Overzicht van de lopende monitoringsprojecten met betrekking tot veiligheid en natuurlijkheid in het Nederlandse gedeelte van de Schelde (Westerschelde en haar Voordelta)

Het Schelde estuarium is als toegang tot de haven van Antwerpen van grote betekenis, maar ook vanuit ecologisch opzicht (estuariene dynamiek, overgang zoet-zout) is het gebied uiterst waardevol. De Westerschelde is dan ook onderdeel van het Europese Natura 2000 netwerk. Daarnaast bieden de waterkeringen veilgheid tegen overstroming van het achterland. IMARES neemt monitoring van de natuurlijkheid van de Westerschelde voor haar rekening. WL Delft Hydraulics doet dat voor veilgiheid en morfologische dynamie

Reinventing microinjection : new microfluidic methods for cell biology

Regulatory processes are responsible for the organization, division and death of cells in multicellular organisms such as humans. Additionally, cells are highly regulated internally, able to survive and respond in vastly different micro-environments. Many types of interactions of cells with their environment can be distinguished, and need to be controlled in experiments aimed at unravelling and predicting cellular behavior in vivo. The in vivo microenvironment is mimicked by exposing cells to complex and changing environments. To describe the stochastic differences between cells and the local experimental conditions in sufficient detail and to obtain statistically relevant results, high-throughput experimentation is required. In this thesis four new research methods are developed, aimed at a deeper understanding of cellular regulation in vivo.Märzhäuser, ZF-screens BV, Eppendorf, Life Science Methods BVUBL - phd migration 201

Doing the crease: text and subjectiness in a liberation of folds

Text appears ordered, yet so much can go wrong. It has a form and a sound, needs to be put together and deciphered, and inherently serves to deliver a message. Inspired by the potential of clumsiness, my research project Doing the Crease: Text and Subjectiness in a Liberation of Folds comprises five text-based art projects that investigate whether text can become ‘subjecty’ through methods of folding. Deleuze speaks of the fold as an ‘operative function’ that is almost self-generating. I argue the fold is what Heidegger might call ‘subjectival’ or ‘in itself eager to represent’, derived from the Greek word hypokeimenon that denotes the subject as that-which-lies-before. Characteristic of the fold is its expansion: going in and out, overlapping and reoccurring, the fold finds its form in repetition or by sticking out and getting in the way. This can be recognised in my art projects as the doubling and looping of text, image and sound, but also in the recurring themes that overlap throughout the thesis and feed back into the work. Because my methods involve repetitive, plain language, the work often appears to acquire a deadpan, slapstick-like quality. As such, it demonstrates that slapstick, too, may be a type of fold. Inspired by what Deleuze calls a ‘liberation of folds’, I see the fold as a form of action that finds freedom through its reiteration. What began as research on subjectiness thus becomes an enquiry into the mechanism of the fold as an emancipatory movement. In addition, it appears that the quality of subjectiness naturally invites interaction. Engaging other subjects and bringing them into focus, the research project establishes the possibility that, in a meeting of subjectiness, emancipation means the fold moving away from one narrative to fold again and join another

The impact and treatment of developmental stuttering

This thesis is devoted to studying the impact of developmental stuttering in childhood and adulthood, and the outcomes of treatment in the preschool years

Psychometric evaluation of the Dutch translation of the Overall Assessment of the Speaker’s Experience of Stuttering for adults (OASES-A-D)

Abstract: The Overall Assessment of the Speaker’s Experience of Stuttering for adults (OASES-A; Yaruss & Quesal, 2006, 2010) is a patient-reported outcome measure that was designed to provide a comprehensive assessment of “the experience of the stuttering disorder from the perspective of individuals who stutter” (Yaruss & Quesal, 2006, p.90). This paper reports on the translation process and evaluates the psychometric performance of a Dutch version of the OASES-A. Translation of the OASES-A into Dutch followed a standard forward and backward translation process. The Dutch OASES-A (OASES-A-D) was then administered to 138 adults who stutter. A subset of 91 respondents also evaluated their speech on a 10-point Likert scale. For another subset of 45 respondents, a clinician-based stuttering severity rating on a 5-point Likert scale was available. Thirty-two of the respondents also completed the Dutch S-24 scale (Brutten & Vanryckeghem, 2003). The OASES-A-D showed acceptable item properties. No ceiling effects were observed. For 30 out of 100 items, most of which were in Section IV (Quality of Life), floor effects were observed. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for all sections and subsections surpassed the 0.70 criterion of good internal consistency and reliability. Concurrent validity was moderate to high. Construct validity was confirmed by distinct scores on the OASES-A-D for groups with different levels of stuttering severity as rated by the speakers themselves or by clinicians. These results suggest that the OASES-A-D is a reliable and valid measure that can be used to assess the impact of stuttering on Dutch adults who stutter

