The struggle between the present and the future procrastinators and the punctual.

Abstract: Two studies investigated the role of impulsivity in procrastinators' problems. In the first study, 147 freshmen completed questionnaires measuring the big five personality factors, a broad impulsivity scale, and Lay's general procrastination scale, and their perceptions concerning a compulsory course. The data revealed that procrastination was closely related to a lack of perseverance, that is, the inability to complete projects. This relation explained a large part of the well-documented relation between conscientiousness and procrastination. In the second study, a subsample of these students was followed-up during 11 weeks before their exams. They had to provide their study intentions and behavior, the reasons why they failed to enact upon their intentions, and the perceived impact of studying on their final grade. The data revealed that all students tend to postpone the bulk of their study activities to the last week before an exam, and that this trend could nicely be described by a hyperbolic curve. The results also revealed that procrastinators postponed more of their intentions, mainly because of fun alternatives, but did not intend to study less or later. At the contrary, they even seemed to compensate for their vulnerability by formulating more intentions earlier. Procrastinators emerged as highly motivated students that lack the ability to ward off temptations and distractions during their studying activities.Studies; Problems; Questionnaires; Factors; Data;

An integrated view on assuring quality for multimodal therapy in oncologic care

In the context of the advancements in new anticancer drugs, the trends in multidisciplinary cancer care and the focus towards patient-centred outcomes, assurance of quality needs to evolve. This thesis aims to investigate how quality could be assured facing these trends. Part I showed that gastric cancer patients with severe postoperative complications had an increased likelihood of adjuvant chemotherapy omission. It would therefore be valuable to discuss such multidisciplinary quality measures in multidisciplinary team meetings. Part II demonstrates that registries like the Dutch Melanoma Treatment Registry (DMTR) are valuable in the era of immunotherapies and targeted therapies. First results demonstrate that the new drugs for metastatic melanoma have been safely introduced with comparable toxicity rates as reported in the pivotal trials. However, in patients with multiple risk factors, targeted therapy with vemurafenib has a low probability of benefitting the patient. Registries like the DMTR are therefore important to inform policy makers whether interventions work in real world. A wider recognition of cancer care as a chronic disease, including the collection of patient-reported outcomes measures is required in quality assessment. In Part III we describe a patient-centered outcome set for breast and colorectal cancer of which the majority is patient reported.LUMC / Geneeskunde Repositoriu

Using ILWIS Software for teaching Core Operations in Earth Observation

Computational methods in GIS and Earth Observation are an important part of the curricula in Geo - informatics. Apart from the theoretical foundations students need to get acquainted with the practical application of these methods in software. However, many GI software packages are not designed for the purpose of educating principles of GIS and Earth Observation and therefor do not provide the right tools and interfaces for students and novice users to comprehend the coreconcepts. In this paper we describe our effort to build a GI software that does support students in learning through visual workflows and linked views of different representations of raster images such as maps, tables and graphs

Venous and arterial thromboembolism:a questionable dichotomy

Decennialang werd verondersteld dat arteriële (slagaderlijke) en veneuze (aderlijke) trombose twee verschillende ziekten waren. In de afgelopen tien jaar is deze tweedeling echter in twijfel getrokken. In het huidige proefschrift onderzochten we of veneuze en arteriële trombose gerelateerd zijn en hoe we deze relatie kunnen verklaren. In een groot populatiecohort van ruim 40 000 mensen vonden we dat mensen die een veneuze trombose ontwikkelden, zonder aanwijsbare uitlokkende factor, het jaar daarop een drievoudig verhoogd risico hadden op het ontwikkelen van een arteriële trombose (o.a. hartinfarct, herseninfarct). Deze relatie kan mogelijk verklaard worden door een overlap in risicofactoren. In een subgroep van ruim 7000 mensen onderzochten we enkele van deze risicofactoren. Hieruit bleek dat insulineresistentie en een afwijkend lipidenprofiel, bekende risicofactoren voor arteriële trombose, het risico op veneuze trombose niet beïnvloeden. Overgewicht en afwijkende spiegels van de stollingsfactoren factor VIII en vrij proteine S daarentegen, verhogen het risico op beide ziekten. Ook vonden we dat mensen met een onuitgelokte veneuze trombose en een verhoogde albuminespiegel in de urine (marker voor vaatwandschade) een ruim drievoudig verhoogde kans hadden op het ontwikkelen van een tweede veneuze trombose. De resultaten van dit onderzoek bieden handvaten om het aantal nieuwe gevallen van zowel arteriële als veneuze trombose te reduceren