Spring Seminars 2014
The Rector Magnificus and 5 deans of VU will be your lecturer during the Extensus
Spring Seminars and will introduce you to their field of study.
Venue: room 14A-36 main building VU University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam
Wednesday April 2nd
18.00-18.45 Albert Feilzer, dean Faculty of Dentistry ACTA
Safety aspects of jewelry, piercings, cosmetics and biomaterials
19.00-19.45 Peter Beek, dean Faculty of Human Movement Sciences
The science behind the klapskate
19.45-20.30 meet, greet & drinks by Extensus
Tuesday May 6th
18.00-18.45 Hubertus Irth, dean Faculty of Sciences
The Billion-Dollar Molecule - Drug Discovery in the 21st Century
19.00-19.45 Frank van der Duyn Schouten, Rector Magnificus
The role of intuition in science
19.45-20.30 meet, greet & drinks by Extensus
Tuesday June 3rd
18.00-18.45 Michel ter Hark, dean Faculty of Arts and Faculty of Philosophy
Aspect-perception and the role of language
19.00-19.45 Elies van Sliedregt, dean Faculty of Law
Should mass murder always be punished?
19.45-20.30 meet, greet & drinks by Extensus
The lectures are free of charge and open to all VU, UvA and AUC honours students.
You can register yourself for one or more lectures by sending an email to honours@vu.nl
Wednesday April 2nd
Albert Feilzer, dean Faculty of Dentistry ACTA
Safety aspects of jewelry, piercings, cosmetics and biomaterials
In daily life people are exposed to a variety of foreign substances. Part
of it can be classified as hazardous as exposure to them might result in
adverse body reactions. Hazardous substances can be incorporated in
food or in the environment, but also in cosmetics, jewelry or body
adornments (like tattoos and piercings).
Normally, healthy people have an adequate defense system that
prevents our body from undesirable adverse reactions to these
substances. Nevertheless, as the variety of foreign substances to which
one can be exposed has grown enormously during the last decades, we are facing an increased incidence of
adverse reactions to foreign materials.
Many regulations were developed to prevent unintentional exposure to substances known to cause
frequently adverse body reactions. For instance, in Europe new jewelry may not contain nickel anymore,
where in the USA it is still permitted. However, in medicine and dentistry medical devices ‘biomaterials’ are
applied (e.g. breast implants, dental fillings) that may contain materials that also might affect one’s health.
The question is whether the regulations to which medical devices have to abide are more strict or less strict
when compared to food or jewelry regulations.
In this course a broad overview will be given on potentially dangerous substances to which we can be
exposed in relation to laws and regulations that aim to prevent health risks.
Albert Feilzer studied dentistry at the University of Amsterdam. After a combined clinical and academic
career (1982 to 1998) he became full professor in Dental Materials Science at the Academic Centre of
Dentistry Amsterdam (ACTA; UvA & VU). In addition he held the endowed chair of Standardization (2001 to
2007) at the Rotterdam School of Management (EUR). Since June 2009 he is dean of ACTA.
Peter Beek, dean Faculty of Human Movement Sciences
The science behind the klapskate
Although slow in coming, the arrival of the klapskate (klaapschaats) meant a
revolution in competitive speed skating. At the Olympic Winter Games of
1998 in Nagano, when the klapskate had just found general acceptance
among elite skaters, an avalanche of world records was broken. This was
months before the inventor of the klapskate, Gerrit Jan van Ingen Schenau,
died from a disease at age 53. The introduction of the klapskate is not only
interesting from a sports historical perspective, but also from a scientific point of view. The reason is that it
represents a technological innovation in sport that resulted from a thorough fundamental understanding of
the biomechanics of what are called explosive stretch chains, which are inherent to activities such as
throwing, running and jumping. Van Ingen Schenau recognized that traditional speed skates with fixed irons
force skaters to suppress their natural tendency to extend the ankle in order to prevent the tip of the gliding
skate from scratching through the ice, thus limiting the contribution of ankle extension to propulsion.
Moreover, he attributed a special role to bi-articular muscles (i.e., muscles spanning two joints) in the transfer
of power along the stretch chain running from the hip, via the knee, to the ankle, which was effectively
aborted by the suppression of ankle extension thus rendering the push-off much less effective. In this course
the generic biomechanical theory behind the klapskate will be explained and illustrated using an analog
model. It will also be explained how testing this model led to new scientific and technological insights.
Peter J. Beek (1959) received a M.Sc. degree (in 1985) and a Ph.D. degree (in 1989) from the Faculty of
Human Movement Sciences of VU University Amsterdam, where he became Professor of Coordination
Dynamics in 1998 and Dean of Faculty in 2007. His research interests cover a broad range of topics in motor
control, including the control of gait posture, bimanual coordination and the perceptual control of movement,
as well as skill acquisition in real-life tasks in rehabilitation and sport. He has published extensively on these
topics and is editor of the multidisciplinary journal Human Movement Science.
