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Hostility bias or sadness bias in excluded individuals: Does anodal transcranial direct current stimulation of right VLPFC vs. left DLPFC have a mitigating effect?
PublicationExclusion has multiple adverse effects on individual’s well-being. It induces anger and hostile cognitions leading to aggressive behavior. The purpose of this study was to test whether exclusion would affect recognition of anger on ambivalent faces of the excluders. We hypothesized that exclusion would elicit more anger encoding (hostility bias) than inclusion, but this effect would be mitigated by anodal tDCS of right VLPFC...
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Amperometric sensing of chemical oxygen demand at glassy carbon and silicon electrodes modified with boron-doped diamond
Publication.A boron-doped diamond (BDD) sensor is proposed for effective detection of chemical oxygen demand (COD) by means of amperometric technique. Boron-doped diamond thin films, acting as active sensors, were deposited on both silicon wafer and glassy carbon (GC) substrates by microwave plasma assisted chemical vapour deposition. SEM micrographs showed that BDD–Si displays triangle-faceted crystallites ca. 0.5–3 μm in size, while BDD–GC...
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Rapid Design of 3D Reflectarray Antennas by Inverse Surrogate Modeling and Regularization
PublicationReflectarrays (RAs) exhibit important advantages over conventional antenna arrays, especially in terms of realizing pencil-beam patterns without the employment of the feeding networks. Unfortunately, microstrip RA implementations feature narrow bandwidths, and are severely affected by losses. A considerably improved performance can be achieved for RAs involving grounded dielectric layers, which are also easy to manufacture using...
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Properties of an innovative multi-functional finish for the improvement of indoor air quality
PublicationDue to lifestyle changes, people spend most of their time indoors at present; thus, Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) is a matter of utmost importance. Multi-functional and innovative finishes can help to passively improve the IAQ, benefitting the health and comfort of occupants. For this study, reference and pre-mixed commercial mortars are compared to a new multi-functional hydraulic lime mortar for indoor finishes, in which conventional...
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A Concept for Safe and Less Expensive Acceleration of a Marine Steam Turbine Start-up
PublicationThis paper analyses the issue of accelerated start-up of a marine steam turbine, which is an important problem because the start-up of a steam machine involves the combustion of fuel that is not transformed into useful energy. To find novel technologies that offer improvements in this aspect is essential due to restrictions on reducing ship emissions. Thus, the shorter the start-up time, the better for the environment and economy....
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Radioactivity of drilling cuttings from shale resources of the Lower Paleozoic Baltic Basin, Poland
PublicationFractionated drilling wastes originating from shale gas exploration in the Baltic Basin in Pomerania were subjected to the measurements of mean activity concentrations of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORMs).To better understand rock structure and texture, the X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy(SEM) observation were used. To compare activity concentration of radionuclides in bulk wastes...
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Reasons for Implementing Movement in Kinetic Architecture
PublicationThe paper gives insights into different forms of movement in contemporary architecture and examines them based on the reasons for their implementation. The main objective of the paper is to determine: the degree to which the complexity of kinematic architecture results from functional and spatial needs and what other motivations there are. The method adopted to investigate these questions involves theoretical studies and comparative analyses...
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Multi-objective design optimization of antenna structures using sequential domain patching with automated patch size deter-mination
PublicationIn this paper, a simple yet efficient and reliable technique for fully automated multi-objective design optimization of antenna structures using sequential domain patching (SDP) is discussed. The optimization procedure according to SDP is a two-step process: (i) obtaining the initial set of Pareto-optimal designs representing the best possible trade-offs between considered conflicting objectives, and (ii) Pareto set refinement...
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20+ years of Polish residential real estate prices – a house price index proxy
PublicationInformation on house prices is often considered crucial when assessing developments in economy. However, in Poland for the long time house prices haven’t been tracked in an organized manner. Recent developments, most notably house price indices developed by Poland’s national bank and by the statistical office do not go back more than 10 years, therefore data series are relatively short compared to those of other macroeconomic data. In...
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CDIO IN GDANSK: PEOPLE-ORIENTED STRATEGY
PublicationThe CDIO system implementation in Poland meets problems and Gdansk University of Technology (GUT) is still a single higher education institution in Poland accepted as the member of CDIO Initiative. The paper detects and characterizes the existing problems to be solved. In particular, the different groups of people are considered as supporters or fighters against CDIO idea, their attitudes being considered and applied strategy demonstrated. The...
