BACKGROUND: Morphologic examination of bone marrow and peripheral blood samples continues to be the cornerstone in diagnostic hematology. In recent years, interest in automatic leukocyte classification using image analysis has increased rapidly. Such systems collect a series of images in which each cell must be segmented accurately to be classified correctly. Although segmentation algorithms have

Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis is an important process to manufacture hydrocarbons and oxygenated hydrocarbons from mixtures of carbon monoxide and hydrogen (syngas). The catalysis process occurs on, for example, cobalt metal surfaces at elevated temperatures and pressures. A fundamental understanding of the reduction pathway of supported cobalt oxides, and the intermediate species present during

The gamma p -> pi(0)pi(0) p reaction has been measured from threshold to 1.4 GeV using the Crystal Ball and TAPS photon spectrometers together with the photon tagging facility at the Mainz Microtron. The experimental results include total and differential cross sections as well as specific angular distributions, which were used to extract partial-wave amplitudes. In particular, the energy region b

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women worldwide with approximately 1.150.000 new cases each year and accounting for over 400.000 deaths per year. The main cause of death for women with breast cancer is secondary tumors. Downregulation of Wnt5a in primary ductal breast cancer has been correlated with poor outcome and higher tumor grade and found to be an independent predictor of recu

Aims. The aims of this study were to: (1) compare older people care nursing staff's perceptions of their competence, work strain and work satisfaction in nursing homes and home-based care; and (2) to examine determinants of work satisfaction in both care settings. Background. The shift in older people care from hospitals to community-based facilities and home care has had implications for nursing

Under 1800-talet tilltog de antikatolska stämningarna i Europa. Antikatolicismen hämtade sin näring från katolska kyrkans fördömande av såväl protestantismen som den moderna utvecklingen i riktning mot ett sekulärt samhälle. I flera länder utmynnade dessa motsättningar i veritabla sammandrabbningar mellan katolska kyrkan och den av liberala krafter dominerande statsmakten. Man talade om ”kulturkamIn Sweden, as in other Protestant countries, the gradual dismantling of the legislation on com-pulsory religious adherence saw the politicization of religious issues. In this situation, the imagery of the old enemy took on new functions. This was very much the case with the notion of the ‘Catholic danger’, which time and again surfaced in the Swedish media and in parlia-mentary debate. In the 1860

Many façades made with thin rendering on thermal insulation have problems with biological growth. In this study surface temperature and surface RH were monitored over a 20 month period on test house façades with different constructions (thermal inertia), surface color and compass directions. This data were used to test three theoretical indices of biological growth with the aim of indicating the p

Objective: Constant exposure of pancreatic islets to high levels of glucose or free fatty acids can lead to irreversible beta-cell dysfunction, a process referred to as glucotoxicity or lipotoxicity, respectively. In this context a role for nitric oxide generated by pancreatic islet has been suggested. The present investigation examined whether the route of glucose administration, i.e., given oral

Objective To examine the association between anthropometry and endometrial cancer, particularly by menopausal status and exogenous hormone use subgroups. Methods Among 223,008 women in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study, there were 567 incident endometrial cancer cases during 6.4 years of follow-up. The analysis was performed with Cox proportional hazards

Estimation of parameters in the distribution of headways in roundabouts is a cumbersome task. Inherent to data employed are temporal variation together with dependence between successive vehicles. This is a consequence of the sampling period and interactions in the roundabouts. The elimination of observations, so as to obtain trend-free samples of independent vehicles, removes too much information

Confronting grand canonical titration Monte Carlo simulations (MC) with recently published titration and charge reversal (CR) experiments on silica surfaces by Dove and Craven (Dove, P. M.; Craven, C. M. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 2005, 69, 4963-4970) and van der Heyden et al. (van der Heyden, F. H. J.; Stein, D.; Besteman, K.; Lemay, S. G.; Dekker, C. Phys. Rev. Lett. 2006, 96, 224502), we show tha

Partial lesions of the nigrostriatal dopamine system have been investigated with respect to their ability to induce consistent long-lasting deficits in movement initiation and skilled forelimb use. In eight different lesion groups 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) was injected at one, two, three, or four sites into the lateral sector of the right striatum, in a total dose of 20-30 microgram. Impairments

As voice over IP proliferates, packet loss concealment (PLC) at the receiver has emerged as an important factor in determining voice quality of service. Through the use of heuristic variations of signal and parameter repetition and overlap-add interpolation to handle packet loss, conventional PLC systems largely ignore the dynamics of the statistical evolution of the speech signal, possibly leadin

Objectives: To develop an automated tool for the analysis of electrocardiograms (ECG) with respect to changes that make the patient a candidate for reperfusion therapy. An additional aim was to assess the influence of the tool on the ECG classifications of three interns. Methods and Results: An artificial neural network was trained to interpret ECGs regarding changes making the patient a candi

The adsorption of colloids with varying sizes and charges onto a surface carrying both negative and positive charges representing a membrane has been investigated by using a simple model employing Monte Carlo simulations. The membrane is made of positive and negative charges (headgroups) that are allowed to move along the membrane, simulating the translational diffusion of the lipids, and are also

Purpose: To use velocity-encoded phase contrast (PC) MRI in assessing the effect of coronary microembolization on longitudinal and radial myocardial strain. Materials and Methods: A combined X-ray and MR system (XMR) was used for selective left anterior descending artery catheterization and microinfarct assessment in swine (n = 6). The embolized area at risk was defined on perfusion MRI followed b

This paper is an attempt to understand how people, in the daily practice of interacting with material culture, created, dealt with and interpreted complex and socially stressful historical processes. A 16th-century timber-framed burgher house, the Reformation and industrialization are the focus of attention. Today the house stands in a museum of cultural history in the south Scandinavian town of L

We present exact algorithms with exponential running times for variants of n-element set cover problems, based on divide-and-conquer and on inclusion-exclusion characterisations. We show that the Exact Satisfiability problem of size 1 with m clauses can be solved in time 2(m)l(O(1)) and polynomial space. The same bounds hold for counting the number of solutions. As a special case, we can count the