Tuesday May 6th
Hubertus Irth, dean Faculty of Sciences
The Billion-Dollar Molecule - Drug Discovery in the 21st Century
The discovery of novel medicines is one of the most costly and scientifically
challenging enterprises known to science and industry. From a scientific point of
view, it requires a strongly interdisciplinary approach, relying on fundamental
insights in chemistry, biology, and in the last decade, on the integration with
computational sciences.
With development costs in the excess of 1 billion dollar per novel drug and
timelines of 10 years and longer, economic considerations en intellectual property
aspects also play a major role in successful development strategies. During the
course, we will discuss different drug discovery concepts: starting with traditional
techniques to isolate medicines from natural resources, we will move on to
massive parallel synthetic chemistry as a source of valuable drugs and finally discuss computer-based
design. In all instances we will illustrate success and (costly) failure using case studies that also reveal the
economic consequences of key decisions made in the in multi-year discovery process.
The course requires (very) basic knowledge in chemistry and biology
Hubertus Irth studied Environmental Technology at the Technical University of Berlin (1978-1984). He
received his PhD in Chemistry at VU University Amsterdam (1989). During his employment as assistant
professor at the Leiden/Amsterdam Center for Drug Research, (1990-1999), he started a spin-off biotech
company (Screentec, later Kiadis). 1999, he was appointed as full professor at the Department of Chemistry
& Pharmaceutical Sciences at VU University. He was director of the department in 2004-2006 and 20092010. In 2010, he was appointed as Dean of the Faculty of Sciences. Since 2014, he is Vice Dean of both
the Faculty of Sciences and the Faculty of Earth & Life Sciences.
Frank van der Duyn Schouten, Rector Magnificus VU
The role of intuition in science
In this course we will deal with the question to what extent a scientist can build upon his or her intuition in
making conjectures about answers to less trivial questions. We
will use some famous paradoxes from probability theory to
show that our intuition has its limitations when it comes to
guiding us through unknown scientific territory. For this course
some basic knowledge of probability theory is a prerequisite. At
the end of the course you should have acquired some
hesitation about an unconditional confidence in your own
intuition, without having lost all confidence in yourself. Two
weeks before the course starts the students will receive some
questions to think about before coming to the course.
Frank van der Duijn Schouten is Professor of Stochastic Operations Research. He is (co)author of some 50
scientific papers on decision making under uncertainty, with applications in business and medicine domains
like inventory control, maintenance management, capacity management and group testing. He has been
Rector Magnificus of Tilburg University from 1999 to 2008. In May 2013 he was appointed in the same
position at the VU.
Tuesday June 3rd
Michel ter Hark, dean Faculty of Arts and Faculty of Philosophy
Aspect-perception and the role of language
The sudden sight of something in a completely new light is often called ‘aspect-perception’. A case at hand is
when you suddenly notice that your friend’s face now has an aspect of
his father’s. Examples of aspect-perception, e.g. ambiguous pictures
that can be seen in two ways, are often cited in psychology textbooks
under the heading of ‘perceptual illusions’. And as we do with illusions,
aspects are explained (away) from a neurophysiological perspective. In
this course, we will study aspect-perception from a linguistic perspective.
Aspect-perception involves a particular use of language - of concepts.
Rather than being an illusion, aspect-perception allows us to feel the
need to conceptualize things in a certain way, and thereby to experience
the good of making sense of things. In this course, we will discuss
examples of aspect-perception drawn from psychology, logic and ethics. At the end of the course you should
have acquired some insight in the problem-solving capacities of aspect-perception. No background
knowledge in either linguistics or psychology is required.
Michel ter Hark has an MA both in psychology and philosophy. He is currently professor of philosophy of
language. He is the author of two international monographs and some 40 international papers. He has been
Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy from 2000 to 2012. In January 2012 he was appointed as Dean of the
Faculty of Arts at VU University, and in 2013 also as Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy.
Elies van Sliedregt, dean Faculty of Law
Should mass murder always be punished?
I will discuss the criminal law defense of duress (overmacht) as
a utilitarian theory of justice and focus on the different ways
criminal justice systems deal with this defense. Some justice
systems (Roman-German) even allow duress to exonerate from
liability for murder. Other systems (Anglo-American) never
accept it as a defense for murder; it may only mitigate the
sentence. The defense of duress will be discussed in the context
of the Erdemovic-case, a Bosnian-Serb war criminal who killed
70 Bosnian Muslims. He did not deny the accusation but raised
the defense of duress; he could not refuse the order to kill the
Drazen Erdemovic at the International Tribunal Muslims. His commander threatened to kill him if he would not
pull the trigger.
Elies van Sliedregt is Professor of Criminal Law at VU University Amsterdam, Director of the Centre for
International Criminal Justice and Dean of the Faculty of Law. She has held visiting fellowships in
Cambridge, Oxford, Bologna, and at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. She was a visiting
professional with Chambers at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Summer of 2010 and fellow-inresidence at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences for the
KNAW (NIAS) in 2011. Van Sliedregt is senior editor of the Leiden Journal of International Law and member
of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities. Van Sliedregt has published extensively in the
field of international, European and comparative criminal law.