The capability of the antibody (Ab) repertoire to mount a response to appropriate epitopes on infectious agents will strongly affect the ability of the immune system to provide protection against disease. Certain epitopes may be poor inducers of immunity but are nevertheless able to promote biologically important protection when recognized by the immune repertoire. We have investigated the recogni

Aims: To analyse correlates of anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) use in the general male population. Design: A national household survey. Participants: Individuals aged 15-64 years in Sweden. Measurements: AAS use and potential correlates of AAS use, including demographic data, financial situation, physical training, and substance use. In hierarchical logistic regression analyses, lifetime users

Aim Despite advances in rectal cancer treatment local recurrence (LR) remains a significant problem. To select high-risk patients for different treatment options aimed at reducing LR, it is essential to identify LR risk factors. Method LR and survival rates of 4157 patients registered 1995-1997 in the Swedish Rectal Cancer Registry were analysed. LR risk factors were analysed by multivariate metho

Abstract is not available

This paper suggests reasons why an organisation starts the process of reorganising software applications hosting and how these reasons are connected with resilience in software applications used and in business processes. The decision investigated is a sourcing decision process in a Swedish municipality. The main reason for starting the sourcing decision process was that the municipality needed to

The aim of this study was to verify the advanced inhomogeneous dose distribution produced by a volumetric arc therapy technique (RapidArc) using 3D gel measurements and Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. The TPS (treatment planning system)-calculated dose distribution was compared with gel measurements and MC simulations, thus investigating any discrepancy between the planned dose delivery and the actu

Gene variant databases or Locus-Specific DataBases (LSDBs) are used to collect and display information on sequence variants on a gene-by-gene basis. Their most frequent use is in relation to DNA-based diagnostics, giving clinicians and scientists easy access to an up-to-date overview of all gene variants identified worldwide and whether they influence the function of the gene ("pathogenic or not")

This study investigated the development of second language online auditory processing with ab initio German learners of Dutch. We assessed the influence of different levels of background noise and different levels of semantic and syntactic target word predictability on word monitoring latencies. There was evidence of syntactic, but not semantic, transfer from the L1 to the L2 from the onset of L2

In humans, mast cells are ubiquitously present in tissues adjacent to external environment and consequently have an important sentential role in host defence, homeostasis and repair. Their key role in allergen-mediated conditions has been recognized for many decades already. So far, therapies targeting mast cells offered clinical efficacy in allergic conditions except for asthma. More recently, so

Aims: This prospective study was designed to replicate previous findings of an association between the platelet monoamine oxidase B (MAO-B) activity and factors of relevance for criminal behaviour in a well-documented clinical study population. Methods: Subjects (n = 77, aged 17-76 years, median 30 years) were recruited among consecutive perpetrators of severe interpersonal violent and/or sexual c

Studies of the association between circulating IGF-I and cancer risk have shown conflicting results. We have previously observed a U-shaped association between IGF-I and cancer mortality. The present study test the hypotheses of a U-shaped association between IGF-I and incident cancer.

Background: Rhinovirus (RV)-induced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations exhibit TH(2)-like inflammation. We hypothesized that RV-infected bronchial epithelial cells (BEC) overproduce TH(2)-switching hub cytokine, thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) in COPD. Methods: Primary BEC from healthy (HBEC) and from COPD donors (COPD-BEC) were grown in 12-well plates, infected with RV

In SPECT imaging of pure beta emitters, such as (90)Y, the acquired spectrum is very complex, which increases the demands on the imaging protocol and the reconstruction. In this work, we have evaluated the quantitative accuracy of bremsstrahlung SPECT with focus on the reconstruction algorithm including model-based attenuation, scatter and collimator-detector response (CDR) compensations. The scat

BACKGROUND: Knowledge of the size and location of ischemic myocardium during acute coronary occlusion could provide decision support before reperfusion therapy. Electrocardiogram (ECG) scores based on the number of leads and the sum of ST-segment elevation have been unreliable in quantifying ischemia. We aimed to develop a new method to graphically display ischemic myocardium from simulated ECGs (

OBJECTIVE. This study explored factors related to changes in the time parents spent with their children with obesity and associated decreases in children's body mass index (BMI) z-scores after an occupation-focused intervention. METHOD. Parents participated in a 1-yr occupation-focused intervention to promote healthy family lifestyles. Data on 40 parents of 22 children with obesity ages 4-6 yr wer

Growth anomaly of trees in some regions was detected under current episode of rapid warming. Thisraises a dilemma for temperature reconstructions by using tree-ring width which is believed to be themost important proxy on inter-annual temperature reconstruction during the past millenniums. Here weemployed the tree-ring d13C to reconstruct temperature variations for exploring their potential oncapt

When offered participation in clinical trials, families of children with cancer face a delicate balance between cure and toxicity. Since parents and children may perceive this balance differently, this paper explores whether adolescent patients have different enrollment patterns compared to younger children in trials with different toxicity profiles.