Purpose: In this study, we have quantified the setup deviation and time gain when using fast surface scanning for daily setup/positioning with weekly megavoltage computed tomography (MVCT) and compared it to daily MVCT. Methods: A total of 16 835 treatment fractions were analyzed, treated, and positioned using our TomoTherapy HD (Accuray Inc., Madison, USA) installed with a Sentinel optical surfac

Objective: The suggested link between major depression disorder (MDD) and blood–brain barrier (BBB) alterations supports an impact on the neurovascular unit in this disease condition. Here we investigate how pericytes, a major component in the neurovascular unit, respond to stress, stress hormones, proinflammatory cytokine and depression. Method: Hippocampal sections of chronic unpredictable stres

The extreme environments within the biosphere are inhabited by organisms known as extremophiles. Lately, these organisms are attracting a great deal of interest from researchers and industrialists. The motive behind this attraction is mainly related to the desire for new and efficient products of biotechnological importance and human curiosity of understanding nature. Organisms living in common “h

Concrete is one of the most commonly used building materials ever used. Despite it is a very important and common construction material, concrete is very sensitive to crack formation and requires repair. A variety of chemical-based techniques and materials have been developed to repair concrete cracks. Although the use of these chemical-based repair systems are the best commercially available choi

Several neurodegenerative diseases cause loss of cortical neurons, leading to sensory, motor, and cognitive impairments. Studies in different animal models have raised the possibility that transplantation of human cortical neuronal progenitors, generated from pluripotent stem cells, might be developed into a novel therapeutic strategy for disorders affecting cerebral cortex. For example, we have s

This licentiate-thesis, Stories About a red Cottage, is an attempt to combine cultural theory with a didactic method applied to Swedish as a field of study. With the two notions intertextuality and the foreign as a starting point, I discuss the importance of how an idyllic view of Sweden affects students studying Swedish as a foreign language as part of their studies in Scandinavistics. The studenThis licentiate-thesis, Stories About a red Cottage, is an attempt to combine cultural theory with a didactic method applied to Swedish as a field of study. With the two notions intertextuality and the foreign as a starting point, I discuss the importance of how an idyllic view of Sweden affects students studying Swedish as a foreign language as part of their studies in Scandinavistics. The studen

Low rank structures are present in many applications of computer vision and machine learning. A popular approach consists of explicitly parameterising the set or matrices with sought rank, leading to a bilinear factorisation, reducing the problem to find the bilinear factors. While such an approach can be efficiently implemented using second-order methods, such as Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) or Varia

We present a simple reduction of the problem of nondecreasing paths (with minimal last edge weight) in a directed edge-weighted graph to a reachability problem in a directed unweighted graph. The reduction yields an alternative simple method of solving the single-source nondecreasing paths problem in almost linear time. If the edge weights are integers then our algorithm can be implemented in O((n

During whey powder production, the feed is subjected to several heat treatments which can cause lactosylation of proteins. In this study, lactosylation of whey proteins was evaluated in spray-dried powders before and after storage by varying the native protein fraction as well as the serum protein/lactose ratio in the powders. The lactosylation of native α-lactalbumin and β-lactoglobulin in the po

The article investigates social learning of doping among elite athletes, based on qualitative interviews with 10 former competitive powerlifters, which were analyzed with Lave and Wenger’s learning theories. The constitution of the social context–the sports community–and specific situations were decisive for how the informants acted in relation to doping. The informants were situated in a powerlif

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate differences in clinical features and HLA genotypes between adult-onset and childhood-onset patients with type 1 diabetes in a Chinese population. Materials and Methods: This study enrolled 716 Han Chinese patients with type 1 diabetes from Guangdong (258 childhood-onset and 458 adult-onset) to compare their clinical features. Of them 214 patient

Activated factor XI (FXIa) inhibitors are anticipated to combine anticoagulant and profibrinolytic effects with a low bleeding risk. This motivated a structure aided fragment based lead generation campaign to create novel FXIa inhibitor leads. A virtual screen, based on docking experiments, was performed to generate a FXIa targeted fragment library for an NMR screen that resulted in the identifica

Proteolytic activation is a unique feature of the epithelial sodium channel (ENaC). However, the underlying molecular mechanisms and the physiologically relevant proteases remain to be identified. The serine protease trypsin I can activate ENaC in vitro but is unlikely to be the physiologically relevant activating protease in ENaC-expressing tissues in vivo. Herein, we investigated whether human t

In a project to find novel neutral P1 fragments for the synthesis of thrombin inhibitors with improved pharmacokinetic properties, fragments containing a benzothiazole guanidine scaffold were identified as weak thrombin inhibitors. WaterLOGSY (Water-Ligand Observed via Gradient SpectroscopY) NMR was used to detect fragments binding to thrombin and these fragments were followed up by Biacore A100 a

The last two decades have seen remarkable progress and improvements in optical biosensor systems such that those are currently seen as an important and value-adding component of modern drug screening activities. In particular the introduction of microplate-based biosensor systems holds the promise to match the required throughput without compromising on data quality thus representing a sought-afte

A series of 1,6-naphthyridine-based compounds was synthesized as potent phosphodiesterase 10A (PDE10A) inhibitors. Structure-based chemical modifications of the discovered chemotype served to further improve potency and selectivity over DHODH, laying the foundation for future optimization efforts.

HCV infection is a major risk factor for liver cancer and liver transplantation worldwide. Overstimulation of host lipid metabolism in the liver by HCV-encoded proteins during viral infection creates a favorable environment for virus propagation and pathogenesis. In this study, we hypothesize that targeting cellular enzymes acting as master regulators of lipid homeostasis could represent a powerfu

Acute pancreatitis is a life-threatening inflammatory disease characterized by abdominal pain of unknown etiology. Trypsin, a key mediator of pancreatitis, causes inflammation and pain by activating protease-activated receptor 2 (PAR(2)), but the isoforms of trypsin that cause pancreatitis and pancreatic pain are unknown. We hypothesized that human trypsin IV and rat P23, which activate PAR(2) and

Abstract: Progranulin is a glycoprotein marking chronic inflammation in obesity and type 2 diabetes. Previous studies suggested PSRC1 (proline and serine rich coiled-coil 1) to be a target of genetic variants associated with serum progranulin levels. We aimed to identify potentially functional variants and characterize their role in regulation of PSRC1. Phylogenetic module complexity analysis (PMC