This paper proposes and showcases a methodology to develop an observational behavior assessment instrument to assess psychological competencies of police officers. We outline a step-by-step methodology for police organizations to measure and evaluate behavior in a meaningful way to assess these competencies. We illustrate the proposed methodology with a practical example. We posit that direct behavioral observation can be key in measuring the expression of psychological competence in practice, and that psychological competence in practice is what police organizations should care about. We hope this paper offers police organizations a methodology to perform scientifically informed observational behavior assessment of their police officers’ psychological competencies and inspires additional research efforts into this important area.
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Blended behavior change interventions combine therapeutic guidance with online care. This new way of delivering health care is supposed to stimulate patients with chronic somatic disorders in taking an active role in their disease management. However, knowledge about the effectiveness of blended behavior change interventions and how they should be composed is scattered. This comprehensive systematic review aimed to provide an overview of characteristics and effectiveness of blended behavior change interventions for patients with chronic somatic disorders.
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The 2014 EU Directive on Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) lays down obligations for the EU Member States to establish a maritime planning process, resulting in a maritime spatial plan by 2020. Consultation should be carried out with local, national and transnational stakeholders. Stakeholder engagement in MSP is complex because of the great number and diversity of maritime stakeholders and the unfamiliarity of some of these stakeholders with MSP and its potential impact. To facilitate stakeholder engagement in MSP, the 'MSP Challenge' table top strategy game was designed and played as part of several stakeholder events in different European countries. The authors study the efficacy of the game for stakeholder engagement. Background and evaluation data of nineteen game sessions with a total of 310 stakeholders with different backgrounds were collected through post-game surveys. Furthermore, the efficacy of the game for stakeholder engagement processes, organised by competent MSP authorities in Scotland and Belgium, is studied in more detail. The results show that the board game, overall, has been a very efficient and effective way of familiarising a great diversity of stakeholders with MSP and to create meaningful interaction and learning among stakeholders in formal planning processes. However, the case studies also show that contextual factors-the level of familiarity with MSP and participants' perception to sustainability-influences the efficacy of the game.
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Socio-economic pressures on coastal zones are on the rise worldwide, leaving increasingly less room for natural coastal change without affecting humans. The challenge is to find ways for social and natural systems to co-exist, co-develop and create synergies. The recent implementation of multi-functional, nature-based solutions (NBS) on the sandy Dutch coast seem to offer great potential in that respect. Surprisingly, the studies evaluating these innovative solutions paid little attention to how the social and natural systems interact in the NBS-modified coastal landscapes and if these interactions strengthen or weaken the primary functions of the NBS. It is not clear whether the objectives to improve coastal resilience and spatial quality will be met throughout the lifetime of the intervention. In the proposed project we will investigate the socio-bio-physical dynamics of anthropogenic sandy shores applying a Living Lab approach, documenting and analyzing interactions between evolving anthropogenic shores (Sand Motor and Hondsbossche Duinen, Fig.1) and people that use and manage these NBS-modified landscapes. Socio-bio-physical interactions will be investigated at various scales, and consequences for the long-term functionality of the NBS will be assessed, by coupling an agent-based social model and a cellular automata landscape model. By studying the behavior of the coupled system we aim to identify limits to, and optima in, multi-functionality of the NBS design, and will study how various stakeholders can influence the development of the NBS in desired directions with respect to primary NBS functions, including social and ecological goals. Together with consortium partners from public and private sectors we will co-create guidelines for management and maintenance of multifunctional NBS and design procedures and visualization tools for intervention design.
The Hereon team has expressed interest in the use of the PO platform for the virtualization of the (hydro)dynamic behavior of offshore wind farms, in particular regarding turbidity around wind turbines. BUas has developed the Procedural Ocean (PO) platform. The platform uses procedural content generation (AI) for data-driven 3D virtualization of complex marine and maritime environments, with elements such as geo-environment (bathymery, etc.), geo-physics (weather conditions, waves), wind farms, aquaculture, shipping, ecology, and more. The virtual and immersive environment in the game engine Unreal supports advanced (game-like) user interaction for policy-oriented learning (marine spatial planning), ocean management, and decision making. We therefore propose a joint pilot Research and Development (R&D) project to explore, demonstrate and validate how a gridded dataset provided by Hereon can show the dynmics around wind farm monopiles. Furthermore, we can explore interactivity with the engineering and design of the turbine and the multiplication of the turbine design to compose a wind farm. Client: Hereon (The Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon is a non-profit making research institute )
