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Multiparty government has often been associated with poor economic policy-making, with distortions like lower growth rates and high budget deficits. One proposed reason for such distortions is that coalition governments face more severe ‘common pool problems’ since parties use their control over specific ministries to advance their specific spending priorities rather than practice budgetary discip

Twenty years of methodological development, empirical research and practice application have resulted in an updated version of the Housing Enabler instrument and a screening version. The methodology rests on Lawton’s and Nahemow’s ecological model, with accessibility defined as the relationship between the individual’s functional capacity and the demands of the physical environment. The complete i

According to the European Commission (EC)(2009), the ageing society is one of the grand challenges of our time, and European researchers are encouraged to cooperate to contribute to the knowledge development required to turn the challenges into sustainable solutions. All countries in Europe face similar problems, but there are also marked differences based on cultural and socio-economic diversity

The purpose of this study was to investigate how different service delivery systems for assistive devices were associated with the service delivery process (SDP) and user satisfaction in two national contexts when electric powered scooters were provided. Method: The study had a follow-up design based on a consecutive inclusion of 50 Danish and 86 Norwegian adults as they were about to be provided

In most OECD-countries immigrants have lower employment and higher unemployment than natives. The gap in labor market outcomes is larger in countries with more immigrant friendly attitudes. This paper suggests that in countries where labor market institutions are less competitive, native workers face less direct wage competition from immigration. As a result, the general population is more immigra

This paper critically scrutinizes the key success factors and tools described in the partnering literature by exploring how they are implemented in a public–private partnering collaboration. In addition to this the paper investigates to what extent these tools facilitate the relationship between the parties in a partnering process. The empirical data consist of two longitudinal case studies. Both

Policy advice by the OECD has long been at the heart of academic debates on welfare state reform, with frequent claims questioning the ideological orientation of recommendations. This paper constructs an indicator of perceived reform need for 24 countries, quantifying the policy advice contained in the OECD Economic Surveys around 1985, 1995, and 2005. These recommendations describe a policy conse

This article explores how the occupation of branding and the work it encompasses are discursively constituted and ‘made up’. It starts with the premise that branding is a cultural intermediary occupation about whose norms and practices we cannot assume certainty, stability or homogeneity.The study illustrates how branding is comprised of multiple social and occupational discourses, namely, ‘creati

This article explores how postfeminist and prosperity gospel discourses intersect in an organizational context to produce a particular ideal of feminine subjectivity that reproduces a neoliberal agenda. We focus on narratives written by female national vice presidents in a multi-national network marketing organization headquartered in America. Network marketing tends to attract a vast number of wo

Access to safe drinking water and sanitation is essential for both individual and population health as well as for quality of life and dignity. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) require nations to ensure adequate water supply and sanitation for all. For Kazakhstan, this means that rural areas will need a much stronger attention as they have been rather neglected in efforts to comply with

In the science education research field there is a large body of literature on the 'nature of science' (NOS). NOS captures issues about what characterizes the research process as well as the scientific knowledge. Here we, in line with a broad body of literature, use a wide definition of NOS including also e.g. socio-cultural aspects. It is argued that NOS issues, for a number of reasons, should be

Density functional theory has been used to study the mechanism and stereospecificity of the catalytic reaction of human glyoxalase I. We used the quantum mechanical cluster method to model the enzyme active site. Glyoxalase I accepts both enantiomers of the hemithioacetal between methylglyoxal and glutathione and converts them to the S-D enantiomer of lactoylglutathione. We have compared several p

Monitoring the aquatic environment and the life of free-floating organisms remains on the borderline of our technical capabilities. Therefore, our insights into aquatic habitats, such as, abundance and behavior of organisms are limited. In order to improve our understanding of aquatic life, we have developed a low-cost inelastic hyperspectral lidar with unlimited focal depth and enough sensitivity

MOTIVATION: Depletion of loss-of-function (LoF) mutations may provide a rank of genic functional intolerance and consequently susceptibility to disease.RESULTS: Here we have studied LoF mutations in 60 706 unrelated individuals and show that the most intolerant quartile of ranked genes is enriched in rare and early onset diseases and explains 87% of de novo haploinsufficient OMIM mutations, 17% mo

AIMS/HYPOTHESIS: Salt-inducible kinases (SIKs) are related to the metabolic regulator AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK). SIK2 is abundant in adipose tissue. The aims of this study were to investigate the expression of SIKs in relation to human obesity and insulin resistance, and to evaluate whether changes in the expression of SIKs might play a causal role in the development of disturbed glucose