Background: The Mediterranean diet has been suggested to play a beneficial role for health and longevity. However, to our knowledge, no prospective US study has investigated the Mediterranean dietary pattern in relation to mortality. Methods: Study participants included 214 284 men and 166 012 women in the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-AARP ( formerly known as the American Association of Ret

We have investigated the inhibition of the recently identified family C13 cysteine peptidase, pig legumain, by human cystatin C. The cystatin was seen to inhibit enzyme activity by stoichiometric 1:1 binding in competition with substrate. The Ki value for the interaction was 0.20 nM, i.e. cystatin C had an affinity for legumain similar to that for the papain-like family C1 cysteine peptidase, cath

AIMS/HYPOTHESIS: To analyse the incidence of Type I (insulin-dependent) diabetes mellitus in the 0-34 years age group in Sweden 1983-1998. METHODS: Incidence and cumulative incidence per 100 000 and Poisson regression analysis of age-period effects was carried out using 11 751 cases from two nation-wide prospective registers. RESULTS: Incidence (95%-CI) was 21.4 (20.8-21.9) in men and 17.1 (16.6-1

Aim: To test the reliability, validity and sensitivity of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) QLQ-MY24 questionnaire, designed to assess the quality of life of myeloma patients with the QLQ-C30. Methods: The study was carried out through the EORTC Quality of Life Group using clinical trials in seven countries. All trials used the QLQ-C30 and QLQ-MY24 at baseline

Background Airway diseases in hairdressers are a concern. The objective of this investigation is to evaluate the risk for three respiratory symptoms, wheeze, dry cough, and nasal blockage, in hairdressers. Methods A questionnaire on respiratory symptoms, atopy, smoking, and work history was answered by 3,957 female hairdressers and 4,905 women from the general population as referents. Incidence ra

Background Calcipotriol and betamethasone dipropionate are both widely used, effective treatments for psoriasis. Vitamin D analogues and topical corticosteroids have different mechanisms of action in the treatment of psoriasis. A new vehicle has been developed in order to contain both calcipotriol (50 micro g g-1) and betamethasone dipropionate (0.5 mg g-1) in an ointment form. By using calcipotri

The deposition process in a homogeneous electric field, and the subsequent microscopic arrangement of charged, metallic aerosol nanoparticles in the size range of 30 nm on flat substrate surfaces is described. The first aspect of the investigation is the transfer of the particles from a three-dimensional distribution in the gas phase into their arrangement on the substrate surface, in dependence o

At least five crystalline-phases can be found in the CaSO4-H2O system, which are gypsum CaSO4 center dot 2H(2)O, the subhydrates alpha- and beta-CaSO4 center dot 0.5H(2)O, and the soluble and insoluble anhydrite CaSO4. The formation of these five phases in the CaSO4-H2O system and their transformations were investigated by in situ time-resolved synchrotron radiation powder X-ray diffraction (SR-PX

Work from our laboratories has shown that the major antigenic determinants for rheumatoid factors (RFs) are in the C gamma 2-C gamma 3 interface region of IgG in the same area that binds staphylococcal protein A (SPA). Furthermore, the Fc binding proteins of groups A, C and G streptococci as well as the Fc binding proteins induced on cell surfaces by herpes simplex virus type I also bind to the sa

Hypoxia is one of the common effects of eutrophication in coastal marine ecosystems and is becoming an increasingly prevalent problem worldwide. The causes of hypoxia are associated with excess nutrient inputs from both point and non-point sources, although the response of coastal marine ecosystems is strongly modulated by physical processes such as stratification and mixing. Changes in climate, p

Ro 25-1553 is a metabolically stable analogue of endogenous vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP). This compound is a potent bronchodilator in vitro as well as in vivo. Moreover, Ro 25-1553 has been shown to be highly selective of the VPAC2 receptor. We assessed the effect of Ro 25-1553 on isolated human bronchi and pulmonary arteries in vitro. Macroscopically normal human airways and pulmonary

Isolated pial arteries from a previously well-characterized model of experimental subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) in baboon were tested for their contractile response to 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT), norepinephrine (NE), and prostaglandin F2 alpha (PGF2 alpha) and the effect of the calcium antagonist, nimodipine. Autologous blood was injected cisternally at three times with one-day intervals to a tota

In the present investigation of Brassica cretica, a wild relative of the cultivated cabbage, B. oleracea, we performed an extensive crossing experiment, involving self-pollinations, random outcrosses within populations and hybridizations between populations or species, to evaluate the relationship between crossing distance and developmental stability, estimated as the absolute difference between t

Between 1977 and 1996, cytogenetic investigations were performed on 182 childhood (< or = 16 yr) acute lymphoblastic leukemias (ALL), constituting 94% (182 of 194) of all ALL patients diagnosed and treated at the Departments of Pediatrics, Lund and Malmo University Hospitals, Sweden, during these two decades. The cytogenetic analyses were successful in 152 cases (84%). The failure rate was higher

Drying is one of the most energy intensive and common operations in the chemical and process industries. Scope for energy recovery is substantial, particularly from the latent heat of the exhaust moist air. Using real operating data from a major Swedish mill, optimal energy conservation strategies were investigated using different heat pump systems in paper drying. Simulation results are compared

The recent decline of the European starling in northern Europe has been associated with changes in agricultural land-use. We investigated how agricultural land-use affected starling habitat use and home-range size in a heterogeneous landscape in southern Sweden. Breeding starlings primarily foraged in pastures, a habitat with a high availability of potential food for nestlings. When the availabili

A box graph is the intersection graph of orthogonal rectangles in the plane. We consider such basic combinatorial problems on box graphs as maximum independent set, minimum vertex cover and maximum induced subgraph with polynomial-time testable hereditary property Pi. We show that they can be exactly solved in subexponential time, more precisely, in time 2(O(rootnlog n)), by applying Miller's simp

In a joint experimental and theoretical work the optical response and excited-state character of two novel conjugated polymers for photovoltaic applications are studied. The polymers, alternating polyfluorene (APFO) Green 1 and APFO Green 2, are both copolymers of fluorene, thiophene, and electron accepting groups. The band gaps are extended into the red and near infrared with onsets of 780 and 10

One of the central tenets in life-history theory is that there is a trade-off between current and future reproduction (i.e. a cost of reproduction). The mechanism for this cost of reproduction is, however, largely unknown. One hypothesis is that the high workload during reproduction compromises resistance to parasites and that the resulting increase in parasitaemia has negative effects on the pros

A numerical study of the mechanical behavior of heterogeneous soil systems, consisting of a bulk of sand with embedded stiff gravel inclusions or soft clay inclusions, is performed. A solution scheme using parallel computing is employed when analyzing two different categories of problems. First, a homogenization problem is studied, where use of a single representative volume element subjected to p