The Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) is a widely used protocol to induce stress in laboratory settings. Briefly, in the TSST, the test participant is asked to hold a speech and to do an arithmetic task in front of an audience. In the present pilot study, we examined endocrine and autonomic reactivity and habituation to repeated stress provocations using a virtual reality (VR) version of TSST. The V

INTRODUCTION: Data on human atrial repolarization are scarce since the QRS complex normally obscures its ECG trace. In the present study, consecutive patients with third-degree AV block were studied to better describe the human Ta wave. METHODS AND RESULTS: Forty patients (mean age 75 years, 17 men) were included. All anti-arrhythmic drugs were discontinued before ECG recording. Standard 12-lead E

Progression to hormone-refractory growth of prostate cancer has been suggested to be mediated by androgen receptor (AR) gene alterations. We analyzed AR for mutations and amplifications in 21 locally recurrent prostate carcinomas treated with orchiectomy, estrogens, or a combination of orchiectomy and estramustine phosphate using fluorescence in situ hybridization, single-strand conformation polym

PURPOSE: To in a cross-sectional study population investigate concentrations of cartilage and bone markers, and pro-inflammatory cytokines in synovial fluid (SF) collected at different time-points from acutely injured knees with hemarthrosis and to compare these with SF concentrations of knees of age and gender-matched healthy reference subjects. METHODS: SF was aspirated from the acutely inju

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to further build up the knowledge about reasons for small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) to adopt open source enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Design/methodology/approach - The paper presents and analyses findings in articles about proprietary ERPs and open source ERPs. In addition, a limited investigation of the distribution channel SourceForge

Time-resolved x-ray diffraction with picosecond temporal resolution is used to observe scattering from impulsively generated coherent acoustic phonons in laser-excited InSb crystals. The observed frequencies and damping rates are in agreement with a model based on dynamical diffraction theory coupled to analytic solutions for the laser-induced strain profile. The results are consistent with a 12 p

Summary Proteinase 3 (PR3) is a major autoantigen in anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCA)-associated systemic vasculitis (AASV), and the proportion of neutrophils expressing PR3 on their membrane (mPR3(+)) is increased in AASV. We have shown recently that mPR3 and CD177 are expressed on the same cells in healthy individuals. In this study we try to elucidate mechanisms behind the increase

In this study, we investigated how prolonged consumption of sugar solution affects hippocampal neurogenesis. We gave rats sucrose or fructose solution for four weeks and observed a 40% reduction in BrdU/NeuN-immunoreactive cells in the hippocampal dentate gyrus. This reduction in hippocampal neurogenesis was accompanied by increased apoptosis in the hippocampus and increased circulating levels of

The Symphony study showed that at 1 year posttransplant, a regimen based on daclizumab induction, 2 g mycophenolate mofetil (MMF), low-dose tacrolimus and steroids resulted in better renal function and lower acute rejection and graft loss rates compared with three other regimens: two with low-doses of cyclosporine or sirolimus instead of tacrolimus and one with no induction and standard cyclospori

We study the MIMO wireless channel, and derive a generic channel model that we believe has the ability to explain all important effects, including (i) interdependency of directions-of-arrival and directions-of-departure, (ii) large delay and angle dispersion by propagation via far clusters, (iii) rank reduction of the transfer function matrix. We point out the relevant propagation effects, and pro

The paper discusses modeling and analysis of real-time systems subject to random time delays in the communication network. A new method for analysis of different control schemes is presented. The method is used to evaluate different suggested schemes from the literature. A new scheme, using so called timestamps, for handling the random time delays is then developed and successfully compared with p

Little is known about pediatric surgical disease in resource-poor countries. This study documents the surgical care of children in central Haiti and demonstrates the influence of the 2010 earthquake on pediatric surgical delivery. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective review of operations performed at Partners in Health/Zanmi Lasante hospitals in central Haiti. RESULTS: Of 2,057 operations perfor

This paper presents a solution to the problem of pose estimation in the presence of heavy radial distortion and a potentially large number of outliers. The main contribution is an algorithm that solves for radial distortion, focal length and camera pose using a minimal set of four point correspondences between 3D world points and image points. We use a RANSAC loop to find a set of inliers and an i