Just outside the moat of the fortified town of Elburg lies the mystifying Zandverhalen which boasts one of the largest sand sculpture exhibits in the world the exhibit features sculptures crafted from over 4,000 cubic meters of sand These intricate creations depict a range of biblical stories and scenes inspired by world philosophies juxtaposed with the local fishing culture and their towering heights (some are over eight meters tall) are awe-inspiring The museum also incorporates a curious array of other elements: ancient olive trees and architectural artifacts from around the world are integrated into the sand scenes it showcases remnants of local shipwrecks—dredged from the surrounding area during the creation of the Flevopolder (the largest artificial island in the world)—adding a unique historical dimension You can also spot vestiges of the building’s past as a printing press with exhibit labels created using letterpress blocks you can enjoy a coffee in a Bedouin tent or relax inside a giant ceramic pot lined with cushions eccentric vision paired with remarkable craftsmanship a local artist has created a wonderland of stone and terracotta sculptures A Brutalist monument and "sculpture that contains many sculptures." An expansive collection donated by an heirless nobleman formed this admission-free civic museum This open-air sculpture museum is located under a bridge in the center of Madrid A home decorated by its owner with eye-catching and captivating assemblages of found objects One of the largest wooden ships ever built is honored by a steel sculpture evoking her once-superlative scale Everything in this two-story house—down to the mounted deer head on the wall—was carefully crafted from concrete Don't be surprised if you see a long-necked dinosaur peeking out from among the trees in Northgate Park Researchers in Germany have discovered four wells more than 7,000 years old are evidence that Neolithic inhabitants of central Europe were accomplished carpenters capable of felling and working trees three feet thick into planks was removed from water-logged soil in a single 70-ton block and transported to Dresden where archaeologists “excavated” it in a lab analysis revealed that the ancient well-builders constructed tusk mortise and tenon joints a technique that uses a fitted wedge to lock the pieces in place with the rest constructed in “log cabin” style but that they were in use 5,000 years earlier really came as a surprise,” says Rengert Elburg an archaeologist at the Saxon Archaeological Heritage Office in Dresden The 151 pieces of wood recovered from the wells are also an invaluable source of data for dendrochronologists who compare tree rings to date artifacts and learn more about past climate conditions Tree rings suggest the Altscherbitz well was in use for less than a decade before it was deliberately filled with 26 intact pots and organic materials including early grains such as emmer and einkorn the discovery of the pots was particularly surprising “We don’t normally find intact pots from the Neolithic,” says Elburg Perhaps it was a well for ritual water or special drinking.” Storm Floriane brought wind gusts peaking at 108 kilometers per hour so far on Monday with nearly all of the Netherlands experienced gusts of at least 80 kilometers per hour Floriane became the second storm already this year with the country's North Sea shore battered by extreme winds most of the afternoon The peak gust of 108 km/h was measured at Hoek van Holland but the weather station in IJmuiden also recorded a gust of 105 km/h The Marker Wadden nature reserve also saw a swift gust of 104 km/h The stiffest winds were not only measured in Noord-Holland but also the central and northern region of the country saw maximum wind speeds above 90 kilometers per hour gusts of 90 to 95 km/h were still impacting the Wadden Islands of Texel and Vlieland between 6 p.m While the entire country was under a Code Yellow weather warning for most of the afternoon the alert was lifted everywhere except the Wadden Sea region and Friesland Those two areas can still expect gusts of up to 90 km/h through 11 p.m Floriane earned its designation as a storm in the Netherlands between 2 p.m according to data from meteorological office KNMI and weather website WeerOnline The KNMI defines an official storm as one where the average sustained wind speed at at least one of its stations reaches wind force 9 for a full 60-minute period beginning at the top of any given hour This happened at the IJmuiden station on Monday afternoon Wind force 9 on the Beaufort Scale ranges from 75 to 88 km/h a measurement which was also reached in western Zeeland Storms also hit the Netherlands on New Year's Day and on Dec The previous winter season of 2023-2024 saw four official winter storms There were no winter storms during the previous season but six diffrent storms struck during the winter of 2021-2022 A book about a city that no longer exists: UvA scientists Hanneke Ronnes and Wouter van Elburg wrote Sloop (“Demolition”) about an Amsterdam that is constantly being destroyed and rebuilt “The thought that keeps recurring is that something is made better when it is demolished.” Although Amsterdammers have been born in a historic city for centuries These are the words of anthropologist and historian Hanneke Ronnes and architectural historian Wouter van Elburg in their book Sloop They reconstruct how the city is constantly being rebuilt and how houses buildings and even entire neighbourhoods have to make way for new wishes and ideas This was already happening when Amsterdam had just been founded as in the case of a city like Amsterdam,” says Ronnes “Yet growth can only come about when the old is demolished The boundary of the city is constantly being shifted and that means what was there has to give way.” “There are already many books about how Amsterdam has grown,” Van Elburg adds “but not about which Amsterdam has disappeared We want to tell the other side of growth.” Ronnes: “Our book is as much about blocks of identical working-class houses that have been demolished as it is about the unique Put someone from nineteenth-century Amsterdam in today’s city and he no longer has any idea where he is.” Van Elburg: “The city hall is still there the landmarks of seventeenth-century Amsterdam the Munttoren and the current Waag on the Nieuwmarkt still date from this period Yet because in the centuries that followed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries “That must have done something to the inhabitants’ perception,” says Ronnes “Suddenly you look out over a landscape because the city wall was demolished in front of your house.” people hardly protested against destruction Such resistance only arose in the nineteenth century This century also saw the first time that fewer people lived in the city Demolitions were taking place because neighbourhoods were emptying because of the economic downturn “And people were very aware of this decline,” says Van Elburg we can see that people felt that the city was much nicer and better before.” Notorious was also speculator Frederik Kaal He bought up country houses at the end of the eighteenth century deconstructed them and sold the remaining materials; the word “kaalslag” is still used for large-scale demolition campaigns Van Elburg: “The Industrial Revolution brought more prosperity A lot happened in a short time and space had to be created for it in the form of housing destruction was really deplored for the first time It was thought to be a form of progress if a new building was erected that something is made better if it is demolished.” A well-preserved example was the indignation of Amsterdammers around 1808 when King Louis Napoleon wanted to demolish the Waag on Dam Square He wanted free