Planets are formed in disks of gas and dust around young stars.

Multiple stars, that is two or more stars composing a gravitationally bound system, are common in the universe.

The thesis describes terrestrial field trials aimed to detect side-effects of pesticides within the framework of pesticide registration procedures. Field trials were developed using vascular plants Brassica napus and Poa annua, caterpillars Pieris brassicae and effects on decomposition were studied…

In this thesis, we use low-frequency and high-frequency radio observations to address the following questions regarding quasars: is the radio loud/quiet quasar dichotomy real?

Promotor: Prof.dr. V. Icke, Co-Promotor: T.I. Madura

When a star gets too close to a supermassive black hole, it is torn apart by strong tidal forces in a tidal disruption event (TDE).

The focus of this thesis is how stars like our Sun and planets like Jupiter, Saturn, and Earth are formed.

The elementary excitations of magnets are called spin waves, and their corresponding quasi-particles are known as magnons. The rapidly growing field of Magnonics aims at using them as information carriers in a new generation of electronic devices, (almost) free of electric currents.

We would like to present to you a simple guidebook about living a sustainable life as a student in the cities of Leiden and The Hague. Whether you are a first-year student still trying to find your way around or already doing your masters – students wanting to explore more sustainable options and save…

PRINCE (for Policy Relevant Indicators for Consumption and Environment) was a three-year project set up to explore ways to improve and expand the set of indicators used to estimate the environmental impacts linked to Swedish consumption, both within Sweden and abroad. Any new methods and indicators…

Lecture

Spontaneously helping one another, why do we bother? It is believed that lending a hand to others promotes social bonding, helping us to connect with each other and even build friendships. In our experiment, in which the adult researcher ‘accidentally’ dropped matches on the floor, most adolescents…

This thesis discusses the development in Proto–Indo–European, Latin and Romance of a word–formation pattern which the most adequate terminology in use dubs ‘verbal government compounds with a governing first member’; I use the shorthand ‘pickpocket compounds’.

The programme consists of 60 EC, to be completed in one year.

Religions involve belief in the unbelievable: in evil spirits causing disease, in souls surviving death, and in gods punishing wrongdoers and blessing the just. Cognitive studies suggest that humans are predisposed to speculate about fate and divine agency, but support from so-called ‘plausibility structures’…

While colloidal aggregates are often undesirable due to their random shapes, we exploit them as a starting point to synthesize patchy particles.

The state of our environment is a global concern. Despite an increasing awareness, setting internationally binding and ambitious commitments has proven to be a very difficult process. Can unilateral trade measures form an alternative and contribute to global environmental protection?

Development of GHG calculator for bio-electricity and heat.

Material outflows from industrial economies.

The work presented in this thesis is based on ALMA surveys of protoplanetary disks in three star-forming regions: Lupus, OMC-2, and NGC 2024.

Creating information portals for support of European environmental policy.

The SAPPAO project aims to optimise the accuracy and reliability of predicting scheduled flight times. The full name of the project is 'A Systems Approach towards Data Mining and Prediction in Airlines Operations'.

We have conducted a full spectral line survey of the 3-13 micron region of two massive protostars, AFGL 2591 and AFGL 2136, for the first time at high spectral resolution.

PhD Defence

GLOBOX is a spatially differentiated multimedia fate, exposure and effect model. It is used for the calculation of spatially differentiated LCA characterisation factors on a global scale.

Rong Yuang, PhD candidate from the Institute of Environmental Sciences investigated the impact of the renewable energy expansion on China’s carbon emission. On 17 May, she will defend her thesis. China is investing heavily in the development of low-carbon electricity sources, like nuclear, hydro-,…

Fearing a trade-off with economic growth, countries feel discouraged to cut their CO2 emissions. But do the two really not go together? Environmental scientist Ranran Wang and her colleagues investigated the relationship between economic growth and CO2 emissions in 73 countries from 1970 to 2016. Wang:…

Seagoing vessels may emit fewer and fewer harmful substances, but how do you measure whether they comply with the standards? The Dutch Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT) and the universities of Leiden and Wageningen are starting a joint study to detect the emission of sulfur and nitrogen dioxide…

Willemijn Heeren has, together with dr. Lei He (Department of Linguistics, Tübingen & Center for Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics, Zürich), received a research grant from the International Association for Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics to start a pilot project on “Between-speaker variability in dynamic…

Recent publications

Development of scenarios for 2050 detailed in an IO framework

CREEA is a FP7 project on compiling and refining environmental and economic accounts. The project runs from April 2011 to March 2014.

For a few years now, Leiden’s Hortus botanicus has been mounting a campaign to cherish wild plants in the city – for the biodiversity and beauty of this spontaneous vegetation. Botanical artists reveal this beauty in an exhibition at Oude UB in Leiden.

We examine how soil inoculation influences aboveground organisms (i) directly, and indirectly via (ii) its effects on plant chemistry or volatile emission, or via (iii) mediating the effects of belowground pathogens on aboveground organisms via the shared plant.

As a new vision on food production, the feasibility study on LED light to grow crops with the biological- and chemical evaluation of final products.

What are trait-trait relationships in wetlands? To what extent the so-called leaf economics traits deviate from terrestrial ecosystems? How traits specific to wetland plant relate to plant strategies? What’s the relationship between wetland plant traits to the ecosystem functioning (e.g. productivity,…

Juurlink

Key publications of the Medical Systems Biophysics and Bioengineeringgroup (Mashaghi Lab)

Making sure our buildings are sustainable will contribute to Dutch and European environmental standards. Leiden University meets these standards in all its building projects.

Using the principles of Industrial Ecology in Environmental Policy making in two cases: transition to a hydrogen economy and chlorinated compounds.

Deep observations made with the MUSE spectrograph on ESO’s Very Large Telescope have uncovered vast cosmic reservoirs of atomic hydrogen surrounding distant galaxies. The exquisite sensitivity of MUSE allowed for direct observations of dim clouds of hydrogen glowing with Lyman-alpha emission in the…

By reforming agriculture in targeted areas, we can protect the Natura 2000 areas much more effectively. This is what Jan Willem Erisman of Leiden University and Ton Brouwer of Gispoint consultancy write in a new report. They have created a special, nitrogen map of the Netherlands that shows the areas…

For the first time, a court has ordered a company to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions. Lawyers see it as a landmark ruling that will have far-reaching consequences for Shell and possibly also other similar companies.

This project seeks to integrate scientific research and practical knowledge in the study of the mechanisms that make dialogue an effective tool for communication, teaching, and thinking.

My research project focuses on the development of a popular national agency in late nineteenth century Amsterdam and the question how ‘ordinary’ citizens imagined ‘the Netherlands’ through the experience and use of their urban surroundings.

If an algorithm has to learn to understand language, simply having a lot of data doesn’t help much. Like us, a computer has to learn the language in interaction with others. Tessa Verhoef is fascinated by how this interaction works.

How did parties as political organizations emerge?