On Craft

Craft is a relationship - a dialogue - between craftsman, tool, and material. Craft begins with the intent of all of these loci, and all of these loci are rooted in Being. Being is known through the consciousness, awareness, and perception of a subject. Being is the inherent existence and totality of what is. Being crafts us; Craft imbues Being. This thesis re-examines the pedagogical approach of an architectural education. The focus is placed on craft through presuppositionless phenomenology. In an age of endless mechanized production and spiritless materialism, the practice of craft can teach us to return to the experience of Being

Planting the seeds of change: A bioarchaeological approach to developments in landscape and land use in first millennium BC southeast Italy

Yntema, D.G. [Promotor]Crielaard, J.P. [Copromotor

The balance between food and dietary supplements in the general population

Abstract: In the past, vitamins and minerals were used to cure deficiency diseases. Supplements nowadays are used with the aim of reducing the risk of chronic diseases of which the origins are complex. Dietary supplement use has increased in the UK over recent decades, contributing to the nutrient intake in the population, but not necessarily the proportion of the population that is sub optimally nourished; therefore, not reducing the proportion below the estimated average requirement and potentially increasing the number at risk of an intake above the safety limits. The supplement nutrient intake may be objectively monitored using circulation biomarkers. The influence of the researcher in how the supplements are grouped and how the nutrient intakes are quantified may however result in different conclusions regarding their nutrient contribution, the associations with biomarkers in general, and dose-response associations specifically. The diet might be sufficient in micronutrients, but lacking in a balanced food intake. Since public health nutrition guidelines are expressed in terms of foods, there is potentially a discrepancy between the nutrient-orientated supplement and the quality of the dietary pattern. To promote health, current public health messages only advocate supplements in specific circumstances, but not in optimally nourished populations.The author reports programme grants from Cancer Research UK (G0401527, G1000143) and the Medical Research Council (MRC) (C864/A8257, C864/A14136)

Controlled laser cleaning of artworks via low resolution plasma spectroscopy and linear correlation

In this thesis a system has been developed to prevent polluted artworks for over-cleaning during laser cleaning. One method to monitor the laser cleaning process in-situ is spectroscopic analyzing of the in-process induced plasma emission. The characteristic plasma emission spectrum depends on the elemental constitution of the plasma plume which represents the ablated layer. In this thesis a (low cost) fibre optic spectrometer with a large bandwidth and low resolution was applied. This spectrometer is easy to handle and applicable to different polluted artworks. The advantage of the developed system is that it can be operated by restorers without much previous knowledge about plasma spectroscopy