views of Damrak and the harbour the widely circulated mockery poem Het klagend Waaggebouw was published vernielt mijn dak / ‘K stond nog zoo regt en sterk als gij / Zeg waarom toch vernield men mij?” (What’s this what do I hear knack upon knack / One breaks destroys my roof / I stood still as straight and strong as you / Say why nevertheless one destroys me?”) The renewed 1901 Housing Act laid the groundwork for stricter requirements for housing which stood up for the workers resulted in better housing demolition is sometimes carried out a bit too easily because it would be an improvement for the current residents a lot of demolition is taking place in Nieuw West these days.” Van Elburg: “That way of thinking from the nineteenth century As in Wim Sonneveld’s song: “Blijkbaar woonden ze verkeerd / het dorp is gemoderniseerd / en nu zijn ze op de goede weg.” (Apparently they lived wrong / the village has been modernised / and now they are on the right track)” World War II caused almost all Jewish neighbourhoods to disappear “The Amsterdam Jewish quarter received blow after blow after blow,” says Van Elburg then the wood rot in the houses left empty by the deportations then the houses were deconstructed due to vacancy because most Jews did not return highways and metro lines were conceived and built over the old neighbourhoods another piece of Jewish history disappeared.” Besides the concerns about preserving and guarding history destruction is also not very environmentally friendly “Many buildings consist of concrete and steel which are very environmentally damaging materials,” says Ronnes “Yet the trucks used to dispose of the destruction material and the trucks used to bring in new building material are also taxing demolition is already treated with caution because of its climate impact this is only very slowly penetrating too.” in which the government and residents argued about destroying the neighbourhood “Students still played a big role in that,” says Ronnes Demolition for economic reasons runs like a thread through the book economic gain often still plays a big role in considerations Van Elburg: “The housing corporations have been cut back a lot so they have sold and demolished many properties for more profitable new construction.” He also points to the monumental Valerius Clinic in Zuid for which a “hideous apartment complex” took its place “The clinic was part of a beautiful cityscape from the 1910s/20s that included a twenty-metre-high stained-glass window The building was not a monument nor was it in a protected townscape A real estate developer bought the property and demolished it.” unbridled tourism and sharply rising square metre prices the pressure on Amsterdam has increased enormously in recent years,” the scientists write “The number of demolition projects seems to follow this trend.” there is still a need for substantial additional construction “A city is not a stationary phenomenon,” says Van Elburg “It can and must always change and there is room for infill development for extra houses among the buildings that are already there.” Ronnes: “You can’t put a cheese cover over a city Yet the question is how you want to change a city: demolition is often not the best and most sustainable solution Repurposing a building is almost always possible Just look at the new University Library: it will be located in a building that the UvA wanted to destroy but now that the renovation is almost finished everyone is happy that it was not demolished.” The book launch of  Sloop. Utopie en protest in Amsterdam van 1800 tot nu is on 19 November at bookstore Athenaeum on the Spui. You can register via this link At an idyllic island in the Mediterranean Sea ocean covers up the site of a vast volcanic explosion from 3200 years ago three other islands still have their volcanic histories from a few million years ago mostly intact So why the differences between the Santorini caldera and the Aegina Researchers used volcanic "fingerprints' and plate tectonics research to find out why the Santorini volcano underneath the ocean still constitutes the biggest volcanic hazard for Europe together with the Vesuvius volcano in Italy How is it possible that volcanoes so close in geological time and space can behave to differently The researchers used several techniques to find out Some of the answers have to do with what goes into the lava "mixes" for the volcanoes A lot of this sediment is 'scraped off' when the plate subducts and forms an accretionary (or build-up) wedge some of it is also going down into the mantle and getting mixed with the melting mantle wedge "This process of 'crustal contamination' is yet another 'Earth recycling machine' which may also influence the potential for ore deposits - like in the Andes and where this 'intracrustal recycling' is thought to play an important role" "With a magma chamber at a shallower depth the roof will cave in when the chamber starts emptying itself during an eruption This makes the eruption even worse and creates a caldera "With the magma chambers at greater depths for the western Aegina- Methana-Poros volcanoes There the magma chambers underneath the lava domes did not cave in the crystallization of the amphibole mineral group that includes hornblende So it is more difficult for the magma to come to the surface in the first place "We compared Santorini with Aegina-Poros-Methana lavas in terms of their geochemistry on 87Sr/86Sr Then by combining the radiogenic isotope signature of the lavas with trace element ratios we managed to pinpoint the down-going sediment as the biggest influence creating thick blocky lavas "Modern subduction zones are not all alike more than one eruptive style points to differences in subduction processes," concludes Elburg INTERVIEWS: For email interviews or questions 10.1016/j.lithos.2020.105416 Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system. Copyright © 2025 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Volume 12 - 2021 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.545317 This article is part of the Research TopicTowards an Improved Understanding of Severe and Enduring Anorexia NervosaView all 12 articles Severe and Enduring Anorexia Nervosa (SE-AN) is a chronic eating disorder characterized by long-term starvation and its physical and psychological sequelae Interactions between neurobiological changes caused by starvation such as increased fear and decreased social cognition we aim to add to the understanding of SE-AN by introducing the concept of mental capacity (MC) which refers to the ability to understand and process information—both on a cognitive and an emotional level—and then make a well-informed choice MC may be an important construct within the context of SE-AN we will argue how impaired decision-making processes may underlie We will speculate on the importance of dysfunctional emotion processing and anxiety-related processes (e.g. a high intolerance of uncertainty) and their potential interaction with decision-making which to our knowledge have previously received little attention may advise research and treatment or help in dealing with the “want but cannot” situation of life-threatening AN Her anorexia nervosa (AN) started at age 15 After temporary and partial improvement while she was in treatment during adolescence and early adulthood her AN shows a slow deteriorating course; she is currently “stable” at a body mass index (BMI) of 13 Her whole life revolves around her eating disorder While it is definitely not her wish to die she is also unable to change her eating habits in a meaningful way: the “want but cannot” situation so often seen Her treatment team regards her as suffering from a severe and enduring form of AN They describe how AN can develop into a chronic condition through