In the absence of written records, disease and parasite loads are often used as indicators of sanitation in past populations. Here, the authors adopt the novel approach of integrating the bioarchaeological analysis of cesspits in an area of medieval Leiden (the Netherlands) with historical property records to explore living conditions. Using light microscopy and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) they identify evidence of parasites associated with ineffective sanitation (whipworm, roundworm and the protozoan Giardia duodenalis)—at residences of all social levels—and the consumption of infected livestock and freshwater fish (Diphyllobothriidae, cf. Echinostoma sp., cf. Fasciola hepatica and Dicrocoelium sp.).

This study documents three chapel furnishings dating from around 1500 belonging to the Edgcumbe family at Cotehele, Cornwall, south-west England, and discusses their survival during the Protestant Reformation and beyond. The textiles were exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries of London by W H St John Hope, FSA and the text of his presentation was published in the Proceedings of the Society in 1912–13. The present article brings together the numerous other historic writings concerning the textiles. Their possible origins are explored and assessed in context with pieces of similar date. Observations of their original making and later changes are recorded, while interpretations by historians of this period are put forward for consideration. The rarity of survival of the textiles and their documented history is acknowledged.

This article presents a socio-anthropological analysis of the formation of a business ecosystem around blockchain technology in the Netherlands, within the broader context of the European Union and the digital single market. I argue that while reproducing widespread global models of business group and network formation, the relations created by these networks also reveal particularities of local business and governance cultures. Such particularities emerge from the pragmatics of collaboration and competitive market relationships, as well as legal heterogeneity and plans for legal harmonisation in digital innovation and governance in Europe. They also emerge from the challenges and transformations that current experimentation cultures for digital innovation bring to the interactions between market players, regulators, and government. These challenges and transformations materialise in increasingly informal connections and strategies for experimental legitimisation, which occur in parallel to more formal and traditional forms of regulatory and governmental interaction. The article is based on ethnographic fieldwork in the Netherlands and in online terrains, including observation periods and 32 interviews with entrepreneurial project teams, as well as with individuals involved in financial incumbents’ innovation labs.

A mandible of a Late Cretaceous sea turtle with affinities to Ctenochelys is reported from the Maastrichtian type area of the Netherlands. The triangular mandible has a well-developed symphyseal ridge surrounded on both sides by large, concave areas on the triturating surface. It represents the first potential occurrence of Ctenochelys from the Maastrichtian type area. This finding increases the diversity of the turtle fauna known from the Maastrichtian type area.

During 6 weeks in February–March 2021, the Dutch municipal health service Utrecht studied the epidemiological effects on test incidence and the detection of acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) with mass testing (MT). During MT, inhabitants of Bunschoten could repeatedly test regardless of symptoms and as often as desired at the close-by test facilities in the municipality. Data from the regular COVID-19 registration was used for analysis. In Bunschoten, MT caused a significant increase in test incidence and an immediate increase in the number of detected active infections, in contrast to a stabilisation in the rest of the province of Utrecht. Age distribution of test incidence shifted to the older population in Bunschoten during MT. During MT, there was a 6.8 percentage point increase in detected asymptomatic cases, a 0.4 percentage point increase in pre-symptomatic cases and a decrease of 0.5 days between onset of symptoms and test date. This study has shown that MT increases test incidence and helps to obtain a more complete view of the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in a community, which can be useful in specific situations with a defined target group or goal. However, the question remains open whether the use of MT is proportionate to the overall gain.

Palaeoecological reconstructions in the Netherlands are commonly based on pollen and macrofossil analysis, but can be limited if the preservation of organic material is poor. Phytoliths, biogenic silica, do not have this limitation and preserve in settings where other macro- and microfossils do not. Little is known about how phytolith assemblages preserved in soils and sediments reflect the parent vegetation in north-western European systems, so it is currently difficult to contextualise past environments. Here, we characterise phytolith assemblages for soil samples recovered from three major vegetation types in the Netherlands to provide reference data for future reconstructions of past vegetation change. We collected 42 soil surface samples from forests, wetlands and agricultural fields across the Netherlands and characterised the phytolith assemblages they contained. We identified the different phytolith morphotypes and quantified the percentages and concentrations (#phytoliths/cm3 soil) in each sample. We used non-metric multidimensional scaling to assess the variation in phytolith assemblage composition within, and between, the three vegetation types. The phytolith assemblages analysed from the forests, wetlands and agricultural fields were clearly distinguishable from each other. Agricultural fields were dominated by four phytolith morphotypes of grass silica short cells (GSSCs): rondel (tabular), cross type 1 (>15 µm), rondel (elongated) and disturbance or crop phytoliths. Forests settings had significantly higher amounts of different arboreal phytoliths (large and small spheroid rugose) compared with other vegetation types. Wetlands could be identified by significantly higher amounts of Cyperaceae phytoliths (papillate) and other GSSCs (saddle and bilobates with thick castula). Phytolith assemblages could distinguish different subtypes of vegetation within forest and wetland areas, while differences between agricultural systems could not be identified. Our study demonstrates that phytoliths preserved in soils or sediments can be used to separate major vegetation types across the Netherlands. Thus, these results support the hypothesis that phytoliths can be used to infer past environmental conditions in palaeoecological reconstructions. We suggest that future work should: (1) focus on characterising which phytolith types are produced by the commonest tree, wetland, shrub and herb species in the Netherlands and (2) characterise phytolith assemblages across a wider array of vegetation types in north-western European systems to increase the capability for quantitative reconstructions using phytolith assemblages.