* The late positive potential and explicit versus implicit processing of facial valence

* The late positive potential (LPP) depicts brain electrical activity during both automatic and controlled sustained attentional processing of emotional stimuli. We investigated in a sample of 18 healthy women how the LPP is modulated by facial expression during an explicit valence rating task and an implicit sex classification task. Midline LPP amplitudes were significantly larger for valence rating than for sex classification. During valence rating, faces with a positive valence resulted in larger LPP amplitudes at centrofrontal electrodes than faces with a negative valence. During sex classification, a similar valence effect was observed at midline parietal electrodes. This implicit LPP valence effect appears to depend on higher visual processing, as during an additional sex classification task with blurred faces no such implicit valence effect was found

Genetic analyses of teacher ratings of problem behavior in 5-year-old twins

Behavioral problems in young children can be assessed by asking their parents or teachers to rate their behaviors. Genetic analyses of parental ratings show relatively large heritabilities for emotional and behavioral problems in young children, but data from teachers for this age group are scarce. Sources of variation in the Teacher's Report Form (TRF) problem scales were examined. The TRF was completed for 211 Dutch 5-year-old twin pairs and 4 single twins. Twins rated by different teachers had higher means and variances than twins rated by the same teacher, in addition twin correlations were lower in this group. In both groups monozygotic (MZ) correlations were generally higher than dizygotic (DZ) correlations. A model for twin resemblance was tested that allowed for these effects. For 5 problem scales (Withdrawn, Social Problems, Aggressive Behavior, Rule Breaking Behavior and Attention Problems) a model with genetic and unique environmental sources of variation fitted best to the data. For 3 problem scales (Anxious/Depressed, Thought Problems and Somatic Complaints) there were familial influences but it was not possible to distinguish between common environmental influences or genetic influences. Heritability was 63% for Attention problems, around 45% for Withdrawn, Social Problems, Aggressive Behavior and Rule Breaking Behavior, and around 30% for Anxious/Depressed, Thought Problems and Somatic Complaints

Recognition of facial emotion and affective prosody in children at high risk of criminal behaviour

Objective: Emotion recognition is an important aspect of emotion processing, which is needed for appropriate social behavior and normal socialization. Previous studies in adults with antisocial personality disorder or psychopathy, in those convicted of criminal behavior, or in children with conduct disorder show impairments in negative emotion recognition. The present study investigated affective facial and prosody recognition in a sample of children at high risk of developing future criminal behavior. Methods: Participants were 8- to 12-year-old children at high risk of developing criminal behavior (N=219, 83.1% boys) and typically developing controls (N=43, 72.1% boys). The high-risk children were recruited through an ongoing early intervention project of the city of Amsterdam, that focuses on the underage siblings or children of delinquents, and those failing to attend school. Facial and vocal recognition of happy, sad, angry, and fear was measured with the Facial Emotion Recognition (FER) test and the prosody test of the Amsterdam Neuropsychological Tasks (ANT), respectively. Results: The high-risk group was significantly worse in facial affect recognition and had particular problems with fear and sadness recognition. No hostile attribution bias was found. The high-risk group did not differ from controls in affective prosody recognition but needed significantly more time to recognize emotions. Conclusions: The emotion-specific deficits found in forensic and clinical populations are already present in a sample of children at high risk of developing future criminal behavior. These findings help us understand a possible underlying mechanism of antisocial behavior that could provide directions for tailored interventions