The main aim of my Ph.D. thesis is to further explore the value of using early developing zebrafish larvae (up to 5 dpf) as a model to study anxiety-like behaviour and their pharmacological modulation with drugs.

Structure-affinity relationship (SAR) and structure-kinetics relationship (SKR) studies were combined to investigate a series of biphenyl anthranilic acid agonists for the HCA2 receptor.

Islam at 250: Studies in Memory of G.H.A. Juynboll is a collection of original articles on the state of Islamic sciences and Arabic culture in the early phases of their crystallization.

What does the daily life of those who travelled to Syria to join jihadist groups look like? Destination Syria, a new ISGA report, provides answers to this question

Migration is the talk of the town. On the whole, however, the current situation is seen as resulting from unique political upheavals. Such a-historical interpretations ignore the fact that migration is a fundamental phenomenon in human societies from the beginning and plays a crucial role in the cultural,…

On 10 June 2021, Merinda Stewart defended her thesis 'Freedom of Overflight: A Study of Coastal State Jurisdiction in International Airspace'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. P.M.J. Mendes de Leon en Prof. J.J. Rijpma.

This paper describes two synthetic lipid models designed to replace human stratum corneum (SC) in studies of the impact of volatile organic chemicals on the molecular organization of the skin barrier lipids.

Promotor: A. Kros

Tero Alstola defended his thesis on 21 December 2017

Spectroscopic studies on fluorescent single molecules in organic condensed matter does not only provide information about the molecule itself, but also its near environment. By suppression of phonon-induced broadening of spectral lines through cooling to low temperatures, small changes in the spectral…

The endocannabinoid receptors CB1R and CB2R are involved in a plethora of processes, and consequently are involved in many pathological conditions. Their wide distribution makes the CBRs both an interesting therapeutic target and hard to study.

A central and much debated topic in the study of language acquisition concerns the nature of the learning mechanisms that are required. Are the computational and learning mechanisms that guide learning about language structure special and specific to language or humans?

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On 22 June, Anneke Koning defended the thesis 'Return to sender: a multi-method study of guardianship against transnational sexual exploitation of children'. The doctoral research was supervised by Joanne van der Leun, Masja van Meeteren and Johan van Wilsem.

Political scientist Rebekah Tromble (Leiden University) has been appointed as an academic advisor to the Social Science One research commission. She will assist the commission in its new partnership with Facebook, which aims to facilitate in-depth studies of the role of social media in elections and…

Misleading social media posts are falsely claiming that the Dutch supermarket chain Jumbo uses facial recognition at self-service checkouts. Jumbo denies this, although it has launched trials with AI cameras to combat shoplifting without using facial recognition.

Labour is back as a significant social and political force in Indonesia, as was shown in the recent 1 May trade union demonstrations in Jakarta. Over the past years major changes have taken place in Indonesian labour law, leading to new forms of judicial and political resolution of labour disputes.

Impressions by Martin Küster, Master of Arts.

The Benelux Association for the Study of Art, Culture, and the Environment (BASCE) is a platform for all those who are actively engaged in ecocriticism to discuss their various endeavours with peers from different disciplines and an array of intellectual, creative, or activist pursuits.

This thesis is a sample-based typological study of formal and semantic patterns in terms for a selection of referring (

Promotor: M. Ubbink, Co-promotor: G. Siegal

A comparative analysis of legitimation strategies in tree hybrid regimes: Russia, Venezuela, and Seychelles.

How do educational philosophies, discourses and practices spread around the globe, and how are they transformed and adapted locally?

An archaeological case-study of the Pointe des Châteaux, La Désirade and Les Îles de la Petite Terre micro-region, Guadeloupe, F.W.I.

Yi-Wen Cheng defended her thesis on 28 May 2015

Actinobacteria are Gram-positive bacteria that have a complex multicellular life cycle and are well known for their ability to produce a wide range of bioactive natural products (NPs).

Instant messaging app Telegram is not faring well in the news – the reason being the illicit activities occurring on the platform. Professor Bart Custers helped Dutch current affairs programme ‘EenVandaag’ respond to questions about the platform.

Understanding others’ emotional behavior is essential for navigating daily social life. But how is such an understanding achieved? The eye-tracking study by Yung-Ting Tsou and colleagues shows that children with hearing loss adopt a unique visual strategy that makes uses of explicit visual information…

In this thesis we have discussed several parameters that affect the electrochemical conversion of enviromentaly harmful molecules such as nitrates and carbon dioxide to more valuable and less deleterious compounds, in order to cast light onto the mechanism of the reaction to achieve an efficient and…

This thesis describes biochemical investigations of glucocerebrosidase (GBA), the lysosomal β- glucosidase that is deficient in Gaucher disease (GD).

This article by Honorata Mazepus and Florian van Leeuwen in the journal Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration and Institutions looks at how evaluations of authorities were influenced by four aspects of a governmental response to a hypothetical disaster.

In this project we study the properties of statistical- and rule-learning mechanisms in relation to the acquisition and evolution of language. We ask to what extent these mechanisms are unique to humans - or to human language - by comparing the acquisition of vocal structure in two species: humans (infants)…

Viviana Massa defended her thesis on 16 December 2018.

Form and Function in Greek Grammar. Linguistic Contributions to the Study of Greek Literature is a new book, written by Albert Rijksbaron. Rijksbaron is internationally known as one of the leading scholars of the Ancient Greek language, whose work has exerted a strong and lasting influence on the scholarly…

In this dissertation iron-based homogeneous catalysts were synthesized, characterized and investigated for water oxidation activity.

When literature, cultural aspects, and data-driven language learning meet in a classroom.

Of all the mass in our Universe, 80% is thought to consist of a hypothetical and invisible substance called dark matter (DM).

The present monograph, spanning a wide range of world and local literatures represents a high academic standard of both literary criticism and philological analysis. By demonstrating her expertise as an Africanist conversant with the Arabic canon, Raia reveals how the narrative of Joseph has been re-narrated…

On the 26th of September, Cosmas Rai Amenorvi successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Cosmas on this achievement!

Natashe Lemos Dekker addresses the experiences of family members of people with dementia as they expressed their sense of gradually losing the person with dementia in the article 'Anticipatory Grief in Dementia: An Ethnographic Study of Loss and Connection' published in Culture, Medicine, and Psychi…

The topic of this PhD thesis is teachers' perspectives on self-regulated learning.

This research aims to investigate how different social forces interact with hydropolitics in the Eastern Nile Basin and what are the constraints of engagement.

Pharmaceutical companies, governments and the general public have become increasingly aware that animal models used in drug testing lack vital aspects to serve as an accurate representation of human biology. As models of the human body should become more physiologically relevant, animal models no longer…

Atherosclerosis is the most important underlying process that drives cardiovascular disease, and is characterized by an accumulation of cholesterol which triggers an inflammatory response in the vessel wall.

Promotor: Prof.dr. T. Schmidt, Co-Promotor: Dr. ir. S.J.T. van Noort

Mouse models are commonly used to assess the immunogenicity of therapeutic proteins and to investigate the immunological processes leading to antidrug antibodies. The aim of this work was to develop a transgenic (TG) Balb/c mouse model for evaluating the immunogenicity of recombinant human insulin (insulin)…

β-Lactamases are enzymes that can break down β-lactam substrates, such as antibiotics, preventing the use of these antibiotics for the treatment of various infectious diseases. However, some compounds, β-lactamase inhibitors, can block these enzymes allowing for possible treatments using a combination…

This dissertation defends the existence of a type of movement that has so far been considered not to be possible, namely, movement of a bare head to a specifier position over arbitrarily long distances.