Reviewing Traces of Virtual Campuses

Author(s):  
Helena Bijnens ◽  
Ilse Op de Beeck ◽  
Johannes De Gruyter ◽  
Wim Van Petegem ◽  
Sally Reynolds ◽  
...  

The chapter first describes the concepts of virtual campus and virtual mobility and refers to several past and present projects and initiatives in the field. Through these previous experiences, a shift of concepts is noticed: from the fully online virtual campus to virtual mobility, whereby the more traditional universities open their borders and “blended models” gain more and more interest. Three cases demonstrate this evolution: the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium) is progressively organising its educational support from a multicampus perspective; the Open University of The Netherlands is broadening its tasks towards lifelong learning; and in the GIS case, the virtual campus is used as a strategic means to ensure a valuable and transdisciplinary approach. To redefine the concept of virtual campus in order for it to be applicable to the changed educational needs of today, the Re.ViCa project has been set up. The project makes an inventory and systematically reviews cross-institutional virtual campuses from the past decade. Outputs will include a set of recommendations that can be applied to ensure the realisation of new successful virtual campus initiatives.

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 329-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Falco Hietbrink ◽  
Roderick M. Houwert ◽  
Karlijn J. P. van Wessem ◽  
Rogier K. J. Simmermacher ◽  
Geertje A. M. Govaert ◽  
...  

Abstract Introduction In 1999 an inclusive trauma system was initiated in the Netherlands and a nationwide trauma registry, including all admitted trauma patients to every hospital, was started. The Dutch trauma system is run by trauma surgeons who treat both the truncal (visceral) and extremity injuries (fractures). Materials and Methods In this comprehensive review based on previous published studies, data over the past 20 years from the central region of the Netherlands (Utrecht) was evaluated. Results It is demonstrated that the initiation of the trauma systems and the governance by the trauma surgeons led to a region-wide mortality reduction of 50% and a mortality reduction for the most severely injured of 75% in the level 1 trauma centre. Furthermore, major improvements were found in terms of efficiency, demonstrating the quality of the current system and its constructs such as the type of surgeon. Due to the major reduction in mortality over the past few years, the emphasis of trauma care evaluation shifts towards functional outcome of severely injured patients. For the upcoming years, centralisation of severely injured patients should also aim at the balance between skills in primary resuscitation and surgical stabilization versus longitudinal surgical involvement. Conclusion Further centralisation to a limited number of level 1 trauma centres in the Netherlands is necessary to consolidate experience and knowledge for the trauma surgeon. The future trauma surgeon, as specialist for injured patients, should be able to provide the vast majority of trauma care in this system. For the remaining part, intramural, regional and national collaboration is essential


AJIL Unbound ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 115 ◽  
pp. 11-16
Author(s):  
Giesela Rühl

The past sixteen years have witnessed the proliferation of international commercial courts around the world. However, up until recently, this was largely an Asian and a Middle Eastern phenomenon. Only during the past decade have Continental European countries, notably Germany, France and the Netherlands, joined the bandwagon and started to create new judicial bodies for international commercial cases. Driven by the desire to attract high-volume commercial litigation, these bodies try to offer international businesses a better dispute settlement framework. But what are their chances of success? Will more international litigants decide to settle their disputes in these countries? In this essay, I argue that, despite its recently displayed activism, Continental Europe lags behind on international commercial courts. In fact, although the various European initiatives are laudable, most cannot compete with the traditional market leaders, especially the London Commercial Court, or with new rivals in Asia and the Middle East. If Continental Europe wants a role in the international litigation market, it must embrace more radical change. And this change will most likely have to happen on the European––not the national––level.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4592
Author(s):  
Fabio Bothner

The number of emission trading and carbon taxation schemes implemented has grown rapidly over the past decade. Together, they cover approximately 16% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Although more than two-thirds of global GHG emissions are related to household consumption, approaches that directly target households, such as personal carbon trading (PCT), do not play a role in the fight against climate change. This is especially puzzling as measures taken so far are not sufficient to reach the 2 °C target. One clue to solving this puzzle comes from political science in the form of the multiple streams approach, which defines criteria that a policy proposal must meet to become part of the political agenda. Based on these criteria, this article conducts a systematic review on PCT to clarify why PCT does not play a role in the reduction of GHG emissions. The results show that there are three main problems with the PCT proposal. First, scholars often criticize the set-up costs as well as the running costs of such a system. Second, there is no clear consensus within the research community on public acceptance of PCT. Third, it is still unclear whether politicians are receptive to PCT or not.


