Radical innovation as a multilevel process: introducing floating grain elevators in the Port of Rotterdam

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Integration of driver support functions: the driver's point of view

Integration of driver support functions is a key issue in the development of in-vehicle systems that assist the driver with the driving task. This paper discusses a user needs survey that provides more insight into this issue from the perspective of the driver. Car drivers are asked to indicate their needs for driver assistance during certain driving tasks (e.g. congestion driving) and circumstances (e.g. reduced visibility). From this, consequences for the integration of functions can be deduced with respect to technology, HMI and functional operation. Preliminary results of a pilot test of the user needs survey are highlighted in this paper. These results indicate starting points for integrated driver assistance, such as the adaptability of systems based on personal needs for support, and the functional integration of driver support functions, for instance with respect to inter-vehicle communication

Launching Delta Alliance, final report of phase 2

Delta Alliance is a network that aims to improve the resilience of the world’s deltas. It provides a foundation and framework for international knowledge sharing and development around delta issues. Phase 2 focussed on three components: developing the Delta Alliance organization, initiating network activities and (development of) research and knowledge sharing projects

Two sides of the coin:Patient and provider perceptions of health care delivery to patients from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds

BACKGROUND: Australia is a culturally diverse nation with one in seven Australians born in a non-English speaking country. Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) populations are at a high risk of developing preventable chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes mellitus, renal disease, and chronic respiratory disease, especially communities from the Pacific Islands, the Middle East, North Africa, the Indian subcontinent and China. Previous studies have shown that access to services may be a contributing factor. This study explores the experiences, attitudes and opinions of immigrants from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds and their health care providers with regard to chronic disease care. METHODS: Five focus groups were conducted comprising participants from an Arabic speaking background, or born in Sudan, China, Vietnam or Tonga. A total of 50 members participated. All focus groups were conducted in the participants’ language and facilitated by a trained multicultural health worker. In addition, 14 health care providers were interviewed by telephone. Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed. All qualitative data were analysed with the assistance of QSR NVivo 8 software. RESULTS: Participants were generally positive about the quality and accessibility of health services, but the costs of health care and waiting times to receive treatment presented significant barriers. They expressed a need for greater access to interpreters and culturally appropriate communication and education. They mentioned experiencing racism and discriminatory practices. Health professionals recommended recruiting health workers from CALD communities to assist them to adequately elicit and address the needs of patients from CALD backgrounds. CONCLUSIONS: CALD patients, carers and community members as well as health professionals all highlighted the need for establishing culturally tailored programs for chronic disease prevention and management in CALD populations. Better health care can be achieved by ensuring that further investment in culturally specific programs and workforce development is in line with the number of CALD communities and their needs

Can galaxy growth be sustained through HI-rich minor mergers?

Local galaxies with specific star-formation rates (star-formation rate per unit mass; sSFR~0.2-10/Gyr) as high as distant galaxies (z~1-3), are very rich in HI. Those with low stellar masses, log M_star (M_sun)=8-9, for example, have M_HI/M_star~5-30. Using continuity arguments of Peng et al. (2014), whereby the specific merger rate is hypothesized to be proportional to the specific star-formation rate, and HI gas mass measurements for local galaxies with high sSFR, we estimate that moderate mass galaxies, log M_star (M_sun)=9-10.5, can acquire sufficient gas through minor mergers (stellar mass ratios ~4-100) to sustain their star formation rates at z~2. The relative fraction of the gas accreted through minor mergers declines with increasing stellar mass and for the most massive galaxies considered, log M_star (M_sun)=10.5-11, this accretion rate is insufficient to sustain their star formation. We checked our minor merger hypothesis at z=0 using the same methodology but now with relations for local normal galaxies and find that minor mergers cannot account for their specific growth rates, in agreement with observations of HI-rich satellites around nearby spirals. We discuss a number of attractive features, like a natural down-sizing effect, in using minor mergers with extended HI disks to support star formation at high redshift. The answer to the question posed by the title, "Can galaxy growth be sustained through \HI-rich minor mergers?", is maybe, but only for relatively low mass galaxies and at high redshift.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures; in final acceptance by A&

Social reproduction in single-black-woman-headed families in post-apartheid South Africa : a case study of Bophelong Township in Gauteng.

This study investigates the nature of social reproduction in single-black-womanheaded families in post-apartheid South Africa, through an ethnographic case study in Bophelong Township in Gauteng. The study focuses on the two coterminous aspects of social reproduction: the physical reproduction of labour power and the reproduction of social relations of the mode of production as such, in this case capitalism. The study included a socio-economic survey, participatory observation and in-depth interviews with woman-heads over a period of four years. After a preliminary analysis, the data concerning the woman-headed family form was organised into three generations, the Grandmothers, the Mothers and the Daughters. The conclusions are however tentative given that this was a qualitative study based on a particular type of woman-headed family, one sample in one township in South Africa. The internal variations within this family form expressed the woman-heads’ concrete lived experience, biography and social agency; and are moments of a single totality. While black women’s location is informed by many social determinations that intersect and deepen their oppression as woman-heads, they are cast into leadership roles and directly mediate relations within their families, with males, with family kin, with communities and society. The woman-heads find themselves in contradictory positions within patriarchal society, given their own socialization, the daily struggle to reproduce children physically and the need to transcend traditional patriarchal social relations, including the challenge to appropriate egalitarian forms of leadership and avoid becoming proxies for patriarchy. Despite daily struggles for survival, woman-headed families are important social spaces for struggles for egalitarian family arrangements, including those concerning sons and traditional culture, historically the domain of men. However, it is necessary that the struggles within the family are anchored and supported by the struggles for egalitarianism within society as a whole. In particular this means struggles anchored and supported by a radical, grassroots and dynamic women’s movement

Knowledge for Climate (KvK) launching Delta Alliance: first phase final report

River delta regions worldwide experience mounting challenges in the face of global changes. River delta regions may be considered some of the wealthiest places in the world, drawing huge populations with their rich environmental resources and strong economic potentials. Yet, natural vulnerability and dense populations present great problems for many river deltas, which are aggravated by the impacts of a changing climate