The conformational state of the pi-conjugated polyfluorene poly[9,9-bis(2-ethylhexyl)fluorene-2,7-diyl] is reconsidered. Contrary to the general opinion, this helical polymer is shown to organize in a giant repeat consisting of 21 monomer units. The length of the unit cell of 16.97 nm is suggested.

We conducted pooled and meta-analyses of the association of the calpain-10 gene (CAPN10) polymorphisms SNP-43, Indel-19 and SNP-63 individually and as haplotypes with type 2 diabetes (T2D) in 3237 patients and 2935 controls of European ancestry. In the pooled analyses, the common SNP-43*G allele was associated with modest but statistically significant increased risk of T2D (odds ratio (OR) = 1.11

We describe a simple radioimmunoassay of beta-microseminoprotein, one of the three most abundant secretory proteins of the prostate gland. The detection limit of the assay is 1 microgram/L, and its precision, expressed as the total coefficient of variation, is less than 10% for values between 10 and 150 micrograms/L. Using this assay, we found that beta-microseminoprotein immunoreactivity was pres

It is well known that teenagers with chronic diseases have problems complying with their treatment. The aim of this study was to evaluate the patient's knowledge of haemophilia and his compliance to prophylactic treatment, and the age at which the patient took over the responsibility for his disease and to create educational material for teenagers and adolescents. This was a prospective multicentr

Changes in soil texture, bulk density, pH, concentrations and stocks of OC, N, P and K before and after conversion of a 6-year-old Acacia senegal plantation to other land management systems (LMS) were investigated, after three cropping seasons, in the drylands of western Sudan. LMS included pure and intercropped sorghum (PS), roselle (PR) and grasses (PC) with A. senegal at high and low-tree densi

Objective: To evaluate the effect of compression hosiery during standing work. Design: An open study, comparing symptoms and plethysmographic findings before and after treatment. Setting: University hospital, vascular surgery. Subjects: Forty-eight female volunteers with a standing profession. Methods: Visual analogue scale to evaluate symptoms and foot volumetry to study venous function before an

A new experimental model, the two-tracer method (TTM), based on the planar laser-induced fluorescence technique (PLIF), is presented for the measurement of the local concentration of a fluorescent tracer in the liquid phase of a bubbly two-phase system. Light scattering and shading effects due to the bubbles were compensated for using the new model. The TTM results were found to give more accurate

Acute synovitis was induced in rabbit knee joints by intraarticular injection of preformed bovine serum albumin (BSA) -anti BSA immune complexes (ICs). Polymorphonuclear granulocytes (PMNGs) which had migrated into joints injected with ICs were degranulated and contained ICs as revealed by electron microscopy and were activated as revealed by the measurement of chemiluminescence (CL). In contrast,

in this paper, we introduce two new methods for solving binary quadratic problems. While spectral relaxation methods have been the workhorse subroutine for a wide variety of computer vision problems-segmentation, clustering, subgraph matching to name a few-it has recently been challenged by semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxations. In fact, it can be shown that SDP relaxations produce better low

Recently, a polymorphism in the complement regulator factor H (FH) gene has been associated with age-related macular degeneration. When histidine instead of tyrosine is present at position 384 in the seventh complement control protein (CCP) domain of FH, the risk for age-related macular degeneration is increased. It was recently shown that these allotypic variants of FH, in the context of a recomb

A multifunctional NEMS platform based on a mass-producible, surface relief grating has been developed and fabricated directly in polymer materials. The pattern consists of high aspect ratio interdigitated nanometer-sized pairs of walls and can be produced in a low-complexity one-step patterning process with nanoimprint lithography. In this paper, we demonstrate the usefulness of the platform prima

Human cystatins C and D share almost identical primary structures of two out of the three segments proposed to be of importance for enzyme interactions but have markedly different profiles for inhibition of the target cysteine peptidases, cathepsins B, H, L, and S. To investigate if the N-terminal binding regions of the inhibitors are responsible for the different inhibition profiles, and thereby

Carotid artery stenting (CAS) may be impossible, or associated with a high risk, in patients with severe vessel tortuosity. A novel method of catheterization of the carotid artery intended to facilitate CAS is described. It involves the placement of a microcatheter and a coronary wire through a dissected superficial temporal artery (STA), and then advanced to the ascending aorta. The wire is then

The genes man26a and man2A from Cellulomonas fimi encode mannanase 26A (Man26A) and -mannosidase 2A (Man2A), respectively. Mature Man26A is a secreted, modular protein of 951 amino acids, comprising a catalytic module in family 26 of glycosyl hydrolases, an S-layer homology module, and two modules of unknown function. Exposure of Man26A produced by Escherichia coli to C. fimi protease generates ac

Results of a spectral analysis of vowel reduction in Bulgarian (N = 2 educated male speakers of the Sofia dialect) & model experiments that test these results are reported. The hypothesis was that reduction of Bulgarian open vowels is related to neutralization of mandibular depression, weakening or elimination of lingual & labial compensation for mandibular errors, & weakening of phary

Rheological properties of isotropic solutions and gel structures of lysozyme-sodium dodecyl sulfate mixtures in water are investigated. Isotropic solutions behave as Newtonian fluids with very low viscosity values. For the lysozyme solutions the intrinsic viscosity and the Huggins coefficient were calculated on the basis of the Mooney equation. Above a certain yield stress value, the viscosity of

We have established a new experimental model of human clear cell sarcoma, UM-CCSI, using serial subcutaneous transplantation of intact tumour tissue in nude mice. The heterotransplanted nude mouse tumours retained characteristic morphological features of the primary clear cell sarcoma. Immunohistochemical analysis showed the retained expression patterns of S-100 protein, melanoma-associated antige