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Climate change: the question is not anymore if it happens, but what the impact is of its effects such as drought, heat waves and increased precipitation on the quality of our lives in cities, offices and houses. A significant share of the Northern European housing stock is owned and maintained by large stock owners, such as housing associations. It is their responsibility to be aware of changes and risks that might challenge the quality of life of their tenants. Moreover, in order to provide housing with a good market value in the future, adaptation to climate change can no longer be overlooked.

With the aim to discover the level of awareness of climate change adaptation among Dutch housing associations, a content analysis was undertaken on the policy plans and the annual reports of the 25 largest housing associations. Subsequently they were classified according to their level of awareness. The analysis returned no topics that directly referred to climate change adaptation, which implies that all housing associations are categorised as being ‘unaware’. Therefore, in order to reach higher levels of awareness and to incentivize the implementation of adaptation measures, appropriate governance strategies need to be developed. Future research will define the characteristics of these strategies in relation to the level of awareness of the housing associations. Adoption of the measures could be easier if adaptation measures are combined with maintenance activities, as this has been the case with mitigation measures.

Governmental institutions must cooperate with other organizations across institutional boundaries to achieve high-quality service offerings. The required cooperation may lead to complex networks, including several of the thousands of public administrations in the many federal layers of a single country. This paper aims to address the key challenge of the proper management of the information exchange between networked actors, which is generally conducted by means of forms.

Following the design science research paradigm, this research develops a method that assists in the design and maintenance of forms in public administrations.

Discussions in the project’s focus groups add evidence to the researchers’ expectation that the method developed in this study improves the quality of forms while reducing the effort required for their design and maintenance.

This paper includes an evaluation of the approach based on qualitative feedback from the project’s stakeholders, although the implementation of the workflows and procedures is subject to future work that evaluates the approach in a variety of practical settings.

The method developed in this paper allows public administrations and legislative authorities to design and manage forms in a cooperative way. Software developers can assume the existence of information structures. The approach extends the BOMOS standardization framework to the operational level.

The main contribution of this paper is the development of a novel method that will change how information exchange is managed in public administrations.

The executive summary of the report of an 18‐month research project on public library policy and social exclusion based at Leeds Metropolitan University and conducted in partnership with the London Borough of Merton (Libraries), Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, and John Vincent, an independent consultant. Briefly describes the background to the research and gives a summary of the study findings and the main conclusions and recommendations. The study examines the context of social exclusion and the nature of the problems facing public libraries and other public institutions in tackling disadvantage.

The undergraduate curricula of a large academic institution are varied, extensive, and interdisciplinary. It is the academic library's task to support these curricula and to develop an extensive collection to sustain the demands of faculty and students.

Community profiling several recent research studies (eg see NLW, June) have emphasised the need for more effective marketing of library and information services. A new CRUS publication is intended to help librarians set about the task of gathering the necessary information to do this properly. Community profiling in the library context aims to define a community in a way which is relevant to the planning and evaluation of library services, but different types of community require different approaches. Christina Beal has now written a comprehensive report covering the different methods possible. Community profiling for librarians (CRUS Occasional Paper 12) costs £17.50 from Consultancy and Research Unit, Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN (Tel: 0742‐738608).

Today′s high‐technology, global marketing environment has made consumer product information available across national boundaries. Explores how six multinational consumer product firms (Colgate‐Palmolive, Kraft GF, Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, Quaker Oats and Unilever) maintain, change or adapt different brand names for identical or similar products. Field research was conducted in supermarkets, medium‐sized grocery stores, department stores and drug stores from 1993‐1995 in 67 countries on five continents. Brand and country data were utilized to identify global, regional, spillover and single country brands. Additional information was collected on country of origin as well as point of sale. Product and brand distribution were analyzed by firm and product type. Less than 1% of brands were global brands (those found in 90% or more of the countries surveyed). Procter & Gamble has the most global brands, with 8% of the brands studied distributed in 50% or more of the countries. The majority of brands (50‐72%) are available in three or fewer countries.

This study's main objective is to assess remittances' effect on real exchange rate movements pre- and post-GFC.

The sample for this study includes 199 countries and independent territories for the period between 1999 and 2019. Furthermore, this period is divided into pre-GFC (inclusive) from 1999 to 2009 and post-GFC from 2010 to 2019. This paper uses a one-step GMM estimation on linear dynamic panel data.

The significant results from this study show that the exchange rate of remittances depreciates in every country, especially in low-middle-income countries. It has been found that, in high-income countries, the first lag of remittances has a significantly negative impact.

This study examines macroeconomic variables and remittance impacts, revealing clear trends in consumption patterns and exchange rates. Families use remittances for savings and investments, depreciating exchange rates. This suggests Dutch disease in economies, especially after GFC.

Policy implications involve increasing exporter costs through variable taxes or retention, depreciating exchange rates and encouraging recovery from the Dutch disease. This promotes commodity trade and long-term economic benefits, while self-balancing protects against currency value depreciation.

