Promotor: Prof.dr. B. van de Water

The thesis introduces three methods for high-dimensional prediction problems in the biomedical field. The methods make use of empirical and variational Bayes in the estimation.

To study how planetary systems come into existence we study much younger systems still in formation.

More than 5,000 exoplanets have been found over the past couple of decades. These exoplanets show a tremendous diversity, ranging from scorching hot Jupiters, common super-Earths, to widely separated super-Jupiters on the planet/brown dwarf boundary.

There is an urgent need for more physiologically relevant cell culture methods to guide compound selection in pre-clinical stages of the drug development pipeline.

This thesis describes the development and validation of new high-contrast imaging techniques, with the ultimate goal of enabling the next generation of instruments for ELT-class telescopes to directly image Earth-like extra-solar planets orbiting around nearby stars.

Outflows are crucially important for the gas budget and evolution of luminous star-forming galaxies and AGNs, with observed mass outflow rates of the same order as the star formation rate. Greater star formation and black hole growth lead to more intense feedback and outflows, resulting in self-regulated…

The challenge of achieving fast quantification in metabolomics is the presence of severe matrix effects during the MS analysis of complex samples.

Understanding the formation and evolution of planetary systems is one of the most fundamental challenges in astronomy. To directly image and study young exoplanets and the circumstellar disks they form from, dedicated high-contrast imaging instruments are built.

Promotor: Prof.dr. T. Hankemeier

We have studied shape with a particular focus on the zebrafish model system. The shape is an essential appearance of the phenotype of a biological specimen and it can be used to read out a current state or response or to study gene expression.

This thesis examines silicon pore optics (SPO), a technology that exploits silicon wafers from the semiconductor industry to create extremely high quality X-ray optics, by studying its manufacturing process, applications, and prospects.

This thesis describes the implementation and on-sky demonstration of high-resolution integral-field spectroscopy for extreme adaptive optics systems that are used to find and characterize exoplanets.

This thesis is devoted to an in-depth examination of the various effects of disorder in the cuprate high-temperature superconductors.

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Until the 1990s, the only known planets were those in our Solar System. Three decades later, several thousand exoplanets have been discovered orbiting stars other than the Sun, and substantial efforts have been made to explore these strange new worlds through spectroscopic analyses of their atmosphe…

This thesis aims to demonstrate how the achromatic nature and design flexibility of liquid-crystal optics can be used to improve high-contrast imaging instruments to facilitate detailed exoplanet characterization.

Promotores: Prof.dr. J. Schaye & Prof.dr. C. Steidel (California Institute of Technology)

Following the Big Bang, structure in the Universe started collapsing under the force of gravity. This resulted in the formation of the first stars, galaxies and clusters of galaxies.

This thesis investigates the relations between metabolism and anatomy through the use of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).

Promotor: Prof.dr. H.P. Spaink, Co-promotor: Prof.dr. A.H. Meijer

Promotor: Prof.dr. H.J.M de Groot, Co-Promotor: A. Alia

This monograph focuses on clustering of objects in high-dimensional data, given the restriction that the objects do not cluster on all the attributes, not even on a single subset of attributes, but often on different subsets of attributes in the data.

This thesis develops statistical methods for the analysis of high dimensional data: high dimensional networks reconstruction (Chapters 1-4), incorporation of prior information in networks reconstruction (Chapters 2-4), incorporation of prior knowledge in genetic association studies (Chapter 3).

In this thesis we push the boundaries of high-resolution imaging at radio frequencies between 100 and 200 MHz. Using the International LOFAR Telescope that spans across Europe we achieve sub-arcsecond angular resolution.

Promotor: J.S. Kaastra Co-promotor: E. Constantini

Galaxies in the Universe are distributed along the intricate framework of the Cosmic Web. Groups and clusters of galaxies comprise the densest regions in this network, and therefore, are excellent cosmic laboratories to study different aspects of galaxy evolution in extreme environments.

Metabolomics has the potential to play a pivotal role in understanding disease onset and progression, and ultimately personalized treatments. One of its major challenges is its large-scale implementation, which is necessary to deal with the high variability of the metabolome. In this work we have developed…

Promotor: Prof.dr. R.M.H. Merks

Promotor: Prof.dr. E.F. van Dishoeck, Co-Promotor: G.J. Herczeg

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…

A P300-based Brain Computer Interface character speller, also known as P300 speller, has been an important communication pathway, under extensive research, for people who lose motor ability, such as patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or spinal-cord injury because a P300 speller allows human-beings…

We describe certain birational modifications of nodal relative curves over a regular base of arbitrary dimension.

Transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) was tested in chronic worriers. tVNS may reduce spontaneously occurring negative thought intrusions. After a worry induction, there was no longer an effect of tVNS. tVNS did not affect physiological responding to worrying.

Promotor: H.J.A. Röttgering, Co-promotor: G.K. Miley

Promotor: B. van de Water

Hot astrophysical plasma is ubiquitous in the Universe, from comets in our Solar system to the largest scale structures -- the cosmic web filaments. These hot plasmas, with the temperature of a few millions of degrees, are often observed in the X-ray wavelength range.

Developing robust algorithms and theory for establishing cause-effect relationships from observational data that scale up to large data sets

Promotor: Prof.dr. E.F. van Dishoeck, Prof.dr. F.F.S. van der Tak (RUG)

The field of exoplanet research is rapidly advancing through the development of new technology, observing techniques, and post-processing methods.

Promotor: Prof. dr. A.G.G.M. Tielens

This thesis aims to enhance our understanding of galaxies by testing theoretical models of galaxy formation against observations, particularly in the cases of extreme systems which have been found to have an excess of baryonic mass in their central regions, in the form of either supermassive black holes…

Onderzoekers van de Universiteit Leiden onder leiding van Mario van der Stelt (Leids Instituut voor de Chemie) wijzen ‘gouden standaarden’ aan om nieuwe pijnstillers te ontwikkelen die gebaseerd zijn op de medicinale werking van cannabis. Publicatie in Nature Communications.

De huidige en toekomstige quantumcomputers vormen dezelfde uitdaging als de laser in zijn begindagen. In theorie werd voorspeld dat de laser een bron van zeer speciaal, zeer krachtig licht zou zijn. Maar in die tijd waren er geen duidelijke toepassingen voor. Critici van het idee noemden het een probleem…

The sequence-dependence of biomolecular interactions involving nucleic acids and proteins is essential for numerous processes inside the cell. Insights into the underlying molecular mechanisms have been obtained using various biochemical and biophysical methods on two different levels — bulk and sin…

Promotor: Prof.dr. J.N. Kok, Co-promotor: F.J. Verbeek

We investigate the buildup of galaxies from various vantage points. The first two chapters focus on the stellar content of galaxies, especially the distribution of stellar masses at birth and potential variations therein in various galactic environments.

One of the key quests in astronomy is to study the growth and evolution of galaxies across cosmic time. Radio observations provide a powerful means of studying the formation of stars and subsequent buildup of distant galaxies, in a way that is unbiased by the presence of dust.

HEPGAME is a research project that combines the world’s fastest computer algebra system for High Energy Physics equations, FORM, with insights from artificial intelligence. The name combines High Energy Physics and Games.