The Portable Antiquities of the Netherlands (PAN) is an online system aimed at recording and documenting archaeological finds by the public. Since PAN launched in 2016, it has become an important data contributor to Dutch archaeology, amassing over 100,000 recorded finds. These data, mostly the result of metal detection, enable scholars to gain new insights and policy makers to make more informed decisions. This review describes the context in which PAN was established, along with its current structure and scope, before looking at its different components, including the underlying database and linked data reference collection. In a final section, the article briefly addresses some common issues inherent to public reporting programs and how PAN approaches these issues.

Climate adaptation planning in pursuit of resilient and sustainable societies has become a focal point in urban policy. Climate adaptation planning is generally regarded as separate from traditional urban planning practices. Globally and in Europe, however, cities are increasingly integrating climate adaptation planning into their traditional urban planning instruments and processes. Recent research indicates that the scope of such integration is at varying stages. The City of Rotterdam (Netherlands) and the City of Antwerp (Belgium) have been identified as two European cities that face similar climate impacts and risks given their proximity to a large river delta. Both cities aim to integrate climate adaptation into their respective urban planning policies, but the scope of their integration differs. This paper critically analyses the urban planning policies of these two cities to distil key lessons learnt that cities with similar climate impacts and approaches to urban planning may potentially face in integrating climate adaptation planning into urban planning policies. The paper finds that identifying and evaluating the synergies, co-benefits or trade-offs of adaptation measures is a key challenge to integrating climate adaptation into urban planning policy. It is a potential stumbling block for long-term sustainable development and climate resilience.

This article examines the conditions under which non-governmental organisations (NGOs) gain access to defence administrations when campaigning for transparency around the use of military force. We theorise that gaining access in this traditionally secluded domain is a matter of supply and demand. NGOs can gain access through technical and political information, yet not without demand for these resources, dependent on the politicisation of concerns about the use of force. We focus on the activities of Airwars, an international NGO, and its campaign in the Netherlands (2015–20) to foster transparency about civilian casualties caused by Dutch airstrikes. Our analysis shows that their credible information about air strikes led to access to the defence administration and allowed them to effectively advocate for transparency, mediated by the politicisation of the issue through parliamentary and media attention. Our findings contribute both to the literature on NGO advocacy and to the field of civil-military relations.

This paper is written by Gineke Wiggers, Suzan Verberne and Gerrit-Jan Zwenne and examines citations in legal documents in the context of bibliometric-enhanced legal information retrieval. It is suggested that users of legal information retrieval systems wish to see both scholarly and non-scholarly information, and legal information retrieval systems are developed to be used by both scholarly and non-scholarly users. Since the use of citations in building arguments plays an important role in the legal domain, bibliometric information (such as citations) is an instrument to enhance legal information retrieval systems. This paper examines, through literature and data analysis, whether a bibliometric-enhanced ranking for legal information retrieval should consider both scholarly and nonscholarly publications, and whether this ranking could serve both user groups, or whether a distinction needs to be made. Their literature analysis suggests that for legal documents, there is no strict separation between scholarly and non-scholarly documents. There is no clear mark by which the two groups can be separated, and in as far as a distinction can be made, literature shows that both scholars and practitioners (non-scholars) use both types. They perform a data analysis to analyze this finding for legal information retrieval in practice, using citation and usage data from a legal search engine in the Netherlands. They first create a method to classify legal documents as either scholarly or non-scholarly based on criteria found in the literature. We then semi- automatically analyze a set of seed documents and register by what (type of) documents they are cited. This resulted in a set of 52 cited (seed) documents and 3086 citing documents. Based on the affiliation of users of the search engine, we analyzed the relation between user group and document type. The authors’ data analysis confirms the literature analysis and shows much crosscitations between scholarly and non-scholarly documents. In addition, we find that scholarly users often open non-scholarly documents and vice versa. Our results suggest that for use in legal information retrieval systems citations in legal documents measure part of a broad scope of impact, or relevance, on the entire legal field. This means that for bibliometric-enhanced ranking in legal information retrieval, both scholarly and non-scholarly documents should be considered. The disregard by both scholarly and non-scholarly users of the distinction between scholarly and non-scholarly publications also suggests that the affiliation of the user is not likely a suitable factor to differentiate rankings on. The data in combination with literature suggests that a differentiation on user intent might be more suitable.

Debtors were stimulated to contact their creditors to negotiate a repayment plan. Contacting creditors was important because debtors were unlikely to repay the debt immediately and upon contacting, debtors could agree on a repayment plan to repay the debt in the long run. Using insights from scarcity theory and nudging techniques, a standard debt repayment letter was adapted and both letters were compared. Experimental results (N = 3,330) provide support for the use of nudging techniques as more debtors agreed on a repayment plan and response rates increased. The results underline the importance of stimulating debtors to contact their creditors.