Rolv Petter Amdam, Teresa da Silva Lopes, Trudi Henrydotter Eikrem
et al.
Abstract This article examines the 1921–1923 trade war between Norway and Portugal as a historical case for exploring business responses to deglobalization and trade disruption. Focusing on the international supply chains (ISCs) of port wine and salted and dried cod, it investigates how business actors contributed to the recoupling of ISCs after a trade war. Drawing on a history‐to‐theory methodology and extensive archival research, the study offers new theoretical insights into how institutional environments shape business agency during periods of deglobalization. It develops a typology of trade wars structured around two dimensions: the degree of coordination within ISCs and the economic reach of the conflict. The findings demonstrate that, in processes of symmetric recoupling , where both nations restore disrupted supply chains on equal terms, business associations as well as multinational enterprises (MNEs) play a pivotal role in business diplomacy and supply‐chain reconstruction. The symmetric nature of the post‐trade war recoupling fosters mutual recovery and enhances long‐term competitiveness for the industries involved. The typology proposed also provides a framework for analysing other historical and contemporary trade wars across diverse geopolitical settings.
Abstract Background The expanding global use of assisted reproductive technology (ART) warrants rigorous evidence synthesis. This umbrella review (UR) evaluated the strength and validity of evidence on ART effects on reproductive, perinatal, and maternal outcomes. Methods We searched five databases and reference lists (Inception to 15 June 2025) to identify systematic reviews with meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials (RCTs). For each extracted association, we performed a reanalysis using random-effects models, calculated the 95% prediction interval, heterogeneity, small-study effect, and evaluated excess significance bias. The quality of systematic reviews was evaluated using A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR). The certainty of evidence was assessed using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluations (GRADE) system, and the strength of evidence was also evaluated on a grading scale. This study is registered with PROSPERO (CRD42024563290). Results The UR included 23 meta-analyses (200 associations from 109 RCTs), with 69.6% rated high quality. Regarding reproductive outcomes, high credibility of evidence showed that frozen embryo transfer (ET), compared with fresh ET, was associated with a reduced risk of ectopic pregnancy. Sequential ET significantly improved ongoing pregnancy rates relative to single blastocyst or cleavage-stage ET. Single ET, compared with double ET, reduced multiple births, but decreased live birth rate. Regarding perinatal and maternal outcomes, high-credibility evidence indicated that frozen ET, compared with fresh ET, was associated with increased birth weight of singletons, and a higher rate of large for gestational age infants and miscarriage, but a lower rate of small for gestational age infants in cumulative measures and ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. While frozen ET significantly reduced the risk of preterm delivery, it paradoxically increased the rate of neonatal hospitalization. Conclusions This UR delineates trade-offs between ART and reproductive, perinatal, and maternal outcomes. Clinical decisions should balance effectiveness against potential risks, with future research focusing on personalized treatment strategies.
The widespread adoption of small unmanned aerial vehicles poses increasing challenges to public safety. Compared with visible-light sensors, infrared imaging offers excellent nighttime observation capabilities and strong robustness against interference, enabling all-weather UAV surveillance. However, detecting small UAVs in infrared imagery remains challenging due to low target contrast and weak texture features. To address these challenges, we propose IUAV-YOLO, a context-aware detection framework built upon YOLOv10. Specifically, inspired by the receptive field mechanism in human vision, the backbone network is re-designed with a multi-branch structure to improve sensitivity to small targets. Additionally, a Pyramid Global Attention Module is incorporated to strengthen target–background associations, while a Spatial Context-Aware Module is developed to integrate spatial contextual cues and enhance target-background discrimination. Extensive experiments demonstrate that, compared with the baseline model, IUAV-YOLO achieves performance gains of 4.3% in AP0.5 and 2.6% in AP0.5–0.95 on the self-built IRSUAV dataset, with a reduction of 0.7M parameters. On the public SIRST-UAVB dataset, IUAV-YOLO attains improvements of 29.7% in AP0.5 and 16.3% in AP0.5–0.95. Compared with other advanced object detection algorithms, IUAV-YOLO demonstrates a superior accuracy-efficiency trade-off, highlighting its potential for practical infrared UAV surveillance applications.
