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Een verhaal met een staartje : onderzoekingen over de Middelnederlandse Parthonopeus van Bloys, gevolgd door een synoptische uitgave van alle bekende handschriftfragmenten
No full textAbstract: The thirteenth-century Middle Dutch chivalric novel Parthonopeus van Bloys - an adaptation of the twelfth-century Old French novel Partonopeus de Blois - tells the story of the sixth-century hero Parthonopeus and his beloved Melior. Through a broken promise, Parthonopeus loses his beloved, but he eventually manages to win a tournament for her hand. Shortly after completion, the original Old French novel was supplemented with an additional text, which is also included in the Middle Dutch adaptation. In it, Parthonopeus' main opponent in the tournament, the Sultan of Persia, invades Melior's kingdom to claim her as his wife after all: the starting point for an intense war. The Middle Dutch Parthonopeus has survived in a large number of fragments from five Middle Dutch manuscripts and one Ripuarian manuscript. Because of the lack of a modern edition so far, this dissertation offers a diplomatic edition of all known fragments, including extensive manuscript descriptions, datings of the Middle Dutch manuscripts, and localisations of both the author's language and that of the copyists of the Middle Dutch manuscripts. The ending of Parthonopeus van Bloys seems to be the original work of the Middle Dutch poet: his Old French example text was probably unfinished. The Middle Dutch ending shows a clear influence of classical rhetoric. Thematically, the adapter links his ending clearly to the original Old French Partonopeus de Blois, in which courtly love was a central theme. The Middle Dutch ending thus shows a deliberate design, in which courtly love as a literary driving force ultimately wins out over belligerence. The way in which the adapter has connected his ending thematically to the original Old French Partonopeus and its careful construction and elaboration ensure a satisfactory conclusion to the story
Acid as a catalyst and reagent in sustainable reactions with arenes
No full textAbstract: The usage of biomass as feedstock for renewable carbon has been put forward to help addressing urgent climate change issues such as our reliance on fossil resources and the associated necessity to reduce CO2 emission. In this context of defossilization, lignin, one of the three components of abundantly available lignocellulosic biomass, has emerged as a promising biorenewable resource for aromatic platform molecules, which are currently obtained by petroleum refining. To unlock its potential, further research is required to efficiently transform the complex lignin structure into valuable product streams. Here, the big challenge is to go selectively cleave lignin into a limited number of arenes. In this respect lignin first approaches starting from lignocellulose rather than lignin are more interesting as during extraction of (hemi)cellulose from lignocellulose (e.g. in the paper industry) depolymerization and repolymerization of native lignin occurs creating a recalcitrant lignin, difficult to chemically cleave. In Chapter 1 of this thesis, a brief introduction on lignin, its most important features and current depolymerization strategies is given. Given the abundancy of aryl methyl ether functionalities in lignin and lignin-derived products (monomers, dimers and oligomers) obtained via biorefinery, their O-demethylation is important for further downstream processing. Unsurprisingly, various methods have already been reported using a wide variety of both catalytic and non-catalytic reagents, each accompanied with their own advantages and disadvantages. Because of this, a new O-demethylation protocol, utilizing acid (HCl or zeolites) in high temperature water, was developed in Chapter 2, keeping the different aspects of Green Chemistry in high regard. The CHEM21 Green Metrics Toolkit was used to assess the green credentials of our newly developed method versus state-of-the-art routes reported in the literature. In Chapter 3, the mechanism of the developed O-demethylation reactions was further unraveled using a combination of experimental studies and operando molecular modeling.\u200b Anilines are core structures for the chemically industry. They can be obtained via nitration of arenes and reduction. In Chapter 4, a novel selective reduction of nitrobenzenes into anilines was developed as traditional protocols still impose significant shortcomings with respect to Green Chemistry. Rather than relying on a thermal process, visible light-photoinduction was used to accomplish this transformation
Belasting en draagkracht : de toekomst van het draagkrachtbeginsel als verdelingsbeginsel in Belgi\ueb
