We studied determinants of cadmium status and kidney function in nonsmoking men and women living on farms in southern Sweden. Median blood Cd (BCd) was 1.8 nmol/L (range, 0.38-18) and median urinary Cd (UCd) was 0.23 nmol/mmol creatinine (range, 0.065-0.99). The intake of Cd per kilogram body weight did not significantly differ between sexes and did not correlate with BCd or UCd, which may be expl

The heavy metals in mosses survey was originally established in 1980 as a joint Danish-Swedish initiative under the leadership of Angstromke Ruhling, Sweden and has, since then, been repeated at five-yearly intervals with an increasing number of countries and individuals participating. Twenty-eight European countries, almost 7000 sites and about 100 individuals have been involved in the most recen

The local structure of amorphous Si (a-Si) formed by ion implantation has been investigated at the Si K edge with extended X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy (EXAFS). The first four cumulants of the interatomic distance distribution have been determined using the Cumulant method. The structural parameters (bondlength, coordination number and Debye-Waller factor) compared favorably to pre

The outcome after nerve repair in adults is generally poor. We hypothesized that forearm deafferentation would enhance the sensory outcome by increasing the cortical hand representation. A prospective, randomized, double-blind study was designed to investigate the effects of cutaneous forearm anaesthesia combined with sensory re-education on the outcome after ulnar or median nerve repair. During a

Free volume and density gradient widths of the free surface of high molecular mass polystyrene was characterized by use of a pulsed low-energy positron lifetime beam. A density gradient in terms of mass density (g/cm(3)) versus depth (nm) was obtained from the experimental beam data using a novel approach, yielding a width of the density gradient of approximately 3.5 nm. The procedure accounted fo

The aerobic degradation of phenanthrene by a Pseudomonas migulae strain under classical mechanical aeration and under photosynthetic oxygenation (using a Chlorella sorokiniana strain) in a two-phase partitioning bioreactor (TPPB) constructed with silicone oil as organic phase was investigated. When traditional mechanical aeration was used, an increase in the aeration and/or in the agitation rate e

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and organic pesticides (i.e., DDTs) were measured in long finned eels (Anguilla dieffenbachii) in 17 streams on the west coast of South Island, New Zealand. Very low levels of PCBs and low levels of ppDDE were found. The concentrations of PCBs and ppDDE were not correlated within sites indicating that different processes determined the levels of the two pollutants

High efficiency, environmental friendliness, low operation and maintenance costs, and the lowest possible impact on the environment are some of the requirements of sustainable energy production. In the selection of new power generation systems, a number of steps have to be taken into account in order to meet these requirements. Here, the first law analysis has been implemented and investigated, fo

We generalize the supersymmetry method in random matrix theory to ensembles which are unitarily invariant, but otherwise arbitrary. Our exact approach extends a previous contribution in which we constructed a supersymmetric representation for the class of norm-dependent random matrix ensembles. Here, we derive a supersymmetric formulation under very general circumstances. A reduced probability den

The future 3 GeV MAX-IV storage ring at MAX-Lab will be a low emittance storage ring for the production of synchrotron radiation. The vertical aperture in the straight sections, as well as in the bends, of the storage rings will be small. It is foreseen to use, among other insertion devices, superconducting cold bore short period undulators as insertion devices in order to obtain undulator radiati

C-stage effluent, E-stage effluent and a total effluent (C-stage and E-stage effluent mixed in proportion to the volumes of the effluents at the mill) have been treated with a ceramic microfilter membrane. The flux of the total effluent was considerably lower than of the separate effluents. The fluxes of the E-stage and C-stage effluents were 550 and 1,300 l/m2h, respectively, while the flux of th

The global climate change caused by emissions of greenhouse gases from combustion processes has been recognized as a continuously growing problem and much research focuses on improving the environmental performance of gas turbines. The potential of improving gas turbine component efficiencies has become smaller each decade and therefore, thermodynamic cycles have become more interesting for power

PURPOSE: To describe new disease-causing RP2 and RPGR-ORF15 mutations and their corresponding clinical phenotypes in Swedish families with X-linked retinitis pigmentosa (XLRP) and to establish genotype-phenotype correlations by studying the clinical spectrum of disease in families with a known molecular defect. METHODS: Seventeen unrelated families with RP and an apparent X-linked pattern of disea

A misaligned stretcher or compressor in a chirped pulse amplification laser introduces residual angular dispersion into the beam, resulting in temporal distortion of the pulse. We demonstrate that an imaging spectrograph is capable for Measuring the angular dispersion of a laser beam by an accuracy of 0.2 murad/min. Using this technique, the analytical expressions of residual angular dispersion of

In the course of a screening of fungal extracts for new metabolites with cytotoxic activities cylindrocyclin A (1) was isolated. The producing strain was identified as Cylindrocarpon sp. by microscopy and ITS rDNA sequence analysis. 1 is a novel compound that exhibits cytotoxic acticity against six different cell lines with IC50 values ranging from 11 to 53 mu M. 1 has no antibacterial or antifung