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

Populärvetenskaplig artikel om förintelse-, koncentrations- och arbetsläger i Auschwitz under andra världskriget.

Whereas fossil evidence indicates extensive treeless vegetation and diverse grazing megafauna in Europe and northern Asia during the last glacial, experiments combining vegetation models and climate models have to-date simulated widespread persistence of trees. Resolving this conflict is key to understanding both last glacial ecosystems and extinction of most of the mega-herbivores. Using a dynami

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

The immune system is remarkable in many ways. It exerts immunity to defend us from foreign pathogens, while it is also responsible for maintaining tolerance to avoid autoimmune diseases and allergy. This thesis includes three separate papers concerning both tolerance and immunity. In paper I we report that repeated antigen stimulation results in an increased proportion of Foxp3+ cells in the CD4+

Despite a growing awareness of methodological issues, the literature on APPRAISAL has not so far provided adequate answers to some of the key challenges involved in reliably identifying and classifying evaluative language expressions. This article presents a step-wise method for the manual annotation of APPRAISAL in text that is designed to optimize reliability, replicability and transparency. The

Forestry as an important industry has both direct as well as indirect effects on the Estonian economy. It is therefore essential that it is sustainably managed so that it can continue to contribute to the economy in the future. The first aim of this article is to establish the situation regarding felling and regeneration in Estonia. As the available forestry statistics display discrepancies and la

Although electric resistivity tomography (ERT) is now regarded as a standard tool in permafrost monitoring, high grounding resistances continue to limit the acquisition of time series over complete freeze-thaw cycles. In an attempt to alleviate the grounding resistance problem, we have tested three electrode designs featuring increasing sizes and surface area, in the laboratory and at three differ

It is pointed out that the triaxial bands in Nd138-140 and in the Lu/Er nuclei can be understood from the same shell structure effects. Two of the bands in Nd-138, interpreted as signature partners, exhibit a crossing at high spins with a signature splitting which is strongly reduced above the crossing. This behavior is unique among the yrast and close-to-yrast configurations, revealing the mechan

In this paper, we report on the formation of magnetically levitating accretion disks around supermassive black holes (SMBHs). The structure of these disks is calculated by numerically modeling tidal disruption of magnetized interstellar gas clouds. We find that the resulting disks are entirely supported by the pressure of the magnetic fields against the component of gravitational force directed pe