interaction between behavioral consequences (i.e. and interpersonal difficulties (increased fear and frustration combined with chronic stress (increased allostatic load and inflammation The model also highlights the role of heightened anxious and depressive symptomatology and dysfunctional emotion processing (such as problems with emotion recognition and regulation) This type of problem in emotional functioning can have debilitating consequences and it is known that emotions and emotion-related processes are essential for the way people make choices and therefore for our decision-making behaviors Understanding this seems particularly relevant in the clinical situation of AN where the short- and longer-term consequences of a decision do not align and where a variety of emotions is involved Table 1. Proposed criteria for “Severe and Enduring Anorexia Nervosa” Hay and Touyz (3) This commentary aims to add the concept of mental capacity (MC) to the dialogue about how AN turns into SE-AN MC refers to the ability to understand and process information both on a cognitive and an emotional level and then make a well-informed choice We will argue how impaired decision-making processes may underlie We will speculate on the importance of dysfunctional emotion processing and specifically address anxiety-related processes such as a high intolerance of uncertainty (IU) and how they may interact with decision-making which to our knowledge have received little attention until now may advise treatment or help in dealing with the “want but cannot” situation of life-threatening SE-AN When a seriously ill patient refuses a potentially lifesaving intervention this persons' ability to make an informed decision can be put into question Clinicians may describe individuals with AN who refuse treatment as having limited MC The concept of appreciation refers to the value patients assign to issues such as the illness itself or the proposed treatment one for instance feels that the issues discussed apply to oneself (e.g. “I do have an eating disorder” or “This risk applies to me”) and are therefore relevant in the decision-making process The question emerges in what way MC influences prognosis and thus the development of SE-AN Considering that MC encompasses the decision-making processes in the clinical context and diminished MC is mostly related to distorted appreciation it is important to understand the role of decision-making in a broader sense These emotional processes guide decision-making on several levels and occur both consciously and outside of awareness One hypothesis is that problems in emotional functioning and processes underlying certain emotional experiences and they maintained this high level independent of their low weight over and above their general emotional state Considering that emotion dysregulation persists with improvement of weight and eating-disorder symptoms it is regarded as a key factor for relapse and ultimately for chronicity (and thus for the development of SE-AN) Figure 1. The transactional model of emotion regulation. [Adopted from Haynos and Fruzzetti (33)] We speculate that training patients in tolerating uncertainty and becoming more flexible and less anxious may improve their general quality of life probably the most important aspect of treatment in SEAN and may even result in more adaptive decision-making we believe clinicians ought to pay more attention to their patient's current MC when important treatment decisions are to be made Diminished MC has grave legal consequences in most medico-legal systems and lessens the say patients have regarding their own treatment legally we would like to point out that shared decision-making is not by definition impossible in this situation and in fact may help to discuss how to improve their quality of life Taking patients seriously in their suffering and anxiety and acknowledging their views is still paramount and should remain one of the pillars in the clinical decision-making Further studies should be conducted to test IU interventions in adults with AN in particular to explore how reducing IU may result in fewer emotional difficulties and improvements in quality of life and eating disorder pathology further studies are needed to explore the way in which emotional dysregulation influences decision-making and relates to the development of SE-AN for people suffering from SE-AN who are in poor physical health The first step being a better diagnostic description of SE-AN and second how best to engage and retain people with SE-AN in treatment how to support their caretakers and tailor existing treatments or develop new ones As we see more developments of people suffering from SE-AN being taken into hospices or palliative care discussions about the medico-ethical aspects of this severe form of AN are needed and families to ensure the best interests of the patient are preserved We need longitudinal and experimental studies in changes over time of emotion regulation the connection to MC in these patients has not yet been thoroughly studied in clinical research and neither has the relationship between maladaptive decision-making we think there is an urgent need for more qualitative studies in patients as well as clinicians to add to this discussion Patient studies should aim to specifically address the issue of diminished appreciation and clinician studies should aim to determine in more detail what it is they estimate when assessing MC All authors contributed equally in set up and writing The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest Severe and Enduring Eating Disorder (SEED): Management of Complex Presentations of Anorexia and Bulimia Nervosa Google Scholar The clinician administered staging instrument for anorexia nervosa: development and psychometric properties Classification challenges in the field of eating disorders: can severe and enduring anorexia nervosa be better defined Chronic anorexia 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Published: 11 March 2021 Copyright © 2021 van Elburg, Danner, Sternheim, Lammers and Elzakkers. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited in accordance with accepted academic practice distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms *Correspondence: Annemarie van Elburg, YS52YW4uZWxidXJnQGFsdHJlY2h0Lm5s Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher 94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or goodLearn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish archaeologist Rengert Elburg found something that convinced him that “Stone Age sophistication” is not a contradiction in terms discovered during construction work in Altscherbitz the timber box at the bottom of the well was 7,000 years old—the world’s oldest known intact wooden architecture Elburg’s team at the Saxony State Archaeological Office removed the ancient well in a single 70-ton block and brought it back to their lab in Dresden for careful excavation was part of a large settlement that included nearly 100 timber longhouses the well’s extraordinary state of preservation began to give the researchers clues to the tools and techniques the ancient woodworkers used prehistoric carpenters had fashioned boards and beams from old-growth oaks three feet thick then fit them together using tusked mortise-and-tenon joints a technique not seen again until the Roman Empire he could see not only tree rings but also tool marks But with nothing to compare these ancient tool marks to he and a motley collection of archaeologists and flintknapping hobbyists have been gathering each spring since 2011 for a most unusual workshop Held in a forest just outside the town of Ergersheim in the southern German region of Franconia it’s experimental archaeology with a serious purpose the rhythmic