Chinese hybrid rice of different varieties, growing in paddies in the Pingqiao district, north of Xinyang city, Henan province, China, was studied in detailed spectroscopic characteristics using laser-induced fluorescence. The base for the studies was the new South China Normal University mobile lidar laboratory, which was dispatched on site, providing facilities both for laboratory studies using

Cloud computing infrastructures are powering most of the web hosting services that we use at all times. A recent failure in the Amazon cloud infrastructure made many of the website that we use on a hourly basis unavailable1. This illustrates the importance of cloud applications being able to absorb peaks in workload, and at the same time to tune their power requirements to the power and energy cap

Objectives Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic autoimmune condition with heterogeneous presentation and complex aetiology where DNA methylation changes are emerging as a contributing factor. In order to discover novel epigenetic associations and investigate their relationship to genetic risk for SLE, we analysed DNA methylation profiles in a large collection of patients with SLE and he

In this paper we consider L1 optimal and H-infinity optimal control problems for a particular class of Positive Bilinear Systems that arise in drug dosage design for HIV treatment. Starting from existent characterizations of the L1-norm for positive systems, a convex formulation for the first problem is provided. As for the H-infinity case, we propose an algorithm based on the iterative solution o

It is commonly assumed that sex chromosomes evolve recombination suppression because selection favours linkage between sex-determining and sexually antagonistic genes. However, although the role of sexual antagonism during sex chromosome evolution has attained strong support from theory, experimental and observational evidence is rare or equivocal. Here, we highlight alternative, often neglected,

We show here that increased S100A8 and S100A9 protein expression is induced in spleen of animals with active inflammation or with inoculated tumors. In tumor bearing animals an increased expression was also detected in the lung. To further analyze the induced proteins, we performed chemical cross-linking followed by Western blotting. We observed in protein extracts from spleen that both S100A8/S10

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is a type of diabetes which is first recognised during pregnancy. In the county of Skåne in Southern Sweden, over 2% of all pregnancies are complicated by GDM, a number that is generally several times higher worldwide. Women with GDM during pregnancy are at risk of developing GDM anew in subsequent pregnancies, but also have an increased risk of developing postp

A major goal in evolutionary biology is to understand the genetic basis of adaptive traits. In migratory birds, wing morphology is such a trait. Our previous work on the great reed warbler (Acrocephalus arundinaceus) shows that wing length is highly heritable and under sexually antagonistic selection. Moreover, a quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping analysis detected a pronounced QTL for wing le

Autoimmune diseases, such as psoriasis and arthritis, show a patchy distribution of inflammation despite systemic dysregulation of adaptive immunity. Thus, additional tissue-derived signals, such as danger-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs), are indispensable for manifestation of local inflammation. S100A8/S100A9 complexes are the most abundant DAMPs in many autoimmune diseases. However, regula

Objective: In patients presenting with acute type-A aortic dissection (aTAAD), lactic acid measurement is a frequently used analysis for diagnosis of acute ischemia, which may have a dismal prognosis. The aim of the current study was to determine the performance of perioperative arterial lactic acid measurements in predicting outcome in aTAAD patients. Design: Retrospective, observational study. S

Lately, different wearable form factors have reached the consumer domain. Wearables enable at-a-glance access to information and can continually sense the surrounding environment. Internet of Things (IoT) researchers have focused on the main enabling factors: The integration of several technologies and communication solutions. Less effort has been devoted to exploring how not-so-tech-savvy end use

Background: Environmental lead exposure has been associated with decreased kidney function, but evidence from large prospective cohort studies examining low exposure levels is scarce. We assessed the association of low levels of lead exposure with kidney function and kidney disease. Study Design: Prospective population-based cohort. Setting & Participants: 4,341 individuals aged 46 to 67 years

The behavioural lateralisation of a species is thought to be influenced by social organisation. However, recent studies of insect species with different social structures suggest that traits showing both population-level and individual-level lateralisation can be found in single species. This has broad implications for our understanding of how lateralisation and handedness evolves.

Urban living labs (ULLs) offer opportunities to foster sustainability in cities. They are sites to design, test and learn from innovation in real time. A key element in the operation and success of ULLs is user involvement. Users are often viewed as co-creators who shape ULL outcomes by contributing with their knowledge and experi ence. The transformative potential of ULLs for sustainability is of

Fluoroscopic examinations of the upper gastro-intestinal tract and, especially, barium meal examinations, are commonly performed in a majority of hospitals. These examinations are associated both with substantial individual patient doses and contribution to the collective dose from medical exposure. Effective dose estimation for this type of examinations is complicated due to: 1) the necessity to

We used quantitative semantics to find clusters of words in LinkedIn users' self-descriptions to an employer or a friend. Some of these clusters discriminated between worker and friend conditions (e.g., flexible vs. caring) and between LinkedIn users with high and low education (e.g., analytical vs. messy).

The focus of this thesis is on proposing and analyzing a powerful class of codes on graphs---with trellis constraints---that can simultaneously approach capacity and achieve very low error floor. In particular, we propose the concept of spatial coupling for turbo-like code (SC-TC) ensembles and investigate the impact of coupling on the performance of these codes. The main elements of this study ca

Recension av Jurij Rybin, Boris Safonov. Luftwaffes baneman på östfronten

This article chronicles and analyzes the history of the third sector of R&D in Sweden, which corresponds to an organizational field of research institutes outside academia and private firms. Using secondary sources and governmental documentation, the chronicle begins with the forming of a number of industry-specific and industry-owned institutes in the 1940s and ends with today’s reformed and