The disruption of nutrient cycles caused by human activities such as agriculture and burning fossil fuels is impacting ecosystem services on global and local scales. The increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere contributes to rising global temperatures and ocean acidification, whereas …

Background: Phantom limb pain is a frequent and persistent problem following amputation. Achieving sustainable favorable effects on phantom limb pain requires therapeutic interventions such as mirror therapy that target maladaptive neuroplastic changes in the central nervous system. Unfortunately, patients’ …

Eating rate is a basic determinant of appetite regulation, as people who eat more slowly feel sated earlier and eat less. Without assistance, eating rate is difficult to modify due to its automatic nature. In the current study, participants used an augmented fork that aimed to decelerate their rate of …

A substantial amount of studies have addressed the influence of sound on human performance. In many of these, however, the large acoustic differences between experimental conditions prevent a direct translation of the results to realistic effects of room acoustic interventions. This review identifies …

Background: In clinical practice, nurses’ attitudes regarding older patients are important in relation to quality of care. The Older People in Acute Care Survey (OPACS) is an instrument measuring hospital nurses attitudes regarding older patients and is validated in Australia and the USA. The OPACS …

Introduction: Subfertility is a growing problem in The Netherlands. Assisted reproductive techniques (ART) are applied to aid subfertile couples conceiving. The EmbryoScope is a novel incubator, used in ART, to cultivate embryos under optimal conditions. The EmbryoScope provides time lapse images, which …

Obesity is a fast-growing societal threat, causing chronic conditions, physical and psychological health problems, as well as sickness absence and heavy healthcare costs. Despite numerous attempts to promote physical activity and healthy diet, existing interventions do not focus on the common emotional …

This thesis deals with the problem of students who do not always know how to fill in their leisure time. There is limited information on the behaviour of Dutch students in their leisure time. By researching their passion related behaviour I gained insight in the positive and negative points regarding …

The next generation fulfilment centres are large logistic properties that respond to the growth of business to consumer e-commerce. To respond appropriately, these custom-made properties have to provide an optimal environment aligned to the e-retail strategy to generate as much productivity, cost reduction …

Purpose: The etiology of pain in osteoarthritis (OA) is complex and multifactorial. A growing number of studies suggest that modification of pain-transmission in the peripheral and central nervous system, leading to sensitization, plays a role in OA pain. Sensitization seems to be associated with neuropathic …