Since the attacks the 11th of September 2001 in the US, there has been a strong increase in security force assistance (SFA) to fragile states with the aim of professionalising security forces, preventing violent extremist organisations (VEO) from exploiting state fragility and, in cases where this has not succeeded, of fighting the latter. At the same time, a shift has taken place with regard to t

African governments have been faster than most of their European counterparts in imposing measures to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak despite dealing with numerous other challenges. However, context matters, and for Africa, the political and socioeconomic consequences of the lockdown measures may cause more havoc than the actual virus.This brief identifies political, economic and social risks rela

How realistic and how fair are the expectations that we place on the small minority of female peacekeepers to bring an ‘added value’ to peace operations? Not at all, I argue in this brief, which examines the instrumentalisation of female participation and suggests that it is time to move beyond the question of an ‘added value’ that often translates into ‘added burden’.Both male and female peacekee

The Corona pandemic is changing the way we live and function as a society for at least the coming weeks or months. While it is a virus that does not take into account race, sex, class or age, it is also quite brutally revealing and reinforcing socio-economic inequalities which reflect the distribution of power in our societies. This, at the same time as it is showing us the strength of empathy, re

Producing original knowledge is the foundation of scientific progress. Originality is associated with certain skills and practices that can be trained and socialised. This study investigates how inbreeding as a career practice influences the socialisation of originality. An analysis based on a sample of mid-career life scientists in Japan finds that originality and associated practices are transfe

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is a disease of insulin deficiency that results from autoimmune destruction of pancreatic islet β cells. The exact cause of T1D remains unknown, although asymptomatic islet autoimmunity lasting from weeks to years before diagnosis raises the possibility of intervention before the onset of clinical disease. The number, type, and titer of islet autoantibodies are associated wit

The local electronic structure of the metal-active site and the deexcitation pathways of metalloporphyrins are crucial for numerous applications but difficult to access by commonly employed techniques. Here, we applied near-edge X-ray absorption mass spectrometry and quantum-mechanical restricted active space calculations to investigate the electronic structure of the metal-active site of the isol

Optical many-body systems naturally possess strong light-matter interactions and are thus of central importance for photonic applications. However, these applications are so far limited within the regime of intrinsic dynamically stable phases, and the possibility of unstable phases remains unidentified. Here we experimentally revealed a new dynamical phase of intrinsic optical instability by using

Background: Mechanical ventilation is a potentially painful and discomforting intervention that is widely used in neonatal intensive care. Newborn infants demonstrate increased sensitivity to pain, which may affect clinical and neurodevelopmental outcomes. The use of drugs that reduce pain might be important in improving survival and neurodevelopmental outcomes. Objectives: To determine the benefi

Radioactive iodine is commonly used for the treatment of different thyroid conditions since the 1940s. The EANM has developed a standard pre-therapeutic procedure to estimate patient specific thyroid uptake at treatment of benign thyroid diseases. The procedure which models the time dependent fractional thyroid uptake is based on a two-compartment fitting system, one representing the thyroid and t

Insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) and its binding proteins (BPs) have been associated with breast cancer risk, especially high IGF-I concentrations and the biologically active fraction estimated as the IGF-I/IGFBP-3 molar ratio. The relation of circulating IGF-I and IGFBP-3 concentrations with risk of breast cancer recurrence has been less documented. In addition a new member to a sub-group of

Prediction of long-term survival in patients with invasive intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm (IPMN) of the pancreas may aid in patient assessment, risk stratification and personalization of treatment. This study aimed to investigate the predictive ability of artificial neural networks (ANN) and LASSO regression in terms of 5-year disease-specific survival. ANN work in a non-linear fashion, h

Background Serological response and association to clinical manifestation is important for understanding the pathogenesis of COVID-19. Materials and methods A prospective observational study was conducted where antibody responses of IgG and IgA towards SARS-CoV-2 spike protein were studied over time in patients with COVID-19. Possible associations between antibody titers and outcome were analyzed.

Breast cancer prognosis is frequently good but a substantial number of patients suffer from relapse. The death receptor ligand TRAIL can in combination with Smac mimetics induce apoptosis in some luminal-like ER-positive breast cancer cell lines, such as CAMA-1, but not in MCF-7 cells. Here we show that TRAIL and the Smac mimetic LCL161 induce noncanonical NF-κB and IFN signaling in ER-positive MC

Bats have always fascinated people by their unusual appearance, but fear towards them is also common, particularly in Western societies. Making headlines worldwide during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, bats were all too often accused of carrying and transmitting a disproportionate share of dangerous viruses. We enquired about the origin and persistence of this thinking in Sweden by searching old li

In the European Union the Annexes of its chemical legislation (REACH) were revised and now clarify the technical data requirements for nanomaterials (NMs). These new provisions, effective from January 1, 2020, introduce requirements for manufacturers, importers and downstream users regarding registration and safety assessment of NMs. This study aims to assess the availability and suitability of me

We compare abundance ratio trends in a sample of ∼11,000 Milky Way bulge stars (R GC < 3 kpc) from the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) to those of APOGEE stars in the Galactic disk (5 kpc < R GC < 11 kpc). We divide each sample into low-Ia (high-[Mg/Fe]) and high-Ia (low-[Mg/Fe]) populations, and in each population, we examine the median trends of [X/Mg] versus [Mg/