Background: The pathogenesis of COPD is complex and remains poorly understood. The European Respiratory Society Study on Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (EUROSCOP) investigated long-term effects of budesonide; 18% of the COPD participants were atopic. So far effects of atopy on the long-term course of COPD have not been elucidated. Methods: Factors related to the presence of atopy (positive

It is of highest importance to find proteins responsible for breast cancer dissemination, for use as biomarkers or treatment targets. We established and performed a combined nontargeted LC MS/MS and a targeted LC SRM workflow for discovery and validation of protein biomarkers. Eighty breast tumors, stratified for estrogen receptor status and development of distant recurrence (DR +/-), were collect

Abstract in UndeterminedReference attribute grammars (RAGs) provide a practical declarative means to implement programming language compilers and other tools. RAGs have previously been extended to support both circular attributes and context-dependent declarative rewrites of the abstract syntax tree. In this previous work, dependencies between circular attributes and rewrites are not considered. I

Objective: We sought to determine whether the serological response towards lytic cycle antigens of Epstein Barr virus (EBV) is altered in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients. Method: We used enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to investigate the prevalence of EBV early antigen diffuse (EBV-EA/D) antibodies in sera from 60 patients with SLE, 40 with scleroderma (SSc), 20 with primary

VOR, the versatile optimal resolution chopper spectrometer, is designed to probe dynamic phenomena that are currently inaccessible for inelastic neutron scattering due to flux limitations. VOR is a short instrument by the standards of the European Spallation Source (ESS), 30.2m moderator to sample, and provides instantaneous access to a broad dynamic range, 1-120 meV within each ESS period. The sh

We consider the problem of approximating a given function in two dimensions by a sum of exponential functions, with complex-valued exponents and coefficients. In contrast to Fourier representations where the exponentials are fixed, we consider the nonlinear problem of choosing both the exponents and coefficients. In this way we obtain accurate approximations with only few terms. Our approach is bu

We study stability of a growth process generated by sequential adsorption of particles on a one-dimensional lattice torus, that is, the process formed by the numbers of adsorbed particles at lattice sites, called heights. Here the stability of process, loosely speaking, means that its components grow at approximately the same rate. To assess stability quantitatively, we investigate the stochastic

Background: Airway remodeling in COPD includes reorganization of the extracellular matrix. Proteoglycans play a crucial role in this process as regulators of the integrity of the extracellular matrix. Altered proteoglycan immunostaining has been demonstrated in COPD lungs and this has been suggested to contribute to the pathogenesis. The major cell type responsible for production and maintenance o

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) levels of tau, phosphorylated tau, β-amyloid42 , α-synuclein, neurofilament light, and YKL-40 change over time and if changes correlate with motor progression and/or cognitive decline in patients with PD and controls.

We report the first large series (n=596) of pediatric acute myeloid leukemia (AML) focusing on modal numbers (MN) from the population-based NOPHO-AML trials. Abnormal karyotypes were present in 452 cases (76%) and numerical aberrations were present in 40% (n=237) of all pediatric AML. Among patients with an abnormal karyotype, the MN 46 was most common (n=251; 56%) of which 36 (8%) were pseudodipl

Risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) differs according to ethnicity. Levels of apolipoprotein M (ApoM) have been shown to be decreased in T2DM. However, its role in different ethnicities is not known. We examined the differences in plasma ApoM levels in Swedish residents born in Iraq (Iraqis) and Sweden (Swedes) in relation to T2DM and insulin resistance (IR).

High interstitial fluid pressure (IFP) in colorectal cancer metastases may decrease the uptake and, thus, the effects of anti-tumor drugs. Imatinib, a selective inhibitor of PDGF receptors, and anakinra, an interleukin-1 receptor antagonist, respectively, increase drug uptake and/or decrease IFP in preclinical models of carcinoma. Drug-induced decrease in IFP in human metastases has not been objec

To review and update the evidence on predictors of poor outcome (death, persistent vegetative state or severe neurological disability) in adult comatose survivors of cardiac arrest, either treated or not treated with controlled temperature, to identify knowledge gaps and to suggest a reliable prognostication strategy. GRADE-based systematic review followed by expert consensus achieved using Web-ba

Fertility rates have dramatically decreased in the last two decades, especially in men. It has been described that environmental factors as well as life habits may affect semen quality. In this paper we use artificial intelligence techniques in order to predict semen characteristics resulting from environmental factors, life habits, and health status, with these techniques constituting a possible

Purpose: To evaluate adjuvant chemotherapy and interpolated accelerated radiotherapy (RT) for adult patients with high-risk soft tissue sarcoma in the extremities or trunk wall. Methods and Materials: High-risk soft tissue sarcoma was defined as high-grade malignancy and at least two of the following criteria: size >= 8 cm, vascular invasion, or necrosis. Six cycles of doxorubicin and ifosfamide w

Chronic GVHD (cGVHD) associated bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS) is a serious complication after allo-SCT, and lung transplantation (LTx) may be the ultimate treatment option. To evaluate this treatment, data on all patients with LTx after allo-SCT ever performed in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland were recorded and compared with survival data from the Scandiatransplant registry. In tota

Sex pheromone components are produced in specialized glands of female moths via well-characterized biosynthetic pathways, where a Fatty Acyl Reductase (FAR) is often essential for producing the specific ratio of the different pheromone components. The subcellular localization and membrane topology of FARs is important for understanding how pheromones are synthesized and exported to the exterior fo

Successful establishment and range expansion of non-native species often require rapid accommodation of novel environments. Here, we use common-garden experiments to demonstrate parallel adaptive evolutionary response to a cool climate in populations of wall lizards (Podarcis muralis) introduced from southern Europe into England. Low soil temperatures in the introduced range delay hatching, which

Investigation of nonlamellar nanoparticles formed by dispersion of self-assembled lipid liquid crystalline phases is stimulated by their many potential applications in science and technology; resulting from their unique solubilizing, encapsulating, and space-dividing nature. Understanding the interfacial behavior of lipid liquid crystalline nanoparticles (LCNPs) at surfaces can facilitate the expl

The roof dual bound for quadratic unconstrained binary optimization is the basis for several methods for efficiently computing the solution to many hard combinatorial problems. It works by constructing the tightest possible lower-bounding submodular function, and instead of minimizing the original objective function, the relaxation is minimized. However, for higher-order problems the technique has