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Sweden has experienced a national value-based pricing (VBP) system for innovative outpatient drugs operated by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Board - LFN (now called the Dental and Pharmaceutical Benefits agency - TLV) since 2002. VBP has the character of a monopoly system, leading to reimbursement decisions where usage of new medicines is limited to subgroups and not the population for which the dru
Overflow metabolism, i.e. the production of metabolic by-products at a high glycolytic flux, is a recurring problem in fed-batch processes with many types of microorganisms. In the current study, a novel feeding strategy aimed at avoiding process failures due to overflow by-product formation was designed and implemented in a pilot-scale reactor (0.5 m3). The basic principle behind the strategy was
The present study investigated the effects of land-use abandonment on the soil decomposer community of two grazed Mediterranean ecosystems (an annual grassland with scattered holm oaks and a low-density shrubland). To test the influence of grazing abandonment, a set of plots within each site were fenced and kept undisturbed during 4-5 years, during which above-ground plant community structure was
During the last decade, the ecological theory of adaptive radiation, and its corollary "ecological speciation", has been a major research theme in evolutionary biology. Briefly, this theory states that speciation is mainly or largely the result of divergent selection, arising from niche differences between populations or incipient species. Reproductive isolation evolves either as a result of direc
Abstract is missing (Letter).
Modeling of loads on a vehicle through Laplace moving averages is extended to the multivariate setting and efficient methods of computing the damage indexes are discussed. Multivariate Laplace moving averages are used as statistical models of multi-axial loads represented by forces and moments measured at some locations of a cultivator. As opposed to models based on the Gaussian distribution, thes
Traits that increase mating success in males may come at a cost, such as an increased risk of predation. However, predator-mediated selection is challenging to document in natural populations, hampering our understanding of the trade-offs between sexual selection and predation. Here we report on a study of predator-mediated natural selection on wing traits in the damselfly Calopteryx splendens, th
Evolution of lignocellulose decomposition was one of the most ecologically important innovations in fungi. White rot fungi in the Agaricomycetes (mushrooms and relatives) are the most effective microorganisms in degrading both cellulose and lignin components of woody plant cell walls (PCW). However, the precise evolutionary origins of lignocellulose decomposition are poorly understood, largely bec
Addition of crosslinked polymer nanoparticles into a solution of a 3-nitrophenylboronic acid-alizarin complex leads to significant enhancement of fluorescence emission. Using the nanoparticle-enhanced boronic acid-alizarin system has improved greatly the sensitivity and extended the dynamic range of separation-free fluorescence assays for carbohydrates.
Approximately 18% of all human genes purported to encode proteins have not been directly evidenced at the protein level, according to the validation criteria established by neXtProt, and are considered as “missing” proteins. One of the goals of the Chromosome-Centric Human Proteome Project (C-HPP) is to identify as many of these “missing” proteins as possible in human samples using mass spectromet
Internationalisation of higher education is a strategic theme in current research on higher education and policy debate. Both at national and institutional levels, in many countries, internationalisation is stated to be an educational goal. However, the dominant discourse on internationalisation of higher education in research and research-based discussions tends to be framed by political, economi
The partitioning of Clavulanic Acid (CA) in a novel inexpensive and stable aqueous two-phase system (ATPS) composed by poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) and sodium polyacrylate (NaPA) has been studied. The aqueous two-phase systems are formed by mixing both polymers with a salt (NaCl or Na2SO4) and an aqueous solution of CA. The stability of CA on the presence of both polymers was investigated and it wa
In vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) the impact of vehicles as obstacles has largely been neglected in the past. Recent studies have reported that the vehicles that obstruct the line-of-sight (LOS) path may introduce 10-20 dB additional loss, and as a result reduce the communication range. Most of the traffic mobility models (TMMs) today do not treat other vehicles as obstacles and thus can not m
Gender stereotypes describe women as communal and men as agentic. Laboratory-based research (Rudman & Glick, 1999, 2001) suggests that trying to disconfirm such descriptive gender stereotypes (e.g., women self-promoting their agency), entails the risk of hiring discrimination due to violation of prescriptive gender stereotypes: a backlash. To examine whether backlash occurs when applying for r
Investigations of the interconnectedness of climate change with human societies require profound analysis of relations among humans and between humans and nature, and the integration of insights from various academic fields. An intersectional approach, developed within critical feminist theory, is advantageous. An intersectional analysis of climate change illuminates how different individuals and
The Oil Transfer Technique (OTT) was developed by Taisne et al. [1] to measure coalescence during emulsification and has been applied since in several studies. One of the main drawbacks of this technique is that it only gives a qualitative measure of coalescence. This paper proposes a new evaluation method of OTT experimental results for estimating qualitative coalescence rates, e.g. for investiga
To elucidate the genetic bases of mycorrhizal lifestyle evolution, we sequenced new fungal genomes, including 13 ectomycorrhizal (ECM), orchid (ORM) and ericoid (ERM) species, and five saprotrophs, which we analyzed along with other fungal genomes. Ectomycorrhizal fungi have a reduced complement of genes encoding plant cell wall-degrading enzymes (PCWDEs), as compared to their ancestral wood decay
We investigated how the legacy of warming and summer-drought affected microbial communities in five different replicated long-term (>10 years) field-experiments across Europe (EU-FP7 INCREASE infrastructure). To focus explicitly on legacy effects (i.e. indirect rather than direct effects of the environmental factors), we measured microbial variables under the same moisture and temperature in a bri
Ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi are efficient at taking up phosphorus (P) from mineral sources, such as apatite, which are not easily available to the host trees. Since ECM fungal species differ in P uptake rates, it can be expected that the composition of the ECM fungal community will change upon exposure to apatite, provided that the P transfer is rewarded by more carbon being transferred to the fun
The amount of carbon (C) stored in soil is an important regulator for the global climate and soil fertility and is the balance between formation and decomposition of soil organic matter (SOM). Decomposition of SOM can be powerfully affected by labile carbon (C) supplements in, for example, the rhizosphere. A stimulation of SOM mineralisation induced by labile C additions is termed priming', and th
