The N terminus of the human MUC2 mucin (amino acids 1-1397) has been expressed as a recombinant tagged protein in Chinese hamster ovary cells. The intracellular form was found to be an endoglycosidase H-sensitive monomer, whereas the secreted form was an oligomer that gave monomers upon disulfide bond reduction. The secreted MUC2 N terminus contained a trypsin-resistant core fragment. Edman sequen

Quasistatic propagation of a short edge crack, located within one grain of a bcc material has been studied using a discrete dislocation technique. The geometry is modelled by distributed dislocation dipole elements and the plasticity by discrete dislocations. The crack is assumed to grow through a single shear mechanism due to nucleation and annihilation of dislocations along preferred slip planes

Resource sharing in heterogeneous environments has been shown to increase growth and survival of clonal plants. In addition, plants in harsh climates have been suggested to have higher levels of resource sharing than plants in milder climates. We experimentally investigated the level of resource sharing in plants from garden and forest habitats from two regions with contrasting climates. The clona

OBJECTIVE: to explore Sudanese midwives' motives for and perceptions and experiences of re-infibulation after birth and to elucidate its context and determinants. DESIGN: triangulation of methods, using observational techniques and open-ended interviews. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: two government hospitals in Khartoum/Omdurman, Sudan, for the observations and in-depth interviews with 17 midwives. FI

Purpose. This article describes an ex vivo method to recondition and transplant rejected donor lungs. Description. A 19-year-old man was brain dead after a traffic accident. A roentgenogram showed bilateral lung contusion. He had ongoing intratracheal bleeding. After optimizing ventilator treatment and suctioning the airways, PaO2 was 9 kPa (67.5 mm Hg) on FiO(2) = 0.7. The lungs were rejected by

In an acute liver injury model we compared the effects of different Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium strains on bacterial translocation, intestinal load of Enterobacteriaceae and the extent of liver injury. This was an experimental study carried out in an university hospital in Sweden. Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into six groups: liver injury control and five groups of liver injury with admi

Clavulanic acid is a beta-lactamase inhibitor used in therapeutic combinations with the penicillin-type antibiotics. During the fermentation leading to clavulanic acid, a succinyl L-tyrosine by-product is unavoidably formed. Occasionally, the amount of this by-product is found to be as high as 2% of the product even after standard purification operations. To further remove this impurity, we prepar

BACKGROUND: In the last 15 y there has been a tremendous increase in the number of studies on pediatric obesity looking at epidemiology, health-related risks, etiology, methodology and treatment. During the early 1990s, the European Childhood Obesity Group (ECOG) was born as a group of scientists' expert in the field of pediatric obesity. ECOG this year celebrates the approach to early maturity wi

Resistivity imaging in combination with borehole information is a powerful tool for site investigation. We show that the combination of 1D laterally constrained inversion (1D-LCI) with the use of a priori information from borehole data and 2D smooth inversion adds significant value to the interpretation of continuous vertical electrical sounding (CVES) data. The ID-LCI offers an analysis of the re

Having shown how Construction NOM and Construction PROP differ, I demonstrate that the subject of Construction PROP is clausal. I argue that the topmost XP of the subject phrase of both constructions contains a null neuter element. This accounts for the neuter predicative agreement; hence the idea of default agreement or semantic agreement can be dismissed. I also argue that the subject in (ii) co

The two-photon spectrum of the 2(1)A(g)-->1(1)A(g) transition in trans-stilbene has been calculated at the complete active space self-consistent field (CASSCF) level of theory. Energies were obtained at the complete active space second-order perturbation (CASPT2) level of theory, while the geometries of both the initial and final states were optimized at the CASSCF level. The energy and the geomet

Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) is considered incurable. Intensive immunochemotherapy with stem cell support has not been tested in large, prospective series. In the 2nd Nordic MCL trial, we treated 160 consecutive, untreated patients younger than 66 years in a phase 2 protocol with dose-intensified induction immunochemotherapy with rituximab (R) + cyclophosphamide, vincristine, doxorubicin, prednisone

Some of Maurice Jacob's contributions to the European physics community are described, by giving examples of his great achievements. I have come to the conclusion that his success depended on his far-reaching vision, his ability to define the goals and to find realistic solutions for realizing them. He was a trustworthy partner in negotiations due to his outstanding breath of knowledge, his high s

Observations based on overexpression of the suppressor gene p53 or interference with endogenous p53 support a role for p53 in mediating not only growth inhibition and apoptosis but also differentiation. The aim of this study was to characterize the mechanisms of p53-dependent differentiation in the monoblastic leukemia cell line U-937. These cells were transfected with a mutant of the p53 gene exp