New insights into photodynamic therapy using porphyrin precursors

Non- melanoma skin cancer (NMSC) is the most common cancer in Caucasians. The incidence of skin cancer continues to rise faster than that of any other cancer. More than out of 6 Dutch inhabitants develops skin cancer (mainly NMSC) before his 85th year of life.1 The majority of NMSCs are basal cell carcinomas (BCCs) and squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs). Non-melanoma skin pre-malignancies are Bowen’s disease (SCC in situ) and actinic keratosis. In the last 25 years, the absolute numbers of patients in the Netherlands with first, histologically confirmed BCCs increased by about 7-fold in both men and women. In 2015, an incidence of more than 44,000 newly-diagnosed BCC cases is expected, increasing to more than 57,000 in 2020. Subsequent BCCs in patients who have already been diagnosed with the first BCC are not included in these incidences, although the cumulative risk of developing one or more subsequent BCCs 5 years after diagnosis is 29%. The burden of skin cancer is mainly disease burden, functional- and cosmetic problems and care consumption because of the good prognosis (quod vitam). General practitioners and medical specialists will be increasingly burdened with the inspection, the diagnosis and/or the treatment of suspect lesions in the future

Land rights, local financial development and industrial activity : evidence from Flanders (nineteenth-early twentieth century)

In this paper, we investigate the hypothesis that the economic divergence across Flemish localities between 1830 and 1910 is explained by the theory of Hernando de Soto. We hypothesize that the uniform land rights installed after the French revolution provided borrowers with an attractive form of collateral. Conditional on the presence of local financial development provided by a new government-owned bank this eased access to external finance and fostered industrial and commercial economic activity. Using primary historical data of about 1179 localities in Flanders, we find that the variation in the local value of land (collateral) and the variation in local financial development jointly explain a substantial amount of the variation in non-agricultural employment accumulated between 1830 and 1910. By 1910, industrial and commercial economic activity was more developed in localities where both early (1846) rural land prices were high and early (1880) local financial development was more pronounced, which is in line with the 'de Soto' hypothesis

Sectorstudie toezicht hoger onderwijs

In het werkprogramma van de Wetenschappelijk Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid (WRR) voor de periode 2011–2012 is een advies voorzien over toezicht en verantwoordelijkheid. De raad verwacht dit rapport in het najaar van 2012 af te ronden. Het uitgangspunt hierbij is dat burgers er op moeten kunnen vertrouwen dat essentiële maatschappelijke functies naar behoren worden vervuld wat betreft kwaliteit, veiligheid, doelmatigheid en toegankelijkheid. Ook moeten zij in staat worden gesteld weloverwogen keuzes te maken in een gelijk speelveld. Het advies richt zich primair op de rol van de overheid in het toezicht. Die rol kan echter niet los worden gezien van zelfregulering en intern toezicht, aldus de WRR. Er dient een goed evenwicht te bestaan tussen de eigen verantwoordelijkheid van individuele burgers, de kwaliteit van zelfregulering en intern toezicht, en de omvang en intensiteit van het externe toezicht. Vanuit dit vertrekpunt wordt in dit WRR=project onderzocht wat kenmerken zijn van optimaal toezicht zijn

Cost‐effectiveness analysis of two attachment systems for mandibular overdenture

Objectives: This study analysed the cost‐effectiveness of two different attachments for the 2‐implant overdenture (2IOD) in edentulous mandibles. Materials and methods: When considering alternative treatments, cost‐effectiveness analysis is an important factor for stakeholders (patient, clinician, social security, insurance company, etc.). A general practice population (n = 116) was treated between 2003 and 2013 with a mandibular 2IOD with 2 different ball/stud attachment systems, one spherical (Group D) and one cylindrical (Group L). Patient well‐being was assessed with OHIP‐14‐Total (OHIP‐14‐T), at intake and annually up to 5 years, to calculate the health effect. Initial and maintenance costs of both treatments were inventoried. The cost‐effectiveness was compared. Annual discount rates of 4% and 1.5% were applied to future costs and health outcomes, following Dutch guidelines. Prices were adjusted to the year 2003. To offset the uncertainty in relevant input parameters, a sensitivity analysis was performed using bootstrap analysis. Significance was set at p < .05. Results: The health effect was 6.36 (SD 5.32) for Group D and 8.54 (SD 5.63) for Group L. The sum of the discounted costs up to 5 years was EUR 4,210.98 (SD 634.75) for the D and EUR 3,840.62 (SD 302.63) for the Group L (p = .005). The bootstrapping reports that L abutment clearly dominates the D abutment in terms of cost‐effectiveness. Conclusions: The 2IOD on the L abutment is dominant compared to the 2IOD on D abutment, in a 5‐year perspective

ActiveSchematics AutoRendering Mobile Device Optimization

In this modern era, technology is one of our main necessities. Technology is always evolving and changes from day by day. One of the major developments in technology is the increasing usage of mobile devices for personal use or even for company use. AA-AS/EDS-WIR2 is one of the sub departments in the Robert Bosch Company that creates applications for the automotive market. The department has created an application named ActiveSchematics AutoRendering. This application is used in car workshops to help mechanics to repair car defects by rendering the car schematics. This application is constructed with an ASP.NET framework combined with a standalone Delphi program as a plugin. The front-end development is done using HTML5, CSS, JavaScript code, and the back-end development is done using C#. The schematics are SVG-based with HTML as the container file. At present, the rendered schematics are not compatible when opened from a mobile browser, because the legacy support for interactivity (for example zooming and panning) is implemented without any mobile support code. The company wants the application to become a mobile device friendly application. The research proposal to be addressed is to solve which front-end libraries can be used to help the SVG schematics to implement mobile-based gesture compatibility. After some trial and error experiments, mobile device improvement will be implemented by adding jQuery, Hammer.js, jQuery PanZoom, and Bootstrap library. The experimental results have been successful and the company can have the mobile device friendly feature for their clients. This research shows that jQuery and hammer.js can be implemented on an SVG object to become a mobile device friendly schematic