Current understandings of similarity with media characters often focus on visible attributes including gender and race, yet overlook deep-level characteristics such as personality, attitudes, and experiences. In the present research, we address this limitation and develop and validate the Character Recognizability Scale (CRS), which captures different ways in which audiences can recognize themselves in characters. Based on a previous interview study, we formulated 26 scale items. Subsequently, we conducted two studies. In Study 1, we used a sample of 219 university students in the Netherlands to conduct an exploratory factor analysis. We determined the reliability, as well as criterion and convergent validity of the entire scale and the retained factors. In Study 2, we used a sample of 247 respondents in the United States to conduct a confirmatory factor analysis and replicate the results of the reliability and validity analyses. Based on Study 1, we kept 20 items. In both studies, the overall CRS scale as well as its subscales for Personality Recognizability (CRS-p), Attitudinal Recognizability (CRS-a), and Experiential Recognizability (CRS-e) showed a good internal consistency. They also showed criterion validity through an association with perceived similarity. Finally, the CRS and its subscales correlated positively with media engagement and exposure measures, thus demonstrating convergent validity.
TheUniversity of Twente, SaxionUniversityofAppliedSciences, ROCofTwente(vocationaleducation), centre of expertise TechYourFuture and the H2Hub Twente, in which various regional hydrogen interested corporations are involved, work together to shape a learning community (LC) for the development of innovative hydrogen technology. The cooperation between company employees, researchers and students provides a means to jointly work on solutions for real-life problems within the energy transition. This involves a cross-chain collaboration of technical programs, professorships and (field) experts, supported by human capital specialists. In the LC, a decentralized hydrogen production unit with storage of green hydrogen is designed and built. The main question for this research is: how can the design and construction process of an alkaline electrolyzer be arranged in a challenge based LC in which students, company employees (specialists) and researchers from the three educational institutions can learn, innovate, build-up knowledge and benefit? In this project the concept of a LC is developed and implemented in collaboration with companies and knowledge institutions at different levels. The concrete steps are described below: 1. Joint session between Human Resource and Development (HRD) specialists and engineers/researchers to explore the important factors for a LC. The results of this session will be incorporated into a blueprint for the LC by the human capital specialists. 2. The project is carried out according to the agreements of the blueprint. The blueprint is continuously updated based on the periodic reflections and observed points for improvement. 3. Impact interviews and periodic reflection review the proceeding of the LC in this engineering process. The first impact interview reveals that the concept of the LC is very beneficial for companies. It increases overall knowledge on hydrogen systems, promotes cooperation and connection with other companies and aids to their market proposition as well. Students get the opportunity to work in close contact with multiple company professionals and build up a network of their own. Also the cooperation with students from different disciplines broadens their view as a professional, something which is difficult to achieve in a mono-disciplinary project.
MULTIFILE
BACKGROUND & AIMS: Qualitative studies suggest that malnutrition awareness is poor in older adults. The aim of this study was to develop a questionnaire to quantitatively assess malnutrition awareness in community-dwelling older adults aged 60+ years.METHODS: The Malnutrition Awareness Scale (MAS) was developed based on the awareness phase of the Integrated-Change model, and included four domains: knowledge, perceived cues, risk perceptions, and cognizance. Twenty-six scale items were developed using results from mainly qualitative research and the expertise of the authors. Items were piloted in 10 Dutch older adults using the Thinking Aloud method to optimize wording. In a feasibility study, annoyance, difficulty and time to complete the MAS and its comprehensibility were tested. After final revisions, the MAS was applied to a large sample to test its psychometric properties (i.e., inter-item correlations, Cronbach's alpha, score distribution) and relevance of the items was rated on a 5-point scale by 12 experts to determine content validity.RESULTS: The feasibility study (n = 42, 55 % women, 19 % 80+ y) showed that the MAS took 12 ± 6 min to complete. Most participants found it not (at all) annoying (81 %) and not (at all) difficult (79 %) to complete the MAS, and found it (very) comprehensible (83 %). Psychometric analyses (n = 216, 63 % women, 28 % 80+ y) showed no redundant items, but two items correlated negatively with other items, and one correlated very low. After removal, the final MAS consists of 23 items with a min-max scoring range from 0 to 22 (with higher scores indicating higher awareness) and an overall Cronbach's alpha of 0.67. The mean MAS score in our sample (n = 216) was 14.8 ± 3.2. The lowest obtained score was 6 (n = 3) and the highest 22 (n = 1), indicating no floor or ceiling effects. Based on the relevance rating, the overall median across all 22 items was 4.0 with IQR 4.0-5.0.CONCLUSION: The Malnutrition Awareness Scale is a novel, feasible and reliable tool with good content validity to quantitively assess malnutrition awareness in community-dwelling older adults. The scale is now ready to identify groups with poor malnutrition awareness, as a basis to start interventions to increase malnutrition knowledge and awareness.
