Filetype
The recycling sector and the solid waste management systems (SWMS) in developing countries greatly rely on scavengers, a vulnerable and marginal urban population that recover items or materials to be reused or recycled. As a new mindset towards waste emerges, considering it a resource instead of something useless and undesirable; governments, NGOs, private companies and other stakeholders slowly r
In the wake of the globalization, international tax planning structures has become vital for US investors in order to meet economic challenges and to survive on the competitive market. This research indicates that countries in Europe, such as Sweden and Switzerland, provide a favourable environment for US multinational corporations to set up holding companies as a way to enjoy benefits of legal ta
The thesis explores how the political discourse on refugees and asylum seekers is produced within portfolio committee meetings at the South African parliament. A critical discourse analysis investigates how statements of delegates of the Department of Home Affairs and Social Development foster unequal power relations and construct social identities perpetuating the on-going discourse on refugees a
This thesis seeks to answer what causes some governments to restrict foreign funding to domestic civil society organizations while others do not. These repressive measures have increased significantly in all regions of the globe recently and existing research has yet to provide an encompassing explanation for the trend. Considering that neither foreign funding or government repression are exactly
Due to a warming climate, tundra ecosystems are subject to shrub and treeline expansions which could lead to increased above- but decreased belowground carbon (C) stocks. An observed low soil C stock in some subarctic forests and tall shrublands has been suggested to be induced by priming of organic matter decomposition, possibly mediated by ectomycorrhizal fungi. On the other hand, the higher bel
Semantic Web technology has attracted much interest for its ability to integrate and deliver information from different sources, and increasingly, geodata are being published as triple data according to the graph structure laid out in the Resource Description Framework (RDF). Although the Semantic Web already contains a large volume of geotagged information, there is still a lack of suitable geome
This article is a collective response to the 2020 iteration of The Manifesto for Teaching Online. Originally published in 2011 as 20 simple but provocative statements, the aim was, and continues to be, to critically challenge the normalization of education as techno-corporate enterprise and the failure to properly account for digital methods in teaching in Higher Education. The 2020 Manifesto cont
Given the complex nature of agri-food value chains and related sustainability challenges, the question arises who has the agency and responsibility to address these challenges and facilitate systemic change. We address this question through a mixed method approach and examine experiences with agriculture among different actors along the agricultural value chains in Germany. Based on this, we explo
Timely detection and surveillance of disease community spread is a potent tool for implementing effective public health interventions. This study investigates the National Telehealth Service (1177 helpline) across 18 regions in Sweden in 2020 to identify early signals of community transmission of COVID-19 at the beginning of the pandemic. Focusing on calls related to key COVID-19 symptoms (cough,
Background: Monitoring of healthcare quality is typically focused on differences between group averages in relation to a desirable benchmark. However, we need to consider (i) the existence of interconnected socioeconomic axes of inequality like age, sex, income, and country of birth and (ii) individual heterogeneity around group averages. Additionally, (iii) we need clear criteria to quantify grou
Aims: Stratifying renal damage in type 2 diabetes is challenging due to overlapping features between diabetic nephropathy (DN) and non-diabetic renal disease (NDRD). While miR-27b-3p modulates kidney fibrosis in DN through the lysine63 ubiquitination pathway, its upstream regulation and diagnostic relevance remain unclear. Methods: In a biopsy-verified cohort of 231 chronic kidney disease (CKD) pa
The vast majority of patients with pancreatic cancer present with unresectable disease and precision medicine is lagging behind. Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) has emerged as a promising tool, both as a proxy for tumor burden and for capturing tumor heterogeneity, but optimal gene panels and prognostic cutoffs remain to be determined. Herein, we applied ultra-deep ctDNA sequencing using a customize
Introduction Neoadjuvant therapy is the standard of care for the treatment of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive breast cancer (BC). Studies on first-generation antibody-drug conjugates, such as trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1), showed equal or slightly lower efficacy than chemotherapy combined with dual HER2 blockade. Trastuzumab deruxtecan (T-DXd) is a next-generation conjugat
Recent droughts from 2017 to 2020 induced significant stress on woodland canopies across eastern Australia, resulting in widespread tree browning and mortality. However, the trajectory of post-drought recovery remains unclear, with uncertainty about whether canopy conditions are improving or continuing to decline. Identifying the key local environmental and climatic factors influencing drought-ind
Background: Paleolithic Diet Fraction (PDF) and Paleolithic Diet Score (PDS) are both measures of how closely a food intake conforms to a Paleolithic dietary pattern. PDF is calculated directly from an individual’s absolute food intake and PDS is an aggregated score based on an individual’s food intake relative to a population. Both are inversely associated with all-cause and cause-specific mortal
The complement system can be activated by three different pathways in the body. It is wanted to be able to detect deficiencies of these activation pathways and Bioporto A/S has acquired the commercial rights to a set of ELISA based assays. There is a need in these commercial assays for optimisation of dilution and wash buffers since the idea with the ELISA kit is to sell it as a “ready-to-use kit”
One of infiltration ponds used in the preliminary step for drinking water production at Vombverket in the southern part of Sweden was set for the experiment in this study. The pond was split into two sides as one side received the source water from Vomb Lake and (untreated side). For another side, the water from the same source was pre-treated by DynaSand filter and PAC before transferred into the
