Jenseits der Beschwichtigungen: Lokale Integrationspolitik in Rotterdam

Einleitung In den Jahren um die Jahrtausendwende steckte die Stadt Rotterdam in einer nicht zu übersehenden Krise. Oder, wie der Rotterdamer Bürgermeister Opstelten die prekäre Situation seiner Stadt kurz nach seinem Amtsantritt zusammenfasste: Rotterdam führt die ‚falschen Listen‘ an. Rotterdam hat die meisten Arbeitslosen und Sozialhilfeempfänger, die Mittelschicht verlässt die Stadt, insbesondere Stadtteile mit hohem Ausländeranteil leiden unter baulichem Verfall und sozialer Deprivation, aber vor allem ist Rotterdam eines: unsicher!1 Auch eine nationale Untersuchungskommission hatte auf die ‚außerordentlichen Probleme‘ in Rotterdam bereits hingewiesen.2 Trotzdem waren es zunächst nicht Politik und Verwaltung, sondern Rotterdamer Bürger, die ein Bewusstsein für die Probleme ihrer Stadt schufen. Bereits Mitte der neunziger Jahre ergriffen Bürger des Rotterdamer Stadtteils Spangen, der als sozialer Brennpunkt gilt, die Initiative gegen das zunehmende Drogenproblem in ihrem Stadtteil. Als im Sommer 1999 die Belästigung durch öffentlichen Drogenhandel und -konsum ihren Höhepunkt erreichte, während die Polizei – in den Augen der Bürger – tatenlos zusah, besetzten protestierende Bürger vorübergehend das Rotterdamer Rathaus. Sie verlangten ein entschlossenes Vorgehen gegen die unhaltbaren Zustände und die Kriminalität in ihrem Stadtteil und wollten ‚Resultate sehen‘. Als sich die Situation eineinhalb Jahre später, im Jahr 2001, immer noch nicht verbessert hatte, konfrontierten Rotterdamer Bürgerinitiativen Bürgermeister Opstelten mit einer Petition, die die Versäumnisse der Lokalpolitik in Rotterdam scharf kritisierte

Light use efficiency at different wavelengths in rose plants

Current knowledge about the spectral dependence of leaf light use efficiency of leaf photosynthesis (LUE; rate of leaf photosynthesis per unit incident light energy) is based on investigations of mostly arable crops. The leaf LUE depends on the optical properties of the leaf (light absorption), on the fraction of light energy absorbed by photosynthetically active pigments and on the excitation balance of the two photosystems. These properties have hardly been investigated on modern vegetable and especially ornamental greenhouse crops. In this research we investigated the action spectrum of leaf photosynthesis and related leaf optical properties of reddish young leaves and green middle aged leaves of rose ‘Akito’. The crop was grown in a heated greenhouse in Wageningen (The Netherlands, latitude 52°N). The green and reddish leaves had similar total absorptance of 87% on average in the PAR range (400 to 700 nm). In the green leaves, however, leaf absorptance around 550 nm was lower than in the reddish leaves, but slightly higher at longer wavelengths. Red light of 680 nm was found to be the most effective for leaf photosynthesis in the short term. Leaf LUEs were calculated for supplemental light by HPS and 645 and 680 nm LEDs based on their emission spectra and the measured action spectra of leaf photosynthesis. These calculations showed that a 645 nm LED light yielded more improvement in LUE compared to HPS light than 680 nm LED light. This is because the 680 nm LED also emits light >700 nm at which the LUE is much lower. If these calculated improvements in leaf LUE for red LED-light compared to HPS-light are sustained at the crop level during prolonged illumination, substantial energy savings may be realized in rose by supplemental lighting with red LED ligh

Het einde van duurzame armoede?

Om verschillende redenen stellen bekende individualiseringssociologen als Ulrich Beck en Antony Giddens dat armoede in laat-moderne samenlevingen een steeds tijdelijker fenomeen wordt en dat het daarmee eerlijker verspreid raakt over de hele bevolking. Vroeger of later, zo betogen zij, komt iedereen wel een korte periode in aanraking met armoede. In dit artikel onderzoeken Achterberg en Snel de houdbaarheid van deze vertijdelijkingsthese voor Nederland aan het einde van de vorige eeuw

Social reconquest as a new policy paradigm. Changing urban policies in the city of Rotterdam

