Background: Phthalates are ubiquitous in the environment. Despite short half-lives, chronic exposure can lead to endocrine disruption. The safety of phthalate substitute DINCH is unclear. Objective: To evaluate associations between urinary concentrations of phthalate/DINCH metabolites and body mass index (BMI) z-score among children and adolescents. Method: We used Human Biomonitoring for Europe A

Background: There is almost no data on the combined associations between apolipoprotein E gene (APOE) genotypes, trace elements (TEs), and lipid peroxidation in vivo. The aim of our study was to evaluate the association between APOE genotypes and TE levels in blood (B-TEs) and erythrocytes (E-TEs), and 8-isoprostane in urine (U-8-isoprostane) in women with low exposure to potentially toxic TEs and

Does socially desirable responding produce exaggerated correlations between self-ratings of personality and positive psychology constructs? We operationalized social desirability as the evaluative factor, i.e. the tendency to react to evaluative content in questionnaire items and related one standard measure and one evaluatively neutralized measure of the Big Five to measures of five key positive

Experimental Modal Analysis (EMA) plays a crucial role in understanding the dynamic responses of structures to vibration by extracting their modal parameters such as natural frequencies and modal damping and vibration modes. These parameters are essential for assessing structural performance and identifying potential vulnerabilities. As the construction industry embraces sustainable materials, Cro

This research explores the impact of structural variations in laminarins derived from seaweed on their immunomodulatory properties. Laminarins from Laminaria digitata, L. hyperborea, and Saccharina latissima, were obtained using a two-step water extraction protocol, followed by structural characterization by FT-IR spectroscopy, 1H NMR, and MALDI-TOF MS. The laminarin backbones were confirmed as β–

We explore how the Resilient Urban Food Systems (RUFS) project applied a theory of change approach to raise awareness of the importance of smallholder farmers and to bring them into decision making processes, as key players working towards a sustainable and resilient food system in Kasese Municipality and Mbale City in Uganda. Critical inputs from using a theory of change approach included: consta

Human reproductive success requires both producing children and making investments in the development of offspring. To a large extent these investments are made by the parents of the child, but researchers are now looking beyond the nuclear family to understand how extended kin, notably grandmothers, enhance reproductive success by making transfers to progeny of different kinds. The extent to whic

Objectives: There is a need for more specific biomarkers to diagnose and predict disease course in patients with axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA). This study aimed to study immunological plasma biomarkers at different time-points in radiographic (r)-axSpA patients overall and stratified by sex and compare these biomarker patterns in r-axSpA patients concerning disease phenotypes and disease activit

Objectives A rising incidence of septic shock as well as recommendations for early vasopressor initiation has increased the number of patients eligible for norepinephrine (NE). Traditionally, NE has been administered through central lines, in intensive care units, due to the risk of extravasation in peripheral lines. The aim of the current study is to determine the rate of complications and patien

Volatility, which indicates the dispersion of returns, is a crucial measure of risk and is hence used extensively for pricing and discriminating between different financial investments. As a result, accurate volatility prediction receives extensive attention. The Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (GARCH) model and its succeeding variants are well established models for stoc

Background Elevated troponin levels are a sensitive biomarker for cardiac injury. The quick and reliable prediction of troponin elevation for patients with chest pain from readily available ECGs may pose a valuable time-saving diagnostic tool during decision-making concerning this patient population. Methods and results The data used included 15 856 ECGs from patients presenting to the emergency r

Introduction Nutritional education intervention during pregnancy is the process of teaching pregnant women about the importance of a healthy diet and how to make healthy food choices. It is an important part of public health and vital to preventing adverse birth outcomes. Therefore, synthesising available evidence on the effect of nutritional education intervention on birth outcomes is essential f

Background: Words are a natural way to describe mental states in humans, while numerical values are a convenient and effective way to carry out quantitative psychological research. With the growing interest of researchers in gaming disorder, the number of screening tools is growing. However, they all require self-quantification of mental states. The rapid development of natural language processing

If an atom of the host lattice in silicon is replaced by an atom belonging to the fifth group in the periodic table, the potential binding the extra electron to the impurity atom can, in most cases, be approximated by a hydrogen-like potential. 1 This gives rise not only to an energy level in the band gap for the impurity ground state, but, in addition, also to a series of excited states. In silic

Introduction: Ovarian cancer is a lethal disease with low survival rates for women diagnosed in advanced stages. Current cancer immunotherapies are not efficient in ovarian cancer, and there is therefore a significant need for novel treatment options. The β-galactoside-binding lectin, Galectin-3, is involved in different immune processes and has been associated with poor outcome in various cancer