Two different techniques, Doppler-free saturation spectroscopy on a hollow-cathode discharge and fluorescence spectroscopy on a collimated atomic beam produced from a hollow-cathode discharge, have been used for high-resolution laser-spectroscopy measurements on the 3d10 4p and 5p states in neutral Copper. The relative merits of the two techniques are discussed.

Population-based data on hospital procedure volume and outcome of endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) are limited.

Traits that increase mating success in males may come at a cost, such as an increased risk of predation. However, predator-mediated selection is challenging to document in natural populations, hampering our understanding of the trade-offs between sexual selection and predation. Here we report on a study of predator-mediated natural selection on wing traits in the damselfly Calopteryx splendens, th

The strength and fracture behavior of dowel-type connections with stiff dowels loaded perpendicular to grain was studied by nonlinear 3D finite element (FE)-analysis. A cohesive zone model was used to model the perpendicular to grain fracture of the wood, i.e., failure by wood splitting along the grain. The influence of load eccentricity and dowel-to-loaded-edge distance was studied for a plate ty

Organic acids, central to terrestrial carbon metabolism and atmospheric photochemistry, are ubiquitous in the troposphere in the gas, particle, and aqueous phases. As the dominant organic acids in the atmosphere, formic acid (FA, HCOOH) and acetic acid (AA, CH3COOH) control precipitation acidity in remote regions and may represent a critical link between the terrestrial carbon and water cycles by

Objective: To estimate the incidence of hospitalization for paediatric obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome (OSAS) or sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) caused by adenotonsillar or tonsillar hypertrophy without infection in children with a parent affected by OSAS. Patients and methods: Using the MigMed database at Lund University, hospital data on all children aged 0-18 years in Sweden between 1997 and

Polymorphisms in the dopamine receptor D4 gene (DRD4) have been related to individual variation in novelty-seeking or exploratory behaviour in a variety of animals, including humans. Recently, the human DRD4 orthologue was sequenced in a wild bird, the great tit (Parus major) and a single nucleotide polymorphism in exon 3 of this gene (SNP830) was shown to be associated with variation in explorato

There are many situations where environmental authorities use a mix of environmental policy instruments, rather than one single instrument, to address environmental concerns. For example, one instrument may be used to reduce overall emissions of a pollutant while another is used to address environmental crises that arise when meteorological conditions affect the capability of the environment to as

The effect of grazing by large herbivores on the microbial community and the ecosystem functions they provide are relatively unknown in grassland systems. In this study, the impact of grazing upon the size, composition and activity of the soil microbial community was measured in field experiments in two coastal ecosystems: one salt marsh and one sand dune grassland. Bacterial, fungal and total mic

Prostate cancer and its outcomes are a real threat for health and well-being for men living in the Western world. The number of men with a diagnosis of prostate cancer, before the age of 65 years, has increased in recent decades. The aim of this study was to explore how some of these Swedish men experienced and talked about their sexuality. Four focus group discussions were performed in the contex

Abnormal serum sodium concentrations are common in patients presenting for surgery. It remains unclear whether these abnormalities are independent risk factors for postoperative mortality.

Minimally modified low density lipoprotein (mmLDL) is a well-known risk factor for cerebral vascular diseases and upregulation of endothelin type B (ETB) receptors plays key roles in the pathogenesis. The present study was designed to examine if mmLDL upregulated endothelin ETB receptors in basilar artery and its possible intracellular signaling molecular mechanisms. Rat basilar arteries were cult

The recognition that animals sense the world in a different way than we do has unlocked important lines of research in ecology and evolutionary biology. In practice, the subjective study of natural stimuli has been permitted by perceptual spaces, which are graphical models of how stimuli are perceived by a given animal. Because colour vision is arguably the best-known sensory modality in most anim

Male patients with terminal renal failure are often infertile and exhibit an abnormal sex hormone pattern in plasma. We studied patients in all chronic kidney disease (CKD) stages to determine plasma levels of anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH), a Sertoli cell-derived marker, and other sex hormones. Seventy-eight male patients with CKD stages 1-5 and a median age of 40 years (22-50 years), as well as 20

Acute cellular rejection (ACR) the first year after heart transplantation (HT) and its impact on survival was investigated. All 215 HT-patients at our centre 1988-2010, including 219 HTs and 2990 1(st) -year endomyocardial biopsies (EMBs), were studied. "Routine"-EMBs obtained 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 16, 20, 24, 32, 40 and 52 weeks after HT, and "additional clinically indicated" (ACI) EMBs, were

The Z -> tau tau cross section is measured with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC in four different final states determined by the decay modes of the tau leptons: muon-hadron, electron-hadron, electron-muon, and muon-muon. The analysis is based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36 pb(-1), at a proton-proton center-of-mass energy of root s = 7 TeV. Cross sections are measu