U-Pb geochronology on baddeleyite is a powerful technique that can be applied effectively to chronostratigraphy. In southern Africa, the Kaapvaal Craton hosts a well-preserved Mesoarchean to Paleoproterozoic geological record, including the Neoarchean Ventersdorp Supergroup. It overlies the Witwatersrand Supergroup and its world-class gold deposits. The Ventersdorp Supergroup comprises the Klipriv

Resilience, or the capacity to bounce back from adversity strengthened and more resourceful, can be considered an important quality of virtual teams in the contemporary working world. A team is the basic organizational unit many modern firms are composed of—and, the virtual ones are those conducting teamwork over distance using a combination of telecommunications and information technologies to ac

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is the guiding policy for agriculture and the largest single budget item in the European Union (EU). Agriculture is essential to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but the CAP's contribution to do so is uncertain. We analyzed the distribution of €59.4 billion of 2015 CAP payments and show that current CAP spending exacerbates income inequality withi

Background: Hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy (HIE) is a leading cause of mortality and long-term neurological sequelae, affecting thousands of children worldwide. Current therapies to treat HIE are limited to cooling. Stem cell-based therapies offer a potential therapeutic approach to repair or regenerate injured brain tissue. These preclinical findings have now culminated in ongoing human neonata

For all involved in astronomy, the importance of monitoring and determining astrophysical magnetic-field strengths is clear. It is also a well-known fact that the corona magnetic fields play an important part in the origin of solar flares and the variations of space weather. However, after many years of solar corona studies, there is still no direct and continuous way to measure and monitor the so

Importance: Adjuvant imatinib is associated with improved recurrence-free survival (RFS) when administered after surgery to patients with operable gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST), but its influence on overall survival (OS) has remained uncertain. Objective: To evaluate the effect of adjuvant imatinib on OS of patients who have a high estimated risk for GIST recurrence after macroscopically c

Importance: Information about how risk for bipolar disorder is transmitted across generations and how parental risk for bipolar disorder relates to their children's risk for schizophrenia and major depression is limited. Objective: To evaluate the sources of parent-offspring transmission of bipolar disorder and its familial cross-generational association with schizophrenia and major depression. De

Droplet-based microfluidics is a widely used technology in various chemical and biological applications. Droplet formation is an essential part of droplet-based microfluidics. This work applied and summarized a combination of techniques for speeding up computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations based on the Volume of Fluid method for the droplet generation process. To demonstrate the efficienc

This artistic research PhD project challenges classical music performance culture through a series of experimental collaborative projects. My particular interest lies in how this culture shapes the psychological experience of performance from the perspective of the individual musician. The project’s aims can be further defined through the following research questions: a) How can I better understan

This work experimentally tests and numerically investigates the heat transfer augmentation, the flow characteristics and the overall thermal performance of truncated ribs in a rectangular channel with an aspect ratio of 1:4 designed by using the fractal theory. The liquid crystal thermography (LCT) method in steady-state is adopted and the three-dimensional CFD numerical simulations with an establ

The present work concentrates on perforated 90° ribs to improve the thermal performances in a rectangular cooling channel with an aspect ratio of 4:1. Three different types of perforated ribbed channels are designed and compared. Steady-state Liquid Crystal Thermography (LCT) is employed to measure surface temperature and derive heat transfer coefficients over the ribbed surfaces in the tested cha

T1-magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies report early atrophy in the left anterior temporal lobe, especially the perirhinal cortex, in semantic variant primary progressive aphasia (svPPA). Improved segmentation protocols using high-resolution T2-MRI have enabled fine-grained medial temporal lobe (MTL) subregional measurements, which may provide novel information on the atrophy pattern and disea

Solar-driven reduction of water to produce hydrogen is one of the most promising ways to develop sustainable cleanenergy for the future. The challenge in photocatalytic hydrogen evolution research is to design inexpensive catalystsand construct efficient hydrogen production systems. In this thesis, different photocatalytic hydrogen productionsystems consisting of catalysts, photosensitizers and sa

Objectives: Anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibodies [ANCA) are important for diagnosis of ANCA-associated vasculitides (AAV). The timing of antibody development is not well established. To investigate the development of proteinase 3 (PR3)- and myeloperoxidase (MPO)-ANCA, blood samples collected before onset of symptoms of AAV were analysed. Methods: To identify AAV patients with blood samples p

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the performance of diagnostic prediction models for ovarian malignancy in all patients with an ovarian mass managed surgically or conservatively. DESIGN: Multicentre cohort study. SETTING: 36 oncology referral centres (tertiary centres with a specific gynaecological oncology unit) or other types of centre. PARTICIPANTS: Consecutive adult patients presenting with an adnexal m

BACKGROUND: Extensive exposure to per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have been observed in many countries. Current deterministic frame-works for risk assessment lack the ability to predict the likelihood of effects and to assess uncertainty. When exposure exceeds tolerable intake levels, these shortcomings hamper risk management and communication. OBJECTIVE: The integrated probabilistic ris

Tomato roots can be colonized by both mycorrhizal fungi and the endophytic fungus Serendipita indica. This study was aimed at assessment of the impact of single or dual inoculation with R. irregularis and S. indica on tomato growth under saline conditions. We used signature compounds to estimate the abundance of each of these two fungi (fatty acid 16:1ω5 for R. irregularis and ergosterol for S. in