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This paper presents an analysis of European and Swedish national and municipal waste prevention plans to determine their capability of preventing the generation of waste. An analysis of the stated objectives in these waste prevention plans and the measures they propose to realize them exposes six problematic features: (1) These plans ignore what drives waste generation, such as consumption, and (2
Two species of obligate brood-parasitic Cuculus cuckoos are expanding their ranges in Beringia. Both now breed on the Asian side, close to the Bering Strait, and are found in Alaska during the breeding season. From May to July 2017, we used painted 3D-printed model eggs of two cuckoo host-races breeding in northeastern Siberia to test behavioral responses of native songbirds on both sides of the B
This In Memoriam presents the life of Simone Veil, an influential French politician, remembered for a law that made abortion legal in 1974. Simone Veil's contribution to the rights of women is featured as an instance of parrhesia (Foucault, 2011) that was able to establish a new regime of truth about the body, sexuality, and reproductive capacities of French women.
In the framework of robotics, Reinforcement Learning (RL) deals with the learning of a task by the robot itself. This paper presents a hierarchical planning approach in which the robot learns the optimal behavior for different levels. For high-level discrete actions, Q-learning was chosen, whereas for the low level we utilize Policy Improvement with Path Integrals (PI^2) algorithm to learn the par
Preservation of protein conformation upon transfer into the gas phase is key for structure determination of free single molecules, for example using X-ray free-electron lasers. In the gas phase, the helicity of melittin decreases strongly as the protein's protonation state increases. We demonstrate the sensitivity of soft X-ray spectroscopy to the gas-phase structure of melittin cations ([melittin
Background: A large subset of persons with migraine suffers from coexisting tension-type headache and neck pain which may adversely affect the prognosis of migraine. Aerobic exercise has been shown to decrease migraine burden in these persons. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate whether the effect of aerobic exercise in persons with migraine and coexisting tension-type headache and
Background: Diagnosis of type 1 diabetes often causes a negative psychological impact on families. We examined whether parents and children enrolled in The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young (TEDDY) study differ in their psychological adjustment to diabetes diagnosis compared to children diagnosed with diabetes in the community. Methods: TEDDY follows 8676 children at genetic risk
Introduction: Currently, no universally accepted definition of extended half-life (EHL) recombinant FVIII (rFVIII) exists. Identifying the minimum half-life extension ratio required for a reduction in dosing frequency compared with standard rFVIII could enable a more practical approach to decisions around prophylaxis with EHL rFVIII. Aim: To identify the half-life extension ratio required to decre
Aim: Metformin is the first-line treatment for Type 2 diabetes. However, not all people benefit from this drug. Our aim was to investigate the effects of metformin on the plasma metabolome and whether the pretreatment metabolite profile can predict HbA1c outcome. Methods: Post hoc analysis of the Copenhagen Insulin and Metformin Therapy (CIMT) trial, a multicentre study from May 2008 to December 2
Despite concerns of the scientific community regarding the adverse effects of human exposure to exogenous man-made chemical substances or mixtures that interfere with normal hormonal balance, the so called “endocrine disruptors (EDs)”, their production has been increased during the last few decades. EDs' extensive use has been implicated in the increasing incidence of male reproductive disorders i
Digital PCR techniques are ideally suited for accurately quantifying trace amounts of target DNA sequences, such as tumor-derived mutant DNA that is present in the blood circulation of patients with cancer. Here, we describe an approach marrying low-coverage whole-genome sequencing of tumor tissues, to enumerate chromosomal rearrangement breakpoints, together with droplet digital PCR (ddPCR)-based
We consider identification of externally positive linear discrete-time systems from input/output data. The proposed method is formulated as a semidefinite program, and is guaranteed to identify models that are ellipsoidal cone-invariant and, consequently, externally positive. We demonstrate empirically that this cone-invariance approach can significantly reduce the conservatism associated with met
Aims: Maintainance of glucagon response to hypoglycaemia is important as a safeguard against hypoglycaemia during glucose-lowering therapy in type 2 diabetes. During recent years, DPP-4 (dipeptidyl peptidase-4) inhibition has become more commonly used in elderly patients. However, whether DPP-4 inhibition affects the glucagon response to hypoglycaemia in the elderly is not known and was the aim of
This paper considers the problem of finding a low rank matrix from observations of linear combinations of its elements. It is well known that if the problem fulfills a restricted isometry property (RIP), convex relaxations using the nuclear norm typically work well and come with theoretical performance guarantees. On the other hand these formulations suffer from a shrinking bias that can severely
Background: Residential care homes (RCHs) are increasingly becoming a common place of death for older people. Aim: The aim of this study was to describe family members' experiences of care of the dying in RCHs where the Liverpool care pathway for the dying patient was used. Methods: This study had a descriptive qualitative study design. Fifteen (n=15) individual interviews were analysed using qual
We consider the system of particles on a finite interval with pairwise nearest neighbours interaction and external force. This model was introduced by Malyshev [Probl. Inf. Transm. 51 (2015) 31–36] to study the flow of charged particles on a rigorous mathematical level. It is a simplified version of a 3-dimensional classical Coulomb gas model. We study Gibbs distribution at finite positive tempera
Because of harsh conditions, suboptimal habitat quality and poor connectivity to other populations, plant populations at the margin of a distribution are expected to be less genetically diverse, but to be more divergent from each other than populations in the centre of a distribution. In northern Europe, northern marginal populations may also be younger than populations further to the south, and m
CD4+ T cells subsets have a wide range of important helper and regulatory functions in the immune system. Several studies have specifically suggested that circulating effector CD4+ T cells may play a direct role in control of HIV replication through cytolytic activity or autocrine β-chemokine production. However, it remains unclear whether effector CD4+ T cells expressing cytolytic molecules and β