pounding of stone against oak picks up again The workshop’s goal is to reconstruct a few layers of the ancient well from scratch beginning with chopping down an oak and ending with finishing the joints Comparing ancient evidence with the byproducts of the participants’ tree clearing and woodworking such as the chips that litter the ground after a few hours of chopping and chiseling will help refine what researchers know about Stone Age carpentry the noise stops to allow a researcher with a portable 3-D scanner which looks a bit like a hand mixer with no beaters to take progress-report scans of the gouges in the trunks “It’s the first time we’re using the 3-D scanner in the field,” Elburg says “We can take the records of tool marks from here and compare them to what we have from the well at Altscherbitz.” Experiments such as the Ergersheim workshop have a long history combined with ethnographic studies of people still using stone tools in the modern era have helped shape how archaeologists understand the cultures that used them in the past This type of research has been especially illuminating for the European Neolithic began 10,000 years ago in what is today Turkey It was a time of technological and social change hunter-gatherer lifestyle to settled farming communities right around the time the Altscherbitz well was dug was possible in large part because of advanced technology “Ground-stone tools enabled these first farmers to clear the woods and build the first permanent houses in Central Europe,” he says Around the time farming started in Germany and Denmark pollen records show there was a dramatic shift in the European landscape and pollen from grasses and shrubs increased Archaeologists trying to explain this assumed that shifting climate had reduced the forest cover making it possible for Neolithic farms to flourish Given the primitive tools available in the Stone Age it was unrealistic to think people could have made much of a dent in the primeval forests A pollen expert at the Geological Survey of Denmark named Johannes Iversen using actual Stone Age flint tools taken from a local museum he and a few colleagues conducted an experiment in a patch of Danish forest Photos from the time show them in shirtsleeves Their first attempts to fell trees were a self-described “fiasco,” according to their journals “In the course of a few minutes all four of the axes we had brought with us were useless,” the researchers wrote a trio of toppled trees is being split using wooden wedges and mallets long sections of timber are stripped of bark and fashioned into beams and boards The final stop is a cluster of craftsmen wielding wooden mallets and sharpened bone chisels to make the joints Overseeing the last station is Anja Probst a graduate student at the University of Freiburg who specializes in prehistoric bone tools It turns out that “Stone Age” is something of a misnomer It might be more accurate to call the millennia before the development of metallurgy the “Bone Age,” says Probst “Bone and antler were actually the most common tools in the Stone Age and had to be transported over many miles.” Close examination of preserved wood from the Altscherbitz well and other prehistoric finds from the area show that chisels were used to make holes and grooves even in hardwood such as oak and could create perfect square holes in the boards This sort of fine finishing work needed a lighter touch than the heavy basalt adzes and wedges could provide and chisels could only be made out of bone and antler Probst gets cow bones from rare-breed cattle that spend the year outdoors and resemble the types of animals ancient woodworkers would have encountered Probst explains that the bones are harder and more durable than those from factory-farmed animals which she brings with her to Ergersheim to try out she rubs the chisels on a bit of sandstone to bring back a sharp edge Probst will examine the tools to see what ancient craftsmen were likely using to build wells “We look at the wear with a stereomicroscope and a white-light interferometer,” she says and we measure every wear pattern we can see.” It will be transported back to Dresden and studied in-depth but for now Elburg kneels next to the familiar form comparing the work in progress to a schematic taken from the scans of the Altscherbitz well and nodding in satisfaction we can see what works and what doesn’t work,” he says “Because from your writing desk you can’t say anything.” a group of archaeologists and craftsmen have gathered in a forest in southern Germany to bring back to life the tools and techniques of Stone Age carpenters This video shows the team using the tools they made to fell trees and build a copy of a 7,000-year-old well Andrew Curry is a contributing editor at ARCHAEOLOGY Dutch business to rebrand as Dils Nederland Green Street’s global news publications are not provided as an investment advisor nor in the capacity of a fiduciary  Our global organization maintains information barriers to ensure the independence of and distinction between our non-regulated and regulated businesses is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 482269) and a private limited company incorporated in England and Wales with company number 06471304 Sign In Register but Nathan Lepore is the Superior Secondary Schools Athletic Association’s boys golf champion Patrick’s Tyler Konopski on the first extra hole the two golfers tying during regulation with identical 2-over 73s Ignatius’ Dalla Burgess finished third Westgate’s Kara Van Elburg earned a two-stroke win over St Dennis Franklin Cromarty swept Westgate 3-0 while Superior Collegiate edge Hammarskjold 2-1 In the lone junior boys volleyball contest Ignatius pounded Superior Collegiate 86-10 Hammarskjold beat Superior 63-21 and Westgate downed Dennis Franklin Cromarty 35-20 Methods: In a subgroup (N = 149) of the INCA-study, a prospective birth-cohort study, a blood sample was drawn from term born infants at 1 year of age and analyzed for 84 immune related markers using Luminex. Associations of antibiotic treatment, eczema, wheezing, and infantile colics with immune marker concentrations were investigated using a linear regression model. The trial is registered as NCT02536560. Conclusion: In this explorative study, we identified that neonatal antibiotics are associated with immunological alterations at 1 year of age and that, independent of the antibiotic treatment, infantile colics were associated with alterations within gut associated markers. These findings support the importance of the first host microbe interaction in early life immune development. Volume 10 - 2019 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2019.02939 This article is part of the Research TopicImmunity in Compromised NewbornsView all 30 articles Background: Neonatal antibiotics disturb the developing gut microbiome and are therefore thought to influence the developing immune system but exact mechanisms and health consequences in later life still need to be elucidated we investigated whether neonatal antibiotics influence inflammatory markers at 1 year of age we determined whether health problems during the first year of life allergic disorders (eczema and wheezing) or infantile colics were associated with changes in the circulating immune marker profile at 1 year of age Methods: In a subgroup (N = 149) of the INCA-study a blood sample was drawn from term born infants at 1 year of age and analyzed for 84 immune related markers using Luminex and infantile colics with immune marker concentrations were investigated using a linear regression model Results: The use of broad-spectrum antibiotics in the first week of life was significantly associated with different levels of inflammatory markers including sVCAM-1 Eczema was