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Extreme precipitation is projected to become more frequent and more intense due to climate change and associated thermodynamical effects, but the local response of atmospheric circulation under future climate scenarios remains uncertain due mainly to dynamical differences. In this study, we outline a methodology for a regional assessment of future extreme precipitation based on the Lamb Weather Type classification and to evaluate future changes in weather patterns. While anticyclonic days occur most frequently over Belgium, extreme rainfall is mostly associated with days of cyclonic, westerly and south-westerly weather patterns. GCMs from CMIP6 are first selected based on their reliability in representing local atmospheric circulation patterns during days with extreme rainfall days. It was found that for our case study over Belgium, the future (end-of-the-century SSP3-7.0) changes in intensity and likelihood of rainfall extremes can be primarily attributed to thermodynamic factors, with minimal contribution from changes in atmospheric dynamics. Both intensity and probability of extreme rainfall increase for all seasons. While extreme-rainfall probabilities mostly increase in fall a

During the COVID-19 pandemic, governments faced the challenge of managing population behavior to prevent their healthcare systems from collapsing. Sweden adopted a strategy centered on voluntary sanitary recommendations while Belgium resorted to mandatory measures. Their consequences on pandemic progression and associated economic impacts remain insufficiently understood. This study leverages the divergent policies of Belgium and Sweden during the COVID-19 pandemic to relax the unrealistic -- but persistently used -- assumption that social contacts are not influenced by an epidemic's dynamics. We develop an epidemiological-economic co-simulation model where pandemic-induced behavioral changes are a superposition of voluntary actions driven by fear, prosocial behavior or social pressure, and compulsory compliance with government directives. Our findings emphasize the importance of early responses, which reduce the stringency of measures necessary to safeguard healthcare systems and minimize ensuing economic damage. Voluntary behavioral changes lead to a pattern of recurring epidemics, which should be regarded as the natural long-term course of pandemics. Governments should carefully

This work validates a dynamic production network model, used to quantify the impact of economic shocks caused by COVID-19 in the UK, using data for Belgium. Because the model was published early during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, it relied on several assumptions regarding the magnitude of the observed economic shocks, for which more accurate data have become available in the meantime. We refined the propagated shocks to align with observed data collected during the pandemic and calibrated some less well-informed parameters using 115 economic time series. The refined model effectively captures the evolution of GDP, revenue, and employment during the COVID-19 pandemic in Belgium at both individual economic activity and aggregate levels. However, the reduction in business-to-business demand is overestimated, revealing structural shortcomings in accounting for businesses' motivations to sustain trade despite the pandemic's induced shocks. We confirm that the relaxation of the stringent Leontief production function by a survey on the criticality of inputs significantly improved the model's accuracy. However, despite a large dataset, distinguishing between varying degrees of relaxation p

Energy efficient technologies are particularly important for social housing settings: they offer the potential to improve tenants' wellbeing through monetary savings and comfort, while reducing emissions of entire communities. Slow uptake of innovative energy technology in social housing has been associated with a lack of trust and the perceived risks of adoption. To counteract both, we designed a communication campaign for a retrofit technology for heating including social norms for technology adoption and concretely experienced benefits. We report two randomized controlled trials (RCT) in two different social housing communities in Belgium. In the first study, randomization was on housing block level: the communication led to significant higher uptake rates compared to the control group, (b = 1.7, p = .024). In the second study randomization occurred on apartment level, again yielding a significant increase (b = 1.62, p = 0.02), when an interaction with housing blocks was considered. We discuss challenges of conducting randomized controlled trials in social housing communities.

