An anti-inflammatory diet is characterised by incorporating foods with potential anti-inflammatory properties, including fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, legumes, spices, herbs and plant-based protein. Concurrently, pro-inflammatory red and processed meat, refined carbohydrates and saturated fats are limited. This article explores the effects of an anti-inflammatory diet on non-communicable diseases (NCD), concentrating on the underlying mechanisms that connect systemic chronic inflammation, dietary choices and disease outcomes. Chronic inflammation is a pivotal contributor to the initiation and progression of NCD. This review provides an overview of the intricate pathways through which chronic inflammation influences the pathogenesis of conditions including obesity, type II diabetes mellitus, CVD, autoinflammatory diseases, cancer and cognitive disorders. Through a comprehensive synthesis of existing research, we aim to identify some bioactive compounds present in foods deemed anti-inflammatory, explore their capacity to modulate inflammatory pathways and, consequently, to prevent or manage NCD. The findings demonstrated herein contribute to an understanding of the interplay between nutrition, inflammation and chronic diseases, paving a way for future dietary recommendations and research regarding preventive or therapeutic strategies.

Upernavik Isstrøm, the largest contributor to sea-level rise in northwest Greenland, has experienced complex and contrasting ice-flow-speed changes across its five outlets over the last two decades. In this study, we present a detailed remote-sensing analysis of the ice dynamics at Upernavik's outlets from 2000 to 2021 to evaluate the details of these changes. Previous research suggested that the presence or absence of floating ice tongues strongly influences Upernavik's ice dynamics. We use several lines of evidence to document the presence of floating ice tongues, and find that, while several outlets experienced ice-tongue formation and/or loss during the study period, these changes do not explain observed fluctuations in ice-flow velocity. Further exploration of ice-dynamic forcings using a flowline model suggests that changes in basal slipperiness near the terminus have a strong impact on upstream ice dynamics and can explain the velocity variations. Our results suggest that speed fluctuations at Upernavik's outlets may be seasonally and interannually controlled by bed conditions near the terminus, and highlight the need for further research on the influence of basal conditions on complex tidewater glacier dynamics.

To stretch an argument means to make a political argument that is slightly (but not glaringly) invalid. I add to existing research, which focuses on the analysis of facts and stark binary views of validity by introducing the concept of argument-stretching, which identifies subtle violations of the validity of arguments. Using this conceptual foundation, I outline an impression-formation theory to explain the impact of argument-stretching on public opinion. I suggest that people spontaneously form negative impressions of stretched arguments, and that they add these impressions to a cumulative tally of satisfaction with the argument. Finally, people translate the negative effect of argument-stretching on their account satisfaction into reduced support for the politician who stretched the argument and the policy justified by it. I confirm the hypothesized direct effects of argument-stretching on policy support and politician support in three experimental studies, and I also find evidence for the mediating effect of account satisfaction.

The policy drivers for preventing system risks – risks that threaten vital parts of society – represent an as-yet understudied subject. A fundamental characteristic of an effective prevention policy for system risks is long-term investment. This article presents evidence that long-term investment in prevention follows a cyclical rather than a stable pattern, which implies large costs to the welfare of future generations. This cycle is usually triggered by a shock that shifts the set of preventive policies that are acceptable to or even demanded by society. After a rapid rise in preventive investment, however, attention often wanes, and the downturn of the prevention cycle sets in. While policy shocks from crises and disasters are commonly studied, their policy legacies rarely have been. This article offers a theoretical framework for this “prevention cycle”, demonstrates its applicability in understanding policy investment in several system risks and offers suggestions for its fundamental causes.

In engineering and architecture, different approaches have been developed that share the use of graph transformation to automate design processes or to search for design solutions by means of computational design synthesis. In order to give an overview of these approaches, we provide a review of articles published in the last decade. Forty-eight articles were reviewed to determine similarities and differences of these approaches. Research fields in method development for the representation of design problems and the processing of graph transformations, as well as the application of graph transformations in engineering, architecture, and shape grammars were identified. Different approaches for the documentation of the vocabulary and the rules were examined. Finally, different approaches for rule applications were analyzed. Based on found limitations, future research directions are suggested.

This paper contains a survey of recent empirical research on the relationship between public capital and private sector production. The implications of these empirical studies for policy debates over the appropriate level of public capital are also examined.

