Academic Ceremonies July 2012

“From hiring to firing”

This dissertation describes, compares and analyzes policies of the United Nations Secretariat and the European Commission concerning staff appointment, placement and separation. It finds that recent reforms did not affect the existence of the concept of international civil service in these institutions, but that the emphasis has moved more towards ensuring a less costly and more flexible work force. While continuing to provide for a number of important legal safeguards for the independence and impartiality of staff, even improving the previous state of affairs in a number of areas, the study argues that the situation is not yet ideal. It recommends, for example, that the UN Secretariat revises its legal framework for ensuring adequate geographical representation and introduces better promotion and mobility frameworks. For the European Commission, the study calls for more transparency on de facto national quotas and for simplification of the legal framework concerning various types of appointment. The study also argues that proper procedures are needed for appointment of all, not merely some of, UN and EU staff.

Key words:

UN Secretariat policies, international civil service, workforce issues

“On the Productivity and Efficiency of Education - The Role of Innovations in Dutch Secondary Education”

Innovative schools in general perform better than less innovative schools. Moreover, this dissertation shows that Dutch schools for secondary education are relatively efficient (although there are major differences between schools) and that innovations, the distribution of financial means and scale play an important role in that. The efficiency scores of schools vary per region and school type. Finally, it turns out that about one fourth of the schools are still in the middle of a considerable improvement process. These conclusions contribute to the discussion about productivity and efficiency in secondary education and the role of innovations.

Key words:

secondary education, innovative schools

“The best of both worlds? Studies on Healthy Indulgences and Their Effects on Food Intake Control”

This dissertation investigates the effects of healthy indulgences (i.e., indulgent foods featuring front-of package claims such as “extra antioxidants”, “low-fat”, “reduced sugar”, or “with vitamins”) on consumers’ ability to control their food consumption. The research shows that exposure to indulgences carrying functional health claims (e.g., “with antioxidants”) leads to reduced consumption, whereas exposure to indulgences carrying hedonic health claims (e.g., “low-fat”) stimulates increased consumption relative to a regular food packaging featuring no claims. These findings have broad relevance to the food industry in that they highlight the negative repercussion of the currently popular strategy of offering healthier alternatives of inherently unhealthy foods, when the attributes the claims stress are of functional nature. For public policy makers, the findings might provide some comfort that not all marketing efforts aimed at promoting more wholesome alternatives of indulgent foods necessarily have negative consequences regarding consumers’ eating patterns; in that functional health claims potentially help consumers to control how much they eat.

Key words:

healthy indulgences, consumption, self-control

“Segmentation of Animations: Explaining the Effects on the Learning Process and Learning Outcomes”

Animations are more and more often used in instruction materials. Segmentation, presenting animations in parts with short breaks in between instead of one continuous stream of information, is one way of optimizing instructive animations for learning.  The studies described in this dissertation investigated why segmentation positively influences the learning process and learning outcomes. It was found that the breaks are important for the positive effects, but that showing how the information can be segmented into meaningful parts may also play a role in these effects. Furthermore it was found that segmentation of animations is only favourable for beginning learners.

Key words:

Animations, learning, instruction material design

“To condition or not – is that the question? An analysis of the effectiveness of conditionally and targeting in social cash transfer programs”

Social cash transfers have been identified as one interesting option in low-income countries to combat poverty. Whether the cash should come with any conditions attached has been controversially debated by academics and policy-makers. Drawing on uniquely designed experiments, survey and qualitative data, this dissertation critically analyses the appropriateness of conditionality for the low-income country context. Using Zambia as a case study, it discovers that conditionality proves not only to be a politically powerful tool but also to empower, rather than patronize beneficiaries. Conditionality, however, comes at a price: it excludes households from the program, foregoes poverty reduction effects, and overburdens the administration.

Key words:

social cash transfers, conditionality, low-income countries

“Nanotoxicology – an in vitro approach”

Nanotechnology is a technology that enables making and adjusting materials on a scale of one millionth millimetre. On this scale materials get other attributes that can be favourable, such as a more focused administration of a medicine to the target organ.  However, it is not known if there are risks attached to nanomaterials. Because of the large variety of nanomaterials it is not achievable to test each nanomaterial separately for possible risks. This dissertation presents methods that could – after further development - make the risk assessment of nanomaterials more efficient, such as the use of tests with cells instead of test animals, and the use of safety data of one nanomaterial for another nanomaterial.

Key words:

nanotechnology, risk assessment, nanomaterials, risk

“Clinical and Molecular genetic studies in the neurocutaneous and cutaneous porphyrias”

“Diffusion Weighted Magnetic Resonance Imaging: Validation, Correction and Applications”

Diffusion weighted Magnetic Resonance Imaging (DW-MRI) images the structure of the white substance in the brains and connections between various brain parts. To validate this technique a test object (phantom) was developed, the structure of which resembles the structure of the white substance. This phantom was brought on the market and by now over 15 universities and hospitals own one.
Furthermore, DW-MRI was applied to a patient with Landau-Kleffner syndrome. This syndrome involves losing the ability of using and understanding language as a consequence of epilepsy. Intensive therapy can restore the language ability. Important connections for language processing look different in these patients and the brains use more visual information in communication.  
The dissertation also describes further studies with a blindsight patient. In these patients the eyes still function, but the visual information is no longer consciously processed. And yet, the deep brain parts that unconsciously process emotions and visual information appear active. The necessary brain connections were shown in this patient and they were not present in control persons. Therefore, the patient has created new connections.

Key words:

Diffusion weighted MRI, Landau-Kleffner syndrome, blindsight