We analyse and mutually compare time series of COVID-19-related data and mobility data across Belgium's 43 arrondissements (NUTS 3). In this way, we reach three conclusions. First, we could detect a decrease in mobility during high-incidence stages of the pandemic. This is expressed as a significant change in the average amount of time spent outside one's home arrondissement, investigated over five distinct periods, and in more detail using an inter-arrondissement ``connectivity index'' (CI). Second, we analyse spatio-temporal COVID-19-related hospitalisation time series, after smoothing them using a generalise additive mixed model (GAMM). We confirm that some arrondissements are ahead of others and morphologically dissimilar to others, in terms of epidemiological progression. The tools used to quantify this are time-lagged cross-correlation (TLCC) and dynamic time warping (DTW), respectively. Third, we demonstrate that an arrondissement's CI with one of the three identified first-outbreak arrondissements is correlated to a significant local excess mortality some five to six weeks after the first outbreak. More generally, we couple results leading to the first and second conclusion

Planning the defossilization of energy systems by facilitating high penetration of renewables and maintaining access to abundant and affordable primary energy resources is a nontrivial multi-objective problem. However, so far, most long-term policies to decrease the carbon footprint of our societies consider the cost of the system as the leading indicator in the energy system models. This paper is the first to develop a novel approach by adding the energy return on investment (EROI) to a whole energy system optimization model. We built the database with all EROI technologies and resources considered. In addition, moving away from fossil-based to carbon-neutral energy systems raises the issue of the uncertainty of low-carbon technologies and resource data. Thus, we conducted a global sensitivity analysis to identify the main parameters driving the variations in the EROI of the system. This novel approach can be applied to any energy system, and we use a real-world case study to illustrate the model: the 2035 Belgian energy system for several greenhouse gas emissions targets. The main results are threefold: (i) the EROI of the system decreases from 8.9 to 3.9 when greenhouse gas emis

Based on administrative data of unemployed in Belgium, we estimate the labour market effects of three training programmes at various aggregation levels using Modified Causal Forests, a causal machine learning estimator. While all programmes have positive effects after the lock-in period, we find substantial heterogeneity across programmes and unemployed. Simulations show that 'black-box' rules that reassign unemployed to programmes that maximise estimated individual gains can considerably improve effectiveness: up to 20 percent more (less) time spent in (un)employment within a 30 months window. A shallow policy tree delivers a simple rule that realizes about 70 percent of this gain.

These proceedings present the lectures given at the twenty-third specialized course organized by the CERN Accelerator School (CAS), the topic being 'Magnets'. The course was held in Bruges, Belgium, from 16 to 25 June 2009. This is the first time this topic has been selected for a specialized course. Taking into account the number of related applications currently in use in accelerators around the world, but, even more important, the worrying decrease in the corresponding expertise in the different laboratories, it was recognized that such a topic should definitively be incorporated into the CAS series of specialized courses. The specific aim of the course was to introduce the participants to the basics of resistive magnet design and its underlying theoretical concepts. The first part of the school dealt with basic introductory courses such as Maxwell's equations for magnets, beam optics, physics and measurement of magnetic materials, the different types of resistive magnets and their respective performance, an introduction to numerical field computation, and a core lecture on basic magnet design. The second part of the course focused more on quality control, the different measurem

In the framework of applying econophysics ideas in religious topics, the finances of the Antoinist religious movement organized in Belgium between 1920 and 2000 are studied. The interest of investigating financial aspects of such a, sometimes called, sect stems in finding characteristics of conditions and mechanisms under which definitely growth AND decay features of communities can be understood. The legally reported yearly income and expenses between 1920 and 2000 are studied. A three wave asymmetric regime is observed over a trend among marked fluctuations at time of crises. The data analysis leads to propose a general mechanistic model taking into account an average GDP growth, an oscillatory monetary inflation and a logistic population drift.

Having observed low success rates among first-year university students in both Belgium and France, we develop prediction models in this paper in order to identify, at the earliest possible stage, those students who are at risk of failing at the end of the academic year. We applied different data mining techniques to predict the students' academic success. We find that it is very difficult to predict success by only considering the variables related to behavior during classes, and that it is necessary to add variables related to personal history, involvement in and behavior during their studies, and perceptions of academic life, to obtain good-quality results.

