Continuous optimization is never easy: the exact solution is always a luxury demand and the theory of it is not always analytical and elegant.

This thesis applies data mining in commercial settings in the telecommunications industry.

Material circularity and energy efficiency are highly relevant and intertwined issues for the transition towards a carbon-neutral and circular built environment. In the Netherlands, the building sector has been rendered a priority towards a circular and low-carbon society.

This dissertation contains four works during my PhD. Different biomaterials have been designed based on coiled-coil peptides. These biomaterials have a range of applications, inclusing drug delivery, cell sorting to cell-cell fusion.

Promotor: Prof.dr. J.G.E.M. Fraaije, Co-promotor: A. Kros

The formation and evolution of galaxies is fundamentally driven by the formation of new stars out of cold gas.

Chemical-induced organ toxicity is a major concern in the development and use of chemicals, including drugs, pesticides, industrial chemicals and cosmetics. In the last decades, the onset and progression of chemical-induced organ toxicity has been linked amongst others to perturbation of mitochondri…

Promotor: Prof.dr. E Gittenberger, Co-Promotores: C.H.J.M. Fransen, B.W. Hoeksema

Dissolving microneedles are a subgroup of microneedle types that completely dissolve within the skin. During this dissolving process the vaccine, stored in the needle matrix, is released into the skin.

Pectin is a plant cell wall polysaccharide made of mainly D-galacturonic acid (GA) subunits. The potency of the filamentous fungus Aspergillus niger to naturally secrete high amounts of pectinases to degrade pectin has been utilized for the industrial production of pectinases.

The marine shipping industry is one of the strongest emitters of nitrogen oxides (NOx), a pollutant detrimental to ecology and human health. Over the last 20 years, the pollution produced by power plants, the industry sector, and cars has been decreasing.

Vitamin A or retinol is essential in embryonic development, the visual cycle and the immune system.

Promotor: A. Kros

Promotor: Prof.dr. W.T.F. den Hollander

Complex Organic Molecules (COMs) have been detected in objects across different stages of stellar evolution.

Promotor: C.J. ten Cate

The work in this thesis has been focused on two subjects. The first is the assembly of alginate oligosaccharides and the generation of building blocks for the enzymatic synthesis of alginate, and the second is the total synthesis of large fragments of the zwitterionic SP1 polysaccharide.

Promotor: J. Zaanen

Pseudomonas Aeruginosa is a Gram-negative bacterium which can form biofilms, increasing its resistance against antibiotics and the host immune system. Polysaccharides are an integral part of this biofilm, one of these polysaccharides is called Psl. PslG is a glycosidase, able to cleave this polysaccharide,…

Joris Larik, universitair docent bij LUC, schrijft in Het Parool over de invloed van de winst van Joe Biden op de rol van de VS in de wereldpolitiek

The ultimate aim of this project (initiated by the European Law Institute) is to design a framework that will enable the further development of coherent and functional rules for business rescue in Europe.

Kunst en vrije tijd, Kunst en vrije tijd

A brief review essay on some of the work that has been recently published in the emergent field of digital ethnography.

In this thesis, several aspects of software debugging from automated crash reproduction to bug report analysis and use of contracts have been studied.

It has now been well established that shocks and turbulent motions in the intra-cluster medium (ICM) generated through cluster mergers can produce large-scale synchrotron emission.

Promotor: Prof.dr. M. Ubbink

Promotor: Prof.dr. G.J. Kroes

Clinical development of drugs for central nervous system (CNS) disorders has been particularly challenging and still suffers from high attrition rates.

The work presented in this thesis is based on ALMA surveys of protoplanetary disks in three star-forming regions: Lupus, OMC-2, and NGC 2024.

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

In the last decade, the redox interconversion between metal thiolate and disulfide compounds has been extensively investigated for copper, but not for other transition metal ions.

A new publication on changes in the relationship between news and their public in Chile

Promotor: P. J. J. Hooykaas Co-promotor: B. S de Pater

A large diversity of exoplanetary systems has been found, but it is still unclear what drives this diversity.

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…

The Standard Model (SM) of particle physics fails to explain several observed phenomena and is incomplete. In order to resolve this problem, one may extend the SM by adding new particles.

Promotor: Prof.dr. T.H.W. Bäck

A management strategy has been developed for field margins to reduce pesticide drift to non-target areas and to promote biodiversity on arable land. To this end, 3 and 6 m wide strips along the edges of winter wheat, sugar beet and potato crops have been left unsprayed with herbicides and insecticides…

The PID-directed shift in PIN polarity has been broadly accepted as one of the essential mechanisms for the regulation of auxin transport polarity.

De in de introductie geschetste ontwikkelingen leiden ertoe dat huishoudens meer verantwoordelijk gaan dragen voor sociale risico’s, meer zelf moeten plannen, over een langere periode en onder meer onzekerheid.Dit geldt niet alleen in Nederland, maar ook in andere westerse landen. Dit leidt tot de onderstaande…

Promotor: J. van der Greef; Co-promotor: E. van Wijk, M. Wang

This thesis is dedicated to the exploration of the primordial dark ages: unknown physics during the earliest stages of the Universe’s expansion that have not yet been directly probed by observations. Cosmic inflation is a burst of exponential expansion of space after the “Big Bang”.

The aim of this project was to estimate emissions from lead products-in-use for the past, the present and the future and assess the development of toxicological risks associated with these products.

Creating a framework to assess the sustainability of fish farms which will set sustainability standards and give consumers information about the the sustainability and safety of their seafood.

Promotor: Prof.dr. A.P. IJzerman, Co-Promotor: L.H. Heitman

Anthropogenic noise has been shown to affect marine animals in various ways, this may have fitness consequences at individual and population level. This thesis aims to increase insight into the quantification of sound-induced behavioural responses that are relevant to fitness, and into factors that…

Promotor: H.S. Overkleeft, J. Neefjes, Co-promotor: M. van der Stelt

Tracing the evolution of the molecular gas content in galaxies is critical for a complete understanding of galaxy formation and evolution, as it provides the direct fuel for star formation. Studies of high-redshift (z>1) molecular gas reservoirs, most commonly traced by carbon monoxide (CO), have seen…

Promotor: A. Doelman, Co-promotor: J.D.M. Rademacher

To this day, all cyclophellitol-based inhibitors and ABPs have been close analogues of their natural substrate counterparts. As a result, these probes showed high selectivity towards their target glycosidases.