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Objective. To create a prognostic tool to quantify the 5-year cardiovascular (CV) risk in patients with newly diagnosed Wegener's granulomatosis (WG) and microscopic polyangiitis (MPA) without premorbid CV disease. Methods. We reviewed CV outcomes during the long-term followup of patients in the first 4 European Vasculitis Study Group (EUVAS) trials of WG and MPA. CV events were defined as CV deat

The self-assembly of proteins into beta-sheet-rich amyloid fibrils has been observed to occur with sigmoidal kinetics, indicating that the system initially is trapped in a metastable state. Here, we use a minimal lattice-based model to explore the thermodynamic forces driving amyloid formation in a finite canonical (NVT) system. By means of generalized-ensemble Monte Carlo techniques and a semi-an

Objectives: To explore how quality of life (QoL) and quality of care (QoC) for people with dementia (PwD) vary across 8 European countries; to explore how QoL and QoC for PwD vary across living arrangements; and to assess the association between QoL and QoC. Design: Cross-sectional survey. Setting: Institutional long term care and home care in 8 European countries (England, Estonia, Finland, Franc

Purpose: To subjectively and objectively evaluate the methods used for preoperative assessment of iliac artery tortuosity in patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA). Methods: Iliac artery tortuosity was assessed retrospectively in 188 patients (160 men; mean age 73 years) diagnosed with AAA at our clinic in 2006 and 2007. All patients underwent preoperative computed tomography (CT) with

Objectives This study sought to study the second-generation everolimus-eluting stent (EES) as compared with first-generation sirolimus-eluting (SES) and paclitaxel-eluting stents (PES) in diabetes mellitus (DM) patients. Background There are limited data available comparing clinical outcomes in this setting with EES and SES, whereas studies comparing EES with PES are not powered for low-frequency

Women with a diagnosis of breast cancer are at increased risk of second primary cancers, and the identification of risk factors for the latter may have clinical implications. We have followed-up for 11 years 10,045 women with invasive breast cancer from a European cohort, and identified 492 second primary cancers, including 140 contralateral breast cancers. Expected and observed cases and Standard

This paper links development approaches with innovation systems theory and social inclusion concerns. In exploring the relationship between development and knowledge, we propose a sequential analytical model that considers values, facts and policies as a coherent whole. This allows us to go deeper into the question of how policies for promoting the production and use of knowledge able to foster di

Life-threatening infectious diseases are on their way to cause a worldwide crisis, as treating them effectively is becoming increasingly difficult due to the emergence of antibiotic resistant strains. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) form an ancient type of innate immunity found universally in all living organisms, providing a principal first-line of defense against the invading pathogens. The unique

In recent years much interest has been shown in the process of thermohaline mixing in red giants. In low- and intermediate-mass stars this mechanism first activates at the position of the bump in the luminosity function, and has been identified as a likely candidate for driving the slow mixing inferred to occur in these stars. One particularly important consequence of this process, which is driven

This paper introduces two new methods of registering 2D point sets over rigid transformations when the registration error is based on a robust loss function. In contrast to previous work, our methods are guaranteed to compute the optimal transformation, and at the same time, the worst-case running times are bounded by a low-degree polynomial in the number of correspondences. In practical terms, th

Knowledge of which genes and pathways are affected by inbreeding may help understanding the genetic basis of inbreeding depression, the potential for purging (selection against deleterious recessive alleles) and the transition from outcrossing to selfing. Arabidopsis lyrata is a predominantly self-incompatible perennial plant, closely related to the selfing model species A. thaliana. To examine ho

European CH4 and N2O emissions are estimated for 2006 and 2007 using four independent inverse modelling systems, based on different global and regional Eulerian and Lagrangian transport models. This ensemble approach is designed to provide more realistic estimates of the overall uncertainties in the derived emissions, which is particularly important for verifying bottom-up emission inventories. We

To date, there are no known methods for preventing acute kidney injury after cardiac surgery. Increasing evidence suggests that erythropoietin has renal antiapoptotic and tissue protective effects. However, recent human studies have shown conflicting results. The authors aimed to study the effect of a single high-dose erythropoietin preoperatively on renal function after coronary artery bypass gra

Aim: The aim of this study is to explore how women from part of the world where female genital mutilation (FGM) is normative perceive and experience FGM after immigrating to Sweden. Method: Interviews were conducted with eight women from Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia. The data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Results: The women's feelings were ambivalent: though they opp

We have performed a large-scale test of alchemical perturbation calculations with the Bennett acceptance-ratio (BAR) approach to estimate relative affinities for the binding of 107 ligands to 10 different proteins. Employing 20-Å truncated spherical systems and only one intermediate state in the perturbations, we obtain an error of less than 4 kJ/mol for 54% of the studied relative affinities and

In this paper we synthesise previous sedimentological studies and new, high resolution, digital elevation models from southern Småland to investigate the evolution of a deglacial landscape. Starting approximately at the deglacial highest shoreline, there is a 20-40 km wide zone of ribbed and hummocky moraine that can be connected to the predominantly subaqueous Göteborg moraine. North of this ther

The aim of this pilot study was to evaluate the implementation of a universal school-based cognitive behavioral program whose target is to prevent depressive symptoms in adolescents. The study had a quasi-experimental design with pretest, posttest, and a 1-year follow-up and provides an illustrative calculation for the implementation costs of the intervention. Sixty-two students (aged 14) and seve

Promoting renewable energy sources (RES) has been addressed a key strategy for mitigating climate change, the governing in which has turned out a challenging and protracted task for the EU. There is often an implicit assumption that concern for climate change drives energy policy, but a closer look at the development of European RES policy indicates how EU governors have had to confront a range of

Neighborhood walkability has been associated with increased physical activity, but only a few studies have explored the association between walkability and health outcomes related to physical activity, such as type 2 diabetes. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between objectively assessed neighborhood walkability and the 4-year incidence of type 2 diabetes in a sample of 512