Background During the last 15 years, high-dose chemotherapy with autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) has globally been performed for severe multiple sclerosis (MS). Most patients have been in progressive phase with long disease duration. As a rule, treatment effect has been minor or moderate. Patients Since 2004, we have performed HSCT in nine young patients with "malignant"

Iddm14 (formerly Iddm4) is a non-MHC-linked genetic locus associated with autoimmune diabetes. Its effects have been well-documented in BB-derived rats in which diabetes is either induced by immunologic perturbation or occurs spontaneously. The role of Iddm14 in non-BB rat strains is unknown. Our goal was to extend the analysis of Iddm14 in new diabetes-susceptible strains and to identify candidat

Speckle in continuous wave (CW) Doppler has previously been found to cause large variations in detected Doppler power in blood perfusion measurements, where a large number of blood vessels are present in the sample volume. This artifact can be suppressed by using a number of simultaneously transmitted frequencies and averaging the detected signals. To optimize the strategy, statistical properties

Latency is a fundamental problem for all distributed systems including digital libraries. To reduce user perceived delays both caching-keeping accessed objects for future use-and prefetching-transferring objects ahead of access time-can be used. In a previous paper we have reported that caching is not worthwhile for digital libraries due to low re-access frequencies. In this paper we evaluate our

Aims/hypothesis: Mutations in hepatic nuclear factor 1alpha cause a monogenic form of diabetes, maturity onset diabetes of the young type 3 (MODY3). Our aim was 1) to assess the uptake of genetic testing for MODY3 and to determine factors affecting it, and ( 2) to compare attitudes to predictive genetic testing between families with MODY3 and a previously studied group at risk of hereditary nonpol

Microdialysis was used for sampling enzyme hydrolysis products of starch hydrolysed with beta -amylase, pullulanase, and/or isoamylase, to obtain information about the molecular structure of starch. Starches from waxy, normal, and high amylose maize, and from normal and genetically modified potato (amylose deficient) were used, and also commercial potato amyloses. The hydrolysis products were anal

Twenty-six fully sequenced archaeal genomes were searched for genes coding for putative deoxyribonucleoside kinases (dNKs). We identified only 5 human-like thymidine kinase 1 genes (TK1s) and none for non-TK1 kinases. Four TK1s were identified in the Euryarchaea and one was found in the Crenarchaea, while none was found in Nanoarchaeum. The identified TK1s have high identity to Gram-positive bacte

We review the effects of human impact on biodiversity of European forests in the light of recent views on disturbances and succession in ecosystems, and discuss recent ideas on how biodiversity affects ecosystem functions such as productivity and ecosystem stability. With this as a background we discuss how to better manage European forests for both production and biodiversity. We argue that the n

Previous studies of gender differences in maximum oxygen uptake have come to different conclusions. Limited data exists where the determinants of maximum oxygen uptake have been evaluated in a comprehensive manner. Thus, we examined 248 children (140 boys and 108 girls), aged 7.9-11.1 years. Body composition was determined by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, measured variables were total body fat

Because low genetic diversity may threaten the viability of isolated populations, conservation biologists have devoted much effort to quantify genetic variation. Two techniques routinely used involve levels of mini- and microsatellite polymorphism, with the assumption that levels of variation at these parts of the genome will be reflected in levels of variation at other loci. Our data challenge th

Establishment of human embryonic stem cells (hES) from surplus human IVF embryos has been successful when both fresh and frozen-thawed cleavage stage embryos have been cultured to the blastocyst stage. This study reports the characteristics of the starting material, the blastocysts, for hES cell lines that were first derived at the University of Gothenburg, Sahlgrenska University Hospital in 1999.

Aim It has been proposed that the root vole subspecies, Microtus oeconomus finmarchicus, survived the last glacial period on islands on the north-west coast of Norway. The Norwegian island of Andoya may have constituted the only site with permanent ice-free conditions. Geological surveys and fossil finds from Andoya demonstrate that survival throughout the last glacial maximum was probably possibl

Smoking is a strong risk factor for cardiovascular disease that is a leading cause of death and disability in Western countries. The present study was designed to investigate the effect of lipid-soluble smoke particles (DSP) on alpha-adrenoceptor expression in organ culture of rat mesenteric arteries and human epiploon arteries. Myograph and real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reactio

Deletions and structural rearrangements of the long arm of chromosome 13 are frequently observed in benign and low-malignant lipomatous tumors, but nothing is known about their molecular genetic consequences. We assessed the karyotypes of 40 new and 22 previously published cases (35 ordinary lipomas, 15 spindle cell/pleomorphic lipomas, 2 myxolipomas, 1 angiomyxolipoma and 9 atypical lipomatous tu

In the present work we will demonstrate that the nuclear dynamics have a strong influence on the delocalization of an exciton in a dimer, even if they do not effect the excitonic interaction. It will be shown that the internal nuclear conformation of the molecules forming the dimer depends critically on the delocalization of the exciton state in the dimer and vice versa. The resulting closed loop

The question of whether very weak low frequency magnetic fields can affect biological systems, has attracted attention by many research groups for quite some time. Still, today, the theoretical possibility of such an interaction is often questioned and the site of interaction in the cell is unknown. In the present study, the influence of extremely low frequency (ELF) magnetic fields on the transpo

The feeding of the cladoceran Daphniopsis studeri on algae and bacteria was investigated under ice in an ultra-oligotrophic Antarctic lake from late autumn (May) to early spring (October) in 2004. D. studeri fed on both algae and bacteria with estimated filtering rates of 0.048 and 0.061 l ind(-1) day(-1)), respectively. Algae seemed to be the major food resource for the D. studeri population, how

Serious psychopathology in adulthood may be associated with disturbed foetal brain development, which potentially shows lingering “fossil marks” in the cranial and facial regions. Several methods exist for assessing external craniofacial and internal brain distances but, to our knowledge, no method yet provides simultaneous measurement of cranial, facial and brain dimensions in live subjects. In t