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Small-scale passive emission chamber for screening studies on monoterpene emission flux from the surface of wood-based indoor elements
PublicationAnalysis of literature data published in the last fewyears leads to the conclusion that in the process of assessment of emission flux of organic compounds emitted from different types of equipment and finishing materials, new types of devices, among which small-scale passive emission chambers for the performance of in-situ research are designed and applied on a larger scale. These devices can be successfully used for the assessment...
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Variable-Fidelity Simulation Models and Sparse Gradient Updates for Cost-Efficient Optimization of Compact Antenna Input Characteristics
PublicationDesign of antennas for the Internet of Things (IoT) applications requires taking into account several performance figures, both electrical (e.g., impedance matching) and field (gain, radiation pattern), but also physical constraints, primarily concerning size limitation. Fulfillment of stringent specifications necessitates the development of topologically complex structures described by a large number of geometry parameters that...
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Performance-Based Nested Surrogate Modeling of Antenna Input Characteristics
PublicationUtilization of electromagnetic (EM) simulation tools is mandatory in the design of contemporary antenna structures. At the same time, conducting designs procedures that require multiple evaluations of the antenna at hand, such as parametric optimization or yield-driven design, is hindered by a high cost of accurate EM analysis. To certain extent, this issue can be addressed by utilization of fast replacement models (also referred...
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Fighting Administrative Corruption with Digital Government in Sub-Saharan Africa
PublicationAdministrative corruption is a pervasive problem and a major threat to economic and social development around the world, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa which lags behind other regions in various development indicators and is seen as one of the most corrupt regions globally. This paper examines a hypothesis that digital government – the use of digital technology to transform public administration organizations and their relationships...
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Analysis of server-side and client-side Web-GIS data processing methods on the example of JTS and JSTS using open data from OSM and geoportal
PublicationThe last decade has seen a rapid evolution of processing, analysis and visualization of freely available geographic data using Open Source Web-GIS. In the beginning, Web-based Geographic Information Systems employed a thick-client approach which required installation of platform-specific browser plugins. Later on, research focus shifted to platform-independent thin client solutions in which data processing and analysis was performed...
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High-performance activation of ozone by sonocavitation for BTEX degradation in water
PublicationThis work presents a novel advanced oxidation process (AOP) for degradation of emerging organic pollutants – benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes (BTEXs) in water. A comparative study was performed for sonocavitation assisted ozonation under 40–120 kHz and 80–200 kHz dual frequency ultrasounds (DFUS). Based on the obtained results, the combination of 40–120 kHz i.e., low-frequency US (LFDUS) with O3 exhibited excellent oxidation...
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Accumulation of volatile constituents in agar and bioreactor shoot cultures of Verbena officinalis L.
PublicationIn vitro shoot cultures of common vervain (Verbena officinalis L., Verbenaceae) were established and evaluated for essential oil content. The shoots were maintained as stationary microshoot culture, grown on Schenk–Hildebrandt medium supplemented with 9.84 µM of 2-isopentenyladenine and 1.0 µM of thidiazuron. The shoots were further adapted to grow in two temporary immersion bioreactors (RITA and Plantform), using Schenk–Hildebrandt...
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The Origins of the Concept of Ideology
PublicationThe concept of "ideology" as, firstly, a term that points at non-epistemological conditioning of cognitive processes, and, secondly, as a term which aimed at disclosing the ancillary role of given ideas in regard to specific political interests of certain groups, has long history. Since Francis Bacon's theory of idols modern philosophy endavoured to create a comprehensive classification of systematic cognitive errors which divert...
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Verification of the method of reconstructing convective velocity fields on the basis of temperature fields in vertical, differential and equally heated, open and closed channels
PublicationThis paper describes a method of reconstructing velocity fields, i.e. a numerical reconstruction procedure (NRP) that involves the numerical processing of experimentally measured temperature distributions in free convection heat transfer. The NRP consists in solving only the continuity and Navier–Stokes equations with an additional source term. This term is proportional to a known temperature (e.g. from a thermal imaging camera)...
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Non-Isocyanate-Based Waterborne Polyurethanes
PublicationNon-isocyanate polyurethanes (NIPUs) are a greener alternative for the conventional polyurethanes synthesized using toxic and moisture-sensitive di- or polyisocyanates. The most often described method of NIPU synthesis involves the reaction of five-membered cyclic carbonates with amines, and resulting polymers containing primary and secondary hydroxyl groups (so they are also known as polyhydroxyurethanes), which can be further...
