A streamlined strategy was developed to obtain a mixture of thapsigargins from the fruits of Thapsia garganica L. The mixture was resolved by RP-silica gel flash chromatography to provide, after trituration with ether, 0.32% thapsigargin (la) as a white powder. A novel, complex phenylpropanoid (neohelmanthicin D, 2a) was also obtained, and its structure confirmed by semisynthesis.

The magnetism of square lattices of quantum dots with up to 12 electrons per dot is studied using the spin-density functional formalism. At small values of the lattice constant, all lattices are nonmagnetic and gapless. When the lattice constant is increased, the shell structure of the single dots governs the magnetism of the lattice. At closed shells, the lattices are nonmagnetic and have a gap a

Primary graft failure after lung transplantation is a serious complication with high mortality. We present 2 cases of critical respiratory failure after lung transplantation treated with surface cooling to 32 degrees and 35 degrees C, respectively, as an adjunct to conventional intensive care. Both patients were discharged from the hospital in good clinical condition. Surface cooling may be an eff

For dealing with various societal problems, 'political'/'ethical'/'responsible' consumerism is often discussed as an effective democratic and participatory tool. However, political consumerism – along with its tools, such as product labelling – is often conceived and discussed in oversimplified ways. Instead, the tension between scientific complexity, knowledge uncertainty and a codified, standard

An ex vivo system for simultaneous detection of nitric oxide (NO) and L-glutamate using integrated dual 250 gin platinum disk electrodes modified individually with suitable sensing chemistries has been developed. One of the sensors was coated with an electrocatalytic layer of Ni tetrasulfonate phthalocyanine tetrasodium salt (Ni-TSPe) covered by second layer of Nation, which stabilises on the one

Planned Extremely Large Telescopes will rely oil availability of large Deformable Mirror in the 2-3m class. Design and construction of such mirrors are challenging and call for powerful simulation tools. We present an evaluation model which is used to study performance of a large deformable mirror for three: actuator topologies. Back sensors topologies are discussed from the point of view of senso

Consent, obedience and resistance can be seen as key concerns in management and organization. Why people comply is a crucial issue in the field. We address the theme within a specific area: management consultants in a big firm that places quite a lot of pressure on its personnel to be hardworking and predictable and to subordinate themselves to hierarchy, standards and tight production schedules.

This paper provides perspectives on the development of an idea of the machine as a living being in the 20th century by looking at the relationship between the writings of Samuel Butler and Gilles Deleuze concerning the evolution of machines as an extension of—and in competition with—the human organism. Ultimately, Butler and Deleuze both describe a mechanical or “machinic" vitalism and evolutionis

We investigated the accumulation of PCB and DDT in crayfish populations in 10 streams in southern Sweden. The results were compared with an earlier study on crayfish in lakes from the same area. We found that the concentration of pollutants in crayfish did not differ between the two types of systems. Variation in body burden was higher in stream living crayfish probably because of the higher influ

We consider the phase coherent transport of a quasi-one-dimensional beam of Bose-Einstein condensed particles through a disordered potential of length L. Among the possible different types of flow we identified [T. Paul, P. Schlagheck, P. Leboeuf, and N. Pavloff, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 210602 (2007)], we focus here on the supersonic stationary regime where Anderson localization exists. We generalize

Introduction Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have an increased frequency of osteoporosis, mainly because of increased bone resorption. Reduction of disease activity is suggested to reduce bone remodelling. It might also be possible that prednisolone treatment could cause this effect because prednisolone has been shown to arrest the development of joint destruction in early RA. Therefore, w

Shear forces from a pressure-driven bulk flow in a microfluidic channel can be used to induce and control the motion of a supported lipid bilayer (SLB) formed on the walls of the channel. We here present a theoretical model that relates the experimentally observed drift velocities of an egg yolk phosphatidylcholine (egg PC) SLB to the hydrodynamic drag force from the bulk flow, the intermonolayer

This paper presents the Malmo Breast tomosynthesis project The tomosynthesis equipment is described as well as the patient selection and image acquisition. Special fucus is given to one of the studies of the project, which is a comparison of the diagnostic performance between breast tomosynthesis (BT), digital mammography (DM) and ultrasonography (US): tumor classification according to the BIRADS

The paper describes a computerized method, termed receptive field imaging (RFI), for the rapid mapping of multiple receptive fields and their respective sensitivity distributions. RFI uses random stimulation of multiple sites, in combination with an averaging procedure, to extract the relative contribution from each of the stimulated sites. Automated multi-electrode stimulation and recording, with

Here we present a single-cell-based model of cell-cell interactions in a growing yeast colony. We examine the influence of multiple factors on the colony morphology and switch to a foraging growth behavior. We find that the cell-growth inhibition by neighboring cells along with polar division growth patterns are the most significant factors driving the exploratory behavior of a colony.

Biomass provides the largest reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emission when it replaces coal, which is the dominating fuel in heat and electricity production in Poland. One means of replacing coal with biomass is to co-fire biofuels in an existing coal-fired boiler. This paper presents an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of co-firing biofuels in Poland with respect to technical, environme

We use a latent factor approach to investigate if the momentum and contrarian profits, observed in the US stock market, should be considered as risk premiums or have nonrisk-based explanations. The model is also employed as a benchmark to assess the explanatory power of the traditional asset-pricing models in this context. Our findings show that the profits of the long-run contrarian strategy are

Effects of heavy metals and soil pH around a smelter detected, including decreased abundance of certain degradative capacities such as: acid formation from maltose, cellobiose, arabinose or xylose, or hydrolysation of starch, pectin, xylan, or cellulose. Soil respiration also decreased, but not phosphatase activity.

The objective of this study was to quantify and compare the effects of sow’s milk and 2 milk replacer diets (containing clotting or nonclotting protein sources) on exocrine pancreatic secretion, plasma cholecystokinin, and immunoreactive cationic trypsin in pigs. In addition, the relationship between exocrine pancreatic secretion and growth in milk-fed pigs was studied. In a changeover experiment,