BACKGROUND: The optimum treatment of acute total Achilles tendon rupture remains controversial. In the present study, the outcomes of surgical and nonsurgical treatment in a large number of patients were compared on the basis of patient age and sex. METHODS: The records of all 487 patients with an acute total Achilles tendon rupture that had occurred between 2002 and 2006 and had been treated at

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common malignancy affecting men in the western world. While radical prostatectomy and radiation therapy can successfully treat a majority of patients, up to ~30% will experience local recurrence or metastatic disease. Prostate carcinogenesis and progression is typically an androgen dependent process. For this reason, therapies for recurrent PCa target androgen bio

Aim: To quantify avian distribution shifts and the extent of niche tracking in response to changing temperature and precipitation patterns. Location: Sweden. Methods: We used abundance monitoring data to quantify changes in bird species distributions between two time periods, 2000-02 and 2010-12. First we examined shifts at the level of whole distributions using population centroids in temperature

Introduction: The objective of the study was to investigate the impact of newer biologic treatments including rituximab, abatacept and tocilizumab on antibody response following pneumococcal vaccination using a 7-valent conjugate vaccine in patients with established rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods: Patients with RA receiving rituximab, abatacept or tocilizumab as monotherapy or combined with me

The feasibility of digesting energy crops supplemented with macro- and micronutrients instead of manure, without the commonly applied long hydraulic retention time (HRT), was investigated in long-term, single-stage continuous stirred tank processes. The crops used were mixtures of sugar beets, maize and whole crop triticale. The organic loading rate (OLR) measured as a total solid (TS) was 1.5-5.5

Abstract in Undetermined This paper investigates hypotheses related to efficiency and price uniformity in online competing auctions based on two theoretical predictions from Peters and Severinov [Peters, M., Severinov, S., 2006. Internet auctions with many traders. Journal of Economic Theory 130, 220–245]. The investigation is conducted using a large and ideal data set for online competing train t

ORAI and stromal interaction molecule (STIM) are storeoperated channel molecules that play essential roles in human physiology through a coupling mechanism of internal Ca2+ store to Ca2+ influx. However, the roles of ORAI and STIMin vascular endothelial cells under diabetic conditions remain unknown. Here, we investigated expression and signalling pathways of ORAI and STIM regulated by high glucos

BACKGROUND: Little focus has been paid to the role of mental health among young people with regard to risky sexual behavior and HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between poor mental health and risky sexual behavior (HIV/AIDS) among a population of university students in Uganda. METHODS: In 2005, 980 Ugandan university students completed

Surface-assisted cyclodehydrogenation and dehydrogenative polymerization of polycyclic (hetero)aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) are among the most important strategies for bottom-up assembly of new nanostructures from their molecular building blocks. Although diverse compounds have been formed in recent years using this methodology, a limited knowledge on the molecular machinery operating at the nanosc

Laccase catalysed oxidation of syringyl and guaiacyl subunits of lignin and their modification with an aromatic amine, p-aminobenzoic acid (PABA) were investigated. Laccase from Galerina sp. HC1 isolated earlier by us was used as the main catalyst, and Trametes versicolor laccase was used for comparison. Among the syringyl compounds, syringic acid and syringaldehyde were oxidised to 2,6-dimethoxy-

This paper presents a multi-bit, continuous time delta-sigma modulator with 20 MHz bandwidth implemented in 65nm CMOS for cellular communication. The modulator features a third order, single loop filter and a 4-bit internal quantizer operating at 640 MHz. The DACs are resistive for lower thermal noise compared to the current-steering DACs and nonreturn-to-zero DAC pulse is used to reduce the clock

One of the ways in which globalization is manifesting itself in higher education and research is through the increasing importance and emphasis on scientific mobility. This article seeks to provide an overview and analysis of current trends and policy tools for promoting mobility. The article argues that the mobility of scientific labour is an indispensable prerequisite for building capacity and w

The systematic errors introduced by triggering a USB spectrometer for laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy equivalence ratio measurements are studied. We analyze the temporal behavior of laser-induced plasma in a nonreacting methane/air mixture and investigate the influence of the dynamics on equivalence ratio measurements with gated and ungated detection. For use of gated detectors, optimal delay

Perlecan is a proteoglycan composed of a 470-kDa core protein linked to three heparan sulfate (HS) glycosaminoglycan chains. The intact proteoglycan inhibits the smooth muscle cell (SMC) response to vascular injury. Hspg2(Delta 3/Delta 3) (M Delta 3/Delta 3) mice produce a mutant perlecan lacking the HS side chains. The objective of this study was to determine differences between these two types o

Self-renewal of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and leukemia-initiating cells (LICs) has been proposed to be influenced by low oxygen tension (hypoxia). This signaling, related to the cellular localization inside the bone marrow niche and/or influenced by extrinsic factors, promotes the stabilization of hypoxia inducible factors (HIFs). Whether HIF-1α can be used as a therapeutic target in the tre

Background There is debate about the value of assessing levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) and other biomarkers of inflammation for the prediction of first cardiovascular events. Methods We analyzed data from 52 prospective studies that included 246,669 participants without a history of cardiovascular disease to investigate the value of adding CRP or fibrinogen levels to conventional risk factors

The Geological Survey of Sweden (SGU) has been conducting airborne gamma spectrometry measurements of natural radioactivity in Sweden for more than 40 years. Today, the database covers about 80% of the country's land surface. This article explores the first step of putting this data into use in radioactive source search at ground level. However, in order to be able to use the airborne background m

We study the problem of clearing connections by agents placed at some vertices in a directed graph. The agents can move only along directed paths. The objective is to minimize the number of agents guaranteeing that any pair of vertices can be connected by a underlying undirected path that can be cleared by the agents. We provide several results on the hardness, approximability and parameterized co