Objective. To study the clinical and laboratory characteristics of patients with biopsy-proven giant cell arteritis (GCA) with visual complications, and to evaluate the incidence rate of visual complications in GCA compared to the background population. Methods. Data from 840 patients with GCA in the county of Skane, Sweden, diagnosed between 1997 and 2010, were used for this analysis. Cases with

Background: Oat prolamin (avenin) is a family of proteins that contain several polymorphic components. The highinterspecific variability of avenin among cultivars, electrophoretic patterns have been used for grain protein comparisonand species relationships. Therefore, the present study was carried out to evaluate the effect of environment onavenin constitution following an effort to increase prot

Objectives: HIV-positive people have increased risk of infection-related malignancies (IRMs) and infection-unrelated malignancies (IURMs). The aim of the study was to determine the impact of aging on future IRM and IURM incidence. Methods: People enrolled in EuroSIDA and followed from the latest of the first visit or 1 January 2001 until the last visit or death were included in the study. Poisson

During the Proterozoic, several mafic dykes with variable trends and mineralogies intruded the Archaean basement of Southeast Greenland. Some of the younger ENE-trending dykes are interpreted to represent a prolongation of the Mesoproterozoic Gardar Province, and have been termed Timmiarmiit dykes. Extrapolations of their trends across the inland ice sheet coincide with the northernmost so-called

BACKGROUND: Health-promoting interventions tailored to support older persons to remain in their homes, so-called "ageing in place" is important for supporting or improving their health. The health-promoting programme "Elderly Persons in the Risk Zone," (EPRZ) was set up for this purpose and has shown positive results for maintaining independence in activities of daily living for older persons 80 y

We present a convergence analysis for exponential splitting methods applied to linear evolution equations. Our main result states that the classical order of the splitting method is retained in a setting of unbounded operators, without requiring any additional order condition. This is achieved by basing the analysis on the abstract framework of (semi)groups. The convergence analysis also includes

The glycosylation status of IgG has been implicated in the pathology of rheumatoid arthritis. Earlier, we reported the identification of a novel secreted endo-beta-N-acetylglucosaminidase (EndoS), secreted by Streptococcus pyogenes that specifically hydrolyzes the beta-1,4-di-N-acetylchitobiose core of the asparagine-linked glycan of human IgG. Here, we analyzed the arthritogenicity of EndoS-treat

Seven Wenlock bentonite beds from four drill cores in Lithuania with sufficient thickness for sampling were analysed by XRD and XRF. The sanidine composition of bentonites combined with graptolite biozonation of the host rock were used for correlations. Two of the studied bentonite samples at the antennularius/flexilis biozone boundary can be confidently correlated between two Lithuanian sections.

Survivors of poliomyelitis often develop increased or new symptoms decades after the acute infection, a condition known as post-polio syndrome (PPS). The condition affects 20-60% of previous polio patients, making it one of the most common causes of neurological deficits worldwide. The underlying pathogenesis is not fully understood and accurate diagnosis is not feasible. Herein we investigated wh

The emulsifying ability of OSA-modified and native starch in the granular form, in the dissolved state and a combination of both was compared. This study aims to understand mixed systems of particles and dissolved starch with respect to what species dominates at droplet interfaces and how stability is affected by addition of one of the species to already formed emulsions. It was possible to create

We identify the socioeconomic determinants of three levels of antenatal care (ANC) visits (no, intermediate [1–3], and recommended [≥4]) in Bangladesh using a behavior model framework for health care utilization. Using multinomial logistic regression, we found that different levels of visits had different determinants; for example, media exposure increased the likelihood of intermediate compared w

A method of measuring three-dimensional spatialwave size is proposed and statistical distributions of the size characteristics are derived in explicit integral forms for Gaussian sea surfaces. New definitions of wave characteristics such as the crest-height, the length, the size and the wave front location are provided in fully dimensional context. The joint statistical distributions of these wave

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE—: Patient selection in clinical trials on intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) affects overall applicability of results. We estimated eligibility for completed, ongoing, and planned clinical trials in an unselected cohort of patients with ICH. METHODS—: Large clinical ICH trials were identified using trial registration databases. Each trial’s inclusion criteria were applied to a c

Variational methods are used to calculate structural and thermodynamical properties of a titrating polyelectrolyte in a discrete representation. In the variational treatment, the Coulomb potentials are emulated by harmonic repulsive forces between all monomers; the force constants are used as variational parameters. The accuracy of the variational approach is tested against Monte Carlo data. Excel

Background: In many parts of the world, roadsides are regularly managed for traffic-safety reasons. Hence, there are similarities between roadsides and certain other managed habitats, such as wooded pastures and mown or grazed grasslands. In contrast to roadsides, the latter habitats have declined rapidly in Europe during the last century, and today only a fraction of their former extent remains.

Dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans (DFSP) is a cutaneous tumour of borderline malignancy, the cytogenetic features of which include the translocation t(17;22)(q22;q13) or, more commonly, supernumerary ring chromosomes containing material from 17q22 and 22q13. These rearrangements result in the COL1A1/PDGFB fusion gene. Here, we describe a case of DFSP displaying a ring chromosome 5 together with a la

Color vision in birds is mediated by four types of cone photoreceptors whose maximal sensitivities (λmax) are evenly spaced across the light spectrum. In the course of avian evolution, the λmax of the most shortwave-sensitive cone, SWS1, has switched between violet (λmax > 400 nm) and ultraviolet (λmax < 380 nm) multiple times. This shift of the SWS1 opsin is accompanied by a corresponding short-w

Phosphor thermometry, a remote temperature sensing technique, is widely implemented to measure the temperature of different combustion engines components. The presence of engine lubricant can influence the behavior of the applied sensor materials, known as thermographic phosphors, and thus leading to erroneous temperature measurements. The effect of two engine lubricants on decay times originating

We consider the thermodynamics of a uniformly charged polyelectrolyte with harmonic bonds. For such a system there is at high temperatures an approximate scaling of global properties like the end-to-end distance and the interaction energy with the chain length divided by the temperature. This scaling is broken at low temperatures by the ultraviolet divergence of the Coulomb potential. By introduci