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The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with its extensive forest cover is the biggest target country for the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) mechanism in Africa. Despite high levels of gender inequality in rural DRC, the impacts of REDD+ interventions on gender have not been sufficiently addressed. This study examines the gender dimension at two project sites i
Increased growth in early childhood has been suggested to increase the risk of type 1 diabetes. This study explored the relationship between weight or height and development of persistent islet autoimmunity and progression to type 1 diabetes during the first 4 years of life in 7,468 children at genetic risk for type 1 diabetes followed in Finland, Germany, Sweden, and the U.S. Growth data collecte
Accurate diagnosis of rare inherited anaemias is challenging, requiring a series of complex and expensive laboratory tests. Targeted next-generation-sequencing (NGS) has been used to investigate these disorders, but the selection of genes on individual panels has been narrow and the validation strategies used have fallen short of the standards required for clinical use. Clinical-grade validation o
Background: The basal-like breast cancer (BLBC) subtype is characterized by positive staining for basal mammary epithelial cytokeratin markers, lack of hormone receptor and HER2 expression, and poor prognosis with currently no approved molecularly-targeted therapies. The oncogenic signaling pathways driving basal-like tumorigenesis are not fully elucidated. Methods: One hundred sixteen unselected
. Streptococcus pyogenes is an important human pathogen responsible for substantial morbidity and mortality worldwide. Although . S. pyogenes is a strictly human pathogen with no other known animal reservoir, several murine infection models exist to explore different aspects of the bacterial pathogenesis. Inoculating mice with wild-type . S. pyogenes strains can result in the generation of new bac
This paper examines the influence of land fragmentation on the value ofvegetables produced in the Skopje and Southeastern regions of the Republic ofMacedonia. The analysis uses models such as a Cobb-Douglas production function as well as a General Linear Model. The findings support a negative and statistically significant impact of land fragmentation on the productivity and profitability of vegeta
In this paper we consider the asymptotic distributions of functionals of the sample covariance matrix and the sample mean vector obtained under the assumption that the matrix of observations has a matrix variate general skew normal distribution. The central limit theorem is derived for the product of the sample covariance matrix and the sample mean vector. Moreover, we consider the product of an i
Recent scholarly work has enhanced our understanding of how new path development activities are enabled or constrained by ‘regional environments’, made up of pre-existing industrial structures, knowledge organizations, support structures and institutional configurations. This paper moves beyond overly static views on regional environments. We develop a dynamic perspective by analysing conceptually
This chapter presents a narrative analysis of the life story of a Swedish Pentecostal who decided to join the Israeli Defense Forces out of his conviction that God wanted him to protect the chosen people. His story is treated as an example of lived Christian Zionism; as one of many manifestations that contemporary Christian affection for Israel can take. The analysis focuses on the central narrati
14C (radiocarbon) in atmospheric CO2 is the most direct tracer for the presence of fossil-fuel-derived CO2 (CO2-ff). We demonstrate the measurement of wine ethanol as a way to determine the relative regional atmospheric CO2-ff concentration compared to a background site ("regional CO2-ff excess") for specific harvest years. The carbon in wine ethanol is directly back traceable to the atmospheric C
This paper describes an integrated microsystem for rapid separation, enrichment, and detection of bacteria from blood, addressing the unmet clinical need for rapid sepsis diagnostics. The blood sample is first processed in an acoustophoresis chip, where red blood cells are focused to the center of the channel by an acoustic standing wave and sequentially removed. The bacteria-containing plasma pro
Children with bone marrow failure syndromes and severe aplastic anemia (SAA) are treated with allogeneic blood or marrow transplantation (BMT). However, there is a paucity of studies examining late mortality risk after allogeneic BMT performed in childhood for bone marrow failure syndromes and SAA and evaluating how this risk differs between these diseases. We investigated cause-specific late mort
This work investigates the stability of emulsions prepared by using octenyl succinic anhydride (OSA)-modified waxy maize starch in the form of granules, dissolved starch, and non-solvent precipitated starch as Pickering emulsion stabilisers. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of different forms of starches on the stability of emulsion using light microscopy, light scattering, and
Background: There exist few recovery and occupation-based interventions for mental health service users. Balancing Everyday Life (BEL) is a new occupation-based lifestyle intervention that was created to fill this need. Aim: To gain group leaders’ and participants’ perspectives of the BEL intervention content and format, including factors that helped, hindered, and could be improved. Methods: A co
Background: Metronidazole is the preferred empirical anti-anaerobic agent for patients with suspected anaerobic infection. The balance between benefits and harms of empirical metronidazole is unclear. We aimed to assess patient-important benefits and harms of empirical metronidazole vs placebo/no treatment in adult patients with severe bacterial infection of any origin. Methods: We conducted a sys
The sharing economy is a new form of resource distribution that is affecting traditional markets, cities and individuals, and challenging the prevalent regulatory frameworks, social norms and belief systems. While studies have examined some of its disruptive effects on institutional actors, there has been less focus on the ways in which sharing economy organisations work to create new or disrupt p
It has been hypothesized that highly productive coastal ecosystems, such as seagrass meadows, could lead to the establishment of ocean acidification (OA) refugia, or areas of elevated pH and aragonite saturation state (Ωa) compared to source seawater. However, seagrass ecosystems experience extreme variability in carbonate chemistry across short temporal and small spatial scales, which could impac
