Background: Thiazolidinediones are antidiabetic agents that improve insulin sensitivity (IS). Accumulating data indicate that these agents provide beneficial effects beyond glycemic control, such as improvement in vascular function. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of rosiglitazone on urine albumin excretion (UAE) in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) and hypertension. Me

Reflectance spectrophotometry from 420 to 780 nm on 31 primary melanoma and 31 benign nevi has been performed by using an external integrating sphere coupled to a spectrophotometer. Measurements show that reflectance spectra of melanoma and nevi manifest dissimilar patterns. From these spectra four variables, whose physical and/or physiological meanings remain to be investigated, have been derived

We present measurements of the Zr and Si core level photoelectron binding energies relative to the Fermi level and the vacuum level under a ZrO2 growth series on Si(100). It is shown that the Zr core level binding energy is most properly referenced to the local vacuum level already from the monolayer regime. This confirms the insulating properties of ZrO2. The Si core levels are referenced to the

The present study aimed to explore secondary school students' needs in relation to sexual and reproductive health in order to inform efforts to improve the quality of health services available to young people. The study involved data collection from 716 11-22-year-old students in four secondary schools in an urban area in Zambia. Students completed a questionnaire and were invited to write down an

When the bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine was introduced in the 1920s, it was suggested that BCG occasionally had nonspecific beneficial effects on mortality beyond the specific protection against tuberculosis. Considering that BCG has since then become the most used vaccine in the world, surprisingly few studies have been undertaken into the effect of BCG on general mortality and morbidity.

The concept of a fair and optimal allocation was recently introduced by Sun and Yang [Sun, N., Yang, Z., 2003. A general strategy proof fair allocation mechanism. Economics Letters 81, 73-79]. This note states some basic properties of fair and optimal allocations and provides a simple algorithm for identifying them. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All fights reserved.

The aim of this study was to assess the incremental cost effectiveness of on-demand versus prophylactic haemophilia therapy in Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom and The Netherlands from the third-party payers' perspective. Using a decision tree model, the cost effectiveness of on-demand versus prophylactic therapy was analysed by extrapolating data from the European Haemophilia Economic Study to

Offspring locomotor performance has been shown to influence fitness related traits in a wide range of taxa. One potential mechanism by which viviparous animals can increase the performance (e.g. sprint speed) of their offspring is by prolonging pregnancy (beyond that required for complete development). However, to date studies examining this potentially important maternal effect have been largely

Heterocyclic amines (HCAs) are a group of compounds formed when protein-rich foods, such as meat or fish, are prepared under normal cooking conditions, such as frying, grilling, or broiling. To evaluate and estimate the risks associated with HCAs contained in the diet, it is important to determine the levels in cooked foods, and the levels of HCAs and metabolites in the body. HCAs are normally fou

We have examined the effects of three macrophagederived cytokines, platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), transforming growth factor-01 (TGF-01) and interleukin-1 a (IL-la) on the contraction of collagen type I gels populated by human foreskin fibroblasts. Contraction was quantified as loss in gel weight. Both PDGF-AA and PDGF-BB were found to induce a rapid collagen-gel contraction. TGF-/J1 also

Objective. To study degree of blood pressure (BP) control in primary healthcare (PHC) treated hypertensive patients in relation to sex, age, drug treatment, and concomitant diseases. Design. Random sample of patients with hypertension. Setting. Ten PHC centres in the Region of Skane, Sweden. Subjects. All the 30- to 95-year-old patients with hypertension who during the period 12 September to 24 Se

Oxidative addition of the silanes R3SiH (R3= Ph3, Et3, EtMe2) to the unsaturated cluster [Os3(µ-H){µ3-Ph2PCH2PPh(C6H4)}(CO)8] leads to the saturated clusters [Os3(µ-H)(SiR3)(CO)9(µ-dppm)](SiR3= SiPh31, SiEt32 and SiEtMe23) and the unsaturated clusters [Os3(µ-H)2(SiR3){µ3-Ph2PCH2PPh(C6H4)}(CO)7](SiR3= SiPh34, SiEt35 and SiEtMe26). Structures are based on spectroscopic evidence and a XRD structure o

Throughout the world, tidal marshes are being restored to obtain natural protection against recurring storm surges and sea level rise and to preserve the resources these habitats provide. Managed realignment, or breaching of the seaward dikes, is a restoration technique increasingly used; yet unsuitable site elevation has been a major constraint to habitat development. Controlled reduced tide (CRT

The main goal of this paper is to establish general constitutive relations for the electromagnetic fields EBAR, DBAR, BBAR, and HBAR in a time domain setting. The four basic assumptions of the medium are linearity, invariance to time translations, causality, and continuity. These four assumptions imply that the constitutive relations are convolutions of the Riemann-Stieltjes type. A review of the

In this work, gas flow and heat transfer have been numerically investigated and analyzed for both cathode/anode ducts of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells. The simulation is conducted by solving a set of conservation equations for the whole domain consisting of a porous medium, solid structure, and flow duct. A generalized extended Darcy model is employed to investigate the flow inside the

CD40 plays a central regulatory role in the immune system and antibodies able to modulate CD40 signalling may consequently have a potential in immunotherapy, in particular for treatment of lymphomas and autoimmune disease like multiple sclerosis. As a first step to achieve this goal, we describe the selection and characterization of a novel set of fully human anti-CD40 antibody fragments (scFv) fr

Several quantitative trait loci regulating murine Lyme arthritis severity have been mapped, including a highly significant linkage found on chromosome 5, termed Bb2Bb3. Within this region, the Ncf1 gene of the phagocyte nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) oxidase has recently been identified as a major regulator of arthritis severity in rodent models of rheumatoid arthritis, an eff

This paper analyses the ability of beta and other factors, like firm size and book-to-market, to explain cross‐sectional variation in average stock returns on the Swedish stock market for the period 1983–96. We use a bivariate GARCH(1,1) process to estimate time-varying betas for asset returns. The estimated variances of these betas, derived from a Taylor series approximation, are used for correct

The importance of sexual selection in population divergence is of much interest, mainly because it is thought to cause reproductive isolation and hence could lead to speciation. Sexually selected traits have been hypothesized to diverge faster between populations than other traits, presumably because of differences in the strength, mechanism or dynamics of selection. We investigated this by quanti