Thirty-six adult patients (26 men and 10 women) who had been operated on for bilateral complete cleft lip and palate (BCLP) were evaluated with regard to long-term follow-up consisting of clinical investigation, perceptual speech analysis, and self-estimation of quality of speech. Twenty-six had had a von Langenbeck repair at the age of 14 months (L-14 group), and 10 a Wardill repair at the age of

Amyloid β peptide (Aβ42) assemblies are considered central to the development of Alzheimer's disease, but the mechanism of this toxicity remains unresolved. We screened protein microarrays with on-pathway oligomeric Aβ42 to identify candidate proteins interacting with toxic Aβ42 species. Samples prepared from Alexa546-Aβ42 and Aβ42 monomers at 1:5 molar ratio were incubated with the array during a

In this paper we focus on the many extreme credit default swap spread movements observed during the recent credit crisis. We find that the tails of the spread (and price) change distribution differ significantly from those of the normal distribution even for diversified credit derivatives portfolios. Particular focus is put on the sudden shift in the behavior of the credit default swap market in t

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are associated with significant morbidity and high frequency of antibiotic prescription. Diagnosing UTI is often difficult, particularly in the critically ill patient and in patients with unspecific and mild symptoms. The standard rapid tests have limited value, and there is a need for more reliable diagnostic tools. Heparin-binding protein (HBP) is released from ne

Some MIMO applications require antennas to be closely spaced, which result in mutual coupling among antennas and high spatial correlation for signals. In order to compensate for the performance degradation due to correlation and coupling, impedance matching networks may be used. Recently, it was shown that uncoupled matching networks could be optimized against a given performance metric with the c

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Extracellular adenosine triphosphate (ATP) regulates inflammatory cells by activation of the P2X(7) receptor. We hypothesized that polymorphisms in P2RX7 influence the risk of ischemic heart disease (IHD), ischemic stroke (IS) and cardiovascular risk factors and tested this hypothesis using genetic association studies. METHODS: Two loss-of-function SNPs in P2RX7 were genot

Background: Although recent population-based studies suggest a U-shaped relationship between serum IGF-I concentration and all-cause mortality, the distribution of death causes underlying this association remains unclear. We hypothesized that high IGF-I levels associate with increased cancer mortality, whereas low IGF-I levels associate with increased cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality. Metho