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Background: Periarticular osteopenia is an early sign of incipient joint injury in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), but cannot be accurately quantified using conventional radiography. Digital X-ray radiogrammetry (DXR) is a computerized technique to estimate bone mineral density (BMD) from hand radiographs. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether decrease in BMD of the hands (BMD loss), as determi

The choice of milling cutter geometry and appropriate cutting data for certain milling application is of vital importance for successful machining results. Unfavorable selection of cutting conditions might give rise to high load impacts that cause severe cutting edge damage. Under some circumstances the radial depth of cut in combination with milling cutter geometry might give unfavorable entry co

Exchange of arguments in a discussion often makes individuals more radical about their initial opinion. This phenomenon is known as Group-induced Attitude Polarization. A byproduct of it are bipolarization effects, where the distance between the attitudes of two groups of individuals increases after the discussion. This paper is a first attempt to analyse the building blocks of information exchang

We study several problems of clearing subgraphs by mobile agents in digraphs. The agents can move only along directed walks of a digraph and, depending on the variant, their initial positions may be pre-specified. In general, for a given subset S of vertices of a digraph D and a positive integer k, the objective is to determine whether there is a subgraph H = (VH, AH) of D such that (a) S ⊆ VH, (b

Two approaches to the macro basis function (MBF) method that target interconnected subdomains have been adapted to finite linear arrays, and benchmarked against each other in order to estimate their performance with respect to the strong near field coupling that occurs under the endfire mode operation. The methods, here referred to as methods A and B, are based on the synthetic function and charac

The evolution of phenotypic plasticity requires a number of conditions. Selection of plasticity is favoured when the organism experience environmental change, costs are low and cues are reliable about the environmental heterogeneity. However, organisms living in stable environments, not showing constitutive traits but a large amount of plasticity, are predicted to demonstrate high rates of gene fl

What can be done to raise awareness of the significance of sense- and soundscape for health, wellbeing and communication? A massive body of research is being conducted in the sound environment field today with important discoveries especially on relationship between noise and health. Outcomes of this research slowly pours up into society, raising warnings of health and environmental risks, not sel

An explicit expression, free from adjustable parameters, is derived for the effective pair interaction between charged colloidal spheres at high concentration in a medium containing an electrolyte. This is accomplished by first considering the electrostatic interaction between two infinite charged plates placed in a stack of identical plates. These act as a reservoir defining the chemical potentia

Comparisons of the strength and form of phenotypic selection among groups provide a powerful approach for testing adaptive hypotheses. A central and largely unaddressed issue is how fitness and phenotypes are standardized in such studies; standardization across or within groups can qualitatively change conclusions whenever mean fitness differs between groups. We briefly reviewed recent relevant li

Macrolide antibiotics are used as anti-inflammatory agents, e.g., for prevention of exacerbations in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and cystic fibrosis. Several studies have shown improved outcomes after the addition of macrolides to -lactam antibiotics for treatment of severe community-acquired pneumonia. However, a beneficial effect of macrolides in treating Gram-negative bacterial airway

A heterogeneous distribution of crosslinker in micro-hydrogels (microgels) results in a non-uniform polymer density inside the particles. Identifying the morphology of the hydrogel backbone enables a bottom-up approach towards the structural and rheological properties of microgel systems. On a local level we use a Flory-Rehner inspired model that focuses on highly swollen networks, characterized b

The human cathelicidin peptide LL-37 has antimicrobial and anti-biofilm functions, but LL-37 may also damage the host by triggering inflammation and exerting a cytotoxic effect, thereby reducing host cell viability. Human plasma mitigates LL-37-induced host cell cytotoxicity but the underlying mechanisms are not completely understood. Apolipoprotein A-I (ApoA-I) is a plasma protein endowed with at

Background: Chronic rhinosinusitis with and without nasal polyps (CRSw/sNP) are common conditions decreasing health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Individual symptoms capable of predicting outcome after endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS) are poorly defined, and the indirect costs of CRS is rarely reported in Europe. Methodology: Patients with CRSw/sNP admitted for ESS were prospectively enrolled. Pa

In recent years, the increase of the global incidence of obesity and obesity-related disorders has been associated with metabolic imbalance and low grade inflammation. Fat-rich meals and diets contribute importantly to those alterations. The aim of this work was to evaluate the impact of exchanging butter by Hass avocado-oil on postprandial metabolic parameters in healthy overweight volunteers con

Cocoa is a well acknowledged polyphenol-rich functional product. However, the mechanisms and effects of cocoa products on glucose metabolism and appetite regulation are not clear. A crossover randomised study was carried out in twenty (4male; 16female) healthy middle-age (62.6 ± 6.5 yr) subjects with normal BMI (23.0 ± 2.0 kg/m2). Effects on postprandial glucose-, insulin- and subjective appetite

Introduction: The importance of mobile health has increased during recent years but few studies have described the use of apps among persons with neurological disabilities. Aim: The aim of this paper was to describe how persons ageing with a neurological disability experience barriers and facilitators in relation to using apps in everyday life. Method: A qualitative approach was used. 16 persons w

This paper presents a study of WWγ and WZγ triboson production using events from proton–proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of s=8TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.2 fb- 1. The WWγ production cross-section is determined using a final state containing an electron, a muon, a photon, and neutrinos (e). Upper limits on the prod