OBJECTIVE: Aortic aneurysm size is a critical determinant of the need for intervention, yet the maximal diameter will often vary depending on the modality and method of measurement. We aimed to define the relationship between commonly used computed tomography (CT) measurement techniques and those based on current reporting standards and to compare the values obtained with diameter measured using u

A MIMO structure consisting of two extremely compact planar inverted-F antennas (PIFAs) (lambda/60×lambda/20×lambda/60) is proposed for GSM 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz wireless local area network applications. The miniaturisation of each antenna is achieved through a spiral-shaped PIFA and a capacitive load, forming a LC resonator. Both antennas have a good impedance bandwidth of 0.88–0.945 and 2.39–2.48

Asymptomatic bacteriuria (ABU) is a common clinical condition that often leads to unnecessary antimicrobial use. The reduction of antibiotic overuse for ABU is consequently an important issue for antimicrobial stewardship and to reduce the emergence of multidrug resistant strains. There are two issues in everyday urological practice that require special attention: the role of ABU in pre-operative

Ursolic acid (UA) has antiinflammatory and anticancer effects on mammalian cells. Increase in acid sphingomyelinase (SMase) is associated with several inflammatory diseases including inflammatory bowel diseases. The enzyme has become a target for drug discovery. The present study examined the roles of UA on acid SMase in intestinal cells. We found that UA specifically inhibited acid SMase activity

Tabletop exercises are often used for learning purposes in the area of crisis management, yet their potential for this is far from clear. The study examines the learning outcomes achieved by a group of persons taking part in tabletop exercises in which they assess the crisis management capabilities of the organisation to which they belong and suggest possible improvements. Interviews with the part

Chronic neural interfaces that are both structurally and functionally stable inside the brain over years or decades hold great promise to become an invaluable clinical tool in the near future. A key flaw in the current electrode interfaces is that their recording capabilities deteriorate over time, possibly due to the lack of flexibility, which causes movements in relation to the neural tissue tha

As a response against serious infection, there is often a need to produce more leukocytes to defend the organism against the infectious agent. In this issue of Cell Stem Cell, Goodell and colleagues (Feng et al., 2008) find a link between regulators of host defense and hematopoietic stem cells.

Congenital disorders of glycosylation (CDG) arise from pathogenic mutations in over one hundred genes leading to impaired protein or lipid glycosylation. ALG1 encodes a β1,4 mannosyltransferase that catalyzes the addition of the first of nine mannose moieties to form a dolichol-lipid linked oligosaccharide intermediate (DLO) required for proper N-linked glycosylation. ALG1 mutations cause a rare a

Structural flexibility is an essential attribute, without which few proteins could carry out their biological functions. Much information about protein flexibility has come from x-ray crystallography, in the form of atomic mean-square displacements (AMSDs) or B factors. Profiles showing the AMSD variation along the polypeptide chain are usually interpreted in dynamical terms but are ultimately gov

All 28 EU member states except Sweden and the UK apply international reference pricing (IRP), international price comparison, external reference pricing or cross-reference pricing. The attractiveness of using prices of other countries as a benchmark for decisions within a national price control is obvious. Alternative models for price and reimbursement decision making such as value-based pricing (

OBJECTIVES: In Sweden, an important source for exposure to persistent organochlorine pollutants, such as PCDD and PCDF, is through intake of fatty fish from the Baltic Sea off the Eastern coast of Sweden. The present study assesses temporal trends for human levels of PCDD/F between 1987 and 2002 among 26 men from Sweden. In addition, we investigate the impact of potential determinants (age, relati

We generalize the recently formulated theory of high-order harmonic generation by low-frequency laser fields to the case of high-order sum and difference frequency mixing in a two-color field of noncommensurate frequencies in the optical-infrared regime. Our theoretical description includes both the single-atom response and propagation. We observe a different behavior of the sum and difference fre

The np P Rydberg sequence of neutral Ytterbium is strongly perturbed. These perturbations were monitored by measuring the g(J) factors and lifetimes of 19 states, including both singlets and triplets as well as states from the perturbing configurations. A pulsed laser setup was used. The g(J) factors were obtained from a Zeeman quantum-beat experiment and the lifetimes by direct observation of the

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Antimicrobial peptides (AMP) are important effectors of the innate immune system. Although there is increasing evidence that AMPs influence bacteria in a multitude of ways, bacterial wall rupture plays the pivotal role in the bactericidal action of AMPs. Structurally, AMPs share many similarities with endogenous heparin-binding peptides with respect to secondary structure, ca

An architecture for RF quadrature oscillators is presented, which, according to simulations, shows a figure of merit some 20 dB higher than that of other quadrature oscillators. The new quadrature oscillator compares favourably even with a state-of-the-art design of the popular negative-resistance differential oscillator