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A simple, rapid and environmentally friendly hollow-fibre liquid-phase microextraction (HF-LPME) technique was developed for the quantitative determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in aqueous samples. GC-MS was then used as the method of analysis. The HF-LPME technique involves extraction of PAHs from a 20-mL sample containing 20 % acetonitrile as a modifier. The PAHs were extrac

Phthalates are ubiquitous industrial chemicals that have been associated with altered reproductive function in rodents. Several human studies have reported an inverse association between male testosterone and phthalate levels. Our aim was to investigate time to pregnancy (TTP) according to serum levels of diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) and diisononyl phthalate (DiNP) metabolites in both partners. I

Quality requirements play a critical role in driving architectural design and are an important issue in software development. Therefore, quality requirements need to be considered, specified, and quantified early during system analysis and not later in the development phase in an ad-hoc fashion. This paper presents the quality performance model that estimates quality targets in relation to market

Popular Abstract in Swedish Bakgrund och metod Diagnosen språkstörning ställs när ett barn inte utvecklar sina språkliga förmågor i förväntad takt och där inga andra underliggande svårigheter, såsom ofullständig språklig stimulans, hörselproblem, eller avvikande neurologisk utveckling, kan förklara problemen. Språkstörning är en relativt vanlig funktionsnedsättning som drabbar runt sju procent av Children with language impairment (LI) often exhibit lexical difficulties with negative consequences for school success. Lexical size and lexical organization have both been found to be affected, with problems in lexical organization exceeding those in lexical size. The research on LI has had a long-standing focus on monolingual children, resulting in assessment routines ill-suited for bilingual c

Background: Total hip joint replacement (THR) is a high volume, effective intervention for hip osteoarthritis (OA). However, indications and determinants of outcome remain unclear. The 'EUROHIP consortium' has undertaken a cohort study to investigate these questions. This paper describes the variations in disease severity in this cohort and the relationships between clinical and radiographic sever

Photosynthesis is the process by which energy of light is converted into chemical energy by plants, algae and photosynthetic bacteria. For this, highly specialized pigment-proteins have evolved that capture the light and transform the short-lived excited states of pigment molecules into a stable transmembrane potential. By close scrutiny of organization and processes of the photosynthetic pigment

The metabolic pathways leading to the formation of prasugrel and clopidogrel active metabolites differ. We hypothesized that decreased CYP2C19 activity affects the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic response to clopidogrel but not prasugrel. Ninety-eight patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) taking either clopidogrel 600 mg loading dose (LD)/75 mg maintenance dose (MD) or prasugrel 60 mg LD

The investigation of dedicated contrast agents for x-ray dark-field imaging, which exploits small-angle scattering at microstructures for contrast generation, is of strong interest in analogy to the common clinical use of high-atomic number contrast media in conventional attenuation-based imaging, since dark-field imaging has proven to provide complementary information. Therefore, agents consistin

Estimation of density dependence from time series data on population abundance is hampered in the presence of observation or measurement errors. Fitting state-space models has been proposed as a solution that reduces the bias in estimates of density dependence caused by ignoring observation errors. While this is often true, I show that, for specific parameter values, there are identifiability issu

In the spring of 1945, survivors of the Nazi concentration camps arrived in southern Sweden. A project was launched to collect eye-witness accounts of their experiences and document them for posterity. The scholar in charge of this project was Sture Bolin, professor of history at Lund University After his death Erik Lonnroth hailed him as a 'world-famous' historian. By the turn of the century he w

Background: In the Namib Desert fog represents an alternative water source. This is utilised by Darkling beetles (Tenebrionidae) that employ different strategies for obtaining the fog water. Some dig trenches in the sand, while others use their own bodies as fog collectors assuming a characteristic fog-basking stance. Two beetle species from the genus Onymacris have been observed to fog-bask on th

Total levels of circulating prostate-specific antigen (tPSA) are strongly associated with prostate cancer (PCa) risk and outcome but benign prostate disease is the most frequent cause of a moderately elevated PSA level. Free PSA (fPSA) forms are independently associated with PCa risk and contribute modest diagnostic enhancements above and beyond tPSA alone. We developed an immunoassay for fPSA sub

Popular Abstract in Swedish HIV är en av de dödligaste farsoterna i världen och 30-40 miljoner människor beräknas ha dött AIDS. Genom att konstant förändra sig ligger viruset hela tiden ett steg före immunförsvaret, och immunförsvaret klarar därför inte av att bekämpa infektionen. HIV skiljer sig också från andra virus genom att det drabbar och långsamt utplånar immunförsvaret. Det gör att HIV kanThe two genetically related human lentiviruses known today, HIV-1 (which is pandemic) and HIV-2 (which mainly is confined to West Africa), are the causative agents of AIDS. Progressive immune dysfunction and AIDS develop in most cases of untreated HIV-1 infection, but only in approximately 25-30% of HIV-2 infected individuals. The V1-V3 region of the HIV-1 env gp120 is important for HIV-1 corecept

The formation of nanoscale amyloid fibrils from normally soluble peptides and proteins is a common form of self-assembly phenomenon that has fundamental connections with biological functions and human diseases. The kinetics of this process has been widely studied and exhibits on a macroscopic level three characteristic stages: a lag phase, a growth phase and a final plateau regime. The question of