Background: The acceptable noise level (ANL) test is a method for quantifying the amount of background noise that subjects accept when listening to speech. Large variations in ANL have been seen between normal-hearing subjects and between studies of normal-hearing subjects, but few explanatory variables have been identified. Purpose: To explore a possible relationship between a Swedish version of

Objectives. The aims were to develop auditing according to the APO (Audit Project Odense) method for measuring soft data, exemplified by a holistic view, and to test the instrument. Design. A descriptive study of the development of an APO chart and a test registration. Setting. Primary health care, Blekinge County, Sweden. Subjects. Ten general practitioners (GPs) were invited to transform categor

Abstract Objective. The aim of this study was to investigate recurrence and progression of non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) in a large population-based setting. Materials and methods. Patients with bladder cancer (stage Ta, T1 or carcinoma in situ) diagnosed in 2004-2007 (n = 5839) in Sweden were investigated 5 years after diagnosis using a questionnaire. Differences in time to recurrenc

Considering the increasing consumption of saturated fat and glucose in diets worldwide and its possible association to carcinogenesis, this investigation analysed the proliferation profile of nonmalignant human prostate epithelial cells after exposure to elevated levels of fat and glucose. PNT1A cells were cultured with palmitate (100 or 200 μM) and/or glucose (450 mg/dl) for 24 or 48 h. Treated c

This paper discusses the effects of vegetation cover and soil parameters on the climate change projections of a regional climate model over the Arctic domain. Different setups of the land surface model of the regional climate model HIRHAM were realized to analyze differences in the atmospheric circulation caused by (1) the incorporation of freezing/thawing of soil moisture, (2) the consideration o

The aim of this paper is to find a multitaper-based spectrum estimator that is mean square error optimal for cepstrum coefficient estimation. The multitaper spectrum estimator consists of windowed periodograms which are weighted together, where the weights are optimized using the Taylor expansion of the log-spectrum variance and a novel approximation for the log-spectrum bias. A thorough discussio

Graphene is, due to its extraordinary properties, a promising material for future electronic applications. A common process for the production of large area epitaxial graphene is a high temperature annealing process of atomically flat surfaces from hexagonal silicon carbide. This procedure is very promising but has the drawback of the formation of a buffer layer consisting of a graphene-like sheet

Background: Few population-based Nordic studies with adolescents investigate the associations between sexual abuse (SA) and psychosocial health. Aim: Associations between adolescents' self-reported experiences of SA different severity and aspects of psychosocial health such as emotional and behavioral problems, sense of coherence and self-esteem (general comment: sense of coherence=the theoretical

An extract of a culture of the fungus Galiella rufa yielded several new derivatives of pregaliellalactone (1) that were characterised by NMR and MS experiments. The tetraene 4 has been reported previously, but was in this investigation isolated in sufficient amounts for the determination of the configuration of the C-4/C-5 double bond which is Z, not E. The possibility that any of the new compound

To determine whether adjuvant tamoxifen treatment for breast cancer (BC) is associated with reduced contralateral breast cancer (CBC) risk for BRCA1 and/or BRCA2 mutation carriers.

Salt-inducible kinase 2 (SIK2) is an AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) related kinase abundantly expressed in adipose tissue. Our aim was to identify molecular targets and functions of SIK2 in adipocytes, and to address the role of PKA-mediated phosphorylation of SIK2 on Ser358. Modulation of SIK2 in adipocytes resulted in altered phosphorylation of CREB-regulated transcription co-activator 2 (C

In this paper we develop a general method for deriving closed-form approximations of European option prices and equivalent implied volatilities in stochastic volatility models. Our method relies on perturbations of the model dynamics and we show how the expansion terms can be calculated using purely probabilistic methods. A flexible way of approximating the equivalent implied volatility from the b

This article focuses on the randomized clinical trial (RCT) as research method in nursing interventions and problematizes its methodological ability and delimitations considering the use of this method in the healthcare. It aims to examine if and how RCT in nurse-led interventions are handling questions concerned with contextual in fluences. A systematic literature review was conducted, consisting

Antibiotic resistance (AR) poses an ever growing threat to global public health. Methods are urgently needed that simplify and accelerate the clinical detection and classification of AR. Here we describe a function-based antibiotic resistance assay (FARA) biosensing strategy. The scheme comprises three key components: i) FARA directly measures the thermal signal generated from the catalytic break-

Objective To investigate whether polymorphisms in Toll-like receptor (TLR) genes, previously reported to be associated with immune-mediated diseases, are involved in systemic sclerosis (SSc). Methods. We genotyped 14 polymorphisms in the genes for TLRs 2, 4, 7, 8, and 9 in a discovery cohort comprising 452 SSc patients and 537 controls and a replication cohort consisting of 1,170 SSc patients and