Recommendations for a Dutch Sustainable Biobanking Environment

Biobanks and their collections are considered essential for contemporary biomedical research and a critical resource toward personalized medicine. However, they need to operate in a sustainable manner to prevent research waste and maximize impact. Sustainability is the capacity of a biobank to remain operative, effective, and competitive over its expected lifetime. This remains a challenge given a biobank's position at the interplay of ethical, societal, scientific, and commercial values and the difficulties in finding continuous funding. In the end, biobanks are responsible for their own sustainability. Still, biobanks also depend on their surrounding environment, which contains overarching legislative, policy, financial, and other factors that can either impede or promote sustainability. The Biobanking and Biomolecular Research Infrastructure for The Netherlands (BBMRI.nl) has worked on improving the national environment for sustainable biobanking. In this article, we present the final outcomes of this BBMRI.nl project. First, we summarize the current overarching challenges of the Dutch biobanking landscape. These challenges were gathered during workshops and focus groups with Dutch biobanks and their users, for which the full results are described in separate reports. The main overarching challenges relate to sample and data quality, funding, use and reuse, findability and accessibility, and the general image of biobanks. Second, we propose a package of recommendations—across nine themes—toward creating overarching conditions that stimulate and enable sustainable biobanking. These recommendations serve as a guideline for the Dutch biobanking community and their stakeholders to jointly work toward practical implementation and a better biobanking environment. There are undoubtedly parallels between the Dutch situation and the challenges found in other countries. We hope that sharing our project's approach, outcomes, and recommendations will support other countries in their efforts toward sustainable biobanking

Autism Symptoms in Children and Young Adults With Fragile X Syndrome, Angelman Syndrome, Tuberous Sclerosis Complex, and Neurofibromatosis Type 1:A Cross-Syndrome Comparison

Objective: The etiology of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) remains unclear, due to genetic heterogeneity and heterogeneity in symptoms across individuals. This study compares ASD symptomatology between monogenetic syndromes with a high ASD prevalence, in order to reveal syndrome specific vulnerabilities and to clarify how genetic variations affect ASD symptom presentation. Methods: We assessed ASD symptom severity in children and young adults (aged 0-28 years) with Fragile X Syndrome (FXS, n = 60), Angelman Syndrome (AS, n = 91), Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF1, n = 279) and Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC, n = 110), using the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule and Social Responsiveness Scale. Assessments were part of routine clinical care at the ENCORE expertise center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. First, we compared the syndrome groups on the ASD classification prevalence and ASD severity scores. Then, we compared individuals in our syndrome groups with an ASD classification to a non-syndromic ASD group (nsASD, n = 335), on both ASD severity scores and ASD symptom profiles. Severity scores were compared using MANCOVAs with IQ and gender as covariates. Results: Overall, ASD severity scores were highest for the FXS group and lowest for the NF1 group. Compared to nsASD, individuals with an ASD classification in our syndrome groups showed less problems on the instruments' social domains. We found a relative strength in the AS group on the social cognition, communication and motivation domains and a relative challenge in creativity; a relative strength of the NF1 group on the restricted interests and repetitive behavior scale; and a relative challenge in the FXS and TSC groups on the restricted interests and repetitive behavior domain. Conclusion: The syndrome-specific strengths and challenges we found provide a frame of reference to evaluate an individual's symptoms relative to the larger syndromic population and to guide treatment decisions. Our findings support the need for personalized care and a dimensional, symptom-based diagnostic approach, in contrast to a dichotomous ASD diagnosis used as a prerequisite for access to healthcare services. Similarities in ASD symptom profiles between AS and FXS, and between NF1 and TSC may reflect similarities in their neurobiology. Deep phenotyping studies are required to link neurobiological markers to ASD symptomatology

Relativisation in Dutch diaries, private letters and newspapers (1770-1840). A genre-specific national language?