associated with decreased concentrations of IFNα but increased concentrations of CCL18 and Galectin-3 was positively associated to TNF-R2 and resistin Infantile colics were positively associated to IL-31 independent of early life antibiotic treatment we identified that neonatal antibiotics are associated with immunological alterations at 1 year of age and that infantile colics were associated with alterations within gut associated markers These findings support the importance of the first host microbe interaction in early life immune development the analysis of inflammatory biomarkers in these otherwise healthy infants remains rather limited We hypothesized that antibiotic treatment in the first week of life may induce certain levels of immunological misbalance resulting in alteration of circulating immune marker profile at 1 year of age Aim of this explorative study was to measure the circulating immune marker profile at 1 year of age in a subgroup of the INCA study with or without antibiotic treatment in the first week of life we explored whether health problems such as allergic disorders (eczema or wheezing) or infantile colics in the first year of life were associated with changes in this circulating immune marker profile in children at 1 year of age infants with suspicion of infection received broad-spectrum antibiotics (a combination of gentamycin and a penicillin-derivative) combined with a low clinical suspicion of infection and low c-reactive protein antibiotics were discontinued after 2–3 days otherwise antibiotics were continued for 7 days All term born infants staying in the hospital for at least 24 h were eligible for inclusion Exclusion criteria were severe congenital malformations severe infection needing transfer to a neonatal intensive care unit and insufficient knowledge of the Dutch language children visited the outpatient clinic for follow-up a blood sample was obtained if the parents had given additional informed consent serum samples were aliquoted and stored at −80°C until further use Informed consent was obtained from both parents at inclusion The study was approved by the ethical board of the St If ≥40% of the data was imputed for the same biomarker and equally divided over the compared outcome the biomarker was excluded from further analysis Basic descriptive statistics (Mann Whitney U- or X-squared tests) were used to describe the patient population. As described previously, an unsupervised hierarchal clustering analysis, with min-max normalization per protein, was performed to investigate the discriminative potential of a single or a combination of proteins (16) Not-normally distributed cytokines and chemokines were log-transformed to achieve a Gaussian distribution With a linear regression the association between (log-transformed) cytokines and chemokines and an antibiotic course in the first week of life was investigated we investigated the association of the cytokines and chemokines and doctor's diagnosed eczema Wheezing and infantile colic analyses were additionally adjusted for antibiotic treatment in the first week of life as this was shown before to be associated Doctor's diagnosed eczema was not associated to the antibiotic course in the first week of life and therefore these analyses were not adjusted for antibiotic treatment in the first week of life Back -transformed βs are shown for the log-transformed variables p < 0.05 were considered significant the problem of multiple testing in this study therefore we focus mainly on the associations with a p < 0.01 Statistical analyses were performed using either IBM SPSS Statistics 24 Participant characteristics of samples analyzed with luminex compared to the whole cohort The significantly altered immune marker concentrations in one of the associations Moreover, the concentrations of sVCAM-1, sCD14, sCD19, sCD27, IL-1RII, sVEGF-R1, and HSP70 were significantly (p < 0.05) associated with neonatal antibiotic treatment in a differentiating cluster (Figures 1A,B). Overall, some of inflammatory markers measured showed significant differences between the AB+ and AB– groups (Table 3) (A) Hierarchical differentiating clustering differentiating factor is Antibiotic treatment in first week of life; markers associated are sVCAM-1 (B) Distribution of immune markers appearing in the hierarchical cluster between the children treated with antibiotics in the first week of life compared to those who were not Absolute values of the markers significantly differing in children treated without (AB–) and with (AB+) antibiotics in the first week of life given in median [inter quartile range (IQR)] Incidence of wheezing in the subgroup was comparable to the incidence of wheezing in the total INCA clinical cohort (36.2 vs. 34.2%). In children that wheezed both TNF-R2 (β 1.54, 95% CI 1.04, 2.28) and resistin (β 1.20, 95% CI 1.00, 1.43) were positively associated (Table 2) Incidence of infantile colics within the subgroup was comparable to the total INCA clinical cohort (17.0 vs. 17.4%, respectively). Interestingly, the positively significantly associated markers are known as inflammatory and gut associated immune markers (Table 2); Il-22 (β 1.62 The only negatively associated marker was TNF-R2 (β 0.23 we found that children treated with neonatal antibiotics (in the first week of life) have a different circulating immune marker profile at 1 year of age compared to children not exposed to neonatal antibiotics children who suffered from infantile colics during the first 3 months of their life had increased (gut-associated) inflammatory markers (like IL-33 and S100A8 and Galectin 1) at 1 year of age we found that children with doctor's diagnosed eczema had limited capacity to induce Th1 cytokines (like IFN-gamma and CXCL9) and more eczema/skin related marker CCL18 (PARC) this is the first study that explored the impact of antibiotic treatment in the first week of life in term-born infants on the circulating immune marker profile at 1 year of age the presence of reduced levels of individual circulating inflammation related receptors (like IL1-RII and sVEGF-R1) are indicative for an altered immune development in infants receiving early life antibiotics Clustering of these markers showed a different immune development at 1 year of age in infants who received antibiotic treatment in the first week of life This in turn is illustrative for the importance and understanding of the long-lasting effects of several environmental factors which occur early in life and are known to be associated with changes later in life It is interesting to note that characteristic eczema severity markers like TARC and PARC were not associated with the parental reported eczema (data not shown) Parental reported eczema (PRE) is considered to be less specific for the (real) presence of eczema Increased concentrations of Gal-3 in children with PRE may reflect another form of skin inflammation Non-specific eczema-like symptoms can be caused by a wide range of factors all associated with their own immune marker profile One additional atopy-related outcome evaluated within the INCA study was wheezing. Infants treated with neonatal antibiotics had an increased risk for wheezing in the first year of life (10) as many young children suffer from an episode of wheezing it is used as a predictor for the development of asthma can both represent a respiratory infection as well as an allergic response) might be an explanation for the absence of clear differences in circulating immune marker profile between children who suffered from wheezing and those who did not which is indicative for possible change in immune balance development A limitation of this study is the cross-sectional design. Ideally, more sampling time points would have given us the possibility to analyze