The Vallesian, 11.1-9 Ma, was a special time in the Vallès-Penedes basin near Barcelona, where a biodiversity hotspot existed. Europe had a subtropical climate, with rhinos, forest giraffes, lions, hyenas, flying squirrels and primates.

Voltammetry plays a crucial role in modern scientific research by offering valuable insights into the electrochemical properties of materials, with wide-ranging applications in fields such as materials science, energy storage, corrosion studies, and sensor development.

Whilst government’s ability to design ‘context-specific’ regional innovation policy is generally assumed to depend on the region’s decision-making power, the aim of this study is to investigate how regional government matters. In order to open up the black box of policy design, the study develops a…

Het onderzoek in de cluster Algebra, meetkunde en getaltheorie slaat bruggen tussen abstracte theorie en de wereld van algoritmen en toepassingen.

Bacteria have the ability to alter their morphology in order to adapt to changing environments.

This dissertation explores how Large Language Models (LLMs) can effectively and responsibly contribute to complex decision-making processes. By combining AI and human intelligence, Hybrid Intelligence (HI) emerges, allowing the strengths of both humans and machines to be utilized.

Promotor: Prof.dr. J.A. Bouwstra, Co-promotor: A. El Ghalbzouri

The study of orchid flowers, fruits, and inflorescences is crucial due to the remarkable diversity of orchid species and their unique adaptations to pollinators and seed dispersers. However, our understanding of the evolution and development of these organs within the orchid family remains limited.

Despite the fact that gold nanoparticles (GNPs) are one of the most studied nanoparticles, there is still a necessity for new approaches allowing for effective protective coating to enable wider use of GNPs in biomedical applications.

Promotor: G.P. van Wezel

Patterned detectors are an existing technology that can be found in almost all color cameras.

A New Technology-Based Firm (NTBF) is a significant enabler of job creation and a driver of the economy through stimulating innovation.

Healthy aging is one of the prime goals in today's society and atherosclerosis is among the greatest causes of morbidity in elderly. Cardiovascular disease patients receiving treatment are often of advanced aged and have an aged immune system, which limits translating experimental findings to the pa…

There is accumulating evidence for an increase in severe global drought events. In particular, Europe experienced several severe droughts in 2003, 2015, and 2018 (unprecedented in the past 2,110 years). Such droughts have caused serious and far-reaching impacts on terrestrial ecosystems.

Promotor: S.M. Verduyn Lunel, Co-promotoren: M.F.E. de Jeu, S.D. Silvestrov

Within the field of astronomy, understanding how galaxies grow and evolve from the Big Bang to the present day is a challenging and complex question.

Promotor: T.H. Oosterkamp

An Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) is a highly luminous region at the center of a galaxy, powered by the accretion into a supermassive black hole and emitting energy from radio waves to gamma rays, often outshining the host galaxy.

In this thesis, we aimed to better understand the underlying mechanisms involved in TNBC progression and metastasis formation and discover new targets to reduce breast cancer related deaths.

We developed the bitterling as a unique, well-studied model organism in the area of the evolutionary ecology of brood parasitism. The bitterling-mussel relationship, interspecific mussel host preference, and mussel gill structure are studied in detail, to help understand the developmental adaptation…

Striga hermonthica, commonly known as witchweed, infests major cereal crops in Sub-Saharan Africa causing severe yield losses and threatening the livelihood of millions of resource poor farmers.

This work describes the use of click-to-release chemistry to get spatiotemporal control over immunocytokine activity. Until now, immunocytokines (cytokines coupled to a tumor-targeting-moiety) remained active throughout the body, being able to bind their respective receptors, causing mild to severe…

The research described in this thesis centered on retaining exo-β-glucosidases implicated in health and disease, in particular the human inherited lysosomal storage disorder, Gaucher disease (GD).

Barrier function is the natural role of the skin. The lipid matrix present in the outermost layer of the skin, the stratum corneum is important for this function.

This thesis describes a study from both a theoreticaL and an experimental point of view.

Promotor: A. Achúcarro Co-promotor: A. Boyarsky

In the first part, we introduce a new condition, called toric-additivity, on a family of abelian varieties degenerating to a semi-abelian scheme over a normal crossing divisor.

Promotor: Prof.dr. P. Stevenhagen, Co-promotor: B. de Smit

Cathodic corrosion is a relatively unknown phenomenon that can severely etch metallic electrodes at cathodic (negative) potentials.

This work is dedicated to interpreting in cohomological terms the special values of zeta functions of arithmetic schemes.

Promotor: J.M. van den Broek Co-promotor: M.C. de Vries

Cardiovascular diseases are among the most frequent causes of death in the world. The main underlying pathology of cardiovascular diseases is the development of atherosclerosis in the medium and large-sized arteries.

This research delves into a region of space known as the interstellar medium (ISM), which is essentially the area between the stars filled with gas and dust.

In human cells, a meter-long DNA is condensed inside a micrometer-sized cell nucleus. Simultaneously, the genetic code must remain accessible for its replication and transcription to functional proteins.

The field of exoplanet research is rapidly advancing through the development of new technology, observing techniques, and post-processing methods.

This thesis describes the role of pollution, specifically neonicotinoid insecticides, as an actor of the ongoing biodiversity decline.

The chemical and structural heterogeneity of toxoid vaccines makes their analysis challenging. However, detailed insights on a molecular level can be obtained by mass spectrometry.

One of the main challenges in the development of an effective anti-cancer vaccine is the generation of an adequate and directed cellular immune response.

The effective treatment of tuberculosis (TB) remains a major challenge to global health.

This thesis investigates how quantum, quantum-inspired, and hybrid quantum-classical computation can enhance key points of the automated machine learning (AutoML) pipeline under the constraints of noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices.

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) constitutes a small subtype (~15%) of breast cancer, but causes the majority of breast cancer-related deaths.

The sequence-dependence of biomolecular interactions involving nucleic acids and proteins is essential for numerous processes inside the cell. Insights into the underlying molecular mechanisms have been obtained using various biochemical and biophysical methods on two different levels — bulk and sin…

This research focuses on the distribution of chemical elements in protoplanetary disks, the birthplaces of planets. These disks form around young stars and contain gas and dust, from which planets grow. Ice plays a crucial role in planet formation, aiding the clumping of dust particles and influencing…

Promotor: Prof.dr. E.F. Smets, Co-Promotor: L.W. Chatrou

Promotor: J.M. van Ruitenbeek, Co-Promotor: S.J. van der Molen

Obesity may alter how a person absorbs, distributes, metabolizes or excretes medication. This thesis describes how obesity affects drug levels in the blood for antimicrobial agents, such as ciprofloxacin and fluconazole.

LCA has become an important method to study environmental impacts of human activities. Still, there are several methodological issues in LCA that can adversely affect the results reliability.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide. Metastasis, the process by which cancer cells spread to other parts of the body, makes treatments less effective. It is important to unravel the mechanism of metastasis.

Surface acoustic waves (SAWs) are mechanical waves that travel along the surface of a material and find many applications in modern technologies due to the ease of excitation on piezoelectric substrates via interdigital transducers (IDTs).

Promotor: J.N. Kok, Co-Promotor: A.J. Knobbe