http://repub.eur.nl/res/aut/17780/ List of Publications en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/21872/ 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z After the corporate scandals at the beginning of the new millennium, corporate governance codes were drafted and implemented in national laws and regulations. Unfortunately, due to an ongoing supply of new financial scandals and societal deceptions, our society increasingly distrusts executive directors, non-executive directors and supervisory board members, as they often appeared to play a significant role in these scandals. Non-executive directors (NEDs) and supervisory directors (SDs) are often accused of having overlooked the important issues in their supervising role or having failed to intervene in company decision making. Previous research has shown that many NEDs and SDs operate on the basis of their own unwritten rules, which may very well be different from those of their colleagues. In this article we examine whether and how a code of conduct or code of ethics might help to further clarify how NEDs/SDs should act. We also investigated the views of NEDs/SDs themselves. It appears that current corporate governance codes are not sufficient to guide directors on behavioral aspects of their supervisory role. This article shows that a code of conduct could provide this guidance to NEDs/SDs on several issues. First, a code of conduct would compel the Supervisory Board to reflect on its own values. Second, it would compel NEDs/SDs to verbalize their unwritten rules. The results may be applied internationally and could have relevance to the experience of executive directors in addition. This article may serve as a discussion document for other jurisdictions in addition. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/15742/ 2009-07-01T00:00:00Z A novel olfactory method for bacterial species identification using an electronic nose device called the MonoNose was developed. Differential speciation of micro-organisms present in primary cultures of clinical samples could be performed by real-time identification of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) produced during microbial replication. Kinetic measurements show that the dynamic changes in headspace gas composition are orders of magnitude larger than the static differences at the end of fermentation. Eleven different, clinically relevant bacterial species were included in this study. For each of the species, two to eight different strains were used to take intra-species biodiversity into account. A total of 52 different strains were measured in an incubator at 37°C. The results show that the diagnostic specificities varied from 100% for Clostridium difficile to 67% for Enterobacter cloacae with an overall average of 87%. Pathogen identification with a MonoNose can be achieved within 6-8 h of inoculation of the culture broths. The diagnostic specificity can be improved by broth modification to improve the VOC production of the pathogens involved. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/15087/ 2009-02-14T00:00:00Z Met de benoeming van een commissie om de Nederlandse steun aan de aanval in Irak te onderzoeken, is een hevige discussie losgebarsten. De oppositie had er geen goed woord voor over. SP-fractievoorzitter Agnes Kant noemt de onderzoekscommisie een old boys network dat 'het straatje van Balkenende moet gaan schoonvegen'. Het is de standaardreflex bij het instellen van een commissie als deze. De kritiek op deze commisies is vaak gericht op de samenstelling ervan.