Sentencing is becoming increasingly complex for the courts. Legal scholars and criminologists from Leiden document the process of sentencing in the Netherlands. They use this knowledge to advise legislators and those who implement this legislation on how to make sentencing more consistent and effect…

It has been found that the better a prisoner is treated, the more effective the sentence. Leiden criminologists therefore research how detention can be improved in such areas as prison life and contact between prisoners and their children.

On the 12th of December, Eleanor Dutton successfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Eleanor on this achievement.

This book investigates the effects of brain lesions in the left hemisphere, specifically Broca's area, on the production and perception of vowels, of word tones and of the linguistic use of sentence melody.

On the 2nd of September, Hang Cheng successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Hang on this achievement!

The sentencing decision of the judge might be the most important decision in the criminal proceedings, not only because of the impact the punishment has on the offender, but also because the sentencing decision is a cornerstone of the legitimacy of the entire criminal justice system.

Compared to suspects with the Dutch nationality, foreign nationals face court proceedings more often and are given a prison sentence more often than Dutch suspects. This was the outcome of research conducted by Hilde Wermink, Assistant Professor at Leiden Law School, and American sociologist Michael…

In this study Lilie Roosman describes the effects of prominence and boundary marking on the temporal and melodic structures of two regional languages of Indonesia, viz. Toba Batak, a stress language, and her native language Betawi Malay, a non-stress language.

The nine suspects from Hilversum accused of beating Carlo Heuvelman so badly on the night of 14 July last year that he later died will hear their sentences on Friday. The Public Prosecution Service (OM) had demanded that one of the suspects be sentenced to 10 years in prison, and two others eight ye…

Adults are more likely to reoffend after a short prison sentence than comparable adults with a non-custodial sentence, Leiden University research shows. This is true for the likelihood and extent of repeat crime.

On April 4th, Zohreh Shiamizadeh succesfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Zohreh on this great result.

The court has dismissed Ratko Mladić’s appeal and upheld his life sentence for genocide and war crimes. The verdict is one of Yugoslavia tribunal’s last. Mission accomplished?

Industrial manufacturing processes, such as the production of steel or the stamping of car body parts, are complex semi-batch processes with many process steps, machine parameters and quality indicators.

The parents of Romy, Savannah and Nick have launched a petition for tougher punishments in Dutch juvenile criminal law. Their children were killed by minors.

On the 4th of June, Saskia Lensink successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Saskia Lensink on this achievement!

Making choices is part of life. You make larger or smaller choices in everything you do, and you progress from one choice/decision to the next. All decision-making processes involve three aspects: making a choice, experiencing that choice and reflecting on it.

This project examines how speakers store and process regular pitch variation.

Promotor: S.M. Verduyn Lunel, Co-Promotores: S.C.Hille, O.W. van Gaans

Legitimacy is generally a term that is associated with the state. The term surfaces when there are problems with state legitimacy—when it is lacking or absent. This present volume attempts to think through the relevance of the concept of legitimacy for other political actors than the state.

This project is aimed at 1) elucidating the role of attention in itch and pain, including orientation, and attentional disengagement (i.e., directing attention away) from itch and pain; and 2) modifiability of these attentional processes.

Basketry, cordage and textiles made of plant fibers or bark are rarely preserved in the archaeological record. By means of experimental archaeology and microwear analysis, we obtain indirect evidence about this important craft.

People who have taken antibiotics in the past three months pay more attention to negative facial expressions, according to research by postdoc Katerina Johnson and assistant professor Laura Steenbergen. This may explain how antibiotics increase the risk of developing depression.

How does task context affect children’s word productions?

This book provides a comparative analysis of the process of breach across ten different European jurisdictions by identifying and elaborating a number of key analytical themes through which the different systems can be compared and evaluated.

The group Theoretical Physics of Life Processes, led by Helmut Schiessel, focuses on the physics of chromatin, the DNA-protein complex that fills the nuclei of eukaryotic cells.

Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) has become the standard for business processes diagrams.

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What holds people together and what makes them willing to fit within larger political structures? Our project examines this question in the practices of dynastic rulership in Eurasia ca. 1300-1800.

Are you interested in one of our vacancies? To get to know each other well, we follow a number of steps in the application process.

In this project, we plan to combine two strands of research in speech processing: (a) the impact of prosody on speech processing and (b) the impact of musical training on speech processing. In our project we will test 8 year-old children with different degrees of musical training: (a) primary school…

How the global distribution of vegetation stands dominated by arbuscular and ectomycorrhizal plants relate to principle aspects of belowground carbon accumulation processes?

This thesis investigates the processing of words written in Japanese kanji and Chinese hànzì, i.e. logographic scripts.

How can teachers be motivated by their students’ data in making stepwise changes to their teaching practices?

A punishment that fits the crime is the cornerstone of the rechtsstaat or constitutional state. But opinions differ greatly on what constitutes a just and effective punishment. Research by Leiden University provides politicians, legislators, law enforcers and the public with new information and insights…

In this dissertation, electrophysiological (EEG) and behavioural measures are used to investigate how allophonic tonal variants and sub-phonemic features are processed during Mandarin and Dutch speech production, visual processing of written words and reading aloud.

Can process-oriented dynamic testing be applied to everyday educational practice?

Koper

As a student of the Master's in Comparative Criminal Justice you develop academic, theoretical and research insight in all aspects of crime control. Student actively work on current, concrete problems and are challenged to independently find solutions. Students not only learn about the organization…

The 9th Network Europe Conference in Edinburgh was held at June 2017 in Edinburgh and organized by the Europa Institut Zurich. The contributions of the conference are now published.

How do humans control their thoughts and actions, and what can high-field brain scanning reveal about the underlying processes?

With increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and their detrimental effect on the global climate, modern society needs to push for more renewable energy sources. Storing widely accessible and abundant solar energy in chemical bonds in the form of molecular fuel via artificial photosynthesis…

On May 30th, Yang Yang succesfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Yang on this great result.

This report investigates the different approaches in the authorization process of GMOs for commercial use in the European Union and the United States of America. Three main aspects are considered and analyzed as potential causes of differences in the authorization process of GMOs for commercial use.…

On November 1st, Min Liu succesfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Min on this great result.

This dissertation aims to establish a dialogue between ethnomusicology (more specifically indigenous organology), the anthropology of art and the culture of the Apinaye peoples, in order to understand how the musical objects of these peoples are learned and taught, and thus to understand its musical…

Do general practitioners recognize children with or at risk of problematic anxiety and is there a pattern that might help differentiate those with and without anxiety disorders in general practice?

This project aims at investigating the syntactic role of focus in ellipsis across languages.

This thesis describes the antimicrobial discovery strategy developed in our group, the den Hertog Group at the Hubrecht Institute. It includes a cultivation-based screening approach for novel antimicrobial agents from the source of fungi, and a bacterial time-lapse imaging approach for antimicrobial…

Some offenders are given short prison sentences. They tend to be people who are generally not faring well before they go to prison; they may have difficulty finding a job for instance. A short spell in prison can make them even more vulnerable. Attention therefore needs to be paid to continual supervision…