As their most critical limitation, neighborhood and health studies published to date have not taken into account nonresidential activity places where individuals travel in their daily lives. However, identifying low-mobility populations residing in low-resource environments, assessing cumulative environmental exposures over multiple activity places, and identifying specific activity locations for

We report on a gated tunnel diode (GTD) and its operation in a 60 GHz pulsed oscillator, also known as a wavelet generator. The wavelet generator operates with the aid of a reactive bias stabilizing network, which minimizes the DC power consumption. This allows for 60 GHz wavelets as short as 56 ps to be produced, with a corresponding energy consumption of 1.0 pJ, which is a factor of 3.6 lower as

Heme A is a prosthetic group unique for cytochrome a-type respiratory oxidases in mammals, plants and many microorganisms. The poorly understood integral membrane protein heme A synthase catalyzes the synthesis of heme A from heme O. In bacteria, but not in mitochondria, this enzyme contains one or two pairs of cysteine residues that are present in predicted hydrophilic polypeptide loops on the ex

Occupational exposure to particulate air pollution has been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. However, the risk to welders working today remains unclear. We aimed to elucidate the cardiovascular effects of exposure to welding fumes.

The reliability of radiation dose estimates in internal radionuclide therapy is directly related to the accuracy of activity estimates obtained at each imaging time point. The recently published MIRD pamphlet no. 23 provided a general overview of quantitative SPECT imaging for dosimetry. The present document is the first in a series of isotope-specific guidelines that will follow MIRD 23 and focus

Information on past land cover in terms of absolute areas of different landscape units (forest, open land, pasture land, cultivated land, etc.) at local to regional scales is needed to test hypotheses and answer questions related to climate change (e.g. feedbacks effects of land-cover change), archaeological research, and nature conservancy (e.g. management strategy). The palaeoecological techniqu

Fibrillin-containing microfibrils are polymeric structures that are difficult to extract from connective tissues. Proteolytic digestion of tissues has been utilized to release microfibrils for study. Few of the molecules that connect microfibrils to other elements in the matrix have been identified. In this study, electron microscopic immunolocalization of anti-versican antibodies in tissues and i

It is generally agreed that the cohesion of cement paste occurs through the formation of a network of nanoparticles of a calcium-silicate-hydrate ("C-S-H"). However, the mechanism by which these particles develop this cohesion has not been established. Here we propose a dielectric continuum model which includes all ionic interactions within a dispersion of C-S-H particles. It takes into account al

BACKGROUND: Decreased plasma levels of plasma-neuropeptide Y (NPY) and plasma-corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH), and increased levels of plasma delta-sleep inducing peptide (DSIP) in suicide attempters with mood disorders have previously been observed. This study was performed in order to further understand the clinical relevance of these findings. METHODS: Examination of correlates between te

Optimal migration theory predicts that birds minimizing the overall time of migration should adjust stopover duration with respect to the rate of fuel accumulation. Recent theoretical developments also take into account the wind situation and predict that there is a time window (a set of days) during which birds should depart when assisted by winds but will not do so if there are head winds. There

In this paper, start-up of a plate reactor with an exothermic reaction is considered. Dynamic optimization is used to obtain start-up trajectories, while a feedback control system is designed for on-line control. The problem is challenging, since the process model is highly nonlinear, and subject to uncertainty. Limited bandwidth of the feedback control system requires that the optimization gives

Background: The tuberculin skin test is used for tracing of tuberculosis transmission and identifying individuals in need of prophylactic treatment. Methods: Using a case-control study design, we recruited 220 smear-positive tuberculosis cases and 223 randomly selected healthy community controls in Bissau, Guinea-Bissau, during 1999-2000. Tuberculin skin tests were performed on family members of c

We use femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy to study chlorophyll (Chl)-Chl energy transfer in the peridinin-chlorophyll protein (PCP) reconstituted with mixtures of either chlorophyll b (Chlb) and Chld or Chla and bacteriochlorophyll a (BChla). Analysis of absorption and transient absorption spectra demonstrated that reconstitution with chlorophyll mixtures produces a significant fraction

Migration is a widespread phenomenon in many ecosystems. Most often, studies on migration have focused on how migration strategies are dependent on ecological parameters, but little attention has been paid to the top-down effect of migration on ecosystem processes. Cyprinid fish in many European lakes undergo partial migration, where a part of the population leaves the lake and enters streams for

Objective: To compare the colloids 5% albumin, 4% gelatin, and 6% HES 130/0.4 with one another and with normal saline regarding their plasma expanding effects at increased permeability and to compare the results with those from a previous study at normal permeability. Design and setting: Prospective controlled randomized laboratory study in a university research laboratory. Subjects: 48 adult male

This paper aims to make a systematic study of human dura to establish the presence of fluid transport channels and their relationship to age. Samples of parasagittal dura from autopsy cases from mid-gestation to the ninth decade were examined by light microscopy. We have demonstrated the presence of unlined rounded spaces, uncommon in the fetus and neonate but increasingly evident after 30 weeks o

Acylglutamate is a divalent anionic surfactant whose properties are affected by its degree of neutralization. In this study, we present phase maps for aqueous systems of the potassium (LGP) and triethanolamine salts (LGT) of N-lauroyl L-glutamic acid, at different degrees of neutralization. A cubic phase forming between the isotropic micellar and the hexagonal phase was detected in both LGP/water