Geefgedrag aan organisaties in Vlaanderen

De Vlaming geeft anno 2009 vooral geld en materiële zaken eerder dan tijd (vrijwilligerswerk). Bijna acht op de tien Vlamingen stort geld op een rekening en/of verleent een andere vorm van financiële steun aan een maatschappelijke organisatie of een goed doel. Ruim zeven op de tien schenkt goederen. Een kleine 20% daarentegen doet regelmatig aan vrijwilligerswerk. Een minderheid van nog geen 10% rapporteert geen enkele vorm van geefgedrag. De resultaten bevestigen dat geefgedrag aan organisaties ongelijk verdeeld is in de Vlaamse samenleving. Een hogere sociaal-economische positie gaat vaker samen met het geven van tijd en/of geld en in natura. Voorts blijkt deelname aan vrijwilligerswerk anno 2009 nog steeds gerelateerd aan kerkgang, en verkleint het hebben van jonge kinderen de kans op het geven van tijd aan organisaties (maar niet op het geven van geld en/of materiële zaken). Ten slotte hebben mannen en vrouwen een gelijke kans op deelname aan vrijwilligerswerk, maar behoren vrouwen wel vaker tot de groep van ‘uitsluitend materiële gevers’

Measuring the survey climate: the Flemish case

Researchers in several countries have regularly reported decreasing response rates for surveys and the need for increased efforts in order to attain an acceptable response rate: two things that can be seen as signs of a worsening survey climate. At the same time, differences between countries and surveys with regard to the actual level and evolution of response rates have also been noted. Some of these differences are probably linked to differences in the survey content or design. This may hinder the study of the evolving survey climate over time, based on different surveys in different countries, because more readily comparable conditions are desirable. An optimal opportunity for describing the changing survey climate is offered by the Survey of Social- Cultural Changes in Flanders. We analyse yearly data from 1996 to 2013 to examine the evolution of several survey climate indicators. Some indicators reveal a declining survey climate, such as an increased refusal rate and a greater number of contact attempts per respondent. Other indicators reveal a stable survey climate, such as a stable response rate and respondents’ positive, stable attitude towards surveys. Results show that, within the same survey, one can compensate for negative evolution by increasing the efforts made to ensure completed interviews

The effect of interviewer and respondent characteristics on refusals in a panel survey

Die vorliegende Untersuchung basiert auf Daten einer Panelstudie aus dem Bereich der Wahlforschung. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass politisch Interessierte mit höherer Wahrscheinlichkeit an der zweiten Welle einer Panel-Studie teilnehmen und dass der erste Kontakt für das zweite Interview vor allem bei Frauen mit niedrigem Bildungsstand sehr wichtig ist. Der Interviewereffekt wurde mit Hilfe einer Mehrebenenanalyse untersucht. Diese Analyse zeigt, dass der von den Interviewern des Jahres 1991 auf die Antwortverweigerungen 1995 ausgehende Effekt stärker war als der Effekt, der von den Interviewern des Jahres 1995 ausgelöst wurde. Dieses bemerkenswerte Ergebnis unterstreicht die Bedeutung, die die beim ersten Interview gemachten Erfahrungen haben. Anhand verschiedener Charakteristika wurden die Unterschiede zwischen den Interviewern modelliert. Ein signifikanter Effekt ging nur von der Anzahl der Interviews aus, die ein Interviewer durchführte: mehr Interviews bedeuten mehr Verweigerungen. (ICEÜbers)"In this paper data from an election panel survey are used. The results make clear that respondents who are more interested in politics are more likely to take part in the second interview of an election panel survey and that the initial contact for the second interview is extremely important for the group of poorly educated women. To evaluate the effect of the interviewer a multi level analysis was done. The results of this analysis show that the effect of the interviewers used in '91 an the refusals realized in '95 is more significant then the effect of the interviewers used in '95. This remarkable result stresses the importance of the experience of the first interview. Several interviewer characteristics were used to model the differences between the interviewers. Only the number of interviews done by an interviewer has a significant effect: more interviews result in more refusals." (author's abstract

Development of a 3D model of clinically relevant microcalcifications

A realistic 3D anthropomorphic software model of microcalcifications may serve as a useful tool to assess the performance of breast imaging applications through simulations. We present a method allowing to simulate visually realistic microcalcifications with large morphological variability. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to analyze the shape of 281 biopsied microcalcifications imaged with a micro-CT. The PCA analysis requires the same number of shape components for each input microcalcification. Therefore, the voxel-based microcalcifications were converted to a surface mesh with same number of vertices using a marching cube algorithm. The vertices were registered using an iterative closest point algorithm and a simulated annealing algorithm. To evaluate the approach, input microcalcifications were reconstructed by progressively adding principal components. Input and reconstructed microcalcifications were visually and quantitatively compared. New microcalcifications were simulated using randomly sampled principal components determined from the PCA applied to the input microcalcifications, and their realism was appreciated through visual assessment. Preliminary results have shown that input microcalcifications can be reconstructed with high visual fidelity when using 62 principal components, representing 99.5% variance. For that condition, the average L2 norm and dice coefficient were respectively 10.5 $\mu$m and 0.93. Newly generated microcalcifications with 62 principal components were found to be visually similar, while not identical, to input microcalcifications. The proposed PCA model of microcalcification shapes allows to successfully reconstruct input microcalcifications and to generate new visually realistic microcalcifications with various morphologies

Equus Unbound: Fairman Rogers and the Age of the Horse (Panel Discussion)

Podcast introduction, Kristin Winch, 00:00-01:17 Welcome and introduction, H. Carton Rogers, 01:17-05:06:30 Remarks by panel moderator Ann N. Greene, 06:35-20:15 Remarks by Herbert Moelis, 20:33-28:58 Remarks by Ellen Moelis, 28:58-39:45 Remarks by Dean Richardson, 39:45-46:45 Remarks by Douglas Kemmerer, 46:45-1:07:45 Questions and answers, 1:07:45-1:10:18 Concluding remarks, Lynne Farrington, 1:10:18-1:11:19 To download a podcast of this event, choose either the standard quality mp3 file (shorter download) or the high quality m4a file (longer download), below. To view the exhibition poster, select Download button at upper right

Proceedings Virtual Imaging Trials in Medicine 2024

This submission comprises the proceedings of the 1st Virtual Imaging Trials in Medicine conference, organized by Duke University on April 22-24, 2024. The listed authors serve as the program directors for this conference. The VITM conference is a pioneering summit uniting experts from academia, industry and government in the fields of medical imaging and therapy to explore the transformative potential of in silico virtual trials and digital twins in revolutionizing healthcare. The proceedings are categorized by the respective days of the conference: Monday presentations, Tuesday presentations, Wednesday presentations, followed by the abstracts for the posters presented on Monday and Tuesday