Rik Pieters

Tilburg University | UVT · Department of Marketing

This article reviews recent advances in the psychometric and econometric modeling of eye-movements during decision making. Eye movements offer a unique window on unobserved perceptual, cognitive, and evaluative processes of people who are engaged in decision making tasks. They provide new insights into these processes, which are not easily availabl...

Online advertising can help consumers to implement their purchase intentions on shopping websites. This research tests the hypothesis that online advertising can speed-up product search by visually suppressing competing products rather than by enhancing the target product on websites that lack a systematic visual organization. First, a survey shows...

Consumers are surrounded by a wealth of visual commercial stimuli, including advertisements in newspapers and magazines and on television, internet sites, and social media. The abundance of commercial stimuli in their environment severely taxes the attention and information processing capacities of consumers. Eye tracking is a powerful method to in...

Aims To develop a prognostic index (PI) which (a) integrates genetic, clinical and response data; (b) utilises continuous data; and (c) can be used to define clinically meaningful risk groups. Methods The discovery cohort comprised 2,542 UKALL203 patients who achieved a morphological remission. The validation cohort comprised 2,470 patients trea...

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) cells create a leukemic niche with mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs). Cytoskeletal structures called tunneling nanotubes (TNTs) facilitate communication between ALL cells and MSCs by transporting molecules and inducing the secretion of pro-survival cytokines. The identity of the molecules driving these malignant pr...

This research examined the development of materialism across the life span. Two initial studies revealed that (a) lay beliefs were that materialism declines with age and (b) previous research findings also implied a modest, negative relationship between age and materialism. Yet, previous research has considered age only as a linear control variable...

L-asparaginase is an integral component of therapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia. However, asparaginase-related complications, including the development of hypersensitivity reactions, can limit its use in individual patients. Of considerable concern in the setting of clinical allergy is the development of neutralizing antibodies and associated a...

This research demonstrates the importance of thin slices of information in ad and brand evaluation, with important implications for advertising research and management. Three controlled experiments, two in the behavioral lab and one in the field, with exposure durations ranging from very brief (100 msec) to very long (30 sec), demonstrate that adve...

ABSTRACT Deletions in IKZF1 are found in ~15% of children with B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (BCP-ALL). There is strong evidence for the poor prognosis of IKZF1 deletions affecting exons 4-7 and exons 1-8, but evidence for the remaining 33% of cases harboring other variants of IKZF1 deletions is lacking. In an international multi-ce...

Osteonecrosis and decline of bone density are serious side effects during and after treatment of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia. It is unknown whether osteonecrosis and low bone density co-occur in the same patients, and whether these two osteogenic side-effects can mutually influence each other development. Bone density and the incidence o...

This research tests the idea that goal-pursuit that requires extended inhibition of desires, such as weight loss and financial saving, can benefit from including planned hedonic deviations in the goal-striving plan. Two controlled experiments (simulated and real dieting) demonstrate that including planned goal deviations during extended goal strivi...

What is the role that color plays in consumers’ perception of the gist of ads during the increasingly brief and blurred exposures in practice? Two studies address this question. The first study manipulates the level of blur of the exposure and the presence or absence of color in the ad image, during exposures that lasted 100 milliseconds (msec). It...

Deletions in IKZF1 are found in ~15% of children with B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (BCP-ALL). There is strong evidence for the poor prognosis of IKZF1 deletions affecting exons 4-7 and exons 1-8, but evidence for the remaining 33% of cases harboring other variants of IKZF1 deletions is lacking. In an international multi-center stud...

Methotrexate (MTX) is an effective and toxic chemotherapeutic drug in the treatment of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia(ALL). In this prospective study, we aimed to identify metabolic and genetic determinants of MTX toxicity. One hundred and thirty-four Dutch pediatric ALL patients were treated with four high infusions MTX (HD-MTX: 5 g m−2) e...

More than 45 % of long-term childhood cancer survivors (CCS) were diagnosed with osteopenia. Our data suggest that greater awareness for osteopenia is warranted in long-term CCS, especially in survivors who are older than 30 years, male, and underweight and were treated with cranial-spinal radiotherapy and/or steroids. Introduction: Osteopenia is...

Modern intensive treatment modalities have led to an increasing number of survivors of childhood cancer, who are at risk for developing long-term sequelae. Since decline of renal function can develop subclinically, adequate surveillance is required for survivors previously treated with nephrotoxic treatment modalities. We describe a 34-year-old man...

