Background: Negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) has remarkable effects on the healing of poststernotomy mediastinitis. Foam is presently the material of choice for NPWT in this indication. There is now increasing interest in using gauze, as this has proven successful in the treatment of peripheral wounds. It is important to determine the effects of NPWT using gauze on heart pumping function bef

The masses of the nuclides Rn203-207 and Ra-213 were measured directly for the first time with the Penning-trap mass spectrometer SHIPTRAP at GSI Darmstadt. The results confirm the previously determined mass values. The mass uncertainties for Rn-205 and Ra-213 were significantly reduced. The results are relevant for the investigation of the nuclear shell structure between N = 82 and N = 126. As an

Background Chronic congestive heart failure is a complex condition that leads to dysfunction in the peripheral microcirculation. We have previously shown that vascular reactivity is reduced with increasing age. In this study, we examined a group of very old patients with severe chronic heart failure to test the hypothesis that vascular function is further compromised by a combination of heart fail

Different opinions about whether an organization gains a competitiveadvantage (CA) from an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system exist. However, this paper describes another angle of the much reported competitive advantage discussion. The basic question in the paper concerns how thoughts about receiving competitive advantage from customizing ERPs influences feedback in ERP development. ERP dev

We present a list of 72 radial velocity member stars in the metal-rich globular cluster NGC5927. The radial velocities are based on multiepoch, multifibre spectra. We identify 46 RGB/HB stars and 26 turn-off stars that are radial velocity members in the cluster. This cluster is situated quite close to the disk and hence fore-and/or background contamination, especially in the outskirts of the clust

The aim of the study was to visualize design regulations of furniture by means of interactive technology based on earlier studies and practical examples. The usage of the visualized regulations was evaluated on two occasions: at the start when the first set of regulations was presented, and after six years of usage of all regulations. The visualized regulations were the result of a design process

The polarizability and other properties have been studied for F(-), Cl(-), Br(-), and HCOO(-) in water using a combined quantum chemical statistical mechanics simulation model that explicitly takes into account the Pauli repulsion as well as the electrostatic coupling between the QM system and the classical surroundings. It is shown that the surrounding molecules significantly reduce both the pola

Diabetes Mellitus is a chronic disease of impaired blood glucose control due to degraded or absent bodily-specific insulin production, or utilization. To the affected, this in many cases implies relying on insulin injections and blood glucose measurements, in order to keep the blood glucose level within acceptable limits. Risks of developing short- and long-term complications, due to both too high

This dissertation concerns the relationship between sociology and everyday life and aims primarily to critically evaluate the positions taken in the theoretical discussion on sociological concept formation and its relation to everyday life and social sciences. The main theoretical positions in the debate are summarized in two ideal typological models: (1) The rationalist theory of an epistemologic

Replantation in the upper extremity is a well-established microsurgical procedure. Many have reported patients' satisfaction and functional measurements.The aim was to investigate the long time consequences as activity limitations in hand/arm, the general health and cold sensitivity after a replantation or revascularization in the upper extremity and to examine if sense of coherence (SOC) can be a

Introduction: In wood-dwelling fungus-farming weevils, the so-called ambrosia beetles (Curculionidae: Scolytinae and Platypodinae), wood in the excavated tunnels is used as a medium for cultivating fungi by the combined action of digging larvae (which create more space for the fungi to grow) and of adults sowing and pruning the fungus. The beetles are obligately dependent on the fungus that provid

Animal and a few human studies suggest that polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) may affect male reproductive function. The aim of the present study was to evaluate if male reproductive function was associated with serum level of PBDEs. We evaluated, in a cross-sectional study, the effects of environmental exposure to BDE-47 and BDE-153 on reproductive hormones and semen quality, including marke

Non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) condenses high-dimensional data into lower-dimensional models subject to the requirement that data can only be added, never subtracted. However, the NMF problem does not have a unique solution, creating a need for additional constraints (regularization constraints) to promote informative solutions. Regularized NMF problems are more complicated than conventio

By using absorption and fluorescence (steady-state and time-resolved) techniques the interaction between a poly(acrylic acid) PAA, randomly grafted with pyrene (Py) units (PAAMePy55) and a triblock copolymer of poly(ethylene oxide) and poly(propylene oxide) (EO20PO68EO20, P123) was investigated. From the fluorescence data it is shown that upon addition of P123 a decrease of the (pyrene-pyrene, Py-

Large uncertainty exists in model projections of the land carbon (C) sink response to increasing atmospheric CO2. Free-Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) experiments lasting a decade or more have investigated ecosystem responses to a step change in atmospheric CO2 concentration. To interpret FACE results in the context of gradual increases in atmospheric CO2 over decades to centuries, we used a suite of se

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the long-term benefits of progressive resistance training in chronic stroke. DESIGN: A 4-year follow-up of a randomized controlled trial of progressive resistance training. SUBJECTS: Eighteen women and men (mean age 66 (standard deviation 4) from the original group of 24 post-stroke participants. METHODS: The training group (n = 11) had participated in supervised progres