OBJECTIVE: COMP primarily found in cartilage is thought to be an important regulator of assembly and maintenance of the fibrillar collagen I and II networks. Recently COMP was shown to be produced by skin fibroblasts from patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc, scleroderma). The purpose of this study was to examine whether COMP is released from skin to serum in SSc patients, and may serve as indica

Background: Old age at diagnosis is associated with poor survival in colorectal cancer (CRC) for unknown reasons. Recent data show that colonoscopy is efficient in preventing left-sided cancers only. We examine the association of Tumor Node Metastasis (TNM) classes with diagnostic age and patient characteristics. Methods: The Swedish Family-Cancer Database has data on TNM classes on 6,105 CRC aden

Time-resolved terahertz spectroscopy is used to investigate photoinduced dynamics of charge carriers in a polymer heterojunction. We directly observe instantaneous generation of highly mobile charge carriers followed by a rapid drop in their mobility. (C) 2008 Optical Society of America

A generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT) statistic is proposed for detection of heart rate turbulence (HRT), where a set of Karhunen-Loeve basis functions models HRT. The detector structure is based on the extended integral pulse frequency modulation model that accounts for the presence of ectopic beats and HRT. This new test statistic takes a priori information regarding HRT shape into account,

The potential effects of oral contraceptive (OC) and postmenopausal hormone (PMH) use are not well understood among BRCA1 or BRCA2 (BRCA1/2) deleterious mutation carriers with a history of breast cancer. We investigated the association between OC and PMH use and risk of contralateral breast cancer (CBC) in the WECARE (Women's Environment, Cancer, and Radiation Epidemiology) Study. The WECARE Study

A search for top quark pair resonances in final states containing at least one electron or muon has been performed with the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The search uses a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.05 fb(-1), which was recorded in 2011 at a proton-proton centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. No evidence for a resonance is found and limits are set on

Determining requirements process efficiency, and measuring the corresponding monetary impacts, is a challenging but necessary aspect of project management. In this paper, we perform an independent analysis of scoping decisions from a large industrial project with the goal of providing visualizations that facilitate investigations of process efficiency, agility, and the effects of scoping decisions

Background Numerous subsets of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia display similar immunoglobulin gene usage with almost identical complementarity determining region 3 sequences. Among IGHV4-34 cases, two such subsets with "stereotyped" B-cell receptors were recently identified, i.e. subset #4 (IGHV4-34/IGKV2-30) and subset #16 (IGHV4-34/IGKV3-20). Subset #4 patients appear to share biologi

Background: Some improvement has been seen in survival after cardiac arrest but the outcome is still poor and 50-70% of patients do not survive despite successful return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC). The cause of death is multifactorial. The majority of patients die from brain injury, but up to 35% die as a result of circulatory failure. Purpose: First, to investigate the release profiles

This paper analyzes and solves an integral and its indefinite Fourier transform of importance in multiple scattering problems of randomly distributed scatterers. The integrand contains a radiating spherical wave, and the two-dimensional domain of integration excludes a circular region of varying size. A solution of the integral in terms of radiating spherical waves is demonstrated. The method empl

Objectives - To explore the longitudinal stability of measures of cognition during treatment with acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (AchEI) in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Materials and methods -Cognitive status was measured in a cohort of 60 patients at 6 months after initiation of treatment with AchEI (baseline) and after an additional 6 months of treatment (endpoint). A Quick Test of C

The performance of 2.7 mu m superficially porous particles at 600 bar and sub-2 mu m fully porous particles at 1000 bar were compared by the Poppe plot method. Theoretical Poppe plots were first constructed for each stationary phase to compare their kinetic performance at different analysis times. The theory was then verified by experiments under the optimized conditions identified from the Poppe

Denna rapport är resultatet av en litteraturstudie där olika faktorers påverkan på gåendet och cyklandet i en urban kontext har undersökts. Utifrån det studerade materialet har faktorerna delats in i grupperna individuella, externa samt resspecifika faktorer. Beslutsprocessen för genomförande av gång- och cykelresor har delats in i faserna resbeslut, färdmedelsval och vägval. De studerade publikat

This paper explores how vehicle speeds are related to equitable, environmental, and economic sustainability of urban areas. This relationship is manifested primarily through associations between vehicle speeds and road crash casualties, severity of pedestrian crashes, generation of harmful emissions, and relative desirability of neighboring land. Reported research findings describing these associa

To efficiently provide an animal with relevant information, the design of its visual system should reflect the distribution of natural signals and the animal’s tasks. In many behavioural contexts, however, we know comparatively little about the moment-to-moment information-processing challenges animals face in their daily lives. In predator avoidance, for instance, we lack an accurate description