Orientation can be difficult for nocturnal bird migrants at high northern latitudes because of the large changes of magnetic declinations, rapid longitudinal time-shifts experienced during a long-distance flight and the invisibility of stars during the polar summer. Both sunset cues as well as geomagnetic cues have been shown to be of great importance in the orientation system of Savannah sparrows

Double-stranded (ds) DNA from salmon testes has been incorporated into PVA hydrogels obtained by a technique of repeated freezing and thawing. The cryogels obtained are free of potential toxic species like chemical cross-linkers, and consequently, they can be used in pharmaceutical or medical applications. These cryogels show a good mechanical resistance and a white and opaque appearance caused by

Caspase 3 staining in Schwann cells was investigated with immunohistochemistry, as a measure of Schwann cell apoptosis, after transection and immediate (day 0) or delayed rat sciatic nerve repair (30, 90 and 180 days post injury). Cleaved caspase 3 stained Schwann cells significantly increased at the site of lesion (SNL; median [IQR], 15.2 [7.0] %) and in the distal nerve segment (SND; 9.5 [3.6] %

The supramolecular organization of photosystem II (PSII) was characterized in distinct domains of the thylakoid membrane, the grana core, the grana margins, the stroma lamellae, and the so-called Y100 fraction. PSII supercomplexes, PSII core dimers, PSII core monomers, PSII core monomers lacking the CP43 subunit, and PSII reaction centers were resolved and quantified by blue native PAGE, SDS-PAGE

The objective of this article is to review guidelines that address counselling in the context of genetic testing in order to summarise what aspects of counselling they consider most important, and to examine how they construct the ideal of genetic counselling. Guidelines were collected by examining the websites of different international professional, political, ethical and patient organisations,

Recent technological advances in manometry, including solid state transducers and computerized analysis, allows for reliable interpretation of intraluminal pharyngeal pressures. Simultaneous videoradiography (barium swallow) provides fluoroscopic control of the manometric sensors (videomanometry), thereby eliminating the uncertainty of sensor dislocation during laryngeal elevation. This is the fir

During hypoglycaemia, counter-regulatory hormones are released, cognitive function is impaired and cerebral blood flow is increased. In the immediate period after normalisation of blood glucose only counter-regulatory hormones seem to be normalised. The aim of this study was to follow the changes in cerebral blood flow during a prolonged recovery period following moderate hypoglycaemia in normal m

It is unclear how mutualistic relationships can be stable when partners disperse freely and have the possibility of forming associations with many alternative genotypes. Theory predicts that high symbiont relatedness should resolve this problem, but the mechanisms to enforce this have rarely been studied. We show that African fungus-growing termites propagate single variants of their Termitomyces

We generated a mouse model with a conditional deletion of TGF-beta signaling in the neurons by crossing TGF-beta receptor I (T beta RI) floxed mice with neurofilament-H (NF-H) Cre mice. 35% of F1 conditional knockout (COKO) mice developed spontaneous squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) in periorbital and/ or perianal regions. Transplantation of these tumors into athymic nude mice resulted in 62% tumor

Insect damage is a general problem that disturbs the growth of forests, causing economic losses and affecting carbon sequestration. Coarse-resolution data from satellites are potentially useful for national and regional mapping of forest damage, but the accuracy of these methods has not been fully examined. In this study, a method was tested for the mapping of defoliation in Scots pine [Pinus silv

The optimal division of resources into offspring size vs. number is one of the classic problems in life-history evolution. Importantly, models that take into account the discrete nature of resource division at low clutch sizes suggest that the variance in offspring size should decline with increasing clutch size according to an invariant relationship. We tested this prediction in 12 species of liz

Genetic variation in female resistance and tolerance to male mating harassment can affect the outcome of sexually antagonistic mating interactions. We investigated female mating rates and male mating harassment in natural populations of a damselfly (Ischnura elegans). This damselfly species has a heritable sex-limited polymorphism in females, where one of the morphs is a male mimic (androchrome fe

Adult patients with hematologic malignancies along with HIV infected patients were prospectively studied to determine the performance of urine D-arabinitol/L-arabinitol (DA/LA) ratio in diagnosing invasive candidiasis. Ten evaluable febrile neutropenic patients had proven invasive candidiasis and elevated DA/LA ratios were found in 5. Invasive candidiasis with normal DA/LA ratios was most frequent

In 1993 and 1994, the relation between breast size and hormonal factors and body constitution was studied in 65 healthy nulligravid women aged 19-25 years. Twenty-five women were current oral contraceptive users, 20 women were former users, and 20 women had never used oral contraceptives. Breast size was strongly positively correlated with current oral contraceptive use during menstrual cycle days

Although it is often assumed that birds strongly prefer tailwinds for their migratory flights, we predict that a strategy of no wind selectivity (traveling independently of winds) may be more favorable than wind selectivity (traveling on tailwind occasions but stopping to rest under headwind occasions) for birds with low energy costs of travel relative to rest and for birds that cannot use stopove

The wakes of two individual robins were measured in digital particle image velocimetry (DPIV) experiments conducted in the Lund wind tunnel. Wake measurements were compared with each other, and with previous studies in the same facility. There was no significant individual variation in any of the measured quantities. Qualitatively, the wake structure and its gradual variation with flight speed wer

The commutative algebra of invariants of a Lie super-algebra need not be affine, but does have a common ideal with an affine algebra, in all the known examples. This leads us to extend a class of algebras C to a class which we call "nearly C", by admitting those algebras C having a common ideal A with an algebra (containing C) in C such that C/A is an element of C. We generalize this notion slight

In this paper we present two novel generic schemes for approximation algorithms for optimization NP-hard graph problems constrained to partial k-trees. Our first scheme yields deterministic polynomial-time algorithms achieving typically an approximation factor of k/log(1-is an element of)n, where k = polylog(n). The second scheme yields randomized polynomial-time algorithms achieving an approximat