Pyranose 2-oxidase (P20x) has several proposed biotechnological applications such as a bio-component in biofuel cells or for carbohydrate transformations. To improve some of the catalytic properties of P20x from Trametes multicolor, we selected a semi-rational approach of enzyme engineering, saturation mutagenesis of active-site residues and subsequent screening of mutant libraries for improved ac

The adsorption behavior of self-assembled lipid liquid crystalline nanoparticles at different model surfaces was investigated in situ by use of ellipsometry. The technique allows time-resolved monitoring of the adsorbed amount and layer thickness under transient and steady-state conditions. The system under study was cubic-phase nanoparticle (CPNP) dispersions of glycerol monooleate stabilized by

Neuroblastoma, the most common extracranial tumor of childhood, is derived from neural crest progenitor cells that fail to differentiate along their predefined route to sympathetic neurons or sympatho-adrenergic adrenal cells. Although expression of the high-affinity neurotrophin receptors, TrkA and TrkB, is of major importance in neuroblastoma, the significance of the expression of the low-affini

Organic food labelling debates in Sweden and the USA are examined in order to compare two different policy discourse climates on the basis of interviews, documents, and websites of governmental and non-governmental organisations. Framings in the Swedish debates mainly take place through eco-pragmatic metaframing, aimed at consensus, and based on a mixture of undefined scientific and ideological fr

Objective: To describe clinical features, morphology, management and outcome of pulmonary vein stenosis (PVS) in childhood. Design and setting: Retrospective international collaborative study involving 19 paediatric cardiology centres in the UK, Ireland and Sweden. Patients: Cases of PVS presenting between 1 January 1995 and 31 December 2004 were identified. Cases where pulmonary veins connected t

We measured the costs of mounting a humoral immune response using two novel antigens (tetanus and diphtheria) in two shorebird species (Scolopacidae): Red Knot (Calidris canutus, measured in autumn) and Ruff (Philomachus pugnax, measured in spring). Metabolic rate was measured during the preinjection phase, at the building phase of the primary immune response, and at peak secondary immune response

The oscillations between glacial and interglacial climate conditions over the past three million years have been characterized by a transfer of immense amounts of water between two of its largest reservoirs on Earth - the ice sheets and the oceans. Since the latest of these oscillations, the Last Glacial Maximum (between about 30,000 and 19,000 years ago), similar to50 million cubic kilometres of

Laser wakefield accelerators offer the possibility of compact electron acceleration. However one of the key outstanding issues with the results reported to date is the electron beam stability. Experiments on two laser systems reveal that the contrast ratio between the ASE pedestal and main pulse is an important factor in determining the quality of the electron beam. With a high contrast ratio (10^

The present study examines the capacity of fetal neocortical grafts placed in a brain infarct to exchange axonal projections with the host brain. Five to 7 days after a middle cerebral artery occlusion in adult spontaneously hypertensive rats, dissociated neocortical primordium from fetuses of gestational age 15-16 days was implanted into the infarcted area. Four to 11 months later, the neural tra

We extend earlier schemes for merging tree-level matrix elements with parton showers to include also merging with one-loop matrix elements. In this paper we make a first study on how to include one-loop corrections, not only for events with a given jet multiplicity, but simultaneously for several different jet multiplicities. Results are presented for the simplest non-trivial case of hadronic even

Isozyme electrophoresis was used to study the morphologically similar sister speciesSphagnum rubellum andS. capillifolium from a sample of 1313 plants representing 37 populations from Scandinavia, Great Britain and S Germany. The mean pairwise genetic identities (I) among conspecific populations were 0.976 forS. rubellum and 0.969 forS. capillifolium, versus 0.627 between populations of the two sp

Background: In acquired heart disease, brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) and N-Teminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) are increasingly used as diagnostic and prognostic markers. In adult Congenital heart disease, the abnormal anatomy and physiology complicate assessment of cardiac function. We Studied the clinical correlates of measurement of natriuretic peptides (NP) in adults with a rig

Insulin resistance may be a risk factor for breast cancer, possibly through increased levels of oestrogens or insulin-like growth factor I. Insulin resistance has been associated with obesity, hypertension, dyslipidaemia and impaired glucose tolerance. We studied the relation of these factors to breast cancer risk in a prospective cohort study of 9738 women. Menopausal status was defined a priori,

To analyze the role of the classical and alternative pathways of complement activation in the effector phase of arthritis, we have induced arthritis in C3- and factor B (FB)-deficient (C3(-/-) and FB-/-) DBA/1J mice using well-defined monoclonal IgG2b and IgG2a antibodies to type II collagen. In control DBA/1J mice, severe swelling of the joints, destruction of cartilage and erosion of bone develo

The southern section of the Mylonite Zone (MZ) is a major lithotectonic terrane boundary in the SW Baltic Shield. It separates the parautochthonous Eastern Segment of the Sveconorwegian orogen from the allochthonous Western Segment. Complex zircons in migmatised and banded orthogneisses along the southern MZ were investigated by ion microprobe analyses guided by backscattered electron imaging to d

A hidden Markov regime is a Markov process that governs the time or space dependent distributions of an observed stochastic process. We propose a recursive algorithm for parameter estimation in a switching autoregressive process governed by a hidden Markov chain. A common approach to the recursive estimation problem is to base the estimation on suboptimal modifications of Kalman filtering techniqu

Combined treatment with electroremediation and sulphate reducing bacteria (SRB) was tested in laboratory and pilot scale. The contaminated soil came from a chlor-alkali factory and contained about 100 mg/kg Hg. Iodide/iodine complexing agent was used to mobilize mercury. Mercury iodide complexes were moved to the anode solution using an electric field. The anode solution was then mixed with hydrog

The copper coordination geometry in the blue copper proteins plastocyanin, nitrite reductase, cucumber basic protein, and azurin has been studied by combined density functional (B3LYP) and molecular mechanical methods. Compared to quantum chemical vacuum calculations, a significant improvement of the geometry is seen (toward the experimental structures) not only for the dihedral angles of the liga