Scriptiebank overzicht

Is it possible to predict the area-level prevalence of COVID-19 infections in Belgium by
analyzing self-reported symptoms on Twitter? This research project is about generating
estimates of the incidence of COVID-19 infections, at the municipality level, by using
Multilevel Regression Post-Stratification (MrP) to account for sampling biases in the social
media sample. At first, tweets are obtained from users based on keywords derived from
previous research, e.g., tweets mentioning fever, cough, loss of taste, fatigue, etc. Then, key
demographic and geographical features of interest are extracted using the M3 deep learning
pipeline, as well as simple self-reported characteristics, effectively transforming the
unstructured twitter sample into a survey-like object. Finally, based on these demographic
features and census characteristics, a mixed effects logistic regression model with
post-stratification according to the Belgian census is proposed to forecast the number of
infected individuals on a particular day. This study intends to contribute to the proof of
concept of a complete end to end pipeline to perform real time predictions of disease
prevalence at a granular level in a population using social media data.

De aangetoonde voordelen van midden rug manipulaties hebben therapeuten geholpen in hen therapeutisch handelen. Desondanks, een gebrek aan duidelijkheid over de kennis en gebruik hiervan visualiseert de nood aan aanvullend onderzoek. Het doel van de huidige studie was het nagaan van de kennis en gebruik van midden rug manipulaties onder erkende manuele therapeuten in België.

Deze scriptie gaat over de invloed van historische trots en retrospectie ten aanzien van de hedendaagse mentaliteit inzake cultuur en politiek.

De chocolade-industrie draait op volle toeren, maar de cacaoboer blijft arm. Verschillende initiatieven om de keten te verduurzamen waren tevergeefs. Tony’s Open Chain, het commons-initiatief Tony’s Chocolonely, lijkt daar evenwel verandering in te brengen.

Deze bachelorproef onderzoekt de effecten van een Engels taalkamp op de Engelse taalvaardigheid en Engelse kennis bij deelnemers tussen de zeven en twaalf jaar.

This thesis proposes a reference architecture to enhance business process architectures with IoT technology, enabling business processes to not only sense the environment but also steer IoT objects.

Om aan te tonen hoe de indivduele gegevensoverdracht verloopt tussen wetenschappers en uitvinders, gaan we door verschillende variabelen aantonen dat de sterkte van deze relatie tussen academici en uitvinders een belangrijk effect heeft op de uiteindelijke waarde van de uitvinding. We onderzoeken ook of deze relatie belangrijker is in het geval van novel research.

This master thesis aims to acquire more understanding in the advantages of bus lanes. The paper is subdivided into two main parts. The first part of the research is a literature study, where one will investigate very briefly the evolution of traffic and the use of public transport. This will be followed by a closer look into the phenomenon of bus lanes. Here one will summarize the different types of bus lanes and their possible advantages in certain situations. The first part will be closed with the information one gained during the literature study concerning the methods of measurements to mathematize and visualize the possible relevant advantages. There are two common ways in capturing the details of the underlying system, the first one is a method based on simulation (microscopic-cellular automata). The second one is based on an analytical approach (the queuing theory).
In the second part one will couple the gained knowledge regarding the literature study with a case study in Ghent. For this research one has chosen the Rooigemlaan, in particular the area of the intersection between the Rooigemlaan and the Drongensesteenweg in Ghent. The goal of this case study will be to scale the advantages of an ordinary lane, a dedicated bus lane with and without set back and a lane with intermitted priority for buses. These advantages will be linked with the advantages offered by the use of transit signal priority. To end this thesis one will evaluate the previous described bus lane types and their influences on traffic, this will be done by sensitivity analysis where one will change the input values. To finalize the research, a conclusion will be formed based on a cost-benefit analysis.

Nowadays, performing multitasking activities on the move has become more and more popular. Such propensity has increasingly attracted lots of attentions from scholars. In this streamline, the thesis is to explore how multitasking activities are performed in different modes of public transport (PT) in Brussels city, and whether they are affected by the demographics, distance and level of crowdedness factors. In addition, it looks into the way and how PT passengers interact with their information and communication technology (ICT) devices. Structured observation is used to conduct the survey of 1216 PT passengers (on bus, tram and metro) in May 2016. The result shows, on the one hand, that the length of the journey and demographics have significant impact on passengers’ decision to multitask. On the other hand, it proves that the frequency of using ICTs not only being influenced by demographics, but its relationship with the transport types is also moderated by crowdedness level. On top of that, a comparison with a previous study which adopted a different methodology but in the same context is conducted both to confirm the reliability and validity of this paper and to give an insight about Brussels public transport and its users’ multitasking tendency.

