The Steenbreek program is a private Dutch program which aims to involve citizens, municipalities and other stakeholders in replacing pavement with vegetation in private gardens. The Dutch approach is characterized by minimal governmental incentives or policy, which leaves a niche for private initiatives like Steenbreek, that mainly work on behavioural change. The aim of this paper is to build a model based on theory that can be used to improve and better evaluate depaving actions that are based on behavioural change. We tested this garden greening behaviour model in the Steenbreek program. The main result is that the model provides an understanding of the ‘how and why’ of the Steenbreek initiatives. Based on this we are able to provide recommendations for the improvement of future initiatives. Steenbreek covers a wide range of projects that together, in very different ways, take into account elements of the theoretical framework; either more on information factors, or on supporting factors, sometimes taking all elements together in a single action. This focus is sometimes understandable when just one element is needed (e.g., support), sometimes more elements could be taken into account to be more effective. If a certain element of the framework is lacking, the change of behaviour will not (or will only partly) take place. The model also gives insight into a more specific approach aimed at the people most susceptible to changing their behaviour, which would make actions more effective.
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Vorig zomer waren er voor het eerst mensen in Nederland besmet met het Westnijlvirus, waarschijnlijk door de gewone huissteekmug. Vaak denken mensen dat wadi's een ideale broedplaats zijn voor muggen, maar dat is niet het geval. Wetenschappers brengen nu met behulp van publiek in kaar waar muggenoverlast en klimaataanpassingen samen vallen - of juist niet.
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This special volume contains 21 papers on the invertebrates of Bonaire, and someother Dutch Caribbean islands. Most papers are based on material collected during the Bonaire Estafette Expeditie held in 2022-2023. In this introduction we give background information on the climate, geography and habitats of Bonaire and other Dutch Caribbean islands. We present information on the current state of knowledge on the terrestrial invertebrates of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao and give a description of the Bonaire Estafette Expeditie.
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De volksgezondheid is het belangrijkste doel van de riolering. Door de afvoer en zuivering van ons afvalwater is de sterfte aan infectieziektes en epidemieën, zoals cholera, dysenterie en andere dodelijke infectieziekten, verleden tijd geworden. Om dat zo te houden dienen we de mogelijke risico's te kennen, nieuwe (inter)nationale ontwikkelingen als 'van groen naar grijs' kritisch te bekijken en indien nodig ons waterbeheer en ons gedrag aan te passen.
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Chronic itching is a serious and uncomfortable condition. The scratch response might result in a vicious cycle of alternating itching and scratching. To develop psychological interventions for people suffering from chronic itching and to break the vicious itch-scratching-itch cycle, it is important to elucidate which environmental factors trigger itch sensations. Virtual reality (VR) techniques provide a useful tool to examine specific content characteristics in a three-dimensional (3D VR) environment and their influences on itch sensations and scratching behaviour. This article describes two experiments in which we focused on the effects of environmental information on itching and scratching behaviour. Additionally, in the second experiment, we examined the influence of having a chronic skin condition on sensitivity to itch induction. We found evidence for the importance of the content of audio–visual materials for the effectiveness in inducing feelings of itch in the observers. In both experiments, we observed significantly higher levels of perceived itch in the itch-inducing conditions than in the control condition. Moreover, the results showed that elevated levels of perceived itch were associated with an increase in scratching behaviours, which was especially salient in the contagious itch condition, in which perceived itch was accompanied by a significant increase in the number of scratches. Experiment 2 additionally showed increased perceived itch levels in participants who reported having a chronic skin condition, reflecting higher sensitivity to itch-inducing audio–visual stimuli in this group than in participants without a chronic skin condition. Based on the results we concluded that directing attention towards itch- or scratch aspects of related information in the environment and to the consequences for one’s own skin are effective tools to induce itch sensations and scratching behaviour. This knowledge provides tools for developing novel strategies in advising and treating people suffering from chronic itching and breaking the vicious itch-scratching-itch cycle.
