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Many reinforced concrete bridges in Europe and around the world are damaged by reinforcement corrosion and the annual maintenance costs are enormous. It is therefore important to develop reliable methods to assess the structural capacity of corroded reinforced concrete structures and avoid unnecessary maintenance costs. Although there are advanced models for determining the load carrying capacity
This case study on the dark side of communication and place branding explores the Amazon corporation’s highly-publicized competitive search for a city to become their second headquarters (dubbed HQ2). In 2017 Amazon sent an open Request for Proposals (RFP) to cities in North America defining what constitutes an ‘ideal’ headquarters. In addition to offering capital and incentives, Amazon’s ideal ci
The resurgence of artificial intelligence (AI) has empowered organizations to concentrate their research efforts on enhancing decision-making and automation capabilities. This is being pursued with the goal of increasing productivity, whilst reducing costs. With this, it is perceived that the jobs within these organizations that are considered subject to ‘routine’, or repetitive and mundane tasks,
The Advanced Light Source (ALS) at Berkeley Lab has seen many upgrades over the years, keeping it one of the brightest sources for soft x-rays worldwide. Recent developments in magnet and vacuum technology, as well as lattice design (multi bend achromat lattices) appear to open the door for very large further increases in brightness [1]. This could be achieved by reducing the horizontal emittance,
The intensification of agricultural practices throughout the twentieth century has had large detrimental effects on biodiversity and these are likely to increase as the human population rises, with consequent pressure on land. To offset these negative impacts, agri-environment schemes have been widely implemented, offering financial incentives for land-owners to create or maintain favourable habit
The pancreatic islets in obese-hyperglycemic mice display a normal response of insulin secretion when stimulated with glucose in vitro. This indicates that the impaired glucose metabolism is due to extra-pancreatic factors rather than to deficient β-cell function. In fact, the pancreas of these mice is a useful source from which to isolate large numbers of mammalian β-cells suitable for studies of
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on how perspectives and assumptions embedded in the complexity paradigm contribute to make logistics management research better aligned with real-life logistics. This is necessary, due to increasing supply chain complexity caused by an increasing request for sustainable development (SD). Design/methodology/approach: The research is exploratory and
The minimum weighted edge dominating set problem (MWEDS) generalizes both the weighted vertex cover problem and the problem of covering the edges of graph by a minimum cost set of both vertices and edges. In this paper, we propose a meta heuristic approach based on genetic algorithm and local search to solve the MWEDS problem. Therefore, the proposed method is considered as a memetic search algori
Lawrence Summers produced a big upset within the economics profession when he revived Alvin Hansen’s theory of secular stagnation, which had been thought of as an old-Keynesian fallacy. While some economists like Brad DeLong and Paul Krugman instantly recognized Summers’s contribution, a large share of the economics profession remained skeptical at first. Whereas most New Keynesian models allow fo
Total scattering and pair distribution function (PDF) analysis has created new insights that traditional powder diffraction methods have been unable to achieve in understanding the local structures of materials exhibiting disorder or complex nanostructures. Care must be taken in such analyses as subtle and discrete features in the PDF can easily be artefacts generated in the measurement process, w
The therapeutic management of Sjögren syndrome (SjS) has not changed substantially in recent decades: treatment decisions remain challenging in clinical practice, without a specific therapeutic target beyond the relief of symptoms as the most important goal. In view of this scenario, the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) promoted and supported an international collaborative study (EULAR S
Acquired angioedema due to C1-inhibitor (C1INH) deficiency (AAE) is caused by secondary C1INH deficiency leading to bradykinin-mediated angioedema episodes. AAE typically presents in adulthood and is associated with B cell lymphoproliferation. Anti-C1INH autoantibodies (antiC1INHAbs) are detectable in a subset of AAE cases and considered a hallmark of the disease. When free antiC1INHAbs and malign
The Shortest Vector Problem (SVP) is one of the mathematical foundations of lattice based cryptography. Lattice sieve algorithms are amongst the foremost methods of solving SVP. The asymptotically fastest known classical and quantum sieves solve SVP in a $d$-dimensional lattice in $2^{\const d + \smallo(d)}$ time steps with $2^{\const' d + \smallo(d)}$ memory for constants $c, c'$. In this work, w
Most crime scene DNA evidence is retrieved using cotton swabs. Since the late 90’s, the double-swab technique has been favoured by many practitioners throughout the world. However, the superiority of double-swabbing over applying single wet swabs has not been broadly verified. Here we set out to evaluate the need for the second dry swab for various surfaces, aiming at mimicking the range of surfac
BACKGROUND: A slight increase in revisions for infected joint arthroplasties has been observed in the Nordic countries since 2000 for which the reasons are unclear. However, in 2007 a Swedish study of the timing for prophylactic antibiotics in a random sample of knee arthroplasties found that only 57% of the patients had received the antibiotic during the optimal time interval 45-15 minutes before
Background: Genetic disorders causing dystonia show great heterogeneity. Recent studies have suggested that next-generation sequencing techniques such as gene panel analysis can be effective in diagnosing heterogeneous conditions. The objective of this study was to investigate whether dystonia patients with a suspected genetic cause could benefit from the use of gene panel analysis. Methods: In th
Living systems integrate biochemical reactions that determine the functional state of each cell. Reactions are primarily mediated by proteins. In proteomic studies, these have been treated as independent entities, disregarding their higher-level organization into complexes that affects their activity and/or function and is thus of great interest for biological research. Here, we describe the imple
We developed the AcouWash (Figures 1 and 2), a benchtop instrument for flow-through cell and particle separation by acoustophoresis. Building on previous research [1-4] AcouWash can re-suspend cells in new medium, separate cells based on size or acoustic properties, or enrich cells, Figure 3. We present our initial evaluation of AcouWash regarding size-based separation of particles, cell washing,
