The endothelin B2 (ETB2) receptors are induced in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) in cardiovascular diseases. We tested if in vitro short-term exposure to the pro-inflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) could up-regulate ETB2 receptors in rat mesenteric arteries, and if this effect is through activation of intracellular nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-kappa B) pathway. The me

Although diabetes is one of the most serious global health problems, there is no real cure yet for it. The conventional insulin treatment programs aimed at life quality improvement do not take into account the psychological aspects of the disease. Because diabetes has important psychological components, it seems reasonable to consider hypnosis as an adjunct therapy for diabetes. This paper examine

The concept of followership in higher education has been given limited attention despite the fact that followers are key players in the follower/leader equation and that leadership is increasingly seen as vital to improving the student learning experience. This paper explores this concept, reporting on the findings of a qualitative study underpinned by a socio-constructivist framework. Thirty-eigh

In the article, tha author analyses how different lines of developments in childhood research effect the Swedish child law. The focus is on the public child protection system. The author investigates what approach to children is construed in legal acts, in preparatory works an in cases from the Administrative Supreme Court of Appeal. The Young Persons Act (1990:52) constitutes the framework of the

This biennial Review summarizes much of particle physics. Using data from previous editions, plus 2158 new measurements from 551 papers, we list, evaluate, and average measured properties of gauge bosons, leptons, quarks, mesons, and baryons. We also summarize searches for hypothetical particles such as Higgs bosons, heavy neutrinos, and supersymmetric particles. All the particle properties and se

The goal of this study is to determine whether peripheral blood volume fluctuations triggered by ventricular premature beats (VPBs) are significantly related to hypotensive symptoms during dialysis treatment. Patients treated with hemodialysis often suffer from cardiovascular disorders and uremic neuropathy, increasing the propensity to homeostatic imbalance that, in turn, may result in intradialy

We present a novel visibility algorithm for rendering motion blur with per-pixel anti-aliasing. Our algorithm uses a number of line samples over a rectangular group of pixels, and together with the time dimension, a two-dimensional spatio-temporal visibility problem needs to be solved per line sample. In a coarse culling step, our algorithm first uses a bounding volume hierarchy to rapidly remove

The phenomenon of water vapour sorption by powdered cement constituents exposed to different relative humidities and temperatures was studied. The individual clinker phases C3S, C2S, C(3)A, C(4)AF, calcium sulfates and CaO were tested. Using a water sorption balance, the amount of chemically and physically sorbed water per unit of surface area of the powders and the relative humidity at which wate

Objectives To evaluate the annual direct medical cost of managing adult systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients with active autoantibody positive disease in Europe. Methods A 2-year, retrospective, multicentre, observational study was conducted in five countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK). Data included patients' characteristics, disease activity and severity, flare assessments

Because of the importance of human capital, a firm's choice of diversification targets will depend on whether these targets offer opportunities for leveraging existing human resources. We propose to quantify the similarity of different industries' human capital or skill requirements, that is, the industries' skill relatedness, by using information on cross-industry labor flows. Labor flows among i

This review summarizes recent progress in our understanding of aquoeus "complex salts" of ionic surfactants with polymeric counterions. Complex salts are simplified versions of the much-studied mixtures of oppositely charged polyelectrolytes and surfactants, and are also good model systems to study the fundamentals of polyion-mediated forces in colloidal systems. Comparisons are made with conventi

Manufacturing corporations sometimes use corporate-internal procedures to evaluate and monitor the ergonomic status of the workplace. This article describes an industrial case study in the Swedish automotive sector, where an internally developed evaluation procedure was compared with a procedure based on a Swedish national standard provision. It was found that the national standard procedure tende

A secret among staff at nursing homes is that they are often ambivalent about old residents spending so much time watching TV since it is a common cultural perception that it makes the viewer passive. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of reflecting on the TV viewing habits old people bring with them when they move into geriatric care. The findings are based on a study involv

Sex determination is typically classified as either genotypic or environmental. However, this dichotomy obscures the developmental origin and evolutionary modification of determinants of sex, and therefore hinders an understanding of the processes that generates diversity in sex-determining systems. Recent research on reptiles and fish emphasizes that sex determination is a multifactorial regulato

Measurements are presented of production properties and couplings of the recently discovered Higgs boson using the decays into boson pairs, H -> gamma gamma, H -> ZZ* -> 4l and H -> WW* -> l nu l nu. The results are based on the complete pp collision data sample recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider at centre-of-mass energies of root s = 7 TeV and root s = 8 TeV, corre

The meeting industry – an encompassing term for services related to various kinds of professional meetings, from mega-conventions to the ordinary work meetings – is increasingly consolidated and legitimated as a specific sector in the service in-dustry. New professions such as meeting designers, meeting facilitators and meet-ing consultants are emerging, promoting new knowledge in this field. By f

In this article we will discuss the previously proposed quantity nu(dyn) [ C. Pruneau, S. Gavin, and S. Voloshin, Phys.Rev.C 66, 044904 (2002)], as a measure of the number-ratio fluctuations in high-energy particle production. We will show that nu(dyn) has pleasing mathematical properties making it ideal for the purpose. We will demonstrate its relation to two-particle correlations and how this me