PURPOSE: To evaluate patients' vision-related activity limitation before and after bilateral cataract surgery using the German version of the Catquest-9SF questionnaire. SETTING: Hanusch Hospital, Vienna, Austria, and Ophthalmic Clinic, Minden, Germany. DESIGN: Questionnaire development. METHODS: This prospective 2-center study included patients who were scheduled for bilateral cataract surgery an

Ferrochelatase (also known as PPIX ferrochelatase; Enzyme Commission number 4.9.9.1.1) catalyzes the insertion of ferrous iron into PPIX to form heme. This reaction unites the biochemically synchronized pathways of porphyrin synthesis and iron transport in nearly all living organisms. The ferrochelatases are an evolutionarily diverse family of enzymes with no more than six active site residues kno

Several modifiable lifestyle factors, including smoking, alcohol, certain dietary factors and weight are independently associated with gastric cancer (GC); however, their combined impact on GC risk is unknown. We constructed a healthy lifestyle index to investigate the joint influence of these behaviors on GC risk within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohor

Milk coagulation is an important processing trait, being the basis for production of both cheese and fermented products. There is interest in including technological properties of these products in the breeding goal for dairy cattle. The aim of the present study was therefore to estimate genetic parameters for milk coagulation properties, including both rennet- and acid-induced coagulation, in Swe

Optimizing cheese yield and quality is of central importance to cheese manufacturing. The yield is associated with the time it takes before the gel has an optimal consistency for further processing, and it is well known that gel formation differs between individual milk samples. By identifying genomic regions affecting traits related to rennet-induced gelation, the aim of this study was to identif

In this study, design of low-order feedforward controllers from both reference signal and measurable disturbance for proportional–integral–derivative (PID) controllers is considered. The feedforward controllers from reference are equivalent to the use of a PID controller with set-point weighting. The design problem is formulated as a convex optimisation problem and then solved for a batch of proce

Understanding the genetic consequences of changes in population size is fundamental in a variety of contexts, such as adaptation and conservation biology. In the study presented here, we have performed a replicated experiment with the plant Nigella degenii to explore the quantitative genetic effects of a single-founder bottleneck. In agreement with additive theory, the bottleneck reduced the mean

Caveolae are membrane invaginations present in a variety of cell types. Formation of caveolae depends on caveolins and on the more recently discovered family of proteins known as the cavins. Genetic ablation of caveolin-1 was previously shown to give rise to a number of urogenital alterations, but the effects of cavin-1 deletion on urogenital function remain unknown. Here we characterized detrusor

We present a personal view on the current state of statistical mechanics of Coulomb fluids with special emphasis on the interactions between macromolecular surfaces, concentrating on the weak and the strong coupling limits. Both are introduced for a (primitive) counterion-only system in the presence of macroscopic, uniformly charged boundaries, where they can be derived systematically. Later we sh

Over recent years, several tissue engineering techniques are used for bone regeneration. In this study gelatin-hydroxyapatite (Gelatin-HA) cryogel scaffolds were used with/without bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2) and transforming growth factor beta-1 (TGF-beta 1) to heal critical sized bone defects. Release of growth factors from the cryogels were performed up to 28 days in vitro. Moreover, in

Use of intermittent androgen-deprivation therapy (IADT) in patients with prostate cancer has been evaluated in several studies, in an attempt to delay the development of castration resistance and reduce side-effects associated with ADT. However it is still not clear whether survival is adversely affected in patients treated with IADT. In this review, we explore the available data in an attempt to

To estimate effective dose of cone beam CT (CBCT) of the facial skeleton with focus on measurement methods and scanning protocols.

With increasing output power of integrated chips, the involved heat flux is accordingly increased. Traditional cooling methods failed to satisfy such a situation, and thus new cooling methods incorporating microchannel heat sinks with high capabilities of heat removal are necessary. In this paper, on the basis of a water-cooled smooth microchannel heat sink, vertical Y-shaped bifurcation plates ar

Helianthemum nummularium is a morphologically variable species that has been subdivided into several subspecies based on indumentum characters. We investigated four of these subspecies for variation in plastid DNA and leaf and petal shape in Europe. Three size-variable mononucleotide repeat regions were amplified by means of species-specific primers and 18 combined haplotypes were identified. The

In the production of ethanol from lignocellulosic material, it is necessary to reach a high ethanol concentration after fermentation. Simply increasing the substrate concentration leads to stirring problems and inhibition of the enzymes and yeast in the process. Batch simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) of steam-pretreated spruce with 13.7% water-insoluble solids (WIS) (25% total

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are plant symbionts capable of enhancing nutrient uptake and improving soil structure. These features have brought AMF into focus as a component of soil restoration practices in ecosystems with degraded or highly eroded soils. It has been suggested that increasing the levels of organic material in the soil will enhance the production of AMF biomass, and that orga

Long-term phenology monitoring has documented numerous examples of changing flowering dates during the last century. A pivotal question is whether these phenological responses are adaptive or not under directionally changing climatic conditions. We use a classic dynamic growth model for annual plants, based on optimal control theory, to find the fitness-maximizing flowering time, defined as the sw

I investigate the field of tension between the national and the local level in spatial planning from a decision-making perspective. In doing so, I analyse the legal regulation for a large-scale 3G mobile infrastructure development in Sweden with a focus on how participation is expressed both in terms of the ‘law in books’ as well as empirically, ‘in action’. Theoretically, a model of decision maki