational culture is an important determinant, no impact is found of the utilization of policies

Advances in machine learning applications for cardiovascular 4D flow MRI

Four-dimensional flow magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has evolved as a non-invasive imaging technique to visualize and quantify blood flow in the heart and vessels. Hemodynamic parameters derived from 4D flow MRI, such as net flow and peak velocities, but also kinetic energy, turbulent kinetic energy, viscous energy loss, and wall shear stress have shown to be of diagnostic relevance for cardiovascular diseases. 4D flow MRI, however, has several limitations. Its long acquisition times and its limited spatio-temporal resolutions lead to inaccuracies in velocity measurements in small and low-flow vessels and near the vessel wall. Additionally, 4D flow MRI requires long post-processing times, since inaccuracies due to the measurement process need to be corrected for and parameter quantification requires 2D and 3D contour drawing. Several machine learning (ML) techniques have been proposed to overcome these limitations. Existing scan acceleration methods have been extended using ML for image reconstruction and ML based super-resolution methods have been used to assimilate high-resolution computational fluid dynamic simulations and 4D flow MRI, which leads to more realistic velocity results. ML efforts have also focused on the automation of other post-processing steps, by learning phase corrections and anti-aliasing. To automate contour drawing and 3D segmentation, networks such as the U-Net have been widely applied. This review summarizes the latest ML advances in 4D flow MRI with a focus on technical aspects and applications. It is divided into the current status of fast and accurate 4D flow MRI data generation, ML based post-processing tools for phase correction and vessel delineation and the statistical evaluation of blood flow

Cognitive Information Processing

Contains reports on six research projects.National Institutes of Health (Grant 5 PO1 GM14940-04)National Institutes of Health (Grant 5 PO1 GM15006-03)Joint Services Electronics Programs (U. S. Army, U. S. Navy, and U. S. Air Force) under Contract DA 28-043-AMC-02536(E

Mitral valve regurgitation assessed by intraventricular CMR 4D-flow: a systematic review on the technological aspects and potential clinical applications.

Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) four-dimensional (4D) flow is a novel method for flow quantification potentially helpful in management of mitral valve regurgitation (MVR). In this systematic review, we aimed to depict the clinical role of intraventricular 4D-flow in MVR. The reproducibility, technical aspects, and comparison against conventional techniques were evaluated. Published studies on SCOPUS, MEDLINE, and EMBASE were included using search terms on 4D-flow CMR in MVR. Out of 420 screened articles, 18 studies fulfilled our inclusion criteria. All studies (n = 18, 100%) assessed MVR using 4D-flow intraventricular annular inflow (4D-flowAIM) method, which calculates the regurgitation by subtracting the aortic forward flow from the mitral forward flow. Thereof, 4D-flow jet quantification (4D-flowjet) was assessed in 5 (28%), standard 2D phase-contrast (2D-PC) flow imaging in 8 (44%) and the volumetric method (the deviation of left ventricle stroke volume and right ventricular stroke volume) in 2 (11%) studies. Inter-method correlations among the 4 MVR quantification methods were heterogeneous across studies, ranging from moderate to excellent correlations. Two studies compared 4D-flowAIM to echocardiography with moderate correlation. In 12 (63%) studies the reproducibility of 4D-flow techniques in quantifying MVR was studied. Thereof, 9 (75%) studies investigated the reproducibility of the 4D-flowAIM method and the majority (n = 7, 78%) reported good to excellent intra- and inter-reader reproducibility. Intraventricular 4D-flowAIM provides high reproducibility with heterogeneous correlations to conventional quantification methods. Due to the absence of a gold standard and unknown accuracies, future longitudinal outcome studies are needed to assess the clinical value of 4D-flow in the clinical setting of MVR

Cognitive Information Processing

Contains reports on six research projects.National Institutes of Health (Grant 5 PO1 GM14940-03)National Institutes of Health (Grant 5 PO1 GM15006-03)Joint Services Electronics Programs (U. S. Army, U. S. Navy, and U.S. Air Force) under Contract DA 28-043-AMC-02536(E)National Institutes of Health (Grant 5 TO1 GM01555-03

Genetic Covariance Structure of Reading, Intelligence and Memory in Children

This study investigates the genetic relationship among reading performance, IQ, verbal and visuospatial working memory (WM) and short-term memory (STM) in a sample of 112, 9-year-old twin pairs and their older siblings. The relationship between reading performance and the other traits was explained by a common genetic factor for reading performance, IQ, WM and STM and a genetic factor that only influenced reading performance and verbal memory. Genetic variation explained 83% of the variation in reading performance; most of this genetic variance was explained by variation in IQ and memory performance. We hypothesize, based on these results, that children with reading problems possibly can be divided into three groups: (1) children low in IQ and with reading problems; (2) children with average IQ but a STM deficit and with reading problems; (3) children with low IQ and STM deficits; this group may experience more reading problems than the other two

Massively parallel computing on an organic molecular layer

Current computers operate at enormous speeds of ~10^13 bits/s, but their principle of sequential logic operation has remained unchanged since the 1950s. Though our brain is much slower on a per-neuron base (~10^3 firings/s), it is capable of remarkable decision-making based on the collective operations of millions of neurons at a time in ever-evolving neural circuitry. Here we use molecular switches to build an assembly where each molecule communicates-like neurons-with many neighbors simultaneously. The assembly's ability to reconfigure itself spontaneously for a new problem allows us to realize conventional computing constructs like logic gates and Voronoi decompositions, as well as to reproduce two natural phenomena: heat diffusion and the mutation of normal cells to cancer cells. This is a shift from the current static computing paradigm of serial bit-processing to a regime in which a large number of bits are processed in parallel in dynamically changing hardware.Comment: 25 pages, 6 figure