Osteonecrosis of the femoral head often results in secondary osteoarthritis of the hip joint; however, the pathologic processes underlying the destruction of articular cartilage are not fully understood. Molecular markers in the hip joint fluids were measured to examine the changes in turnover of cartilage and other joint tissues. Marker data were related to clinical, radiological, and histopathol

We have carried out a prospective, longitudinal 30-year review of 95 adolescents who underwent total meniscectomy in one knee, and have compared the results with those observed 13 years earlier. All the medical records were scrutinized. Of the 63 patients reviewed clinically, 47 reported decreased sporting activity, although subjective satisfaction rose by 3% to 71%. The scores on the WOMAC ostcoa

Objective. To assess, in a population-wide study in Iceland, the genetic contribution to hip osteoarthritis (OA) leading to total hip replacement (THR). Methods. Information from 2 population-based databases in Iceland was combined: a national registry of all THRs performed between 1972 and 1996, and a genealogy database of all available Icelandic genealogy records for the last 11 centuries. A gen

To our knowledge, this is the first prospective study using validated questionnaires to assess patient-relevant outcomes after arthroscopic partial meniscectomy. Data from the Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS), the SF-36 Medical Outcomes Study Short-Form Health Survey, and the Lysholm Knee Scoring Scale were available for 74 consecutive patients (50 males, 24 females; mean age, 4

Objective: To validate the WOMAC Osteoarthritis Index for use in Sweden. Methods: Test-retest reliability, internal consistency, validity, and responsiveness was determined in 52 patients (mean age 48 (20-69)) with arthroscopically assessed cartilage damage of the tibio-femoral knee joint. Results: All WOMAC scales were internally consistent with Cronbach's alpha coefficients of 0.83, 0.87, and 0.

Objective. To determine the concentrations of aggrecan fragments in synovial fluid from patients with knee joint injury, osteoarthritis (OA), or acute pyrophosphate arthritis (PPA; pseudogout), and to test their relative reactivity with the 846 epitope, a putative marker of cartilage aggrecan synthesis. Methods. Samples of knee joint fluid from 385 patients and 9 healthy-knee volunteers were obtai

Sustainability and the Political Economy of Welfare raises the issue of what is required to make welfare societies ecologically sustainable. Consisting of three parts, this book regards the current financial, economic and political crisis in welfare state institutions and addresses methodological, theoretical and wider conceptual issues in integrating sustainability. Furthermore, this text is conc

Rapid and powerful host defense mechanisms are essential in order to overcome harmful actions of pathogenic bacteria. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) and proteins are vital effector molecules of the fast-acting innate immune system and exist virtually in all living organisms. They exert a broad spectrum of natural antibiotic activity, but also play important immunomodulatory functions in the host. D

Rapport från ett seminarium sept. 2014 i Manama i Zimbabwe, om diakonens identitet i Lutherska kyrkan i Zimbabwe och i Sverige, två år efter den första vigningen (ordinationen) av diakoner i Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zombabwe.Report from a seminar i Manama in Zimbabwe September 2014: "The Identity of the Deacon in Zimbabwe and Sweden", two years after the first ordination of deacons in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe (ELCZ).

Iran is a large country in the Middle East, which is an extremely arid region. Like its neighbors, severe droughts and population growth have intensified Iran’s water shortage problems in the past two decades. Furthermore, climate change has the potential to impose additional economic and social pressure on it and all Middle Eastern countries. Thus, how future climate change will interact with soc

Software engineering considers performance evaluation to be one of the key portions of software quality assurance. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lack of standard methodologies for performance evaluation even in the scope of experimental computer science. Inspired by the concept of “instantiation” in object-oriented programming, we distinguish the generic performance evaluation logic from the

The spot pricing scheme has been considered to be resource-efficient for providers and cost-effective for consumers in the Cloud market. Nevertheless, unlike the static and straightforward strategies of trading on-demand and reserved Cloud services, the market-driven mechanism for trading spot service would be complicated for both implementation and understanding. The largely invisible market acti

Det är just avsaknaden av ett gemensamt europeiskt asylsystem som vållat de problem vi såg under föregående år, skriver doktoranden Jerker Karlsson i en replik.

In this article, the author compares equity and credit investors' opinions on price formation in the equity market. More exactly, he inverts the CreditGrades model in order to back out credit-implied stock prices and stock return volatilities from credit default swap spreads for companies in the DJIA index. The credit-implied stock prices often deviate significantly from actual stock prices over t