Een holistisch perspectief op binnenstedelijke herontwikkeling Spatial Planning http://www.uu.nl/agenda/promotie-een-holistisch-perspectief-op-binnenstedelijke-herontwikkeling Promovendus Rien van Stigt onderzoekt waarom het moeilijk is om milieukwaliteit een prominente plaats te geven in de besluitvorming over ruimtelijke plannen. In zijn proefschrift ontwikkelt hij een holistisch perspectief op het complexe proces van compacte binnenstedelijke herontwikkeling. De kwaliteit van de stedelijke leefomgeving is essentieel in duurzame stedelijke ontwikkeling. Die kwaliteit staat met name bij compacte binnenstedelijke herontwikkeling onder druk, en daarom is milieukwaliteit een belangrijke factor in het plannen van zulke ontwikkelingen. Uit de literatuur over de integratie van milieubeleid blijkt dat dit, vooral op lagere bestuurlijke niveaus, niet altijd goed lukt. Er is nog geen overtuigende verklaring waarom dit zo is. Promotor(es): Prof.dr. P.P.J. Driessen en Prof.dr. T.J.M. Spit
BACKGROUND: The quality standards of the Dutch Society of Intensive Care require monitoring of the satisfaction of patient's relatives with respect to care. Currently, no suitable instrument is available in the Netherlands to measure this. This study describes the development and psychometric evaluation of the questionnaire-based Consumer Quality Index 'Relatives in Intensive Care Unit' (CQI 'R-ICU'). The CQI 'R-ICU' measures the perceived quality of care from the perspective of patients' relatives, and identifies aspects of care that need improvement.METHODS: The CQI 'R-ICU' was developed using a mixed method design. Items were based on quality of care aspects from earlier studies and from focus group interviews with patients' relatives. The time period for the data collection of the psychometric evaluation was from October 2011 until July 2012. Relatives of adult intensive care patients in one university hospital and five general hospitals in the Netherlands were approached to participate. Psychometric evaluation included item analysis, inter-item analysis, and factor analysis.RESULTS: Twelve aspects were noted as being indicators of quality of care, and were subsequently selected for the questionnaire's vocabulary. The response rate of patients' relatives was 81% (n = 455). Quality of care was represented by two clusters, each showing a high reliability: 'Communication' (α = .80) and 'Participation' (α = .84). Relatives ranked the following aspects for quality of care as most important: no conflicting information, information from doctors and nurses is comprehensive, and health professionals take patients' relatives seriously. The least important care aspects were: need for contact with peers, nuisance, and contact with a spiritual counsellor. Aspects that needed the most urgent improvement (highest quality improvement scores) were: information about how relatives can contribute to the care of the patient, information about the use of meal-facilities in the hospital, and involvement in decision-making on the medical treatment of the patient.CONCLUSIONS: The CQI 'R-ICU' evaluates quality of care from the perspective of relatives of intensive care patients and provides practical information for quality assurance and improvement programs. The development and psychometric evaluation of the CQI 'R-ICU' led to a draft questionnaire, sufficient to justify further research into the reliability, validity, and the discriminative power of the questionnaire.
MULTIFILE
Frequent claims are made for the importance of the hospitality industry, and wider tourism sector, as potential and actual creators of employment. Many of these claims emanate from industry representative and advocacy organizations, often as part of their legitimate efforts to lobby governments for favourable treatment of their sectors. Good quality universal statistical data on employment in hospitality are noticeable by their absence, although information collected by bodies such as the International Labour Organization is extensive. This paper reviews the current state of data availability on global hospitality employment (with a primary focus on commercial hospitality operations) and seeks to employ these secondary sources in investigating the question as to whether we can in fact make plausible statements about the extent of such employment. This exercise is important both to contextualizing claims made for the employment generating capacity of the hospitality industry and to shedding light on the degree of seriousness with which data might be treated in wider policy contexts. The paper concludes, with cautious optimism, that commercial hospitality is a significant global employer and that the claims made for this employment by representative and advocacy organizations are plausible if treated with circumspection.
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Based on the model outcomes, Houtlaan’s energy transition will likely result in congestion and curtailmentproblems on the local electricity grid within the next 5-7 years, possibly sooner if load imbalance between phasesis not properly addressed.During simulations, the issue of curtailment was observed in significant quantities on one cable, resulting in aloss of 8.292 kWh of PV production per year in 2030. This issue could be addressed by moving some of thehouses on the affects cable to a neighboring under-utilized cable, or by installing a battery system near the end ofthe affected cable. Due to the layout of the grid, moving the last 7 houses on the affected cable to the neighboringcable should be relatively simple and cost-effective, and help to alleviate issues of curtailment.During simulations, the issue of grid overloading occurred largely as a result of EV charging. This issue can bestbe addressed by regulating EV charging. Based on current statistics, the bulk of EV charging is expected to occurin the early evening. By prolonging these charge cycles into the night and early morning, grid overloading canlikely be prevented for the coming decade. However, such a control system will require some sort of infrastructureto coordinate the different EV charge cycles or will require smart EV chargers which will charge preferentiallywhen the grid voltage is above a certain threshold (i.e., has more capacity available).A community battery system can be used to increase the local consumption of produced electricity within theneighborhood. Such a system can also be complemented by charging EV during surplus production hours.However, due to the relatively high cost of batteries at present, and losses due to inefficiencies, such a systemwill not be financially feasible without some form of subsidy and/or unless it can provide an energy service whichthe grid operator is willing to pay for (e.g. regulating power quality or line voltage, prolonging the lifetime of gridinfrastructure, etc.).A community battery may be most useful as a temporary solution when problems on the grid begin to occur, untila more cost-effective solution can be implemented (e.g. reinforcing the grid, implementing an EV charge controlsystem). Once a more permanent solution is implemented, the battery could then be re-used elsewhere.The neighborhood of Houtlaan in Assen, the Netherlands, has ambitious targets for reducing the neighborhood’scarbon emissions and increasing their production of their own, sustainable energy. Specifically, they wish toincrease the percentage of houses with a heat pump, electric vehicle (EV) and solar panels (PV) to 60%, 70%and 80%, respectively, by the year 2030. However, it was unclear what the impacts of this transition would be onthe electricity grid, and what limitations or problems might be encountered along the way.Therefore, a study was carried out to model the future energy load and production patterns in Houtlaan. Thepurpose of the model was to identify and quantify the problems which could be encountered if no steps are takento prevent these problems. In addition, the model was used to simulate the effectiveness of various proposedsolutions to reduce or eliminate the problems which were identified
