Parkin, McGuire and Yule (1987) (hereafter PMY) report that a regression of per capita health care expenditure on per capita income using different conversion factors (exchange rates, GDP PPPs, health PPPs) gave rise to different results. In this note we apply updated data to the same empirical relationship. In contrast to PMY, we find no noticeable conversion factor instability in that relationsh

An important omission from earlier cross-national comparisons of health care expenditure has been the failure to distinguish between price and quantity. Using recent data on purchasing power parities, the purpose of this article is to report some preliminary results regarding health care expenditure and quantity across 22 OECD countries. The article concludes that, contrary to what has been sugges

The mode of action of paracetamol (acetaminophen), which is widely used for treating pain and fever, has remained obscure, but may involve several distinct mechanisms, including cyclooxygenase inhibition and transient receptor potential ankyrin 1 (TRPA1) channel activation, the latter being recently associated with paracetamol’s propensity to elicit hypothermia at higher doses. Here, we examined w

Yacón root is a natural source of fructans, which has many potential benefits. Convective drying has been applied to increase the shelf life of yacón roots. However, this processing may lead to detrimental effects on the physicochemical functionality. The drying was investigated using different conditions (drying temperatures of 45 °C, 50 °C and 55 °C at a drying air velocity of 2 m/s and 60 °C at

Intestinal alkaline SMase (Alk-SMase) cleaves phosphocholine from SM, platelet-activating factor (PAF), and lysophosphatidylcholine. We recently found that colitis-associated colon cancer was 4- to 5-fold enhanced in Alk-SMase KO mice. Here, we further studied the pathogenesis of colitis induced by dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) in WT and KO mice. Compared with WT mice, KO mice demonstrated greater

Background & Aims: Agents designed to block or alter cytokinesis can kill or stop proliferation of cancer cells. We aimed to identify cytokinesis-related proteins that are overexpressed in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells and might be targeted to slow liver tumor growth. Methods: Using the Oncomine database, we compared the gene expression patterns in 16 cancer microarray datasets and asse

Redox active cysteine residues including βCys93 are part of hemoglobin's “oxidation hotspot”. Irreversible oxidation of βCys93 ultimately leads to the collapse of the hemoglobin structure and release of heme. Human fetal hemoglobin (HbF), similarly to the adult hemoglobin (HbA), carries redox active γCys93 in the vicinity of the heme pocket. Site-directed mutagenesis has been used in this study to

SPI1 (also known as PU.1) is a dominant but transient regulator in early T-cell precursors and a potent transcriptional controller of developmentally important pro-T-cell genes. Before T-lineage commitment, open chromatin is frequently occupied by PU.1, and many PU.1 sites lose accessibility when PU.1 is later down-regulated. Pioneering activity of PU.1 was tested in this developmentally dynamic c

Purpose Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has a poor prognosis, with a 5-year survival of, 10% because of diffuse symptoms leading to late-stage diagnosis. That survival could increase significantly if localized tumors could be detected early. Therefore, we used multiparametric analysis of blood samples to obtain a novel biomarker signature of early-stage PDAC. The signature was derived from

This study compares the precipitation trend from the gridded rain gauge data collected by India Meteorological Department (IMD) and Multisatellite High Resolution Precipitation Products (HRPPs) including Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) version 7, Climate Prediction Center Morphing (CMORPH) version 1.0, Precipitation Estimation from Remotely

The growth of aerosol due to the aqueous phase oxidation of sulfur dioxide by ozone was measured in laboratory-generated clouds created in the Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets (CLOUD) chamber at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Experiments were performed at 10 and-10 °C, on acidic (sulfuric acid) and on partially to fully neutralised (ammonium sulfate) seed aerosol. Clouds we

Behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) has been predominantly considered as a frontotemporal cortical disease, with limited direct investigation of frontal–subcortical connections. We aim to characterize the grey and white matter components of frontal–thalamic and frontal–striatal circuits in bvFTD. Twenty-four patients with bvFTD and 24 healthy controls underwent morphological and dif

Under certain conditions, secondary organic aerosol (SOA) particles can exist in the atmosphere in an amorphous solid or semi-solid state. To determine their relevance to processes such as ice nucleation or chemistry occurring within particles requires knowledge of the temperature and relative humidity (RH) range for SOA to exist in these states. In the Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets (CLOUD) exp

There are strong indications that particles containing secondary organic aerosol (SOA) exhibit amorphous solid or semi-solid phase states in the atmosphere. This may facilitate heterogeneous ice nucleation and thus influence cloud properties. However, experimental ice nucleation studies of biogenic SOA are scarce. Here, we investigated the ice nucleation ability of viscous SOA particles. The SOA p

Cloud microphysical processes involving the ice phase in tropospheric clouds are among the major uncertainties in cloud formation, weather, and general circulation models. The detection of aerosol particles, liquid droplets, and ice crystals, especially in the small cloud particle-size range below 50 μm, remains challenging in mixed phase, often unstable environments. The Cloud Aerosol Spectromete

Developmental language disorder (DLD) is a common neurodevelopmental disorder with largely unknown etiology. Rare copy number variants (CNVs) have been implicated in the genetic architecture of other neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), which have led to clinical genetic testing recommendations for these disorders; however, the evidence is still lacking for DLD. We analyzed rare and de novo CNVs i

Objectives: To investigate the association between chronic subsyndromal symptoms of depression (SSD), cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers, and neuropsychological performance in individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Methods: Participants included 238 older adults diagnosed with MCI from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative repository with cognitive and CSF amyloid beta (Aβ1–