High amplitude non-linear acoustic methods have shown potential for the identification of micro damage in brittle materials such as concrete. Commonly, these methods evaluate a non-linearity parameter from the relative change in frequency and attenuation with strain amplitude. Here, a novel attenuation model is introduced to describe the free reverberation from a standard impact resonance frequenc

BACKGROUND: The method of ex vivo lung perfusion (EVLP) has been suggested as a reliable means of differentiating between "good" and "poor" pulmonary grafts in marginal donors as, when grafts identified as good by this method are transplanted, the results do not differ from those using lungs fulfilling standard criteria. The EVLP method is also thought to improve pulmonary grafts by reducing lung

Abstract in Undetermined Extended review of Transition and Transformation.

Six-membered cyclic carbonates with hydroxyl and/or alkoxycarbonyloxy groups, as potential monomers for polyurethanes and polycarbonates, were prepared by the reaction between trimethylolpropane (TMP) with dimethyl carbonate (DMC) or diethylcarbonate (DEC) mediated by immobilized Candida antarctica lipase B, NovozymR (R) 435 in a solvent-free medium. The dialkyl carbonate served as a solvent for t

Aim: To assess the relationship between serum total osteocalcin and measurements of adiposity, glucose tolerance, lipid profile, adipokine and chronic low-grade inflammation in middle-aged and elderly Chinese subjects. Methods: We performed a cross-sectional community-based study in central Shanghai. Serum total osteocalcin was measured by radioimmunoassay in 783 men and 946 post-menopausal wo

The aim of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of preoperative diagnosis of skin tumours in a dermatological setting. Patients undergoing skin surgery at the Department of Dermatology without preoperative biopsy were prospectively enrolled. Preoperatively, a single clinical diagnosis was registered. The histopathological diagnosis, performed after excision, was registered as the correct diagno

Attempts to optimize the magnetization transfer ratio (MTR) obtained from spoiled gradient echo MRI have focused on the properties of the magnetization transfer pulse. In particular, continuous-wave models do not explicitly account for the effects of excitation and relaxation on the MTR. In this work, these were modeled by an approximation of free relaxation between the radiofrequency pulses and o

We report on the first measurement of inclusive J/psi elliptic flow v(2) in heavy-ion collisions at the LHC. The measurement is performed with the ALICE detector in Pb-Pb collisions at root s(NN) = 2.76 TeV in the rapidity range 2.5 < y < 4.0. The dependence of the J/psi v(2) on the collision centrality and on the J/psi transverse momentum is studied in the range 0

Regular Pt cluster arrays grown on the moire template formed by graphene on Ir(111) were tested for their stability with respect to CO gas exposure. Cluster stability and adsorption-Induced processes were analyzed as a function of cluster size, with In situ scanning tunneling microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Small clusters containing fewer than 10 atoms were unstable upon CO adsorp

We previously showed that dietary sphingomyelin (SM) inhibited cholesterol absorption in animals. The key enzyme hydrolyzing SM in the gut is alkaline sphingomyelinase (alk-SMase, NPP7). Here using fecal dual-isotope ratio method we compared cholesterol absorption in the wild type (WT) and alk-SMase knockout (KO) mice. The animals were fed an emulsion containing (14)C-cholesterol and (3)H-sitoster

The two major forms of the amyloid-beta (Aβ) peptide found in plaques in patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease, Aβ40 and Aβ42, only differ by two amino acids in the C-terminal region, yet they display markedly different aggregation behavior. The origins of these differences have remained challenging to connect to specific molecular-level processes underlying the aggregation reaction. In this

Carboxylic acids (CAs), amino acids (AAs) and carbohydrates (CHs) in dissolved free forms can be readily assimilated by aquatic bacteria and metabolized at high growth efficiencies. Previous studies have shown that these low-molecular-weight (LMW) substrates are released by phytoplankton but also that unidentified LMW compounds of terrestrial origin is a subsidy for bacterial metabolism in unprodu

Fisheries management traditionally relies on stock assessments assuming discrete populations within large administrational areas. However, failing to account for sub-stock structuring may result in overestimation of the stocks' true harvest potential and unsustainable exploitation of small stock elements. Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) frequently occurs in spatially segregated populations, some of wh

Several factors contribute to mycophenolic acid (MPA) between-patient variability. Here we characterize the metabolic pathways of MPA and quantify the effect of combining genetic polymorphism of multidrug-resistant-associated protein-2, demographics, biochemical covariates, co-medication (cyclosporine (CsA) vs. macrolides), and renal function on MPA, 7-O-MPA-glucuronide (MPAG), and acyl-glucuronid

In parallel to market-like reforms in Swedish primary care, the gathering and compilation of comparative information about providers, for example through survey tools, has been improved. Such information is increasingly being used to guide individuals' choice of provider and payers' assessments of provider performance, often without critically reflecting about underlying factors affecting the resu

The inverse problem for the Schrodinger operator on a star graph is investigated. It is proven that such Schrodinger operator, i.e. the graph, the real potential on it and the matching conditions at the central vertex, can be reconstructed from the Titchmarsh-Weyl matrix function associated with the graph boundary. The reconstruction is also unique if the spectral data include not the whole Titchm

The aim of this article is to apply elements of contemporary social theory to the major theoretical, methodological, and ideological divisions across political psychology and to consider both the origins and the impact of a range of theories and models. In so doing, we clarify some of the complexity surrounding the discursive and cultural origins of political psychology. On the basis of this analy