Both tumour suppressor and oncogenic functions have been ascribed to the atypical zeta isoform of Protein Kinase C (PKCζ), whereas its constitutively active form PKMζ is almost exclusively expressed in the brain where it has a role in long-term memory. Using primers unique for either isoform, we found that both PKCζ and PKMζ were expressed in a sub...

Steroid-induced neuropsychological side effects impact quality of life in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Dexamethasone induces more metabolic side effects than prednisone. To evaluate whether dexamethasone also leads to more neuropsychological side effects, we reviewed all available literature. Randomized controlled trials with neurops...

Immunosuppressive therapy (IST), consisting of antithymocyte globulin and cyclosporine A, is effective in refractory cytopenia of childhood (RCC), suggesting that, similar to low-grade myelodysplastic syndromes in adult patients, T lymphocytes are involved in suppressing hematopoiesis in a subset of RCC patients. However, the potential role of a T-...

De overleving van kinderen met kanker is in de afgelopen decennia sterk verbeterd. Hierdoor is veel aandacht voor de langetermijneffecten van oncologische behandelingen, zoals infertiliteit.

The authors investigate the role of market orientation in advertising spending during economic contraction. They use the 2001 economic collapse in Turkey as the empirical context in which to test hypotheses regarding why some firms increase their advertising spending in a contraction period while the majority of firms cut back. Analyzing market ori...

Leukemia is one of the leading journals in hematology and oncology. It is published monthly and covers all aspects of the research and treatment of leukemia and allied diseases. Studies of normal hemopoiesis are covered because of their comparative relevance.

Still 20% of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients relapse on or after current treatment strategies. Treatment failure is associated with resistance to prednisolone. We aimed to find new druggable targets that modulate prednisolone resistance. We generated microarray gene expression profiles of 256 pediatric ALL patient samples and...

Blood Cancer Journal is a peer-reviewed, open access online journal publishing pre-clinical and clinical work in the field of hematology with ramifications into translational biology research down to new therapies

The authors propose a method and metric to quantify the consumer confusion between leading brands and copycat brands that results from the visual similarity of their packaging designs. The method has three components. First, image processing techniques establish the objective similarity of the packages of leading and copycat brands on the basis of...

Are anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) levels reduced in girls with newly diagnosed cancer before the start of treatment? AMH levels are already compromised in girls at the time of cancer diagnosis compared with healthy girls. In women diagnosed with cancer, evidence of reduced ovarian function has been described even before treatment has started. In gir...

This research is the first to test the hypothesis that consumers face a “material trap” in which materialism fosters social isolation which in turn reinforces materialism. It provides evidence that materialism and loneliness are engaged in bidirectional relationships over time. Importantly, it finds that loneliness contributes more to materialism t...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play a pivotal role in the regulation of hematopoiesis and development of leukemia. Great interest emerged in modulating miRNA expression for therapeutic purposes. In order to identify miRNAs, which specifically suppress leukemic growth of AML with t(8;21), inv(16) or MLL-rearrangement by inducing differentiation, we conducted a...

Wilms' tumor (WT) trials aim to better tailor treatment intensity to the risk of relapse and death. Currently, stage, histology, age (< or > 24 months), and combined loss of heterozygosity at 1p and 16q in chemotherapy-naïve WTs are the only risk factors used for treatment stratification. However, they predict only less than one-third of all relaps...

Among the microRNAs (miRNAs) that control different cellular processes, miR-24, miR-126 and miR-365 were shown to regulate cell cycle progression and apoptosis in various types of tumors. Interestingly, these three miRNAs were downregulated in pediatric TCF3-rearranged B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (BCP-ALL). Here, we showed individ...

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in infants less than 1 year of age is rare and the biological features are different from ALL in older children.¹ Infant ALL is characterized by a high frequency of rearrangements of the MLL gene (MLL-R) and heterogeneous outcome. However overall, their event-free survival (EFS) is much worse than older children w...

Leukemia is one of the leading journals in hematology and oncology. It is published monthly and covers all aspects of the research and treatment of leukemia and allied diseases. Studies of normal hemopoiesis are covered because of their comparative relevance.

T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) is an aggressive hematological malignancy resulting from leukemic transformation of T-cell progenitors in the thymus. It accounts for approximately 15% of ALL cases in childhood and 20–25% in adults and is a leading cause of death in children. IL-7 and its receptor (IL-7R) play a critical role in normal T...

