Academic Ceremonies May 2012

“Conditions of Peer Assessment for Complex Learning”

Peer assessment (assessing each others’ work) fits in with self-steered and cooperative learning by pupils. Moreover, it is an important professional skill.  Scientifically not much was known about its effectiveness and the degree to which pupils learn from it themselves. This dissertation studied peer assessment in high schools for Havo and Vwo. One of the conclusions is that when students have to assess each others’ work before they master the study subject, this method has a contrary effect. Therefore, it is recommended to support the pupils in this area with a step-by-step instruction. As the instruction progresses, and the knowledge and skills of the pupil increase, this support is gradually reduced.

Key words:

secondary education, peer assessment 

“Epidemiological and biological mechanisms of cannabis as cause of psychosis”

“Unemployment and employability: how firms can help”

This dissertation shows that companies can make a measurable and significant contribution to the reduction of unemployment and the stimulation of employability of low educated persons. For this purpose, three private initiatives of Philips were studied: the Philips Werkgelegenheidsplan (WGP/Philips Employment Plan), Certification of Skills, and E (mployability)-miles (E-miles).
The main conclusions are that a participant in the employment plan has an 18 percent bigger chance of finding a job than a comparable unemployed person who did not participate. This means that the impact of the employment plan is much more important than those of public re-entry tracks. Low educated people, who participated in the Certification of Skills track, averagely earn more afterwards, are promoted more often and less often dismissed than non-participants. Employees who make use of E-miles become more aware of the importance of personal development and training.

Key words:

private employment initiatives, reducing unemployment

“Bipolar disorder and cognitive functioning: A two-year naturalistic study”

Patients with a bipolar (manic-depressive) disorder suffer from extreme mood swings that take shape as depression and/or mania.  Bimonthly, a group of 76 patients was neuropsychologically examined over a period of two years. Studied were the course of their cognitive functioning by testing among others memory and attention functions and the influence of clinical variables on that, such as mood and medication. The cognitive functioning turned out to vary strongly over time and could only be partially explained by the mentioned variables. Medication used in the treatment of psychotic symptoms turned out to have the strongest negative effects on cognitive functioning.

Key words:

bipolaire stoornis, cognitief functioneren

“Talen in beweging”

“Pleiotropic effects of non-structural matrix proteins in the stressed heart. ECM remodeling in cardiotoxicity, aging and cardiac allograft rejection”

“De zoete inval”

“Back to reality. Exploring the phenomenology of psychosis in daily life”

“Drug-induced movement disorders in long-stay psychiatric patients; genetic and non-genetic risk factors: A prospective study”

On the site of a psychiatric hospital a man walks with a bent back, slowly with a shaking hand. What is the matter with him? This is one of the movement disorders caused by anti-psychotics. This dissertation shows that movement disorders occur often in this patient group and that therefore prevention is crucial. The hope that the new anti-psychotics would make these horrible side-effects disappear turns out an illusion. Older age and higher anti-psychicum dose are risk factors for certain movement disorders. Analyses of earlier studies suggest multiple genetic influences. Also in additional research weak genetic signals were found that ask for larger long-term random studies, in which the fluctuating course of movement disorders and gene-environment interactions can be included.

Key words:

bewegingsstoornissen, antipsychotica

“The structural plasticity of serotonergic and dopaminergic systems: a multidisciplinary approach”

“New pathophysiological concepts and potential therapeutic targets for oxidative phosforylation disorders”

Mitochondria are the power stations of a cell. The function of mitochondria can become disturbed by genetic defects in cell nucleus or mitochondrial DNA. These lead to a wide range of syndromes in which mainly brains, liver tissue and muscle tissue are affected.   To find out which disease processes are activated by their genetic defect, this PhD research developed a series of model systems, using cells or tissue from patients. The identified processes may be interesting for therapy. The current technological progress leads to a quicker increase of newly developed variants in both cell nucleus and mitochondrial DNA. Therefore, an analysis was made of the normal variant in the mitochondrial DNA of a large population that can improve the classification of new disease-causing variants. 

“Mechanism design and characterizing incentive compatability”

“Deep infiltrating endometriosis; environment, genetics, epigenetics”

“Morbidity and mortality risk of aging diabetic and psychogeriatric patients”

This dissertation studies the multi-morbidity (multiple disorders), functional impairments and frailty in diabetes patients. All patients that we examined had at least one co-morbid disorder. Eighty percent had more. We can conclude that in aging patients with diabetes the weight of care and the burden of the disease were considerable. The risk of repeated falling is 1.5 times higher in aging patients with diabetes than in aging people without diabetes. This is partly explained by medication, pain and loss of strength in the joints and muscles, a bad health and less physical activity, and cognitive disorders. Our findings show that an active lifestyle and fall prevention should be part of the treatment of all aging patients with diabetes. Screening for frailty turned out not useful.

Key words:

diabetes, multi-morbidity, functional impairments, vulnerability

“Europa, het bindweefsel van het hart”

“Self and other regarding motives in decision making under uncertainty”

“Why does Europe have a drinking problem”

“Econometric Methods for Financial Crises”​