The Cofán people of Zábalo, a community in the Ecuadorian Amazon, have always engaged pragmatically on an everyday basis with their forest-based lifestyle and relations with the government, corporations and outsiders (fuesu a’i). However, in recent years the community has been dealing with growing uncertainty, internal economic inequality, high unemployment, and an Ecuadorian state that extends governmental control, while also neglecting the needs of people in this region. A myriad of factors discussed in this paper, including the increased integration of outside commodities into the Cofáns’ daily life, have led me to believe that unless the Cofán gain access to a steady source of financial income to purchase basic supplies and commodities (such as bullets, gasoline and salt), many people will have to look for work outside the community or allow oil companies to exploit their resources. The growing accumulation of wealth by just two families in the community, increasing dependence on money, lack of access to jobs, and internal political divisions have increased distrust and bad talk (ega afa’cho). Through a two-month stay with the community, where I interviewed 25 individuals (collecting 67 hours of semi-structured interviews) and produced 7 short films , I mainly sought to answer the following three questions: What political and economic changes have these people encountered in recent years? What is the community’s relationship with money, commodities and other sources of value? Can the Cofán maintain an ideal tranquil (opatssi) life and take care of the forest (tsampima coiraye), while simultaneously engaging with external influences, including restrictive laws, expansion of the capitalist frontier, commodities, the Socio Bosque environmental conservation government scheme, populist local politicians, and the potential of oil exploitation?

I conclude that Zábalo is currently a frontier of ‘negligent hegemonic control’ and is becoming more assimilated into the global economic market, creating a greater dependence on money and commodities, which is both changing people’s relationship to the concepts of opatssi and tsampima coiraye and also making them more likely find a pragmatic solution to their economic problems, such as allowing oil exploitation. Finally, this paper advocates for an engaged, activist anthropology in the context of a neoliberal world with increasing inequality, marginalized indigenous peoples, and increasing environmental degradation.

1 Problem definition and research questionsYoung Innovative Companies (YICs) play a crucial role in today’s innovation landscape. Because these companies spend at least 15 percent of their budget on R&D, they are considered to be highly innovative. Moreover, these companies are also very young, small and often lack financial resources. Therefore, they face so-called innovation boundaries that prevent them from intensifying their innovation and R&D activities.

De beleving van het ouderschap na eiceldonatie. Een kwalitatief onderzoek naar de wijze van communiceren door ouders na eiceldonatie en de beleving van de asymmetrie in het ouderschap.Promotor: prof. dr. Peter RoberTot op heden is er in de literatuur weinig onderzoek geleverd naar de beleving van de asymmetrie binnen het ouderschap na eiceldonatie. Objectief gezien schuilt er een asymmetrie tussen het genetisch (sociaal-biologisch) ouderschap van de vader en het sociaal-biologisch ouderschap van de moeder.

In het eerste gedeelte wordt een studie gemaakt van wat reeds speelt in de wetgeving, zowel op internationaal, Europees als Vlaams niveau. Daarbij wordt vooral de nadruk gelegd op duurzame maatregelen. Zo is recent de “Europe 2020”-strategie opgesteld, waarin drie grote klimaatdoelstellingen worden vooropgesteld. De informatie werd gehaald van officiële overheidssites. Wanneer men graag meer informatie wenst over bepaalde onderwerpen, kan dit gevonden worden via de informatiebronnen in de voetnoten. Daarnaast wordt de nodige aandacht besteed aan de bestaande methodologie en tools.

Van plaag tot zonneoven, het (haast) onbeperkte potentieel van Fab Lab’s en informatiedelenEen invasieve waterplantensoort die gebruikt wordt als voornaamste bouwmateriaal bij de constructie van milieuvriendelijke zonneovens.

Abstract – We designed a program to get better recommendations then those given by most search engines. To do this each user has his own profile in which his search history is stored. By combining this profile and ontology based reasoning, recommendations are generated. Afterwards the recommendations are enriched with context information. The program was tested on a set of data obtained through a questionnaire.IntroductionThe well known problem with search engines is that they always display a lot of unwanted recommendations.

 
 
Defence of the Research Paper presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Master of Advanced Studies in Theology and Religion:

“Crossing Over. Contemporary Feminist Theologians on the Theology of the Cross.”
 

 
Dear gentlemen,
To start off this defence, I will sketch the problems concerning the theology of the cross that my research has inquired into. Next, I will briefly outline the scope of my research, sketching the answers proposed by the feminist theologians in my reading and finally I will voice the results I arrived at.

 
This thesis describes how the social-ecological system around the Mara wetlands has changed during the previous five decades. These wetlands are mainly fed by the Mara River, which has its sources in the Kenyan Mau Escarpment. After flowing through two worldfamous wildlife parks (Serengeti and Maasai Mara), it continues in the downstream Tanzanian Mara wetlands and finally flows out in Lake Victoria.
The major focus of this thesis is on how the riparian Wakenye people in Northwest Tanzania have adapted their livelihoods to the changing context.

Samenvatting
In dit onderzoek werd het effect nagegaan van schematiseren op begrijpend lezen en op metacognitie. In totaal namen 269 leerlingen en 14 leerkrachten uit 15 klassen, verspreid over het vijfde en zesde leerjaar deel aan het onderzoek. De leerlingen uit de experimentele conditie leerden ofwel schema’s maken of kregen schema’s. De leerlingen uit de controlegroep kregen verbale toelichtingen omtrent het verwerken van een tekst.
De resultaten van dit onderzoek wijzen uit dat schematiseren niet leidt tot significant hogere scores op een gestandaardiseerde begrijpend leestoets.