The dynamic climate in the Northern Hemisphere during the early Holocene could be expected to have impacted on the global carbon cycle. Ice core studies however, show little variability in atmospheric CO2. Resolving any possible centennial to decadal CO2 changes is limited by gas diffusion through the firn layer during bubble enclosure. Here we apply the inverse relationship between stomatal index

Many countries in the Western world are facing great challenges posed by an ageing population. Since cognitive impairments and the prevalence of dementia increases with age, we can expect an increasing number of older people in need of care. However, severe problems with such care are already reported by researchers as well as in the mass media. The aim of this paper is to discuss how the identity

Lately, sensor networks have received much attention in the research community. One of the aims of these networks is to make them self-configuring and self-healing so that they can be easily deployed and self-sufficient. A fundamental limitation with sensor networks is their limited life span because of their battery operation. To that end, much research has been carried out to maximize the life s

It is clinically important to estimate the size of a myocardial infarction (MI) to predict patient prognosis, to determine the ability of a therapy to limit its size, and to evaluate its effect on left ventricular function. Various electrocardiographic methods have been used for these purposes but their accuracies have not been compared with each other using an identical reference population of an

Many intimate associations between different species of ectomycorrhizal fungi are inferred on the basis of the consistent cooccurrence of their fruit bodies. Suillus bovinus and Gomphidius roseus, where the latter never occurs without the former, is one example. This association was examined with PCR identification and light microscopy. S. bovinus and G. roseus were unambiguously separated on the

The helicity dependence of the (γ) over right arrow(p) over right arrow -->ppi(0) reaction has been measured for the first time in the photon-energy range from 550 to 790 MeV. The experiment, performed at the Mainz microtron MAMI, used a 4pi -detector system, a circularly polarized, tagged photon beam, and a longitudinally polarized frozen-spin target. These data are predominantly sensitive to the

This article proposes Lagrange multiplier-based tests for the null hypothesis of no cointegration. The tests are general enough to allow for heteroskedastic and serially correlated errors, deterministic trends, and a structural break of unknown timing in both the intercept and slope. The limiting distributions of the test statistics are derived, and are found to be invariant not only with respect

Genome structure has been found to be highly conserved between distantly related birds and recent data for a limited part of the genome suggest that this is true also for the gene order (synteny) within chromosomes. Here, we confirm that synteny is maintained for large chromosomal regions in chicken and a passerine bird, the great reed warbler Acrocephalus arundinaceus, with few rearrangements, bu

Acute pancreatitis (AP) is a common disease in which the underlying mechanisms of the local initiating events in the pancreas, the systemic dissemination of the inflammatory response and the development of remote organ dysfunction have not been fully clarified. AP is still associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. Clinical therapeutic strategies for AP have so far been mainly directed a

Both ovariectomy (Ovx) and gastrectomy (Gx) induce osteopaenia in rats and humans. While the effect of Ovx has been ascribed to oestrogen deficiency, the underlying mechanism behind Gx is poorly understood. Alendronate, oestrogen and parathyroid hormone (PTH) are known to prevent the osteopaenia induced by Ovx in rats. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether alendronate, oestroge

Kinetic anomalies in protein folding can result from changes of the kinetic ground states (D, I, and N), changes of the protein folding transition state, or both. The 102-residue protein U1A has a symmetrically curved chevron plot which seems to result mainly from changes of the transition state. At low concentrations of denaturant the transition state occurs early in the folding reaction, whereas

Reaction monitoring by Raman microspectroscopy in levitated room temperature ionic liquid (RTIL) droplets is reported. Due to their non-volatility, RTIL droplets are well-suited to act as wall-less microreactors. The droplets were produced by a piezoelectric flow-through microdispenser connected to an automated flow injection system and were levitated by an acoustic trap. Taking advantage of the f

The reduction in external phosphorus load to Lake Ringsjön during the 1980s, did not result in improved water transparency during the following ten-year period. Furthermore, a fish-kill in the Eastern Basin of the lake, in addition to a cyprinid reduction programme (biomanipulation; 1988–1992), in contrast to theory, did not lead to any increase in zooplankton biomass or size. This absence of resp

A new beamline, Cassiopeia, at MAX II is about to come into operation. It consists of an energy-tunable station and four side stations intended for macromolecular crystallography. The X-ray source is a 3.5 T superconducting multipole wiggler installed in the 1.5 GeV MAX II storage ring. The energy-tunable station use grazing incidence Rh-coated silicon mirrors and an internally water-cooled Si(111

The decreased survival of von Willebrand factor (VWF) in plasma has been implicated as a mechanism in a subset of type 1 von Willebrand disease (VWD) patients. We have previously reported that the ratio of plasma levels of VWF and its propeptide (VWFpp) can be used to identify patients with reduced VWF survival. In this study, we report the assay of VWFpp and VWF:Ag in 19 individuals recruited fro