IZA COVID-19 Crisis Response Monitoring: Netherlands (November 2020)

Hervorming Sociale Regelgevin

Riooloverstorten vormen voor weidend vee een risico voor de diergezondheid

Uit een recente CBS-inventarisatie blijkt dat ongeveer 2600 rundveebedrijven oppervlaktewater gebruiken dat rechtstreeks in verbinding staat met water waarop een riooloverstort loost. Hoewel dit meestal niet tot problemen leidt, is er wel sprake van een verhoogd risico voor de diergezondheid. Reden om op het eigen bedrijf na te gaan of de dieren veilig uit sloten in de buurt van bebouwing kunnen drinken

Detecting Sarcasm in Multimodal Social Platforms

Sarcasm is a peculiar form of sentiment expression, where the surface sentiment differs from the implied sentiment. The detection of sarcasm in social media platforms has been applied in the past mainly to textual utterances where lexical indicators (such as interjections and intensifiers), linguistic markers, and contextual information (such as user profiles, or past conversations) were used to detect the sarcastic tone. However, modern social media platforms allow to create multimodal messages where audiovisual content is integrated with the text, making the analysis of a mode in isolation partial. In our work, we first study the relationship between the textual and visual aspects in multimodal posts from three major social media platforms, i.e., Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter, and we run a crowdsourcing task to quantify the extent to which images are perceived as necessary by human annotators. Moreover, we propose two different computational frameworks to detect sarcasm that integrate the textual and visual modalities. The first approach exploits visual semantics trained on an external dataset, and concatenates the semantics features with state-of-the-art textual features. The second method adapts a visual neural network initialized with parameters trained on ImageNet to multimodal sarcastic posts. Results show the positive effect of combining modalities for the detection of sarcasm across platforms and methods.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, final version published in the Proceedings of ACM Multimedia 201

Arbeidsmarkt: historische daling werkzame personen, maar internationaal gezien beperkt.

Hervorming Sociale Regelgevin

Saccadic selection and crowding in visual search:stronger lateral masking leads to shorter search times

We investigated the role of crowding in saccadic selection during visual search. To guide eye movements, often information from the visual periphery is used. Crowding is known to deteriorate the quality of peripheral information. In four search experiments, we studied the role of crowding, by accompanying individual search elements by flankers. Varying the difference between target and flankers allowed us to manipulate crowding strength throughout the stimulus. We found that eye movements are biased toward areas with little crowding for conditions where a target could be discriminated peripherally. Interestingly, for conditions in which the target could not be discriminated peripherally, this bias reversed to areas with strong crowding. This led to shorter search times for a target presented in areas with stronger crowding, compared to a target presented in areas with less crowding. These findings suggest a dual role for crowding in visual search. The presence of flankers similar to the target deteriorates the quality of the peripheral target signal but can also attract eye movements, as more potential targets are present over the area

Spatial variability of throughfall water and chemistry and forest floor water content in a Douglas fir forest stand

International audienceThis study focuses on spatial variability of throughfall water and chemistry and forest floor water content within a Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii, Franco L.) forest plot. Spatial patterns of water and chemistry (NH4+, NO3?, SO42-, Cl?, Mg2+, Ca2+, Na+ and K+) were compared and tested for stability over time. The spatial coefficient of variation (CV) was between 18 and 26% for amounts of throughfall water and ions, and 17% for forest floor water content. Concentrations and amounts of all ions were correlated significantly. Ion concentrations were negatively correlated with throughfall water amounts, but, except for NH4+, there was no such relation between throughfall water and ion amounts. Spatial patterns of throughfall water fluxes and forest floor water contents were consistent over time; patterns of ion fluxes were somewhat less stable. Because of the spatial variability of forest floor thickness and drainage, it was not possible to relate patterns in throughfall water directly to patterns in water content. The spatial variability of throughfall nitrogen and forest floor water contents can cause significant variability in NO3? production within the plot studied. Keywords: nutrient throughfall, forest floor water, spatial variability, time-stability, nitrogen</p

Measurement of overall quality of life in nursing homes through self-report: the role of cognitive impairment

Measuring quality of life is a necessity for adequate interventions. This paper concerns the usefulness of six self-report measures for overall quality of life for nursing home residents with various levels of cognitive impairment. It was investigated which proportion of residents from four cognition groups could complete a scale, and internal consistency and construct validity of the scales were studied. Data collection took place in ten Dutch nursing homes (N = 227). The proportion of residents that could complete each scale varied. The Depression List could be administered most often to the cognitively most impaired group (43%; Mini Mental State Examination-scores 0–4). In the three cognition groups with MMSE-score >5, internal consistency of the Depression List, Geriatric Depression Scale and Negative Affect Scale was adequate in all three groups (alpha ≥.68). Intercorrelation was highest for the Philadelphia Geriatric Center Morale Scale, the Depression List, and the Geriatric Depression Scale (rho ≥.65). Nonetheless, self-report scales were not strongly correlated with two observational scales for depression, especially in cognitively severely impaired residents (rho ≤.30). In conclusion, it may not be possible to measure overall quality of life through self-report, and possibly also through observation, in many nursing home residents

Onnodige slechtziendheid onder ouderen in zorginstellingen: lessen uit een interventieproject in de regio Den Bosch

Introductie Veel ouderen in zorginstellingen in Nederland zijn onnodig blind of slechtziend (visus <0,3). Zij vallen vaker, zijn vaker depressief en hebben meer zorg nodig. In dit interventieproject werden slechtziende bewoners geïdentificeerd en doorverwezen voor adequate oogzorg. Het doel van het onderzoek is evaluatie van de interventie, waaronder validatie van de screening, bepalen van prevalentie en oorzaken van visuele beperkingen en bepalen van resultaten van de behandeling. Daarnaast wordt ook de effectiviteit van de zorgketen geëvalueerd. Materiaal en methode Aan 640 bewoners werd een eenvoudige oogscreening aangeboden en 210 van hen werden verwezen, via hun huisarts, naar de optiek (10), oogarts (98) of revalidatie-instelling (1). Resultaten De uitval in dit onderzoek was fors. De prevalentie van slechtziendheid (24%) was lager dan in vergelijkbare studies. Van de onderzochte bewoners had 51% cataract. Uiteindelijk zijn 17 (8,1%) van de 210 verwezen bewoners behandeld door de oogarts en negen (4,3%) naar een optiekzaak verwezen. Knelpunten in de effectiviteit van de zorgketen werden geïdentificeerd. Discussie Visusscreening in zorginstellingen voor ouderen is goed uitvoerbaar en zinvol. De organisatie van de zorgketen dient korter en eenvoudiger te worden. Daarmee zal de effectiviteit van deze interventie, en daarmee de kwaliteit van leven van veel bewoners, verbeteren