For quite some time, the governance of municipal corporations has been criticized on the grounds of its lack of transparency and its weak mechanisms of accountability. However, despite the fact that municipal ownership of corporations has become an increasingly controversial issue, the number of municipal corporations has grown, as has also the extent to which they are perceived as a source of unfFor quite some time, the governance of municipal corporations has been criticized on the grounds of its lack of transparency and its weak mechanisms of accountability. However, despite the fact that municipal ownership of corporations has become an increasingly controversial issue, the number of municipal corporations has grown, as has also the extent to which they are perceived as a source of unf

Future manufacturing systems need to be more flexible, to embrace tougher and constantly changing market demands. They need to make better use of plant data, ideally utilising all data from the entire plant. Low-level data should be refined toreal-time information for decision-making, to facilitate competitiveness through informed and timely decisions. The Line Information System Architecture (LIS

This paper presents the results of a production experiment in which downstep in Tokyo Japanese was re-examined. There are three major assumptions that have been widely adopted in the literature: (1) the Major Phrase (MaP) is the domain of downstep; (2) a syntactic boundary blocks downstep, as a result of the insertion of a MaP boundary; and (3) focus blocks downstep, as a result of the insertion o

We demonstrate experimentally and theoretically a controllable way of shifting the frequency of an optical pulse by using a combination of spectral hole burning, slow light effect, and linear Stark effect in a rare-earth-ion-doped crystal. We claim that the solid angle of acceptance of a frequency shift structure can be close to 2π, which means that the frequency shifter could work not only for op

This article contributes to the growing literature on colonial legacies influencing long-term development. It focuses on Botswana, a case where the post-independence diamond-led economy has been considered an economic success story, despite its high levels of inequality. Here it is argued that this pathway of rapid resource-driven growth combined with increasing socio-economic inequality had alrea

The Status of Law in World Society by Friedrich Kratochwil is a sophisticated attempt to reassert the importance of international law in a globalised world by grounding it in the actual practices of legal reasoning. Yet this attempt to ground normativity in practice strikes me as problematic. As I shall argue, what law is cannot be determined with reference to legal practices only, but will depend

The competitiveness of timber as structural material in large structures is often governed by the cost of structural joints. Tests indicate that the new joint concept presented herein using glued wood-to-steel plate joints can possibly reduce the cost by matching joint strength to member strength. The design is inspired by two previously proposed designs using a single large dowel and using a rubb

The particle-assisted epitaxial growth of antimonide-based nanowires has mainly been realized using gold as the seed material. However, the Au-seeded epitaxial growth of antimonide-based nanowires such as GaSb nanowires presents several challenges such as for example direct nucleation issues and crystal structure tuning. Therefore, it is of great importance to understand the role of seed material

Despite increasing access to antiretroviral treatment (ART) in low-income countries, HIV-related mortality is high, especially in the first months following ART initiation. We aimed to evaluate the impact of TB coinfection on early mortality and to assess gender-specific predictors of mortality in a cohort of Ethiopian adults subjected to intensified casefinding for active TB before starting ART.

Summary: The ability of macrophages to eradicate intracellular pathogens is normally greatly enhanced by IFNγ, a cytokine produced mainly after onset of adaptive immunity. However, adaptive immunity is unable to provide sterilizing immunity against mycobacteria, suggesting that mycobacteria have evolved virulence strategies to inhibit the bactericidal effect of IFNγ-signalling in macrophages. Stil

At a full-scale wastewater treatment plant, raw municipal wastewater from the sand trap outlet was mechanically and physicochemically pre-treated before microfiltration (MF) in a large pilot-scale study. MF was performed using a low transmembrane pressure (0.03 bar) without backflushing for up to 159 h (∼6.6 d). Pre-filtration ensured stable MF operation compared with the direct application of raw

Water scarcity issues associated with inadequate access to clean water and sanitation is a ubiquitous problem occurring globally. Addressing future challenges will require a combination of new technological development in water purification and environmental remediation technology with suitable conservation policies. In this scenario, new bioinspired materials will play a pivotal role in the devel

Purpose: To report incisional hernia (IH) incidence, abdominal wall (AW) discomfort and quality of life (QoL) 5 years after open abdomen treatment with vacuum-assisted wound closure and mesh-mediated fascial traction (VAWCM). Methods: Five-year follow-up of patients included in a prospective study 2006–2009. The protocol included physical examination, patient interview, chart review, questionnaire

In this paper, we correlate the growth of InAs nanowires with the detailed interface trap density (Dit) profile of the vertical wrap-gated InAs/high-k nanowire semiconductor-dielectric gate stack. We also perform the first detailed characterization and optimization of the influence of the in situ doping supplied during the nanowire epitaxial growth on the sequential transistor gate stack quality.

The number of cancer survivors continues to increase worldwide. Many of these survivors have had children of their own. It is less well-known whether radiation therapy or chemotherapy could affect the risk of stillbirth and neonatal death for these children. To explore this research questions, we identified all women diagnosed with cancer between 1958 and 2012 from the Swedish Cancer Register and

Inherited hypercoagulable states (i.e. thrombophilia) have been suggested to be involved in retinal vascular occlusion but results are divergent. Vascular micronutrition and ischemia have been hypothesised to be involved in the pathogenesis of glaucoma. This nationwide study determines the importance of family history of venous thromboembolism (VTE) as a risk factor for retinal vein occlusion (RVO

Cholera epidemics are caused by Vibrio cholerae serogroups O1 and O139, whereas strains collectively known as non-O1/non-O139 V. cholerae are found in cases of extraintestinal infections and bacteremia. The mechanisms and factors influencing the occurrence of bacteremia and survival of V. cholerae in normal human serum have remained unclear. We found that naturally occurring IgG recognizing V. cho

This paper proposes an automatic method for the identification of twisted pairs (TPs) sharing the same binder, based on the analysis of phantom circuit measurements. This type of circuit is often used for improving data transmission rates in communication systems, but in this paper, phantoming is used to reveal if a four-wire loop composed of two TPs is close enough and well balanced in order to b

Chemical kinetic mechanisms for simulation of syngas (H2 + CO) combustion are important for development of efficient practical applications, such as gas turbines. A useful syngas mechanism has to be able to accurately predict laminar burning velocities, ignition delays, and oxidation of gas mixtures of varying composition over a range of temperatures and pressures. In the present work, the perform