The official iMechanica Blog for the Elsevier Journal Engineering Fracture Mechanics

In France, illegal hunting of the endangered ortolan bunting Emberiza hortulana has been defended for the sake of tradition and gastronomy. Hunters argued that ortolan buntings trapped in southwest France originate from large and stable populations across the whole of Europe. Yet, the European Commission referred France to the Court of Justice of the European Union (EU) in December 2016 for infrin

The differentiation between scar tissue and disk herniation is essential in postdiskectomy problems of the lumbar spine, since reoperation on scar tissue alone is often unfavourable. Epidural scar is a vascularized tissue, and enhancement can be seen after intravenous contrast injection, allowing differentiation from avascular disk material. Ten patients who had previously undergone surgery for lu

The asymmetric formal hydroamination of enamines using a CuH catalyst is reported. The method provides a straightforward and efficient approach to the synthesis of chiral 1,2-dialkyl amines in good yields with high levels of enantioselectivities for a broad range of substrates, and should have significant value for the preparation of molecules bearing a 1,2-diamine motif.

Developments in the understanding of language disorders and the progression of clinical practice for children with developmental language disorder (DLD) in Sweden started with a focus on speech, with a gradual widening of focus towards other aspects of language skills – grammar, semantics, comprehension and pragmatics. Alfhild Tamm (1876–1959) was a pioneer in the field, who brought attention to t

A long defect (15 mm) in rat sciatic nerve was repaired with a bioartificial nerve graft composed of a silicone tube and seven synthetic filaments of five types (polyamide, catgut, polydioxanone, and two types of polyglactin, normal and quickly-absorbed) inserted longitudinally into the tube. In all cases in which filaments were used a regenerating bridge was obtained in the tube after three month

Purpose: To compare nerve regeneration in autologous detergent extracted and freeze-thawed muscle grafts and to electrophoretically characterize the grafts. Methods: Autologous acellular muscle grafts were created either by freeze/thawing or by detergent extraction and then used to bridge a 10 mm gap in rat sciatic nerve. The autologous grafts were compared with respect to protein content, using e

To the memory of Carl W. Ossén.

The official iMechanica Blog for the Elsevier Journal Engineering Fracture Mechanics

Second primary cancers (SPCs) account for an increasing proportion of all cancer diagnoses and family history of cancer may be a risk factor for SPCs. Using the Swedish Family-Cancer Database on non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), we assessed the influence of family history on risk of SPCs and of SPCs on survival. NHL patients were identified from the years 1958 to 2015 and generalized Poisson models wer

Obesity has been associated with upper gastrointestinal cancers; however, there are limited prospective data on associations by subtype/subsite. Obesity can impact hormonal factors, which have been hypothesized to play a role in these cancers. We investigated anthropometric and reproductive factors in relation to esophageal and gastric cancer by subtype and subsite for 476,160 participants from th

Molecular imprinting is an emerging technique for preparing artificial antibodies that have potential applications in affinity-based separations, biomimetic sensors and assays. The conventional imprinting methods either deliver a monolith that is mechanically ground to irregular particles - a time-consuming process with low yield, or involves complicated polymerization process by which spherical b

An imaging assay analogous to competitive enzyme immunoassays has been developed using a molecularly imprinted polymer instead of an antibody. The antigen 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) was labeled with tobacco peroxidase, and the chemiluminescence reaction of luminol was used for detection. Microtiter plates (96 or 384 wells) were coated with polymer microspheres imprinted with 2,4-D, whi

Rotational coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy (CARS) is an established diagnostic technique for temperature and concentration measurements in combustion-related experiments. CARS has mainly been applied on di- and tri-atomics with linear molecular symmetry, for which good agreement is achieved between experimental and theoretical spectra. Hydrocarbons have so far been less attractive for rota