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The Traditional Knowledge (TK) of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLC) plays a crucial role in addressing the biodiversity and climate crises. Yet, market- and state-driven governance of TK continues to assist and enables its exploitation. I investigate the potential of Traditional Knowledge Commons to protect the knowledge and rights of IPLC from violations. Through a multi-case study
Purpose: To investigate whether the U.S.-centred M&A literature translates to the heterogeneous European markets by analysing the impact of economic distress, uncertainty, and relatedness on stock performance. Methodology: This thesis utilises an event study to provide a perspective on immediate M&A announcement impacts. Subsequently, we examine the acquirer’s post-announcement performanc
What happens when the infrastructure designed to connect a city ends up dividing it instead? This thesis investigates the relationship between urban mobility and spatial justice, examining how roads, railways, and transit corridors generate barriers that are not only physical but social and cultural: separating communities, limiting access to opportunity, and reinforcing patterns of inequality ins
In recent years, as 6G wireless systems continue to develop, high-accuracy indoor localization has become increasingly important for future wireless systems. At the same time, reliable indoor positioning is needed by many location-aware applications, such as robotic navigation, emergency healthcare, and smart transportation. Since indoor wireless measurements can vary over time due to multipath pr
Bolivia is a country with a troubling political past, and crammed with political instability and turmoil the Bolivian society inhabits a wide spectrum of cleavages. In this paper we determine that Bolivia is a case of unstable democracy. We use consociational theory and consensus democracy theory to answer why this is the case, by looking at the development Bolivia’s institutional design in order
The need for climate change adaptation is widely acknowledged and adaptation projects around the world are proliferating. Despite being one of the key actors for the implementation of adaptation projects, significant knowledge gaps persist regarding the potential maladaptive outcomes of such projects for international non-governmental organizations. This study analyses practitioners' perspecti
Blood-based markers (BBMs) have recently shown promise to revolutionize the diagnostic and prognostic work-up of Alzheimer's disease (AD), as well as to improve the design of interventional trials. Here we discuss in detail further research needed to be performed before widespread use of BBMs. We already now recommend use of BBMs as (pre-)screeners to identify individuals likely to have AD patholo
Introduction: Due to its universal applicability for early detection and prediction of cancer stage and disease recurrence, widespread implementation of serum-based prostate-specific antigen (PSA) measurements has a significant influence on current treatment strategies for men with prostate cancer (PCa). However, over-detection and the resultant over-treatment of indolent cancers have been strongl
The magnon Hedin's equations are derived via the Schwinger functional derivative technique, and the resulting self-consistent Green's function (GF) method is used to calculate ground state spin patterns and magnetic structure factors for two-dimensional magnetic systems with frustrated spin-12 Heisenberg exchange coupling. Compared with random phase approximation treatments, the inclusion of a sel
The steel industry is a major contributor to emissions of CO2 and key air pollutants. Reducing air pollution has since long been a policy priority in China. Reducing CO2 emissions has more recently also become a key priority partially manifested through the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015. Although there are often synergies between reducing CO2 emissions and air pollution, it may have impli
The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) will be the next-generation observatory in the field of very-high-energy (20 GeV to 300 TeV) gamma-ray astroparticle physics. Classically, data analysis in the field maximizes sensitivity by applying quality cuts on the data acquired. These cuts, optimized using Monte Carlo simulations, select higher quality events from the initial dataset. Subsequent steps of t
In the last two decades, very-high-energy gamma-ray astronomy has reached maturity: over 200 sources have been detected, both Galactic and extragalactic, by ground-based experiments. At present, Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) make up about 40% of the more than 200 sources detected at very high energies with ground-based telescopes, the majority of which are blazars, i.e. their jets are closely align
The petrochemicals industry (mainly plastics and fertilizer production) is expanding, despite increasing attention to the environmental impact of petrochemicals. In our paper, we explore the role public finance plays in the petrochemicals industry. We do so by mapping the public and private financial flows into large-scale petrochemical projects for the decade 2010-20 and discuss the role of publi
In this paper, we present a new account of teleological reasons, i.e. reasons to perform a particular action because of the outcomes it promotes. Our account gives the desired verdict in a number of difficult cases, including cases of overdetermination and non-threshold cases like Parfit’s famous Drops of water. The key to our account is to look more closely at the metaphysics of causation. Accord
In an earlier study, we found that rice (Oryza sativa) grown in nutrient solution well-supplied with Zn preferentially took up light 64Zn over 66Zn, probably as a result of kinetic fractionation in membrane transport processes. Here, we measure isotope fractionation by rice in a submerged Zn-deficient soil with and without Zn fertilizer. We grew the same genotype as in the nutrient solution study
Profilins are key regulators of actin dynamics. They sequester actin monomers, forming a pool for rapid polymer formation stimulated by proteins such as formins. Apicomplexan parasites utilize a highly specialized microfilament system for motility and host cell invasion. Their genomes encode only a small number of divergent actin regulators. We present the first crystal structure of an apicomplexa
Shadi Hamid proposes “democratic minimalism” as a system and means of governing and rotating power with no prejudice to substantive ideological outcomes. Democratic minimalism is meant to decouple the question of actualizing an ideal society, even a liberal one that provides maximum freedom for the maximum groups of people, from the mechanism of transferring power between groups with opposing beli
The Cretaceous period is the time of the first appearance of the diatoms in the fossil record. These fossils give us direct evidence of the age and early evolution of the diatom lineage. The fossil record, however, is incomplete and therefore often extrapolated through time-calibrated phylogenies. These two approaches offer different perspectives on the early evolution of diatoms, which is still p
The purification of crude (60.89% pure) paclitaxel was developed for high purity and yield. Several solvent systems, including methanol (MeOH), acetone, tetrahydrofurane, n-hexane, and water, were evaluated for precipitation efficiency. The best results were obtained using a mixture of MeOH and water, which was very effective at removing polar impurities, yielding a precipitate with 90.87% purity.
