α1-microglobulin (A1M) is a small protein present in vertebrates including humans. It has several physiologically relevant properties, including binding of heme and radicals as well as enzymatic reduction, that are used in the protection of cells and tissue. Research has revealed that A1M can ameliorate heme and ROS-induced injuries in cell cultures, organs, explants and animal models. Recently, i

Cephalopods have very conspicuous eyes that are often compared to fish eyes. However, in contrast to many fish, the eyes of cephalopods possess mobile pupils. To increase the knowledge of pupillary and thus visual function in cephalopods, the dynamics of the pupil of one of the model species among cephalopods, the common octopus (Octopus vulgaris), was determined in this study. We measured pupilla

A non-destructive testing system requires multiple system configuration parameters during the operation process. For a given transducer, scanning frequency and number of measurements for averaging are just among those parameters. This work tests the central limit theorem to optimally set these parameters. The authors have designed a compact ultrasound computer tomography scanner from scratch just

Active matter exhibits various forms of nonequilibrium states in the absence of external forcing, including macroscopic steady-state currents. Such states are often too complex to be modeled from first principles, and our understanding of their physics relies heavily on minimal models. These are mostly studied in the case of "dry"active matter, where particle dynamics are dominated by friction wit

Background: Targeted surveillance of at-risk individuals in families with increased risk of hereditary cancer is an effective prevention strategy if relatives are identified, informed and enrolled in screening programs. Despite the potential benefits, many eligible at-risk relatives remain uninformed of their cancer risk. This study describes the general public's opinion on disclosure of hereditar

Multifocal plane microscopy allows for capturing images at different focal planes simultaneously. Using a proprietary prism which splits the emitted light into paths of different lengths, images at 8 different focal depths were obtained, covering a volume of 50x50x4 μm3. The position of single emitters was retrieved using a phasor-based approach across the different imaging planes, with better tha

The research area of climate field reconstructions has developed strongly during the past 20 years, motivated by the need to understand the complex dynamics of the earth system in a changing climate. Climate field reconstructions aim to build a consistent gridded climate reconstruction of different variables, often from a range of climate proxies, using either statistical tools or a climate model

This paper revisites the direct synthesis tuning method of continuous-time low-order controllers, and specially PID controllers, for control of time-delayed single-input single-output processes. A setpoint prefilter is included to improve the servo response and integrating load disturbances are accounted for. Robustness is addressed by the feedback controller to obtain the desired maximum sensitiv

Although the use of location-based data (location coupled with semantic information) within Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and from Earth Observation (e.g. satellite) sources has been long established for decision makers, this has only recently been reflected in the construction sector with a more recent move from Computer Aided Design (CAD) to Building Information Modelling. BIM has opene

The success of an evidence-based intervention depends on precise and accurate evaluation of available data and information. Here, the use of robust methods for evidence evaluation is important. Epidemiology, in its conventional form, relies on statistics and mathematics to draw inferences on disease dynamics in affected populations. Interestingly, most of the data used tend to have spatial aspects

BACKGROUND The efficacy and effectiveness of the quadrivalent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine in preventing high-grade cervical lesions have been shown. However, data to inform the relationship between quadrivalent HPV vaccination and the subsequent risk of invasive cervical cancer are lacking. METHODS We used nationwide Swedish demographic and health registers to follow an open population of 1

The digitalization of the process for building permit (involving the use of 3D information systems) is seen as a priority in a wide part of the world. Since it is a very multidisciplinary use case, involving a variety of stakeholders tackling complex issues and topics, some of them joined their efforts and skills in the European Network for Digital Building Permit. The initial activity of the netw

Background The scaphoid is the most commonly fractured carpal bone in adults as well as in children. Previous studies have reported a wide range of fracture incidences. Scaphoid fractures and non-unions in children have been sparsely investigated. Aim To perform a systematic review of the current literature on epidemiology of scaphoid fractures and non-unions in adults and children. Methods An ele

We demonstrate that the method of interleaved resampling in the context of parton showers can tremendously improve the statistical convergence of weighted parton shower evolution algorithms. We illustrate this by several examples showing significant statistical improvement.