Academic Ceremonies February 2011

“Deciphering mitochondrial and molecular pathology in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus”

Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) is caused by disturbed energy management.  Mitochondria are the energy factories of a cell and badly functioning mitochondria are considered the cause of the development of insulin resistance, but publications on this subject are contradictory.  This dissertation describes the mitochondrial and molecular changes in muscle and fat tissue of T2DM patients. It is shown that the decreased mitochondrial function in muscle tissue has no causal role, but is a consequence of T2DM and can be improved by an adjusted training programme. Also changes in molecular processes in preadipocytes of T2DM patients were recorded and more insight was gained in the functions of two genes hat are involved in the development of T2DM. This knowledge of the disease process contributes to a better treatment of T2DM. 

Key words:

type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, mitochondria, gene expression

“On fertile ground? New perspectives on gonadal function in classic galactosemia”

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Key words:

hereditary metabolic disease, fertility, early ovarian failure 

“Innovation in Finance to Finance Innovation: Supporting pro-poor entrepreneur-based innovation”

This thesis proposes a new way of conceptualising financing of inclusive innovation in rural areas by focusing on pro-poor entrepreneur-based innovation (PEBI) and by considering the knowledge flows in different parts of the financial system. Inclusive innovation refers to innovation that provides the poor with better goods, services or livelihood opportunities. Empirically, the thesis found that the Indian banking system does not efficiently support rural PEBI. Instead an alternative financing sector has emerged recently, in which there are three broad categories of organisations: micro venture capital firms, small-scale finance providers, and grassroots innovators and incubators. They are complementary, forming an ecosystem of finance for different types of rural PEBI. What these organisations have in common is an integrated approach to support; an emphasis on partnerships and networks to provide better services and acquire expertise; continuous involvement in the investees; and a dual bottom line.

Key words:

finance innovation, entrepreneurship, rural 

“Dynamic Cooperation”

Cooperation is essential in many aspects of our life and in many situations in economics. We decide to make friends, get married, work together and to form more complex partnerships like defensive alliances, trade-corporations, international agreements on environmental issues, common exploitation policies in the European Union, labor unions or cartels. Game theory attempts to enhance our understanding of people's behavior in such situations mathematically.

We show for instance that - just like extreme endowments lead to exchanges in a market - bad initial allocations facilitate cooperation, or that market structure plays a crucial role in the agreements agents might have. Our model can also be used to assess the stability and sustainability of an agreement in a stochastic environment.

Key words:

game theory, cooperation, behavior

“Pharmacological characterization of wnt/frizzled signaling”

“Understanding HIV-related stigma”

“Clinical evaluation of the surgical and endoscopic treatment of morbid obesity”

Morbid obesity (a BMI of > 40 kg/m2 or > 35 kg/m2), is a worldwide and rapidly growing health problem. Diet, exercise and behaviour therapy appear not successful in the long run. Surgical interventions, such as the laparoscopic adjustable gastric band and the vertical gastric sleeve, are in fact successful. However, the number of necessary reoperations due to the occurrence of complications after the vertical gastric sleeve amounts to 65% after 7 years, and after a laparoscopic adjustable gastric band to 44%. The best option after failed gastric sleeve surgery is the conversion into a Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. This shows good long-term results with regard to weight loss, improvement of gastrointestinal complaints and has a low figure of reoperations. Also the duodenal-jejunal bypass sleeve, and endoscopically placed plastic sleeve in the duodenum shows promising results with 19% overweight loss after 3 months without serious side-effects. Moreover, the bypass effect of the duodenum has a very favourable effect on type 2 diabetes mellitus. This will need to be further investigated in the future.

Key words:

morbid obesity, surgery, Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, duodenal-jejunal bypass sleeve

“Vision and Audition in Motion”

“At risk for psychosis; exploring cognition as intermediate phenotype”

This dissertation studies how cognition as a vulnerability marker is connected with specific symptoms of psychosis, and which influence a delayed cognition has on the development of psychotic symptoms when a person has experienced a traumatic event in childhood.  It turns out that a traumatic event in childhood leads to positive symptoms of psychosis (for example delusions) when there is a higher genetic vulnerability to psychosis. Furthermore, it is shown that the subjective experience of cognitive errors can be a risk factor for the development of negative symptoms of psychosis (or example lack of motivation). It also turns out that patients, and to a lesser degree family members, show an abnormal processing of words (for example incoherent speech), but that this is not connected with the so-called symptoms of disorganization. The conclusion is that cognition is connected with psychotic symptoms, but no direct connection with specific symptoms of psychosis was found.

