Surgical Treatment and Outcome of Extracranial Germ Cell Tumors in Childhood

Germ cell tumors (GCTs) are a heterogeneous group of very rare tumors, benign or malignant, which can occur from newborn to old age. They are thought to arise from primordial germ cells, and are found in a variety of sites. This thesis is composed of 2 major parts. In a first part, the hospital records of 193 infants and children with GCTs, treated between 1960 and 2003 in ErasmusMC-Sophia Children’s Hospital Rotterdam and between 1986 and 2003 in the Academic Hospital of the Free University of Brussels, are studied. The long-term outcome for the various anatomical sites and histologies, is studied. Pitfalls in diagnosis and treatment are reported. A second part of the thesis is devoted to the study of (a) 173 patients with sacrococcygeal teratoma, treated between 1970 and 2003 in the six centers of pediatric surgery in the Netherlands, and of (b) 70 patients with SCT treated between 1960 and 2003 in ErasmusMC-Sophia Children’s Hospital Rotterdam. In these patient populations, risk factors for recurrence are studied, as well as functional results and quality of life. Subject headings: 1. Introduction 2. Influence of Tumor Site and Histology on Long-Term Survival in 193 Children with Extracranial Germ Cell Tumors Treated between 1960 - 2003 3. Ovarian Germ Cell Tumors in Children: A Clinical Study of 66 Patients 4. Testicular Germ Cell Tumors in Children: Management and Outcome in a Series of 20 Patients 5. Strategy for Management of Newborns with Cervical Teratoma 6. Mediastinal Germ Cell Tumors: Clinical Aspects and Outcomes in 7 Children 7. Retroperitoneal Germ Cell Tumors: A Clinical Study of 12 Patients 8. Study of the Factors Associated with Recurrence in Children with Sacrococcygeal Teratoma 9. Factors Associated with Recurrence and Metastatic Disease in Sacrococcygeal Teratoma: Results in the Netherlands (1970-2003) 10. Sacrococcygeal Teratoma: Results of a Retrospective Multicentric Study in Belgium and Luxembourg 11. Long-Term Functional Sequelae of Sacrococcygeal Teratoma: A National Study in the Netherlands 12. General Discussio

Through thick and thin: young people's affective geographies in Brussels' public space

Young people's interaction with place is not only a cognitive process of identification but also an affective relation. There has been plenty of research on young people and/in public space but few of those studies have taken such an affective layer of analysis into account. In this paper we aim to shed some light on young people's affective geographies through the concept of ‘thick places’ as it was proposed by Edward Casey (2001), building upon ethnographic research undertaken between 2013 and 2016 in Brussels. We argue that such a concept is only useful if we consider thickness not only as a reference to ‘warm’, ‘authentic’ or ‘intimate’ places but also as a term that takes the ‘normative architecture’ of place into account. We embed this claim in a discussion of affects, atmospheres and Peter Sloterdijk's notion of nomotop.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

The acute phase protein, haptoglobin : a potential parameter in welfare assessment?

Physiological parameters are important measures in animal welfare assessment. To assess the amount of stress an animal experiences, stress hormones like cortisol are frequently used. However, measuring cortisol has major disadvantages due to its rapid reactivity and decline and many influencing factors. Other potential alternative markers are acute phase proteins, since stress is known to affect the immune system. A pilot study was conducted to investigate the response of the acute phase protein, plasma haptoglobine (HP), in pigs subjected to a stressor (food deprivation) and to examine the correlation between HP levels and average daily growth (ADG). Forty grower pigs (25.1 ± 4.4 kg, mean ± SD) (sex and former pen mates balanced), were allocated to 4 conventional pens, 2 treatment (T) and 2 control (C) groups (10 pigs per pen). After 10 days of adaptation the experiment started and ran for 3 weeks. In the 2nd week, T groups were repeatedly subjected to an 8-hour food deprivation (day 1, 3, 5 and 7 of week 2), C groups had normal, unrestricted, access to food. Pigs were weighed twice a week and blood was collected once a week (every 5th day). Mean levels of plasma HP of C and T groups showed large variation between individuals (C groups, week 2: 1.84 ± 3.11 mg/ml; T groups, week 2: 1.40 ± 1.16 mg/ml). No significant differences (Kruskal-Wallis test) in HP levels or growth were found between the C and T groups or between the different weeks within the T groups. Significant negative weak to moderate correlations were found between ADG and HP levels (HP week 1 and ADG week 1: rs = -0.47, p=0.005; HP week 2 and ADG total; rs= -0.60, p=0.015; HP week 3 and ADG total: rs = -0.43, p=0.025; average HP total and ADG total: rs= -0.41, p=0.017). Large variations in HP levels between individuals were shown and no effect of treatment on HP levels or growth was found. Possibly, food deprivation had no apparent stress eliciting effect. Despite these results, interesting correlations between the level of HP and ADG were found, corroborating the inverse relationship between the acute phase response and growth. To further investigate the relation of the acute phase response and stress a successive experiment will be conducted in which we apply a stronger stressor (mixing pigs) and combine the physiological data with behavior

Vorderingsverslag betreffende het onderzoek naar de invloed van de exploratie- en exploitatieactiviteiten op het Continentaal Plat en de territoriale zee: periode januari - december 2015

Dit rapport beschrijft de stand van het onderzoek naar de effecten van zandwinning door ILVO-Aquatisch Milieu en Kwaliteit in het jaar 2015 en de planning voor 2016, overeenkomstig Artikel 4 van het ‘Samenwerkingsakkoord tussen de Federale Overheid en het Vlaamse Gewest van 21 december 2005 betreffende het onderzoek naar de invloed van de exploratie- en exploitatieactiviteiten op het Belgisch Continentaal Plat (BCP) op de sedimentafzettingen en op het marien milieu’ (KB 2006/261)

Wafer-level packaged RF-MEMS switches fabricated in a CMOS fab

Reports on wafer-level packaged RF-MEMS switches fabricated in a commercial CMOS fab. Switch fabrication is based on a metal surface micromachining process. A novel wafer-level packaging scheme is developed, whereby the switches are housed in on-chip sealed cavities using benzocyclobutene (BCB) as the bonding and sealing material. Measurements show that the influence of the wafer-level package on the RF performance can be made very small.\ud \u