1995 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
D.R.A. Uges

SummaryToxicology is one of the eldest areas of special attention in medicine and pharmacy. In the past, forensic toxicology was the most important part, but nowadays, at least in the Netherlands, the clinical, occupational and environmental toxicology have the centre of attention.The brain plays its own role in the clinical toxicology. There the intoxication can take place, it can be the basis of the peripheral symptoms of the intoxication or it can be the cause of the intoxication, e.g. at a suicidal attempt or the hospital addiction syndrome.The somatic treatment of an intoxicated patient includes in the first place the stabilization of the patient (cardio-vascular, ventilation and central effects); then the removal of the poison from the surroundings and out of the patient by different suitable methods and finally the symptomatic treatment, sometimes with antidotes.In the Netherlands, hardly any intoxication is fatal, when the patient arrives in the hospital in time, or euthanasia took place on purpose.


2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 49-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Bouras ◽  
Silvia Davey ◽  
Tracey Power ◽  
Jonathan Rolfe ◽  
Tom Craig ◽  
...  

Maudsley International was set up to help improve people's mental health and well-being around the world. A variety of programmes have been developed by Maudsley International over the past 10 years, for planning and implementing services; building capacity; and training and evaluation to support organisations and individuals, professionals and managers to train and develop health and social care provisions. Maudsley International's model is based on collaboration, sharing expertise and cultural understanding with international partners.


Author(s):  
Martin Verlaan ◽  
Annette Zijderveld ◽  
Hans de Vries ◽  
Jan Kroos

The accurate forecasting of storm surges is an important issue in the Netherlands. With the emergence of the first numerical hydrodynamic models for surge forecasting at the beginning of the 1980s, new demands and possibilities were raised. This article describes the main phases of the development and the present operational set-up of the Dutch continental shelf model, which is the main hydrodynamic model for storm surges in the Netherlands. It includes a brief discussion of applied data-assimilation techniques, such as Kalman filtering, the model calibration process and some thoughts on quality assurance in an operational environment. After further describing some select recent investigations, the paper concludes with some remarks on future developments in a European context.


1921 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-252
Author(s):  
Harold M. Vinacké

It is now nine years since the outbreak of the Chinese revolution. It is fifteen years since the Manchus attempted to maintain their control by introducing representative institutions into China. The development toward constitutional and representative government under the Manchus was checked in 1911 by the revolutionary movement. When the Chinese Republic was established as the successor to the alien Manchu Empire it was felt that the problem of modernizing China bade fair to be solved, and that in an orderly way her political institutions would be brought into harmony with western standards. Unfortunately that orderly progress has not come. Parliamentary government under the Nanking (provisional) Constitution was replaced by the dictatorship of Yuan Shih-kai under the arrangements of the so-called constitutional compact, which in turn was followed by the attempt to reëstablish the monarchy. The failure of the monarchy movement brought back parliamentary government, but before a permanent constitution could be adopted Parliament was again dissolved, and a government controlled by a military clique set up in its place. Since this military government was unacceptable to the southern provinces, the country became divided. So far it has not been possible for the country to reconcile its differences. Instead of an ordered constitutional progress, has come apparent failure in the effort to establish representative government. The name of a republic has been maintained, it is true, and the forms of constitutional government have been retained, but a permanent national government has not been set up, nor has popular government replaced the paternal despotism of the past.


2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-2
Author(s):  
Chris Roseveare ◽  