time-dependent changes in immune marker development. Additionally, due to the sample size and cross-sectional design, no additional confounder adjustments were made, such as for the mode of delivery, which is known to contribute to an altered gut microbiome composition in the first weeks and months after birth (45) We are aware that many factors could influence the development of the immune marker profile during the first year of life other than “only” neonatal antibiotic treatment other antibiotic courses in the first year of life this study does provide novel insights regarding the immune marker profile of a relatively healthy 1 year old population While this is one of the largest groups of young children described in literature so far the design of the study and sample size do not allow for determination of causal associations it may help in elucidating the consequences of neonatal antibiotic treatment for the risk of developing infantile colics and atopic disorders Although our biomarker study does show alterations within inflammatory biomarkers associated with the early life use of antibiotics it has not been designed for development of predictive biomarker profiles The impact of antibiotic use on clinical features has been demonstrated which now seems reflected in small but significant alteration of biomarker profiles due to the fact that a diversity of markers are changing we have to conclude that our understanding of the impact of early life antibiotics use remains limited Aforementioned factors refrain us from developing a predictive biomarker set in this regard this explorative study shows that the circulating immune marker profile at 1 year of age is affected by antibiotic treatment during the first week of life infants who suffered from infantile colics in the first 3 months of life show increased gut-associated immune markers at 1 year of age Follow-up of this cohort can elucidate whether these increased gut associated markers predispose them for gastro-intestinal disorders later in life The results of this explorative study imply the existence of long-term negative consequences of antibiotic treatment on immune development possibly resulting in negative health effects later in life The dataset generated to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the ethical board of the St Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants' legal guardian/next of kin and RE: data analysis and writing the manuscript WJ and MK: sample analysis and critical reading of the manuscript This work was supported by the Nutricia Research Foundation (Grant No JG is head of the Division of Pharmacology Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty of Science at the Utrecht University BL is employed by Nutricia Research and as indicated by the affiliations leading a strategic alliance between Nutricia Research and University Medical Center Utrecht/Wilhelmina Children's Hospital The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest The handling editor declared a past co-authorship with one of the authors RE We would like to thank Carin Bunkers for her help with the data collection and Ger Rijkers for his input during the design of the study we would like to thank the staff of the contributing hospitals The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2019.02939/full#supplementary-material Impact of early-life exposures on immune maturation and susceptibility to disease Delivery mode shapes the acquisition and structure of the initial microbiota across multiple body habitats in newborns Effect of breast and formula feeding on gut microbiota shaping in newborns Milk- and solid-feeding practices and daycare attendance are 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development of colic Intestinal epithelial cells express galectin-9 in patients with food allergy that plays a critical role in sustaining allergic status in mouse intestine Signaling by IL-31 and functional consequences Biomarkers of inflammation in inflammatory bowel disease Galectins in intestinal inflammation: galectin-1 expression delineates response to treatment in celiac disease patients Exploring hypotheses and rationale for causes of infantile colic Randomised controlled trial demonstrates that fermented infant formula with short-chain galacto-oligosaccharides and long-chain fructo-oligosaccharides reduces the incidence of infantile colic The two soluble forms of the lipopolysaccharide receptor CD14: characterization and release by normal human monocytes Increased in vitro production and serum levels of the soluble lipopolysaccharide receptor sCD14 in liver disease CD14 expression and production by human hepatocytes The detection and role of heat shock protein 70 in various nondisease conditions and disease conditions: a literature review Soluble CD27 induces IgG production through activation of antigen-primed B cells New developments in biomarkers for atopic dermatitis Biomarkers for atopic dermatitis: a systematic review and meta-analysis A galectin-specific signature in the gut delineates Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis from other human inflammatory intestinal disorders PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Chemokine requirements for B cell entry to lymph nodes and Peyer's patches Thinking bigger: how early-life environmental exposures shape the gut microbiome and influence the development of asthma and allergic disease Vlieger AM and van Elburg RM (2020) Neonatal Antibiotic Treatment Is Associated With an Altered Circulating Immune Marker Profile at 1 Year of Age Received: 10 July 2019; Accepted: 29 November 2019; Published: 10 January 2020 Copyright © 2020 Oosterloo, van't Land, de Jager, Rutten, Klöpping, Garssen, Vlieger and van Elburg. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) *Correspondence: Ruurd M. van Elburg, cm0udmFuZWxidXJnQGFtc3RlcmRhbXVtYy5ubA== Metrics details The impact of nutrition on brain development in preterm infants has been increasingly appreciated Early postnatal growth and nutrient intake have been demonstrated to influence brain growth and maturation with subsequent effects on neurodevelopment that persist into childhood and adolescence Nutrition could also potentially protect against injury Inflammation and perinatal infection play a crucial role in the pathogenesis of white matter injury the most common pattern of brain injury in preterm infants nutritional components with immunomodulatory and/or anti-inflammatory effects may serve as neuroprotective agents growing evidence supports the existence of a microbiome-gut-brain axis The microbiome is thought to interact with the brain through immunological nutritional components that may influence gut microbiota may also exert beneficial effects on the developing brain and certain amino acids are potential candidates for neuroprotection the amino acid glutamine has been associated with a decrease in infectious morbidity in preterm infants early postnatal nutrition is of major importance for brain growth and maturation certain nutritional components might play a neuroprotective role against white matter injury through modulation of inflammation and infection and may influence the microbiome-gut-brain axis that provides adequate energy and protein intake to preterm infants emphasis has been placed on the impact of early nutrition on growth and little attention has been drawn to its implications for brain development there has been a growing literature supporting the latter postulate The aim of this review is to summarize the literature on the influence of early postnatal nutrition on brain development following extremely and very preterm birth we will discuss normal brain development in the preterm period and the most important patterns of brain injury We will explore