A conceptual model, based on field observations and assumed physics of a perennial firn aquifer near Helheim Glacier (southeast Greenland), is evaluated via steady-state 2-D simulation of liquid water flow and energy transport with phase change. The simulation approach allows natural representation of flow and energy advection and conduction that occur in vertical meltwater recharge through the unsaturated zone and in lateral flow within the saturated aquifer. Agreement between measured and simulated aquifer geometry, temperature, and recharge and discharge rates confirms that the conceptual field-data-based description of the aquifer is consistent with the primary physical processes of groundwater flow, energy transport and phase change. Factors that are found to control simulated aquifer configuration include surface temperature, meltwater recharge rate, residual total-water saturation and capillary fringe thickness. Simulation analyses indicate that the size of perennial firn aquifers depends primarily on recharge rates from surface snowmelt. Results also imply that the recent aquifer expansion, likely due to a warming climate, may eventually produce lakes on the ice-sheet surface that would affect the surface energy balance.

Background: There is growing body of evidence linking abnormal eye movements in people with multiple sclerosis (MS) to disease severity and cognition which could better detect disease progression. The objective of this study is to determine if a novel eye-tracking tool can accurately predict disease severity and cognitive status based on eye movement metrics and characterize how they evolve with progression. Methods: Persons with MS (n=132) will be followed over 4 years with clinical assessments every 6 months. Eye movements are also assessed while performing oculomotor tasks using Innodem Neurosciences’ patented eye-tracking technology. The eye movement metrics will be inputted into machine learning classifying algorithms to identify which metrics can serve as reliable Eye Movement Biomarkers (EMB) for MS progression and cognitive status. Results: There were 16 participants recruited as of January 2022 with mean age 47. 3 (SD 10.4; range 26-67), gender (12F/4M), EDSS 2.59 (SD 1.49; range 1.5-6.5), SDMT 51.4 (SD 14.1, range 24-78). With current enrollment, there is a negative correlation between EDSS and SDMT (r = -0.47) as observed in the literature. Conclusions: This trial will demonstrate the utility of EMBs for monitoring MS progression by improving physicians’ access to a reliable, non-invasive, sensitive and accessible marker of disease progression.

Standard portfolio choice models predict that investors consider the tax implications of trading. However, individuals are disposed toward realizing gains and holding losing investments, behaviors that worsen their performance. We show, in an experimental market, that increasing tax salience reduces the disposition effect between 22% and 47%, leading to higher portfolio balances without increasing total trading activity. Using field data, we find that investors’ disposition is sensitive to taxes around tax rate changes when taxes are likely salient. Our analysis demonstrates that increasing tax awareness can affect households’ portfolio choices, which suggests policy implications for improving financial decision-making.

Compression systems of modern, civil aircraft engines consist of three components: Fan, low-pressure compressor (LPC) and high-pressure compressor (HPC). The efficiency of each component has improved over the last decades by means of rising computational power which made high level aerodynamic optimisations possible. Each component has been addressed individually and separated from the effects of upstream and downstream components. But as much time and effort has been spend to improve performance of rotating components, the stationary inter-compressor duct (ICD) has only received minor attention. With the rotating compression components being highly optimised and sophisticated their performance potential is limited. That is why more aggressive, respectively shorter, ICDs get more and more into the focus of research and engine manufacturers. The length reduction offers high weight saving and thus fuel saving potential as a shorter ICD means a reduction in aircraft engine length. This paper aims at evaluating the impact of more aggressive duct geometries on LPC and HPC performance. A multi objective 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) aerodynamic optimisation is performed on a preliminary design of a novel two spool compressor rig incorporating four different operating line and two near-stall (NST) conditions which ensure operability throughout the whole compressor operating range. While the ICD is free to change in length, shape and cross-section area, the blades of LPC and HPC are adjusted for changing duct aerodynamics via profile re-staggering to keep number of free parameters low. With this parametrisation length, reductions for the ICD of up to 40% are feasible while keeping the reduction in isentropic efficiency at aerodynamic design point for the compressor below 1%pt. Three geometries of the Pareto front are analysed in detail focusing on ICD secondary flow behaviour and changes of aerodynamics in LPC and HPC. In order to asses changes in stall margin, speedlines for the three geometries are analysed.

According to a 2002 theorem by Cardaliaguet and Tahraoui, an isotropic, compact and connected subset of the group $\textrm {GL}^{\!+}(2)$ of invertible $2\times 2$ - - matrices is rank-one convex if and only if it is polyconvex. In a 2005 Journal of Convex Analysis article by Alexander Mielke, it has been conjectured that the equivalence of rank-one convexity and polyconvexity holds for isotropic functions on $\textrm {GL}^{\!+}(2)$ as well, provided their sublevel sets satisfy the corresponding requirements. We negatively answer this conjecture by giving an explicit example of a function $W\colon \textrm {GL}^{\!+}(2)\to \mathbb {R}$ which is not polyconvex, but rank-one convex as well as isotropic with compact and connected sublevel sets.