‘The fear of crime’ is “upon everybody’s tongue” nowadays (Farrall & Gadd 2004:1). The concept is widely accepted as social problem across the globe (Gray, Jackson & Farrall 2008, Garland 2001) as it is held to impinge ‘(…) upon the well-being of a large proportion of the population’ (Farralll et al. 1997:658). But do we actually have a valid picture of a genuine ‘social problem of striking dimensions’ (Ditton 1999:83)? Critical voices say we don’t. ‘The fear of crime’ - as we generally know it - is seen by them as ‘(…) a product of the way it has been researched rather than the way it is’ (Farrall et al. 1997:658). And still, 45 years after the start of research, ‘surprisingly little can be said conclusively about the fear of crime‘ (Ditton & Farrall 2000:xxi). This research contributes to a growing body of knowledge - from especially the last fifteen years - that treats ‘the fear of crime’ as ‘(…) a complex allocation of interacting feelings, perceptions, emotions, values and judgments on the personal as well as the societal level’ (Pleysier 2010:43). One often replicated and paradoxical observation catches the eye: citizens perceive a growing threat of crime to their society, but consequently perceive a low risk that they themselves will fall victim of crime. Taking a social psychological approach (e.g. see Farrall et al. 2000; Jackson 2008), we will search for suitable explanations for this paradoxical observation in the fear of crime’s research tradition. The aim of this research is ‘to integrate social psychological concepts related to the individual’s identity and evaluation of his position in an increasingly complex society, to enhance our understanding of the fear of crime concept’ (Pleysier & Cops 2016:3).
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This paper introduces and contextualises Climate Futures, an experiment in which AI was repurposed as a ‘co-author’ of climate stories and a co-designer of climate-related images that facilitate reflections on present and future(s) of living with climate change. It converses with histories of writing and computation, including surrealistic ‘algorithmic writing’, recombinatory poems and ‘electronic literature’. At the core lies a reflection about how machine learning’s associative, predictive and regenerative capacities can be employed in playful, critical and contemplative goals. Our goal is not automating writing (as in product-oriented applications of AI). Instead, as poet Charles Hartman argues, ‘the question isn’t exactly whether a poet or a computer writes the poem, but what kinds of collaboration might be interesting’ (1996, p. 5). STS scholars critique labs as future-making sites and machine learning modelling practices and, for example, describe them also as fictions. Building on these critiques and in line with ‘critical technical practice’ (Agre, 1997), we embed our critique of ‘making the future’ in how we employ machine learning to design a tool for looking ahead and telling stories on life with climate change. This has involved engaging with climate narratives and machine learning from the critical and practical perspectives of artistic research. We trained machine learning algorithms (i.e. GPT-2 and AttnGAN) using climate fiction novels (as a dataset of cultural imaginaries of the future). We prompted them to produce new climate fiction stories and images, which we edited to create a tarot-like deck and a story-book, thus also playfully engaging with machine learning’s predictive associations. The tarot deck is designed to facilitate conversations about climate change. How to imagine the future beyond scenarios of resilience and the dystopian? How to aid our transition into different ways of caring for the planet and each other?
Described are the results of an investigation in the appreciation of distance learning, limited to a case study with an online lab-experiment. Together with other educational institutes and companies Fontys University of Applied Sciences participated in a number of projects in which distance learning courses were developed. Some courses have been integrated in the regular curriculum. Our study was set up to get insight into the appreciation of students for this way of learning, especially concerning online lab-experiments. By using surveys and interviews after the students accomplished either a regular course or a distance learning course on the same object we tried to get a better understanding of how students used the course and appreciated it. Also we wanted to know whether an online lab-experiment is more or less effective than a regular one. Preliminary data analyses have shown that the appreciation of an online lab-experiment is dependent on a number of items, like the educational contents of the experiment itself, the way accompanying theory is presented, possibilities of doing the experiment in an alternative way, the organization around the experiment etc. It appears also that students give serious suggestions on developing other online lab-experiments.