Denim Democracy from the Alliance for Responsible Denim (ARD) is an interactive exhibition that celebrates the journey and learning of ARD members, educates visitors about sustainable denim and highlights how companies collaborate together to achieve results. Through sight, sound and tactile sensations, the visitor experiences and fully engages sustainable denim production. The exhibition launches in October 2018 in Amsterdam and travels to key venues and locations in the Netherlands until April 2019. As consumers, we love denim but the denim industry, like other sub-sectors in the textile, apparel and footwear industries, faces many complex sustainability challenges and has been criticized for its polluting and hazardous production practices. The Alliance for Responsible Denim project brought leading denim brands, suppliers and stakeholders together to collectively address these issues and take initial steps towards improving the ecological sustainability impact of denim production. Sustainability challenges are considered very complex and economically undesirable for individual companies to address alone. In denim, small and medium sized denim firms face specific challenges, such as lower economies of scale and lower buying power to affect change in practices. There is great benefit in combining denim companies' resources and knowledge so that collective experimentation and learning can lift the sustainability standards of the industry and lead to the development of common standards and benchmarks on a scale that matters. If meaningful, transformative industrial change is to be made, then it calls for collaboration between denim industry stakeholders that goes beyond supplier-buyer relations and includes horizontal value chain collaboration of competing large and small denim brands. However collaboration between organizations, and especially between competitors, is highly complex and prone to failure. The research behind the Alliance for Responsible Denim project asked a central research question: how do competitors effectively collaborate together to create common, industry standards on resource use and benchmarks for improved ecological sustainability? To answer this question, we used a mixed-method, action research approach. The Alliance for Responsible Denim project mobilized and facilitated denim brands to collectively identify ways to reduce the use of water and chemicals in denim production and then aided them to implement these practices individually in their respective firms.
The denim industry faces many complex sustainability challenges and has been especially criticized for its polluting and hazardous production practices. Reducing resource use of water, chemicals and energy and changing denim production practices calls for collaboration between various stakeholders, including competing denim brands. There is great benefit in combining denim brands’ resources and knowledge so that commonly defined standards and benchmarks are developed and realized on a scale that matters. Collaboration however, and especially between competitors, is highly complex and prone to fail. This project brings leading denim brands together to collectively take initial steps towards improving the ecological sustainability impact of denim production, particularly by establishing measurements, benchmarks and standards for resource use (e.g. chemicals, water, energy) and creating best practices for effective collaboration. The central research question of our project is: How do denim brands effectively collaborate together to create common, industry standards on resource use and benchmarks for improved ecological sustainability in denim production? To answer this question, we will use a mixed-method, action research approach. The project’s research setting is the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (MRA), which has a strong denim cluster and is home to many international denim brands and start-ups.
Chemical preservation is an important process that prevents foods, personal care products, woods and household products, such as paints and coatings, from undesirable change or decomposition by microbial growth. To date, many different chemical preservatives are commercially available, but they are also associated with health threats and severe negative environmental impact. The demand for novel, safe, and green chemical preservatives is growing, and this process is further accelerated by the European Green Deal. It is expected that by the year of 2050 (or even as soon as 2035), all preservatives that do not meet the ‘safe-by-design’ and ‘biodegradability’ criteria are banned from production and use. To meet these European goals, there is a large need for the development of green, circular, and bio-degradable antimicrobial compounds that can serve as alternatives for the currently available biocidals/ preservatives. Anthocyanins, derived from fruits and flowers, meet these sustainability goals. Furthermore, preliminary research at the Hanze University of Applied Science has confirmed the antimicrobial efficacy of rose and tulip anthocyanin extracts against an array of microbial species. Therefore, these molecules have the potential to serve as novel, sustainable chemical preservatives. In the current project we develop a strategy consisting of fractionation and state-of-the-art characterization methods of individual anthocyanins and subsequent in vitro screening to identify anthocyanin-molecules with potent antimicrobial efficacy for application in paints, coatings and other products. To our knowledge this is the first attempt that combines in-depth chemical characterization of individual anthocyanins in relation to their antimicrobial efficacy. Once developed, this strategy will allow us to single out anthocyanin molecules with antimicrobial properties and give us insight in structure-activity relations of individual anthocyanins. Our approach is the first step towards the development of anthocyanin molecules as novel, circular and biodegradable non-toxic plant-based preservatives.