pathways through which nutrition may modulate brain development and how nutritional strategies may exert neuroprotective effects we will discuss nutritional interventions that may serve as neuroprotective agents in the preterm brain either based on clinical evidence or on theoretical grounds we will focus on possible nutritional interventions OFC does not provide any information on the potential vulnerability of specific brain tissues to inadequate nutrition to date it is unclear whether improved head growth because of optimized feeding regimens reflects global brain growth or whether it may be attributed to a selective increase in volume and maturation of certain brain structures that undergo more rapid changes in growth and development in the preterm period and may therefore be more sensitive to the effects of early nutrition nutritional components were supplemented to serve as building blocks for growth and development because preterm infants are at increased risk of deficiencies of specific nutrients Nutrition may also provide intrinsic benefits to the developing brain The pathways through which nutrition may modulate brain development will be discussed in the next section This study illustrates how nutrition can favorably modify brain development following serious injury If a nutritional intervention could inhibit the pathways leading to injury we will briefly discuss the pathogenesis of WMI in order to offer a better understanding of how nutrition may modulate brain development nutritional supplements that would reduce systemic infections and attenuate the inflammatory response may be able to alleviate WMI and thereby promote brain development Immunomodulation may also offer benefits to the developing brain through the microbiome-gut-brain axis which will be discussed into more detail below The reciprocal interaction between gut microbiota and the brain Gut microbiota may modulate brain function and development through immune signaling (e.g. the brain may influence the gut through neurotransmitters that impact on immune function and through alterations in cortisol levels Nutritional components may exert effects on each of these communication pathways The sample size in both follow-up studies was small and may have been underpowered to yield significant results the potential benefits of early enteral glutamine supplementation on brain development and subsequent neurodevelopmental outcome remain to be further elucidated the mechanism through which enteral glutamine supplementation reduces the risk of serious neonatal infections in preterm infants is yet to be unraveled no beneficial effects on neurodevelopmental performance or reductions in major impairments The postulated benefits of probiotics for brain development in preterm infants deserve further investigation no studies have been undertaken to evaluate the effect of prebiotic oligosaccharides on brain development A mixture of pro- and prebiotics (often referred to as synbiotics) may be considered as the combination is known to be synergistic with prebiotics enhancing the survival of probiotic organisms in the host The clinical implications of vitamin E supplementation therefore remain unclear It is now generally accepted that adequate nutrition is crucial for brain growth and development of very preterm infants nutritional supplements have been hypothesized to provide neuroprotective effects Although nutrition may not be able to overcome all major deleterious effects of extreme prematurity and its consequences on brain development nutritional therapies may offer benefits to the developing brain Specific nutritional supplements have been shown to reduce the incidence of postnatal infections and NEC and have been assigned immunomodulatory properties Improved immunological balance and subsequent decreased inflammation may attenuate WMI and may also exert beneficial effects on the developing brain through the gut-immune-brain axis Nutritional interventions are of particular interest as neuroprotective strategies because they are considered safe nutritional supplements can be added to mother’s milk and therefore combined with breastfeeding Clinical research into the postulated benefits of nutritional supplements on brain development is urgently needed and should include MRI studies and long-term neurodevelopmental follow-up future research should try to unravel the underlying mechanisms by which the gut and the gut microbiome communicate with the brain with a particular focus on immunological pathways He is employed by the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam as Associate Professor and by Danone Nutricia Research as Chief Scientific Officer we disclose that the PhD position of the first author is fully funded by a grant from the Dutch government (Ministry of Economic Affairs; the Province and Municipality of Utrecht and the 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levels of vitamin E to incidence of sepsis and necrotizing enterocolitis in infants with birth weight 1,500 grams or less Download references We thank Liandre van der Merwe for English language editing Download citation Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: a shareable link is not currently available for this article Welcome to IPE Real Assets. 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Read our policy Italian real estate advisory firm Dils has made its debut acquisition abroad with the purchase of a majority stake in the Dutch real estate services company Van Gool Elburg The move is part of Dils' broader internationalisation process which aims to create a new player in the real estate advisory sector with a strong focus on continental Europe. Van Gool Elburg was founded in 2004 following the merger of Van Gool & Partner and Joseph Elburg Makelaars and it has been a household name within the Dutch real estate sector for over 45 years Van Gool Elburg has organised its expertise into three distinct but complementary business services: Leasing Tenant Representation and Investments. The management team will continue to lead the company in the new phase of development and the firm will change its name to Dils Nederland Entering the Dutch market will enable Dils to develop important synergies for companies and investors in the country and abroad supporting them in evaluating investment opportunities internationally the company said in a statement. ‘We are very proud to have initiated our expansion process in Europe of which the strategic partnership in the Netherlands with Van Gool Elburg a company we fully share values and market approach with is the first step,’ said Giuseppe Amitrano ‘Our efforts will be aimed at pooling our know-how and technologies developed to support the local management team in order to accelerate the international growth We are ready to enter some more European countries in the coming months and to become the new smart European player in the real estate sector.’ Copyright © 1997–2025 IPE International Publishers Limited Site powered by Webvision Cloud the weather in the Netherlands is expected to take a colder turn next week with fluctuating temperatures and frequent rain showers prepare for rapidly changing weather throughout the week meaning the Netherlands is unlikely to see a White Christmas this year According to KNMI you can expect a mix of cloudy skies and scattered rain showers with temperatures ranging from 6 to 8 degrees From Tuesday, December 24, temperatures will drop slightly, hovering between 4 and 7 degrees. The wind will be noticeable, adding a chill to the air, with gusts up to 40 km/h in some areas. Weeronline notes that while the rain will ease residents can expect a largely overcast day but the overall weather will remain unsettled Temperatures will peak at around 6 degrees which predicts light rain and clouds for much of the day with clear skies breaking through the clouds at times with temperatures barely reaching 5 degrees will mark the end of the workweek with another round of rain showers transitioning into a potentially snowy weekend Both KNMI and Weeronline suggest that there could be periods of heavy rain and a chance of light snow in the northern regions the first signs of winter could make their appearance with temperatures dipping to around 2 degrees Wolves are attacking sheep and other animals at an increasing rate there were 267 reports of wolf attacks on animals compared to only 77 in 2023 during the same period the landowners had no fence or barbed wire around their land or other preventive measures in place to prevent wolf damage This is evident from an analysis by the ANP based on data from BIJ12 ​​This organization handles wolf cases for the provinces Most of the attacks happened in Oostenllingwerf a municipality in Friesland on the border with Drenthe There have already been 39 reports of attacks in the area this year the wolf attacks mainly happen in municipalities in and around the Veluwe like in Ede (27 times) and Elburg (22 times) Gelderland reported more wolf attacks in the first three months of the year than in the whole of 2023 The number of attacks could be even higher in reality It is not an obligation to report a wolf attack to BIJ12 Only attacks where it is certain that a wolf caused the damage have been noted Wolves attack more often because there are now more wolves in the Netherlands we counted 29 wolves in the country; last winter we counted 51,” a spokesperson for BIJ12 said “We also see that not enough measures are being taken to prevent a wolf from inflicting damage.” Of the wolf attacks in the first three months of the year at least nine in ten landowners had not taken any measures that BIJ12 would accept Subsidies are available in several provinces to install preventive measures A dog disappeared in Leusden at the start of this month due to a suspected wolf attack. A week later, a girl was bit in the same area by a wolf Incidents involving people and pets are not eligible for compensation and are therefore not included Dutch buildings built before the Second World War are rapidly disappearing due to the housing crisis and the strict requirements to make homes more sustainable, AD reported on Wednesday indicate that 95,008 pre-war buildings have been torn down over the last ten years the Netherlands had 1.67 million buildings dating back to before 1940 Heritage experts in the Netherlands are raising concerns over the trend of demolishing or extensively altering historical buildings instead of renovating them they urge political parties to consider heritage in urban planning decisions head of the Heemschut Heritage Association explained that pre-war buildings are at risk due to uniform regulations that may not suit their preservation such as gas removal or solar panel installation He added that the poor energy efficiency of pre-war homes often leads housing associations to favor demolition over costly renovations Hanneke Ronnes and Wouter van Elburg from the University of Amsterdam have documented the demolition of pre-war buildings in Amsterdam on a website They expressed surprise at how many buildings lack protected status "Many buildings in the city center are doubly protected because of their monument status and because they fall under a protected cityscape neither of these applies,” Ronnes explained "The protected status of buildings in the Netherlands is not regulated nationally," Van Elburg pointed out There are big differences in how people deal with heritage in different provinces or cities and things go wrong more often in the big cities They call for a national policy to address what they see as a misguided direction in urban development They criticize the lack of political engagement and adequate tools to counteract the financial incentives driving demolition The two researchers blame the housing associations “They rely on the argument that residents want new homes but residents often don't realize they may not be able to stay due to new construction or face significant rent increases,” Ronnes explained She also linked this to years of neglect in less affluent neighborhoods “Then the claim is made that buildings must be demolished because they're no longer quality Aedes spokesperson Jolanda Maas told AD that housing associations consider demolition a last resort "We don't readily resort to the wrecking ball Consider all the sustainability measures that are necessary Tenants are involved in everything," she said a professor of housing systems at TU Delft believes that demolition should not be considered too rigidly "The pressure against it is increasing," he pointed out It's clear that more can be done with the existing stock but when aiming for sustainable improvements sometimes we must question whether choosing renovation is wise." The Netherlands has been granted 195 Blue Flags by the Foundation for Environmental Education The Blue Flag is an international certification awarded to clean beaches and safe marinas the recognition was given to 134 marinas and 61 beaches in the Netherlands The beaches of Monster and Rockanje in the province of Zuid-Holland and the Elburg marina in Gelderland are among the new recipients The marina in Terschelling also received the award standing out as the only location to have received a Blue Flag every year since the award was introduced in 1987 the Dutch coordinator for the Blue Flag program highlighted the high quality of Dutch recreational water spots only the beaches of The Hague and Katwijk do not have a Blue Flag," he said This is attributed to their proximity to the mouth of the Oude Rijn River The Blue Flag award is granted to marinas and beaches that satisfy several criteria including clean swimming water and good sanitation facilities The distinction serves as an international symbol of recognition for visitors and tourists The sites are reassessed annually to determine if they continue to meet the necessary standards Safety and Quality Certification (KMVK) handles the evaluation The Dutch meteorologist and former weather forecaster Helga van Leur presented the awards on Thursday raising the Blue Flag on the beach at Wassenaarse Slag in the Zuid-Holland province The police arrested seven people from the east of the Netherlands on Monday morning on suspicion of animal cruelty The arrests follow a broadcast of television program Undercover in Nederland which showed video footage of police dogs in training being seriously abused Four dogs were confiscated and taken to a safe shelter and other prohibited objects used to “train” the dogs Undercover in Nederland showed trainers beating kicking and shocking the dogs who were being trained to be police dogs This happened at three locations sanctioned by the Dutch police dog association KNPV in Doetinchem Dick Smid of KNPV told AD it is “a good thing” that the seven suspects have been arrested “You don’t want such people working with dogs this way,” he said to the newspaper “You don’t treat animals like that.” He stressed that the KNPV already expelled the trainers from the association “But they should have thought of that in advance because we do not want such people at the KNPV.” The three involved training clubs lost their KNPV accreditation and will not regain it until after the police investigation is done and the clubs can demonstrate that their training programs were adjusted and structurally improved The police stressed to AD that the KNPV is not part of the police organization The police immediately stopped working with the relevant trainers and their clubs after Undercover in Nederland revealed the abuses