United Nations Territorial Administration and the Development of the Charter

The competition in sports equipment and sports fashion today is fierce. And as e-commerce grows, the competing players has to remain accessible and usable regard-less of the device their customers visit the website on. Stadium is Swedens biggest player on the market and puts a lot of effort on their online activity. Something Stadium found interesting was the possibility of introducing elements that would increase the conversion rates directly into the product menu. This study explores the possibility to find a responsive solution for the product menu at Stadiums’ e-commerce website which could contribute to increased conversion rates. The study is built upon an experiment and the foundations of the experiment is based upon a market analysis of used design patterns for product navigation in the domain of sport resellers. Added to that, theories of usability and sales aspects, Stadiums own point of view, and known design patterns, have all contributed to the birth of a responsive product navigation concept. What started as sketches first evolved into three high fidelity design solutions (one for desktop devices, one for tablet devices, and one for smartphone devices) and then into working prototypes. The prototypes were tested by multiple users, following a set of tasks. The results was then compared with the same tasks conducted at Stadiums current website. The theories we have found clearly indicate that a good user experience greatly affects the potential for higher conversion rates and also increase the possibility of a higher customer loyalty towards the brand. Stadiums’ philosophy is focused on the product range and to show the products as the hero of the brand. The user testing conducted showed that the design solutions made by us didn’t meet the standard of the current Stadium product navigation. The statistics from the tests is spraw-ling and the lack of completness within the prototype shined through. Despite the sprawling results, the study concludes in a design solution that can act as a starting point for further investigations to find the best possible solution

Hydrate Formation in Small Bore Dead Legs in Subsea Processing Systems

Natural gas hydrates, a crystalline compound forming at high pressures and low temperatures, pose flow assurance issues in natural gas processing systems. Small bore dead legs, piping containing stagnant process fluid, are prone to blocking by hydrate formation. This thesis aims to provide design guidelines and best practices for small bore dead leg design in natural gas subsea processing systems as well as providing a method for predicting hydrate thickness using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). An experiment which measured the final thickness of a hydrate in controlled conditions is recreated in CFD using three different approaches. One approach, volume of fluid (VOF) melting-solidification, shows promise with similar results to the experiment but with varying accuracy. Recommendations for future work on steady-state hydrate modelling in CFD are given. The small bore dead leg designs are evaluated from a conservative standpoint using CFD with the aim to provide general guidelines for a wide range of use cases in terms of process fluid composition, operating conditions and dead leg bore size. Design guidelines are given for common small bore dead leg functions, namely hydrocarbon displacement and mono-ethylene glycol injection. Guidelines for maximum and minimum small bore dead leg lengths are given for simple design geometries, such as straight pieces of piping. More geometrically complex designs are evaluated with respect to hydrate blocking from a thermal point of view. The guidelines and evaluated designs provide constraints and pre-verified solutions for future small bore dead leg designs regarding hydrate blocking mitigation

“Mission impossible”? How a successful female cross-country skier managed a dual career as a professional athlete and medical student : A case study

The aim of the present case study is to illuminate the factors contributing to the initiation, maintenance and discontinuation of the dual career of a Norwegian world-class athlete and medicine student. We additionally aimed to highlight contextual factors facilitating and impeding the dual career development. The participant Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen was a Norwegian student-athlete in the 2005–2020 period when she concurrently achieved 10 FIS World Championship medals, one Olympic medal, and 43 World Cup podiums in cross-country ski- ing. Day-to-day training diary data, study load and progress, performance, and interviews were analysed. In most years, the participant’s annual training vol- ume was c. 800–900 hrs/year. No significant differences in athletic performance were seen between the years with full-time studies, part-time studies, and study breaks. The participant Jacobsen experienced conflicting schedules and a lack of dual career support from stakeholders as the major challenges. Hence, the present single-case study provides unique data on the process and management of a dual career.publishedVersio

Effects of apples and specific apple components on the cecal environment of conventional rats: role of apple pectin

