This case-control study of tobacco smoking and acute myeloid leukemia (AML), emphasizing specific associations with morphologic and cytogenetic subtypes, comprised smoking histories for 333 cases and 351 controls. Smoking status (ever smokers versus life-long non-smokers) showed no evident effect on AML risk. However, an effect of smoking was indicated at high cumulative smoking doses (pack-years)

The Ebf (O/E) family of helix-loop-helix transcription factors plays a significant role in B lymphocyte and neuronal development. The three primary members of this family, Ebf1, 2, and 3, are all expressed in adipocytes, and Ebf1 promotes adipogenesis when overexpressed in NIH 3T3 fibroblasts. Here we report that these three proteins have adipogenic potential in multiple cellular models and that p

Rats housed in an enriched environment allowing both social interaction and physical activity improve more than rats housed in standard laboratory cages after focal brain ischemia. To determine the relative importance of social and physical activity, rats that sustained ligation of the middle cerebral artery were kept in an enriched environment with opportunities for various activities (group A),

Two cooking liquors and a black liquor were fractionated by ultrafiltration. The liquors were withdrawn from different stages in a kraft pulp mill employing continuous digestion. The ultrafiltration was performed at 90 degrees C with two ceramic membranes with cut-offs of 5 kDa and 15 kDa. Only small differences in membrane performance were observed when concentrating the three liquors to 90% volu

The doubly magic superdeformed band in the N = Z nucleus Zn-60 has been identified. Linking transitions connecting this band to the yrast line provide the first spin, parity, and excitation energy measurements for superdeformed states in the A similar to 60 region. The stretched-E2 character and relatively large B(E2) values of these transitions suggest a nonstatistical decay-out process.

Abstract in UndeterminedA new family of stream ciphers, Grain, is proposed. Two variants, a 80-bit and a 128-bit variant are specified, denoted Grain and Grain-128 respectively. The designs target hardware environments where gate count, power consumption and memory are very limited. Both variants are based on two shift registers and a nonlinear output function. The ciphers also have the additional

A continued study of the recently discovered diazotizative allylation (DiazAll) reaction of aniline derivatives is reported. Several allyl reagents, commonly used in radical allylation reactions, were evaluated, and some of these reagents resulted in allylation when used in the DiazAll reaction. The best result was obtained with allyl bromide. Substituted allylic bromides gave the corresponding al

Field-growing silver birch (Betula pendula Roth) clones (clone 4 and 80) were exposed to elevated CO2 and O-3 in open-top chambers for three consecutive growing seasons (1999-2001). At the beginning of the OTC experiment, all trees were 7 years old. We studied the single and interaction effects of CO2 and O-3 on silver birch below-ground carbon pools (i.e. effects on fine roots and mycorrhizas, so

Oral and pharyngeal dysfunction is common in Parkinson's disease. To reveal the frequency of swallowing dysfunction and correlate swallowing dysfunction with locomotor disturbances, we studied 75 patients with Parkinson's disease staged I-IV according to the Hoehn and Yahr score. We assessed oral and pharyngeal swallow during optimal medication by a quantitative test of swallowing (the ROSS test)

Nuclear power plants release C-14 during routine operation mainly as airborne gaseous effluents. Because of the long half-life (5730 years) and biological importance of this radionuclide (it is incorporated in plant tissue by photosynthesis), several countries have monitoring programs in order to quantify and control these emissions. This paper compares the activity of C-14 in soils taken within I

Radiative lifetimes have been measured for two excited levels of Ce IV using the time-resolved laser-induced fluorescence technique. Ce3+ ions were produced in a laser-induced plasma. In the measurements, a suitable magnetic field was applied to reduce the recombination between electrons and the ions and thus the background light from the recombination, and special care was exercised to avoid flig

The coarse‐grained Monte Carlo (CGMC) algorithm was originally proposed in the series of works [M. A. Katsoulakis, A. J. Majda, and D. G. Vlachos, J. Comput. Phys., 186 (2003), pp. 250–278; M. A. Katsoulakis, A. J. Majda, and D. G. Vlachos, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 100 (2003), pp. 782–787; M. A. Katsoulakis and D. G. Vlachos, J. Chem. Phys., 119 (2003), pp. 9412–9427]. In this paper we further

An important tool for studying standard finitely presented algebras is the Ufnarovski graph. In this paper we extend the use of the Ufnarovski graph to automaton algebras, introducing the generalized Ufnarovski graph. As an application, we show how this construction can be used to test Noetherianity of automaton algebras.

Abstract in UndeterminedThree different inverse problems for the Schrodinger operator on a metric tree are considered, so far with standard boundary conditions at the vertices. These inverse problems are connected with the matrix Titchmarsh-Weyl function, response operator ( dynamic Dirichlet-to-Neumann map) and scattering matrix. Our approach is based on the boundary control ( BC) method and in p

The seasonal decline in reproductive success observed in many animal species may be caused by timing per se (timing hypothesis) or by variation in phenotypic quality between early and late breeding females (quality hypothesis). To distinguish between these two hypotheses, several studies of birds have used clutch removal experiments to manipulate breeding date. However; removal experiments also in

Previously the effect of atmospheric dispersion on telescope performance has attracted only relatively little attention. This may be due to the fact that the dispersion effects have been evaluated in relation to the size of the diffraction limited resolution angle of current telescopes, or to seeing limited telescopes. However, since the resolution angle is inversely proportional to telescope diam

BACKGROUND: Tumor growth and invasiveness occur through infiltration of tumor cells into the host cells and by angiogenesis, which is modulated by proteinases and antiproteinases released from tumor cells that carry out tissue remodelling. A number of studies have revealed variations in the plasma levels of serine proteases and their inhibitors among tumor types. PATIENTS AND METHODS: By immunolog

Certain structures of heparan sulfate (HS) inhibit cell proliferation of fibroblasts. Whether this inhibition is dependent on inhibition of mitogenic signaling pathways or nuclear translocation of HS is unknown. In this study we investigated possible mechanism(s) and structural requirements by which antiproliferative glycosaminoglycans exert their effects on mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAP k