It’s a hard knock life the survival strategies of Dutch Mulas in Peruvian prisons

Not much research has been done in the Netherlands on the ways in which Dutch women experience and survive a prison sentence abroad. The research underlying the present article focused on Dutch female prisoners in foreign countries, using an ethnographic research method. The article looks at the prison experiences of Dutch mulas in Peru and their strategies of survival. The ways in which these women react to their detention can be traced back to existing literature on the importation theory and the deprivation theory. The article also examines the various coping strategies that are used to survive a prison sentence abroad. These strategies appear to be related both to the life experiences of the women (importation theory) and the experienced prison environment (deprivation theory)

Parents’ Perspectives on Radicalization: A Qualitative Study

Abstract: Radicalization of young people might be influenced by the way parents react towards the development of political or religious ideals. However, these reactions have hardly been explored. This study aimed to discover how parents reacted to the development of extreme ideals, and why they responded in the way that they did. To gain knowledge about the influence of parents on adolescents who developed extreme ideals, 82 in-depth interviews were held with adolescents and young adults who held extreme ideals. Interviews were also held with the parents or siblings of each adolescent and young adult. In line with parenting style theory, it was found that parents react in four possible ways: (1) by rejecting, (2) applauding, (3) ignoring, or (4) discussing the (extreme) ideals of their children. Few parents discuss ideals and values with their child, and this paper tries to show why (e.g., powerlessness, disassociation, occupation with other problems, believing it to be a phase that will pass, or that their reaction would not help). Most parents struggle to cope with radicalization and do not know how to react. Support and control are potentially important tools for parents to use to combat the development of extreme ideology

Changes in vitamin-D metabolites and parathyroid hormone in plasma following cholecalciferol administration to pre- and postmenopausal women in the Netherlands in early spring and to postmenopausal women in Curacao

To study the effect on plasma 25-hydroxycholecalciferol (25(OH)D), 1, 25-dihydroxycholecalciferol (1, 25(OH)(2)D) and parathyroid hormone (PTH) we supplemented premenopausal (aged 30 (so 7) years) and postmenopausal (aged 61 (so 2) years) white women living in The Netherlands in late winter/early spring, and elderly black and white women (aged 75 (so 6) years) living in Curacao (Dutch Antilles) with either 10 or 20 mu g cholecalciferol/d for 4, 5 and 9 weeks respectively, Baseline plasma 25(OH)D concentration of Dutch women was lower than that of Curacao women, Postmenopausal Dutch women had a higher PTH concentration in plasma than premenopausal Dutch and postmenopausal Curacao women, There were no differences in plasma 1,25(OH),D, Cholecalciferol administration increased 25(OH)D in all groups, 1, 25(OH),D in postmenopausal Curacao women and PTH in postmenopausal Curacao women and premenopausal Dutch women, Serum and urinary Ca and phosphate concentrations did not change, There were no response differences between 10 and 20 mu g doses, Oral cholecalciferol administration (either 10 or 20 mu g/d) to women living at northern latitudes in late winter/early spring increased 25(OH)D levels to the baseline levels of elderly people living in the tropics

Stay Tuned: What Is Special About Not Shifting Attention?

Background: When studying attentional orienting processes, brain activity elicited by symbolic cue is usually compared to a neutral condition in which no information is provided about the upcoming target location. It is generally assumed that when a neutral cue is provided, participants do not shift their attention. The present study sought to validate this assumption. We further investigated whether anticipated task demands had an impact on brain activity related to processing symbolic cues. Methodology/Principal Findings: Two experiments were conducted, during which event-related potentials were elicited by symbolic cues that instructed participants to shift their attention to a particular location on a computer screen. In Experiment 1, attention shift-inducing cues were compared to non-informative cues, while in both conditions participants were required to detect target stimuli that were subsequently presented at peripheral locations. In Experiment 2, a non-ambiguous "stay-central'' cue that explicitly required participants not to shift their attention was used instead. In the latter case, target stimuli that followed a stay-central cue were also presented at a central location. Both experiments revealed enlarged early latency contralateral ERP components to shift-inducing cues compared to those elicited by either non-informative (exp. 1) or stay-central cues (exp. 2). In addition, cueing effects were modulated by the anticipated difficulty of the upcoming target, particularly so in Experiment 2. A positive difference, predominantly over the posterior contralateral scalp areas, could be observed for stay-central cues, especially for those predicting that the upcoming target would be easy. This effect was not present for non-informative cues. Conclusions/Significance: We interpret our result in terms of a more rapid engagement of attention occurring in the presence of a more predictive instruction (i.e. stay-central easy target). Our results indicate that the human brain is capable of very rapidly identifying the difference between different types of instructions

INTRINSICALLY SELECTIVE ABSORPTION IN ALLOYS OF EARLY WITH LATE TRANSITION-METALS

Bulk intrinsically selective absorbers are interesting for solar energy applications as a replacement for more complex thickness sensitive coatings. However, research in this field has not been very fruitful so far. Only ZrB2 has proven to be a good candidate material. For this reason, the development of bulk intrinsic absorbers has received relatively little attention during the last decade.Materials which have hardly been studied so far in relation to solar energy conversion are the transition metal (TM) alloys. In this paper, we will show that some of these alloys have interesting optical properties, which makes them potential candidates for application as intrinsic absorbers.The electronic structure of alloys of early with late transition metals have been studied with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and bremsstrahlung isochromate spectroscopy (BIS). The materials studied include YPd3, TiPd3 and some rare earth-Pd3 alloys. We will show that, in such alloys, the d band structure exhibits a large gap with the Fermi level nested in this gap. The filled d band is of mainly late TM character, whereas the empty d band above is of mainly early TM character. The presence of the d band “gap” and the strong d resonance above the Fermi level are shown to lead to a spectrally selective optical reflectance. The reflectance and the position and shape of the cut-off are correlated with the position and shape of the empty d ban