Objectives: To elucidate the incidence and risk factors of skeletal toxicity in children with ALL treated with the dexamethasone-based DCOG-ALL9 protocol. Methods: Prospectively, the cumulative incidence of fractures was assessed in 672 patients and compared between different subgroups using the log-rank test. Serial measurements of bone mineral de...

Successful treatment results for MLL-rearranged Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia in infants remain difficult to achieve. Significantly contributing to therapy failure is poor response to glucocorticoids (GCs), like prednisone. Thus, overcoming resistance to these drugs may be a crucial step towards improving prognosis. We defined a gene signature that...

Copycat brands try to entice consumers by imitating the trade-dress of leading brands. Recent research suggests that preferences for copycat brands relative to more differentiated brands are generally lower. That is, consumers tend to dislike such "imitation" brands, because of psychological reactance. Three experiments provide evidence in support...

MicroRNA-125b (miR-125b), miR-99a and miR-100 are overexpressed in vincristine-resistant acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Cellular viability of ETV6-RUNX1-positive Reh cells significantly increased in presence of 9ng/mL vincristine upon co-expression of miR-125b/miR-99a (91±4%), miR-125b/miR-100 (93±5%) or miR-125b/miR-99a/miR-100 (82±17%) compa...

Leukemia is one of the leading journals in hematology and oncology. It is published monthly and covers all aspects of the research and treatment of leukemia and allied diseases. Studies of normal hemopoiesis are covered because of their comparative relevance.

Cytogenetic abnormalities and early response to treatment are the main prognostic factors in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Recently, NUP98/NSD1, a cytogenetically cryptic fusion, was described as recurrent event in AML, characterized by dismal prognosis and HOXA/B-gene overexpression. Using split-signal FISH, other NUP98-rearranged pediatric AML ca...

Cancer in children and adolescents is rare and biologically very different from cancer in adults. It accounts for 1·4% of all cancers worldwide, although this proportion ranges from 0·5% in Europe to 4·8% in Africa, largely because of differences in age composition and life expectancy. In high-income countries, survival from childhood cancer has re...

MEF2C is a selectively expressed transcription factor involved in different transcriptional complexes. Originally identified as an essential regulator of muscle development, ectopic expression of MEF2C as a result of chromosomal rearrangements is now linked to leukemia. Specifically, high MEF2C expression has been linked to mixed lineage leukemia-r...

Leukemia is one of the leading journals in hematology and oncology. It is published monthly and covers all aspects of the research and treatment of leukemia and allied diseases. Studies of normal hemopoiesis are covered because of their comparative relevance.

Children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and high minimal residual disease (MRD) levels after initial chemotherapy have a poor clinical outcome. In this prospective, single arm, Phase 2 trial, 111 Dutch and Australian children aged 1-18 years with newly diagnosed, t(9;22)-negative ALL, were identified among 1041 consecutively enrolled patie...

Background For several adult cancer types, there is evidence that treatment in high volume hospitals, high case volume providers, or in specialised hospitals leads to a better outcome. The aim of this study is to give an overview of the existing evidence regarding the volume effect in paediatric oncology related to the quality of care or survival.M...

STUDY QUESTION Are genetic polymorphisms, previously identified as being associated with age at menopause in the healthy population, associated with ovarian reserve and predicted age at menopause in adult long-term survivors of childhood cancer?

MLL-rearranged infant acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) (<1 year of age) are frequently resistant to glucocorticoids, like prednisone and dexamethasone. As poor glucocorticoid responses are strongly associated with therapy failure, overcoming glucocorticoid resistance may be a crucial step towards improving prognosis. Unfortunately, the mechanisms...

We investigated the effects of targeting the mitotic regulators aurora kinase A and B in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Aurora protein expression levels in pediatric ALL and AML patient samples were determined by western blot and reverse phase protein array. Both kinases were overexpressed in ALL and...

Copycat brands imitate the trade dress of a leader brand to free ride on the latter’s equity. Copycats can imitate the distinctive, perceptual features of the leader brand, such as the lilac color of the Milka chocolate brand, or they can imitate the underlying meaning or theme of the leader brand, such as the “freshness of Alpine milk” theme in Mi...

Introduction T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) is an aggressive hematological malignancy resulting from leukemic transformation of T-cell progenitors in the thymus. It accounts for approximately 15% of ALL cases in childhood and 20–25% in adults and is a leading cause of death in children. IL-7 and its receptor (IL-7R) play a critical rol...

