OBJECTIVES: The aim was to gather information regarding what students consider important for their motivation to attain knowledge, in order to shape courses that foster this motivation. METHOD: A qualitative design comprising focus groups including 31 nursing and medical students for interviews, semi-structured questions, and content analysis was utilized. RESULT: The students thought it was impor

The main purpose of the recently introduced Bürger-Diehl simulation model for secondary settling tanks was to resolve spatial discretization problems when both hindered settling and the phenomena of compression and dispersion are included. Straightforward time integration unfortunately means long computational times. The next step in the development is to introduce and investigate time-integration

Psychoanalysis opens a variety of windows into understanding contemporary consumption and consumerism. The psychoanalytic theory of defence and the unconscious enables us to understand why commodities, from fast cars to luxury chocolate, so readily stand in to offer substitute gratification for deeper repressed desires and why the meaning of such commodities is liable to become mobile and unstable

Carotid intima media thickness (IMT) progression is increasingly used as a surrogate for vascular risk. This use is supported by data from a few clinical trials investigating statins, but established criteria of surrogacy are only partially fulfilled. To provide a valid basis for the use of IMT progression as a study end point, we are performing a 3-step meta-analysis project based on individual p

The authors thank Bob Webb (the editor) and an anonymous referee for their helpful comments and suggestions. We are also grateful to Hossein Asgharian, Charlotte Christiansen, Bent Jesper Christensen, Karl Frauendorfer, Pascal Gantenbein, Björn Hansson, Heino Bohn Nielson, Anders Rahbek, Paul Söderlind, Klaus Spremann, and seminar participants at Lund University and the University of St. Gallen, a

Calculation of evaporative heat loss is essential to heat balance calculations. Despite recognition that the value for latent heat of evaporation, used in these calculations, may not always reflect the real cooling benefit to the body, only limited quantitative data on this is available which has found little use in recent literature. In this experiment a thermal manikin (MTNW, Seattle) was used t

Objective: assess the effect of clinical vertebral and other osteoporotic fractures on function and the subsequent risk of hospitalisation. Design: individuals from the prospective population-based cohort study Age, Gene/Environment Susceptibility (AGES)-Reykjavik study were examined between 2002 and 2006 and followed up for 5.4 years. Subjects: a total of 5,764 individuals, 57.7% women, born 1907

Context: Drug abuse (DA) strongly runs in families. Does this result solely from genetic factors or does the family environment contribute? Objective: To determine the familial environmental contribution to the risk for DA. Design: Follow-up in 9 public databases (1961-2009) in siblings and spouses. Setting: Sweden. Participants: A total of 137 199 sibling pairs and 7561 spousal pairs containing a

In a number of autoimmune diseases, for example, rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus, it is known that autoantibodies are present before the clinical onset. Recently we have shown that autoantibodies can be found many years before symptom onset in primary Sjögren's syndrome. This implies that screening for autoantibodies may be used to identify individuals at risk of developing s

Subendothelial LDL-adhesion and its subsequent oxidation are considered as key events in the development of atherosclerotic lesions. During oxidation of LDL, reactive aldehydes such as malondialdehyde (MDA) are formed, which modify apolipoprotein B100. However, the possibility that these reactive aldehydes could leak out of the LDL-particle and modify surrounding extracellular matrix proteins has

Introduction: Induced hypothermia has been shown to improve outcome after cardiac arrest, but early prognostication is hampered by the need for sedation. Here we tested whether a biomarker for neurodegeneration, the neurofilament heavy chain (NfH), may improve diagnostic accuracy in the first days after cardiac arrest. Methods: This prospective study included 90 consecutive patients treated with h

Bacteria use stress response pathways to activate diverse target genes to react to a variety of stresses. The Bacillus subtilis Spx protein is a global transcriptional regulator that controls expression of more than 140 genes and operons in response to thiol-specific oxidative stress. Under non-stress conditions the concentration of Spx is kept low by proteolysis catalyzed by the ClpXP complex. Sp

All cancers are caused by somatic mutations; however, understanding of the biological processes generating these mutations is limited. The catalogue of somatic mutations from a cancer genome bears the signatures of the mutational processes that have been operative. Here we analysed 4,938,362 mutations from 7,042 cancers and extracted more than 20 distinct mutational signatures. Some are present in

Non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are frequently occurring in sludge and waters from sewage treatment plants (STPs). Sludge obtained from sewage treatment is often applied as a fertilizer in agriculture and not many studies about the uptake of pharmaceuticals into crops can be found. In this paper, we present a greenhouse experiment to study the presence of four NSAIDs (naproxen, ketopr

Risk for drug abuse (DA) is strongly associated with neighborhood social deprivation (SD). However, the causal nature of this relationship is unclear.

The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between growth rate, final mass, and larval development, as well as how this relationship influences reproductive trade-offs, in the context of a gregarious life-style and the need to keep an optimal group size. We use as a model two sympatric populations of the pine processionary moth Thaumetopoea pityocampa, which occur in different seasons

Glycerine is a chemical with a wide variety of uses. There are over 2000 known applications in cosmetics, foodstuffs, fi ne chemicals, and other industries. With the recent boom for liquid biofuels however, glycerine – which is a by-product mainly of biodiesel production – has become abundant. New uses for the chemical are being researched, but little attention has been paid to the production and

Vertebral fractures are often painful and lead to reduced quality of life and disability. We compared the efficacy and safety of balloon kyphoplasty to nonsurgical therapy over 24 months in patients with acute painful fractures. Adults with one to three vertebral fractures were randomized within 3 months from onset of pain to undergo kyphoplasty (n = 149) or nonsurgical therapy (n = 151). Quality