Don’t Shoot the Messenger–Reflections on streamlining and simplification of Environmental Assessment in the Netherlands

The Netherlands’ Environmental Assessment (EA) system has continuously been discussed with calls for streamlining and simplifying. This paper aims to provide an overview and to examine these discussions, including their more fundamental background. To this end, we discuss the origins of the Dutch EA-system, its practice, the critique, the regulator’s reaction by changing institutional arrangements, and the consequences. We conclude that politically, EA is blamed for cumbersome planning and decision-making, while professionals are more nuanced. We see a process of persistent cumbersome planning and decision-making about plans and projects in a country in which environment and nature are under pressure. This situation is resulting in impromptu ‘escape routes’ and evermore detailed EA-studies that are costly, time-consuming, lack quality, are contested, and often fail before court. This process is observed for a long time. Although most studies stressed that streamlining and simplifying will not help in accelerating the planning process, nevertheless regulatory changes aimed at this because of political pressure. Overall, as a consequence of the simplification of regulations and the reduction of safeguards, the advanced and comprehensive nature of the original Dutch EIA-system has been called into question. EA as a messenger intrinsically will always be subject to critique.</p

Evaluating the New Secondary Informatics Curriculum in The Netherlands:The Teachers’ Perspective

Since the introduction of Informatics as an elective course in secondary education in the Netherlands in 1998, the implemented curriculum is being regularly monitored. The results of the large 2013 secondary Informatics teachers survey contributed to the revision of the Informatics curriculum. This revised curriculum came into effect in 2019. In line with regular curriculum monitoring practices, the Netherlands Institute for Curriculum Development is polling the secondary Informatics teachers to understand their views and opinions on the intended curriculum and to learn about their implemented curriculum The results indicate that the majority of the respondents find the new Informatics curriculum better than the old one and that it offers a solid foundation for their teaching practice. A minority either misses some content in the curriculum or considers it overloaded with content, and some find it not to be up to date. Furthermore, the results of this survey are compared to the results of the 2013 survey to assess to what extent the new Informatics curriculum meets the teachers’ needs and recommendations better.</p

The Hyponatremic Hypertensive Syndrome in a Preterm Infant: A Case of Severe Hyponatremia with Neurological Sequels

Objective. To report the irreversible severe neurological symptoms following the hyponatremic hypertensive syndrome (HHS) in an infant after umbilical arterial catheterization. Design. Case report with review of the literature. Setting. Neonatal intensive care unit at a tertiary care children's hospital. Patient. A three-week-old preterm infant. Conclusions. In evaluating a neonate with hyponatremia and hypertension, HHS should be considered, especially in case of umbilical arterial catheterization. In case of diagnostic delay, there is a risk of severe irreversible neurological damage

Can decision transparency increase citizen trust in regulatory agencies? Evidence from a representative survey experiment

Decision transparency is often proposed as a way to maintain or even increase citizen trust, yet this assumption is still untested in the context of regulatory agencies. We test the effect of transparency of a typical decision tradeoff in regulatory enforcement: granting forbearance or imposing a sanction. We employed a representative survey experiment (n = 1,546) in which we test the effect of transparency in general (providing information about a decision or not) and the effect of specific types of transparency (process or rationale transparency). We do this for agencies supervising financial markets, education, and health care. We find that overall decision transparency significantly increases citizen trust in only two of the three agencies. Rationale transparency has a more pronounced positive effect only for the Education Inspectorate. We conclude that the overall effect of decision transparency is positive but that the nature of the regulatory domain may weaken or strengthen this effect

Максим Рильський у світлі теорії та практики перекладу

У запропонованій статті проаналізовано актуальні проблеми теорії і практики перекладу у світлі завдань сучасного перекладознавства, зокрема, об’єктом аналізу є переклади М. Т. Рильським визначних творів зі світової літературної скарбниці.В данной статье анализируются актуальные проблемы теории и практики перевода в соответствии с задачами современного переводоведения, в частности, объектом анализа выступают переводы М. Т. Рыльским выдающихся произведений мировой литературы.In the offered article the issues of the day of theory and practice of translation are analysed in the light of tasks of modern translation theory in particular as an object of analysis translations of Maksym Rylski come forward prominent works from a world literary treasury

Patient-Reported Adverse Events of Radiopharmaceuticals:Development and Validation of a Questionnaire

Introduction Radiopharmaceuticals may cause adverse events. Knowledge about adverse events from a patient's perspective could help healthcare professionals to detect, understand, and manage adverse events more efficiently when using radiopharmaceuticals. Researchers need a validated questionnaire that can be used in patients to assess adverse events with radiopharmaceuticals. Objective The aim of this study was to develop, validate the content of, and perform initial testing of a questionnaire assessing patient-reported adverse events of radiopharmaceuticals. Methods Based on existing literature, six professionals drafted and evaluated a first version of the questionnaire. Further content validation was performed using cognitive interviews with six patients undergoing a nuclear medicine examination. After adaptations, the questionnaire was developed into a web-based questionnaire. One hundred patients undergoing nuclear examination tested this version, and the results were used to assess its acceptability and evaluate reported adverse events. Results Questions and answer options were revised in the initial questionnaire to improve clarity. In addition, some questions were removed. The final version consisted of 18 questions. In the test phase, the acceptability of the questionnaire was demonstrated (e.g. 79% of the patients who received the questionnaire completed it, and the median time to complete the questionnaire was 12 min for patients who reported an adverse event). Of the 100 patients (53% men, median age 64 years), 12 reported a total of 22 adverse events. One of these adverse events had a high causal association. Conclusion After validation and testing, the developed questionnaire to study patient-reported adverse events of radiopharmaceuticals is a suitable and valid instrument which can be used in future research