OBJECTIVE: Our aim was to determine whether the impact of upward and downward social comparison information on individuals' motivation to manage their diabetes is dependent on their regulatory focus (promotion or prevention focus) and self-efficacy.DESIGN: The hypotheses were examined in a cross-sectional study. Patients with diabetes (N = 234) read a fictitious interview with a fellow patient, either an upward or a downward target, and they filled out questionnaires.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Motivation to work on diabetes regulation.RESULTS: High promotion-focused patients reported more motivation than low promotion-focused patients when confronted with the upward target (positive role model). High prevention-focused patients reported more motivation than low prevention-focused patients when confronted with the downward target (negative role model). This latter finding was qualified by patients' self-efficacy, as it applied only to patients with relatively high levels of self-efficacy.CONCLUSION: The current study highlights the importance of considering individual differences when using role models to encourage self-care activities in persons with diabetes.
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The rise of financial technology (fintech) driven business models in banking poses a challenge for financial regulators. While the positive effects on the banking sector in terms of greater diversity and competition are generally recognized and encouraged by regulators, the nature of fintech business models may increase the risk of financial instability. Regulators are exploring ways to resolve this dilemma. The paper in hand makes a contribution to the literature by providing a framework for resolving the dilemma that is evaluated in the context of the regulatory response to the rise of fintech credit in the Netherlands. The semi-structured interviews which we conducted with four senior Dutch regulators resulted in three areas that–from their perspective–required urgent action: fintech credit companies need to lower the risk of overlending, increase pricing transparency, and improve lending standards. These findings were confirmed by the results of they survey among fintech credit clients. The current regulatory response to the rise of fintech in banking in the Netherlands provides an interesting case study that delineates the features of the future regulation of fintech in banking.
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To facilitate energy transition, in several countries regulators have devised ‘regulatory sandboxes’ to create a participatory experimentation environment for exploring revision of energy law. These sandboxes allow for a two-way regulatory dialogue between an experimenter and an approachable regulator to innovate regulation and enable new socio-technical arrangements. We focus on the Dutch Energy Experimentation Decree (EED) that invites homeowners’ associations and energy cooperatives to propose projects prohibited by extant regulation. In order to localize, democratize and decentralize energy provision, local experimenters can, for instance, organise peer-to-peer supply and determine their own tariffs for energy transport.
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Within the food industry there is a need to be able to rapidly react to changing regulatory requirements and consumer preferences by adjusting recipes, processes, and products. A good knowledge of the properties of food ingredients is crucial in this process. Currently this knowledge is available in scattered heterogeneous resources such as scientific peer-reviewed articles, databases, recipes, food blogs as well as in the experience of food-experts. This prevents, in practice, the efficient integration and use of this knowledge, leading to inefficiency and missed opportunities. In this project we will build a structured database of properties of food ingredients, focusing in particular on the taste and texture properties. By large-scale collection and text mining on a large number of textual resources, a comprehensive data set on ingredient properties will be created, along with knowledge on the relationships between these ingredients. This database will then be used for to find new potential applications for healthy and taste enhancing ingredient combinations by network-based discovery methods and artificial intelligence algorithms will be used. A concrete focus will be on application questions formulated by the industrial partners. The resulting hypothesis will be validated in a real life setting at the premises of the industrial partners. The deliverables of this project will be: - A reusable open-access ingredient database that is accessible via a user-friendly web portal - A set of state-of-the-art mining algorithms that can address a wide variety of industry driven use cases - Novel product formulations that can be further developed for the consumer and business2business market
Project focusing on developing a public affairs advice for the corporate business case aiming at development of LNG niche market. The advice is based on research in five areas: (1) an overview of existent regulatory framework with regard to the use of LNG in a small scale market in the EU and selected countries, (2) identification of broadly defined communication issues, (3) suggestions on business development opportunities (strategic partnerships, LNG for vessels, LNG in Baltic Sea area, (4) mapping of stakeholders, (5) suggestions on improvement of business and regulatory environment.
The textiles and apparel industry faces increasing regulatory pressure to reduce its negative environmental and social impact. A widely discussed strategy is to extend the active lifecycle of garments through durable, better quality clothing. Durability, however, is an ambiguous concept and a more complex understanding of durability is emerging that goes beyond material strength to notions of emotional, social and functional durability that live in consumers’ mindsets. Our understanding of durability and how it impacts product design, reuse, repair and recycling is limited and businesses find it difficult to incorporate durability into more sustainable and circular business models, particularly where there is also an element of degrowth or slow growth. Additionally, digital technologies, particularly for traceability and product information, are needed and require new organizational capabilities and change. Our project proposes to explore the concept of durability in the apparel and textiles industry, focusing on how various industry actors (e.g. fashion brands, designers, suppliers, consumers) define durability and how they incorporate it into commercially viable circular business models. Our proposal is timely in that local, national and EU research agendas are stimulating sustainable and circular transformation. Nationally, we address questions in the Nationale Wetenschaps Agenda (NWA-ORC), e.g. the call on the theme Ab-initio circular materials design that emphasizes an interdisciplinarity approach for circular redesign and includes aspects of socio-economic relevance, raw material innovations and digital tooling. On the EU level, policies, directives and regulations, so called New Industrial Strategies, are aimed at helping industry towards green and digital transformation. Our proposal is pertinent to the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles and the Transition Pathway for the Textiles Ecosystem. Calls in the near future offer opportunities for the consortium to access funding for continued research and industry collaboration.
