Gino Verleye

• Ghent University

Background: Polyetheretherketone (PEEK) is a popular material for posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF) cages, although osseointegration remains limited. To optimize PEEK cage characteristics, titanium (Ti) and calcium phosphate (CaP) nanocoatings have been developed with proven mechanical safety. This multicenter randomized controlled trial co...

Background Implant stability testing at various stages of implant therapy by means of resonance frequency analysis is extensively used. The overall measurement outcome is a function of the resulting stiffness of three entities: surrounding bone, bone-implant complex, and implant-Smartpeg complex. The influence of the latter on the overall measureme...

Background The healing of xenograft augmentated intra-alveolar gaps following immediate implant placement(IMIP) after tooth extraction is likely to differ in time and density compared to the native bone part that directly contacts the implant. Materials and methods Secondaryimplantstability(SIS)datarecorded2-3monthsfollowingalateimplantplacementpro...

Background The healing of xenograft augmentated intra-alveolar gaps following immediate implant placement (IMIP) after tooth extraction is likely to differ in time and density compared to the native bone part that directly contacts the implant. Material and Methods Secondary implant stability (SIS) data recorded 2-3 months following a late implant...

Background Context The evidence for the treatment for nonspecific chronic low back pain (ns CLBP) is very weak. Besides the complexity of the pain experience, a good biological marker or tool enabling identification of a pain generator is lacking. Hybrid imaging, combining single-photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT) with computerized tom...

Background and aim: Polyetheretherketone (PEEK) materials already have been used successfully in orthopedic and especially spine surgery. PEEK is radiolucent and comparable with bone regarding elasticity. However, PEEK is inert and the adhesion of PEEK implants to bone tissue proceeds slowly because of their relatively low biocompatibility. The ai...

In the late 60s and early 70s, people started to worry about the deteriorating effects their consumption behavior may have on the environment. Accordingly, consumers were searching for alternative ways to decrease their ecological footprint (Montoro-Rios, Luque-Martinez, Fuentes-Moreno & Cañadas-Soriano, 2006), and they incited companies to take ca...

As ICT provide a lot of possibilities, high expectancies exist towards the electronic public service provision. All governments are increasingly establishing their e-strategies. However, eGovernment still faces many challenges as it continues to develop. The current status of electronic services delivery opens up a lot of questions, both for practi...

Currently thousands of military, diplomatic and civilian personnel are deployed under NATO, UN, and other multi-national, as well as national auspices in high security threat environments, including active conflict zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Soldiers are generally well trained and prepared psychologically to face armed conflict. Civilian c...

To classify pediatric sleep disordered breathing (SDB) using unbiased approaches. In children, decisions regarding severity and treatment of SDB are conducted solely based on empirical observations. Although recognizable entities clearly exist under the SDB spectrum, neither the number of SDB categories nor their specific criteria have been critica...

The framework presented in this paper enables the evaluation of Quality of Experience (QoE) in a mobile, testbed-oriented Living Lab setting. As a result, it fits within the shift towards more user-centric approaches in innovation research and aims to bridge the gap between technical parameters and human experience factors. In view of this, Quality...

Thanks to the massive success of mobile access devices such as netbooks or Apple’s iPhone 3G, Internet on the move has become one of the prominent features of today’s information society. With the emergence of wireless and mobile communication networks, the railroad industry is now catching up on this new technology in their battle with low-cost op...

As ICT provide a lot of possibilities, high expectancies exist towards the electronic public service provision. All governments are increasingly establishing their e-strategies. Nevertheless, both in research as among practitioners, some questions are formulated towards the current approaches. E-government policy has to deal with two main challenge...

E-government still faces many challenges as it continues to develop. The current status of electronic services delivery opens up a lot of questions, both for practitioners and researchers. Therefore, further progress of it needs a profound knowledge base. E-government policy has traditionally focused on bringing online public services and on benchm...

Several studies indicate that only a small minority of Web 2.0 users actively participates, while the minority do not contribute at all. This article investigates whether a similar division applies for adolescents' Internet behavior. Using Szuprowicz’ (1995) typology of interactivity, we distinguish different types of user-generated content (UGC):...

New information and communication technologies (ICT) offer the government new possibilities for providing citizens and businesses with better, more efficient services. Criticism about the provision of E-Government services, however, has proposed a more user-oriented approach. The user needs to be placed at the center of the development and the prov...

We wanted to investigate whether the difference between actual and premorbid intelligence can be useful to make an early differentiation between Alzheimer's disease (AD) and depression among elderly. A Dutch version of the National Adult Reading Test (NLV), a measure of premorbid IQ and the Raven Coloured Progressive Matrices (RCPM), a measure of a...

As ICT provide a lot of possibilities, high expectancies exist towards the electronic public service provision. All governments are increasingly establishing their e-strategies. Nevertheless, both in research as among practitioners, some questions are formulated towards the current approaches. E-government policy has to deal with two main challenge...

This study aims to explore use of coping strategies among adolescents and their relationships with well being in the context of ongoing terrorism. Furthermore, we aim to explore to what extent coping styles in addition to exposure variables explain well being of adolescents facing ongoing terror. During September 2003, after three years of ongoing...

After 9/11, studies concerning psychological and psychiatric effects of terrorism have greatly multiplied. Media exposure to terrorism has been shown to be a vital factor in these effects. However, there is a lack of pre-trauma research assessing the resilience of the civilian population in the face of a `mediated' terrorist threat. This article di...

