Maritime transportation is a significant contributor to SOx, NOx and particle matter emissions, and to a lesser extent, of CO2. Recently new regulations are being enforced in special geographical areas to limit the amount of emissions from the ships. This fact, together with the high fuel prices, is driving the marine industry towards the improvement of the energy efficiency of ships. Although mor

The Hanseatic League, a late medieval merchant association with roots in northern German towns, is credited with the establishment of extensive economic and geographic connections and considerable impact on the development of urban culture around the Baltic and the North Sea. Its merchants, regularly crossing the Seas and settling in foreign ports, created a network of diasporic communities often

BACKGROUNDPerinatal factors including high birth weight have been found to be associated with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in case-control studies. However, to the best of our knowledge, these findings have seldom been examined in large population-based cohort studies, and the specific contributions of gestational age and fetal growth remain unknown. METHODSThe authors conducted a national c

The aim of this study was to investigate associations between time use in daily activities and sociodemographic and clinical factors in order to identify individuals with persistent mental illness at risk of having an imbalance in daily activities, as reflected in their time use and daily rhythm. Participants (n=103) were selected from a psychiatric outpatient unit using a randomized stratified se

Objective: The TEDDY Study is an international, multi-center prospective study designed to identify the environmental triggers of type 1 diabetes (T1D) in genetically at-risk children. This report investigates ethnic minority (EM) differences in patterns of enrollment and retention in the US centers. Methods: As of June 2009, 267,739 newborns had been screened at birth for high risk T1D genotypes.

We use classical density functional theory to investigate ionic liquid + solvent mixtures against smooth, model electrodes. We consider those mixtures that display a wetting transition at the electrodes. We find that a wetting film of an ionic liquid at the electrodes has similar properties to the neat liquid. A novel aspect of this transition is that, close to a surface critical point, we find an

Instantaneous wave-free ratio (iFR) is a new hemodynamic resting index for assessment of coronary artery stenosis severity. iFR uses high frequency sampling to calculate a gradient across a coronary lesion during a period of diastole. The index has been tested against fractional flow reserve (FFR) and found to have an overall classification agreement of 80% to 85%. Whether the level of disagreemen

We report a sampling strategy based on Mendelian Breeding Units (MBUs), representing an interbreeding group of individuals sharing a common gene pool. The identification of MBUs is crucial for case-control experimental design in association studies. The aim of this work was to evaluate the possible existence of bias in terms of genetic variability and haplogroup frequencies in the MBU sample, due

We prospectively investigated dietary flavonoid intake and esophageal cancer risk in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort. The study included 477,312 adult subjects from 10 European countries. At baseline, country-specific validated dietary questionnaires were used. During a mean follow-up of 11 years (1992-2010), there were 341 incident esophageal cancer

Aerosol particles can modify cloud properties by acting as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). Predicting CCN properties is still a challenge and not properly incorporated in current climate models. Atmospheric particle number size distributions, hygroscopic growth factors, and polydisperse CCN number concentrations were measured at the remote subarctic Stordalen mire, 200 km north of the Arctic Circ

There is a lack of knowledge about sibling stem cell donors' experiences pre-donation and the waiting period before the donation might have been long. The donors and their corresponding sibling recipients were simultaneously included in two different interview studies. The results from the recipient study have been presented in a separate paper.

We suggest the modified matching procedure for TMD PDF to the integrated PDF aimed to increase the amount of perturbative information in the TMD PDF expression. The procedure consists in the selection and usage of the non-minimal operator basis, which restricts the expansion to desired general behavior. The implication of OPE allows to systematic account of the higher order corrections. In the cas

The average consensus algorithm is a distributed procedure which allows a network of agents to agree on the average of a set of initial values. The computation occurs through local exchange of information only, namely the information exchange takes place only between agents which are neighbors with respect to a graph representing the system communication architecture. Several performance metrics h

This article investigates variations in two professions' adaption of quality reforms. The adaption of reforms is viewed as a part of the professions' legitimacy and identity processes. Literature in the area suggests that the adaption of reforms is influenced by the profession's knowledge base, professional norms, organizational belonging and organizational field. The two cases here on how doctors

Neurogenesis is restricted in the adult mammalian brain; most neurons are neither exchanged during normal life nor replaced in pathological situations. We report that stroke elicits a latent neurogenic program in striatal astrocytes in mice. Notch1 signaling is reduced in astrocytes after stroke, and attenuated Notch1 signaling is necessary for neurogenesis by striatal astrocytes. Blocking Notch s

English ergative verbs in one-participant constructions such as ‘The door opens’ often correspond to reflexive verbs or -S forms in Norwegian and Swedish. Following Kemmer (1993) such constructions profile spontaneous event meaning and belong to the middle domain. This study uses corpus methodology to explore spontaneous-event marking in Norwegian and Swedish from the point of view of Kemmer’s sug

The power of nanofluidic channels to analyze DNA is described along with practical experimental hints. As an introduction, a general overview is given on conventional DNA analysis tools, as well as tools under development towards the $1000 genome. The focus of this tutorial review is the stretching of DNA in nanoscale channels for coarse-grained mapping of DNA. To understand the behavior of the DN