The association between hydrophobically modified polyethylene glycol, HM-PEG, and non-ionic vesicles of tetraethylene glycol monododecyl ether, C12E4, was investigated. HM-PEG is in a triblock form, with an alkyl chain attached to each hydrophilic polymer-end. Such polymer structure is denoted as telechelic. The vesicle average radius was measured by self-diffusion measurements. The system exhibit

Objective: To describe dietary carbohydrate intakes and their food sources among 27 centres in 10 countries participating in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study. Methods: Between 1995 and 2000, 36 034 subjects, aged between 35-74 years, were administered a standardized, 24-h dietary recall using a computerized interview software programme (EPIC-SOFT). Inta

The mechanisms of neuronal cell death are still only poorly understood, which has hindered the advancement of therapies for many currently untreatable neurodegenerative diseases. This calls for the development of new methods which reveal critical molecular mechanisms of the celldeath machinery with both high sensitivity and cellular resolution. Using animal models for hereditary neurodegeneration

Objectives To determine the agreement between ultrasound and histological examination of the cervix in patients with early stage cervical cancer with regard to tumor size and local extent of the disease. Methods Eighteen patients with histologically proven cervical cancer Stage IB1-IIA according to traditional clinical staging (FIGO 1988) who were scheduled for radical surgery underwent a standard

Using survey data from a large public research organization, this study examines entrepreneurship propensities of academic researchers, focusing on gender differences. Although sample means of female and male propensities toward entrepreneurship are fairly similar, regression estimates show significant gender differences in the association of several factors with propensities to start businesses.

Three hot break tomato pastes were investigated to determine the effect of their characteristics on the properties of tomato ketchup, processed in an industrial-scale facility (i.e. diluted, heated, homogenized and cooled). Pastes and ketchups were characterized by particle size distribution, volume fraction, and rheological behavior in steady and dynamic shear. The ketchups were also subjected to

Core-shell (CS) quantum dots (QDs) are promising light absorbers for solar cell applications mainly because of their enhanced photostability compared with bare QDs. Moreover, the superb photostability can be combined with a low number of defects by using CSQDs with a gradient composition change from the core to the shell. Here, we study electron injection from the gradient CSQDs to ZnO nanoparticl

Ligand homogeneity is an important issue in affinity chromatography. Using phages expressing peptides on the pIII protein, a heterogeneity in the binding of monoclonal phages was observed during affinity chromatography on supermacroporous cryogels. Fractions with different apparent binding affinities could be separated by stepwise elution. When these different fractions were re-applied, the respec

We study the relationship between age, metallicity, and alpha-enhancement of FGK stars in the Galactic disk. The results are based upon the analysis of high-resolution UVES spectra from the Gaia-ESO large stellar survey. We explore the limitations of the observed dataset, i.e. the accuracy of stellar parameters and the selection effects that are caused by the photometric target preselection. We fi

An iterative decoding threshold analysis for terminated regular LDPC convolutional (LDPCC) codes is presented. Using density evolution techniques, the convergence behavior of an iterative belief propagation decoder is analyzed for the binary erasure channel and the AWGN channel with binary inputs. It is shown that for a terminated LDPCC code ensemble, the thresholds are better than for correspondi

Background: Biomass combustion contributes to the production of ambient particulate matter (PM) in rural environments as well as urban settings, but relatively little is known about the health effects of these emissions. The aim of this study was therefore to characterize airway responses in humans exposed to wood smoke PM under controlled conditions. Nineteen healthy volunteers were exposed to bo

In this conceptual paper, we introduce a meso-level theoretical framework (Consumption Field Refinement) to explain the development of market systems and suggest methods for researching this development. Our framework centres on the idea that the market system consists of interlinked subsystems (consumption fields), each focused on a particular consumption activity.

Background:The digestion of sphingolipids (SL) is slow and is catalyzed by mucosal enzymes. Dietary SL was shown to inhibit cholesterol absorption and to lower plasma cholesterol, triglycerides (TG) and hepatic fat accumulation in animal models.Aim:A dairy formulation based on fractionation of buttermilk, which is enriched in milk polar lipids of which SL account for a large part is now available.

This paper explores the interaction between brand orientation and market orientation. Brand orientation is an inside-out, identity-driven approach that sees brands as a hub for an organization and its strategy. Similarly, market orientation is an outside-in, image-driven approach. Initially, brand orientation and market orientation appear to be two different strategic options. Though synergistic c

Electrode grounding resistance is a major factor affecting measurement quality in electric resistivity tomography (ERT) measurements for cryospheric applications. Still, little information is available on grounding resistances in the geophysical literature, mainly because it is difficult to measure. The focus-one protocol is a new method for estimating single electrode grounding resistances by mea

Type 1 diabetes is one of the most common chronic diseases in childhood and adolescence with an increasing incidence worldwide. It is an autoimmune disease with many autoimmune markers, where the zinc transporter 8 autoantibody (ZnT8A) is the most recent autoantibody discovered. The most important genetic susceptibility towards type 1 diabetes is found within the HLA-region on chromosome 6. We sho

For dynamical systems defined by a covering map of a compact Hausdorff space and the corresponding transfer operator, the associated crossed product C (*)-algebras C(X)a < S (alpha,a"')a"center dot introduced by Exel and Vershik are considered. An important property for homeomorphism dynamical systems is topological freeness. It can be extended in a natural way to in general non-invertible dynamic