Protein D (PD) is a highly conserved 42 kDa surface lipoprotein found in all Haemophilus influenzae, including nontypeable (NT) H. influenzae. PD is involved in the pathogenesis of respiratory tract infections, in the context of which it has been shown to impair ciliary function in a human nasopharyngeal tissue culture model and to augment the capacity to cause otitis media in rats. A likely mecha

Background: Chromosomal translocations t(11;22) (q24;q12) are characteristic of about 80-90% of Ewing's sarcoma family of tumors [bone and soft tissue Ewing's sarcoma and peripheral neuroectodermal tumors (PNET)]. They generate ews/fli1 rearrangements showing great diversity in breakpoint exon combination. In about 5% of Ewing's tumors, ews is fused to the erg gene at 21q22. The various chimeric p

Most studies of social polygyny in birds have examined male provisioning on the basis of the number of feeding visits. This may be misleading if males compensate for infrequent visits by bringing larger prey at each visit. We investigated nestling provisioning in the socially polygynous great reed warbler, Acrocephalus arundinaceus, in south Central Sweden in 1996-1997. We collected data on rare o

Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is associated with oxygen desaturation to a varying degree. A patent foramen ovale (PFO) may allow interatrial right-to-left shunting. The hypothesis of the current study was that oxygen desaturation will occur more often, in proportion to the frequency of respiratory disturbances, in OSA subjects with PFO than in those without. In a group of 209 subjects diagnosed w

Objective: This study was undertaken to assess whether deviations from normal fetal growth are associated with spontaneous preterm delivery. Study design: A population-based study was performed, using Swedish Medical Birth Register data from 1991 through 2001. The total population comprised 1,007,648 singleton births. Intrauterine-derived growth standards were used to identify individual standard

Receptor turnover may be a crucial part in the physiology of endothelin (ET). Incubation of vessel segments could be a possible method to demonstrate this. The aim was to study contractile responses of human omental arteries to different ET agonists at various periods after incubation at 37 degrees C in 5% CO2 and air. The maximum effect (Emax; percentage of contraction to 60 mM K+ buffer solution

A method of extracting arabinoxylan from barley husks has previously been developed, but was found to suffer from three problems, namely: starch was dispersed in the aqueous phase during steam pretreatment, the yield of extracted arabinoxylan with high molecular mass was low in the steam pretreatment step, and there was high filtration resistance in the clarification step. This paper presents poss

p-phenylenediamine derivatives are widely used in industry and in cosmetics, and several of them are well-known sensitizers. One group of allergenic p-phenylenediamine derivatives are used as colour film developers. Cross-reactivity between the colour film developers has been reported. In this paper, an occupational facial dermatitis due to colour film developers is described. The patient reacted

The frequency of joint bleeds and orthopaedic joint scores were evaluated in 121 patients with severe haemophilia who had started prophylactic treatment with clotting factor concentrates at least once weekly before the age of 10. 75 of the patients started before the age of 3, 31 at the age of 3-5 and 15 at the age of 6-9. Each subgroup was evaluated separately. In addition, a regimen of one infus

The Minnesota Heart Health Program was a community trial of cardiovascular disease prevention methods that was conducted from 1980 to 1990 in three Upper Midwestern communities with three matched comparison communities. A 5- to 6-year intervention program used community-wide and individual health education in an attempt to decrease population risk. A major hypothesis was that the incidence of vali

The 40 in thick Untersberg section (Salzburg, Austria) of the Northern Calcareous Alps comprises the Palaeocene-Eocene transition and spans the upper part of calcareous nannoplankton zone NP9 and the lower part of zone NP10 (subzone NP10a). These zones are equivalent to planktonic foraminifera zone P5 and the lower part of zone P6 (sub-zone P6a). The succession was deposited in a lower bathyal slo

An open mixed culture was enriched with glycogen-accumulating organisms (GAOs) by using a sequencing batch reactor and treating an agroindustrial waste (sugar cane molasses) under cyclic anaerobic-aerobic conditions. Over a 1-year operating period, the culture exhibited a very stable GAO phenotype with an average polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) content of 17% total suspended solids. However, the GAO mi

A recent report by Zhao et al. [Zhao, M., Momma, S., Delfani, K., Carlen, M., Cassidy, R. M., Johansson, C. B., Brismar, H., Shupliakov, O., Frisen, J. & Janson, A. M. (2003) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 100, 7925–7930] suggests that dopaminergic neurons, the cell type lost in Parkinson's disease, are continuously generated in the adult substantia nigra pars compacta. Using similar methodologica

Patient specific modelling of the blood flow through the human aorta is performed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Velocity patterns are compared between computer simulations and measurements. The workflow includes several steps: MRI measurement to obtain both geometry and velocity, an automatic levelset segmentation followed by meshing of the geometri

Chloroquine (CQ) and mefloquine (MQ) are no longer potent antimalarial drugs due to the emergence of resistant Plasmodium falciparum. Combination therapy has become the standard for many regimes in overcoming drug resistance. Roxithromycin (ROM), a known p-glycoprotein inhibitor, is reported to have antimalarial activity and it is hoped it will potentiate the effects of both CQ/MQ and reverse CQ/M

Few studies have examined the association between dietary fiber intake and prostate cancer risk. We evaluated the association between dietary fiber intake and the risk of prostate cancer among 142,590 men in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC). Consumption of dietary fiber (total, cereal, fruit and vegetable fiber) seas estimated by validated dietary questionnai