This concepts originality lies in the focus on the impact of remittances on exchange rates and sectoral imbalances in various income-level countries over a significant period. The proposed policy implications aim to address the potential negative consequences of remittances on the economy, making it a valuable contribution to the existing research in this field.

The purpose of this paper is to measure reliability, validity and accuracy of the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) as a measure of emotional wellbeing in pregnant women; utility and threshold in particular.

The authors measured self-reported emotional wellbeing responses of 164 low-risk pregnant Dutch women with the GHQ-12 and a dichotomous case-finding item (Gold standard). The authors established internal consistency of the 12 GHQ-items (Cronbach’s coefficient α); construct validity: factor analysis using Oblimin rotation; convergent validity (Pearson’s correlation) and discriminatory ability (area under the receiver operating characteristics curve and index of union); and external validity of the dichotomous criterion standard against the GHQ-12 responses (sensitivity, specificity, likelihood ratios and predictive values), applying a cut-off value of ⩾ 12 and ⩾ 17, respectively.

A coefficient of 0.85 showed construct reliability. The GHQ-12 items in the pattern matrix showed a three-dimensional factorial model: factor 1, anxiety and depression; factor 2, coping; and factor 3, significance/effect on life, with a total variance of 59 per cent. The GHQ-12 showed good accuracy (0.84; p=<0.001) and external validity (r=0.57; p=<0.001) when the cut-off value was set at the ⩾ 17 value. Using a cut-off value of ⩾ 17 demonstrated higher sensitivity (72.32 vs 41.07 per cent) but lower specificity (32.69 vs 55.77 per cent) compared to the commonly used cut-off value of ⩾ 12.

Findings generally support the reliability, validity and accuracy of the Dutch version of the GHQ-12. Further evaluation of the measure, at more than one timepoint during pregnancy, is recommended.

The GHQ-12 holds the potential to measure antenatal emotional wellbeing and women’s emotional responses and coping mechanisms with reduced antenatal emotional wellbeing.

Adapting the GHQ-12 cut-off value enables effective identification of reduced emotional wellbeing to provide adequate care and allows potential reduction of anxiety among healthy pregnant women who are incorrectly screened as positive.

A novel aspect is adapting the threshold of the GHQ-12 to ⩾ 17 in antenatal care.

This paper aims to analyze and compare attitudes and perceptions of Muslim leadership toward society and politics based on their personal experiences in England and the Netherlands.

This study provides valuable insights into how Muslim leadership experiences socio-political realities from own perspectives. The comparative analysis of Muslim leadership in England and the Netherlands highlights the unique qualities of each community, while also demonstrating shared communal awareness regarding political participation and concerns regarding the rise of Islamophobia and populism.

The study reveals significant differences between Dutch and British Muslim leadership regarding attitudes toward politics. While the Dutch political system enables minorities to have political parties, British leaders prefer peaceful resistance, internal cooperation and voting power for influence. Muslim communities in both countries face similar challenges, such as access to politics, rising Islamophobia and populism. However, there are variations in leadership maturity and attitudes toward communal unification and political participation.

Especially Dutch Muslims were much more open toward cooperation once approached. The biggest challenge was to get into the Muslim communities in England. Even though British Muslims showed a much greater aptitude toward their civic duties, British Muslims were much more careful and wished that interviews were written down instead of being recorded. But once the author was part of the community, community leaders were more accepting and tolerant towards the author's presence. From that point on, to be recommended (snowballing) became easier.

This research shows clearly how different ethnic Muslim communities differ across two different countries. Even though both countries have their own advantages and disadvantages, understanding how civic responsibilities and the progressive development of minority attitudes can be best approached is important to policymakers.

One major social implication is the way minorities perceive social and political equality and how these minority expectations can be met. Research shows that there is much fear and anxiety to growing sentiments of populism and right-wing appraisals. For a better integration and inclusion, a sound assessment of social and religious expectations is crucial.

As far as the author knows, there are no qualitative research studies that compare Muslim minority conditions in the Netherlands and England. This research makes this even more interesting for how to create policy that contributes to a European understanding of Muslim existence in Europe and a common European identity. This is crucial for a more stable and stronger European future.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodological approach to increase the clearance rate of cold cases in The Netherlands and to contribute to the development of intelligence-driven criminal investigations in general police practice and within cold case investigations in particular.

This proposal is based on practical investigative experience and academic knowledge.

Reconstructing scenarios helps convert cold case information into intelligence, which is beneficial to law enforcement agencies in terms of time, resources and prioritising cold cases. Intelligence contributes to the formulation of more effective queries and to a more efficient adaptation of new and existing investigation methods, leading to a higher cold case clearance rate. Moreover, scenario reconstruction creates a link between intelligence and investigation, i.e. between science and practice, which adds to the further development of intelligence-driven investigations.

When carrying out scenario reconstructions, practical implications are expected, as intelligence products are currently not or barely used in practice and science is not yet embedded in the investigational practice.

To move from scenario reconstruction to intelligence-driven criminal investigation, the gap between science and the investigational practice needs to be bridged by persons familiar with both. This study hopes to provide the necessary and relevant impetus to this dialogue.