Chantelle Rizan , Frances Mortimer, Rachel Stancliffe and Mahmood F Bhutta Department of ENT, Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, Brighton BN2 5BE, UK Centre for Sustainable Healthcare, Oxford OX2 7JQ, UK Royal College of Surgeons of England, London WC2A 3PE, UK BMA Medical Fair and Ethical Trade Group, British Medical Association, London WC1H 9JP, UK Corresponding author: Chantelle Rizan. Email: chantelle.rizan@sustainablehealthcare.org.uk
Anamarija Butkovic, Thomas James Ellis, Ruben Gonzalez
et al.
Plant viruses account for enormous agricultural losses worldwide, and the most effective way to combat them is to identify genetic material conferring plant resistance to these pathogens. Aiming to identify genetic associations with responses to infection, we screened a large panel of Arabidopsis thaliana natural inbred lines for four disease-related traits caused by infection by A. thaliana-naïve and -adapted isolates of the natural pathogen turnip mosaic virus (TuMV). We detected a strong, replicable association in a 1.5 Mb region on chromosome 2 with a 10-fold increase in relative risk of systemic necrosis. The region contains several plausible causal genes as well as abundant structural variation, including an insertion of a Copia transposon into a Toll/interleukin receptor (TIR-NBS-LRR) coding for a gene involved in defense, that could be either a driver or a consequence of the disease-resistance locus. When inoculated with TuMV, loss-of-function mutant plants of this gene exhibited different symptoms than wild-type plants. The direction and severity of symptom differences depended on the adaptation history of the virus. This increase in symptom severity was specific for infections with the adapted isolate. Necrosis-associated alleles are found worldwide, and their distribution is consistent with a trade-off between resistance during viral outbreaks and a cost of resistance otherwise, leading to negative frequency-dependent selection.
Biodiversity is widely recognized as a crucial factor in driving ecosystem functioning. However, the processes that sustain forest ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF) through plant and soil microbial diversity are not yet fully understood. Here, we assessed eight ecosystem functions in a mixed temperate forest using averaging and weighted threshold methods to examine the associations between EMF and diversity across environmental gradients. The findings indicated that structural attributes serve as the optimal predictor of EMF. Both complementarity and selection effects had minor impacts on EMF, while the jack-of-all-trades effect drove the relationship between plant diversity and EMF. EMF was positively correlated with soil fungal diversity but negatively correlated with soil bacterial diversity. Soil microbial diversity influenced forest EMF by regulating the trade-offs between different functions. Additionally, we noted that forests situated on steep slopes may experience limitations in terms of multifunctionality, while nutrient-rich soils had a facilitative effect. This study underscores the significance of taking into account both aboveground and belowground diversity to improve forest functions. Within a certain range, more complex and diverse stand structures are effective strategies for sustainable forest management.
The article is devoted to vital issues of performing the initial financial monitoring by specially assigned entities of initial financial monitoring. It contains a review of the requirements fixed in the Decree of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine No. 465 “Approval of Criteria for Risk Legalization (Laundering) of Incomes Earned by Criminal Ways, Financing of Terrorism and Financing of Proliferation of Mass Destruction Weapons”. Apart from auditing firms, this Decree is binding for many other entities: professional agents of capital markets and organized commodity markets; suppliers of services related with circulation of virtual assets; lawyer’s offices, lawyer’s associations, lawyers performing activities on individual basis; notaries; business entities rendering legal services, services on asset management, accounting and consulting services on taxation issues, intermediary services on realty transactions, as well as ones engaged in cash trade of precious metals and precious stones and products made thereof, cultural treasures and/or rendering intermediary services in such activities; entities running a lottery and/or gambling. But the auditing activities differ from the ones listed above by its specifics. That is the reason why auditing firms need to develop their own intrafirm techniques on determining risk criteria and assessing risks in financial monitoring. It was found that an auditing firm was obliged to ensure identification, revaluation and updating of such risks at two levels: auditing firm (assessment of own risk profile) and client (assessment of client risk profile). The auditing firm management uses the principle of scaling: for a firm with a more sophisticated structure or a large number of clients, a formalized procedure for risk assessment may exist, involving several persons and assessing a larger number of activities, which may entail the occurrence of a larger number of risks. It was revealed that the estimate of risk profile for an auditing form, apart from the character and scale, is conditioned on the specifics of its clients’ activities, their geographic location and the location of the firm itself, banks with which the firm cooperates, methods of providing auditing services, such as distance ones, the availability of resource suppliers for carrying out auditor engagements. Based on normative instructions, an internal document for an auditing firm, “Risk Profile Assessment”, was developed, containing risk criteria and their assessment, information sources and conclusions on risk acceptance. The assessment needs to be performed by twelve systematized criteria in scores and involves four levels of risk: (i) low; (ii) medium; (iii) high; (iv) unacceptably high. A person performing the assessment needs to formulate and substantiate the conclusion about acceptability of risks by showing his/her irreconcilable stance to a possibility of legalization (laundering) of incomes earned by illicit ways, financing of terrorism or financing of the proliferation of mass destruction weapons. The proposed practical recommendations allow auditing firms to comply with the requirements of the law pertaining to financing monitoring, to submit, in due time, the information requested by the regulator, which is the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine, and to fix violations as soon as possible.