The repressive turn taken in urban policies has been pointed out by many urban sociologists, particularly in the UK and US. Cities no longer form a tolerant microcosmos, where the deviant behaviour of marginal social categories – delinquent youngsters, petty criminals, drug users and drug traffickers, homeless people, prostitutes, etc. – is tolerated to a certain extent as ‘part and parcel of the urban lifestyle’. Public opinion, newspapers, policymakers and social scientists now focus on urban problems – the spatial concentration of poverty, unemployment, multi-problem families, nuisance, violence and other criminal behaviour in deprived urban areas – and generally agree that this multifaceted crisis in our cities necessitates a tougher approach to urban policy. More generally, a shift in attention seems to have occurred in urban policies. Previously primarily focused on fighting social deprivation in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and disadvantaged segments of the urban population (cf. the American ‘war on poverty’ of the 1960s and 1970s), urban policy’s central issue nowadays is ‘managing disorderly places’ (Cochrane, 2007)

Welfare state reform and in-work poverty in the Netherlands

This paper describes the development of in-work poverty in the Netherlands from 1996 until 2005 and examines whether in-work poverty is related to recent social security and welfare state reforms (a new ideology of an ‘activating welfare state’ and numerous policy measures to reduce the number of social benefit claimants and to promote work). Using large-scale administrative data (from the Dutch tax services) we found that the in-work poverty risk in the Netherlands was quite constant (fluctuating between 5.3 and 6.6 percent). We expected that because of the social security reforms more individuals with vulnerable labour market positions are pushed into the labour market but are nevertheless unable to escape from poverty. This would result in more working individuals below the poverty line. However, this is not the case. But even with a constant in-work poverty risk the number of working poor individuals increases over the years. As a result, there is a gradual shift within the Dutch poverty population from non-working to working poor. We conclude that in-work poverty – once the typical face of poverty in liberal welfare states such as the USA – also became a familiar phenomenon in the Netherlands. The majority of the Dutch working poor belongs to this category for only one year. However, a limited but significant number of individuals is working poor for three years or more. In-work poverty occurs relatively often after individuals experience a transition from social benefits (particularly social assistance) to work

Footloose migranten in beeld

__Abstract__ Het gangbare beeld van Midden- en Oost-Europese arbeidsmigranten in Nederland was lange tijd dat zij tijdelijk hier zijn om laagbetaald en vaak onzeker werk te doen, voornamelijk in de land- en tuinbouw en in sommige industriesectoren. Dit eenzijdige beeld klopt slechts ten dele, zo blijkt uit diverse studies over Midden- en Oost-Europeanen in Nederland (vgl. Weltevrede et al. 2009; Dagevos et al. 2011; Engbersen et al. 2011 en 2013; Snel et al. 2013; Van Ostaijen et al. 2014). Lang niet alle arbeidsmigranten uit Midden- en Oost-Europa passen in het stereotype beeld van de tijdelijke ‘MOElanders’. Bovengenoemde studies laten zien dat er onder de categorie Midden- en Oost-Europeanen in Nederland veel meer diversiteit bestaat dan veelal wordt aangenomen. Lang niet alle nieuwe Midden- en Oost-Europese arbeidsmigranten werken in de tuinbouw of doen ander ongeschoold werk! En lang niet iedereen verblijft slechts tijdelijk in Nederland om hier te werken, inmiddels is er ook een aanzienlijke (en naar alle waarschijnlijkheid toenemende) vestigingsmigratie vanuit Middenen Oost-Europa in Nederland. Om aan deze diversiteit onder Midden- en Oost-Europese migranten in Nederland recht te doen, onderscheiden Engbersen et al. (2011; 2013) vier typen Midden- en Oost- Europese arbeidsmigranten in Nederland: circulaire migranten, vestigingsmigranten, transnationale migranten en footloose migranten

A global definition of expression context is conserved between orthologs, but does not correlate with sequence conservation

BACKGROUND: The massive scale of microarray derived gene expression data allows for a global view of cellular function. Thus far, comparative studies of gene expression between species have been based on the level of expression of the gene across corresponding tissues, or on the co-expression of the gene with another gene. RESULTS: To compare gene expression between distant species on a global scale, we introduce the "expression context". The expression context of a gene is based on the co-expression with all other genes that have unambiguous counterparts in both genomes. Employing this new measure, we show 1) that the expression context is largely conserved between orthologs, and 2) that sequence identity shows little correlation with expression context conservation after gene duplication and speciation. CONCLUSION: This means that the degree of sequence identity has a limited predictive quality for differential expression context conservation between orthologs, and thus presumably also for other facets of gene function