Dutch healthcare accounts for 7-8% of the total greenhouse gas emissions. In hospitals, at least 20% of this derives from the operating theatre. This includes waste, inhalation gases for anaesthesia, energy for air refreshment and medicine residues in waste water. To change the behaviour of all stakeholders, we assembled a very diverse team to make the operating theatre greener by gaining insight in the biggest polluters. This project aims to fill knowledge gaps but also to provide tools that enhance trust, acceptance and a change in behaviour for the myriad of stakeholders.

Topic The phrenological notion, that any mental process is located in one specific region of the cortex, has been replaced by the knowledge that large-scale networks underlie cognitive processing. However, clinical neuroscientific studies are now biased towards a cortico-centric perspective, disregarding important connections between cortex and brainstem. There is more to the brainstem than vital functions. Animal and pharmacological studies have taught us that the locus coeruleus (LC), a set of small noradrenergic nuclei, is crucial for memory formation. Ultra-high-field (UHF) imaging allows an accurate and detailed functional investigation of this tiny and difficult to visualize area. I hypothesize that the LC is a crucial hub in episodic memory networks. Aging and Alzheimer?s disease (AD) affect the functional integrity of the LC network. I furthermore hypothesize that stimulating the LC alters the functional dynamics of this network. Approach In the first study, I will validate an associative memory task to ensure LC activation in young individuals. By using UHF susceptibility weighted and functional imaging with respiratory gating, I will be able to precisely localize the contribution of the LC to memory processes. In the second study, I will investigate the functional dynamics of the LC with other memory networks during memory processes in healthy elderly and prodromal AD patients using effective connectivity analyses. In the third study, I will test the neural mechanisms underlying transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation, a technique stimulating the LC that has beneficial effects on memory, in the participants of study 2. Potential importance The proposed studies will provide fundamental knowledge on the functional role of specific brainstem areas to memory in healthy aging and AD. These findings can have diagnostic implications, by encouraging the use of connectivity-based biomarkers. Crucially, this project stimulates research investigating the potential of targeted neurostimulation for enhancing cognition or delaying AD onset.

The 3WE project investigates the processual well-being of female workers in foreign financed firms and farms in Ethiopia. Preliminary insights show that women view these jobs as a temporary solution until they transition to better jobs and self-employment. Their well-being is embedded in the social relationships within and beyond their workplace. Interviews with employers and managers indicate a widespread compliance culture to international standards on working conditions which comes at the expense of more effective investments in culturally sensitive foreign and local managers, human resource policy on worker retention and upskilling, and effective multi-stakeholder engagement.

Based on the Cartesian legacy of body-mind dualism, contemporary healthcare conceives of the body as a biological or neurological thing. This view causes healthcare professionals to lose sight of the body as it is experienced and to jump to types of explanations that obscure embodied dimensions of health problems. Frequently, psychological explanations are provided for physical problems without a clearly identified somatic cause (“psychologization”) and mental problems tend to be explained in terms of some brain deficiency (“neuro-reductionism”). Criticisms of dualism often lead to monistic materialist views, thus failing to provide a broader perspective on embodiment. This project aims at tackling both dualism and monistic materialism from a phenomenological materialist perspective. To conceptualize the body’s materiality in contemporary healthcare beyond dualism and monistic materialism, the proposed project employs an empirical-philosophical methodology. It will explore the meaning of the body’s materiality against the background of current theoretical discussions on materialism, while also examining practices that target three major health problems: (1) Medically unexplained physical symptoms (MUPS), (2) Obesity, and (3) Depression. These cases are each in their own way marked by a problematic dualistic legacy, and this calls for alternative views and vocabularies on embodiment. The three cases will be studied in three PhD-subprojects that involve qualitative fieldwork (interviews, observations). This fieldwork combines phenomenology (unraveling experiences) and ethnography (analyzing broader context) to map relevant views of patients and professionals and to uncover how embodiment is framed in patient-professional interactions. In addition, two post-doc researchers develop philosophical analyses of “psychologization” and “neuro-reductionism” regarding the three cases. Finally, the overall project’s synthesis, to be performed by the applicant, relies on these same case-studies to offer a philosophical analysis of materialism. The project will thus produce an empirically sound theory of embodiment, to be implemented in healthcare practices in collaboration with healthcare professionals.

Proposal for additional capacity for data stewards (ds) and research software engineer (rse) for expanding the local DCC@MUMC+ (central coordination point / one-stop/one-door research support desk). The desk consists of a portal (for automatic handling where possible) and the service desk staffed by a DS/RSE team (for handling questions and support needs where necessary). In realizing this ambition, we focus on setting up a feedback loop from the service desk to the portal to improve and expand the portal; further integration of data stewards and research software engineers within the organization in the DS/RSE team; and team training.