Clinicians working in acute medicine will be familiar with change. The speciality and the environment we work in has changed continually over the past 15 years – I often reflect that no two years have been the same since I started working in the field back in 1999. Change is important, in order to achieve best practice, but sustaining such improvements can be an enormous challenge. The regular turnover of medical staff, local management restructuring and the constantly shifting National goal posts often conspire against us. It is easy for ‘changefatigue’ to set in. Submissions to this journal often describe local audits and service improvement projects which have raised standards: a low baseline may result in a statistically significant improvement from a relatively small intervention – often an education programme or poster campaign to raise awareness of the problem. However, what happens next is far more important: can the improvement be sustained when the key driver behind the project – the enthusiast – moves on, after their 4 month block of acute medicine comes to an end? One year on, we are often back where we started. Two articles in this edition appear to have achieved the Holy Grail of sustainability. In the paper by Joanne Botten from Musgrove Park, door to antibiotic time was improved for patients with neutopaenic sepsis by introducing a system whereby the antibiotics could be administered without waiting for a prescription to be written. The combination of a neutropaenic sepsis alert card and a patient-specific direction empowered the nurses and patients to ensure administration within an hour of arrival in over 90% of cases, a figure which has been sustained for over a year. Sustainable change is often facilitated by modifications in paperwork, but crucially the project’s success was not reliant on a single individual. The value of engaging with the wider team is also shown in Gary Misselbook’s paper describing sustained improvement in the layout and utility of an AMU procedure room. The authors describe how repeated attempts by different registrars had failed to achieve more than temporary reorganisation; the change was only sustained when nursing, infection control and administrative staff became involved in the process. The multiprofessional nature of the AMU is one of its greatest assets – we would all do well to remember this when instigating change. On a similar note, observant readers may have noticed some changes to the editorial board of this journal – I am delighted to welcome Dr Tim Cooksley, acute physician from Manchester and Dr Prabath Nanayakkara from the VUMC in the Netherlands. Tim came through the acute medicine training programme in the North West and his role in the acute oncology service at the Christie Hospital as well as his active involvement in the SAMBA project over recent years brings an important perspective to the editorial team. Prabath has been heavily involved with the development of acute medicine in the Netherlands and co-hosted the successful SAMSTERDAM meeting in 2014. His international perspective will be welcome as we attempt to extend the reach of Acute Medicine to our European neighbours over the coming years. I am very grateful to Nik Patel, Mark Jackson and Ashwin Pinto for their help and support during the past decade and wish them well for the future.


Author(s):  
O. Morhuniuk

An article is devoted to the analysis of the functions and formats of political parties in consociational democracies. In particular, it is defined that parties that represent the interests of certain subcultures in society and that reach a consensus among themselves at the level of political agreements are called segmental. At the same time, parties that encapsulate different subgroups of the society that cooperate inside the party within main features of the consociational theory (grand coalition, mutual veto, proportionality in representations, and independence of segments or society subcultures) are called consociational. The theory of consociationalism has received a wide range of theoretical additions and criticism from political scientists over the past fifty years. And while political parties should have been, by definition, one of the key aspects of research within such democratic regimes (parties are part of large coalitions and agents of representation of certain subcultures), there is very scarce number of literature that focuses on this aspect. Therefore, the presented article provides a description of the functions of political parties that could be observed as inside their subcultures as well as in interaction with other segmental parties. Based on the experience of two European countries in the period of “classical” consociationalism (Belgium and the Netherlands), we explain the functions of the parties we have defined in such societies with examples of relevant consociational practices in them. Simultaneously with the analysis of segmental parties, the article also offers the characteristics of consociational parties. The emergence of such parties has its own institutional and historical features. The way of further development of the party system and the level of preservation of consociational practices makes it possible to understand the nature of changes in the societies. Similarly, the analysis of the forms of party competition and interaction between segmental parties makes it possible to outline the forms of those consociational changes that are taking place in the research countries.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 218-234
Author(s):  
PURMER MICHIEL ◽  
HENK BAAS

Threatened ruins. Castle remains in the Dutch landscape anno 2019 In The Netherlands, around 80 castle ruins are preserved. In 1997, a book was dedicated to the castle ruin. A year later, one of the authors of this paper investigated castle remains as part of a historical geographical inventory. In 2012, the Dutch State Heritage Agency wrote a practical guide for the conservation and development of castle ruins. In this article, the authors describe the development of ruins in the past 20 years. They tried to investigate the development of the castle ruins since the late nineties and tried to categorize this. Rebuilding of the castle, partly or totally, appeared in almost 10% of all ruins. In other cases, there was attention for the touristic infrastructure around the ruin. In most cases however (68%), the ruins stayed more or less intact, with sometimes careful consolidation or restoration. Sometimes, the surroundings of the ruin changed dramatically with the development of housing, infrastructure or other forms of urbanization. In other examples, historical gardens were restored or reconstructed. There are however several plans for the rebuilding or reconstruction of ruins. These plans often provide the new castle with functions, from wedding location to hotel or office-space. This could be a good development for castles destroyed relatively short ago, i.e. in the Second World War or in de postwar period. Many ruins are however destroyed centuries ago. Given the limited amount of ruins in The Netherlands and the sometimes centuries old development of the landscape and the ruin itself, the authors plea for more attention for the castle ruins as such.


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