During very long self-rating sessions there is a risk that respondents will be tired and/or lose interest. Is this a concern for users of long personality inventories, such that the reliability becomes threatened in the latter half when respondents have made hundreds of personality self-ratings? Two thousand three hundred and fifty two volunteers completed long (≈ 500 items) personality inventorie

Background: Dendritic cells are antigen-presenting cells central to the immune system. They activate and orchestrate the innate and the adaptive immune systems. This phenotypically diverse group can be further divided into 2 subsets, the CD11c(+) myeloid dendritic cells (mDCs) and the CD123(+) plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs). The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of allergen expos

Measurements of differential production cross-sections of a Z boson in association with b-jets in pp collisions at root s = 7 TeV are reported. The data analysed correspond to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 fb(-1) recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Particle-level cross-sections are determined for events with a Z boson decaying into an electron or muon pair, and contain

To be able to evaluate recovery, effects of rehabilitation interventions and changes over time, reliable and valid outcome measures are needed. The ABILHAND Questionnaire is a measure of self-reported ability to perform complex daily hand activities. It is commonly used in stroke rehabilitation, but data about the measurement variability are missing.

To determine if myocardial perfusion (MP) during hyperaemia is decreased in young patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). Also, to determine if an MP decrease is associated with diastolic dysfunction, and to investigate if young subjects at risk of HCM show differences in MP compared with controls.

As custom multicore architectures become more and more common for DSP applications, instruction selection and scheduling for such applications and architectures become important topics. In this paper, we explore the effects of defining the problem of finding an optimal instruction selection and scheduling as a constraint satisfaction problem (CSP). We incorporate methods based on sub-graph isomorp

Background Patients with gastrointestinal neuromuscular diseases may undergo operative procedures that yield tissue appropriate to diagnosis of underlying neuromuscular pathology. Critical to accurate diagnosis is the determination of limits of normality based on the study of control human tissues. Although robust diagnostic criteria exist for many qualitative alterations in the neuromuscular appa

In cells that exhibit apical growth, mechanisms that regulate cell polarity are crucial for determination of cellular shape and for the adaptation of growth to intrinsic and extrinsic cues. Broadly conserved pathways control cell polarity in eukaryotes, but less is known about polarly growing prokaryotes. An evolutionarily ancient form of apical growth is found in the filamentous bacteria Streptom

NMR spectroscopy has been used to study and characterize the interactions in solution between beta-CD and alkyl-alpha,omega-bis(dodecyldimethyl ammonium bromide) gemini surfactants with the following head-group spacer lengths: 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10. The application of the method of continuous variation gives as a result that 1:1 and 2:1 (beta-cyclodextrin-gemini) complexes are formed; the association

The surface-assisted synthesis of gold-organometallic hybrids on the Au(111) surface both by thermo-and light-initiated dehalogenation of bromo-substituted tetracene is reported. Combined X-ray photoemission (XPS) and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) data reveal a significant increase of the surface order when mild reaction conditions are combined with 405 nm light irradiation.

The effects of alkylresorcinols (ARs) isolated from rye bran on adipocyte lipolysis, hormone-sensitive lipase activity and phosphorylation and on phosphorylation of protein kinase A substrates were studied. Preincubation with ARs for 18 h suppressed catecholamine-stimulated lipolysis in 3T3-L1 adipocytes. Furthermore, phosphorylation of hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL), a key lipase responsible for

Background: Few studies have investigated the 24-hour symptom profile in patients with COPD or how symptoms during the 24-hour day are inter-related. This observational study assessed the prevalence, severity and relationship between night-time, early morning and daytime COPD symptoms and explored the relationship between 24-hour symptoms and other patient-reported outcomes. Methods: The study enr

The frictional behavior of a number of conventional tool materials used in the sheet forming industry has been studied by a recently developed tribotester based on flat-die strip drawing. The main objective was to study the frictional performance of the materials and correlate the tribological behavior mainly to the microstructure. Tooling materials tested ranged from powder metallurgical tool ste

The tensile and scaffolding properties of skin rely on the complex extracellular matrix (ECM) that surrounds cells, vasculature, nerves, and adnexus structures and supports the epidermis. In the skin, collagen I fibrils are the major structural component of the dermal ECM, decorated by proteoglycans and by fibril-associated collagens with interrupted triple helices such as collagens XII and XIV. H

The motivation of this study is the general lack of knowledge regarding the efficiency and the appropriate use of the adaptation strengths of Siemens automatic exposure control system CARE Dose 4D. The purpose was to evaluate the effect on radiation absorbed dose using different adaptation strengths of CARE Dose 4D in three routine pediatric CT protocols. A pediatric anthropomorphic whole body pha

A large ensemble of regional climate model projections was investigated regarding if and when they show an emergence of significant climate change signals in seasonal temperature and precipitation within Europe. The influence of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), as simulated in the projections, was investigated. In most parts of Europe, the projections indicate robust emergence of temperature

We investigate the growth and the physical and optical properties of type-II heterostructured ZnTe/ZnSe colloidal nanocrystals, focusing on the role of the 7% lattice mismatch between the two materials in determining growth homogeneity and band structure. We find that the lattice mismatch between the two materials places limitations on the range of structures that can be grown, and for those in wh

It is known that overweight is associated with chronic knee pain (CKP) and chronic low back pain (CLBP). Several risk factors for these conditions have been postulated, including age, sex, overweight, occupation, and socioeconomic factors. In addition, physical environment has been studied as a potential risk factor in recent years. However, the associations of overweight and physical environment

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Adaptive immune responses have been shown to play an important role in the atherosclerotic disease process and both pathogenic and protective immunity has been identified. Apolipoprotein (apo) B100 appears to be a key antigen and novel therapies modulating immune responses against apo B100 have shown promising results in experimental models. This review will discuss recent deve