Identification and characterization of leukemia-initiating cells (LICs) is important to understand leukemogenesis and develop novel therapies for leukemia. In this issue of Cell Stem Cell, Gibbs et al. (2012) demonstrate that common active signaling pathways in LICs may be targeted to treat acute myeloid leukemia.

The efficacy of photodynamic therapy (PDT) using delta-aminolaevulinic acid (ALA)-induced protoporphyrin M. (PpIX) sensitisation and laser light at 635 nm was investigated in the treatment of experimental hepatic tumours. The model of liver tumours was induced either by local inoculation or by administration of tumour cells through the portal vein in rats. ALA at a dose of 60 mg kg(-1) b.w. was in

Snowmelt induced runoff from river basins is usually successfully simulated using a simple degree-day approach and conceptual rainfall-runoff models. Fluctuations within the day can not be described by such crude approaches. In the present paper, it is investigated which degree of sophistication is required in snow models and runoff models to resolve the basin runoff from basins of different chara

Background: The coding of histology of nervous system (NS) tumors with various degrees of malignancies differs between cancer registries, whereby the comparison of incidence rates from one registry to another seems difficult. No study has systematically defined whether the change in the risk of NS tumors upon immigration in adulthood varies by subsite or histology. Therefore, we aimed to address t

Leukocyte telomere length (LTL) is associated with the aging process and may be related to cognitive aging. Previous studies have shown conflicting results whether LTL is affected in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). In this pilot study, we investigated LTL in a well-defined homogeneous mono-center population. Sixty consecutive patients admitted for cognitive impairment to a memory clinic we

Urinary incontinence is a considerable problem which is clearly reflected in the number of patients affected by it. Moreover, it is extremely difficult to obtain an accurate diagnosis as the urinary incontinence very often is related to the neurological system. In this article a model with capabilities for urological diagnosing is proposed. This model is specialized towards the diagnosis of urolog

We aimed at assessing familial risk of melanoma by considering a detailed family history of multiple primary (invasive/in situ) melanomas (MPM), stratified by histology and location.

OBJECTIVE: Adenoviral vector mediated gene expression is an attractive approach to manipulate or report gene expression in human hematopoietic stem cells (HSC), when transient gene expression is preferred. Previous studies have demonstrated that fiber retargeted Ad5F35 vectors can mediate efficient gene transfer into human HSCs. In this study, we have investigated the potential of bi-directional p

Kilovoltage dosimetry protocols by the IAEA (TRS-277 and TRS-398), DIN (6809), IPEMB (with addendum), AAPM (TG-61) and NCS (report 10) were compared experimentally in four clinical beams. The beams had acceleration potentials of 30, 80, 120 and 200 kV, with half-value layers ranging from 0.6 mm Al to 1 mm Cu. Dosimetric measurements were performed and data were collected under reference conditions

Grouping of genes into clusters according to their expression levels is important for deriving biological information, e.g., on gene functions based on microarray and other related analyses. The paper introduces the selection of the number of clusters based on the minimum description length (MDL) principle for the selection of the number of clusters in gene expression data. The main feature of the

The adrenal sex hormone dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), which is present in serum mainly as the sulfate DHEA-S, is the most abundant steroid hormone in human blood. Its levels decline dramatically with age. Despite the great amount of literature on vascular and metabolic actions of DHEA/-S, evidence for an association between DHEA/-S levels and cardiovascular events is contradictory.

A detailed experimental study of the Zn-62 nucleus was conducted by combining the data sets from four fusion-evaporation reaction experiments. Apart from the previous published data, the present results include ten new rotational band structures and two new superdeformed bands. The GAMMASPHERE Ge-detector array in conjunction with the 4 pi charged-particle detector array Microball allowed for dete

The test of Ng (A simple test for nonstationarity in mixed panels, Journal of Business & Economic Statistics 26, 113–126, 2008) is one of the few that enables general inference regarding the proportion of non-stationary units in panel data. The current paper furthers the investigation of Ng (2008) in two directions. First, the existing sequential limit analysis is generalized to a very flexibl

The phenomenon of contact guidance on thin fibers has been known since the beginning of the 20th century when Harrison studied cells growing on fibers from spider's web. Since then many studies have been performed on structured surfaces and fibers. Here we present a new way to induce guidance of cells or cell processes using magnetic nanowires. We have manufactured magnetic Ni-nanowires (200 nm in

This paper introduces a two-dimensional extension of the well established Rietveld refinement method for modeling neutron time-of-flight powder diffraction data. The novel approach takes into account the variation of two parameters, diffraction angle 2θ and wavelength λ, to optimally adapt to the varying resolution function in diffraction experiments. By doing so, the refinement against angular- a

Objective:To investigate the association between maternal pregnancy and estimated postnatal serum concentrations of the organochlorines 2,2',4,4',5,5'-hexachlorobiphenyl (CB-153) and 1,1-dichloro-2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)ethylene (p,p'-DDE) and body mass index (BMI) z-scores in five to nine-year-old children.Methods:Maternal sera from the INUENDO birth cohort (2002-2004) comprising mother-child pair