No full textAbstract: Er is slechts sprake van fiscaal \u2018recht\u2019, i.p.v. onrecht, als de verdeling van de belastinglast tegemoetkomt aan algemeen aanvaardbare normen. Een norm die dan vaak wordt genoemd, is het draagkrachtbeginsel. Hoewel draagkracht als een van de meest voorgestelde maatstaven voor een billijke belastingheffing kan worden aangemerkt, lijkt het toch ook \ue9\ue9n van de meest ongrijpbare. Dat is begrijpelijk, want een leuze als \u2018de breedste schouders moeten de zwaarste lasten dragen\u2019 werd in het verleden wel eens vergeleken met concepten als \u2018sociale zekerheid\u2019 of 'volledige tewerkstelling'. Er wordt dan impliciet een concept gesuggereerd dat voldoende vaag is, zodat nagenoeg iedereen het gevoel zal hebben dat hij of zij het kan onderschrijven. Wanneer geprobeerd wordt om het echt te concretiseren, blijkt dat al snel een bijzonder moeilijke taak te zijn. In dit proefschrift wordt die uitdaging aangegaan. Het opzet van dit onderzoek is tweeledig. Enerzijds is het de bedoeling om, via zowel een filosofisch en juridisch grondslagenonderzoek, maar ook d.m.v. rechtsvergelijking met Frankrijk en Duitsland, het draagkrachtbeginsel te concretiseren in een Belgische context. Anderzijds wordt onderzocht hoe het beginsel kan bijdragen aan coherentie binnen de fiscale rechtsorde. Hiervoor wordt een systeemgerichte aanpak gehanteerd. In dit proefschrift worden verschillende richtsnoeren geformuleerd om het draagkrachtbeginsel in te vullen op een manier dat het beginsel ook orde kan brengen in de fiscale rechtsorde. De huidige fiscale wanorde maakt immers dat de fiscaliteit onbevattelijk wordt voor de doorsnee burger. Wanneer het aspect \u2018rechtvaardigheid\u2019 niet meer duidelijk zichtbaar is in het geheel, zal de betalingsmoraal het moeten ontgelden. De tijd is dan ook rijp voor een duidelijke ordening van het fiscaal recht, waarin het draagkrachtbeginsel de plaats van systeemdragend beginsel inneemt
1400: un fortunoso anno : future thinking and risk in late medieval Venice
No full textAbstract: In recent years, research has shown how capitalist economic actors create and use their future expectations to avoid, cope with, and overcome risks in their business. This future orientation of traders is considered one of the main engines of capitalism. According to economic historians, the birth of capitalism was led by the profound changes experienced by medieval people\u2019s future thinking between the tenth and the fourteenth centuries. During this period, medieval people\u2019s future passed from being an eschatological, fixed time, conditioned by the concept of the Last Judgment, to being perceived as a more earthly and open time. This epochal change made the future a time of possibilities in the eyes of medieval economic actors, in which the uncertainty inherent to commerce started to be partially quantified and seen as a profit opportunity for businessmen. Historians explored the link between future thinking, capitalism, and risk only from a collective point of view or by focusing on the early modern and modern periods. Medievalists neglect the analysis of this phenomenon from an individual point of view. This dissertation fills this historiographical gap by studying how medieval merchants created and used future expectations of their business and private lives to avoid, cope with, and overcome risks or disasters. To do so, I analysed the correspondences written by two Florentine merchants, Bindo Piaciti and Bartolo Zati, and Paris Soranzo, a Venetian merchant and patrician, concerning the Rialto market between 1389 and 1411. The research examined and compared these businessmen\u2019s future thinking in their daily business, but also in a period they considered disruptive and disastrous for their business and private lives: the fortunoso anno of 1400. This year, the Venetian community suffered several deep crises that deeply affected their economic and private lives. Merchants mentioned these events as \u201cgran danni\u201d (great damages). This dissertation focuses on how merchants employed their future expectations to face what they perceived as the three major risks over this period: a plague epidemic that struck that causing 16.000 casualties in a few months, a shipwreck that caused a substantial loss to the city economy, and a war that disrupted the commercial route between Venice and the Middle East
Digital specters of colony : securitization, Moros, and the age of social media
No full textAbstract: This dissertation examines the securitization of Moros (a collective term for Muslim ethnic groups in the Philippines) at the discursive nexus of the global and local, as well as the present and past. It employs a combination of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and computational text analytical methods, such as word embeddings, emotion classifiers and collocation analysis across three text types: official speeches, traditional media, and social media. The time period spans the years 2015, 2017 and 2019., when key events transpired leading up to the establishment of the autonomous political entity Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), namely, the Mamasapano Encounter, the Marawi Siege and the ratification of the Bangsamoro Organic Law. Methodologically, computational text analytical methods allow for the investigation of semantic fields and emotions associated with the identities of a majority of the country (being Filipino, Christianity, and Catholicism) and the Moro identity, as well as differentiation between conflict and non-conflict centered texts, regional and national broadsheets, and the transition between the administrations. While the current discourse shares some parallels with colonial-era discourses of Moros that historically informed concepts of belongingness to the \u2018nation,\u2019 it has linkages with the larger globalized context. These include the \u2018Global War on Terror\u2019 discourse and the amplification of negative media discourses on Islam and Muslims through social media. These are observed alongside new features, such affective language, and the centering of the \u2018self\u2019 through new media. In sum, this project demonstrates how social media as audience reception can intensify links between identity, security and affect, while simultaneously affording fewer zones of meaningful contact with the \u2018other\u2019 and overlooking the dimensions of material grievances and horizontal conflict
