Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Eating under Christian rule: isotopic evidence for food access and resilience among a medieval Muslim minority in Iberia

Muslim minorities are documented as taxpayers or legal subjects in medieval Europe, but rarely as individuals or households. This study examines carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes from 120 individuals buried at Torre Monreal, Tudela (Navarre, Spain) between the late eleventh and...

Effect of lumbar strengthening exercises on kinesiophobia in people with chronic low back pain: a systematic review

Kinesiophobia is a key psychological factor in CLBP and represents a significant barrier to functional recovery. Strength exercises are commonly recommended for CLBP, yet their specific impact on kinesiophobia remains unknown. A systematic review was conducted to evaluate the eff...

A Physical Therapy Clinical Framework for Temporomandibular Disorders: Integrating DC/TMD, ICOP and Multidimensional Patient Phenotyping

Temporomandibular disorders (TMDs) are clinically heterogeneous, and patients sharing the same diagnosis may differ substantially in pain mechanisms, functional impairments, behavioral contributors, comorbidities, psychosocial burden, prognosis, and treatment response. Although t...

Female Perseverance in the Courtroom: Gendered Litigation Patterns in Early Modern Brabant and Limburg

Abstract This article contributes both methodologically and substantially to the debates on uses of justice in early modern Europe and, more specifically, about how and to what extent women asserted their rights in the courtroom. The approach is quantitative, with an analysis inv...

From paper to proof: revealing Congo Basin warming through rescued climate archives

Abstract. The Congo Basin in Central Africa remains one of the few regions globally where the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has neither assessed changes in hot extremes and extreme precipitation since the 1950s nor attributed such changes to anthropogenic influences,...

Fetal Postmortem Examination: Confrontation Between the Required, the Needed, and the Accepted

Highlights What's already known about this topic? What does this study add?

Learning the Influence of the Chemical Environment on Epoxy-Amine Cure Kinetics

Accurate modelling of polymer-network formation requires describing reaction kinetics in a continuously evolving chemical environment. Epoxy-amine networks are a challenging model system: epoxy groups react successively with primary and secondary amines, while hydroxyl groups for...

A virtual reality study to investigate the influence of greenery and traffic density on self-reported feelings of relaxation among older adults

Abstract Mental health problems affect approximately 14% of older adults worldwide. Although urban environments are known to influence stress, a key contributor to mental health problems, well-controlled experimental studies examining how specific urban features affect stress in...

Development and Validation of a Resting Metabolic Rate Equation for Elite Cyclists

Purpose: Accurate determination of energy expenditure (EE) in elite endurance athletes is critical for personalised nutrition strategies aimed at maintaining health and optimising performance. The resting metabolic rate (RMR) constitutes a large portion of daily EE, but existing...

Comparative chloroplast genomics of Medicago: codon usage bias, purifying selection, and phylogenomics

Medicago sativa subsp. falcata (yellow-flowered alfalfa) is an essential genetic resource for forage improvement, biofuel production, and sustainable agriculture. Its superior cold tolerance and drought resistance, compared with common alfalfa, make it suitable for cultivation in...

Consumption and marrow extraction in 14th century Oudenaarde (Belgium): a zooarchaeological study of a late medieval cattle assemblage

This study reports on a late medieval collection of faunal remains from a pit in the historical centre of Oudenaarde (Belgium), which was characterized by a peculiar predominance of cattle mandibles. To investigate the human activities leading to the accumulation of this assembla...

Premedication practices prior to neonatal laryngoscopy: a nationwide observational study in Belgian NICUs

Intubation or less invasive surfactant administration (LISA) in neonates both require laryngoscopy, a stressful and painful procedure. This study aimed to document premedication practices before laryngoscopy in Belgium and explore reasons for absence of premedication. Sub-analysi...

Adiponectin-enriched liver-derived ECM attenuates fibrogenic features of activated hepatic stellate cells in a multicellular 3D model

Abstract Background Adiponectin (ADPN), an adipocytokine expressed in multiple tissues including the liver by quiescent hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) has recognized antifibrotic properties. However, most studies rely on simplified 2D systems that fail to capture the liver microen...

Alpha-galactosylceramide as mRNA vaccine adjuvant modulates cellular immunity against tuberculosis and contributes to antigen-specific lung-associated T cells with a TRM-associated phenotype following prime-pull strategy

Tuberculosis (TB) remains the leading cause of death from a single infectious agent worldwide, highlighting the need for improved vaccines beyond the limited protection currently provided by the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine. Here we investigated the immunological impact...

Reducing hyperparameter sensitivity in measurement-feedback based Ising machines

Abstract Analog Ising machines have been proposed as heuristic hardware solvers for combinatorial optimization problems, with the potential to outperform conventional approaches, provided that their hyperparameters are carefully tuned. Their temporal evolution is often described...

Norwegian lambic-style acidic beers share key microorganisms and metabolites with Belgian lambic beers, although typical microbial phases are less pronounced

Belgian-style acidic ale beers are gaining interest worldwide. These sour beers comprise the spontaneously fermented Belgian lambic beers and beers that are inspired by them, including American coolship ales. This study identified the microbiota present during Norwegian lambic-st...

Chaperone-inspired nanobodies enable pathway-selective control of Tau self-assembly

Abstract Selective control of pathogenic protein self-assembly remains a major challenge for intrinsically disordered amyloid-forming proteins such as Tau. Here we show that nanobodies originally raised against the chaperone S100B unexpectedly cross-react with Tau as potential pa...

Reactivity of ambident nucleophiles in magnetic fields: A combined conceptual DFT and current-DFT study

The influence of strong external magnetic fields (up to 0.30 B0) on the electronic structure and reactivity of ambident nucleophiles is investigated using the nitrite and thiocyanate anions as prototypical examples. To capture magnetic-field-induced changes in reactivity, current...

Commerce, Cities, and Princes: The Institutional Tradition and the Premodern Low Countries

ABSTRACT This article evaluates the application of New Institutional Economics (NIE) to history (the institutional tradition), focusing on its main theoretical contributions and criticisms. It examines the pitfalls of the institutional tradition and looks at the recent historiogr...

Species specific height diameter relationships of dominant tropical rainforest trees in Kakamega Forest Kenya

Accurate height–diameter (H–DBH) relationships are fundamental for forest inventory, structural assessment, and biomass estimation in tropical forests, where direct measurement of tree height is often time-consuming, costly, and prone to error. Species-specific allometric models...