The formation of complexes appearing in solutions containing oppositely charged polyelectrolytes has been investigated by Monte Carlo simulations using two different models. The polyions are described as flexible chains of 20 connected charged hard spheres immersed in a homogenous dielectric background representing water. The small ions are either explicitly included or their effect described by u

Objective: To cross-culturally adapt and validate Singapore English and Chinese versions of the Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA) in Singapore. Methods: Singapore English and Chinese versions were cross-culturally adapted from the source English KOOS following standard guidelines (including cognitive debriefing). Patients were asked to co

We establish the local well-posedness for a new nonlinearly dispersive wave equation which has solutions that exist for indefinite times as well as solutions that blowup in finite time. We also derive an explosion criterion for the equation, and we give a sharp estimate of the existence time for solutions with smooth initial data.

Background As musculoskeletal disorders are common in general populations and they therefore constitute a heavy burden to society, the identification of their determinants is important. The aim of this study was to identify dose-response associations for location-specific prevalences of musculoskeletal disorders with various physical exposures and psychosocial factors in a large group of workers.

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE: There is a lack of large contemporary studies on the management of congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH), and the prediction of mortality remains difficult. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of perinatal factors on mortality rate in a contemporary multicenter study. METHODS: The authors conducted a retrospective multicenter cohort study. Twelve of 13 Scandi

Increased vascular permeability and oedema formation constitute a major clinical challenge following burns. Several clinical studies show that leukocytes are systemically activated following burns. Neutrophils have the capability to increase vascular permeability via mechanisms thought to involve the release of heparin binding protein (HBP). We hypothesised that HBP is elevated in plasma after maj

HAMLET (human -lactalbumin made lethal to tumor cells) is a complex of human -lactalbumin and oleic acid (C18:1:9 cis) that kills tumor cells by an apoptosis-like mechanism. Previous studies have shown that a conformational change is required to form HAMLET from -lactalbumin, and that a partially unfolded conformation is maintained in the HAMLET complex. This study examined if unfolding of -lactal

We studied the effects of predatory crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus), the non-lethal effects of fish chemical cues (Oncorhynchus mykiss), and the combined effects of crayfish and fish chemical cues on the performance of tadpoles of two co-existing anuran species, Rana temporaria and Bufo bufo, in experimental pools. We also examined grazing effects on periphyton, the main food source for the ta

Recent alcohol consumption is all established risk factor for squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) or the upper aero-digestive tract. In contrast, the role or lifetime exposure to alcohol with regard to risk of SCC is not well established. Historical data oil alcohol use are available in 271,253 participants of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC). During 2,330,381 pers

Photoinduced electron transfer processes in dye-semiconductor systems are studied employing a recently proposed method based on a model Hamiltonian where the parameters are determined by first-principles electronic structure calculations. The systems investigated include the molecules pyridine and perylene, which are anchored via phosphonic or carboxylic acid groups to a titanium dioxide nanoclust

Objectives: Reports suggest that combined estrogen plus progestin hormone replacement therapy (HRT) confers a higher breast cancer risk than estrogen alone. We aimed to establish whether breast cancer risk depends on the type of HRT formula. Methods: The cohort consisted of 6586 women, aged 50 - 64 years, from the Lund area, Sweden, with no reported breast cancer upon inclusion. We obtained inform

The present study was designed to analyse whether continuous overexpression of glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) in the striatum by a recombinant lentiviral vector can provide improved cell survival and additional long-term functional benefits after transplantation of fetal ventral mesencephalic cells in Parkinsonian rats. A four-site intrastriatal 6-hydroxydopamine lesion resulte

A 20-year-old male, recovering from post-traumatic ARDS, subsequently developed pneumonia with extreme hypercapnia (PaCO2 max 19.4 kPa) and hypoxemia (PaO2 min 5.1 kPa), in spite of maximal mechanical ventilation. Hypothermia was induced by surface cooling, reducing the body temperature from 40 degrees C to a mean of 33.3 degrees C. Buffer infusion (1375 mmol) during the first 2 days increased bas

This paper presents a framework for examining joint optimal channel-capacity allocation and controller design for networked control systems using store-and-forward networks in a discrete-time linear time-invariant setting. The resultant framework provides a synthesis procedure for designing distributed linear control laws for capacity-constrained networks taking the allocation of the capacity with

In the following paper, I intend to approach certain aspects of excessive, or heavy, drinking in the Middle East (and elsewhere) from a mainly psychological point of view. This psychological approach is meant to be complementary to the historical approach adopted in many of the other contributions to our conference. Having said this, I may perhaps be excused for referring to scholars and authors n

In this article laboratory and analytical studies of the chloride migration coefficient, D, are presented. The result of studies on chloride migration of Self-Compacting Concrete, SCC, are compared with the corresponding properties of normal concrete with the same water-cement ratio, w/c and air content. Both 28 and 90 days' age applied at the start of the testing. Six SCC were studied and 2 NC, a

Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and scanning tunneling luminescence were used to correlate the topography with the emission spectra from individual self-assembled, InP quantum dots (QDs). We have investigated in detail how the electric field induced by the STM tip affects the emission from the QDs. This was done when exciting a QD, by altering the bias for constant current, by altering the cur

Uranium atoms activate methane upon ultraviolet excitation to form the methyl uranium hydride CH3-UH, which undergoes alpha-H transfer to produce uranium methylidene dihydride, CH2UH2. This rearrangement most likely occurs on an excited-quintet potential-energy surface and is followed by relaxation in the argon matrix. These simple U + CH4 reaction products are identified through isotopic substitu

Reverse link capacity of a direct-sequence code-division multiple-access (DS-CDMA) system in a multicell environment has been studied recently, and significant capacity improvements due to the use of beamforming have been observed. However, system performance with beamforming will be affected by several impairments, such as direction of arrival estimation errors, array perturbations, mutual coupli