Food neophobia and mealtime food consumption in 4-5 year old children.

Background: Previous research has documented a negative association between maternal report of child food neophobia and reported frequency of consumption of fruit, vegetables, and meat. This study aimed to establish whether neophobia is associated with lower intake of these food types in naturalistic mealtime situations. Methods: One hundred and nine parents of 4–5 year olds completed questionnaires which included a six-item version of the Child Food Neophobia Scale (CFNS). The children took part in a series of 3 test lunch meals at weekly intervals at school at which they were presented with: chicken, cheese, bread, cheese crackers, chocolate biscuits, grapes and tomatoes or carrot sticks. Food items served to each child were weighed before and after the meal to assess total intake of items in four categories: Fruit and vegetables, Protein foods, Starchy foods and Snack foods. Pearson Product Moment Correlations and independent t tests were performed to examine associations between scores on the CFNS and consumption during lunches. Results: Neophobia was associated with lower consumption of fruit and vegetables, protein foods and total calories, but there was no association with intake of starch or snack foods. Conclusion: These results support previous research that has suggested that neophobia impacts differentially on consumption of different food types. Specifically it appears that children who score highly on the CFNS eat less fruit, vegetables and protein foods than their less neophobic peers. Attempts to increase intake of fruit, vegetables and protein might usefully incorporate strategies known to reduce the neophobic response

Horizontal and vertical thermospheric cross-wind from GOCE linear and angular accelerations

Thermospheric wind measurements obtained from linear non-gravitational accelerations of the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite show discrepancies when compared to ground-based measurements. In this paper the cross-wind is derived from both the linear and the angular accelerations using a newly developed iterative algorithm. The two resulting data sets are compared to test the validity of wind derived from angular accelerations and quantify the uncertainty in accelerometer-derived wind data. In general the difference is found to be less than 50 m/s vertically after high-pass filtering, and 100 m/s horizontally. A sensitivity analysis reveals that continuous thrusting is a major source of uncertainty in the torque-derived wind, as are the magnetic properties of the satellite. The energy accommodation coefficient is identified as a particularly promising parameter for improving the consistency of thermospheric cross-wind data sets in the future. The algorithm may be applied to obtain density and cross-wind from other satellite missions that lack accelerometer data, provided the attitude and orbit are known with sufficient accuracy.Astrodynamics & Space MissionsControl & Simulatio

Short Term Morphological Impact of the Eierlandsedam

After decades of coastal erosion in the north-west area of the Island of Texel, the shore-normal `Eierlandse Dam` had been built in 1995. The dam, situated in the outer delta of the Eierlandse Gat tidal inlet, resulted in a remarkable short-term morphological development of the adjacent coast. Four years following completion of the dam, large sedimentation rates were measured on both sides of the dam. On the updrift (south) side, sedimentation was predicted as a result of the blocked alongshore sediment transport. However, on the downdrift (north) side of the dam, no sedimentation was predicted. Today, almost two decades later, it remains unclear which processes contributed to the sediment accumulation on the north side of the dam. The increased functionalities and capabilities of the present-day modelling software enable a re-evaluation of the morphological processes around the dam in particular, and gain insights in the complex short-term morphodynamics in this area. To capture the driving mechanism(s) of the net sediment transport towards the northern area of the Eierlandse dam, the state-of-the-art process-based computational model Delft3D is applied. To investigate the influence of various conditions and processes on the morphological development around the dam, simulations are performed with various boundary conditions, model processes and formulations. After calibration of the model, one-year morphological predictions show large similarities with the observed bed level development at both sides of the dam. The ebb tidal currents seem responsible for the large amounts of sedimentation at the north side of the dam, predominantly during spring tides when flow velocities and tidal excursion increase. The ebb tidal channel `Robbengat` is located along the northern tip of the Island of Texel and curves from the inlet around the Eierlandse dam. The Robbengat channel has been eroding by strong ebb tidal currents since 1985. The eroded sediments of the channel are transported by the flow towards the outer delta. Before the channel curves, the flow is partly deflected towards the northern area of the Eierlandse dam. The flow enters a shallow area and decelerates, resulting in deposition of sediment. This conclusion rejects the conclusions drawn by previous studies regarding the same area, where complex hydrodynamics such as eddy forming and spiral flow in the channel bend were drawn as possible causes of the sedimentation.Hydraulic EngineeringCivil Engineering and Geoscience

