Specialist plant species in calcareous sandy grasslands are threatened by acidification and high nutrient levels in the topsoil. We investigated whether topsoil removal and soil perturbation in degraded sandy grasslands could lead to establishment of specialist species belonging to the threatened xeric sand calcareous grassland habitat. Restoration actions performed in 2006 resulted in increased s

The authors conducted 2 studies to evaluate whether emotional contagion, the propensity to automatically imitate the emotional expressions of others and experience the corresponding emotions, is related to behavioral and experiential indices of hypnotizability and whether such a relationship is influenced by administration context. In Study 1, behavioral and subjective measures of hypnotizability

Field observations and experimental data of effects of nitrogen (N) deposition oil plant species diversity have been Used to derive empirical critical N loads for various ecosystems. The great advantage of such an approach is the inclusion of field evidence, but there are also restrictions, such as the absence of explicit criteria regarding significant effects on the vegetation, and the impossibil

In this study, we demonstrate that articular cartilage chondrocytes are surrounded by the defining basement membrane proteins laminin, collagen type IV, nidogen and perlecan, and suggest that these form the functional equivalent of a basement membrane. We found by real-time PCR that mouse chondrocytes express these four cardinal components of basement membranes and demonstrated by immunohistochemi

Diabetic patients suffer from macro- and microvascular complications causing increased morbidity and mortality. How hyperglycemia provokes vascular damage remains unclear, but glucose is believed to fuel a harmful low-grade chronic inflammation of the vessel wall. Previous work showed that glucose activates the transcription factor Nuclear Factor of Activated T cells (NFAT) in arteries ex vivo. NF

To evaluate the effect of alcohol cessation on the risk of developing laryngeal and pharyngeal cancers, combining available evidence in the scientific literature in a meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: Patients with non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer are traditionally followed by repeat cystoscopy and urine cytology. A fluorescence in situ hybridisation technique called UroVysion((R)) (UV) is now available for clinical diagnosis of urothelial cancer cells. The aim of the present study was to compare UV analysis with routine follow-up methods. METHODS: We studied an unselected cohort o

Electricity prices are known to spike during peak hours, only to revert to normal levels during off-peak hours. We introduce a generalization of the time varying independent spike model commonly used to model the electricity spot price from daily data to hourly data to cope with this feature. We let the probability of extreme prices depend on several variables, such as consumption, reserve margin

Environmental management in the City Tunnel Project was a three-year, sociology of law research project (1999-2003) on how the new Environmental Code was applied to one of the largest infrastructural projects in Sweden: the City Tunnel in Malmö. The aim of this article is, after some years, to reflect on and re-examine what happened during the two extended consultations processes to try to find an

On the background of geographical and structural barriers for integrated water management discussed by Castensson et al (1990) and Hägerstrand (1993) a case study in Kävlinge river catchment area in southern Scania, Sweden was conducted. The study focused on existing water-related and other forms of co-operation within and between municipalities. Obstacles for effective water management were studi

Predicted alterations in belowground plant-allocated C as a result of environmental change may cause compositional shifts in soil microbial communities, and it has been hypothesized that such alterations will influence C mitigation in forest ecosystems. In order to investigate to what degree living trees influence the abundance and activity of mycorrhizal fungi, saprotrophic fungi, and bacteria we

Popular Abstract in Swedish Cancer är den vanligaste dödsorsaken bland barn mellan 1–14 år i Sverige. Neuroblastom, som nästan uteslutande drabbar barn, är en aggressiv cancersjukdom som har sitt ursprung i det sympatiska (icke-viljestyrda) nervsystemet. I frisk vävnad råder strikt balans mellan celldelning och celldöd, medan cancerceller kännetecknas av en ohämmad celldelning och minskad celldödNeuroblastoma is a childhood tumor of the developing sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and is the most commonly diagnosed form of cancer in children before one year of age. Although survival curves have improved for these patients during the past decades, the conventional regimen of neuroblastoma treatment has clearly reached a plateau of efficiency with regard to increasing the survival rates of h

Popular Abstract in Swedish Många cancerceller har ovanligt höga nivåer av proteinet DEK och i vissa fall av leukemi har man hittat en genetisk förändring som leder till en variant kallad DEK-NUP214. Man tror därför att DEK kan vara en av faktorerna som bidrar till att vanliga celler omvandlas till cancerceller. En sådan roll har visats i experimentella modeller där man även sett att cancerceller The DEK gene is upregulated in a growing number of cancers and translocated to form the DEK-NUP214 fusion gene in a subset of acute myeloid leukemia. In this thesis, we studied the cellular and molecular functions of the DEK and DEK-NUP214 proteins. We found that the expression of DEK is increased by the leukemia-associated fusion protein NUP98-HOXA9, suggesting that DEK may be a downstream mediat

Numerous genetic loci have been associated with systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) in Europeans(1-3). We now report genome-wide association studies of pulse pressure (PP) and mean arterial pressure (MAP). In discovery (N = 74,064) and follow-up studies (N = 48,607), we identified at genome-wide significance (P = 2.7 x 10(-8) to P = 2.3 x 10(-13)) four new PP loci (at

Abstract in Undetermined How signal diversity evolves under stabilizing selection in a pheromone-based mate recognition system is a conundrum. Female moths produce two major types of sex pheromones, i.e., long-chain acetates, alcohols and aldehydes (Type I) and polyenic hydrocarbons and epoxides (Type II), along different biosynthetic pathways. Little is known on how male pheromone receptor (PR) gHow signal diversity evolves under stabilizing selection in a pheromone-based mate recognitionsystem is a conundrum. Female moths produce two major types of sex pheromones, i.e., long-chainacetates, alcohols and aldehydes (Type I) and polyenic hydrocarbons and epoxides (Type II), alongdifferent biosynthetic pathways. Little is known on how male pheromone receptor (PR) genes evolvedto perceive the

Endosomal entrapment is known to be a major bottleneck to successful cytoplasmic delivery of nucleic acids (NAs) using cationic liposome-NA nanoparticles (NPs). Quantitative measurements of distributions of NPs within early endosomes (EEs) have proven difficult due to the sub-resolution size and short lifetime of wildtype EEs. In this study we used Rab5-GFP, a member of the large family of GTPases

Pancreatic beta-cells secrete insulin by Ca2+-dependent exocytosis of secretory granules. beta-cell exocytosis involves SNARE (soluble NSF-attachment protein receptor) proteins similar to those controlling neurotransmitter release and depends on the close association of L-type Ca2+ channels and granules. In most cases, the secretory granules fuse individually but there is ultrastructural and bioph