Stratospheric ozone depletion is most pronounced at high latitudes, and the concurring increased UV-B radiation might adversely affect plants from polar areas. However, vascular plants may protect themselves against UV-B radiation by UV-absorbing compounds located in the epidermis. In this 3-year study, epidermal UV-B (lambda(max) 314 nm) and UV-A (lambda(max) 366 nm) screening was assessed using

OBJECTIVE: To adapt the Rheumatoid Arthritis Quality of Life (RAQoL) questionnaire for Swedish patients and evaluate psychometric properties in a prospective study. METHODS: Reliability was assessed in 61 patients filling in RAQoL two times with one week's interval. 114 patients completed RAQoL and Nottingham Health Profile (NHP) on 2-3 occasions 6 months apart. Validity was evaluated comparing RA

Subungual exostosis is a benign bone- and cartilage-producing tumor occurring in the hands and feet of children and young adults. The recent identification of a recurrent chromosomal translocation t(X;6)(q24-q26;q15-21) in short-term-cultured tumor cells strongly suggests that subungual exostosis is a neoplastic lesion caused by rearrangement of genes in the two breakpoints. To identify the genes

Cathelicidins are a family of diverse antimicrobial peptides found in granules of mammalian neutrophils. Cathelicidins are active against a broad range of microbes in different environments. Aside from their antimicrobial activity, cathelicidins possess other biological properties including cytotoxic activity towards mammalian cells. Several studies have shown that the amino acid sequence of cathe

Antimicrobial peptides, such as LL-37, are found both in nonvertebrates and vertebrates, where they represent important components of innate immunity. Bacterial infections at epithelial surfaces are associated with substantial induction of LL-37 expression, which allows efficient lysis of the invading microbes. Peptide-mediated lysis results in the release of bacterial nucleic acids with potential

The triallylphosphine-substituted clusters [Ru3(CO)11{P(CH2CH=CH2)3}], [Ru3(CO)10{P(CH2CH=CH2)3}2] and [Ru3(CO)10{;-CH2=CHCH2P(CH2CH=CH2)2}] have been prepared; reaction of [Ru3(CO)10{;-CH2=CHCH2P(CH2CH=CH2)2}] with phosphines/phosphites leads to cleavage of the Ru–allyl -bond and formation of [Ru3(CO)11{P(CH2CH=CH2)3}(PR3)].

An increasing number of studies describe moving hybrid zones. This raises the issue of their actual frequency and emphasizes the need for methods that enable the detection of zone movements without historical records. Asymmetric introgression, usually considered as a signature of geographical shift, might be misleading when applied to mitochondrial or potentially non-neutral markers. We investigat

The invasion of alien species and genotypes is an increasing concern in contemporary ecology. A central question is, what life-history traits enable invasion amidst populations of wild species and conventional cultivars? In order to invade, the initially rare species must perform better than their resident competitors. We conducted a mathematical analysis and simulation of a two-species extension

In the current work, we compared the ability of 17 beta-estradiol (E-2) and the selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs), tamoxifen (Tam), raloxifene (Ral) and ospemifene (Osp) to promote the survival of osteoblast-derived cells against etoposide-incluced apoptosis. In order to compare the roles of the two estrogen receptor (ER) isotypes, we created a U2OS human osteosarcoma cell line stably

A good design of a Boolean function used in a stream cipher requires that the function satisfies certain criteria in order to resist different attacks. In this paper we study the tradeoff between two such criteria, the nonlinearity and the resiliency. The results are twofold. Firstly, we establish the maximum nonlinearity for a fixed resiliency in certain cases. Secondly, we present a simple searc

Objective. To analyze the fine specificity of IgG autoantibodies in sera from rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients for type II collagen (CII) epitopes that are arthritogenic in collagen-induced arthritis (CIA), a relevant murine model of RA. Methods. For enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) analysis of conformation-dependent autoantibody binding, recombinant chimeric collagens that harbor the r

The use of an organic solvent can allow to increase the mass transfer, and thereby biodegradation, of hydrophobic gaseous pollutants. The biodegradation of hexane by a Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain was thus optimized in a two phase partitioning bioreactor (TPPB). Silicone oil was first selected among various organic solvents based on its biocompatibility and resistance to R aeruginosa and its high

Numerous theories have been developed describing the drop break-up in a high-pressure homogenizer (HPH), but they are generally based on quite rudimentary descriptions of the flow fields. As the flow in a real HPH is very extreme, with gaps of 10–100 μm and velocities of hundreds of m/s, it is practically impossible to measure the velocity fields. In this study, a scale model of an HPH made of acr

We have developed a new ReaxFF reactive force field to describe accurately reactions of hydrocarbons with vanadium oxide catalysts. The ReaxFF force field parameters have been fit to a large quantum mechanics (QM) training set containing over 700 structures and energetics related to bond dissociations, angle and dihedral distortions, and reactions between hydrocarbons and vanadium oxide clusters.

Objectives: The aim of the study was to detect cartilage defects and determine the center of these defects in MR imaging of the patellofemoral joint (PFJ) in middle-aged people with chronic knee pain. Design: In the format of a prospective study of early osteoarthritis (OA), this cross-sectional study of the signal knee (the most painful one at inclusion in the study in 1990) in 59 individuals, 30

The ability of many animals to camouflage themselves against a background is a well-known daytime phenomenon. Now it has even been found to occur at night, highlighting the reality of nocturnal visual predation