Key words:

psychosis, cognition, risk factors

“Predicting outcome for lung cancer patients: towards individualized treatment in Radiotherapy”

“Cross-cultural intelligence amid intricate cultural webs; a tale of the UnDutchables in the Land of 1001 Smiles”

This study probes the cross-cultural work life of real Dutch and Thai individuals at five Dutch firms in Thailand. Besides the well-known clashing effect of cross-cultural interaction, on which the academic attention and public awareness have concentrated heavily, this study uncovers three other, more subtle, consequences of cross-cultural life – those of reciprocal, unification, and variation. To deal with and thrive in such complex conditions, we need more than our IQ and EQ and must resort to a unique kind of social intelligence: cross-cultural intelligence or XCQ. XCQ is a learning-by-doing execution of the ability to practice cross-cultural heuristic effectively and offers a new framework for examination. Most importantly, to balance the popular and dominant view of cross-cultural life as a war, inevitably fraught with differences, clashes, and fault lines, this study propounds the less celebrated yet intriguing view of cross-cultural life as a dance, constantly searching for complements, unison and contact lines

Key words:

Dutch culture, Thai culture, cross-cultural interaction, cross-cultural intelligence (XCQ)

“Government Spending in Dynamic General Equilibrium Models”

Empirical evidence shows that government spending raises private consumption. This contrasts with the prescriptions of current economic models, where government spending only has a mediocre role as it primarily takes resources from consumption and investment. This dissertation analyzes the channels through which government spending affects the macroeconomic equilibrium. It shows that when temporary shocks have long run consequences, the immediate reaction of the economy to the shock also changes since households are forward looking. Taking this into account, the dissertation shows that government spending can increase demand enough to increase consumption.

Key words:

government spending, private consumption

“Diabetes self-management; strategies to support patients and health care professionals”

The number of people with diabetes has strongly increased in the past decades and will continue to increase considerably. As a result, there is a greater need for interventions aimed at the improvement of self-management. This research describes the evaluation of a counselling strategy for patients and health care professionals. The educational website (www.diep.info) is positively evaluated by users and turns out effective in the improvement of knowledge about diabetes. Using the website and having motivating talks appears difficult in daily practice for health care professionals. In care, there should be more emphasis on education and counselling of patients as a quality aspect of diabetes care. 

Key words:

diabetes, zelfmanagement, counseling

“Individuals’ Path to retirement”

This dissertation covers financial decisions of individuals with regard to their retirement. We look at how people in Germany and the Netherlands are actually making, as well as how they should be making, these decisions. We provide evidence that people are getting a lot of decisions right on average. Young people in Germany for instance seem to be aware of the implications from the pension reforms in the 1990s and early 2000, which decrease their return to the public state pension for them.  Few people in the Netherlands participate in the Levensloopregeling. Our empirical research shows that it becomes more likely for individuals to join the older they become. Given uncertain wages and investment returns, a preference for leisure and reasonable impatience we also show that this pattern is optimal . Thus, individuals make some decisions very well in line with life-cycle theory. However, not always. When it comes to complex financial products such as a life-cycle fund our results imply that individuals do not understand  everything and are reducing the weight of this fund in their portfolio the older they become.

Key words:

Retirement, individual financial decision making

“Lifestyle factors and risk of pancreatic cancer”

Survival chances for pancreatic cancer are amongst the worst of all types of cancer. Prevention could therefore have an important influence on the mortality. Results on the basis of the Dutch Cohort Study of nutrition and cancer, which started in 1986 among over 120.000 persons, show that excessive alcohol intake and smoking increases the risk of pancreatic cancer, whereas quitting smoking decreases the risk.  Research persons that practised sports in the past had a lower risk of pancreatic cancer in comparison to research persons who never practised sports. There turned out to be no connection with the other studied nutrition factors, among which glycaemic index, energy restriction, meat intake, fruit, vegetables and vitamins.

Key words:

pancreatic cancer, risk factors, nutrition, lifestyle

“White Collars Green Sleeves; an Interorganizational Comparison of Determinants of Energy-Related Behaviors among Office Workers”

Energy-saving behaviour contributes to a better environment. This thesis evaluates to what extent and through which mechanisms the organisational context influences energy-saving behaviour of office workers. Four organisations (profit and non-profit) in the Dutch provinces Zuid-Holland and Limburg participated in the empirical study. Previous research has shown that habits, attitudes, social norms and perceived control over one’s own behaviour are the most important general influences at the individual level. As expected, organisational aspects primarily had an indirect influence through the known individual factors. However, the finding that the influence of habits and social norms could differ substantially between organisations was remarkable. In contrast, attitudes and perceived control played a relatively constant role. Interventions in organisations should therefore be preceded by a pilot study on the role of habits and social norms in energy-saving behaviour. 

Key words:

energy consumption, organisations, influences on behaviour

“Context dependent face selection in a visual and semantic perspective”

In everyday life, we often engage in a conversation with someone we did not see for long time, in the context of other people. The crucial elements for a successful interaction with that person are the recognition of his/her face and the retrieval of some background information (e.g. profession). The goal of our research was to understand whether both these cognitive processes are influenced by the presence of surrounding (irrelevant) people. We found that in order to recognize a relevant face the brain filters all the other faces out. However, it uses contextual faces’ information to make the face-profession association.

Key words:

brain, recognition, face selection

“The role of NF-kB activation I fatty acid-induced insulin resistance in skeletal muscle”

“Idiopathic cardiomyopathies: the role of virus persistence and immune-mediated disease”