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Public procurement is widely used in order to incorporate competition into public services. Competition in procurement often leads to efficiency but the process can also raise some problems. While providing the procurement documents you do not know who will be your upcoming partner. Another aspect is how flexibility can be managed in contract design while maintaining a high service quality. The ai

This article examines the role of national parliaments in policy processes related to the realization of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development, adopted in the UN General Assembly in 2015. We outline three main roles of parliaments in the case of national policy-making based on intergovernmental agreements: legislative and policy approval, citizen representation, and accountability. The cases

Sterile liver inflammation and fibrosis are associated with many liver disorders of different etiologies. Both type 1 and type 2 inflammatory responses have been reported to contribute to liver pathology. However, the mechanisms controlling the balance between these responses are largely unknown. Natural killer T (NKT) cells can be activated to rapidly secrete cytokines and chemokines associated w

African countries such as Nigeria are anticipated to be more susceptible to the impacts of climate change due to reliance on rainfed agriculture. In this regard, the impacts of climate change on crop water requirements (CWR), yields and crop water productivity (CWP) of soybean in the Ogun-Ona River Basin, Nigeria, were evaluated for the baseline period (1986–2015) and future period (2021–2099) und

Background: Symptom management in conjunction with proton beam therapy (PBT) from patient's perspective has not been explored. Such knowledge is essential to optimize the care in this relatively new treatment modality. Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the process of symptom management in patients with brain tumor receiving PBT. Methods: Participants were 22 patients with primary bra

Besides insulin-mediated transport of glucose into the cells, an important role is also played by the non-insulin-mediated transport. This latter process is called glucose effectiveness (acronym SG), which is estimated by modeling of glucose and insulin data after an intravenous glucose administration, and accounts for ≈70% of glucose disposal. This review summarizes studies on SG, mainly in human

Universal Design (UD) is a design approach that recognises and anticipates diversity as a fundamental human condition. UD is also frequently referred to in relation to the social dimension of sustainable development. Central to both UD and sustainability is the way “everyone,” as the target of UD and sustainability goals, is understood. The purpose of the study is to identify how UD’s “everyone” i

Type 2 diabetes, characterized by dysfunction of pancreatic β-cells and insulin resistance in peripheral organs, accounts for more than 90% of all diabetes. Despite current developments of new drugs and strategies to prevent/treat diabetes, there is no ideal therapy targeting all aspects of the disease. Restoration, however, of insulin-producing β-cells, as well as insulin-responsive cells, would

To-date the macroeconomic conditions-mortality literature on income-related inequality in mortality has relied on subgroup analysis, mainly using income as a stratification variable, but this nearly always causes selection bias yielding results that are hard to interpret. To solve this bad control problem, we apply a novel technique based on recentered influence function regression of overall inco

Analysis of coordinated Greater Scaup (Aythya marila) count data from the last 30 years showed a 38.1% decrease in wintering numbers in North-West Europe, from 309,000 during 1988–1991 to c.192,300 individuals during 2015–2018. Annual trends in wintering numbers differed throughout the range. Numbers decreased in the UK, Ireland, and in the Netherlands, while numbers were stable in Denmark. German

Ground improvement with lime-cement pillars is becoming increasingly common in the Nordic countries for exploitation of areas with poor stability. However, there is no non-destructive method for quality control of the ground improvement. Significant changes in the electrical properties after mixing of the binders make electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) a potential method. In connection with l

We propose three different estimators that take into account the autocorrelation structure when reconciling forecasts in a temporal hierarchy. Combining forecasts from multiple temporal aggregation levels exploits information differences and mitigates model uncertainty, while reconciliation ensures a unified prediction that supports aligned decisions at different horizons. In previous studies, wei

In our paper we address a gap in the literature, identified by Silverberg (2007), who claims that we miss an objective criteria for identifying leading sectors associated with technology-induced structural change and measuring their effects on functioning of the economy. In particular, we analyse the role of leading industries in labour reallocation across regions as a mechanism of smoothing regio

Virtual reality carries great promise to facilitate the building process. Some examples are the communication between architects and building companies, sellers and buyers or the community planners and the general public. It is often thought that in order to utilize the possibilities of VR, for example in the above-mentioned contexts, it is necessary to use full-fledged versions of VR including fo