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Adults of many mosquito species feed on plants to obtain metabolic energy and to enhance reproduction. Mosquitoes primarily rely on olfaction to locate plants and are known to respond to a range of plant volatiles. We studied the olfactory response of the yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegypti to methyl jasmonate (MeJA) and cis-jasmone (CiJA), volatile compounds originating from the octadecanoid signaling pathway that plays a key role in plant defense against herbivores. Specifcally, we investigated how Ae. aegypti of diferent ages responded to elevated levels of CiJA in two attractive odor contexts, either derived from Lima bean plants or human skin. Aedes aegypti females landed signifcantly less often on a surface with CiJA and MeJA compared to the solvent control, CiJA exerting a stronger reduction in landing than MeJA. Odor context (plant or human) had no signifcant main efect on the olfactory responses of Ae. aegypti females to CiJA. Mosquito age signifcantly afected the olfactory response, older females (7–9 d) responding more strongly to elevated levels of CiJA than young females (1–3 d) in either odor context. Our results show that avoidance of CiJA by Ae. aegypti is independent of odor background, suggesting that jasmonates are inherently aversive cues to these mosquitoes. We propose that avoidance of plants with elevated levels of jasmonates is adaptive to mosquitoes to reduce the risk of encountering predators that is higher on these plants, i.e. by avoiding ‘enemy-dense-space’.
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If you try to kill a mosquito with an entire army force, everyone 's going to think there 's something terrible about that mosquito. The press and government treats the Dutch public like idiots, this evokes exactly what one is trying to prevent: people are becoming suspicious and believe less in the measures and the real virus threat, and they are going to act as "woowoos".
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Improved cookstoves aimed at reducing exposure to indoor air pollution have had a lasting presence in development and health discussions. Through this article we contribute to current debates in the field by reflecting on our experiences during a cookstove participatory project in two ‘non-notified’ communities, or ‘slums,’ in Bangalore, India. We interrogate the alignment between some of the central tenets and methods of participation and the lived experiences of participating communities. The current predominant recommendations focus on developing and implementing cookstoves tailored for user needs. Yet, the project implementation entered a space of uncertainty where the priorities and needs of participants were diverse and changing. While urban infrastructures related to housing and work security, drainage systems, access to health care, and aspects of governance, citizenship and rights, may seem to fall outside the scope of ICS projects, our experiences show how inescapably they shape participatory processes and technologies. We highlight the need to take a closer look at how we can include these broader and changing priorities and needs in our methodologies and reflect on how we can better respond and align them with the ways in which people live.
MULTIFILE
The Feral Drifting with Lonja Wetlands workshop involved a 4-day feral, performative investigation of multispecies relations and spatio-temporalities of care that shape the flow of life and death in Lonjsko Polje (or Lonja Wetlands), the largest protected wetlands in Croatia. Together with 19 workshop participants, we experimented with feral ways of sensemaking that invite open-ended, multisensory, and spontaneous encounters unfolding beyond the bounds of human control.Inspired by the movements and rhythms of local, other-than-human creatures, such as storks, mosquitoes, storms, and the river Sava, as well as the artistic strategies of dérive (including their flaws), we drifted with the local ecologies and invited pathways towards care-full co-habitation. To navigate through these space-times, we experimented with various performative and speculative sense-making practices including walking, listening, storytelling and forming relations.This feral investigation resulted in co-creative outcomes – or fragments – in diverse forms, such as multispecies rituals, synesthetic maps, wayfinding games, and memory seed banks that were documented as short videos and later turned into the Feral Fragments of Lonjsko Polje film. Here, we share the key processes of our collective workshop and reflect on them in relation to the notion of feral data.
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Deze tekst beschrijft de globale digitale kloof. Daarbij wordt opgemerkt dat we ons niet mogen laten verleiden door de simpliciteit van het meetbare, t.w. het al dan niet hebben van een computer met internettoegang. De digitale kloof kent immers meerdere dimensies, waarvan bezit maar een is. Zo moet er bv. ook relevante inhoud beschikbaar zijn. Het is schrijnend te observeren dat er op internet massaal informatie beschikbaar is over ingeblikt voedsel voor huisdieren, maar weinig hoe cholera te vermijden. Waarom zou iemand in het zuiden dan op internet gaan ? Op het einde van deze tekst wordt de digitale kloof vergeleken met een eenhoorn.
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