“What do they say about us on Twitter?”: Hybrid sentiment retrieval for organisations

We conclude this report with a system design and proof-of-concept to show how an adaptable hybrid sentiment classification system is able to improve sentiment analysis for organisations. GreenOnline, a service company in the field of customer services, wants to be able to quantify sentiment for organisations precisely, to create new services for organisations. To start with, this sentiment analysis will be based on Twitter messages. The main challenge during this research was that Tweets, short WOM (Word-Of-Mouth) messages that contain only little words, are highly abbreviated and sentiment is expressed in subtle ways with irony, sarcasm, slang and other linguistic shades of grey [9]. Therefore, the focus of this thesis project was to design a system that is able to combine different sentiment analysis techniques to find sentiment. Also, not only existing algorithms were combined, but also information from the message (message attributes) are regarded as a way to determine the sentiment or which algorithm will classify the sentiment of that message best. Overall, it was regarded that all these different elements leave room for optimisation, for what algorithms and attributes to use and for what messages to select from Twitter for an organisation. To support a process of optimisation for a campaign or organisation another goal was to embrace the ability of system optimisation by (GreenOnline) customer service experts. The result is a design and proof-of-concept implementation of a hybrid and adaptable sentiment analysis system design, which is using implementations of three sub classifier algorithms and message properties, that are combined by a hybrid sentiment classifier in a sentiment value of negative, positive or neutral. This proof-of-concept implementation showed a performance of 71,2% which is a great improvement with respect to the single sub classifications of which the best performance was only 58,2%. By improvement of customer service experts this performance can even grow further.Web Information SystemsSoftware and Computer TechnologyElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc

Active corrosion protection of aerospace aluminium alloys by lithium-leaching coatings

For decades, scientists and engineers are searching for a safe and environmentally friendly alternative for the toxic chromate corrosion inhibitors in active protective coatings for the protection of aerospace aluminium alloys. In this search many different compounds have been investigated as leachable corrosion inhibitor, but no alternative with equal or better performance compared to chromates has been found yet. In 2010 it was discovered that organic coatings loaded with lithium-salts (Li) as leachable corrosion inhibitor provided very effective and promising corrosion inhibition on aluminium alloys when exposed to industrial accelerated corrosion tests. Initial investigations showed the formation of a corrosion protective layer on the aluminium alloy in a defect area, which appears to be a key feature of these Li-leaching coatings.(OLD) MSE-

Radio interferometrie

Het eerste deel van deze scriptie tracht de lezer die nog niet of slechts in geringe mate kennis bezit op het gebied van de radio - astronomie een beeld te geven van de radio-interferometrie in het algemeen en de "Very Long Baseline Interferometry" in het bijzonder. Er is getracht een evenwicht te vinden tussen een globaal overzicht en een veelheid aan details. Aan de hand van een ruime hoeveelheid literatuurverwijzingen kan de lezer desgewenst verder in de materie doordringen. Achtereenvolgens zullen aan de orde komen: in hfdst. I: een globale beschrijving van het meetsysteem, een vergelijking met andere meetsystemen en de toepassingsmogelijkheden van de radio-interferometfie. In hoofdstuk II wordt na een kort geschiedkundig overzicht dieper ingegaan op het meetproces voor de astronomie in het algemeen met aandacht voor bnonnen,stations,apparatuur en foutenbronnen. In het derde hoofdstuk vindt men dan de gang van zaken bij V.L.B.I. toegespitst op geodetische doeleinden. Hier wordt ingegaan op de data-verwerking, met afschattingen van de precisies, uitgaande van bepaalde instrumentele mogelijkheden. Hoofdstuk IV tenslotte vormt de afsluiting van dit 1 deel met een blik op de toekomst.Civil Engineering and Geoscience