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Optimization of the Hardware Layer for IoT Systems using a Trust Region Method with Adaptive Forward Finite Differences
PublicationTrust-region (TR) algorithms represent a popular class of local optimization methods. Owing to straightforward setup and low computational cost, TR routines based on linear models determined using forward finite differences (FD) are often utilized for performance tuning of microwave and antenna components incorporated within the Internet of Things systems. Despite usefulness for design of complex structures, performance of TR methods...
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Development of cluster analysis methodology for identification of model rainfall hyetographs and its application at an urban precipitation field scale
PublicationDespite growing access to precipitation time series records at a high temporal scale, in hydrology, and particularly urban hydrology, engineers still design and model drainage systems using scenarios of rainfall temporal distributions predefined by means of model hyetographs. This creates the need for the availability of credible statistical methods for the development and verification of already locally applied model hyetographs....
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Determination of Odor Air Quality Index (OAQII) Using Gas Sensor Matrix
PublicationThis article presents a new way to determine odor nuisance based on the proposed odor air quality index (OAQII), using an instrumental method. This indicator relates the most important odor features, such as intensity, hedonic tone and odor concentration. The research was conducted at the compost screening yard of the municipal treatment plant in Central Poland, on which a self-constructed gas sensor array was placed. It consisted...
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The atlas of inequality aversion: theory and empirical evidence on 55 countries from the Luxembourg Income Study database
PublicationResearch background: In the distributive analysis, the constant relative inequality aversion utility function is a standard tool for ethical judgements of income distributions. The sole parameter ε of this function expresses a society’s aversion to inequality. However, the profession has not committed to the range of ε. When assessing inequality and other welfare characteristics, analysts assume an arbitrary level of ε, common...
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Proximal fibular osteotomy as a treatment for degenerative meniscal extrusion
PublicationMeniscal extrusion treatment is a key focus area for research and clinical study of degenerative knee pathology. The contact forces between the meniscus and the bones cause external displacements of the meniscus that are resisted by the circumferential fibres. The main risk factors for the excessive deformation of the meniscus are meniscal root tears, disruption of the circumferential fibres, knee malalignment and high body mass...
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Characterization of Bioactivity of Selective Molecules in Fruit Wines by FTIR and NMR Spectroscopies, Fluorescence and Docking Calculations
PublicationFourier transform infrared (FTIR) and proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) spectroscopies were applied to characterize and compare the chemical shifts in the polyphenols’ regions of some fruit wines. The obtained results showed that FTIR spectra (1800–900 cm−1) and 1H NMR (δ 6.5–9.3 ppm) of different fruit wines can be used as main indices of the year of vintage and quality of fruit wines. In addition to the classical determination...
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Expedited Acquisition of Database Designs for Reduced-Cost Performance-Driven Modeling and Rapid Dimension Scaling of Antenna Structures
PublicationFast replacement models have been playing an increasing role in high-frequency electronics, including the design of antenna structures. Their role is to improve computational efficiency of the procedures that normally entail large numbers of expensive full-wave electromagnetic (EM) simulations, e.g., parametric optimization or uncertainty quantification. Recently introduced performance-driven modeling methods, such as the nested...
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Post-Effort Changes in Autophagy- and Inflammation-Related Gene Expression in White Blood Cells of Healthy Young Men
PublicationAcute, strenuous physical exertion requiring high levels of energy production induces the production of reactive oxygen species and metabolic disturbances that can damage the mitochondria. Thus, selective autophagic elimination of defective mitochondria may improve resistance to oxidative stress and potentially to inflammation. The main goal of this study was to evaluate the impacts of intense effort on changes in the expression...
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Managerial Energy in Sustainable Enterprises: Organizational Wisdom Approach
PublicationThe circular economy (CE) as an idea involves applying the concept of sustainable development that has been gaining worldwide support. This shift in perception of energy and resource-use from its linear to circular forms creates a specific business environment, which constitutes the subject of this research. This article aims to analyze the impact of a manager’s energy on organizational wisdom, focusing on its circular business...
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Detecting Apples in the Wild: Potential for Harvest Quantity Estimation
PublicationKnowing the exact number of fruits and trees helps farmers to make better decisions in their orchard production management. The current practice of crop estimation practice often involves manual counting of fruits (before harvesting), which is an extremely time-consuming and costly process. Additionally, this is not practicable for large orchards. Thanks to the changes that have taken place in recent years in the field of image...