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Our study was part of the large European project ISAFRUIT aiming to reveal the biological explanations for the epidemiologically well-established health effects of fruits. The objective was to identify effects of apple and apple product consumption on the composition of the cecal microbial community in rats, as well as on a number of cecal parameters, which may be influenced by a changed microbiota.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of cecal microbiota profiles obtained by PCR-DGGE targeting bacterial 16S rRNA genes showed an effect of whole apples in a long-term feeding study (14 weeks), while no effects of apple juice, purée or pomace on microbial composition in cecum were observed. Administration of either 0.33 or 3.3% apple pectin in the diet resulted in considerable changes in the DGGE profiles.</p> <p>A 2-fold increase in the activity of beta-glucuronidase was observed in animals fed with pectin (7% in the diet) for four weeks, as compared to control animals (P < 0.01). Additionally, the level of butyrate measured in these pectin-fed animal was more than double of the corresponding level in control animals (P < 0.01). Sequencing revealed that DGGE bands, which were suppressed in pectin-fed rats, represented Gram-negative anaerobic rods belonging to the phylum <it>Bacteroidetes</it>, whereas bands that became more prominent represented mainly Gram-positive anaerobic rods belonging to the phylum <it>Firmicutes</it>, and specific species belonging to the <it>Clostridium </it>Cluster XIVa.</p> <p>Quantitative real-time PCR confirmed a lower amount of given <it>Bacteroidetes </it>species in the pectin-fed rats as well as in the apple-fed rats in the four-week study (P < 0.05). Additionally, a more than four-fold increase in the amount of <it>Clostridium coccoides </it>(belonging to Cluster XIVa), as well as of genes encoding butyryl-coenzyme A CoA transferase, which is involved in butyrate production, was detected by quantitative PCR in fecal samples from the pectin-fed animals.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our findings show that consumption of apple pectin (7% in the diet) increases the population of butyrate- and β-glucuronidase producing <it>Clostridiales</it>, and decreases the population of specific species within the <it>Bacteroidetes </it>group in the rat gut. Similar changes were not caused by consumption of whole apples, apple juice, purée or pomace.</p

A deletion in GDF7 is associated with a heritable forebrain commissural malformation concurrent with ventriculomegaly and interhemispheric cysts in cats

Publisher Copyright: © 2020 by the authors.An inherited neurologic syndrome in a family of mixed-breed Oriental cats has been characterized as forebrain commissural malformation, concurrent with ventriculomegaly and interhemispheric cysts. However, the genetic basis for this autosomal recessive syndrome in cats is unknown. Forty-three cats were genotyped on the Illumina Infinium Feline 63K iSelect DNA Array and used for analyses. Genome-wide association studies, including a sib-transmission disequilibrium test and a case-control association analysis, and homozygosity mapping, identified a critical region on cat chromosome A3. Short-read whole genome sequencing was completed for a cat trio segregating with the syndrome. A homozygous 7 bp deletion in growth differentiation factor 7 (GDF7) (c.221_227delGCCGCGC [p.Arg74Profs]) was identified in affected cats, by comparison to the 99 Lives Cat variant dataset, validated using Sanger sequencing and genotyped by fragment analyses. This variant was not identified in 192 unaffected cats in the 99 Lives dataset. The variant segregated concordantly in an extended pedigree. In mice, GDF7 mRNA is expressed within the roof plate when commissural axons initiate ventrally-directed growth. This finding emphasized the importance of GDF7 in the neurodevelopmental process in the mammalian brain. A genetic test can be developed for use by cat breeders to eradicate this variant.Peer reviewe

Werewolf, there wolf : Variants in hairless associated with hypotrichia and roaning in the lykoi cat breed

