Background: The survival for patients with atrioventricular septal defect has improved markedly over the last decades and, during the same period, the survival of children with Down's syndrome has also increased. The aim of our study was to investigate long-term survival in patients having atrioventricular septal defect with common valvar orifice, but without associated significant congenital hear

Motivation: The most common approach to estimate microbial diversity is based on the analysis of DNA sequences of specific target genes including ribosomal genes. Commonly, the sequences are grouped into operational taxonomic units based on genetic distance (sequence similarity) instead of genetic change (patristic distance). This method may fail to adequately identify clusters of evolutionary rel

The objective was to investigate the relation between serum levels of interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha), the activity of an endogenous IFN-alpha inducing factor (SLE-IIF), clinical and immunological disease activity as well as serum levels of antiretroviral antibodies in SLE. Serum levels of IFN-alpha were measured in serial sera from 30 patients sampled at different stages of disease activity (SLEDAI

Dysphagia is a common symptom from the oral cavity, pharynx and esophagus, and its causes may be morphological or functional. A biphasic barium swallow is the best way of evaluating these patients. Using a careful clinical history, and by tailoring the examination to the individual case, the radiologist is usually able to pinpoint the cause of the patient's complaints and suggest further diagnosti

In the wood-to-ethanol process, pretreatment of the material is necessary prior to enzymatic hydrolysis to obtain high overall yields of sugar and ethanol. Steam pretreatment of fast-growing Salix either with or without SO2 impregnation has been investigated by varying different parameters. Overall glucose yields of above 90% and overall xylose yields higher than 80% were obtained both with and wi

Objective: Five double-blind, randomized, saline-controlled trials (RCTs) were included in the United States marketing application for an intra-articular hyaluronan (IA-HA) product for the treatment of osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee. We report an integrated analysis of the primary Case Report Form (CRF) data from these trials. Method. Trials were similar in design, patient population and outcome

The results of the action of two glycosidic enzymes added to an anaerobic digester processing mixed wastewater sludge are reported in this paper. The experiment was performed at a continuously operating full-scale wastewater treatment plant during a 6-month period. The addition of the enzyme mixture resulted in improved gas production and dewatering properties. Dewatering experiments, both on enzy

We investigated the synaptology of retrogradely labeled spinal motoneurons after injection of horseradish peroxidase into the tibialis anterior (TA) muscle of adult rat. In total, 32 TA motoneurons were investigated in the electron microscope and demonstrated a bimodal size distribution with cell diameter peaks at 40 mu m and 20 mu m, likely representing alpha- and gamma-motoneurons, respectively.

Small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) measurements are reported on a sterically stabilized, coreshell colloidal system using contrast variation. Aqueous dispersions of polystyrene particles bearing grafted poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) have been studied over a large range of particle concentrations and two different solvent conditions for the PEG polymer. SANS data are analyzed quantitatively by mod

Few studies regarding the effects of elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations on plant lipid metabolism have been carried out. Here, the effects of elevated CO2 concentration on lipid composition in mature seeds and in leaves during the diurnal cycle of Arabidopsis thaliana were investigated. Plants were grown in controlled climate chambers at elevated (800 ppm) and ambient CO2 concentrations. Lipi

Deubiquitination of NF-kappa B members by CYLD is crucial in controlling the magnitude and nature of cell activation. The role of the naturally occurring CYLD splice variant in dendritic cell (DC) function was analyzed using CYLDex7/8 mice, which lack the full-length CYLD (flCYLD) transcript and overexpress the short splice variant (sCYLD). Bone marrow-derived DCs from CYLDex7/8 mice display a hyp

Object-oriented classification approaches offer an alternative to per-pixel methods for assessment of land use and land cover. Combining object-oriented approaches with very high resolution imagery may provide enhanced possibilities for applications requiring land use and land cover data. The aim of this study is to evaluate the application of object-oriented classification of panchromatic very hi

Myoepithelial neoplasms of soft tissue have only recently been acknowledged as a separate diagnostic entity. To know based on histological appearance whether these tumors are benign or malignant is often difficult, and their tumorigenic mechanisms remain poorly understood. We report a myoepithelial carcinoma with an aberrant near-diploid karyotype, 43 similar to 47,XX,add(1)(p34)x2,add(3)(q27)x2,d

Amplifying bacterial DNA by PCR from human biopsy specimens has sometimes proved to be difficult, mainly due to the low amount of bacterial DNA present. Therefore, nested or semi-nested 16S rDNA PCR amplification has been the method of choice. In this study, we evaluate the potential use of whole genome amplification of total DNA isolated from human colon and rectum biopsy specimens, followed by 1

In this paper, we present a novel method for joint estimation of the fundamental frequency and order of a set of harmonically related sinusoids based on the MUltiple SIgnal Classification (MUSIC) estimation criterion. The presented method, termed HMUSIC, is shown to have an efficient implementation using fast Fourier transforms (FFTs). Furthermore, refined estimates can be obtained using a gradien

Three automatic naming tasks (Wiig & Nielsen, 1999) were administered to 60 normal functioning adults. The mean time required for naming 40 single-dimension (colors, forms, numbers, and letters) and 40 dual dimension stimuli (color-form, color-number, and color letter combinations) were compared in young (17-38 yr.) and older (40-68 yr.) men and women. Analysis of variance for the combined gro

Zircon grains from nine samples of metavolcanic rocks, gneisses, granitoids and migmatites from the Blekinge Province in southeasternmost Sweden have been dated by U-Pb using ion microprobe. The results suggest that most of the Blekinge bedrock was formed within a narrow time interval of 1.77-1.75 Ga, including the Vastana supracrustal formation and 'coastal gneisses' previously dated to c. 1.70 G

Platelet-derived growth factor-B (PDGFB) is necessary for normal cardiovascular development, but the relative importance of different cellular sources of PDGFB has not been established. Using Cre-lox techniques, we show here that genetic ablation of Pdgfb in endothelial cells leads to impaired recruitment of pericytes to blood vessels. The endothelium-restricted Pdgfb knockout mutants also develop