BACKGROUND: A new pain questionnaire should be simple, be documented to have discriminative function, and be related to previously used questionnaires. METHODS: Word meaning was validated by using bilingual Danish medical students and asking them to translate words taken from the Danish version of the McGill pain questionnaire into English. Evaluative word value was estimated using a visual analog

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To evaluate postoperative breathing patterns with a new monitoring device in patients given bupivacaine-morphine epidural analgesia. DESIGN: Open explorative study. SETTING: Inpatient anesthesia in a university hospital setting. PATIENTS: 15 ASA physical status I and II patients aged 28 to 87 years and scheduled for major abdominal surgery. INTERVENTIONS: All patients underwent ab

The evidence for anthropometric factors influencing breast cancer risk is accumulating, but uncertainties remain concerning the role of fat distribution and potential effect modifiers. We used data from 73,542 premenopausal and 103,344 postmenopausal women from 9 European countries, taking part in the EPIC study. RRs from Cox regression models were calculated, using measured height, weight, BMI an

Surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) of pyridine adsorbed on Au@Pd core/shell nanoparticles has been investigated theoretically with quantum chemical method, generalized Mie theory and three-dimensional finite-difference time domain (3D-FDTD) method. We first studied the influence of the coated Pd on the electronic structure of Au nanoparticle, and compared the electronic structure of Au-20 cl

Alcohol and tobacco consumption are closely correlated and published results on their association with breast cancer have not always allowed adequately for confounding between these exposures. Over 80% of the relevant information worldwide on alcohol and tobacco consumption and breast cancer were collated, checked and analysed centrally. Analyses included 58515 women with invasive breast cancer an

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in Europe and the US. This paper reviews the evolution of the Joint European Societies' guidelines with respect to their lipid recommendations. We stress the importance of lowering lipid levels to, or below, the currently recommended goals and argue that patients' global risk for CVD, rather than baseline lipid levels, should direct the in

Membrane filtration is a separation process already used in many industrial applications. However, optimization of the design and operating conditions is necessary to lower the investment and operating costs. To achieve this for industrial (multi-component) process streams, a combination of experiments and calculations is needed. The permeate flux and energy requirement are important design parame

A method for 3D mapping of scattering particle concentration in a gaseous medium based on the back-scattered light in a single direction has been demonstrated. The technique is originally developed for microscopy but now implemented on larger-scale samples. The technique used is known as structured illumination, where a sinusoidal grid pattern is projected onto the medium, thus marking the in-focu

Caregiving relatives continue to feel primarily responsible for the care and well-being of elderly persons, when they are admitted to hospital. Although involvement of relatives in decision-making is rare, and the hospitalisation therefore may be a frustrating experience, little is known of relatives, experience of the hospitalisation of elderly persons from a life-world perspective. In this pheno

This article studies the importance of demand and supply factors in the Swedish fertility transition using county-level data and panel regressions. Fertility started to decline around 1880 when marital fertility began a continuous decline. A gradual diffusion of parity-specific control was important in this process. The fertility of the oldest age groups declined fastest, even though the decline s

Evidence supports an important role for beta-amyloid (A beta) in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease ( AD). Here, we investigate baseline levels of the 40- and 42-amino-acid-long A beta peptides (A beta 40 and A beta 42) in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from a cohort of patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI, n = 137) in relation to the final diagnosis after 4 - 6 years of follow-up time. CS

The number of discovered non-radially pulsating white dwarfs (WDs) in cataclysmic variables (CVs) is increasing rapidly by the aid of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We performed photometric observations of two additional objects, SDSS J133941.11+484727.5 (SDSS 1339), independently discovered as a pulsator by Gansicke et al., and SDSS J151413.72+454911.9, which we identified as a CV/ZZ Ceti h

Heparin, a negatively charged sulphated glycosaminoglycan, is clinically the most important antithrombotic drug. Heparin augments the inhibitory activity of antithrombin (AT) towards thrombin, factor Xa (FXa) and other activated clotting enzymes. Tissue factor pathway inhibitor (TFPI) is an endogenous heparin releasable three domain Kunitz-type coagulation inhibitor which inhibits the crucial tiss

BACKGROUND: The study focused on investigating the effect of aminoguanidine on cardiovascular damages in diabetes and the possible mechanisms of its action. METHODS: Aminoguanidine (AMNG) was used to treat streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats, and the effects were compared to those obtained under insulin treatment. Blood metabolic parameters, *NO and ONOO- as well as protein carbonyl levels and ca

Purpose: To assess the frequency of embolization into retrievable inferior vena cava (IVC) filters during catheter-directed thrombolysis (CDT) and stent placement for acute iliocaval deep venous thrombosis (DVT). Methods: Serial phlebograms from 40 patients (28 women; median age 32 years) consecutively treated with CDT for DVT during a 12-year period were retrospectively evaluated for visible embo

The Hieracium flora of westernmost Dalarna, comprising the southern fringe of the Scandes alps (central Scandinavia), is extremely rich in species. The area is dominated by species-poor coniferous sub-alpine and taiga forest, but within this matrix there are small and isolated sites with high species richness of both Hieracium and other plants. Both steep mountain slopes with outcrops of base-rich

Protein H, a molecule expressed at the surface of some strains of Streptococcus pyogenes, has affinity for the constant (IgGFc) region of immunoglobulin (Ig) G. In absorption experiments with human plasma, protein H-sepharose could absorb not only IgG but also albumin from plasma. The affinity constant for the reaction between albumin and protein H was 7.8 x 10(9) M-1, which is higher than the aff

The Atlantic auk assemblage includes four extant species, razorbill (Alca torda), dovekie (Alle alle), common murre (Uria aalge), and thick-billed murre (U. lomvia), and one recently extinct species, the flightless great auk (Pinguinus impennis). To determine the phylogenetic relationships among the species, a contiguous 4.2-kb region of the mitochondrial genome from the extant species was amplifi