The Dutch hospitality industry, reflecting the wider Dutch society, is increasingly facing social sustainability challenges for a greying population, such as increasing burnout, lifelong learning, and inclusion for those distanced from the job market. Yet, while the past decades have seen notable progress regarding environmental sustainability and good governance, more attention should be paid to social sustainability. This concern is reflected by the top-sector healthcare struggles caused by mounting social welfare pressure, leading to calls by the Dutch government for organizational improvement in social earning capacity. Furthermore, the upcoming EU legislation on CSRD requires greater transparency regarding financial and non-financial reporting this year. Yet, while the existing sustainability accreditation frameworks offer guidance on environmental sustainability and good governance reporting, there must be more guidance on auditing social sustainability. The hospitality industry, as a prominent employer in the Netherlands, thus has a societal and legislative urgency to transition its social earning capacity. Dormben Hotel The Hague OpCo BV (Dormben) has thus sought support in transitioning its social sustainability standards to meet this call. Hotelschool, the Hague leads the consortium, including Green Key Nederland and Dormben, by employing participatory design to present a social sustainability accreditation framework. Initially, Dr. David Brannon and Dr. Melinda Ratkai from Hotelschool The Hague will draft a social sustainability accreditation framework informed by EFRAG. Subsequently, Erik van Wijk, from Green Key Nederland, the hospitality benchmark for sustainability accreditation, and Sander de Jong, from Dormben, will pilot the framework through four participatory workshops involving hospitality operators. Later, during a cross-industry conference, Dr. David Brannon and Dr. Melinda Ratkai will disseminate a social sustainability toolkit across their academic and industry networks. Finally, conference and workshop participants will be invited to form a social sustainability learning community, discussing their social earning capacity based on the revised sustainability accreditation.
Improving equal access to inclusive and high-quality services ineducation, training and lifelong learning by developinginfrastructure, including by promoting resilience for education andtraining at a distance and online.
Het project "Port State Control" was aangevraagd om onderzoek te kunnen doen naar de oorzaak wan het grote aantal aanhoudingen van Nederlandse schepen in buitenlandse havens. Doel van het onderzoek was om belangrijke oorzaken daarvan boven water te krijgen en oplossingen daarvoor te onderzoeken en bedenken. Schepen worden door PSC gecontroleerd, waarbij er wordt gekeken of ze voldoen aan de internationale wet- en regelgeving, met name de veiligheid aan boord. Reders en bemanning zijn verantwoordelijk voor een veilige uitvoer van de taken aan boord. Indien er tekortkomingen worden geconstateerd, mag een PSC-autoriteit een schip aanhouden. Uit de onderzoeken naar de oorzaken blijk onder andere: - Nalatigheid bemanning bij controles installaties door werkdruk en repetitief werk, kennis niet beschikbaar. - Nalatigheid rederij; besparen op onderhoudskosten. - Het aantal en de kwaliteit van de bemanning aan boord van Nederlandse schepen. - Nalatigheid eindconsument; logistiek proces dient zo goedkoop mogelijk te zijn vanwege lage prijs. Consequentie: minder investeringen in bemanningen en scheepsonderhoud. Het project doet daarom de volgende aanbevelingen: Om bemanningen aan boord zo goed mogelijk voor te bereiden op PSC-inspecties is kennisvalorisatie erg belangrijk. De laatste informatie dient beschikbaar te zijn. Rederij is daar werantwoordelijk voor. De betrokkenheid van de reder is belangrijk bij het motiveren van de bemanning. Daarbij is scheepsfamiliarisatie cruciaal. Net zoals het verantwoordelijkheidsgevoel m.b.t. de scheepsveiligheid. Een tastbaar eindproduct van het project is de Port State Contol app. De app is een digitale omgeving die laat zien hoe situaties wel of niet horen te zijn. Met deze app worden bemanningsleden bekend gemaakt met het schip waar ze op komen te varen. Innovaties als Virtual Reality en distance learning zou de essentiële verbeterslag gemaakt kunnen !Worden. Met inzet van digitale hulpmiddelen kan de familiarisatie van nieuwe bemanningsleden werbeterd worden zodat zij beter zijn voorbereid op de taak aan boord.
