This study offers an overview of the natural development of the use of an activity tracker, as well as the relative importance of a range of determinants from literature. Decay is exponential but slower than may be expected from existing literature. Many factors have a small contribution to sustained use. The most important determinants are technical condition, age, user experience, and goal-related factors. This finding suggests that activity tracking is potentially beneficial for a broad range of target groups, but more attention should be paid to technical and user experience–related aspects of activity trackers.
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The sense of safety and security of older people is a widely acknowledged action domain for policy and practice in age-friendly cities. Despite an extensive body of knowledge on the matter, the theory is fragmented, and a classification is lacking. Therefore, this study investigated how older people experience the sense of safety and security in an age-friendly city. A total of four focus group sessions were organised in The Hague comprising 38 older people. Based on the outcomes of the sessions, the sense of safety and security was classified into two main domains: a sense of safety and security impacted by intentional acts and negligence (for instance, burglary and violence), and a sense of safety and security impacted by non-intentional acts (for instance, incidents, making mistakes online). Both domains manifest into three separate contexts, namely the home environment, the outdoor environment and traffic and the digital environment. In the discussions with older people on these derived domains, ideas for potential improvements and priorities were also explored, which included access to information on what older people can do themselves to improve their sense of safety and security, the enforcement of rules, and continuous efforts to develop digital skills to improve safety online. Original article at MDPI; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19073960
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Background and aim – This paper studies urban decline, the processin which the built environment suddenly or gradually loses its practical,technical and economic functionality, resulting in it being abandonedby its legitimate occupants and neglected by its owners for an extended period of time. Recent European examples of urban decline fromaround the globe as well as five German examples were studied. This isfollowed by a reflection on the risks for public safety and public healththat these examples show and the possible role of facility managers indiminishing these risks.Methods / Methodology – Data were collected by means of desk research and direct observations.Results – At all locations public safety and public health risks were considerable. Direct observations at five German locations show extensive urban decline.Originality –Identifying safety and health risks in abandoned buildings and connecting these issues to the facility management profession offers a new perspective on dealing with urban decay.Practical or social implications – Abandoned buildings that are easily accessible to the public generate considerable risks for public safety and health. This paper calls for a debate about how to deal with these risks. Part of the debate should be whether or not such situations should be allowed to continue.Moreover, this paper suggests a prominent role for the facility management profession in order to deal with these safety and health issues.Type of paper – Research paper.
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Report in English on the results of the international Master Class by Stadslab on intercultural park design. The case described is a design for for a park in Eastern Ukrainian city of Melitopol. A redevelopment strategy is proposed for its historic Gorky Park (1936). The book also contains essays by intercultural cities expert Phil Wood and introductions by Marc Glaudemans, Beatriz Ramo and Olexandr Butsenko.
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Purpose: Intellectual capital theory and practice predominantly focus on measuring and managing intangible assets. However, if we want to balance the intellectual capital books (Harvey and Lusch, 1999), we should recognize both intellectual assets and intellectual liabilities (Caddy, 2000). Therefore, the purpose of this article is to present a theoretical framework for measuring intellectual liabilities. Design: Identifying intangible liabilities is identifying the risk of decline and fall of organizations. One of the first extensive studies related to causes of decline and fall is Gibbon‟s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Gibbon, 2003 [original publication 1776]). It seems as if the main lessons that were drawn from this study are also applicable to today‟s business environment. Therefore, the framework that is developed in this article is not only based on intellectual capital literature, but also on Gibbon‟s study into the causes of decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Findings: The findings are combined in a framework for measuring intellectual liabilities. The main distinction within the proposed framework is the distinction between internal and external liabilities. Internal liabilities refer to the causes of deterioration that arise from the sources of value creation within the organization. External liabilities refer to the causes of deterioration that come from outside and are beyond control of the organization. Originality: This article explores a relatively new topic (intellectual liabilities) from a perspective (historical sciences) that is hardly used in management science.
