In this wide-ranging and stimulating book, a leading authority on the history of medicine and science presents convincing evidence that Dutch commerce-not religion-inspired the rise of science in the ...sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Harold J. Cook scrutinizes a wealth of historical documents relating to the study of medicine and natural history in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe, Brazil, South Africa, and Asia during this era, and his conclusions are fresh and exciting. He uncovers direct links between the rise of trade and commerce in the Dutch Empire and the flourishing of scientific investigation.Cook argues that engaging in commerce changed the thinking of Dutch citizens, leading to a new emphasis on such values as objectivity, accumulation, and description. The preference for accurate information that accompanied the rise of commerce also laid the groundwork for the rise of science globally, wherever the Dutch engaged in trade. Medicine and natural history were fundamental aspects of this new science, as reflected in the development of gardens for both pleasure and botanical study, anatomical theaters, curiosity cabinets, and richly illustrated books about nature. Sweeping in scope and original in its insights, this book revises previous understandings of the history of science and ideas.
This open access book shows policymakers which initiatives work when responding to the increasing diversity in cities, towns and neighborhood's. In recent times, policymakers have grappled with ways ...of responding to this increase, which has resulted in a plethora of policy initiatives, some more effective than others. Bringing together a large amount of research and evidence-based policy recommendations, this book offers both a sense of strategic direction as well as more specific, actionable advice. It brings together a remarkable mixture of policy areas that touch upon issues of diversity, immigration policy, education, and labour policy. It is of benefit and importance to all those making policies for a country with increasing immigration.
This study investigates whether the presence of green space can attenuate negative health impacts of stressful life events. Individual-level data on health and socio-demographic characteristics were ...drawn from a representative two-stage sample of 4529 Dutch respondents to the second Dutch National Survey of General Practice (DNSGP-2), conducted in 2000–2002. Health measures included: (1) the number of health complaints in the last 14 days; (2) perceived mental health (measured by the GHQ-12); and (3) a single item measure of perceived general health ranging from ‘excellent’ to ‘poor’. Percentages of green space in a 1-km and 3-km radius around the home were derived from the 2001 National Land cover Classification database (LGN4). Data were analysed using multilevel regression analysis, with GP practices as the group-level units. All analyses were controlled for age, gender, income, education level, and level of urbanity. The results show that the relationships of stressful life events with number of health complaints and perceived general health were significantly moderated by amount of green space in a 3-km radius. Respondents with a high amount of green space in a 3-km radius were less affected by experiencing a stressful life event than respondents with a low amount of green space in this radius. The same pattern was observed for perceived mental health, although it was marginally significant. The moderating effects of green space were found only for green space within 3 km, and not for green space within 1 km of residents' homes, presumably because the 3-km indicator is more affected by the presence of larger areas of green space, that are supposed to sustain deeper forms of restoration. These results support the notion that green space can provide a buffer against the negative health impact of stressful life events.
The summer of 2018 was characterized by high temperatures and low precipitation values in the Netherlands. The drought negatively impacted different sectors, resulting in an estimated damage of 450 ...to 2080 million Euros. Strong regional differences were observed in the precipitation shortfall across the country, with highest deficits in the southern and eastern regions. This raised two questions: (i) have increasing global temperatures contributed to changes in meteorological and agricultural droughts as severe or worse as in 2018? And (ii) are trends in these types of droughts different for coastal and inland regions? In this paper we show that there is no trend in summer drought (Apr-Sep) near the coast. However, a trend in agricultural drought is observed for the inland region where water supply is mainly dependent on local precipitation. This trend is driven by strong trends in temperature and global radiation rather than a trend in precipitation, resulting in an overall trend in potential evapotranspiration. Climate model analyses confirm that this trend in agricultural drought can at least in part be attributed to global climate change.
Introduction The Ask-Advise-Connect (AAC) approach can help primary care providers to increase the number of smokers that attempt to quit smoking and enrol into cessation counselling. The aim of this ...study was to investigate the influence of an implementation strategy on the delivery of AAC for smoking cessation within Dutch general practice during the COVID-19 pandemic. Material and Methods A nine-month pre-post study was conducted between late 2020 and early 2022, and included 106 Dutch primary care providers. During the first three months participants delivered smoking cessation care as usual; the implementation strategy came into effect after three months and consisted of two meetings in which participants were educated about AAC, made agreements on the implementation of AAC and reflected on these agreements. The changes in the proportions of ‘Ask’ and ‘Advise’ over time were modelled using linear mixed effects models. A descriptive analysis was conducted with regard to referrals to cessation counselling. Results Participants provided consultations to 29,112 patients (both smokers and non-smokers). The proportion of patients that were asked about smoking (‘Ask’) significantly decreased in the first three months (pre-intervention), but slightly increased again after the implementation strategy came into effect (post-intervention). No significant change over time was found with regard to the proportion of patients advised to quit (‘Advise’). Descriptive statistics suggested that more participants proactively (vs. passively) referred patients to cessation counselling (‘Connect’) post-intervention. Conclusions The findings indicate that a comprehensive implementation strategy can support primary care providers in offering smoking cessation care to patients, even under stressful COVID-19 conditions. Additional implementation efforts are needed to increase the proportion of patients that receive a quit advice.
Interested in Diversity Bodó, Balázs; Helberger, Natali; Eskens, Sarah ...
Digital journalism,
02/2019, Volume:
7, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Using survey evidence from the Netherlands, we explore the factors that influence news readers' attitudes toward news personalization. We show that the value of personalization depends on commonly ...overlooked factors, such as concerns about a shared news sphere, and the depth and diversity of recommendations. However, these expectations are not universal. Younger, less educated users have little exposure to non-personalized news, and they also show little concern about diverse news recommendations. We discuss the policy implications of our findings. We show that quality news organizations that pursue reader loyalty and trust have a strong incentive to implement personalization algorithms that help them achieve these particular goals by taking into account diversity expecting user attitudes and providing high quality recommendations. Diversity-valuing news readers are thus well placed to be served by diversity-enhancing recommender algorithms. However, some users are in danger of being left out of this positive feedback loop. We make specific policy suggestions regarding how to address the issue of diversity-reducing feedback loops, and encourage the development of diversity-enhancing ones.
We present a first complete overview of the bryophyte-lichen syntaxa in the Netherlands, including diagnostic species and Red List status of vegetations representing each (sub)association. The ...classification is based on more than 5000 Dutch vegetation relevés, the majority recorded after the year 2000. Whenever appropriate, we integrated bryophyte and lichen syntaxonomy. The Dutch list of bryolichenosociological units consists of 168 syntaxa: 16 classes, 27 orders, 37 alliances, 82 associations and 6 subassociations. We present synoptic tables of 13 newly described syntaxa: two alliances, nine associations and two subassociations. Finally, we present ranges of the abiotic habitat variables moisture, light availabilty, nutrient richness and acidity on class level, based on estimated values of diagnostic species of individual associations in each class.
PDF
