One of the core elements of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) is a survey of adult skills. The survey measures adults’ proficiency in literacy, numeracy, and problem solving in technology-rich environments. Furthermore, the survey gathers data on how adults …

We are well into the 21st century now and the urgency for lifelong learning is growing especially regarding numeracy. There are major societal and policy pressures on education to prepare citizens for a complex and technologized society, in literature referred to as “21st century skills” (Voogt & ParejaRoblin, …

The purpose of this dissertation is to document research conducted at The Hague University of Applied Sciences on the topic of the role of the European Union in the Catalan separation crisis. The central question of this research was: How have the EU Institutions dealt with the Catalan separation …

Speech interactions are often associated with virtual assistants and smart home devices, designed primarily for private contexts. A less developed domain is speech interfaces in public contexts. In a smart city development project, we explored the potential of distributed conversational speech interfaces …

Bankrupting Nature: Denying our Planetary Boundaries by Andres Wijkman and Johan Rockström emerges from the original report of The Club of Rome’s The Limits to Growth authored by Meadows and colleagues in 1972. This book demonstrates that an economy built on the …

The potential of a ‘data-driven life’, together with the realization of Weiser’s vision of ‘the disappearing computer’ have been embraced by many. However, the increasing invisibility, virtuality and complexity of data systems also come with a variety of concerns, such as issues of sensemaking, ownership, …

Past decades traditional agricultural landscapes characterized by a wide variety of grasslands, field boundaries, watercourses, and trees started to disappear. Population growth required an ever-increasing demand for food and traditional agricultural systems were converted to monocultures. With this …

Higher education institutions are more and more attempting to connect research to teaching. One way of enhancing this connection is within the work of academics. Currently it is unknown if research and teaching are connected in the work of academics and if this relationship differs between new and old …

The increasing rate of urbanization along with its socio-environmental impact are major global challenges. Therefore, there is a need to assess the boundaries to growth for the future development of cities by the inclusion of the assessment of the environmental carrying capacity (ECC) into spatial management. …

Introduction In the harbor of Zierikzee there is a strong tidal influence. The difference between the water levels during high and low tide lies around the three meters. The harbors De Oude Haven and ‘T Sas fall dry during an extremely low tide. When these harbors fall dry, foundations will come in …