Agentschappen: eenheid in verscheidenheid

In tegenstelling tot de definitieproblemen rond het begrip 'zelfstandig bestuursorgaan' (vgl. Van Thiel & Van Buuren, 2001) lijkt het begrip 'agentschap' redelijk duidelijk omlijnd (Smullen, Van Thiel & Pollitt, 2001). De criteria in de Comptabiliteitswet en de Instellingsprocedure Agentschappen omschrijven nauwkeurig onder welke omstandigheden een organisatie in aanmerking komt om agentschap te worden en wat een agentschap wel of niet mag doen. Wie inzoomt op de agentschappen die feitelijk zijn opgericht, ziet echter al snel dat we hier te maken hebben met zeer uiteenlopende organisaties, zowel qua historische achtergrond en politiek belang, als wat betreft hun omvang in geld en personeel, hun werkgebied, maar vooral in het takenpakket waar ze mee belast zijn. Alhoewel agentschappen in theorie allemaal belast zijn met de uitvoering van beleid, leidt dat in de praktijk tot behoorlijke verschillen

Agentschappen en de verzelfstandigingsparadox

Verzelfstandiging van overheidsorganisaties leidt tot een paradox. Enerzijds krijgen de organisaties meer zelfstandi

The effects of work alienation and policy alienation on behavior of public employees

Public employees are confronted with various pressures, such as increased work demands and the need to implement controversial policies. This study uses work alienation and policy alienation models to analyze work and policy pressures. Based on a survey of 790 respondents, it was firstly found that work alienation results in less work effort and more intention to leave. Secondly, policy alienation negatively impacts behavioral support for a policy and the intention to implement it. These results suggest that work alienation and policy alienation have different –but both important– effects on (intended) behavior on the job

Re-structuring of marine communities exposed to environmental change: a global study on the interactive effects of species and functional richness

Species richness is the most commonly used but controversial biodiversity metric in studies on aspects of community stability such as structural composition or productivity. The apparent ambiguity of theoretical and experimental findings may in part be due to experimental shortcomings and/or heterogeneity of scales and methods in earlier studies. This has led to an urgent call for improved and more realistic experiments. In a series of experiments replicated at a global scale we translocated several hundred marine hard bottom communities to new environments simulating a rapid but moderate environmental change. Subsequently, we measured their rate of compositional change (re-structuring) which in the great majority of cases represented a compositional convergence towards local communities. Re-structuring is driven by mortality of community components (original species) and establishment of new species in the changed environmental context. The rate of this re-structuring was then related to various system properties. We show that availability of free substratum relates negatively while taxon richness relates positively to structural persistence (i.e., no or slow re-structuring). Thus, when faced with environmental change, taxon-rich communities retain their original composition longer than taxon-poor communities. The effect of taxon richness, however, interacts with another aspect of diversity, functional richness. Indeed, taxon richness relates positively to persistence in functionally depauperate communities, but not in functionally diverse communities. The interaction between taxonomic and functional diversity with regard to the behaviour of communities exposed to environmental stress may help understand some of the seemingly contrasting findings of past research.Mercator Stiftung via GAMEPostprint4,41

Virtual Ontogeny of Cortical Growth Preceding Mental Illness

Background: Morphology of the human cerebral cortex differs across psychiatric disorders, with neurobiology and developmental origins mostly undetermined. Deviations in the tangential growth of the cerebral cortex during pre/perinatal periods may be reflected in individual variations in cortical surface area later in life. Methods: Interregional profiles of group differences in surface area between cases and controls were generated using T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging from 27,359 individuals including those with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, schizophrenia, and high general psychopathology (through the Child Behavior Checklist). Similarity of interregional profiles of group differences in surface area and prenatal cell-specific gene expression was assessed. Results: Across the 11 cortical regions, group differences in cortical area for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia, and Child Behavior Checklist were dominant in multimodal association cortices. The same interregional profiles were also associated with interregional profiles of (prenatal) gene expression specific to proliferative cells, namely radial glia and intermediate progenitor cells (greater expression, larger difference), as well as differentiated cells, namely excitatory neurons and endothelial and mural cells (greater expression, smaller difference). Finally, these cell types were implicated in known pre/perinatal risk factors for psychosis. Genes coexpressed with radial glia were enriched with genes implicated in congenital abnormalities, birth weight, hypoxia, and starvation. Genes coexpressed with endothelial and mural genes were enriched with genes associated with maternal hypertension and preterm birth. Conclusions: Our findings support a neurodevelopmental model of vulnerability to mental illness whereby prenatal risk factors acting through cell-specific processes lead to deviations from typical brain development during pregnancy

A História da Alimentação: balizas historiográficas

Os M. pretenderam traçar um quadro da História da Alimentação, não como um novo ramo epistemológico da disciplina, mas como um campo em desenvolvimento de práticas e atividades especializadas, incluindo pesquisa, formação, publicações, associações, encontros acadêmicos, etc. Um breve relato das condições em que tal campo se assentou faz-se preceder de um panorama dos estudos de alimentação e temas correia tos, em geral, segundo cinco abardagens Ia biológica, a econômica, a social, a cultural e a filosófica!, assim como da identificação das contribuições mais relevantes da Antropologia, Arqueologia, Sociologia e Geografia. A fim de comentar a multiforme e volumosa bibliografia histórica, foi ela organizada segundo critérios morfológicos. A seguir, alguns tópicos importantes mereceram tratamento à parte: a fome, o alimento e o domínio religioso, as descobertas européias e a difusão mundial de alimentos, gosto e gastronomia. O artigo se encerra com um rápido balanço crítico da historiografia brasileira sobre o tema

‘New Public Managers’ in Europe: Changes and Trends

Contains fulltext : 176791.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access

Use of ion-mobility mass spectrometry (IMS-MS) to map polyoxometalate keplerate clusters and their supramolecular assemblies

We present the high-resolution (HRES-MS) and ion-mobility (IMS-MS) mass spectrometry studies of icosahedral nanoscale polyoxometalate-based {L30}{(Mo)Mo5} Keplerate clusters, and demonstrate the use of IMS-MS to resolve and map intact nanoclusters, and its potential for the discovery of new structures, in this case the first gas phase observation of ‘proto-clustering’ of higher order Keplerate supramolecular aggregates

[Travel advice and vaccinations in patients with chronic inflammatory diseases: the earlier, the better]

The number of patients with chronic inflammatory diseases who have been travelling to the tropics or subtropics has been rising. Use of immunomodulating drugs increases the risk for infectious diseases and may reduce seroprotection rates following vaccination. In addition, live vaccines, such as the yellow fever vaccine, are contra-indicated. Patients and their physicians are not always aware of the consequences of the use of immunomodulating drugs for travel and this may lead to undesirable situations, including last-minute cancellation of the trip. Informing and vaccinating patients early after the diagnosis of the inflammatory disease may prevent these undesirable situations