One step towards understanding bone fragility and degenerative diseases is to unravel the links between fracture resistance and the compositional and structural characteristics of cortical bone. In this study, we explore an optical method for automatic crack detection to generate full fracture resistance curves of cortical bone. We quantify fracture toughness, critical failure strains at the crack

Aims To explore whether circulating matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2), MMP-9, MMP-9/neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin, MMP-9/tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1), MMP-14, TIMP-2 and TIMP-3 were associated with the severity and progression of diabetic retinopathy (DR) in patients with type 1 diabetes (T1D). Methods Baseline and prospective analyses were conducted over a period

The "Likhall"bed is a rare case of a single-age zircon population from a carbonate rock, which in this case is contextualised with remarkable biotic and environmental changes and with meteorite bombardment of Earth after an asteroid breakup in space. Published high-precision chemical abrasion isotope dilution thermal ionisation mass spectrometry (CA-ID-TIMS) U-Pb age estimates disagree on the typi

Objectives: Bacteremia is an acute severe infection with high mortality. Changes in healthcare services and coinfections with SARS-CoV-2 may have affected the mortality for bacteremia during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been reported for other major diseases. In this study we examine the all-cause bacteremia mortality amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A population-based cohort study compr

The quark spin effects are introduced for the first time in the string fragmentation routine of the Pythia 8 Monte Carlo event generator for the simulation of e+e− annihilation to hadrons. To describe the spin effects the string+3P0 model of polarized hadronization with emissions of pseudoscalar and vector mesons is used. The spin effects are activated in the generator by extending the StringSpinn

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for biomarkers important for clinical phenotypes can lead to clinically relevant discoveries. Conventional GWAS for quantitative traits are based on simplified regression models modeling the conditional mean of a phenotype as a linear function of genotype. We draw attention here to an alternative, lesser known approach, namely quantile regression that natural

Phosphoglucomutase-1-congenital disorder of glycosylation (PGM1-CDG) is a rare genetic disorder caused by biallelic variants in the PGM1 gene, leading to the deficiency of the PGM1 enzyme. The most common clinical presentations include muscle involvement, failure to thrive, cleft palate, and cardiac involvement. Abnormal serum N-glycosylation, hypoglycemia, and liver function abnormalities includi

Obesity and Type 2 diabetes (T2D) are known to exacerbate cerebral injury caused by stroke. Metabolomics can provide signatures of metabolic disease, and now we explored whether the analysis of plasma metabolites carries biomarkers of how obesity and T2D impact post-stroke recovery. Male mice were fed a high-fat diet (HFD) for 10 months leading to development of obesity with T2D or a standard diet

Escape from cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) responses toward HIV-1 Gag and Nef has been associated with reduced control of HIV-1 replication in adults. However, less is known about CTL-driven immune selection in infants as longitudinal studies of infants are limited. Here, 1,210 gag and 1,264 nef sequences longitudinally collected within 15 months after birth from 14 HIV-1 perinatally infected infant

This paper proposes a simple framework to model contextual influences on procedural decision making. In terms of utility, we differentiate between monetary payoffs and contextual psychological ones, e.g. deriving from the subjects’ normative frame of reference. Monetary payoffs are treated as common knowledge while psychological payoffs are treated as partly unforeseeable. Regarding behaviour, we

Chemical reactivity of the superheavy elements nihonium (Nh, element 113) and moscovium (Mc, element 115) has been studied by the gas-solid chromatography method using a new combined chromatography and detection setup. The Mc isotope, 288Mc, was produced in the nuclear fusion reaction of 48Ca ions with 243Am targets at the GSI Helmholtzzentrum Darmstadt, Germany. After isolating 288Mc ions in the

We compute top quark pair production in association with a bottom quark pair at the LHC within the five-flavour scheme, matched to a parton shower, employing the FxFx merging scheme for tt¯+jets production with up to 2 jets at NLO accuracy. To enhance the selection efficiency for the events with b-jets within the inclusive five-flavour sample, we augment the generation probability of bottom quark

A number of species have recently recovered from near-extinction. Although these species have avoided the immediate extinction threat, their long-term viability remains precarious due to the potential genetic consequences of population declines, which are poorly understood on a timescale beyond a few generations. Woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) became isolated on Wrangel Island around 10,0

This paper provides analytical solutions to the closed-loop kinematics of two almost globally exponentially stabilizing attitude control laws on the special orthogonal group SO(n). By studying the general case we give a uniform treatment to the cases of SO(2) and SO(3), which are the most interesting dimensions for application purposes. Working directly with rotation matrices in the case of SO(3)

Manipulating the light polarization properties of gold nanoparticle aggregates can facilitate their applications in sensing and imaging. However, control of the intrinsic light polarization on demand at the nanoscale is hindered by the lack of a fundamental understanding of the structure-dependent plasmon coupling in the aggregates. Here, the polarization properties of intrinsic photoluminescence

In the period between 5,300 and 4,900 calibrated years before present (cal. bp), populations across large parts of Europe underwent a period of demographic decline1,2. However, the cause of this so-called Neolithic decline is still debated. Some argue for an agricultural crisis resulting in the decline3, others for the spread of an early form of plague4. Here we use population-scale ancient genomi