Lack of straightness in timber is the most frequent complaint regarding solid (and laminated) timber products worldwide. Nowadays, customers demand higher quality in the shape stability of wood products than they did earlier. The final distortion of timber boards is mostly caused by moisture-related stresses in wood (drying distortions) and growth-related stresses (distortions appearing when logs

When robots are working in dynamic environments, close to humans lacking extensive knowledge of robotics, there is a strong need to simplify the user interaction and make the system execute as autonomously as possible. For industrial robots working side-by-side with humans in manufacturing industry, AI systems are necessary to lower the demand on programming time and expertise. We are convinced th

The thiol-disulfide oxidoreductase ResA from Bacillus subtilis fulfils a reductive role in cytochrome c maturation. The pK(a) values for the CEPC (one-letter code) active-site cysteine residues of Ill are unusual for thioredoxin-like proteins ill that they are both high (> 8) and within 0.5 unit of each other. To determine the contribution of the inter-cysteine dipeptide of ResA to its redox and a

Background. Anti-glomerular basement membrane (anti-GBM) disease often results in end-stage renal failure despite therapy with plasma exchange and immunosuppressive drugs. The newly discovered streptococcal enzymes IgG-degrading enzyme of S.pyogenes (IdeS) and endoglycosidase S (EndoS) act with remarkable specificity on circulating IgG. In this study, we investigate their ability in vivo to preven

Aims: To test whether the TCF7L2 gene was associated with gestational diabetes, whether the association between TCF7L2 and gestational diabetes was independent of HLA-DQB1*0602 and islet cell autoantibodies, as well as maternal age, number of pregnancies, family history of diabetes and the HLA-DQB1 genotypes, and to test whether the distribution of HLA-DQB1 alleles was affected by country of birth

The Sava River flows through Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia on its way to join the Danube at Belgrade. This formerly national river became an international one as a result of the break-up of Yugoslavia due to the 1991-95 Yugoslav Wars. Following an overview of the conflict and a description of the Sava River Basin, this article describes the post-conflict challenges to joint mana

Extensive field measurements have been performed at three CarboEurope-Integrated Project forest sites with different topography (Renon/Ritten, Italian Alps, Italy; Wetzstein, Thuringia, Germany; Norunda, Uppland, Sweden) to evaluate the relevant terms of the carbon balance by measuring CO2 concentrations [CO2] and the wind field in a 3D multi-tower cube setup. The same experimental setup (geometry

This article analyses the negotiation of German identities in two films of the ‘newer German cinema’: Sonnenallee/Sun Alley (Haussmann 1999) and Schultze gets the blues (Schorr 2003). It argues that the former represents a defiant stance towards a dominant West German narrative which devalorizes the lived experiences of former GDR citizens. As a consequence, east and west are consolidated as relev

We show for the oppositely charged system poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride)/sodium dodecyl sulfate that the cliff edge peak in its surface tension isotherm results from the comprehensive precipitation of bulk complexes into sediment, leaving a supernatant that is virtually transparent and a depleted adsorption layer at the air/water interface. The aggregation and settling processes take about

Melanohalea olivacea rarely occurs on the lower, snow-covered parts of the birch stems in subarctic Sweden, where Parmeliopsis ambigua can persist thanks to its larger reserves of lipids. In contrast, P. ambigua is outcompeted by M. olivacea higher up on the stems because of its lower growth rate.

Popular Abstract in Swedish Med stigande ålder försvagas våra vävnader. Om bukväggen i ljumsken blir för svag, så kan bukinnehållet pressas ut genom svagheten. Detta kallas för ljumskbråck. Sjukdomen är mycket vanligare hos män och drabbar alla åldrar. Ju äldre man är, desto vanligare att man drabbas av ett ljumskbråck. Man upplever då, framför allt vid ansträngning, en oftast rörlig och ibland smBackground: In the nineties, the patients with inguinal hernias were exposed to several newly developed repair techniques using alloplastic mesh prosthesis. Although the scientific knowledge was limited, the new techniques were rapidly introduced due to surgical enthusiasm, but also by an eagerness to reduce the recurrence rate and to shorten the time to recovery. When the first study of this thes

It has been suggested that transcriptional upregulation of cerebral artery contractile endothelin (ETB) and 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT1B) receptors play an important role in the development of late cerebral ischemia and increased vasoconstriction after subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). We tested the hypothesis that inhibition of calcium calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) may reduce cerebr

Arthropod predators and detritivores are among the first colonisers on land surfaces undergoing primary succession. In the absence of higher plants and herbivores, they may either have an allochthonous food source (i.e. of geographically distant origin) or local food source that is sustained by e.g. microorganisms. By studying spiders and collembolans on sites along chronosequences on recently eme

The Swedish word folk ('people') is normally considered an ordinary noun. This classification is, however, not completely unproblematic, since it is sometimes claimed that folk is actually undergoing a word-class change, becoming more and more pronoun-like. Similar changes from noun to generic pronoun are also attested for words with the meaning ‘people’ in other languages, making this a possible

In this paper, the authors report the use of liquid-liquid partition chromatography (LLPC) in an aqueous polyethylene glycol (PEG)/dextran two-phase system to compare the surface properties (partition properties) of human antibodies and fragments thereof. The surface properties of all the monoclonal antibodies of different classes and subclasses investigated were within the same broad range as tha

The aim of this study was to investigate how physico-chemical properties of two dietary fibres, guar gum and pectin, affected weight gain, adiposity, lipid metabolism, short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) profiles and the gut microbiota in male Wistar rats fed either low- or high-fat diets for three weeks. Both pectin and guar gum reduced weight gain, adiposity, liver fat and blood glucose levels in rats

Bi-spectral beam extraction combines neutrons from two different kinds of moderators into one beamline, expanding the spectral range and thereby the utilization of an instrument. This idea can be realized by a mirror that reflects long wavelength neutrons from an off-axis colder moderator into a neutron guide aligned with another moderator emitting neutrons with shorter wavelengths which will be t

Exciton dynamics in alternating copolymer/fullerene solar cell blends have been investigated using femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy. The acceptor concentrations have been varied over a wide range. Experimental data, kinetic modeling and simulations, all indicate that the efficiency of exciton conversion to charges is 100% even at acceptor concentrations as low as 20 wt%. The reported