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Background and purpose — The outcome of surgical treatment of lumbar disc herniation (LDH) has been thoroughly evaluated in middle-aged patients, but less so in elderly patients. Patients and methods — With validated patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) and using SweSpine (the national Swedish Spine Surgery Register), we analyzed the preoperative clinical status of LDH patients and the 1-year

3-DOF Gantry Tau is a type of parallel robot, consisting of six struts configured in three clusters, which provides three translational DOFs. It has increasing industrial use in applications where large workspace and high stiffness are required. In fact, the concept of dynamic isotropy, where all the natural frequencies of a system are equal, can be employed in order to effectively optimize the ge

Background: The contribution of kinesiophobia (fear of movement) to the pain experience among older adults has been poorly evaluated. The aim of this study was to study prevalence at baseline, development over a 12-month period and cognitive-affective variables of kinesiophobia in a population-based sample of older adults with chronic pain. Methods: The study included 433 older adults (+65 years)

Background: There is limited knowledge concerning fall-related activity avoidance in people with Parkinson's disease (PD); such knowledge would be of importance for the development of more efficient PD-care and rehabilitation. This study aimed to examine how fall-related activity avoidance relates to a history of self-reported falls/near falls and fear of falling (FOF) as well as to disease severi

Scandinavian is known to have vocative phrases that contain a possessive second person pronoun and a noun, and possibly also one or more adjectives, as in the Norwegian example din lille fjott, which means ‘you little dork’ although din is formally identical to the possessive pronoun for second person singular. In this paper, I will show that possessive predicational vocatives, as I call them, inv

In this paper we revisit the Kolkata Paise Restaurant problem by allowing for a more general (but common) preference of the n customers defined over the set of n restaurants. This generalization allows for the possibility that each pure strategy Nash equilibrium differs from the Pareto efficient allocation. By assuming that n is small and by allowing for mutual interaction across all customers we

Uncultivated field boundaries constitute a significant part of the remaining semi-natural habitat in simplified agricultural landscapes, providing habitats for many grassland species. In Europe, agri-environment schemes (AES) offer incentives to farmers to manage farmland more environmentally friendly. In Sweden, one AES has specifically targeted management of incidental habitats on farmland by pr

We address the issue of bidder ring formation in single and multi-unit Vickrey auctions. We analyze this issue in a bargaining game set up under the assumption that valuation of bidders is commonly known only amongst themselves. In the single unit case, we show that the equilibrium coalition structure can only be an order preserving r-ring , that includes the winner and the top (r−1)(r−1) losers.

Numerical simulation of numerous mm/cm-sized particles embedded in a gaseous disk has become an important tool in the study of planet formation and in understanding the dust distribution in observed protoplanetary disks. However, the mutual drag force between the gas and the particles can become so stiff - particularly because of small particles and/or strong local solid concentration - that an ex

Proteoglycans are key components of the cartilage extracellular matrix and essential for normal tissue function. The core protein and the glycosaminoglycan chains both contribute to function and provide different properties of the individual proteoglycans. This review is focused on the two main families of cartilage proteoglycans.The first of these is the lectican family, including aggrecan, versi

Objective. To study the change in the modified Hand Mobility in Scleroderma (mHAMIS) test from early to advanced stages of systemic sclerosis (SSc), and the relationship between mHAMIS and skin involvement during followup. Methods. This retrospective study includes 65 patients with baseline disease duration of . 3 years who were assessed with the mHAMIS test at baseline and at 1 or 2 predefined fo

In fMRI studies with evoked activity, brain activity is detected by voxel-wise GLM tting, followed by statistical hypothesis testing. Statistical parametric mapping (SPM), one of the most popular classical methods, relies upon Gaussian smoothing to deal with the multiple-comparison correction. As an alternative, we have recently introduced a graph-based framework for fMRI brain activation mapping

By using historical data on about 50,000 twins born in Sweden during 1886–1958, we demonstrate a positive and statistically significant relationship between years of schooling and longevity. This relation remains almost unchanged when exploiting a twin fixed-effects design to control for the influence of genetics and shared family background. This result is robust to controlling for within-twin-pa

Transplantation of DA neurons is actively pursued as a restorative therapy in Parkinson's disease (PD). Pioneering clinical trials using transplants of fetal DA neuroblasts have given promising results, although a number of patients have developed graft-induced dyskinesias (GIDs), and the mechanism underlying this troublesome side effect is still unknown. Here we have used a new model where the ac

Background: Radiotherapy is based on the premise of accurate dose delivery to target volumes within a patient, while minimizing dose to surrounding tissues. Recent developments in the treatment of breast cancer have focused on “gating” the delivery of the treatment beams to minimize the effect of patient motion during treatment, and increasing separation between the target volume and organs at ris

Background: TopHat is a popular spliced junction mapper for RNA sequencing data, and writes files in the BAM format - the binary version of the Sequence Alignment/Map (SAM) format. BAM is the standard exchange format for aligned sequencing reads, thus correct format implementation is paramount for software interoperability and correct analysis. However, TopHat writes its unmapped reads in a way th

We report a new study of the V i atom using a combination of time-resolved laser-induced fluorescence and Fourier transform spectroscopy that contains newly measured radiative lifetimes for 25 levels between 24,648 cm-1 and 37,518 cm-1 and oscillator strengths for 208 lines between 3040 and 20000 from 39 upper energy levels. Thirteen of these oscillator strengths have not been reported previously.

A major challenge for ecological research is to identify ways to improve resilience to climate-induced changes in order to secure the ecosystem functions of natural systems, as well as ecosystem services for human welfare. With respect to aquatic ecosystems, interactions between climate warming and the elevated runoff of humic substances (brownification) may strongly affect ecosystem functions and

The primary aim of the present study was to determine the expression levels of cannabinoid receptor type 1 (CB1) in steatotic rat livers. The secondary aim was to clarify whether steatosis and inflammation are more marked in areas with increased CB1 overexpression. For ethical and economic reasons, the present study investigated tissue from archived liver blocks, which were obtained from 38 rats t

Objective: To investigate perceptions of control among people with uncontrolled and well controlled type 2 diabetes (T2D) treated with basal insulin, as well as differences in perceptions and diabetes management practices between the two groups. Research design and methods: Web surveys of 1012 people with uncontrolled T2D (HbA1c >8.0% or 64 mmol/mol) on basal insulin in Sweden, Switzerland, and th