Social monitoring of the actions of group members is thought to be a key development associated with group living. Humans constantly monitor the behaviour of others and respond to them in a flexible way depending on past interactions and the current social context. While other primates have also been reported to change their behaviour towards other group members flexibly based on the current state

The tumour suppressor p53, encoded by TP53, is a key player in a wide network of signalling pathways. We investigated its role in the bioactivation of the environmental carcinogen 3-nitrobenzanthrone (3-NBA)found in diesel exhaust and its metabolites 3-aminobenzanthrone (3-ABA) and N-hydroxy-3-aminobenzanthrone (N-OH-3-ABA) in a panel of isogenic human colorectal HCT116 cells differing only with r

Phthalates are ubiquitous in indoor environments, which raises concern about their endocrine disrupting properties. However, studies of human uptake from airborne exposure are limited. We studied the inhalation uptake and dermal uptake by air-to-skin transfer with clean clothing as a barrier of two deuterium-labelled airborne phthalates: particle-phase D4-DEHP (di-(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate) and gas-

Crocodilians are among the most vocal non-avian reptiles. Adults of both sexes produce loud vocalizations known as ‘bellows’ year round, with the highest rate during the mating season. Although the specific function of these vocalizations remains unclear, they may advertise the caller's body size, because relative size differences strongly affect courtship and territorial behaviour in crocodilians

Human language involves combining items into meaningful, syntactically structured wholes. The evolutionary origin of syntactic abilities has been investigated by testing pattern perception capacities in nonhuman animals. New World primates can respond spontaneously to structural changes in acoustic sequences and songbirds can learn to discriminate between various patterns in operant tasks. However

Recent studies purported to demonstrate that chimpanzees, monkeys and corvids possess a basic Theory of Mind, the ability to attribute mental states like seeing to others. However, these studies remain controversial because they share a common confound: the conspecific’s line of gaze, which could serve as an associative cue. Here, we show that ravens Corvus corax take into account the visual acces

In many vertebrates, acoustic cues to body size are encoded in resonance frequencies of the vocal tract (“formants”), rather than in the rate of tissue vibration in the sound source (“pitch”). Anatomical constraints on the vocal tract’s size render formants honest cues to size in many bird and mammal species, but it is not clear whether this correlation evolved convergently in these two clades, or

Writing over a century ago, Darwin hypothesized that vocal expression of emotion dates back to our earliest terrestrial ancestors. If this hypothesis is true, we should expect to find cross-species acoustic universals in emotional vocalizations. Studies suggest that acoustic attributes of aroused vocalizations are shared across many mammalian species, and that humans can use these attributes to in

The spontaneous crafting of hook-tools from bendable material to lift a basket out of a vertical tube in corvids has widely been used as one of the prime examples of animal tool innovation. However, it was recently suggested that the animals' solution was hardly innovative but strongly influenced by predispositions from habitual tool use and nest building. We tested Goffin's cockatoo, which is nei

Head turning experiments are widely used to test the cognition of both human infants and non-human animal species. Monitoring head turns allows researchers to non-invasively assess attention to acoustic or visual stimuli. In the majority of head turning experiments, the head direction analyses have been accomplished manually, which is extremely labor intensive and can be affected by subjectivity o

Documentation and emotions. Balancing paper work and emotional work in the social services This article deals with documentation and documentation requirements in relation to social workers’ prerequisites to perform ”emotional labour”. Inspired by Arlie Hochschild’s sociology of emotions and the selected concepts emotional labour, feeling management and ”the speed-up”, the study aims at illuminati

The Bit Flipping algorithm is a hard decision decoding algorithm originally designed by Gallager in 1962 to decode Low Density Parity Check Codes (LDPC). It has recently proved to be much more versatile, for Moderate Parity Check Codes (MDPC) or Euclidean metric. We further demonstrate its power by proposing a noisy Euclidean version of it. This tweak allows to construct a lattice based key exchan

Investigating how international market actors create market morality on a global level, this book reflects on the unresolved questions and debates regarding the relationship between business and society. The author explores how market actors in international business communication are unified in their attempts to make markets moralised. Providing detailed case studies and empirical evidence based

We look at the link between the volatility in the Bitcoin market and the volatility in other related traditional markets, i.e. the gold, currency and stock market. We also try to answer if the volatility in the Bitcoin market can be explained by retail investor-driven internet search volumes or, perhaps, by the general level of risk in the financial system, as measured by two market-wide risk indi

Every year thousands of refugees are resettled to dozens of host countries. While there is growing evidence that the initial placement of refugee families profoundly affects their lifetime outcomes, there have been few attempts to optimize resettlement destinations. We integrate machine learning and integer optimization technologies into an innovative software tool that assists a resettlement agen

European emission legislation has in recent years put a strict limit on NOx emissionsfrom heavy-duty truck engines. EGR and selective catalytic reduction are the two mostcommon technologies applied in a modern heavy-duty diesel engine to fulfill the legislation.The scope of this thesis is to explore other ways of reducing NOx emissions emittedby a heavy-duty engine. Several technology options are