Publisher Copyright: © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.A variety of cat breeds have been developed via novelty selection on aesthetic, dermatological traits, such as coat colors and fur types. A recently developed breed, the lykoi (a.k.a. werewolf cat), was bred from cats with a sparse hair coat with roaning, implying full color and all white hairs. The lykoi phenotype is a form of hypotrichia, presenting as a significant reduction in the average numbers of follicles per hair follicle group as compared to domestic shorthair cats, a mild to severe perifollicular to mural lymphocytic infiltration in 77% of observed hair follicle groups, and the follicles are often miniaturized, dilated, and dysplastic. Whole genome sequencing was conducted on a single lykoi cat that was a cross between two independently ascertained lineages. Comparison to the 99 Lives dataset of 194 non‐lykoi cats suggested two variants in the cat homolog for Hairless (HR) (HR lysine demethylase and nuclear receptor corepressor) as candidate causal gene variants. The lykoi cat was a compound heterozygote for two loss of function variants in HR, an exon 3 c.1255_1256dupGT (chrB1:36040783), which should produce a stop codon at amino acid 420 (p.Gln420Serfs*100) and, an exon 18 c.3389insGACA (chrB1:36051555), which should produce a stop codon at amino acid position 1130 (p.Ser1130Argfs*29). Ascertainment of 14 additional cats from founder lineages from Canada, France and different areas of the USA identified four additional loss of function HR variants likely causing the highly similar phenotypic hair coat across the diverse cats. The novel variants in HR for cat hypotrichia can now be established between minor differences in the phenotypic presentations.Peer reviewe

Epigenome-wide meta-analysis of blood DNA methylation in newborns and children identifies numerous loci related to gestational age

Background Preterm birth and shorter duration of pregnancy are associated with increased morbidity in neonatal and later life. As the epigenome is known to have an important role during fetal development, we investigated associations between gestational age and blood DNA methylation in children. Methods We performed meta-analysis of Illumina's HumanMethylation450-array associations between gestational age and cord blood DNA methylation in 3648 newborns from 17 cohorts without common pregnancy complications, induced delivery or caesarean section. We also explored associations of gestational age with DNA methylation measured at 4-18 years in additional pediatric cohorts. Follow-up analyses of DNA methylation and gene expression correlations were performed in cord blood. DNA methylation profiles were also explored in tissues relevant for gestational age health effects: fetal brain and lung. Results We identified 8899 CpGs in cord blood that were associated with gestational age (range 27-42 weeks), at Bonferroni significance, P <1.06 x 10(- 7), of which 3343 were novel. These were annotated to 4966 genes. After restricting findings to at least three significant adjacent CpGs, we identified 1276 CpGs annotated to 325 genes. Results were generally consistent when analyses were restricted to term births. Cord blood findings tended not to persist into childhood and adolescence. Pathway analyses identified enrichment for biological processes critical to embryonic development. Follow-up of identified genes showed correlations between gestational age and DNA methylation levels in fetal brain and lung tissue, as well as correlation with expression levels. Conclusions We identified numerous CpGs differentially methylated in relation to gestational age at birth that appear to reflect fetal developmental processes across tissues. These findings may contribute to understanding mechanisms linking gestational age to health effects.Peer reviewe

DNA methylation and body mass index from birth to adolescence : meta-analyses of epigenome-wide association studies

