Compared with Hipparcos, Gaia will give an enormous improvement in accuracy, completeness and number of stars: about two orders of magnitude in accuracy, four orders in number, and a completeness limit that is 12 magnitudes fainter. How is all this possible? The answer is: by a combination of many factors, the most important being bigger and more efficient detectors, and bigger optics. The method

Patch use theory and the marginal value theorem predict that a foraging patch should be abandoned when the costs and benefits of foraging in the patch are equal. This has generally been interpreted as all patches being abandoned when their instantaneous intake rate equals the foraging costs. Bayesian foraging – patch departure is based on a prior estimate of patch qualities and sampling informatio

An imbalanced serum IgG subclass pattern was identified in 10 patients with toxic shock syndrome (TSS) showing remarkably low subclass levels of various combinations. IgG2 levels were significantly reduced as compared to normal controls. The IgG subclass-specificity of antibodies to toxic shock syndrome toxin (TSST-1) was investigated by a solid-phase radioimmunoassay. TSS-patients lacked pre-immu

Previous work has shown that amylose (AM) can cross-link hydrophobically modified polymers by inclusion complexation, whereby thermoreversible cold-setting gels are formed. In this work, the competition between AM and cyclodextrin (CD) for the formation of inclusion complexes with hydrophobically modified hydroxyethyl cellulose (HMHEC) is investigated. A detailed study of viscosity, NMR self-diffu

An airfreight container with automated instruments for measurement of atmospheric gases and trace compounds was operated on a monthly basis onboard a Boeing 767-300 ER of LTU International Airways during long-distance flights from 1997 to 2002 (CARIBIC, Civil Aircraft for Regular Investigation of the Atmosphere Based on an Instrument Container, http://www.caribic-atmospheric.com). Subsequently a m

Background: Diabetes-prone (DP) congenic DR.lypllyp BioBreeding (BB) rats all develop Type I diabetes between 50 and 81 days of age, while DR. lyp/+ or DR.+/+ BB rats are diabetes resistant (DR). The DP rats display reduced weight gain prior to developing hyperglycemia, implying that metabolic events may precede diabetes onset. We tested the hypothesis that temperature measurements could serve as

Cytochromes of the c type in the gram-positive bacterium Bacillus subtilis are all membrane anchored, with their heme domains exposed on the outer side of the cytoplasmic membrane. They are distinguished from other cytochromes by having heme covalently attached by two thioether bonds. The cysteinyls in the heme-binding site (CXXCH) in apocytochrome c must be reduced in order for the covalent attac

1. Basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the most widely used standard measurement of the cost of living. Despite the acknowledged phenotypic flexibility of BMR, little is known about the patterns of variation in wild animal populations. 2. We studied the sources of variation in BMR of great tit Parus major (L.) among individuals from two wild populations: Oulu (northern Finland) and Lund (southern Sweden

t The aim of the present study was to evaluate the association between different types of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and risk of specific breast cancer subgroups. A population-based prospective cohort study including 12,583 peri- or postmenopausal women were followed using record-linkage with national cancer registries. During an average follow-up of 4.5 years, 332 cases of invasive breast

The chemokine CCL25 is constitutively expressed in the thymus, and its receptor CCR9 is expressed on subsets of developing thymocytes. Nevertheless, the function of CCL25/CCR9 in adult thymopoiesis remains unclear. Here, we demonstrate that purified CCR9–/– hematopoietic stem cells are deficient in their ability to generate all major thymocyte subsets including double-negative 1 (DN1) cells in com

The Gram-positive bacterium Bacillus subtilis contains two respiratory oxidases of the haem-copper superfamily: cytochrome aa(3), which is a quinol oxidase, and cytochrome caa(3), which is a cytochrome c oxidase. Cytochrome c oxidase uniquely contains a di-copper centre, Cu-A. B. subtilis CtaG is a membrane protein encoded by the same gene cluster as that which encodes the subunits of cytochrome c

The Palaeoproterozoic (1.90 - 1.60 Ga) crust of central Fennoscandia was intruded repeatedly by dolerite dikes and sills during the Neo- and Mesoproterozoic eons. We report 17 new baddeleyite U - Pb dates comprising six generations of dolerites ( in Ma): Blekinge-Dalarna dolerites 946 - 978 Protogine Zone dolerites 1,215 - 1,221 Central Scandinavian Dolerite Group 1,264 - 1,271 Tuna dikes and age

We report the successful growth of high quality InAs films directly on Si( 111) by Metal Organic Vapor Phase Epitaxy. A nearly mirror-like and uniform InAs film is obtained at 580 C for a thickness of 2 mu m. We measured a high value of the electron mobility of 5100 cm(2)/Vs at room temperature. The growth is performed using a standard two-step procedure. The influence of the nucleation layer, gro

Thirty-three clinical, dairy and industrial isolates of aerobic endospore-forming bacteria which were unreactive in routine identification tests were characterized genotypically by using amplified rDNA restriction analysis (ARDRA), 16S rDNA sequencing and DNA-DNA reassociation, and phenotypically by using fatty acid methyll ester (FAME) analysis, SDS-PAGE of whole-cell proteins, API Biotype 100 as

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to validate the use of whole-blood samples in the determination of circulating forms of prostate-specific antigen (PSA). METHODS: Blood samples of hospitalized prostate cancer and benign prostatic hyperplasia patients were collected and processed to generate whole-blood and serum samples. Three different rapid two-site immunoassays were developed to measur

The purpose of this study was to assess the value of the ventilation study in the diagnosis of acute pulmonary embolism using a new automated method. Either perfusion scintigrams alone or two different combinations of ventilation/perfusion scintigrams were used as the only source of information regarding pulmonary embolism. A completely automated method based on computerised image processing and a

Transforming growth factor-beta(1) (TGF-beta(1)) induces alpha-smooth muscle actin (alpha-SMA) and collagen synthesis in fibroblast both in vivo and in vitro and plays a significant role in tissue repair and the development of fibrosis. During these processes the fibroblasts differentiate into activated fibroblasts (so called myofibroblasts), characterized by increased alpha-SMA expression. Becaus

Recent advances in the synthesis of biomimetic asym. dinuclear transition metal complexes are reviewed. Emphasis is put on description of asym. model complexes for the active sites of the enzymes purple acid phosphatase, zinc phosphotriesterase, urease, Cu, Zn superoxide dismutase, tyrosinase, and catechol oxidase.