Pediatric acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous disease,¹ for which survival rates have increased up to 70% over the past years.² Approximately 45% of adult AML patients and 20% of pediatric AML patients are diagnosed with cytogenetically normal AML (CN-AML), which is currently classified and treated as a homogeneous intermediate-risk gro...

Most current treatment protocols for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) include minimal residual disease (MRD) diagnostics, generally based on PCR analysis of rearranged antigen receptor genes. Although flow cytometry (FCM) can be used for MRD detection as well, discordant FCM and PCR results are obtained in 5-20% of samples. We evaluated whether 6...

Answers to sensitive questions are prone to social desirability bias. If not properly addressed, the validity of the research can be suspect. This article presents multigroup item randomized response theory (MIRRT) to measure self-reported sensitive topics across cultures. The method was specifically developed to reduce social desirability bias by...

Children with Down syndrome (DS) have an increased risk of developing acute myeloid and B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (BCP-ALL).¹ The prognosis of DS ALL is at best similar and often inferior to that of sporadic ALL (non-DS) patients.2, 3 DS ALL is characterized by unique biological features when compared with non-DS ALL. For instan...

Introduction: In 9-17% of Wilms tumour patients a predisposing syndrome is present, in particular WT1-associated syndromes and overgrowth syndromes. Constitutional WT1 mutations or epigenetic changes on chromosome 11p15 have also been described in Wilms tumour patients without phenotypic abnormalities. Thus, the absence of phenotypic abnormalities...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNAs that control the expression of around 60% of the human protein-coding genes. In the past decade, deregulation of miRNAs (by expression and/or function) has been associated with the pathogenesis, progression and prognosis of different diseases, including leukemia. The number of discovered genes encoding mi...

Background: Neuroblastomas (NBL) are tumors with a high rate of metastases (50% of patients). In general, in NBL MYCN amplification (NMA) is the most important prognostic factor. However NMA is infrequent and 70% of NBL are non-NMA tumors and not much is known about the driving oncogenic event. Recently, we identified among 17 NBL cell lines a grou...

Envy is a frustrating emotion that arises from upward social comparison. Two studies investigated the appraisals that distinguish benign envy (aimed at improving one's own situation) from malicious envy (aimed at pulling down the superior other). Study 1 found that appraisals of deservingness and control potential differentiated both types of envy....

This study shows how advertisers can leverage emotion and attention to engage consumers in watching Internet video advertisements. In a controlled experiment, the authors assessed joy and surprise through automated facial expression detection for a sample of advertisements. They assessed concentration of attention through eye tracking and viewer re...

Children with Down's syndrome (DS) have an increased risk of developing acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and have a low frequency of established genetic aberrations. We aimed to determine which genetic abnormalities are involved in DS ALL. We studied the frequency and prognostic value of deletions in B-cell development genes and aberrations of ja...

Copycats imitate features of leading brands to free ride on their equity. The prevailing belief is that the more similar copycats are to the leader brand, the more positive their evaluation is, and thus the more they free ride. Three studies demonstrate when the reverse holds true: Moderate-similarity copycats are actually evaluated more positively...

MLL-rearranged acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in infants is characterized by a poor clinical outcome and resistance to glucocorticoids (for example, prednisone and dexamethasone). As both the response to prednisolone in vitro and prednisone in vivo are predictive for clinical outcome, understanding and overcoming glucocorticoid resistance remai...

Most ads in practice receive no more than a single eye fixation. This study investigates the limits of what ads can communicate under such adverse exposure conditions. We find that consumers already know at maximum levels of accuracy and with high degree of certainty whether something is an ad or is editorial material after an exposure of less than...

Introduction While sperm cryopreservation prior to cancer treatment is regularly utilized in adults, the complex ethico-legal issues and knowledge barriers surrounding its use in adolescents mean there is little available data to help inform clinicians deciding which patients should be offered the opportunity. Pre-treatment clinical and biochemical...

NK-like (NKL) homeobox genes code for transcription factors, which can act as key regulators in fundamental cellular processes. NKL genes have been implicated in divergent types of cancer. In this review, we summarize the involvement of NKL genes in cancer and leukemia in particular. NKL genes can act as tumor-suppressor genes and as oncogenes, dep...

Aim of this study was to investigate the long-term endocrine effects of treatment of childhood non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). A single-center cohort of 84 survivors (22 females) was included in this retrospective study. Median age was 21 years (9-40 years) and time after cessation of therapy 12 years (4-30 years). Height, weight, percentage fat, lean...