Projects
Exploring the role of non-coding variation in hereditary blindness: Stargardt disease as a model Ghent University
The objective of this study is to unravel the role of non-coding variation in Stargardt disease, a frequent cause of hereditary blindness. First, the regulatory domain of the disease gene will be delineated en characterized. Using next-generation sequencing mutations in this region will be identified, after which they will be filtered using an integrative filtering strategy and several functional tests.
Morpho-syntactic variation in the Greek documentary papyri (III BC – VI AD). A socio-historical investigation Ghent University
This investigation studies the relationship that exists between certain linguistic (morpho-syntactic) and social characteristics, and how this relationship evolves through time. The corpus consists of Greek ‘documentary’ papyri, with an emphasis on three general text types, that is, ‘letters’, ‘contracts’ and ‘petitions’. Theoretically, the investigation is embedded in the ‘Systemic Functional’ framework.
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Measuring linguistic attitudes with auditory affective priming: Attitudinal variation towards varieties of Dutch KU Leuven
The objective of this work is twofold. It sets out to contribute to the study of language attitudes on a methodological as well as a descriptive level. The main goal of the study is the methodological one. Notwithstanding some exceptions (e.g. Preston 1982), quantitative language attitude research has known little methodological innovation since the introduction of the matched-guise technique in the 1960s (Lambert et al. 1960). This relative ...
Maternal effects mediated by immunity: Sources of variation in maternal antibodies and effects on offspring in wild rockhopper penguins. University of Antwerp
Pathogen-driven variation in MHC-genes in natural populations under stress: house sparrows as a model Ghent University
In this project, I aim to disentangle the roles of genetic drift and pathogen-driven selection in shaping variation at genes of the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) in urban and rural house sparrows. I therefore combine non-invasive biometric, genetic, immunological and pathogen sampling of free-ranging populations with a common-garden experiment.