Why do some foreign ministers stay longer in office than others? Are they punished when the country loses a war? Several scholars have focused on the tenure of leaders as an important predictor of foreign policy outcomes, such as war onset, creating an interest in leadership survival. We here shift the focus to the survival of other important politicians in cabinet-foreign ministers, hypothesizing

Firm-sponsored online user communities have become product innovation and support hubs of strategic importance to firms. Product users and host firm employees comprise the participants of firm-sponsored online user communities. The online user community provides a forum wherein the product users and firm employees discuss questions, problems or issues resulting from the use of host firms’ products

When researchers analyze data, it typically requires significant effort in data preparation to make the data analysis ready. This often involves cleaning, pre-processing, harmonizing, or integrating data from one or multiple sources and placing them into a computational environment in a form suitable for analysis. Research infrastructures and their data repositories host data and make them availab

The metal-poor stars in the bulge are important relics of the Milky Way's formation history, as simulations predict that they are some of the oldest stars in the Galaxy. In order to determine if they are truly ancient stars, we must understand their origins. Currently, it is unclear if the metal-poor stars in the bulge ([Fe/H] < -1 dex) are merely halo interlopers, a unique accreted population, pa

A disease risk index (DRI) that was developed for adults with hematologic malignancy who were undergoing hematopoietic cell transplantation is also being used to stratify children and adolescents by disease risk. Therefore, to develop and validate a DRI that can be used to stratify those with AML and ALL by their disease risk, we analyzed 2569 patients aged 8) risk groups was 78%, 53%, 40%, and 25

Researchers have known for decades that silicon plays a major role in biogeochemical and plant-soil processes in terrestrial systems. Meanwhile, plant biologists continue to uncover a growing list of benefits derived from silicon to combat abiotic and biotic stresses, such as defense against herbivory. Yet despite growing recognition of herbivores as important ecosystem engineers, many major gaps

Developing organisms typically mature earlier and at larger sizes in favorable growth conditions, while in rarer cases, maturity is delayed. The rarer reaction norm is easily accommodated by general life history models, whereas the common pattern is not. Theory suggests that a solution to this paradox lies in the existence of critical size thresholds at which maturation or metamorphosis can commen

Why do citizens’ decisions made because they favour the mitigation of climate change outnumber those made because they favour adaptation to its impacts? Using data collected in a survey of 338 citizens of Malmö, Sweden, we tested two hypotheses. H1: the motivation for personal decisions because they favour adaptation to the impacts of climate change correlates with the decision-making agent´s know

Objectives Socioeconomic disparities in smoking prevalence remain a challenge to public health. The objective of this study was to present a simple methodology that displays intersectional patterns of smoking and quantify heterogeneities within groups to avoid inappropriate and potentially stigmatising conclusions exclusively based on group averages. Setting This is a cross-sectional observational

Introduction As part of the PIONEER (Prostate Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment Enhancement Through the Power of Big Data in Europe) Consortium, we will explore which diagnostic and prognostic factors (DPFs) are currently being researched to previously defined clinical and patient-reported outcomes for prostate cancer (PCa). Methods and analysis This research project will follow the following four st

Agricultural land use is a major driver of biodiversity losses and changes in ecosystem services. Thus, for the sake of both humans and wild organism per se, effective strategies that enable both agricultural production and conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services are urgently needed. Such strategies can be divided into those that reduce the intensity of farming in general (such as orga

Long-term electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring is a standard clinical routine in cryptogenic stroke survivors to assess the presence of atrial fibrillation (AF). However, manual evaluation of such recordings is time consuming, in particular when brief episodes are of interest. The electrocardiomatrix (ECM) technique allows compact, two-dimensional representation of the ECG and facilitates its review

Abstract: The physicomechanical properties and structure of superhard cBN–Ti4WC5–Al materials were studied. The materials were sintered under a pressure of 7.7 GPa within a broad range of temperatures (1600–2450°C). The formation of a dense material with high physicomechanical properties was found at a sintetring temperature of 1800°C. A further increase in the sintering temperature had a negligib

Hydrogen peroxide treatment is a cost-effective and simple method to improve the bioactivity of titanium implants. In this study, the effects of chloride ion concentration and temperature of hydrogen peroxide on the surface treatment of titanium were investigated using X-ray diffractometry (XRD), Field Emission-Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM), and tests in order to determine wettability and a

Several studies have shown that the autonomic nervous system (ANS) can induce changes during atrial fibrillation (AF). There is currently a lack of methods for quantifying ANS induced variations during AF. The purpose of this study is to quantify respiratory induced modulation in the f-wave frequency trend. Following qrst-cancellation, the local f-wave frequency is estimated by fitting a harmonic