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Machining process sequencing and machine assignment in generative feature-based CAPP for mill-turn parts
PublicationProcess selection and sequencing, as one of the most complex issues when evaluated from a mathematical point of view and crucial in CAPP, still attract research attention. For the current trend of intelligent manufacturing, machining features (MFs) are the information carriers for workpiece geometry and topology representation. They are basically derived from CAD models and are used by downstream engineering applications. A feature-based...
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On Inadequacy of Sequential Design of Experiments for Performance-Driven Surrogate Modeling of Antenna Input Characteristics
PublicationDesign of contemporary antennas necessarily involves electromagnetic (EM) simulation tools. Their employment is imperative to ensure evaluation reliability but also to carry out the design process itself, especially, the adjustment of antenna dimensions. For the latter, traditionally used parameter sweeping is more and more often replaced by rigorous numerical optimization, which entails considerable computational expenses, sometimes...
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Error analysis for European IGS stations
PublicationEach of the GPS time series that describes the changes of topocentric components consists of a deterministic and a stochastic part, whose character influences the errors of the deterministic parameters. As to the uncertainties of reliable velocities of permanent satellite station systems, surveys that estimate and take into account any dependencies that may affect subsequent operational efficiency are very important. For this analysis,...
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The miniaturised emission chamber system and home-made passive flux sampler studies of monoaromatic hydrocarbons emissions from selected commercially-available floor coverings
PublicationThe estimation of the emission rate of organic compounds released from various types of indoor materials can be performed using stationary environmental test chambers (ETC) classified as ex-situ methods or small-scale portable analytical devices based on the use of passive technique at the stage of analytes sampling from the gaseous phase (in-situ methods). The paper presents results of emissions of selected organic compounds from...
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Review on mechanisms and efficiency of removal of microbiological contaminants in constructed wetlands
PublicationConstructed wetlands (CW) have been considered as a waste and a stormwater treatment systems for small communities or for areas with unsteady sewage flow conditions. Several investigations were undertaken for estimation suspended solids, organic matter and nutrients efficiency removal but only few focused on retention of microorganisms in constructed wetlands. In this review mechanisms of elimination of viruses, indicator bacteria...
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Determination of polybrominated diphenyl ethers in house dust using standard addition method and gas chromatography with electron capture and mass spectrometric detection
PublicationMonitoring of the environmental fate of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) involves determination of their concentration in air, airborne particles and settled dust. This requires the implementation of appropriate analytical tools like measuring instruments, reference materials and analytical procedures. In this study an analytical procedure was developed for determining PBDEs in samples with a complex matrix composition. The...
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Properties and applications of thermostable proteases sourced from Deinococcus geothermalis.
PublicationThe growing interest of extremophiles results from the fact that their enzymes arestable and active under harsh environment conditions. These type of biocatalysts are attractivedue to the fact that can be used in industrial processes that were previously regarded asincompatible with biological materials. Among extremozymes the largest group constitutethermozymes. Currently it is estimated that approximately 40% of enzymes used...
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A Green Chemistry "environmentally friendly" approach to the synthesis of chloro-intermediates of ephedrine/pseudoephedrine
PublicationMethylamphetamine is an addictive stimulant drug that strongly activates certain systems in the brain. It is closely related chemically to amphetamine, but the central nervous system effects of methamphetamine are greater. There is much interest in methylamphetamine among scientists and therefore the synthesizes of methylamphetamine and its metabolites are carried out on a large scale in chemical laboratories. Globally, ephedrine...
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Credibility of Business Operations via Internet: Customer Perspective
PublicationTourism plays an important role in economy of Mediterranean countries. Year after year, more and more people spend or like to spend their vacations (and money) in the Mediterranean region. Hiring private apartments or houses by individual persons for themselves and their families becomes more and more popular way of vacation arrangement and, in the result, constitutes an important factor of the countries' incomes. Versatile and...
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Altruists will be altruists, but what about individualists? The role of future time perspective and social value orientation in volunteers’ declarations to continue engagement in three time horizons
PublicationVolunteering involves caring for the outcomes of others and typically long-term orientation so that one can achieve goals that are not always clearly visible in the short term. As with any activity, volunteering attracts people of different social value orientations – some rather individualistic, some rather altruistic. The aim of the study was to find out whether the future time perspective, which promotes thinking about future...