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Recent research has indicated an increase in the likelihood and impact of tree failure. The potential for trees to fail relates to various biomechanical and physical factors. Strikingly, there seems to be an absence of tree risk assessment methods supported by observations, despite an increasing availability of variables and parameters measured by scientists, arborists and practitioners. Current urban tree risk assessments vary due to differences in experience, training, and personal opinions of assessors. This stresses the need for a more objective method to assess the hazardousness of urban trees. The aim of this study is to provide an overview of factors that influence tree failure including stem failure, root failure and branch failure. A systematic literature review according to the PRISMA guidelines has been performed in databases, supported by backward referencing: 161 articles were reviewed revealing 142 different factors which influenced tree failure. A meta-analysis of effect sizes and p-values was executed on those factors which were associated directly with any type of tree failure. Bayes Factor was calculated to assess the likelihood that the selected factors appear in case of tree failure. Publication bias was analysed visually by funnel plots and results by regression tests. The results provide evidence that the factors Height and Stem weight positively relate to stem failure, followed by Age, DBH, DBH squared times H, and Cubed DBH (DBH3) and Tree weight. Stem weight and Tree weight were found to relate positively to root failure. For branch failure no relating factors were found. We recommend that arborists collect further data on these factors. From this review it can further be concluded that there is no commonly shared understanding, model or function available that considers all factors which can explain the different types of tree failure. This complicates risk estimations that include the failure potential of urban trees.
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This booklet holds a collection of drawings, maps, schemes, collages, artistic impressions etc. which were made by students during an intense design moment in the project (re)CYCLE Limburg, which took place in December 2016. Students of Built Environment, Facility Management, Social Work and Health & Care cooperated in making designs and developing strategies for urban renewal in Kerkrade West (Province of Limburg, the Netherlands). The study focused on the importance of qualitative and shared public spaces. The local community (inhabitants, shopkeepers, entrepreneurs, municipality, housing corporation) was actively engaged by sharing knowledge and information, ideas and opinions. These reflections are part of the Limburg Action Lab (part of the Smart Urban Redesign Research Centre). It engages in research by design on innovative and tactical interventions in public space, that might enhance the identity, sustainability and socio-spatial structure of neighbourhoods.
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Until recently, we separated farmers and urban communities. Each had their own ministries, policy plans, cultures, knowledge and education institutes and even political parties. Now we accept that this division is gone in the Netherlands. Rural areas ceased to exist, and urbanity was found everywhere. Former rural areas were transformed into green spaces inside metropolitan areas. Farmers and peaceful villages woke up and saw themselves surrounded by cities. Even more: city dwellers became their neighbours. The time has come that we look upon farming and urbanised areas as an integrated system.
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Background: Modern modeling techniques may potentially provide more accurate predictions of dichotomous outcomes than classical techniques. Objective: In this study, we aimed to examine the predictive performance of eight modeling techniques to predict mortality by frailty. Methods: We performed a longitudinal study with a 7-year follow-up. The sample consisted of 479 Dutch community-dwelling people, aged 75 years and older. Frailty was assessed with the Tilburg Frailty Indicator (TFI), a self-report questionnaire. This questionnaire consists of eight physical, four psychological, and three social frailty components. The municipality of Roosendaal, a city in the Netherlands, provided the mortality dates. We compared modeling techniques, such as support vector machine (SVM), neural network (NN), random forest, and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator, as well as classical techniques, such as logistic regression, two Bayesian networks, and recursive partitioning (RP). The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) indicated the performance of the models. The models were validated using bootstrapping. Results: We found that the NN model had the best validated performance (AUROC=0.812), followed by the SVM model (AUROC=0.705). The other models had validated AUROC values below 0.700. The RP model had the lowest validated AUROC (0.605). The NN model had the highest optimism (0.156). The predictor variable “difficulty in walking” was important for all models. Conclusions: Because of the high optimism of the NN model, we prefer the SVM model for predicting mortality among community-dwelling older people using the TFI, with the addition of “gender” and “age” variables. External validation is a necessary step before applying the prediction models in a new setting.
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From the article: "A facile approach for the fabrication of large-scale interdigitated nanogap electrodes (nanogap IDEs) with a controllable gap was demonstrated with conventional micro-fabrication technology to develop chemocapacitors for gas sensing applications. In this work, interdigitated nanogap electrodes (nanogap IDEs) with gaps from 50–250 nm have been designed and processed at full wafer-scale. These nanogap IDEs were then coated with poly(4-vinyl phenol) as a sensitive layer to form gas sensors for acetone detection at low concentrations. These acetone sensors showed excellent sensing performance with a dynamic range from 1000 ppm to 10 ppm of acetone at room temperature and the observed results are compared with conventional interdigitated microelectrodes according to our previous work. Sensitivity and reproducibility of devices are discussed in detail. Our approach of fabrication of nanogap IDEs together with a simple coating method to apply the sensing layer opens up possibilities to create various nanogap devices in a cost-effective manner for gas sensing applications"
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