The timing of birth is often correlated with offspring fitness in animals, but experimental studies that disentangle direct effects of parturition date and indirect effects mediated via variation in female traits are rare. In viviparous ectotherms, parturition date is largely driven by female thermal conditions, particularly maternal basking strategies. Our field and laboratory studies of a vivipa

Semiconductor nanowires are increasingly used for biological applications and their small dimensions make them a promising tool for sensing and manipulating cells with minimal perturbation. In order to interface cells with nanowires in a controlled fashion, it is essential to understand the interactions between nanowires and living cells. The present paper reviews current progress in the understan

The Medical ANtiarrhythmic Treatment or Radiofrequency Ablation in Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation (MANTRA-PAF) is a randomized trial comparing radiofrequency catheter ablation (RFA) to antiarrhythmic drugs (AADs) as first-line treatment of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF). In order to eliminate the clouding effect of crossover we performed an on-treatment analysis of the data.

Directional antennas have been used to solve interference and connectivity issues in wireless networks for some time. Many scenarios have been presented and often positive conclusions are drawn, i.e., showing the increase in capacity. However, to date the research has mainly focused on either antenna placement or transmission scheduling but not the two combined. Such consideration will become incr

We evaluated the performance of the Disease State Index (DSI) method when predicting progression to Alzheimer's disease (AD) in patients with subjective cognitive impairment (SCI), amnestic or non-amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI, naMCI). The DSI model measures patients' similarity to diagnosed cases based on available data, such as cognitive tests, the APOE genotype, CSF biomarkers and MR

Consider any discrete time sequence of investment fortunes Fn which has a finite long-run growth rate when subject to the present value capital drawdown constraint Fne-rn ≥ λ* max0≤k≤nFke-rk, where 0 ≤ λ* < 1, in the presence of a riskless asset affording a return of er dollars per time period per dollar invested. We show that money can be withdrawn for consumption from the invested capital withou

The results of a search for charged Higgs bosons are presented. The analysis is based on 4.6 fb(-1) of proton-proton collision data at root s = 7TeV collected by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, using top quark pair events with a tau lepton in the final state. The data are consistent with the expected background from Standard Model processes. Assuming that the branching ratio of

Introduction Bladder exstrophy is a rare congenital malformation of the bladder and is believed to be a complex disorder with genetic and environmental background. We describe a young adult female with an isolated bladder exstrophy and with an X chromosome aberration. Patients and Methods Karyotyping identified an X chromosome rearrangement that was further characterized with array comparative gen

A plant bioreactor has enormous capability as a system that supports many biological activities, that is, production of plant bodies, virus-like particles (VLPs), and vaccines. Foreign gene expression is an efficient mechanism for getting protein vaccines against different human viral and nonviral diseases. Plants make it easy to deal with safe, inexpensive, and provide trouble-free storage. The b

Researchers have called for the need to investigate the salesperson's role in customer value creation in the context of companies moving into service and solution businesses. Despite the indisputable importance of the sales function in the company's customer relationships and in value creation for these customers, relevant literature has not yet answered the question of what salespeople actually d

Young people create differentiated models of belonging. Their strategies reflect contexualized competences - the capacity to understand and negotiate the influence of national frameworks in specific situations. Theories that understand belonging as processual and intersectional offer useful frameworks with which to analyse this. This article uses data from empirical research with young people in a

We describe a combined experimental, theoretical, and simulation study of the structural correlations between cross-linked highly monodisperse and swollen Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) microgel dispersions in the fluid phase in order to obtain the effective pair-interaction potential between the microgels. The density-dependent experimental pair distribution functions g(r)'s are deduced from real sp

Currently 80% of donor lungs are not accepted for transplantation, often due to fluid overload. Our aim was to investigate if forced fluid infusion may be replaced by a new pharmacological therapy to stabilize circulation after brain death in an animal model, and to assess therapy effects on lung function and morphology trough blood gas parameters and state-of-the-art High-resolution CT (HRCT).

This study was performed in order to investigate the immediate actions of the proinflammatory cytokines, interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β), tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and interleukin-6 (IL-6), on the permeability of the glomerular filtration barrier (GFB) in rats and to test whether these actions are dependent upon the release of reactive oxygen species (ROS). In anaesthetized rats blood access

Diffractive electroproduction of rho and phi mesons is measured at HERA with the H1 detector in the elastic and proton dissociative channels. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 51 pb(-1). About 10500 rho and 2000 phi events are analysed in the kinematic range of squared photon virtuality 2.5

Aims: Studies to show impairments in the pelvic floor extracellular matrix (ECM) associated with stress urinary incontinence (SUI) has earlier been performed, but the results are contradictory. Collagen I and III, the elastin associated proteins fibrillin-1 and fibulin-5 and the small leucine-rich repeat proteoglycans (SLRPs) decorin, lumican and fibromodulin are involved in giving the tissue its

A very rich Fe-C phase diagram makes the formation of graphene on iron surfaces a challenging task. Here we demonstrate that the growth of graphene on epitaxial iron films can be realized by chemical vapor deposition at relatively low temperatures, and that the formation of carbides can be avoided in excess of the carbon-containing precursors. The resulting graphene monolayer creates a novel perio