Advanced spectroscopic characterisation of filled and long single-wall carbon nanotubes
No full textAbstract: Single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) have outstanding optical and electronic properties that critically depend on their chiral structure. In particular, their hollow structures and diameters in the range of the size of various molecules make SWCNTs unique for molecular confinement. Firstly, by selecting SWCNTs with a matched diameter for encapsulation of one-dimensional rows of molecules, nanohybrids can be achieved. However, the domain size of the molecules encapsulated is currently limited by the SWCNTs\u2019 length. In this thesis I aim to develop an opening procedure to achieve long, open and defect-free SWCNTs by eliminating sonication in the procedure. Secondly, I discuss the synthesis of SWCNTs with intrinsically longer lengths than commercial ones to provide for new starting batches for later studies. Furthermore, tellurium chains encapsulated inside SWCNTs have been characterised as an example of nanohybrids using wavelength-dependent Raman spectroscopy. Lastly, this thesis describes the study of the diameter-dependent phase transitions of water confined inside SWCNTs. For diameters below 1 nm, where strong confinement effects are expected, experimental verification is very limited. In this work, I exploit the chiral selectivity of optical spectroscopy and its sensitivity to changes in the local SWCNT environment to determine the transition temperatures of confined water directly in a multi-chirality sample such that many SWCNT diameters can be simultaneously probed
Greening the past : the effect of green fa\ue7ades on microclimates and deterioration risks for historic masonry
No full textAbstract: Urban environments are increasingly subjected to climate stressors, including elevated temperatures and air pollution levels, which are negatively affecting public health and urban resilience. Historic buildings, often located in dense urban centres, face accelerated deterioration and various sustainability challenges. To improve the urban environment, cities are increasingly implementing nature-based solutions (NbS), including green fa\ue7ades, which consists of climbing plants covering vertical surfaces while requiring minimal ground space. Despite the proven environmental benefits of green fa\ue7ades, they are rarely implemented on historic buildings due to concerns about adverse effects on material durability and structural integrity. This dissertation explores the potential co-benefits of greening historic buildings: improving the environment while contributing to the durability of historic building fa\ue7ades. The research investigates how green fa\ue7ades can influence the local microclimate and how these environmental changes affect common degradation processes. A combination of a large-scale meta-analysis, long-term in situ monitoring (2023-2025) in the historic city centre of Antwerp, and complementary laboratory studies was used to assess the impact of green fa\ue7ades on historic buildings. Environmental parameters such as surface temperature, air temperature, relative humidity, solar irradiation, moisture ingress and wind-driven rain were monitored, which allows us to understand the mechanisms by which green fa\ue7ades alter wall surface conditions. The findings indicate that green fa\ue7ades can reduce the fluctuations in surface and air temperature and relative humidity, decrease the exposure of the wall to solar radiation and shield the wall from precipitation. The magnitude of this effect is determined by several boundary conditions and plant characteristics. Subsequently, these microclimatic changes were assessed through a risk analysis in relation to common degradation processes such as salt crystallisation, freeze-thaw action and the growth of microorganisms. Depending on several environmental boundary conditions or plant characteristics, the impact of green fa\ue7ades can either enhance or mitigate the risk of common deterioration processes. The study identifies the conditions under which green fa\ue7ades can mitigate the rate of deterioration, and thus unlock the co-benefits: improving the urban environment while enhancing the durability and resilience of historic buildings. This dissertation contributes new knowledge to both heritage sciences and urban sustainability. It offers a foundation for future research into green fa\ue7ades as a more resilient and ecologically responsible approach to safeguarding historic buildings
Legal issues in health data research
