The “iron triangle” phenomenon, or nexus between politicians, bureaucrats and business, is an important element of the Japanese postwar political economy system, known as the “1955 system” or “Japan Inc.” Although, originally created to facilitate high-speed economic growth by ensuring efficient cooperation between the government and business, over time it became associated with high-profile corru

OBJECTIVE - The efficacy and Safety of adding liraglutide (a glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist) to Metformin were compared with addition of placebo or glimepiride to metformin in subjects previously treated With oral antidiabetes (OAD) therapy. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS - In this 26-week, double-blind, double-dummy, placebo- and active-controlled, parallel-group trial, 1,091 subjects were

The discipline of epidemiology, which holds major influence on public health policy as well as on clinical medical practice, has in recent decades to a large extent been concerned with the identification of factors and markers of risk for disease. Much health information and intervention is thus informed by a wealth of studies on a variety of risk factors, of which the individual is encouraged to

We study the dynamic admission control for a finite shared buffer with support of multiclass traffic under Markovian assumptions. The problem is often referred to as buffer sharing in the literature. From the linear programming (LP) formulation of the continuous-time Markov decision process (MDP), we construct a hierarchy of increasingly stronger LP relaxations where the hierarchy levels equal the

Analysis of the novel Die Ästhetik des Widerstands (The Aesthetics of Resistance) by German-Swedish author Peter Weiss (1916-1982). The main question in the analysis is how the novel depicts the the literary work, since the narrator of the novel is a writer.

The unperturbed neutron brightness of a moderator can be defined from the number of neutrons leaving the surface of a moderator completely surrounded by a reflector. Without openings for beam extraction, it is the maximum brightness that can be theoretically achieved in a moderator. The unperturbed brightness of a cylindrical cold moderator filled with pure para-H-2 was calculated using MCNPX; the

There are currently several commercially available radiotherapy treatment units without a flattening filter in the beam line. Unflattened photon beams have an energy and lateral fluence distribution that is different from conventional beams and, thus, their attenuation properties differ. As a consequence, for flattening filter free (FFF) beams, the relationship between the beam-quality specifier T

In order to find the selection rules that can be applied to the electromagnetic transitions when the chiral geometry is achieved, a model for a special configuration in triaxial odd-odd nuclei is constructed which exhibits degenerate chiral bands with a sizable rotation. A quantum number obtained from the invariance of the Hamiltonian is given and the selection rule for electromagnetic transition

Gene expression profiling studies initially enabled diffuse large B-cell lymphoma to be divided into germinal center and activated B-cell-like subtypes, which define high-and low-risk patient groups when treated with chemotherapy. Attempts to reproduce the prognostic classification immunohistochemically have, however, provided inconsistent results. The aim of this study was to determine whether mo

The acute-phase protein C-reactive protein (CRP) recruits C1q to the surface of damaged cells and thereby initiates complement activation. However, CRP also recruits complement inhibitors, such as C4b-binding protein (C4bp) and factor H, which both block complement progression at the level of C3 and inhibits inflammation. To define how CRP modulates the classic complement pathway, we studied the i

Adipose tissue does not only store and release energy in response to hormones, it is also known as an endocrine organ, secreting important factors and hormones that influence for example appetite and insulin sensitivity. The association of type 2 diabetes with obesity has been known for quite some time. Understanding the cellular mechanisms of adipocyte function is of great importance in understan

Simulation of atmospheric and surface processes with an atmospheric model (RAMS) during a period of ten days in August 2001 over a boreal area in Sweden were compared to tower measurements and aircraft measurements of vertical profiles as well as surface fluxes from low altitude flights. The shape of the vertical profiles was simulated reasonably well by the model although there were significant b

Tight coupling between cytosolic and mitochondrial metabolism is key for GSIS (glucose-stimulated insulin secretion). In the present study we examined the regulatory contribution of PDH (pyruvate dehydrogenase) kinase 1, a negative regulator of PDH, to metabolic coupling in 832/13 clonal beta-cells. Knockdown of PDH kinase 1 with siRNA (small interfering RNA) reduced its mRNA (>80 %) and protein l

We present the first multi-wavelength follow-up observations of two candidate gravitational-wave (GW) transient events recorded by LIGO and Virgo in their 2009-2010 science run. The events were selected with low latency by the network of GW detectors (within less than 10 minutes) and their candidate sky locations were observed by the Swift observatory (within 12 hr). Image transient detection was

Inter-firm job switching of workers is a much cited but seldom measured source of the productivity advantages of spatial employment density. It has been advanced as a conduit for localized knowledge flows as well as labor market matching efficiency. Using a matched employer-employee dataset for Sweden, we estimate the influence spatial employment density has on the probability of inter-firm job sw

The current aim is to examine the prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) among Thai women residing in Sweden and its association with mental health. We also investigate the potential influence of social isolation and social capital regarding the association between IPV and mental health outcome.