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Paperboard is a thin and lightweight material made of cellulose fibers and it is an important component in packaging material where it provides stiffness and rigidity. The scope of this work is the development of continuum models, and its numerical treatments, for simulating the processes of converting paperboard into packages. The thesis begins with a general introduction to paperboard and a revi
Objectives: To examine potential sex differences in cognitive and functional progression rates in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) between patients with different concomitant medications. Methods: The Swedish Alzheimer Treatment Study is a prospective, observational, multicentre study in clinical practice undertaken at the initiation of cholinesterase inhibitor therapy in 1,021 patients diagnosed with mil
Global ecosystems are currently buckling under the weight of “plastics turbulence:” the condition of ubiquitous plastic entanglement within all human and non-human natural systems. This chapter argues that “global plastics governance” - the fragmented and variable political and institutional response to the plastics crisis - suffers from strategies that are doomed to fail because they miss what is
COVID-19 is a major public health threat associated with increased disease burden, mortality, and economic loss to countries and communities. Safe and efficacious COVID-19 vaccines are key in halting and reversing the pandemic. Low confidence in vaccines has been one of the factors leading to hesitancy. We aimed to assess the COVID-19 vaccine confidence (safety and effectiveness), associated facto
BACKGROUND: Post-term pregnancy is a health problem of clinical importance and; tends to recur in subsequent pregnancies. Maternal age, height, and male fetal sex are risk factors associated with Post-term pregnancy. The study aimed to determine the recurrence risk of post-term pregnancy and associated factors among women delivered at KCMC referral hospital.METHODOLOGY: This retrospective cohort s
This PhD thesis examines how application of 3D visualization and related digital analytical tools is having a transformative impact on archaeological practice via improvement of visual-spatial thinking and the strengthening of conceptual understanding. However, the deployment of these new digital methods is essentially still at an experimental stage. Therefore, the thesis undertakes a critical eva
In 2005, Pachon et al.1 proposed cardiac vagal denervation to treat neurally mediated syncope. Since then, a metanalysis of observational studies2 and a recent randomized controlled trial (RCT)3 have provided some evidence that cardioneuroablation (CNA) is able to prevent syncope recurrence at least during the first 2 years following the procedure in patients affected by reflex syncope. In brief,
This introductory article conceptualizes the notion of third country influence on European Union (EU) law and policy and proposes an analytical framework theorizing the venues and means through which third countries may gain such impact, under what conditions and with which implications for the EU’s legal and political order. The article first introduces the focus on outside-in influence in the co
Marja-Liisa Öberg unpacks the logic behind EU ‘decision-making autonomy’ – where only member states can participate in making EU decisions – suggesting that treating third countries as outsiders is not a flaw in the system but a fundamental policy choice that is unlikely to change any time soon.
The study of European integration has traditionally focused "inside-in" on the internal development of common laws and policies. With the maturing of the single market and the evolution of EU external relations, attention has shifted beyond the EU to the ways in which the EU intentionally and unintentionally projects its norms beyond its borders - the "inside-out" dynamics of European integration.
Deep learning, the study of multi-layered artificial neural networks, has received tremendous attention over the course of the last few years. Neural networks are now able to outperform humans in a growing variety of tasks and increasingly have an impact on our day-to-day lives. There is a wide range of potential directions to advance deep learning, two of which we investigate in this thesis:(1) O
In this paper, we present an adaptive spectral projection based finite element method to numerically approximate the solution of the wave equation with memory. The adaptivity is not restricted to the mesh (hp-adaptivity), but it is also applied to the size of the computed spectrum (k-adaptivity). The meshes are refined using a residual based error estimator, while the size of the computed spectrum
BackgroundAmbulatory blood pressure (BP) monitoring has long been used to monitor BP in hypertension and lately emerged as a useful tool to detect hypotensive susceptibility in reflex syncope. However, hemodynamic characteristics in reflex syncope have not been sufficiently explored. The present study investigated the differences between ambulatory BP monitoring profiles associated with reflex syn
Introduction: Chronic lung disorders involve pathological alterations in the lung tissue with hypoxia as a consequence. Hypoxia may influence the release of inflammatory mediators and growth factors including vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and prostaglandin (PG)E 2. The aim of this work was to investigate how hypoxia affects human lung epithelial cells in combination with profibrotic s
BACKGROUND: Malignant melanoma is the most deadly form of skin cancer. Female sex is known to have a protective effect on incidence, tumour characteristics, and mortality from melanoma. However, the potentially modifying effect of sex on the prognostic significance of clinicopathological and investigative factors is generally not taken into consideration in biomarker studies. In this study, we com
Motorcyclists represent the greatest share of recorded traffic crashes and fatalities in Malaysia. The association between motorcyclists' behaviour and traffic conflict occurrence was assessed at a typical stop-regulated T-Junction in an urban area of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Traffic activities were filmed over four months and the behaviour of motorcyclists entering the main road from the minor roa
BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Transient elastography (TE) has largely replaced liver biopsy to evaluate fibrosis stage and cirrhosis in chronic hepatitis C. Previous studies have reported excellent reliability of TE but agreement metrics have not been reported. This study aimed to assess interrater agreement and reliability of repeated TE measurements.METHODS: Two operators performed TE independently, dire
A low leakage rate sealant of 10 wt% ZrO2-added CaO–K2O–Na2O–BaO silicate glass for SOFC has been studied. The structure of the sealant is stable at high temperatures with leakage rates less than 10−4 sccm∙cm−1, and no crystal except for ZrO2 is found in XRD analysis after heating at 800 °C for 100 h. ZrO2 is distributed in the glass matrix and plays a supporting role in avoiding over-softening at
