Aim: Experimental cerebral ischemia and organ culture of cerebral arteries induce an increased endothelin ET(B) receptor-mediated contraction. The aim of the present study was to examine if cytokines and growth factors, known to be activated in ischemia, can influence the expression and function of endothelin receptors after organ culture. Methods: Rat middle cerebral arteries were cultured for 24

The discovery of microRNAs (miRNAs), which are ~22 nucleotide RNAs that inhibit protein synthesis in a sequence-specific manner and are present in a range of species, has born hope of new therapeutic strategies. miRNAs play important roles in development "Development" of what??and disease, but they remain poorly studied in uropathologies beyond cancer. Here, we discuss biological functions of miRN

This paper is about early roots of supersymmetry, as found in the literature from 1940s and early 1950s. There were models where the power of "partners" in alleviating divergences in quantum field theory was recognized. However, other currently known remarkable features of supersymmetry, such as its role in the extension of the Poincare group, were not known. There were, of course, no supersymmetr

JavaScript is a sequential programming language, and Thread-Level Speculation has been proposed to dynamically extract parallelism in order to take advantage of parallel hardware. In previous work, we have showed significant speed-ups with a simple on/off speculation heuristic. In this paper, we propose and evaluate three heuristics for dynamically adapt the speculation: a 2-bit heuristic, an expo

This study investigated patterns and controls of the seasonal and inter-annual variations in energy fluxes (i.e., sensible heat, H, and latent heat, lambda E) and partitioning of the water budget (i.e., precipitation, P; evapotranspiration, ET; discharge, Q; and soil water storage, Delta S) over five years (2001-2005) in a boreal oligotrophic fen in northern Sweden based on continuous eddy covaria

Objective. To assess work productivity and associated factors in patients with SpA.Methods. This cross-sectional postal survey included 1773 patients with SpA identified in a regional health care register. Items on presenteeism (reduced productivity at work, 0-100%, 0 = no reduction) were answered by 1447 individuals. Absenteeism was defined as register-based sick leave using data from a national

To validate common low-risk variants predisposing for breast cancer (BC) in a large set of BRCA1/2 negative familial or genetically enriched cases from Germany, we genotyped 1,415 cases and 1,830 healthy women by MALDI-TOF in 105 candidate SNPs. Significantly higher ORs than previously reported for heterozygous unselected cases were found for the minor allele in FGFR2 (OR = 1.43, 95% Cl 1.30-1.59,

We report a dual phase boron nitride (BN) material composed of 50% cubic and 50% wurtzite phases that has the same level of hardness as polycrystalline diamond. The dual phase BN material was initially synthesized from high pressure and high temperature consolidation of powder materials and subsequently, a laser/waterjet heat treatment (LWH) was applied to the material surface. The LWH process con

Hydrolysis is usually the rate-limited step for methane production from lignocellulosic substrate. Two bioaugmentation strategies, using the cellulolytic anaerobic bacteria Clostridium cellulolyticum, were adopted to enhance the hydrolysis of wheat straw with the purpose of improving the biochemical methane potential (BMP). Namely, the 24-h-incubated seed (C24S) with cellobiose as carbon source an

. Zia E, Melander O, Bjorkbacka H, Hedblad B, Engstrom G (Lund University, Malmo; Institute of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmo; Skane University Hospital, Malmo; and Astra Zeneca R&D, Malmo, Sweden). Total and differential leucocyte counts in relation to incidence of stroke subtypes and mortality: a prospective cohort study. J Intern Med 2012; 272: 298304. Objectives. Elevated levels

A prospective clinical study was carried out to investigate whether endometrial microvessels in patients with idiopathic heavy menstrual bleeding (HMB) of endometrial origin (HMB-E) are fragile due to low pericyte coverage. Idiopathic HMB-E is characterized by large endothelial cell gaps related to the microvascular overexpression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-A and VEGF receptors 1

Mice genetically deficient in the glucagon receptor (Gcgr(-/-)) show improved glucose tolerance, insulin sensitivity and α-cell hyperplasia. In addition, Gcgr(-/-) mice do not develop diabetes after chemical destruction of β-cells. Since fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) has insulin independent glucose lowering properties we investigated whether FGF21 was contributing to diabetes resistance in i

Epigenetic mechanisms are implicated in gene regulation and the development of different diseases. The epigenome differs between cell types and has until now only been characterized for a few human tissues. Environmental factors potentially alter the epigenome. Here we describe the genome-wide pattern of DNA methylation in human adipose tissue from 23 healthy men, with a previous low level of phys

The toll-like receptors, TLR5 and TLR7, have recently been proposed in asthma immunopathogenesis. While supporting data come from animal or in vitro studies, little is known about TLR5 and TLR7 expression in human asthmatic airways.

Objectives: Capillary abnormalities, such as the enlargement and/or disappearance of capillary loops, occur early in the majority of patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc). The aim of this study was to compare three capillaroscopic methods of determining the capillary density in patients with SSc. Methods: Two of the three methods involved stereo-zoom microscopy at a magnification of 20 times, u

In dynamic renal scintigraphy, the main interest is the radiopharmaceutical redistribution as a function of time. Quality control (QC) of renal procedures often relies on phantom experiments to compare image-based results with the measurement setup. A phantom with a realistic anatomy and time-varying activity distribution is therefore desirable. This work describes a pharmacokinetic (PK) compartme

The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes are the most polymorphic genes found in the vertebrate genome, and they encode proteins that play an essential role in the adaptive immune response. Many songbirds (passerines) have been shown to have a large number of transcribed MHC class I genes compared to most mammals. To elucidate the reason for this large number of genes, we compared 14 MHC c

Abstract in French À cause d'un manque de recherche empirique à la fois théorique et systématique, les processus d'intégration déterminés par l'innovation dans les zones transfrontalières sont toujours mal compris. S'éloignant de l'approche des systèmes régionaux d'innovation, de la recherche récente sur la proximité, et de la documentation sur les zones transfrontalières, cet article cherche à idDue to a lack of both theoretical and systematic empirical work, innovation-driven integration processes in cross-border areas are still poorly understood. Departing from the regional innovation system (RIS) approach, recent work on different forms of proximity, and the literature on cross-border areas, this paper seeks to identify in a conceptual way different stages in the development of cross-b