Despite the wealth of scholarly research on the French Resistance, there are many aspects that remain in the shadows or ‘penumbra’ surrounding the more brightly-lit central organisations. Focusing on the resources and connections of French trade unionists in London exile — usually peripheral to accounts of wartime trade unionism — this critical reflection explores the potential of the MRC’s collections to open up new research perspectives and possibilities. It foregrounds two key themes meriting further exploration: transnational encounters and popular propaganda. It first examines how French delegates of the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) worked not only with their counterparts in occupied France but equally with members of British trade unions and the Labour Party in a complex network of relationships between individuals and associations. Second, it uses a close analysis of some of the resistance flyers received — and sometimes translated and disseminated — by the CGT in London to highlight visual and rhetorical strategies of resistance in popular propaganda. Cumulatively, these case studies invite a wider reflection on how resistance should be defined, and on its spaces, strategies, and balances of power.
Chunling Li, Javed Ahmed Memon, Tiep Le Thanh
et al.
This novel research looked into the role of public-private partnership investment in energy in affecting Pakistan’s long-term environmental sustainability. Employing time series data from 1992 to 2018 and utilizing the autoregressive distributive lag model (ARDL) model, we found a long-term equilibrium association of ecological footprint with public-private partnership investment in energy, technological innovation, economic growth, and trade openness. Our outcomes showed a significant positive association between public-private partnership investment in energy and ecological footprint in the long-run and the short-run, specifying that the increase in public-private partnership investment in energy affects the environmental sustainability of Pakistan. Similarly, our study confirmed that technological innovation, economic growth, and trade openness increase the ecological footprint in Pakistan. It demonstrates that these factors are unfavorable to the sustainable environment in Pakistan. Furthermore, robustness check findings are analogous to the results of ARDL estimates, utilizing dynamic ordinary least squares and fully modified ordinary least squares. On the basis of the research conclusions, a multi-pronged sustainable development goal (SDG) model was proposed that addresses SDG 8 and SDG 13 while incorporating SDG 17 as a medium.
AbstractOnline gambling emerged in the 1990s in the midst of a process of market liberalisation. Here, scholars have argued that the gambling industry actively seeks state regulation to authorise and legitimate its activities. Why then, since the emergence of the online gambling industry, have trade associations continually sought to develop responsible gambling codes of conduct? In this paper, I address this puzzle by documenting and tracing the development and deployment of responsible gambling codes of conduct by trade associations from the emergence of the online gambling industry in the early 1990s and through processes of increased market liberalisation at the national level and market integration at the European Union level. I argue that online gambling trade associations deploy responsible gambling codes of conduct at particular moments of opportunity to shape their members’ external legal and regulatory environment and to reproduce and embed a particular understanding of how gambling-related risks should be regulated.
Purpose – This paper aims that digital transformation (DT) is crucial for companies to stay competitive. While research on DT has quickly gained great popularity, the intersection of trade associations (TAs) and their role in the DT of their members is not yet researched. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper, the authors conducted 20 interviews with Belgian TAs to investigate the role of a TAs in the DT of its members, and how they drive the DT of its members. In addition, the authors investigate the core tasks of TAs, the need of the different industries to digitalize, and the digital projects the different industries are working on. Findings – The findings indicate that TAs can be in a prime position to steer the DT of their members, especially for industries comprised of smaller players. Their roles can range from informing roles to true leaders of DT by creating novel products, such as online platforms and driving the entire sector forwards. Research limitations/implications – These findings call for more research into TAs and how their role can be optimized for steering DT of their members. Originality/value – This is the first study to extensively study the role of TAs on the DT of their members.
This paper aims to study how geopolitical shifts affect regional economies and their structures. Border functions and regimes act as tools for the economy and society to adapt to the redistribution of political influence, movements of people, goods, capital and information between integration associations, individual countries and their cores. A changed environment may slow down the development of some industries (and even cause them to decline) and give a boost to others, with these two processes constituting economic restructuring. In the exclave of Kaliningrad, heavily dependent on international trade and transit trade with mainland Russia, geopolitical changes have naturally had an exceptionally strong effect. The relationship between border functions and economic restructuring was investigated over four periods. The study utilised data from Rosstat and the Federal Customs Service, departmental statistics and findings from expert interviews conducted by the authors. The extent and direction of changes are assessed by examining the ratios between major economic sectors, the structure of foreign trade relations, and the volume and sectoral distribution of investments. Four main ways are identified in which the sharp increase in the barrier nature of the borders between the Kaliningrad region and neighbouring countries since 2014 and especially February 2022 has influenced the region’s economy. The significance and effectiveness of the agro-industrial complex have risen, with an increased focus on domestic tourism, and the adoption of advanced public administration practices in collaboration with businesses. This includes implementing mechanisms such as Free Economic Zones and industrial parks, along with a shift towards proactive measures to adapt to the changing environment.
Favorable interspecies associations prevail in natural microbial assemblages. Some of these favorable associations are co-metabolic dependent partnerships in which extracellular electrons are exchanged between species. For such electron exchange to occur, the cells must exhibit electroactive interfaces and get involved in direct cell-to-cell contact (Direct Interspecies Electron Transfer/DIET) or use available conductive mineral grains from their environment (Conductive-particle-mediated Interspecies Electron Transfer/CIET). This review will highlight recent discoveries and knowledge gaps regarding DIET and CIET interspecies associations in artificial co-cultures and consortia from natural and man-made environments and emphasize approaches to validate DIET and CIET. Additionally, we acknowledge the initiation of a movement towards applying electric syntrophies in biotechnology, bioremediation and geoengineering for natural attenuation of toxic compounds. Next, we have highlighted the urgent research needs that must be met to develop such technologies.
Abdul Rehman, Mohammad Mahtab Alam, Magdalena Radulescu
et al.
The present study explores the impact of renewable energy usage, economic progress, urbanization, and trade on carbon emissions in Bhutan. The stationarity among the variables was tested by employing the two unit root tests by taking the annual data series variables from 1982–2020. A symmetric (ARDL) technique was utilized to analyze the associations among variables with short- and long-run estimations. In addition, the cointegration regression method using FMOLS and DOLS was used in this investigation to discover the robustness of the study variables. Findings showed that via long-run assessment the variables renewable energy consumption, urbanization, and trade have adverse connections with CO<sub>2</sub> emission, while the variable economic progress shows a constructive linkage with carbon emission. However, the short-run assessment showed that the variable economic growth has a positive impact on carbon emissions. Further, the variables renewable energy consumption, urbanization, and trade have an adverse relation to carbon emissions in Bhutan. The consequences of both FMOLS and DOLS also mean that the variable renewable energy usage, urbanization, and trade have an adverse influence on carbon emission, while economic growth has a constructive linkage with CO<sub>2</sub> emission. Greenhouse gas emissions are undeniably an increasing global issue. This problem can only be handled by prudent legislation and funding. Despite having fewer greenhouse gas emissions than industrialized economies, Bhutan’s government needs to develop new rules to address this issue in order to ensure environmental sustainability and economic growth.