A growing political interest in the development of biorefineries is being shaped by climate change and a need to develop economically viable substitutes (i.e., fuels, products and chemicals) to those produced in traditional oil refineries. The pulp and paper industry in Sweden has been stagnating and it is therefore potentially promising to integrate biorefining into its activities as one way of d

This study documents conodont faunas of the Fezouata Formation, recovered from the AZ-1 borehole at Adrar Zouggar Mountain and from outcrops near Zagora in south-eastern Morocco. The Fezouata Formation was deposited on the peri-Gondwanan shelf near the South Pole during Early Ordovician times. It is composed of mostly fine-grained siliciclastics and is well known for including beds displaying the

We carry out bipolar Monte Carlo (MC) simulations of electron and hole transport in a multi-quantum well light-emitting diode with an electron-blocking layer. The MC simulation accounts for the most important interband recombination and intraband scattering processes and solves self-consistently for the non-quasiequilibrium transport. The fully bipolar MC simulator results in better convergence th

While software is becoming more complex everyday, the requirements on its behavior are not getting any easier to satisfy. An application should offer a certain quality of service, adapt to the current environmental conditions and withstand runtime variations that were simply unpredictable during the design phase. To tackle this complexity, control theory has been proposed as a technique for managi

Animals need awell-functioning immune systemto protect themselves againstpathogens. The immune system, however, is costlyand resource trade-offs withother demands exist. For migratory animals several (not mutually exclusive)hypotheses exist. First, migrants reduce immune function to be able to allocateresources to migration. Second, migrants boost immune function to cope withmore and/or novel path

Intestinal mononuclear phagocytes, comprising macrophages (MΦs) and dendritic cells (DCs), play important roles in the generation and the regulation of immune responses to intestinal antigens, and alterations in the development and/or the function of these cells are thought to contribute to the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease. In this review, we discuss the role of tumor necrosis factor

For many years, splenectomy has been used to treat immune thrombocytopenia (ITP), and this procedure benefits approximately two-thirds of the treated patients. Although splenectomy may raise platelet counts, antibody-coated platelets and cytotoxic T lymphocytes appear to persist or can change over time. To better understand how the spleen may affect anti-platelet immune responses, we used a murine

Transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI) is a syndrome of respiratory distress triggered by blood transfusions and is the leading cause of transfusion-related mortality. TRALI has primarily been attributed to passive infusion of HLA and/or human neutrophil antigen antibodies present in transfused blood products, and predisposing factors such as inflammation are known to be important for TRALI

Platelets are small cellular fragments with the primary physiological role of maintaining hemostasis. In addition to this well-described classical function, it is becoming increasingly clear that platelets have an intimate connection with infection and inflammation. This stems from several platelet characteristics, including their ability to bind infectious agents and secrete many immunomodulatory

INTRODUCTION: Similarities in size, anatomy and physiology have supported the use of sheep to model a wide range of human diseases, including coagulopathy. However, coagulation studies involving sheep are limited by the absence of high quality data defining normal ovine coagulation and fibrinolysis.MATERIALS AND METHODS: Full blood examination, routine and specialised coagulation tests, rotational

Transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI) is the leading cause of transfusion-related mortality and can occur with any type of transfusion. TRALI is thought to be primarily mediated by donor antibodies activating recipient neutrophils resulting in pulmonary endothelial damage. Nonetheless, details regarding the interactions between donor antibodies and recipient factors are unknown. A murine a

Immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) is an autoimmune disorder characterized by antibody-mediated platelet destruction. The platelet, as an accessible target, has made ITP an attractive disorder in the study of autoimmunity. However, the pathogenesis of ITP has proven complex with diverse pre-existing challenges to the immune system in the form of infection, genetic predisposition, underlying autoimmune

Objective: Advanced endovascular aortic repair can be used to treat patients with extensive and complex aortic disease who are at risk of spinal cord ischaemia. The aim of this study was to compare whether life satisfaction differs between patients with and without spinal cord ischaemia at mid-Term follow-up. Design: Nested case-control study. Patients: Among patients undergoing advanced endovascu

Objective To evaluate the internal consistency and construct validity of the Physical Function short-forms for the Hip and Knee Injury Osteoarthritis Outcome Scores (HOOS-PS/KOOS-PS) and the Intermittent and Constant Osteoarthritis Pain (ICOAP) in a nine country study of patients consulting for total hip or knee replacement (THR or TKR). Methods Patients completed HOOS-PS or KOOS-PS, ICOAP and Wes

Objectives: The primary goal in management of chronic phase (CP) chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) is to prevent disease progression to accelerated phase (AP) or blast crisis (BC). We have evaluated progression rates in a decentralised healthcare setting and characterised patients progressing to AP/BC on TKI treatment. Methods: Using data from the Swedish CML register, we identified CP-CML patients

Given a static plant described by a differentiable input-output function, which is completely unknown, but whose Jacobian takes values in a known polytope in the matrix space, this paper considers the problem of tuning (i.e., driving to a desired value) the output, by suitably choosing the input. It is shown that, if the polytope is robustly non-singular (or has full rank, in the non-square case),

Purpose: Macular development is a complex process that starts by mid-gestation and continues several years after birth. A preterm birth could affect this development, causing increased thickness in the central macula, but the effect of the macular function remains uncertain. The aim of this study was to investigate the macular function measured with multifocal electroretinography (mfERG), in forme