Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is a leading cause of chronic liver disease in Western countries. Diagnosis of NASH requires a liver biopsy. We estimated the prevalence of NASH non-invasively in a population-based study using scores validated against liver histology.

Acrylamide, a probable carcinogen, is formed via the Maillard reaction between reducing sugars and the amino acid asparagine during heating of carbohydrate-rich foods. Potatoes contain high levels of these precursors, and thus potato crisps can contain high levels of acrylamide. In this study, the effect of blanching on the concentration of precursors and acrylamide content was studied in three po

Tension-type headaches (TTH) are common among children worldwide and mean a potential risk of disability and medication overuse headache. The associated mechanisms, however, remain unsolved. Our study investigated muscle strength in the neck-shoulder region, aerobic power and pericranial tenderness in girls with TTH compared with healthy controls.

Scand J Caring Sci; 2012 Satisfaction with rehabilitation in relation to self-perceived quality of life and function among patients with stroke - a 12 month follow-up Background and Purpose: Stroke causes complex disability and function, and perceived quality of life has been shown to correlate with satisfaction with care as well as with life in general among stroke patients. The aim of this study

In this paper we study the convergence behaviour and geometric properties of Strang splitting applied to semilinear evolution equations. We work in an abstract Banach space setting that allows us to analyse a certain class of parabolic equations and their spatial discretizations. For this class of problems, Strang splitting is shown to be stable and second-order convergent. Moreover, it is shown t

Understanding the effects of neonicotinoid insecticides on bees is vital because of reported declines in bee diversity and distribution and the crucial role bees have as pollinators in ecosystems and agriculture. Neonicotinoids are suspected to pose an unacceptable risk to bees, partly because of their systemic uptake in plants, and the European Union has therefore introduced a moratorium on three

The aim of every patient with hip fracture is to regain previous function but we know little about the outcome, especially patient-reported outcome. We wanted to investigate what factors influence the result one year after hip fracture, including fast-track for hip fracture patients, as well as investigating the patients' satisfaction with their rehabilitation and to what degree they regained thei

Polyamines are organic polycations expressed by all living organisms, which are known to play an essential role in cell proliferation and differentiation. Recent studies revealed their involvement also in cell contractility and migration and in programmed cell death. These processes are known to contribute to restenosis, a pathophysiological process occurring in 10-20% of patients submitted to rev

The mereological predicate ‘is part of’ can be used to define the predicate ‘is identical with’. I argue that this entails that mereological theories can be ideologically simpler than nihilistic theories that do not use the notion of parthood—contrary to what has been argued by Ted Sider. Moreover, if one accepts an extensional mereology, there are good philosophical reasons apart from ideological

Objective The Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics (SLICC) group revised and validated the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) classification criteria in order to improve clinical relevance, meet stringent methodology requirements, and incorporate new knowledge regarding the immunology of SLE. Methods The classification criteria were derived from

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most aggressive form of brain tumor. In general, tumor growth requires disruption of the tissue microenvironment, yet how this affects glioma progression is unknown. We studied program death-ligand (PD-L)1 in neurons and gliomas in tumors from GBM patients and associated the findings with clinical outcome. Remarkably, we found that upregulation of PD-L1 by neur

To evaluate whether tumor androgen receptor (AR) expression was prognostic and/or predictive for endocrine treatment alone or in combination with estrogen receptor (ER). The AR has been hypothesized to have differential prognostic roles in breast cancer depending on tumor ER-status, and to influence endocrine treatment response.

This work presents the development of a miniaturized system for removing plasma proteins and other low-molecular-weight compounds from red blood cell (RBC) concentrate in a simple one-step-process using integrated ultrasound. The technology utilizes the principles of acoustophoresis to transfer the RBCs from the original plasma-containing solution into a protein-free SAG-M additive solution in a c

Simulations have been carried out by means of computational fluid dynamics for turbulent convective heat transfer in a cross-corrugated plate pattern heat exchanger unitary cell at a Reynolds number of 4930. Chen's high-Reynolds-number k-E model, the Reynolds stress model (RSM), Suga's low-Reynolds-number k-E model, and the V2F model were used. The predicted hydraulic and thermal behaviors using t

A search has been performed for pair production of heavy vectorlike down-type (B) quarks. The analysis explores the lepton-plus-jets final state, characterized by events with one isolated charged lepton (electron or muon), significant missing transverse momentum, and multiple jets. One or more jets are required to be tagged as arising from b quarks, and at least one pair of jets must be tagged as

Introduction: Cartilage oligomeric matrix protein (COMP) is found at elevated concentrations in sera of patients with joint diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and osteoarthritis (OA). We recently showed that COMP activates complement via the alternative pathway and that COMP-C3b complexes are present in sera of RA patients, but not in healthy controls. We now set out to elaborate on the in