AIMS/HYPOTHESIS: We examined to what extent visual acuity and perimetric sensitivity as measures of central and paracentral visual function would be useful for evaluating the presence and severity of diabetic macular oedema.MATERIALS AND METHODS: We evaluated 59 eyes of 59 diabetic patients by identifying the presence (n=20) or absence (n=39) of macular oedema on stereo fundus photographs. The are

The effects of long-term heavy metal deposition on microbial community structure and the level of bacterial community tolerance were studied along two different gradients in Scandinavian coniferous forest soils. One was near the Harjavalta smelter in Finland, and one was at Ronnskar in Sweden. Phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) analysis revealed a gradual change in soil microbial communities along bot

We study the stable attractors of a class of continuous dynamical systems that may be idealized as networks of Boolean elements, with the goal of determining which Boolean attractors, if any, are good approximations of the attractors of generic continuous systems. We investigate the dynamics in simple rings and rings with one additional self-input. An analysis of switching characteristics and puls

Several hundred specimens of a tiny olenid trilobite, Ctenopyge ceciliae sp. nov., have been found in stinkstone nodules in the upper Cambrian Peltura scarabaeoides Zone in southern Sweden. This exceptionally spinose form is known only from disarticulated specimens, but is quite well preserved, and all growth stages are represented. The early ontogenetic stages are exceptionally small, the protasp

The advent of multiplexing technologies has raised the possibility that disease states can be defined using discrete genomic and proteomic patterns or signatures. However this emerging area has been limited by the 'content problem', arising from the uncertainty of which molecules to focus on. The human cluster of differentiation (CD) antigens are expressed on cells of the human immune system (leuk

Double minutes (dmin)-circular, extra-chromosomal amplifications of specific acentric DNA fragments-are relatively frequent in malignant disorders, particularly in solid tumors. In acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), dmin are observed in similar to 1% of the cases. Most of them consist of an amplified segment from chromosome band 8q24, always including the MYC gene. B

This paper develops a very simple test for the null hypothesis of no cointegration in panel data. The test is general enough to allow for heteroskedastic and serially correlated errors, unit-specific time trends, cross-sectional dependence and unknown structural breaks in both the intercept and slope of the cointegrated regression, which may be located at different dates for different units. The l

A new technique based on phosphor thermometry for measurements of two-dimensional gas-phase temperature, was examined as a new laser diagnostic. Calibration of Dy:YAG phosphor was carried out on the surface of a solid. The data were applicable for gas thermometry since the validation of the line intensity ratios method, showed good agreement with both the lifetime method and thermocouple data in a

Comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) analysis has shown that chromosome 5q deletions are the most frequent aberration in breast tumors from BRCA1 mutation carriers. To map the location of putative 5q tumor suppressor gene(s), 26 microsatellite markers covering chromosome 5 were used in loss of heterozygosity (LOH) analysis of breast tumors from BRCA1 (n = 42) and BRCA2 mutation carriers (n = 67

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether treatment with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) could be withdrawn for elderly residents who had been on treatment for at least one year and to evaluate a method for systematic drug review. DESIGN: Open, prospective, interventional study. SETTING: Four counties in Sweden. SUBJECTS: Elderly residents at 19 nursing homes, with ongoing treatment with S

We analyze how noise correlations probed by time-of-flight experiments reveal antiferromagnetic (AF) correlations of fermionic atoms in two-dimensional and three-dimensional optical lattices. Combining analytical and quantum Monte Carlo calculations using experimentally realistic parameters, we show that AF correlations can be detected for temperatures above and below the critical temperature for

Background/Aims: To build and analyze regression models predicting (1) the long-term cognitive outcome in donepezil-treated patients with Alzheimer's disease, and (2) the short-term (6 months) cognitive impact of treatment depending on cognitive severity at baseline. Methods: The Swedish Alzheimer Treatment Study (SATS) is an open-label, non-randomized, 3-year, multicentre study in a routine clini

Using scanning electron microscopy guidance, atomically resolved scanning tunneling microscopy investigations inside openings formed during the decomposition of a thick SiO2 film on a Si(111) surface have been performed. We report, for the first time, the presence of Ni atoms inside self-formed openings. The SiO2 decomposition as a function of annealing temperature and time was studied. By compari

Ghrelin is produced by gastric A-like cells and released in response to food deprivation. Interestingly, psychological stress also raises circulating ghrelin levels. This study compared plasma ghrelin levels in Sprague-Dawley (SPD) rats and high-anxiety Wistar Kyoto (WKY) rats. The two strains were also compared with respect to plasma gastrin, a gastric hormone with a pre- and postprandial release

The influence of choice of constitutive relation on the prediction of crack-opening stress for fatigue cracks using the finite-element method is investigated and compared with experimental results. Two different experimentally obtained stress–strain relations for IN718 at 550 °C were used for fitting material parameters to the linear kinematic and the Bodner–Partom viscoplastic constitutive models

This paper presents a first study of the decay constants of the charged, or flavor-off-diagonal, pseudoscalar mesons to two loops for three flavors of sea quarks, in Partially Quenched Chiral Perturbation Theory (PQChPT). Explicit analytical expressions up to order p6 in the momentum expansion are given. The calculations have been performed within the supersymmetric formulation of PQChPT. We also

The oceanographic conditions in the high-latitude North Atlantic ocean during the Holocene were reconstructed through analyses of sea surface temperature (SST; alkenone unsaturation ratios) and ice rafting (mineralogy and grain size) from two sediment sequences, one recovered from the Reykjanes Ridge at 59degreesN and the other from the Norwegian Sea at 68degreesN. Comparison of our records to pub