No full textAbstract: Big data has expanded the potential of medical research while introducing new challenges for legal regulation and participant protection. Traditional legal bases no longer adequately support the scientific value of health data. Fully informed, one-time consent is increasingly challenged by the complexities of big data, and existing regulatory frameworks diverge in their disclosure requirements and validity standards. Accordingly, a dynamic, type-based consent model is proposed. For research involving previously disclosed health data, the legitimate scope of use should be constrained by contextual integrity and the protection of the right to health. Furthermore, scientific research should be formally recognized as an independent lawful basis for processing health data under Chinese personal information protection law. Health-privacy governance should shift from an autonomy-based approach to a trust-based model. A trust-centered framework\u2014integrating identity, technological, and regulatory trust\u2014should guide data use, supported by controlled de-identification systems. Researchers\u2019 rights to retain identifiers may be allocated according to demonstrated trust levels. Research participants should be entitled to share in the benefits derived from research. Data dividends may mainly be distributed at the group or public level, through health-data cooperatives or a health-data dividend tax. For personalized data processing, individuals may share in benefits through tailored health services. Posthumous health data should be governed under a donation-based framework, with presumed consent subject to advance directives and the possibility of compulsory authorization by ethics committees when justified by public health interests. Within the European Health Data Space, commercial scientific research should be subject to stricter measures, including tiered data dividends, mandatory ethical review, and related requirements. Data access rules should be tailored to each stage of research and determined through a balance test between commercial and public interests
Anthropology of consciousness through contemplative practices : ethnographic investigation into meditative experience and subjectivity
No full textAbstract: The present work is the result of a three-year doctoral research project, which develops both on an ethnographic level and through theoretical and methodological inquiry. The research system focuses on the concept of consciousness from an anthropological perspective, studied through the examination of contemplative practices. This term is employed in a broad sense, encompassing not only Buddhist meditation but potentially any practice aimed at fostering mindful awareness through bodily discipline, whether inspired by Buddhist meditation or developed independently. In order to outline an anthropological theory of consciousness capable of studying experiences as intimate as contemplative practices, this research critically analyzes ethnographic methodology and proposes a variant developed through the elicitation of narrations concerning subjective experience via visual devices. In the specific case of this thesis, these devices consisted of multi-layered drawings created in parallel with one or more meditation or contemplation pathways undertaken by the participating subjects. Despite the limited number of participants, I argue that the significance of the collected data, particularly within the framework of qualitative research methodology, is considerable when the focus is placed on individual subjectivities rather than collective experiences. This research pathway has engaged both the participants and the anthropologist, who, through not only interactions with the participants but also active involvement in the contemplative and elicitation exercises, underwent a process of redefinition of their own subjectivity, described through autoethnography. The conclusions reached pertain not only to the possibility of formulating an anthropological theory of consciousness but also to the critical importance of qualitative research methodologies in the study and description of subjectivities. Furthermore, this research has resulted in a profound theoretical reflection on the role of images and the agency of images in the construction of intersubjective or introspective relationships
3D knee morphology analysis and predictive models for data-driven patient selection : shaping the future: development of a prognostic model for arthroscopic partial medial meniscectomy
No full textAbstract: Innovations in biomedical imaging and artificial intelligence (AI) computer vision algorithms support the automation and scalability of 3D anatomical modeling. Furthermore, automated landmarking methods enable precise and transparent morphometric analysis of the knee. Unique morphological traits, such as a narrow medial femoral condyle, appear to be linked to medial knee degeneration. Additionally, size discrepancies in meniscal allograft transplantation between donor supply (larger medial meniscal size) and patient demand (smaller medial meniscal size) highlight challenges in donor-recipient matching. Statistical shape analysis allows for comparison of the main modes of shape variation between responders to arthroscopic partial medial meniscectomy (APMM) and patients with medial post-meniscectomy syndrome (MPMS), a clinical diagnosis characterized by recurrent pain related to meniscal deficiency. In this PhD thesis, a prognostic model was developed for APMM to differentiate\u2014prior to surgery\u2014between patients likely to benefit from the procedure and those at risk of developing MPMS. By integrating knee bone morphology with clinical and demographic data into an end-to-end machine learning pipeline, we aim to optimize patient selection for APMM in populations without any of the already described risk factors for APMM failure. This data-driven approach has the potential to improve surgical success rates and reduce the occurrence of MPMS by identifying patients who may benefit from alternative treatment options