Background: Timely and safe elective health care facilitates return to normal activities for patients and prevents emergency admissions. Surgery is a cornerstone of elective care and relies on complex pathways. This study aimed to take a whole-system approach to evaluating access to and quality of elective health care globally, using inguinal hernia as a tracer condition. Methods: This was a prosp

Nanoscale structural and electronic heterogeneities are prevalent in condensed matter physics. Investigating these heterogeneities in 3D has become an important task for understanding material properties. To provide a tool to unravel the connection between nanoscale heterogeneity and macroscopic emergent properties in magnetic materials, scanning transmission X-ray microscopy (STXM) is combined wi

Inbreeding depression is assumed to be a central factor contributing to the stability of plant mating systems. Predicting the fitness consequence of inbreeding in natural populations is complicated, however, because it may be affected by the mating histories of populations generating variation in the amount of purging of deleterious alleles. Furthermore, the level of inbreeding depression may depe

Euglossine bees (Apidae: Euglossini) have long been hypothesized to act as long-distance pollinators of many low-density tropical plants. We tested this hypothesis by the analysis of gene flow and genetic structure within and among populations of the euglossine bee-pollinated vine Dalechampia scandens. Using microsatellite markers, we assessed historical gene flow by the quantification of regional

In the context of biomedical researchinvolving human subjects, the reviewof research proposals by ethics committeesin virtually every country hastraditionally focused on informed consentand other protections for individualsparticipating in research (1). However,the substantial societal implications ofmodern biomedical research and the globalizationof scientific inquiry make it importantto understa

Magnesium (Mg) is a metal having a high structural efficiency and a very high chemical reactivity at the same time. Its potential areas of applications include the automotive industry, biomedicine, and energy storage and generation. Further developments in these very diverse application areas require a more detailed investigation of the behavior of Mg surfaces under oxidative conditions. The basic

Accurate estimates of trait evolvabilities are central to predicting the short-term evolutionary potential of populations, and hence their ability to adapt to changing environments. We quantify and evaluate the evolvability of herkogamy, the spatial separation of male and female structures in flowers, a key floral trait associated with variation in mating systems. We compiled genetic-variance esti

Background and Aims To predict the evolutionary consequences of pollinator declines, we need to understand the evolution of delayed autonomous self-pollination, which is expected to evolve as a mechanism of reproductive assurance when cross-pollination becomes unreliable. This involves estimating the costs of increased levels of selfing as well as those associated with floral senescence. Methods W

Background: Small-scale topographic complexity is a characteristic feature of alpine landscapes, with important effects on alpine plant distribution. Aims: We investigated the links between small-scale topographic complexity and resultant microclimatic heterogeneity, vascular-plant species richness and beta diversity, and realised niche width and trait variation of some target species. Methods: We

The reproductive-assurance hypothesis predicts that mating-system traits will evolve towards increased autonomous self-pollination in plant populations experiencing unreliable pollinator service. We tested this long-standing hypothesis by assessing geographic covariation among pollinator reliability, outcrossing rates, heterozygosity and relevant floral traits across populations of Dalechampia sca

PREMISE OF THE STUDY: Competition among pollen grains from a single donor is expected to increase the quality of the offspring produced because of the recessive deleterious alleles expressed during pollen-tube growth. However, evidence for such an effect is inconclusive; a large number of studies suffer from confounding variation in pollen competition with variation in pollen load. METHODS: In thi

Premise of research. Selfing rates in mixed-mating plant species are often found to fluctuate greatly across time and space. Environmentally induced changes in floral traits may mediate changes in selfing rates through several mechanisms, including direct effects via changes in traits influencing autofertility rates and indirect effects via changes in traits affecting the rate of pollinator visita

This article investigates the impact of climate policies on electoral support for governing parties in Sweden through mixed methods combining a sentiment analysis of news articles and regression discontinuities of voter support over time. The regression discontinuity models indicate that the effects of climate policies on government support are not robust and are spurious across different model sp

Precision medicine should aspire to reduce error and improve accuracy in medical and health recommendations by comparison with contemporary practice, while maintaining safety and cost-effectiveness. The etiology, clinical manifestation and prognosis of diseases such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, kidney disease and fatty liver disease are heterogeneous. Without standardized reportin

BackgroundStudies have shown that the risk of new-onset heart failure (HF) is higher post-implant for patients receiving right ventricular pacing.ObjectiveThis study aimed to investigate incidence, risk factors and implications for long-term prognosis of new-onset HF in patients after pacemaker-implant.MethodsPatients without preexisting HF who received a pacemaker in Sweden during the period 2005

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