Objectives Do recent infections affect the risk of rheumatoid arthritis (RA)? Methods We used the population-based case-control study EIRA (N= 6401) on incident RA and healthy controls, matched for sex, age, calendar period and area of residence. Gastroenteritis, urinary tract infection, genital infection, prostatitis, sinusitis, tonsillitis and pneumonia during the 2 years before inclusion in t

We investigate dual decomposition approaches for optimization problems arising in low-level vision. Dual decomposition can be used to parallelize existing algorithms, reduce memory requirements and to obtain approximate solutions of hard problems. An extensive set of experiments are performed for a variety of application problems including graph cut segmentation, curvature regularization and more

In the EU regime on the coordination of social security, there are rules and principles on cross-border administrative cooperation. Through these legal mechanisms, a number of cooperation structures are established with the Administrative Commission as a central point. Within these structures, national social security bodies provide assistance, communicate directly, solve conflicts of interpretati

Evaluating the usefulness and the reliability of retrofitted buildings for future climate can be a challenging task, while different scenarios and uncertainties exist both for retrofitting buildings and future climate. This paper presents a method to assess and quantify the relative robustness of retrofitting measures on long term, while climate variations in different time scales, extreme conditi

Oral anticoagulants (OACs) are effective against ischemic stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation. Our aim was to investigate differences in the prescribing of OACs after ischemic stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation based on age, sex, country of birth, and socioeconomic status.

1. Ecological stoichiometry predicts important control of the relative abundance of the key elements carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) on trophic interactions. In a nutrient-poor Amazonian lowland rain forest of French Guiana, we tested the hypothesis that decomposers exploit stoichiometrically diverse plant litter more efficiently, resulting in faster litter decomposition compared to li

In this paper we show that the hydrodynamic problem for three-dimensional water waves with strong surface-tension effects admits a fully localised solitary wave which decays to the undisturbed state of the water in every horizontal direction. The proof is based upon the classical variational principle that a solitary wave of this type is a critical point of the energy, which is given in dimensionl

Objective. Heredity is a major cause of ovarian cancer and during recent years the contribution from germline mismatch repair (MMR) gene mutations linked to Lynch syndrome has gradually been recognized. Methods. We characterized clinical features, tumor morphology and mismatch repair defects in all ovarian cancers identified in Swedish and Danish Lynch syndrome families. Results. In total, 63 epit

Radiative recombination in degenerately n-doped InP nanowires is studied for excitation above and below the Fermi energy of the electron gas, using photoluminescence. Laser-induced electron heating is observed, which allows absorption below the Fermi energy. We observe photon upconversion where photo-excited holes recombine with high |k| electrons. This can be attributed to hole scattering to high

The partly hot-water driven CO2 capture plant offers a significant potential for improvement in performance when implemented in a combined-cycle power plant (CCPP). It is possible to achieve the same performance with a dual-pressure steam cycle as in a triple-pressure unit. Even a single-pressure plant can attain an efficiency competitive with that achievable with a triple-pressure plant without t

Background: In CIBIS III, initiating chronic heart failure (CHF) treatment with bisoprolol (target dose 10 mg q.d.) followed by combination therapy with enalapril (target dose 10 mg b.i.d.), compared to the opposite order, showed similar effects on survival and hospitalization. By echocardiography, we evaluated the effects of these treatment strategies on cardiac structure and function. Methods: I

During past decades, the number of dentists has continuously increased in Iran. Beside the quantity, the distribution of dentists affects the oral health status of population. The current study aimed to assess the pure and social disparities in distribution of dentists across the provinces in Iran in 2009. Data on provinces' characteristics, including population and social situation, were obtained

Several studies have shown that the family history of venous thromboembolism (FHVTE) is a predictor of first venous thromboembolism (VTE). However its role in recurrent VTE is still controversial.

Ultrashort, coherent x-ray pulses of a free-electron laser are used to holographically image the magnetization dynamics within a magnetic domain pattern after creation of a localized excitation via an optical standing wave. We observe a spatially confined reduction of the magnetization within a couple of hundred femtoseconds followed by its slower recovery. Additionally, the experimental results s

PURPOSE: To provide estimates of the diffusional kurtosis in the healthy brain in anatomically defined areas and list these along previously reported values in pathologies. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Thirty-six volunteers (mean age = 33.1 years; range, 19-64 years) underwent diffusional kurtosis imaging. Mean kurtosis (MK), radial kurtosis (RK), mean diffusivity (MD), radial diffusivity (RD), and frac

In this study resonant acoustic spectroscopy was applied during static loading and unloading of three prestressed concrete beams in the context of acoustoelasticity. At each load step multiple modes of vibration were measured using an accelerometer and a small impact source. It was found that the measured resonance frequencies increased with increasing compressive stress in a manner which can be p

The aim of this study was to describe changes over time in the indications and outcomes of cataract surgery and to discuss optimal timing for the surgery.

Most state-of-the-art natural gas-fired combined cycle (NGCC) plants are triple-pressure reheat cycles with efficiencies close to 60%. However, with carbon capture and storage, the efficiency will be penalized by almost 10% units. To limit the energy consumption for a carbon capture NGCC plant, exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) is necessary. Utilizing EGR increases the CO2 content in the gas turbine

Conversion of agricultural residues, energy crops and forest residues into bioethanol requires hydrolysis of the biomass and fermentation of the released sugars. During the hydrolysis of the hemicellulose fraction, substantial amounts of pentose sugars, in particular xylose, are released. Fermentation of these pentose sugars to ethanol by engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae under industrial proces

Isolates of Listeria monocytogenes (n = 932) isolated in Sweden during 1958-2010 from human patients with invasive listeriosis were characterized by serotyping and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) (AscI). Of the 932 isolates, 183 different PFGE types were identified, of which 83 were each represented by only one isolate. In all, 483 serovar 1/2a isolates were distributed over 114 PFGE types