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Introduction: Sclerostin, an inhibitor of bone formation, has emerged as a potential negative regulator of glucose homeostasis. We aimed to investigate if serum sclerostin associates with insulin sensitivity, beta cell function, prediabetes or metabolic syndrome in healthy men. Materials and methods: Serum sclerostin was measured in basal and insulin-stimulated samples from 526 men without diabete

The understanding of diesel sprays is very important to enable a better and cleaner marine engine design, but unfortunately little knowledge is openly available on marine engine fuel sprays. In this paper, evaporating sprays for medium speed marine engines were studied in a constant volume combustion chamber by performing optical measurements through Schlieren and Mie diagnostic techniques. The ef

Glyphosate (GLY), N-(phosphonomethyl) glycine, is the most widely used herbicide in the world. It is a broad-spectrum herbicide, also used in crop desiccation. Agricultural workers may be occupationally exposed and general populations may be exposed to GLY mainly through diet. We studied the kinetics of GLY by measuring the parent compound and its metabolite aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA) in ur

Collective intelligence (CI) is a form of distributed intelligence that emerges in collaborative problem solving and decision making. This work investigates the potentials of CI in demand side management (DSM) in urban areas. CI is used to control the energy performance of representative groups of buildings in Stockholm, aiming to increase the demand flexibility and climate resilience in the urban

Objective: To investigate if Cochrane reviews that assess screening interventions address their major harms. Study design and setting: A systematic search for Cochrane reviews that assess screening interventions was performed. Two authors independently screened abstracts, assessed full-texts, and extracted data from included reviews. For each review, two authors judged whether each predefined harm

Background: Biomarkers can be of help to understand critical illness and to identify and stratify sepsis. Adrenomedullin is a vasoactive hormone, with reported prognostic and potentially therapeutic value in sepsis. The primary aim of this study was to investigate the association of circulating bioactive adrenomedullin (bio-ADM) levels at intensive care unit (ICU) admission with mortality in sepsi

Context: Obesity and cardiometabolic diseases are associated with higher long-term glucocorticoid levels, measured as scalp hair cortisol (HairF) and cortisone (HairE). Cardiometabolic diseases have also been associated with copeptin, a stable surrogate marker for the arginine-vasopressin (AVP) system. Since AVP is, together with corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) an important regulator of the

Background: Personal recovery is associated with many significant health-related factors, but studies exploring associations between activity factors and personal recovery among service users are scarce. The aims of this study were hence to; 1) investigate if various aspects of activity may mediate change in recovery while also acknowledging clinical, sociodemographic and well-being factors; 2) ex

Frequency recognition algorithm for multiple exposures (FRAME) is a single-exposure imaging technique that can be used for ultrafast videography, achieved through rapid illumination with spatially modulated laser pulses. To date, both the limit in sequence length as well as the relation between sequence length and image quality are unknown for FRAME imaging. Investigating these questions requires

Fine-tuning of insulin release from pancreatic β-cells is essential to maintain blood glucose homeostasis. Here, we report that insulin secretion is regulated by a circular RNA containing the lariat sequence of the second intron of the insulin gene. Silencing of this intronic circular RNA in pancreatic islets leads to a decrease in the expression of key components of the secretory machinery of β-c

We introduce a family of boundary confinements for Coulomb gas ensembles, and study them in the two-dimensional determinantal case of random normal matrices. The family interpolates between the free boundary and hard edge cases, which have been well studied in various random matrix theories. The confinement can also be relaxed beyond the free boundary to produce ensembles with fuzzier boundaries,

Duplicative horizontal gene transfer may bring two previously separated homologous genes together, which may raise questions about the interplay between the gene products. One such gene pair is the “native” PgiC1 and “foreign” PgiC2 in the perennial grass Festuca ovina. Both PgiC1 and PgiC2 encode cytosolic phosphoglucose isomerase, a dimeric enzyme whose proper binding is functionally essential.

Background: Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have proven successful in predicting genetic risk of disease using single-locus models; however, identifying single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) interactions at the genome-wide scale is limited due to computational and statistical challenges. We addressed the computational burden encountered when detecting SNP interactions for survival analysis,

The sexes may have different optima in cognitive traits due to differences in life history strategies and the expense of investing in metabolically costly brain tissue. However, given genetic correlations, each sex could be constrained from reaching its cognitive optimum due to intralocus sexual conflict. We compared learning performance of two male alternative reproductive tactics and females fro

The article analyzes the varied meanings historically associated with concepts of voluntarism in relation to social relief as they were articulated by changing moral elites in Denmark from the late nineteenth century until the present. Concepts of voluntarism have historically constituted “normative counterconcepts” that link voluntary practices to desired futures in opposition to alternative mode

Walking is a simple form of exercise, widely promoted for its health benefits. Self-reported walking pace has been associated with a range of cardiorespiratory and cancer outcomes, and is a strong predictor of mortality. Here we perform a genome-wide association study of self-reported walking pace in 450,967 European ancestry UK Biobank participants. We identify 70 independent associated loci (P <

The under-representation of several ethnic groups in existing genetic databases and studies have undermined our understanding of the genetic variations and associated traits or diseases in many populations. Cost and technology limitations remain the challenges in performing large-scale genome sequencing projects in many developing countries, including Vietnam. As one of the most rapidly adopted ge

BACKGROUND: We explored the association of N-terminal probrain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) with metabolic traits in a bi-ethnic African-Caucasian cohort.METHODS: Baseline examinations of the Sympathetic activity and Ambulatory Blood Pressure in African (SABPA) prospective cohort study were performed between 2008 and 2009, and re-examination after a three-year follow up in South African teacher

Background: Wide implementation of mammography screening has resulted in increased numbers of women diagnosed with breast carcinoma in situ. We aimed to determine the risk of invasive breast cancer in relatives of patients with breast carcinoma in situ in comparison to the risk in relatives of patients with invasive breast cancer. Methods: We analyzed the occurrence of cancer in a nationwide cohor

Background: Evidence is lacking on the differences between hospitalisation of people with dementia living in nursing homes and those living in the community. The objectives of this study were: 1) to describe the frequency of hospital admission among people with dementia in eight European countries living in nursing homes or in the community, 2) to examine the factors associated with hospitalisatio