From previous research in the western Wadden Sea it is clear that mussel plots are important hotspots for biodiversity. When the density of a mussel plot is higher, the biodiversity appears to be higher as well. This final thesis project was a part of the bigger project, ‘Added value with Mussels’, executed …

This thesis was aimed to advice the management of a luxury travel consultancy agency on how to adapt a new luxury travel concept, which would reflect current perceptions of the notion of luxury in the Dutch market. The literature review and a pre-research showed that even though there exists a variety …

Background A modified version of the Berg Balance Scale (mBBS) was developed for individuals with intellectual and visual disabilities (IVD). However, the concurrent and predictive validity has not yet been determined. Aim The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the concurrent and predictive …

The primary aims of this study were (1) to evaluate whole-body mechanical efficiency (ME) in a large group of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients with a wide range of degrees of illness and (2) to examine how ME in COPD is related to absolute work rate and indices of disease severity …

Global awareness on energy consumption and the environmental impacts of fossil fuels boost actions and create more supportive policies towards sustainable energy systems, in the last energy outlook, by the International Energy Agency, it was forecasted totals of 3600 GW from 2016 to 2040 of global deployment …

Objective The evaluation of voice quality is a major component of voice assessment. The aim of the present study was to develop a new multivariate acoustic model for the evaluation of breathiness. Method Concatenated voice samples of continuous speech and the sustained vowel [a:] from 970 subjects …

In this paper, we report on interview data collected from 14 Deaf leaders across seven countries (Australia, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States) regarding their perspectives on signed language interpreters. Using a semi-structured survey questionnaire, …

As part of my PhD research, I investigate the influence of the use of social media by first year students in higher education. In this research I have lessened the amount of variables, from Tinto’s theory, by including only the best-proven predictive variables, based on previous studies. Hereby, avoiding …

Tinto’s integration theory has highly influenced research on student success in Europe and America. However, due to the complexity of the theory and the enormous amount of variables, the theory is not suitable for use in regular evaluations in higher education. By including only the best-proven predictive …

Out-of-school science educational activities, such as school visits to a science center, aim at stimulating pupils’ science talent. Science talent is a developmental potential that takes the form of talented behaviors such as curiosity and conceptual understanding. This dissertation investigates whether …