Dynamics of digitally networked leadership in #blacklivesmatter

Using the hashtag #blacklivesmatter, activists have given new impetus to aspirations of ‘leaderful’ organizing. Disavowing the centralization of leadership and rethinking the history of the struggle for civil rights, many have sought to develop and revamp models of decentralized leadership. Digital networking features prominently in these models, but the literature suggests its role is ambiguous: while social media provide affordances for decentralized leadership, they may also induce the centralization of leadership. To examine such leadership dynamics, we adopt a computational approach. Drawing on a dataset of roughly 18 million tweets collected over a 30-month period, we examine two aspects of leadership dynamics: the concentration of leadership (i.e., inequality in terms of centrality within networks) and the consolidation of leadership (i.e., the degree to which central figures retain prominence over time). Engaging with the measurement of network inequality by differentiating temporal aspects of concentration and consolidation, we show that leadership dynamics fluctuate strongly over time. Aside from a select few individuals, there is little consolidation of leadership: new voices can consistently rise to prominence. Beyond providing an examination of online leadership dynamics within the Movement for Black Lives, this paper shows how computational analyses can be adopted in ways that do justice to the dynamic and diverse nature of movements

Science and Society in Dialogue About Marker Assisted Selection

Analysis of a European Union funded biotechnology project on plant genomics and marker assisted selection in Solanaceous crops shows that the organization of a dialogue between science and society to accompany technological innovations in plant breeding faces practical challenges. Semi-structured interviews with project participants and a survey among representatives of consumer and other non-governmental organizations show that the professed commitment to dialogue on science and biotechnology is rather shallow and has had limited application for all involved. Ultimately, other priorities tend to prevail because of high workload. The paper recommends including results from previous debates and input from societal groups in the research design phase (prior to communication), to use appropriate media to disseminate information and to make explicit how societal feedback is used in research, in order to facilitate true dialogue between science and society on biotechnology

Duurzame mestvergisting Aalten

Intensieve veehouderij is een belangrijke agrarische activiteit in Nederland. Er zijn in ons land permanent gemiddeld 110 miljoen productiedieren aanwezig. Al deze dieren produceren mest. Per jaar ongeveer 80 tot 100 miljoen ton. Deze hoeveelheid mest wordt over het land uitgereden. Agrarische ondernemers in Nederland hebben te maken met een steeds strengere mestwetgeving. Daarnaast staan alternatieven voor fossiele energiebronnen sterk in de maatschappelijke belangstelling. Mest kan met een biogasinstallatie worden omgezet in groene stroom. Het vergisten van mest draagt direct bij aan de vermindering van de uitstoot van methaan. Vergisting van mest alleen is echter nauwelijks rendabel. Het toevoegen van co-producten maakt vergisting pas interessant, omdat ook de totale energieproductie hierdoor toeneemt. In dit rapport wordt een analyse gemaakt van de duurzaamheidaspecten die een rol spelen bij het plaatsen van co-vergistingsginstallaties in Nederland. Er wordt zowel gekeken naar aspecten op nationaal als internationaal niveau. Als voorbeeld wordt het plaatsen van een bio-vergistingsginstallatie in de Achterhoek genomen