Background/Aims: Survival for patients on renal replacement therapy (RRT) has been shown to correlate to the level of physical activity and exercise capacity. We examined whether composite measures of functional status at the start of RRT predict survival. Methods: In this retrospective study, the same physiotherapist, using a standardized battery of tests for functional status, tested 134 patient

Violaxanthin de-epoxidase (VDE) catalyses the conversion of violaxanthin to zeaxanthin at the lumen side of the thylakoids during exposure to intense light. VDE consists of a cysteine-rich N-terminal domain, a lipocalin-like domain and a negatively charged C-terminal domain. That the cysteines are important for the activity of VDE is well known, but in what way is less understood. In this study, w

The focus of the present study lies on optimism and its relationships to the components of subjective well-being, i.e. global life satisfaction, positive affect and negative affect. We investigated the direct and indirect (via affectivity) effects of optimism on global life satisfaction in the Swedish middle-aged women at two time points (age 43 and 49), and in the Lithuanian middle-aged women. Fo

Hygrothermal simulation programs are commonly used by design engineers to analyse moisture performance of building envelopes. For ventilated assemblies, programs typically require the user to enter cavity ventilation rates. If such input data are not prepared on physical grounds, it can impair the quality of the simulation results. In earlier papers: (1) estimations of ventilation rates in experim

Previous research (Libby et al., 2009) has established that a third-person (outside) visual perspective elicits more abstract processing than a first-person (inside) perspective. Because many moral principles constitute abstract psychological constructs, we predicted that they should weigh more heavily when people adopt a third-person visual perspective. In two experiments we show that a third- (v

Herein we provide a closed form perturbative solution to a general M-node network susceptible-infected-susceptible (SIS) model using the transport rates between nodes as a perturbation parameter. We separate the dynamics into a short-time regime and a medium-to-long-time regime. We solve the short-time dynamics of the system and provide a limit before which our explicit, analytical result of the f

Background. Drug abuse (DA) is a clinically heterogeneous syndrome. Using medical, legal, death and pharmacy records covering the entire population of Sweden, could we uncover meaningful subtypes of DA? Method. We performed a latent class analysis (LCA) on all individuals in Sweden born 1950-1993 who were registered with DA or its consequences (n=192 501) and then validated these classes using dem

Genetic and environmental factors, including the commensal microbiota, have a crucial role in the development of inflammatory bowel disease. Aberrant activation of the transcription factor NF-κB is associated with chronic intestinal inflammation in mice and humans. Recently, an emerging family of innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) has been identified at mucosal sites contributing to the maintenance of g

Many animals can use the polarization of light in various behavioural contexts. Birds are well known to use information from the skylight polarization pattern for orientation and compass calibration. Still, there are few controlled studies of polarization vision in birds, and the majority of them have not been successful in convincingly demonstrating polarization vision. We used a two-alternative

Polymer electrolyte membranes with bicontinuous microphases comprising soft hydrated domains and mechanically robust hydrophobic domains are used in a wide range of electrochemical devices induding fuel cells and electrolyzers. The self-assembly, water uptake, and proton conductivity of model block copolymer electrolytes with semicrystalline hydrophobic blocks were investigated. A series of sulfon

The literature on universities' contributions to regional development is broad and diverse. A precise understanding of how regions may draw advantages from various university activities and the role of public policy institutions in promoting such activities is still missing. The aim of this paper is to provide a framework for analysing universities' contributions to regional economic and societal

This special issue of The Mental Lexicon contains a number of papers presented at a symposium at the Center for Languages and Literature, Lund University, on December 10, 2009. The interdisciplinary meeting brought together researchers from linguistics, psychology, and neuroscience in order to discuss different approaches to studying the complexities surrounding the modelling of word semantics.

The use of quantitative performance measures to evaluate the productivity, impact and quality of research has spread to almost all parts of public R&D systems, including Big Science where traditional measures of technical reliability of instruments and user oversub- scription have been joined by publication counts to assess scientific productivity. But such performance assessment has been show

The implementation of hybrid fluorescencemolecular tomography (FMT) and X-ray computed tomography (CT) has been shown to be a necessary development, not only for combining anatomical with functional and molecular contrast, but also for generating optical images of high accuracy. FMT affords highly sensitive 3-D imaging of fluorescence bio-distribution, but in stand-alone form it offers images of l

BackgroundDepression is common and tends to be recurrent. Alternative treatments are needed that are non-stigmatising, accessible and can be prescribed by general medical practitioners.AimsTo compare the effectiveness of three interventions for depression: physical exercise, internet-based cognitive-behavioural therapy (ICBT) and treatment as usual (TAU). A secondary aim was to assess changes in s