In this PhD study, I aim to deepen our understanding of the influence of major mycorrhizal types, namely arbuscular mycorrhizae (AM) and ectomycorrhizae (EM), on the global soil carbon cycle and their potential distribution changes under future environmental shifts.

This special issue focuses on emerging trends in the implementation of the WPS agenda. In reviewing the resolution 20 years since the passing of Resolution 1325, Newby and O'Malley have highlighted the gaps in implementation.

This research project adresses the question how local and traditional European forms of parrhesiastic theater— events, actions, and performances staged by characters who courageously speak their minds through scenes of excess and laughter, that take place in public view and incite the spectator’s agency…

Mouse models are commonly used to assess the immunogenicity of therapeutic proteins and to investigate the immunological processes leading to antidrug antibodies. The aim of this work was to develop a transgenic (TG) Balb/c mouse model for evaluating the immunogenicity of recombinant human insulin (insulin)…

Cholesterol influences many pathways, including serving as precursor for adrenal steroidogenesis. Imbalance of cholesterol levels has been implicated in several diseases including cardiovascular diseases and its underlying pathology, atherosclerosis.

Pharmaceutical companies, governments and the general public have become increasingly aware that animal models used in drug testing lack vital aspects to serve as an accurate representation of human biology. As models of the human body should become more physiologically relevant, animal models no longer…

Beginning teachers often experience difficulties making activating lessons. This study investigates how and if the practical teaching model can offer them a hand in learning to design lessons.

Source: Structure , Volume 22, Issue 8, pp. 1120-1139 (2014)

Parkinson's disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease in the world. One of its symptoms is the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta.

This paper describes two synthetic lipid models designed to replace human stratum corneum (SC) in studies of the impact of volatile organic chemicals on the molecular organization of the skin barrier lipids.

Nonparametric Bayes for high-dimensional models: contraction, credible sets, computations

This dissertation is concerned with the development of grammar. Starting from a usage-based perspective, which holds that children use domain-general learning mechanisms to acquire the grammatical patterns of their mother tongue, Beekhuizen shows how to operationalize various concepts from this tradition…

M. Danhof, Co-promotor: O.E. Della Pasqua

This dissertation provides a formal description of the relationship between diatopic/diachronic micro-variation and phonologization through analysis of the phonetic/phonological properties of unstressed vowel reduction and vowel insertion in two Northern Italian dialects.

Promotor: Prof.dr. M. Danhof, Co-Promotor: J. de Jongh

Behrouz Karoubi defended his thesis on 15 June 2016

In this thesis, we will utilize embryonic zebrafish tumour models to understand the interaction between engrafted human cancer cells and macrophages from the host, test drug administration modalities and anti-cancer efficacies of newly-developed PDT and PACT compounds, and test a light-triggered liposomal…

In the studies described in this study, we introduce a novel ex vivo human skin barrier repair model. To develop this, we removed the upper layer of the skin, the stratum corneum (SC) by a reproducible cyanoacrylate stripping technique.

The aim of this project is to explore the use of statistical interaction models to quantify cross-omics and omics-drug interactions in large-scale clinical and experimental datasets

To what end and how does Plautus constantly underline the Helleni(sti)c provenance of his art? How does this aspect relate the author’s originality?

Exploring the mechanism of targeted nanoparticle-mediated drug delivery using the zebrafish model

Promotores: Prof.dr. G.R. de Snoo & Dr. R. Heijungs

Barrier function is the natural role of the skin. The lipid matrix present in the outermost layer of the skin, the stratum corneum is important for this function.

In design optimization problems, engineers typically handcraft design representations based on personal expertise, which leaves a fingerprint of the user experience in the optimization data. Thus, learning this notion of experience as transferrable design features has potential to improve the performance…

β-Lactamases are enzymes that can break down β-lactam substrates, such as antibiotics, preventing the use of these antibiotics for the treatment of various infectious diseases. However, some compounds, β-lactamase inhibitors, can block these enzymes allowing for possible treatments using a combination…

In this research project Nizar Rohana analyzes and reflects on taqsīm recordings by two leading figures of ‘ūd playing who were pillars of modern Arabic music, namely the Egyptians Muḥammad al-Qaṣabjī (1898-1964) and Riyāḍ al-Sunbāṭī (1906-1981).

Uncertainty and noise are frequently-encountered obstacles in real-world applications of numerical optimization. The practice of optimization that deals with uncertainties and noise is commonly referred to as robust optimization.

Despite being the object of intense study, embryonic development has been difficult to model due to a number of reasons. First, complex tissues can be comprised of many cell types, of which we probably only know a subset.

Cellular stress response pathways are activated upon exposure to chemicals and help organisms deal with various molecular dangers (e.g. oxidative stress). When these pathways become hyper-activated an adverse response takes place and cells die, which may lead to organism-level toxicity such as drug-induced…

This thesis focuses on the role of chemokine receptors CXCR3 and CCR2 in the inflammatory process and infection control using the zebrafish model.

Several techniques are explored for going beyond the born-oppenheimer static surface model for molecule-surface reactions.

In this thesis it is posed that the central object of preference discovery is a co-creative process in which the Other can be represented by a machine. It explores efficient methods to enhance introverted intuition using extraverted intuition's communication lines.

Multicellular giant algae Chara species have been widely used in physiological studies for decades.

How can the transport of molecules in living cells help to target medicines at exactly the right place?

Promotores: H. Schiessel, G.T. Barkema

Promotor: Prof.dr. M.K. Richardson

Prostate cancer (PCa) is one of the most prevalent cancer in males.

We aim to gain a better understanding of the natural disease progression of ALS in order to improve clinical trial design and analysis and to support drug discovery and clinical development of new drugs.

What are the capabilities or limitations of traveling between islands and how does this reflect seasonal variation? Is it possible to show higher levels of connectivity between islands based on generated pathways between several sites on two separate islands?

He’s a fast and animated speaker, which is only logical because Gerard van Westen is driving an express train. His destination? A virtual human, consisting of algorithms that predict what an administered substance will do in the body. The train is already a long way down the line and the pharmaceutical…

Assessing the feasibility and legitimacy of the current model of global tax governance and the role of the OECD and EU in international tax law-making.

This thesis describes the use of the evolutionary approach in the study of language change, aiming to provide a better insight in the mechanisms that play a role in language change and to validate this approach in the field of language change.

How is inflammation in tuberculosis controlled by interplay between autophagy and inflammasome signalling?

In the first part, we introduce a new condition, called toric-additivity, on a family of abelian varieties degenerating to a semi-abelian scheme over a normal crossing divisor.

This thesis focuses on important life history traits and their trade-offs using two hexapod models. Particularly, the trade-off between immune defense and embryonic developmental speed is a central theme of this study.

Novel entities may pose risks to humans and the environment. The small particle size and relatively large surface area of micro- and nanoparticles (MNPs) make them capable of adsorbing other novel entities, leading to the formation of aggregated contamination.

This study aims to explore the use of a behavioral-design-based approach in simulating patient flow through EMTs. It provides a dynamic behavioral simulation model to assess the interactions between patients, staff members, and the related dynamic movements/interactions with the health care facility,…

How can novel bioimaging technologies and vertebrate model species be used to gain a better understanding of early cellular behaviours with the ultimate goal to increase our understanding of human development and disease processes?