Descriptive and Comparative Linguistic

Language Planning as Nation Building

The decades around 1800 constitute the seminal period of European nationalism. The linguistic corollary of this was the rise of standard language ideology, from Finland to Spain, and from Iceland to the Habsburg Empire. Amidst these international events, the case of Dutch in the Netherlands offers a unique example. After the rise of the ideology from the 1750s onwards, the new discourse of one language–one nation was swiftly transformed into concrete top-down policies aimed at the dissemination of the newly devised standard language across the entire population of the newly established Dutch nation-state. Thus, the Dutch case offers an exciting perspective on the concomitant rise of cultural nationalism, national language planning and standard language ideology. This study offers a comprehensive yet detailed analysis of these phenomena by focussing on the ideology underpinning the new language policy, the institutionalisation of this ideology in metalinguistic discourse, the implementation of the policy in education, and the effects of the policy on actual language use

Ontwerp van een pakketsgewijs georganiseerd datatransmissie- en foutcorrectiesysteem voor de scribofoon

Gebruikmakend van een op de ISO-HDLC-norm geënt protocol is voor de bestaande scribofoon een pakket-georiënteerd transmissiesysteem ontworpen en gebouwd, waarbij de ontvanger via een retourkanaal om herhaling vanaf het met een fout ontvangen pakket vraagt.Applied SciencesTransmissie van Informati

Nagelaten gedichten /

1. Tooneelpoëzij; 2. MengelpoëzijEuropeana-GoogleBook

The Differentiation Choice of Bone Marrow-derived Cells

ABSTRACT. Bone marrow derived cells (BMDC) have shown to engraft renal tubuli and constitute part of the interstitial myofibroblast population after kidney damage. It is unknown which BMDC are responsible for the differentiation towards tubular epithelial cells (TEC) or myofibroblasts. Mesenchymal stem cells, haematopoietic stem cells, fibrocytes, peripheral blood mononuclear cells, fibroblasts and pericytes are all resident or peripheral BMDC. They each show in vitro or in vivo differentiation capability towards either TEC or myofibroblasts, creating a complicated web of cells that can contribute to renal recovery. With the help of literature research the signalling molecules that affect this differentiation are identified. In the damaged kidney, inflammation and wound healing create a specific microenvironment. The composition of this microenvironment will determine the differentiation choice of arriving BMDC towards TEC or myofibroblast. By studying the damaged kidney‟s gene transcription and protein levels it is possible to predict the microenvironment and hypothesize which differentiation choice the BMDC will make. At the moment of BMDC arrival the microenvironment is predominantly pro-fibrotic, therefore BMDC will mainly choose to differentiate towards myofibroblasts.

Mineralogisk och mineralkemisk jämförelse mellan Rakkurijoki, Rakkurijärvi och förekomst av Discovery Zone FeOx, Kiruna Sverige

The investigated deposits, Rakkurijoki, Rakkurijarvi and Discovery Zone, are all located 6-8 km south-southwest of the currently mined Kiirunavaara AIO-deposit. Previous research in the three deposits has been very limited, where the most recent study focused on the Discovery Zone deposit. The main aim of this study was to compare the three deposits by studying the mineralization petrographically, combined with a compositional characterization using electron microprobe analysis (E.M.P.A.), the trace and minor element composition of oxides, sulphides, and classification of the silicates, and addressing the chemical environment of the deposits.Whole-rock geochemistry indicates that the setting of the sediments in Rakkurijoki is from an active continental margin and the meta-sediments are classified as arkose /lithoarenite. Whole-rock geochemistry from samples originating from Discovery Zone is inadequate to use for classification as metasomatism may have altered the primary composition of the whole-rock. The trace element compositions in the three studied deposits show distinct differences, especially with regards to the Al2O3 content, where samples from Rakkurijoki contain overall higher concentrations compared to Rakkurijärvi and Discovery Zone. Magnetite samples from the Rakkurijoki deposit shows analogous tendencies regarding the element concentrations with the average skarn deposits. Furthermore, Rakkurijärvi shows similar average concentrations of Ti and V as Rakkurijoki and the average skarn deposits, but lower concentrations of Al and Mn. Discovery Zone shows slightly greater average concentrations of V compared with the average IOCG-style deposits, but contains significantly less Al, Mn, and Ti. The author suggest that the low concentrations of trace elements in oxides from Discovery Zone could be explained by that there was an initial oxidation followed by subsequent reduction so that the primary Mn- , Ti-. and Al-bearing magnetite has been recrystallized to form secondary magnetite with low Mn, Ti and Al contents. The three deposits are suggested to represent different styles of mineralization, Rakkurijoki and Rakkurijärvi are considered to belong to the skarn category based on their chemical characteristics, whereas Discovery Zone is classified as an IOCG-type deposit. Based on the chemical data and the petrographic studies conducted, it is evident that there are differences between the deposits regarding their composition, which undoubtedly relates to differences in ore genesis.Validerat; 20140528 (global_studentproject_submitter