De beste smaak is de slechte smaak: populaire cultuur en complexiteit Gust De Meyer (2006) Leuven: Acco ISBN 97 8903 346 1033; 260 BLZ.; € 24,50 Onderzoekstypen in de communicatiewetenschap (tweede herziene druk) Fred Wester, Karsten Renckstorf en Peer Scheepers (Red.) (2006) Alphen aan den Rijn: Kluwer ISBN 97 8901 3029 918; 691 BLZ.; € 60,–

Complex relationships exist between pediatric sleep disorders and daytime behavior. Using a multidimensional scaling model, we investigated these relationships in 126 children with sleep breathing disorders (SBD). Validated questionnaires on nighttime behavior, daytime behavior, and respiratory health were administered to a large number of school c...

The objectives of the study were to describe the prevalence, odds, and predictors of 36 paediatric sleep behaviours and describe their coexistence in a school-age normal population. The design was community-based questionnaire survey of sleep-wake patterns, sleep environment, and 36 sleep behaviours indicative of six sleep disorder-subscales using...

Despite the promising prophecies that usually go hand-in-hand with the introduction of new technologies or any other innovation, they often turn out to be a big disappointment due to a bad introduction and communication strategy. In order to improve these strategies a soft Decision Support System (DSS) was developed by combining a measurement and s...

In spite of promising forecasts, successful diffusion and adoption rates are no longer self-evident in the information and communication technologies (ICT) market. Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) for example, is only one of the innovations that failed in that market. For most such failures, an inefficient marketing and introduction strategy — d...

Two main lessons that can be learned from the current ICT's environment, are that the traditional adoption and diffusion pattern cannot be taken for granted anymore, and that preliminary user insight is becoming of increased importance. The first aim of this paper is to present an adjusted form of this traditional theoretical pattern that better fi...

In order to gain an understanding of the dynamics of human individual and average growth patterns it is essential that the right methods are selected. There are a variety of methods available to analyse individual growth patterns, to estimate variation in different growth measures in populations and to relate genetic and environmental factors to in...

This study explores relationships between clinically encountered sleep problems in children. The Sleep Disturbance Scale for Children (SDSC) (Bruni et al 1996), which screens 26 sleep problems and results in 6 sleep disorder-subscales, was used as core in a larger health-behavior questionnaire (HBQ). Caregivers of 3045 6- to 12-year-olds filled out...

The relation between individual trait differences, social mobility and social structure is central to social biology. Because genetic variance underlies phenotypic variance in some of these traits, for example IQ, several mechanisms determine the population variance. Polygenic inheritance is the basic mechanism. Social mobility and assortative part...

In this study, a number of psychological concepts have been measured (through questionnaire-items) in 15 countries under the hypothesis that they could explain national differences in attitudes towards the euro. Based on the average country scores for each of these concepts, multidimensional scaling (combined with hierarchical cluster analysis) rev...

A growing number of people is subject to age-related cognitive impairment due to the proportional increase of the ageing population. Therefore, there is a growing interest in cognition-enhancing substances. The efficacy of an alcohol/water extract of Ginkgo biloba in elderly individuals with memory- and/or concentration complaints was tested in a r...

Since the proportion of elderly people with an insufficient intake of nutrients is high and many of the elderly have poor odour perception or poor dental state, in this study, the relation between age, odour perception, dental state and nutrient intake is explored. Single centre cross sectional study. Independently living elderly were tested at the...

Attitudes towards ‘wallbanking’ (making use of banking services through an Automated Teller Machine (ATM)) and self-reported frequency of wallbanking have been related to attitudes towards innovations and towards computers. The investigation also included the perception of advantages as well as disadvantages of wallbanking, factors that determine o...

The effect of determinants of growth in body length from birth to 6 years of age were studied in a longitudinal sample of 59 male and 70 female infants from Lublin, Poland. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to study the effects of gender of the child, occupation of the parents, the educational level of the parents, per capita income, the...

The use of cultured human epithelium for skin grafting has recently been developed and used successfully to treat burns and various smaller skin defects. Cultured epidermal allografts are replaced by the recipient's own skin. The use of cultured allografts has a healing effect in chronic ulcerations and in burn wounds, probably by releasing growth...

The effect of age, gender and phenobarbital treatment on the hepatic cytosolic glutathione S-transferase subunit composition was studied in Brown Norway rats. Affinity chromatography followed by reversed phase HPLC was used in order to separate the various glutathione S-transferase subunits. Corresponding steady-state mRNA levels were measured by N...

The aim of this study was to measure the activity of phase I and II key enzymes in the biotransformation of xenobiotics and their inducibility by phenobarbital (2 mM) in two currently used in vitro models, namely adult rat hepatocytes, conventionally cultured or co-cultured with rat epithelial cells derived from primitive biliary duct cells. For ph...

Age-associated alterations of hepatic cytosolic glutathione S-transferase activities towards 1-chloro-2,4-dinitrobenzene and 1,2-dichloro-4-nitrobenzene were investigated in Brown Norway rats of both sexes (11-144 weeks old), under control conditions and after administration of phenobarbital. With both substrates, small changes in glutathione S-tra...

In general, research about the psychological effects of terrorism seems to lack pre-trauma research assessing the resilience of the civil population in the face of a terrorist threat. We have developed and tested a conceptual model on the general population in Flanders, Belgium with psychological resilience as the underlying concept. It is vital to...