Once one of the largest saline lakes, the Aral Sea, was recognized as a significant environmental disaster as the water level decreased dramatically. Water level decrease increases water salinity, affecting biodiversity. Exposed lake beds become the source for fine dust picked up by the dust storms and spread across a long distance, affecting people’s health in surrounding areas. This review paper

Root distribution during rice cultivation is a governing factor that considerably affects soil water content (SWC) and root water uptake (RWU). In this study, the effects of activating root growth (using growth function) and assigning a constant average root depth (no growth during simulation) on SWC and RWU for rice cultivation under four deficit drip irrigation treatments (T90, T80, T70, and T60

Although it is vital for organizations to learn in order to be competitive, efficient, and innovative, it is one of the profound organizational dilemmas: organizations understand and have learnt that it is important to learn and yet it is difficult to ensure organizational learning. This is a personal and reflexive note about what I have learnt from research and practice about various attempts to

This paper contributes to close up studies of how members in organizations experience and act in relationship to what is broadly and vaguely referred to as institutionalized structures and practices. Based on a case study about scorecards, a quality control system, it is illustrated that this practice works poorly, because of inconsistent ideas of purpose and functioning. We introduce the concept

This open access book examines the political structures and processes that frame and produce understandings of diversity in and through music education. Recent surges in nationalist, fundamentalist, protectionist and separatist tendencies highlight the imperative for music education to extend beyond nominal policy agendas or wholly celebratory diversity discourses. Bringing together high-level the

The retail industry has witnessed fast international growth during the last couple of decades and various models and theories have been proposed for how to best explain the process and why some firms succeed while others fail. Recently researchers have argued that not only do we need more in-depth longitudinal case studies, and case studies from different sectors, but we also need to understand th

Capacity development —an integral part of development cooperation in general and for disaster risk reduction (DRR) in particular—has had limited success so far. This article investigates capacity development challenges and opportunities from the viewpoint of the staff of progressive governmental donor agencies. Data were obtained from 26 semi-structured interviews with informants from seven donor

Polyphenolic compounds in bark are resources of great interest to produce renewable chemicals and several different technologies are available or under early development for the extraction of these types of compounds. Since critical environmental effects of a product are often set during the design phase, it is important to use life cycle assessment (LCA) to identify the steps resulting in the lar

I Arktis er en klimakjempe i ferd med å våkne sakte, men sikkert fra sin lange dvale: Permafrosten – grunn som kan ha vært frosset i tusenvis av år – begynner flere steder å tine på grunn av de sterkt økende temperaturene (Box m.fl. 2019). Dette kan gjøre klimaproblemet enda verre enn det allerede er, fordi det kan føre til store utslipp av drivhusgasser som CO2 og metan (CH4). Når det skjer, varmSammendragI Arktis er en klimakjempe i ferd med å våkne sakte, men sikkert fra sin lange dvale: Permafrosten – grunn som kan ha vært frosset i tusenvis av år – begynner flere steder å tine på grunn av de sterkt økende temperaturene (Box m.fl. 2019). Dette kan gjøre klimaproblemet enda verre enn det allerede er, fordi det kan føre til store utslipp av drivhusgasser som CO2 og metan (CH4). Når det s

Neutrophils are highly abundant in synovial fluid of rheumatic inflamed joints. In oligoarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), synovial fluid neutrophils have impaired effector functions and altered phenotype. We hypothesized that these alterations might impact the immunoregulatory interplay between neutrophils and T cells. In this study we analyzed the suppressive effect of neutrophils, i

In recent years, the manipulation of Fano resonances in the time domain has unlocked deep insights into a broad spectrum of systems' coherent dynamics. Here, inelastic scattering of light with coherent acoustic phonons is harnessed to achieve complex Fano resonances. The sudden change of phonon momentum during reflection leads to a transition from anti-Stokes to Stokes light scattering, producing

With polystyrene nanoparticles being widely used in various applications, there is a great need for deeper knowledge on the safety, fate and biological effects of these particles on both individual living organisms and the whole ecosystems. Due to this, there is a growing interest in performing ecotoxicological studies using model plastic nanoparticles, and consequently it generates an increasing

This chapter contributes with new knowledge about the cultural history of media scandals. It focusses two Swedish sex related scandals; the first took place in the 1890’s and the other in 2010-11, both with kings at their center. The aim of the chapter is to understand how oral, folkloristic media as gossip and rumor, are intertwined with traditional, established journalism when scandals evolve. A

Articular cartilage is a dense extracellular matrix-rich tissue that degrades following chronic mechanical stress, resulting in osteoarthritis (OA). The tissue has low intrinsic repair especially in aged and osteoarthritic joints. Here, we describe three pro-regenerative factors; fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2), connective tissue growth factor, bound to transforming growth factor-beta (CTGF-TGFβ

Objectives: In this exploratory study, we used discovery proteomics to follow the release of proteins from bovine knee articular cartilage in response to mechanical injury and cytokine treatment. We also studied the effect of the glucocorticoid Dexamethasone (Dex) on these responses.Design: Bovine cartilage explants were treated with either cytokines alone (10 ng/ml TNFα, 20 ng/ml IL-6, 100 ng/ml

Unlike highly regenerative animals, such as axolotls, humans are believed to be unable to counteract cumulative damage, such as repetitive joint use and injury that lead to the breakdown of cartilage and the development of osteoarthritis. Turnover of insoluble collagen has been suggested to be very limited in human adult cartilage. The goal of this study was to explore protein turnover in articula

Background: The use of placebo comparisons for randomised trials assessing the efficacy of surgical interventions is increasingly being considered. However, a placebo control is a complex type of comparison group in the surgical setting and, although powerful, presents many challenges. Objectives: To provide a summary of knowledge on placebo controls in surgical trials and to summarise any recomme

BACKGROUND: Lymph node metastasis is the single most important prognostic risk factor for recurrence in patients with colon cancer who have undergone curative surgery. The routine method for detecting disseminated tumor cells in lymph nodes is microscopic examination of one or a few hematoxylin and eosin-stained tissue sections by a trained pathologist. This method, however, is insensitive mainly

A sustainability index (SI) is a benchmark for guiding the activities of municipal water and wastewater (W and WS) utilities toward sustainability. The SI has been used in Sweden since 2014 as an internal benchmark management tool facilitating the strategic work of organizations. This study assesses how the SI was applied in practice by eight utilities (Orgs 1–8) from 2015 to 2019. The study was p