Acid precipitation may lead to loss of essential elements and increase the concentrations of potentially toxic elements in drinking water. In this study 46 private wells from acid regions (pH < 6.5) were compared with 43 private wells from alkaline areas in southern Sweden. The concentrations of about 30 elements were analysed especially by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy

Carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) was measured in three populations using anion-exchange chromatography followed by radioimmunoassay (CDTectTM) and a new high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method. The correlation between the methods in 50 consecutive clinical samples was good (r = 0.87). However, in a set of 49 samples with CDT concentrations close to the reference value of the m

The present study examined the effects of exogenous insulin on C-peptide release in relation to islet activities of neural constitutive nitric oxide synthase (ncNOS) and inducible NOS (iNOS). The dose–response curves for glucose-stimulated insulin and C-peptide release from isolated islets were practically identical: 0.05–0.1 nmol/l insulin stimulated, 1–100 nmol/l had no effect, whereas concentr

A new chromatographic method based on affinity supermacroporous monolithic cryogels is developed for binding and analyzing inclusion bodies during fermentation. The work demonstrated that it is possible to bind specific IgG and IgY antibodies to the 15 and 17 amino acids at the terminus ends of a 33 kDa target protein aggregated as inclusion bodies. The antibody treated inclusion bodies from lysed

The single-channel activity of rabbit skeletal muscle ryanodine receptor (skeletal RyR) and dog cardiac RyR was studied as a function of cytosolic [Ca2+]. The studies reveal that for both skeletal and cardiac RyRs, heterogeneous populations of channels exist, rather than a uniform behavior. Skeletal muscle RyRs displayed two extremes of behavior: 1) low-activity RyRs (LA skeletal RyRs, approximate

Background and purpose: Brachytherapy is sometimes suggested as an adjuvant treatment after surgery of some tumours. When introducing this, it would be useful to have an estimate of the dose distribution to different body sites, both near and distant to target, comparing conventional external irradiation to brachytherapy. The aim of the present study was to determine radiation doses with both meth

Marker-based studies of inbreeding may lead to an enhanced understanding of inbreeding depression in natural populations, which is a major concern in conservation genetics. Correlations between marker heterozygosity and variation in fitness-associated traits—‘heterozygosityfitness correlations’ (HFCs)—are of particular importance and have been widely applied in natural populations. In partially in

Objectives: To assess the changes in HIV prevalence and incidence between 1996 and 2006 in urban areas of Bissau. Design: A cross-sectional survey of 384 randomly selected houses within a community-based follow-up study of HIV-1 and HIV-2. Methods: A total of 3242 individuals aged at least 15 years were eligible for inclusion. Participants were interviewed about behavioral and socio-economic facto

Objective: A large tidal volume (VT) and lung collapse and re-expansion may cause ventilator-induced lung injury (VILI) in acute lung injury (ALI). A low VT and a positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) can prevent VILI, but the more VT is reduced, the more dead space (VD) compromises gas exchange. We investigated how physiological, airway and alveolar VD varied with PEEP and analysed possible lin

Background A main goal in nursing care of persons with chronic heart failure (HF) is to strengthen their health related quality of life (HRQoL). This presupposes knowledge about the relation between heart failure and HRQoL. Existing studies have shown incongruent results about whether HRQoL is affected differently depending on age or sex of elderly persons with chronic HF. Aim This study aimed

Impaired degradation of amyloid beta (A beta) peptides could lead to A beta accumulation, an early trigger of Alzheimer's disease (AD). How A beta-degrading enzymes are regulated remains largely unknown. Cystatin C (CysC, CST3) is an endogenous inhibitor of cysteine proteases, including cathepsin B (CatB), a recently discovered A beta-degrading enzyme. A CST3 polymorphism is associated with an inc

The cytotoxicity and photocytotoxicity of trans-[RuCl2(DMSO)4] and cis-[RuCl2(DMSO)4] complexes was tested in two melanoma cell lines, human (SK-MEL 188) and mouse (S91). The trans isomer was found to be more effective for cell growth inhibition than its cis analogue both in the presence and in the absence of illumination. However, the antiproliferative activity of both isomers was significantly e

Despite the great significance of geomorphologic-environmental data in different disciplines, there are sundry problems in relation to availability, accessibility and their applicability. Primarily the problems dealing with these data were investigated and then technical solutions to remove each of the above problems and how to manage geomorphologic-enviromnental data were suggested. The solution

We explore numerically different aspects of periodic traveling-wave solutions of the Camassa-Holm equation. in particular, the time evolution of some recently found new traveling-wave solutions and the interaction of peaked and cusped waves is studied.

Mutations in the TP53 tumor suppressor gene have been shown to significantly correlate with poor prognosis in endometrial cancer. In the present study we have evaluated a luminometric immunoassay (LIA) for quantitative estimation of TP53 protein expression in 65 cytosol preparations from endometrial cancer, previously analyzed for mutations in TP53 exons 4-10. LIA showed high (greater than or equa

We report on large-scale ab initio multiconfiguration Dirac-Fock calculations of hyperfine-structure parameters and oscillator strengths for the lowest few levels in Tl II and Tl III. The effect of both core-valence and core-core correlation on these properties is investigated, probing effects of all core subshells. The agreement with most experiments is excellent. These data are of vital interest

Experiments were conducted to investigate the "paired" arbuscules characteristic of Arum-type mycorrhizal colonization in Linum usitatissimum L. The development and senescence of arbuscular structures were followed in a time course study. Roots were freeze-sectioned longitudinally and mycorrhizal structures visualized using nitroblue tetrazolium, a vital stain to indicate metabolically active arbu