We studied the influence of shape and secondary, or intercellular, organization on the absorption and scattering properties of red blood cells to determine whether these properties are of any practical significance for optical evaluation of whole blood and its constituents. A series of measurements of transmittance and reflectance of light from bovine blood in a flow cuvette was conducted with a 6

The migratory orientation of sanderlings (Calidris alba) was investigated with cage experiments during the spring migration in southwest Iceland. Sanderlings were exposed to 90 degrees counterclockwise-shifted magnetic fields under both clear skies and natural overcast. Clear sky control tests resulted in a northerly mean direction, in agreement with predictions based on ringing recovery data and

Amyloidogenic proteins like cystatin C and prion proteins have been shown to form dimers by exchange of subdomains of the monomeric proteins. This process, called "three-dimensional domain swapping," has also been suggested to play a part in the generation of amyloid fibrils. One variant of cystatin C, L68Q cystatin C, is highly amyloidogenic, and persons carrying the corresponding gene suffer fro

BACKGROUND: In the last 15 y there has been a tremendous increase in the number of studies on pediatric obesity looking at epidemiology, health-related risks, etiology, methodology and treatment. During the early 1990s, the European Childhood Obesity Group (ECOG) was born as a group of scientists' expert in the field of pediatric obesity. ECOG this year celebrates the approach to early maturity wi

Background: Many strategies are currently being pursued in order to generate mature dendritic cells (DC) to be used for immunotherapy. A potent anti-tumour influence by extracorporeal photopheresis has been documented for cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, and a major mechanism of action has been suggested to be generation of DC presenting tumour antigens. Purpose: To determine the potential of a simple c

This study investigated how the outdoor environments at nursing homes for older persons were experienced and used to gain knowledge with implications for design. Focus group methodology was used to explore staff's view of how the residents experienced and used the outdoors. Two main themes and ten sub-themes were the result when the focus group interviews were analyzed. Theme one, being comfortabl

Muon production at forward rapidity (1.5

The white matter is an important locus for tissue damage in vascular cognitive impairment and white matter lesions often dominate over gray matter changes. The spectrum of ischemic white matter lesions histopathologically represents focal and diffuse lesions, the most common form being the combination of both, in varying proportions. In the combined pathology, the diffuse lesion represents a gradi

Calls for more robust societal emergency management capacities have grown shriller as the range of societal vulnerabilities widens. The development of workable plans is recognised as one means to increase capacity. However, scepticism persists that plans serve any significant function in guiding organisational emergency management. Plans nevertheless remain a de facto requirement for most organisa

The single-trial emotional Stroop effect for masked threat words, and its association with anxiety, anger, and depression was studied in a group of men (n = 24) and women (n = 24) while controlling for possible differential thresholds for threat words vs. neutral words. Stroop interference for masked threat words was found to correlate with trait anxiety, and the effect could not be explained by a

Statins are known to exert a number of biological effects apart from reducing cholesterol synthesis. The results of recent studies indicate that patients treated with pravastatin have a lower prevalence of diagnosed Alzheimer’s disease (AD). These observations prompted us to examine the effects of pravastatin on Alzheimer’s peptide (Aβ1–42)-induced pro-inflammatory activation in the human glioma c

Lipophilic persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are ubiquitous in the environment and suspected to interfere with hormone activities and reproduction. In previous studies we demonstrated that POP exposure can affect sperm DNA integrity and differences between Inuits and Europeans in sperm DNA integrity and xenobiotic activity were observed. The aim of this study was to investigate possible relatio

Cyclic assembly work is known to imply a high risk for musculoskeletal disorders. To have operators rotate between work tasks is believed to be one way of decreasing this risk, since it is expected to increase variation in mechanical and psychological exposures (physical and mental loads). This assumption was investigated by assessing mechanical exposure variability in three assembly tasks in an e

Molecularly imprinted polymer microspheres were prepared by precipitation polymerization using a sacrificial covalent bond. In the present model, cholesteryl (4-vinyl)phenyl carbonate was used as a template monomer. The imprinted microspheres were prepared using ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EDMA) and divinylbenzene (DVB) as crosslinker. The base-labile carbonate ester bond was easily hydrolyzed

Patients often worry considerably about biomedically mild and self-limiting conditions. A previous study on non-selected primary care patients showed that this could be partly explained by frequent associations with cases of serious illness in their family histories. This study further investigated these phenomena in middle aged men with a recent diagnosis of hypercholesterolaemia. Sixty-three out

We test whether individual health status is related to area-level social capital measured by rates of voting participation in municipal political elections, controlling for personal characteristics, where health status is measured by mapping responses to interview survey questions into the generic health-related quality of life measure (HRQoL) the EQ-5D in order to derive the health state scores.

We used ultrasonic imaging to monitor short-term changes in the pectoral muscle size of captive red knots Calidris canutus. Pectoral muscle thickness changed rapidly and consistently in parallel with body mass changes caused by flight, fasting and fuelling. Four knots flew repeatedly for 10 h periods in a wind tunnel. Over this period, pectoral muscle thickness decreased in parallel with the decre