This article presents the results of the first survey conducted in Belgium about the interest and knowledge in astronomy. Two samples were studied, the public at large (667 questionnaires) and students (2589 questionnaires), but the results are generally similar in both samples. We evaluated people's interest, main information source, and attitudes towards astronomy, as well as their supposed and actual knowledge of the subject. The main conclusion is that, despite a poor self-confidence, people do know the basic astronomical concepts. However, that knowledge is not deeply rooted, as reasoning questions show well-spread misconceptions and/or misunderstandings.

Emerging at the end of 2019, COVID-19 has become a public health threat to people worldwide. Apart from the deaths who tested positive for COVID-19, many others have died from causes indirectly related to COVID-19. Therefore, the COVID-19 confirmed deaths underestimate the influence of the pandemic on the society; instead, the measure of `excess deaths' is a more objective and comparable way to assess the scale of the epidemic and formulate lessons. One common practical issue in analyzing the impact of COVID-19 is to determine the `pre-COVID-19' period and the `post-COVID-19' period. We apply a change point detection method to identify any change points using the excess deaths in Belgium.

Recent developments in the literature on financial architecture suggest that banks and markets not only coexist, but also coevolve in ways that are non-neutral from the viewpoint of optimality. This article aims to analyse the concrete mechanisms of this coevolution by focusing on a very relevant case study: Belgium (the first Continental country to industrialize) at the time of the very first emergence of a modern financial system (the 1830s). The article shows that intermediaries played a crucial role in developing secondary securities markets (as banks acted as securitizers), but market conditions also had a strong feedback on banks' balance sheets and activities (as banks also acted as market-makers for the securities they had issued). The findings suggest that not only structural, but also cyclical factors can be important determinants of changes in financial architecture.

Using the classical Susceptible-Infected-Recovered epidemiological model, an analytical formula is derived for the number of beds occupied by Covid-19 patients. The analytical curve is fitted to data in Belgium, France, New York City and Switzerland, with a correlation coefficient exceeding 98.8%, suggesting that finer models are unnecessary with such macroscopic data. The fitting is used to extract estimates of the doubling time in the ascending phase of the epidemic, the mean recovery time and, for those who require medical intervention, the mean hospitalization time. Large variations can be observed among different outbreaks.

Following the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and pending the establishment of vaccination campaigns, several non pharmaceutical interventions such as partial and full lockdown, quarantine and measures of physical distancing have been imposed in order to reduce the spread of the disease and to lift the pressure on healthcare system. Mathematical models are important tools for estimating the impact of these interventions, for monitoring the current evolution of the epidemic at a national level and for estimating the potential long-term consequences of relaxation of measures. In this paper, we model the evolution of the COVID-19 epidemic in Belgium with a deterministic age-structured extended compartmental model. Our model takes special consideration for nursing homes which are modelled as separate entities from the general population in order to capture the specific delay and dynamics within these entities. The model integrates social contact data and is fitted on hospitalisations data (admission and discharge), on the daily number of COVID-19 deaths (with a distinction between general population and nursing home related deaths) and results from serological studies, with a sensitivi

An astatized symmetrical vertical pendulum is monitoring torque Γ(M) resulting of gravitational attractions exerted by two external masses M moving up down. Local gravity field g produce the main pendulum restoring torque combined with a very weak variable torque Γ(c) induced by rotation of watch needles fixed to the pendulum. Transfer of fundamental units to calibrate the Γ(c) torques is obtained by a reference torque Γ(μ) resulting of precise displacements of a well known mass μ. We permanently monitored ratio between the gravitational effect Γ(M) and calibrated Γ(c) to determine G. Position of the pendulum is measured with a capacitive bridge. Bias voltages sent to two electrodes set-up at the bottom of the pendulum allows to feedback pendulum with a controlled electrostatic torque. We discuss potential interest of our prototype to design a multi pendulum system to check systematic effects for different geometries and various kinds of materials.