On the joint inversion of SGG and SST data from the GOCE mission

The computation of spherical harmonic coefficients of the Earth’s gravity field from satellite-to-satellite tracking (SST) data and satellite gravity gradiometry (SGG) data is considered. As long as the functional model related to SST data contains nuisance parameters (e.g. unknown initial state vectors), assembling of the corresponding normal matrix must be supplied with the back-substitution operation, so that the nuisance parameters are excluded from consideration. The traditional back-substitution algorithm, however, may result in large round-off errors. Hence an alternative approach, back-substitution at the level of the design matrix, is implemented. Both a stand-alone inversion of either type of data and a joint inversion of both types are considered. The conclusion drawn is that the joint inversion results in a much better model of the Earth’s gravity field than a standalone inversion. Furthermore, two numerical techniques for solving the joint system of normal equations are compared: (i) the Cholesky method based on an explicit computation of the normal matrix, and (ii) the pre-conditioned conjugate gradient method (PCCG), for which an explicit computation of the entire normal matrix is not needed. The comparison shows that the PCCG method is much faster than the Cholesky method.<br><br><b>Key words.</b> Earth’s gravity field, GOCE, satellite-tosatellite tracking, satellite gravity gradiometry, backsubstitutio

Attitude Estimation of a Quadcopter with one fully damaged rotor using on-board MARG Sensors

Quadcopters are becoming increasingly popular across diverse sectors. Since rotor damages occur frequently, it is essential to improve the attitude estimation and thus ultimately the ability to control a damaged quadcopter. This research is based on a state-of-the-art method that makes it possible to control the quadcopter despite the total failure of a single rotor, where the attitude and position of the quadcopter are provided by an external system. In the present research, a novel attitude estimator called Adaptive Fuzzy Complementary Kalman Filter (AFCKF) has been developed and validated that works independently of any external systems. It is able to estimate the attitude of a quadcopter with one fully damaged rotor while only relying on the on-board MARG (Magnetometer, Accelerometer, Rate Gyroscope) sensors. The AFCKF provides significantly better attitude estimates for flights with a damaged rotor than mainstream filters, estimating the roll and pitch of the quadcopter with an RMS error of less than 1.7 degrees and a variance of less than 2 degrees. The proposed filter also provides accurate yaw estimates despite the fast spinning motion of the damaged quadcopter, and thus outperforms existing methods at the cost of only a small increase in computation.Control & Simulatio

Do non-profits make a difference?: Evaluating non-profit vis-à-vis for-profit organisations in social

This CPB Document provides a framework for the evaluation of non-profit organisations. This framework addresses the question under which conditions, and, if so, in what way non-profits should be stimulated. Essentially, in order to answer these questions, three steps can be followed: (i) identifying potentially relevant market failures that non-profits may aim to diminish; (ii) linking market failures to observed performance indicators for profits and nonprofits; and (iii) use these insights to derive policy implications: should non-profits be stimulated? We apply the proposed framework to three sectors that are commonly labelled as social services: the care sector, the childcare sector and welfare-to-work services. All these sectors are subject to substantial informational problems regarding the quality of services. When surveying the literature, we find non-profit organisations only to make a difference in some specific cases. So far, there is no strong evidence that can be used as an argument to stimulate non-profit organisations in mixed markets. Moreover, such (targeted) policies may discourage donated labour and private donations, thus rendering them largely ineffective.Technology, Policy and Managemen

DynSem: A DSL for Dynamic Semantics Specification

The formal definition the semantics of a programming language and its implementation are typically separately defined, with the risk of divergence such that properties of the formal semantics are not properties of the implementation. In this paper, we present DynSem, a domain-specific language for the specification of the dynamic semantics of programming languages that aims at supporting both formal reasoning and efficient interpretation. DynSem supports the specification of the operational semantics of a language by means of statically typed conditional term reduction rules. DynSem supports concise specification of reduction rules by providing implicit build and match coercions based on reduction arrows and implicit term constructors. DynSem supports modular specification by adopting implicit propagation of semantic components from I-MSOS, which allows omitting propagation of components such as environments and stores from rules that do not affect those. DynSem supports the declaration of native operators for delegation of aspects of the semantics to an external definition or implementation. DynSem supports the definition of auxiliary meta-functions, which can be expressed using regular reduction rules and are subject to semantic component propagation. DynSem specifications are executable through automatic generation of a Java-based AST interpreter.Software TechnologyElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc