Background: The expression of interleukin-1-receptor antagonist is reduced in pancreatic islets of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, and high glucose concentrations induce the production of interleukin-1(beta) in human pancreatic beta cells, leading to impaired insulin secretion, decreased cell proliferation, and apoptosis. Methods: In this double-blind, parallel-group trial involving 70 pat

A new fragrance mix (FM II), with 6 frequently used chemicals not present in the currently used fragrance mix (FM I), was evaluated in 6 dermatological centres in Europe, as previously reported. In this publication, test results with the individual constituents and after repeated open application test (ROAT) of FM II are described. Furthermore, cosmetic products which had caused a contact dermatit

Recent results on the 102 residue protein U1A show that protein aggregation is not always slow and irreversible but may take place transiently in refolding studies on a millisecond time scale. In this study we observe a similar aggregation behavior with the classical two-state protein CI2. Since both U1A and CI2 appear to fold directly from the coil at low protein concentrations, it is likely that

Question: The optimal use of the point intercept method (PIM) for efficient estimation of plant biomass has not been addressed although PIM is a commonly used method in vegetation analysis. In this study we compare results achieved using PIM at a range of efforts, we assess a method for calculating these results that are new with PIM and we provide a formula for planning the optimal use of PIM. Lo

Amphibian larvae often face two major sources of mortality: pond desiccation and predation. Tadpoles of seven anuran species with different preferences for type of breeding habitat, on a hydroperiod scale, were tested for responses to the presence of predators by raising them experimentally in the presence and absence of a separately caged invertebrate predator that was fed on conspecific tadpoles

Along with rapidly developing nanotechnology, new types of analytical instruments and techniques are needed. Here we report an alternative procedure for electrical measurements on semiconductor nanowhiskers, allowing precise selection and visual control at close to atomic resolution. We use a combination of two powerful microscope techniques, scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and simultaneous vi

Objective. To investigate work disability rates over 15 years in an early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) cohort and to evaluate predictive factors during the course of the study. Methods. All patients with early RA of working age (n = 148) were followed and treated at a team care unit. Mean disease duration at inclusion was 1 year. Work characteristics and disease-related variables were recorded annual

The toxicity of different phenols to the soil bacterial community was studied in the laboratory using the leucine incorporation technique. The effects of environmental factors such as pH, temperature and binding strength to soil particles were also assessed in order to deduce confounding effects due to the chemical and physical conditions in the soil from which the bacterial community was extracte

BACKGROUND: Diagnosis with prostate cancer has been reported to increase the risk of subsequent tumours. However, specific data on individuals with a parental history are not available so far. METHODS: On the basis of the nationwide Swedish Family-Cancer Database including 18,207 primary invasive prostate cancers, standardised incidence ratios (SIRs) were used to estimate the relative risks of sub

Stereoselectivity has been known to play a role in drug action for 100 years or more. Nevertheless, chiral drugs have been developed and used as racemates, neglecting the fact that they comprise mixtures of two or more compounds which may have quite different pharmacological properties. A very limited access to pure enantiomers in the past has been responsible for this unsatisfactory state of affa

The folding kinetics of bovine acyl-CoA binding protein was studied by N-15 relaxation dispersion measurements under equilibrium conditions. Relaxation dispersion profiles were measured at several concentrations of guanidine hydrochloride (GuHCl). The unfolding rate constant (k(u)) was determined under conditions favoring folding, for which the folding rate constant (k(f)) dominates the relaxation

Using Bloch waves to represent the full solution of Maxwell's equations in periodic media, we study the limit where the material's period becomes much smaller than the wavelength. It is seen that for steady state fields, only a few of the Bloch waves contribute to the full solution. Effective material parameters can be explicitly represented in terms of dyadic products of the mean values of the no

The thermophilic bacterium Rhodothermus marinus produces a modular xylanase (Xyn10A) consisting of two N-terminal carbohydrate-binding modules (CBMs), followed by a domain of unknown function, and a catalytic module flanked by a fifth domain. Both Xyn10A CBMs bind calcium ions, and this study explores the effect of these ions on the stability of the full-length enzyme. Xyn10A and truncated forms t

A small-scale combustor was set up to analyze the combustion of natural gas and two mixtures of partially reformed natural gas. The partially reformed mixtures can be formed using biomass to feed the endothermic reforming reactions. Before combusting these mixtures in a gas turbine, experimental work was done on a primary zone combustion chamber to examine the combustor behavior when switching fro

Objective: Islet amyloid polypeptide (IAPP)/amylin is produced by the pancreatic islet beta-cells, which also produce insulin. To study potential functions of IAPP, we have generated transgenic mice overexpressing human IAPP (hIAPP) in the beta-cells. These mice show a diabetic phenotype when challenged with an oral glucose load. In this study, we examined the islet cytoarchitecture in the hIAPP m