Background DNA methylation has been shown to be associated with adiposity in adulthood. However, whether similar DNA methylation patterns are associated with childhood and adolescent body mass index (BMI) is largely unknown. More insight into this relationship at younger ages may have implications for future prevention of obesity and its related traits. Methods We examined whether DNA methylation in cord blood and whole blood in childhood and adolescence was associated with BMI in the age range from 2 to 18 years using both cross-sectional and longitudinal models. We performed meta-analyses of epigenome-wide association studies including up to 4133 children from 23 studies. We examined the overlap of findings reported in previous studies in children and adults with those in our analyses and calculated enrichment. Results DNA methylation at three CpGs (cg05937453, cg25212453, and cg10040131), each in a different age range, was associated with BMI at Bonferroni significance, P <1.06 x 10(-7), with a 0.96 standard deviation score (SDS) (standard error (SE) 0.17), 0.32 SDS (SE 0.06), and 0.32 BMI SDS (SE 0.06) higher BMI per 10% increase in methylation, respectively. DNA methylation at nine additional CpGs in the cross-sectional childhood model was associated with BMI at false discovery rate significance. The strength of the associations of DNA methylation at the 187 CpGs previously identified to be associated with adult BMI, increased with advancing age across childhood and adolescence in our analyses. In addition, correlation coefficients between effect estimates for those CpGs in adults and in children and adolescents also increased. Among the top findings for each age range, we observed increasing enrichment for the CpGs that were previously identified in adults (birth P-enrichment = 1; childhood P-enrichment = 2.00 x 10(-4); adolescence P-enrichment = 2.10 x 10(-7)). Conclusions There were only minimal associations of DNA methylation with childhood and adolescent BMI. With the advancing age of the participants across childhood and adolescence, we observed increasing overlap with altered DNA methylation loci reported in association with adult BMI. These findings may be compatible with the hypothesis that DNA methylation differences are mostly a consequence rather than a cause of obesity.Peer reviewe

Direct Remote Id baserat Kollisionsundvikande System för UAS : Direct Remote Id baserat Kollisionsundvikande System för UAS

The drone industry is growing and the need for increased autonomy will be required if large fleetof drones will be able to fly without a single pilot per drone. A useful part of automating the flighten-route can be achieved with the upcoming standard of Direct Remote Id (DRI), which signalspositional data for drones and can be used as the perceptive part in a collision avoidance systembetween drones with the advantage of limited weight penalties and minimal financial cost.Simulations were carried out to understand different kinds of evasive maneuvers and develop asimple yet effective algorithm for avoiding obstacles and continue towards the next waypoint ona mission. Positional data can be retrieved with an ESP-32 board from a flight computer withMavlink protocol, which can then be broadcasted and received to an ESP-32 board using DirectRemote Id. The distances between the nearest drones can be computed, along with the shortest al-lowable distance and closest positions of the drones, if they were to continue on a straight course. Ifthe closest passing distance turned out closer than a set safety distance, an evasive maneuver is cal-culated and executed, with preliminary work focusing on evasion maneuvers on an horizontal plane.Flight tests showed that an evasive position could be calculated, and the drone successfully di-verted to it, while continuing with the mission after the evasion was completed. These resultsshowed the potential of using Direct Remote Id as a simple close proximity detection for use withcollision avoidanceDrönarindustrin växer allt snabbare och det kommer att krävas en större grad av autonomitet för att kunna få drönare att flyga av sig själva utan att ha en pilot per drönare. En användbar del av att kunna autonomisera flygrutten vid flykt kan vara den nya standarden Direct Remote Id (DRI), som sänder ut positionsdata för den individuella drönaren och kan användas för att kunna upptäcka och bli upptäckt av andra drönare med minimal vikt- och priskostnad.Simuleringar gjordes för att undersöka samt förstå olika typer av undanmanövrar och för att utveckla en simpel och effektiv algoritm för att kunna undvika objekt och fortsätta med en planerad rutt. Positionsdata kan skickas till ett ESP-32 kretskort fån en flygdator med hjälp av Mavlink protokoll, denna data kan sedan sändas och bli mottaget av ett annat ESP-32 kretskort med Direct Remote Id standarden. Avståndet till den närmsta drönaren kan beräknas samt den minsta passagedistansen mellan drönarna om de skulle fortsätta i rak riktning. Om den minsta passagedistansen mellan drönarna är mindre än ett satt säkerhetsavstånd, beräknas en undanmanöver samt utförs. Flygtester visade att en undanmanöver kunde beräknas samt att drönaren omdirigerades till sidan om objektet och därefter fortsatte på sin planerade flygrutt. Dessa resultat visade potentialen i att använda Direct Remote Id som ett enkelt sätt att upptäcka andra drönare för att användas i ett kollisionsundvikande system