Fungus-growing (attine) ants and their fungal symbionts passed through several evolutionary transitions during their 50 million year old evolutionary history. The basal attine lineages often shifted between two main cultivar clades, whereas the derived higher-attine lineages maintained an association with a monophyletic clade of specialized symbionts. In conjunction with the transition to speciali

Introduction: Our objective was to study mandibular widening in untreated subjects with hemifacial microsomia. Methods: From the 3-dimensional files at the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Skane University Hospital in Malmo, Sweden, data of 11 subjects (3 girls, 8 boys) with hemifacial microsomia were retrieved. Their age range was 9 years 2 months to 13 years 2 months at the firs

In this article I focus on women's advancement in the Swedish labour market during more than a century. By applying a long-term perspective I give the historical background to what is commonly seen as a success story. By reassessing census and labour force survey data I show that participation rates may tell a misleading tale not only for the past but also for the present. In a long-term perspecti

In this study well-ordered glycerol monooleate (GMO)-based cubic liquid crystalline nanoparticles (LCNPs) have been used as substrates for Thermomyces lanuginosus lipase in order to establish the relation between the catalytic activity, measured by pH-stat titration, and the change in morphology and nanostructure determined by cryogenic transmission electron microscopy and synchrotron small angle

Concentration of viable cell populations in suspension is of interest for several clinical and pre-clinical applications. Here, we report that microfluidic acoustophoresis is an effective method to efficiently concentrate live and viable cells with high target purity without any need for protein fluorescent labeling using antibodies or over-expression. We explored the effect of the acoustic field

Primary Sjogren's syndrome (pSS) is a chronic autoimmune disease characterized by a lymphocytic exocrinopathy. However, patients often have evidence of systemic autoimmunity, and they are at markedly increased risk for the development of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Similar to other autoimmune disorders, a strong interferon (IFN) signature is present among subsets of pSS patients, although the precise

The article reports and discusses a long-term qualitative study of forty 8-10 year old students who regularly played a math game during math lessons for 9 weeks. The goal was to explore the relations between (i) some of the pedagogical principles that underlie the game and (ii) the playing practice in terms of what actually takes place when students play the math game during regular math lessons.

In this paper, the freeze-thaw stability of mayonnaise type oil-in-water emulsions is studied. The emphasis of the experiments have been on the properties of the dispersed oil phase as only small, or no effects, were observed from initial experiments on changing the properties of the aqueous phase within the investigated ranges. Different vegetable oils are investigated in order to relate the comp

OBJECTIVES: The aim of the present study was to examine the prevalence and associated factors of dietary supplement use, particularly supplements containing vitamin D and fatty acids, in pregnant women enrolled in a multi-national study. DESIGN: The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young (TEDDY) study is a prospective longitudinal cohort study. Maternal dietary supplement use was self

Background. In formal experiments on software engineering, the number of factors that may impact an outcome is very high. Some factors are controlled and change by design, while others are are either unforeseen or due to chance. Aims. This paper aims to explore how context factors change in a series of for- mal experiments and to identify implications for experimentation and replication practices

A measurement of the top-antitop (t (t) over bar) charge asymmetry is presented using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 fb(-1) of LHC pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV collected by the ATLAS detector. Events with two charged leptons, at least two jets and large missing transverse momentum are selected. Two observables are studied: A(C)(ll) based on the identifie

A Holocene diatom stratigraphy of 2nd Pond, a small, filled pond on Nightingale Island (37 degrees 25 S, 12 degrees 29 W) was analyzed and interpreted to infer paleolimnological changes on Tristan da Cunha, South Atlantic. The diatom assemblage of 2nd Pond has the character of an acidic, oligotrophic wetland and the diatom record suggests that 2nd Pond most likely has been a bog/wetland throughout

The ER chaperone calreticulin plays vital roles in numerous cellular processes, including Ca2+-homeostasis, apoptosis, and cell adhesion, in animal cells. Although calreticulin has been systematically characterized in animal cells, the focus has been on one of the isoforms. However, recent advances in the plant calreticulin field have revealed functional divergence of calreticulin isoforms. While

Background. A 43-year-old woman was referred by her occupational health service with suspected occupational contact dermatitis. In connection with the investigation, a workplace visit was undertaken at her company, which used an adhesive based on pre-polymeric diphenylmethane diisocyanate in one of its units. During the visit, we became aware of six other employees with skin problems who were then

Rearrangements of chromosome arm 15q are rare but recurrent in conventional lipomas, a tumor type often showing deregulated expression of the HMGA2 gene. In order to assess whether 15q rearrangements could constitute a distinct pathogenetic mechanism, we studied seven cases of conventional lipoma that at G-banding analysis had various rearrangements of 15q12-q21. The breakpoints in 15q were mapped

Using a multitissue, genome-wide gene expression approach, we recently identified a gene module linked to the extent of human atherosclerosis. This atherosclerosis module was enriched with inherited risk for coronary and carotid artery disease (CAD) and overlapped with genes in the transendothelial migration of leukocyte (TEML) pathway. Among the atherosclerosis module genes, the transcription cof

This article examines the cultural and social dynamics of a multi-ethnic medieval town. Taking the lower town of Tallinn as a case study, this paper identifies the major urban ethnic groups living in the town and discusses their co-existence, self-definition, and processes of categorization. It explores ambiguities arising from daily interactions in the shared physical landscape of the town, such

ObjectiveTo study the impact of swollen to tender joint count ratio (STR) and other baseline characteristics on treatment response to a first course of anti-tumor necrosis factor (anti-TNF) therapy in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. MethodsPatients with RA initiating their first course of anti-TNF treatment were included in a structured clinical followup protocol. Based on pragmatic thresholds

The purpose was to illuminate parents' experiences when their children are undergoing an elective colonoscopy performed using polyethylene glycol-based regimes for bowel preparation.