The concept of failed state denotes countries where institutions underpinning the legal and political order have fallen apart, meaning that government organizations do not have the capacity to enforce laws, guarantee rights, and provide core public goods, such as security and basic infrastructure. The concept gained prominence as a national security and international development narrative in the 1

Over the years, various technologies have been utilized for Natural Organic Matter (NOM) removal with varying degrees of success. Conventional treatment methods comprising of coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation, or filtration are widely used to remove NOM. An alternative to these conventional methods is to use spiral wound membranes. These membranes tend to remove too much hardness whilst bei

A 76-year-old man with a history of frequent syncope in youth and in the last 5 years was referred for a head-up tilt test. During the head-up tilt test, he developed a classical vasovagal reflex syncope. On immediate return to the supine position, the patient regained consciousness. Shortly afterward, the heart rate slowed distinctly and the patient became unresponsive with undetectable blood pre

Assessment of respiratory tract deposition of nanoparticles is a key link to understanding their health impacts. An instrument was developed to measure respiratory tract deposition of nanoparticles in a single breath. Monodisperse nanoparticles are generated, inhaled and sampled from a determined volumetric lung depth after a controlled residence time in the lung. The instrument was characterized

Background: Hemodynamic instability responsive to fluid resuscitation is common after a traumatic brain injury (TBI), also in the absence of systemic hemorrhage. The present study tests if an isolated severe TBI induces a decrease in plasma volume (PV). Methods: The study was performed in three groups of anesthetized and tracheostomized male cats (n = 21). In one group (n = 8), the cats were prepa

Summary: Osteoporotic fractures may pose a challenge for skeletal regeneration. This study investigates if pharmaceutical interventions such as bone morphogenetic protein 7 (BMP-7) alone or in combination with Zoledronate have equivalent efficacy in osteoporotic bone? Our findings suggest they do and that an osteoporotic bone environment may increase sensitivity to BMP-7. Introduction: Osteoporosi

Background: There are several indications that the composition of the tumor stroma can contribute to the malignancy of a tumor. Here we utilized expression data sets to identify metagenes that may serve as surrogate marker for the extent of matrix production and vascularization of a tumor and to characterize prognostic molecular components of the stroma. Methods: TCGA data sets from six cancer for

Purpose: The aims of this study were to assess the short- and long-term complication rates after video-assisted gastrostomy (VAG), the effects of age and gender on long-term complications and the effect of duration of gastrostomy tube retention on the need for gastroraphy when the gastrostomy device was removed. Methods: This was a retrospective study of children undergoing VAG at a single institu

Introduction: Identifying factors that influence individuals' smoking behavior remains a huge public health concern. This study aimed to investigate changes in individuals' cigarette smoking while considering well-known smoking determinants, including social capital, its presence being postulated to reduce smoking. Methods: From British Household Panel Survey data, two baseline smoking cohorts wer

Background Response to disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is often heterogeneous. We aimed to identify types of disease activity trajectories following the initiation of a new biologic DMARD (bDMARD). Methods Pooled analysis of nine national registries of patients with diagnosis of RA, who initiated Abatacept and had at least two measures of disease activit

IntroductionInterprofessional teamwork is associated with improved patient safety and job satisfaction. Previous research indicates that issues often appear when different professions’ perspectives don’t match up and it also shows that the use of the concept of teamwork within the healthcare literature is not as clear as could be expected. Therefore it is of interest to study how healthcare profes

The National Early Warning Score – NEWS is a “track and trigger” scale designed to assess in-hospital patients’ vital signs and detect clinical deterioration. In this study the NEWS was translated into Swedish and its association with the need of intensive care was investigated. A total of 868 patient charts, recorded by the medical emergency team at a university hospital, containing the parameter

We have estimated the binding affinity of three sets of ligands of the heat-shock protein 90 in the D3R grand challenge blind test competition. We have employed four different methods, based on five different crystal structures: first, we docked the ligands to the proteins with induced-fit docking with the Glide software and calculated binding affinities with three energy functions. Second, the do

Regression models are extensively used in many epidemiological studies to understand the linkage between specific outcomes of interest and their risk factors. However, regression models in general examine the average effects of the risk factors and ignore subgroups with different risk profiles. As a result, interventions are often geared towards the average member of the population, without consid

III-V nanowire transistors are promising candidates for very high frequency electronics applications. The improved electrostatics originating from the gate-all-around geometry allow for more aggressive scaling as compared with planar field-effect transistors, and this can lead to device operation at very high frequencies. The very high mobility possible with In-rich devices can allow very high dev