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Botanical and geographical origin characterization of polish honeys by headspace SPME-GCxGC-TOFMS
PublicationVolatile organic compounds (VOCs) composition of Polish honeys obtained from various geographical regions was studied. Headspace solid phase microextraction (HS-SPME) using Divinylbenzene/Carboxen/Polydimethylsiloxane-coated fibers was used in combination with comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography-time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC× GC-TOFMS) because of the complexity of the samples. Acacia, linden, rapeseed, buckwheat...
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A new index for statistical analyses and prediction of travelling ionospheric disturbances
PublicationTravelling Ionospheric Disturbances (TIDs) are signatures of atmospheric gravity waves (AGWs) observed in changes in the electron density. The analysis of TIDs is relevant for studying coupling processes in the thermosphere–ionosphere system. A new TID index is introduced, which is based on an easy extension of the commonly used approach for TID detection. This TID activity index, which can be applied for individual Global Navigation...
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Application of mechanistic and data-driven models for nitrogen removal in wastewater treatment systems
PublicationIn this dissertation, the application of mechanistic and data-driven models in nitrogen removal systems including nitrification and deammonification processes was evaluated. In particular, the influential parameters on the activity of the Nitrospira activity were assessed using response surface methodology (RSM). Various long-term biomass washout experiments were operated in two parallel sequencing batch reactor (SBR) with a different...
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Computationally-Efficient Statistical Design and Yield Optimization of Resonator-Based Notch Filters Using Feature-Based Surrogates
PublicationModern microwave devices are designed to fulfill stringent requirements pertaining to electrical performance, which requires, among others, a meticulous tuning of their geometry parameters. When moving up in frequency, physical dimensions of passive microwave circuits become smaller, making the system performance increasingly susceptible to manufacturing tolerances. In particular, inherent inaccuracy of fabrication processes affect...
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A Parallel Corpus-Based Approach to the Crime Event Extraction for Low-Resource Languages
PublicationThese days, a lot of crime-related events take place all over the world. Most of them are reported in news portals and social media. Crime-related event extraction from the published texts can allow monitoring, analysis, and comparison of police or criminal activities in different countries or regions. Existing approaches to event extraction mainly suggest processing texts in English, French, Chinese, and some other resource-rich...
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Iron–Sulfur Cluster Biogenesis Chaperones: Evidence for Emergence of Mutational Robustness of a Highly Specific Protein–Protein Interaction
PublicationBiogenesis of iron–sulfur clusters (FeS) is a highly conserved process involving Hsp70 and J-protein chaperones. However, Hsp70 specialization differs among species. In most eukaryotes, including Schizosaccharomyces pombe, FeS biogenesis involves interaction between the J-protein Jac1 and the multifunctional Hsp70 Ssc1. But, in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and closely related species, Jac1 interacts with the specialized Hsp70 Ssq1,...
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Salt melt synthesis of curved nitrogen-doped carbon nanostructures: ORR kinetics boost
PublicationImplementing metal-free electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and revealing crucial chemical or topographical parameters driving their activity are vital for the development of power cells. The carbon-based catalysts are very often synthesized through carbonization of biopolymers, in particular, those one containing nitrogen groups such as chitosan. Unfortunately, the resulting carbonaceous materials usually...
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Microbial diversity of inflamed and noninflamed gut biopsy tissues in inflammatory bowel disease.
PublicationBACKGROUND: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic gastrointestinal condition without any known cause or cure. An imbalance in normal gut biota has been identified as an important factor in the inflammatory process. METHODS: Fifty-eight biopsies from Crohn's disease (CD, n = 10), ulcerative colitis (UC, n = 15), and healthy controls (n = 16) were taken from a population-based case-control study. Automated ribosomal intergenic...
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Evidence for consolidation of neuronal assemblies after seizures in humans
PublicationThe establishment of memories involves reactivation of waking neuronal activity patterns and strengthening of associated neural circuits during slow-wave sleep (SWS), a process known as "cellular consolidation" (Dudai and Morris, 2013). Reactivation of neural activity patterns during waking behaviors that occurs on a timescale of seconds to minutes is thought to constitute memory recall (O'Keefe and Nadel, 1978), whereas consolidation...
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Knowledge management approaches of small and medium-sized firms: a cluster analysis
PublicationPurpose This paper aims to categorise the approaches to knowledge management (KM) by companies. In the literature, there is no consensus on a universal or “best” approach to KM. Especially, this paper singles out and discusses the variegated features that characterise the implementation of KM by small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) having different characteristics. Design/methodology/approach A cluster analysis was used...