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It has long been known that the iridescent cuticle of many scarab beetles reflects circularly polarised light. It now turns out that scarabs can also see this light, potentially using it as a covert visual signal.
Objectives: To investigate the predictive value of cystatin C among patients diagnosed with non-ST-elevation acute coronary syndrome (nSTE-ACS). Design and methods: Admission serum samples from 245 nSTE-ACS patients were measured with a novel cystatin C immunoassay based on a dry-reagent, double monoclonal design. Creatinine concentrations, estimated glomerular filtration rates (eGFR) and one-year
Permanent offspring modification through maternal hormone transfer is thought to be a tool for mothers to influence life-history trajectories of individual offspring. In birds, yolk hormones influence numerous aspects of the offspring's physiology, including antioxidant status, an important physiological measure that is linked to growth, reproductive effort, and survival. While it is evident that
Inflammation is a growing area of research in neurodegeneration. In Huntington's disease (HD), a fatal inherited neurodegenerative disease caused by a CAG-repeat expansion in the gene encoding huntingtin, patients have increased plasma levels of inflammatory cytokines and circulating monocytes that are hyper-responsive to immune stimuli. Several mouse models of HD also show elevated plasma levels
Purpose: To presents results after 18 months of follow-up of a longitudinal study aiming at exploring the correlation between diabetic retinal vascular lesions and functional change. Methods: Patients were consecutively recruited from attendees to the screening program for diabetic retinopathy. Subjects are followed every sixth month for the first 3 years and thereafter annually up to 5 years. Pro
Aqueous solutions of charged spherical macroions with variable dielectric permittivity and their associated counterions are examined within the cell model using a field theory and Monte Carlo simulations. The field theory is based on separation of fields into short- and long-wavelength terms, which are subjected to different statistical-mechanical treatments. The simulations were performed by usin
A new theoretical approach to two-photon transition intensities at the multiconfigurational self-consistent field (MCSCF) level of theory, is described in detail. The fundamental property of an MCSCF wave function, that it is possible to define the response equations for an excited state, is a prerequisite. The method requires solely first-order multiconfigurational response calculations, because
Appearance of dyskinesia is a common problem of long-term l-DOPA treatment in Parkinson's disease patients and represents a major limitation for the pharmacological management of the motor symptoms in advanced disease stages. We have recently demonstrated that dopamine released from serotonin neurons is responsible for l-DOPA-induced dyskinesia in 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA)-lesioned rats, raising
The microstructure of phase-segregated amylopectin (AP) and β-lactoglobulin (βlg) mixtures formed during drying from solutions with different concentrations and different polysaccharide and protein ratios have been studied using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). AFM was used as the main technique and TEM was used to confirm the results. Systems with only one
Background: The survival for patients with atrioventricular septal defect has improved markedly over the last decades and, during the same period, the survival of children with Down's syndrome has also increased. The aim of our study was to investigate long-term survival in patients having atrioventricular septal defect with common valvar orifice, but without associated significant congenital hear
The optical properties of quantum dots embedded in a catalytically grown semiconductor nanowire are studied theoretically. In comparison to dots in a bulk environment, the excitonic absorption is strongly modified by the one-dimensional character of the nanowire phonon spectrum. In addition to pronounced satellite peaks due to phonon-assisted absorption, we find a finite width of the zero-phonon l
To model aerosol-cloud interactions in general circulation models (GCMs), a prognostic cloud scheme of cloud liquid water and amount is expanded to include droplet number concentration (N(d)) in a way that allows them to be calculated using the same large-scale and convective updraft velocity field. In the scheme, the evolution of droplets fully interacts with the model meteorology. An explicit tr
