Publications

Neuronal communication involves small-molecule transmitters, gap junctions, and neuropeptides. While neurons often express multiple neuropeptides, our understanding of the coordination of their actions and their mutual interactions remains limited. Here, we demonstrate that two neuropeptides, NLP-10 and FLP-1, released from the same interneuron pair, AVKL/R, exert antagonistic effects on locomotion speed in Caenorhabditis elegans. NLP-10 ...

An important element of the ongoing transition towards a sustainable energy system is the increasing share of wind power in the electricity mix globally. Wind power is highly variable by nature leading to geographical and temporal mismatches between supply and demand. Therefore, there is an increasing opportunity for cross-border trade of electricity from low-cost regions to high-cost regions to unlock economic welfare gains. The dissertation ...

The availability of reliable methods for data-driven, optimal decision making under uncertainty is of central importance in several fields of study, including operations research, control, machine learning, and many more specialized application domains. Current (black-box) machine learning techniques, despite their many successes, still provide very few guarantees regarding correctness and safety, impeding their adoption for many high-stakes and ...

Ergodicity Economics presents an intriguing perspective on the validity of the ergodic hypothesis within economic models and the influence of ergodicity breaking on human decision-making processes. Prior research has illuminated the impact of ergodicity breaking within multiplicative settings. However, the implications of ergodicity breaking within additive dynamics, especially in situations carrying a ‘risk of ruin’ or a complete loss, remain ...

Memory is susceptible to voluntary disruption, for instance, through directed forgetting manipulations, in which people are cued to intentionally "forget" information. Until now, directed forgetting has been primarily studied for declarative memory performance. Here, we demonstrate that directed forgetting can also disrupt associative memories acquired through fear conditioning. In two experiments, participants showed poorer recognition and ...

Notwithstanding persistent levels of ethnic discrimination on the rental housing market, we have witnessed in many West-European countries a shift from targeted multicultural to colour-blind policies. At the same time, anti-immigration attitudes remained relatively stable. Whether and how these attitudes are translated in support or aversion toward anti-discrimination policies is, however, still unclear. As the first study in Europe we analyse ...

Psychological distress is prevalent in people with COPD and relates to a worse course of disease. It often remains unrecognised and untreated, intensifying the burden on patients, carers and healthcare systems. Nonpharmacological management strategies have been suggested as important elements to manage psychological distress in COPD. Therefore, this review presents instruments for detecting psychological distress in COPD and provides an overview ...

Deep mutational scanning is a powerful approach to investigate a wide variety of research questions including protein function and stability. Here, we perform deep mutational scanning on three essential E. coli proteins (FabZ, LpxC and MurA) involved in cell envelope synthesis using high-throughput CRISPR genome editing, and study the effect of the mutations in their original genomic context. We use more than 17,000 variants of the proteins to ...

Pro-social risk-taking involves the willingness to commit resources to initiatives and opportunities with a social benefit, as well as a risk of costly failure. These situations often occur in an environment in which groups compete for resources. In these contexts of intergroup conflict, often individuals make personal sacrifices on a voluntary basis, involving considerable risks of failure. We study the context of pro-social risk-taking and ...

Background: Patients are increasingly turning to the Internet for health information. Numerous online symptom checkers and digital triage tools are currently available to the general public in an effort to meet this need, simultaneously acting as a demand management strategy to aid the overburdened health care system. The implementation of these services requires an evidence-based approach, warranting a review of the available literature on this ...