Studies from the public health and epidemiologic fields consider self-assessment of health as a solid measure of general health due to its predictive ability in relation to mortality. Empirical evidence in this direction have justified the generalized use of this measure in health surveys as well as its application to the general population. However, it is important to evaluate whether these findi

Pollination is a key ecosystem service which most often has been studied in isolation although effects of pollination on seed set might depend on, and interact with, other services important for crop production. We tested three competing hypotheses on how insect pollination and pest control might jointly affect seed set: independent, compensatory or synergistic effects. For this, we performed a ca

The aim of this study is to explore whether administration timing affects glycaemic control by lixisenatide once-daily in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).

Although a substantial proportion of patients with heart failure (HF) have anemia, there is a paucity of data evaluating the impact of anemia on clinical outcome in CRT patients. Our goal was to examine the ability of baseline hemoglobin (Hb) level and change in Hb level over time to predict clinical 2-year outcome and echocardiographic response to CRT.

This study proposes a method for the characterization of respiratory patterns in chronic heart failure (CHF) patients with periodic breathing (PB) and nonperiodic breathing (nPB), using the flow signal. Autoregressive modeling of the envelope of the respiratory flow signal is the starting point for the pattern characterization. Spectral parameters extracted from the discriminant frequency band (DB

Testicular germ cell cancer (TGCC) is the most common malignancy in young men. Genetic variants known to be associated with risk of TGCC only partially account for the observed familial risks. We aimed to identify additional polymorphisms associated with risk as well as histological and clinical features of TGCC in 367 patients and 214 controls. Polymorphisms in ESR2 (rs1256063; OR=0.53, 95% CI: 0

Although identical blood group matching is preferred, it is uncertain if this results in improved survival and, if so, how large the survival benefits are. Earlier studies have yielded conflicting results and are mostly based on single-center cohorts with few long-term results. Recipients with blood group AB are of particular interest regarding nonidentical blood group matching because they may re

Background and objective: Previous studies have reported immunoreactive opioid nerve fibers in the detrusor and lower urinary tract sphincters. However, there is a paucity of in vivo studies demonstrating the direct effect of endogenous opioids in these structures. In the present study, we investigated the contractile actions of intra-arterially administered exogenous Dynorphin-A, Met-enkephalin,

BACKGROUND The association between aging-related testosterone deficiency and late-onset hypogonadism in men remains a controversial concept. We sought evidence-based criteria for identifying late-onset hypogonadism in the general population on the basis of an association between symptoms and a low testosterone level. METHODS We surveyed a random population sample of 3369 men between the ages of 40

Heterodyne light scattering is employed to probe the electrophoretic flow behavior of a concentrated, deionized model colloidal suspension. Both for the fluid and crystalline regime, the power spectra are well described as velocity distributions, which let assume that the power spectra are dominated by the self-dynamic structure factor. Furthermore, all measured power spectra show an increase of t

Initiating prophylactic treatment at an early age is considered to be the optimal form of therapy for a child with haemophilia A or B. The pioneering long term experiences of prophylactic treatment from Sweden and The Netherlands demonstrated the benefit of prophylaxis in retrospective and observational studies. Decades later, these benefits were confirmed in a randomized controlled study in USA.

By measuring 1/f-noise in wrap-gated InAs nanowire metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors with transport dominating, controllably, in either an inner, core channel, or an outer, surface channel, it is possible to accurately evaluate the material quality related Hooge-parameter, alpha(H), with reduced interference from the surface properties. The devices show low values of alpha(H) simi

This study compares two approaches to the estimation of social welfare intervention costs: one "top-down" and the other "bottom-up" for a group of social welfare clients with severe problem behavior participating in a randomized trial. Intervention costs ranging over a two-year period were compared by intervention category (foster care placement, institutional placement, mentorship services, indiv

An outstanding feature of the early modern Indian Ocean World is the large number of women who exercised formal sovereign political power. Based on a systematic survey of 277 queens regnant in the Indian Ocean World from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century, this article discusses four possible explanations for the relative frequency of female rule: religion, trade, political stability, and ge

We introduce a multi-region model for simultaneous segmentation of medical images. In contrast to many other models, geometric constraints such as inclusion and exclusion between the regions are enforced, which makes it possible to correctly segment different regions even if the intensity distributions are identical. We efficiently optimize the model using a combination of graph cuts and Lagrangia

The objective of this work is to establish under which conditions short RNA molecules (similar to miRNA) associate with zwitterionic phospholipids and how this differs from the association with cationic surfactants. We study how the base pairing (i.e., single stranded versus double stranded nucleic acids) and the length of the nucleic acid and the charge of the lipid/surfactant monolayer affect th

Previous genome-wide association (GWA) studies have identified SNPs associated with areal bone mineral density (aBMD). However, this measure is influenced by several different skeletal parameters, such as periosteal expansion, cortical bone mineral density (BMDC) cortical thickness, trabecular number, and trabecular thickness, which may be under distinct biological and genetic control. We have car

This research presents the modeling of the anaerobic digestion of cane-molasses vinasse, hereby extending the Anaerobic Digestion Model No. 1 with sulfate reduction for a very high strength and sulfate rich wastewater. Based on a sensitivity analysis, four parameters of the original ADM1 and all sulfate reduction parameters were calibrated. Although some deviations were observed between model pred