Background: Abdominal wounding by traumatic insemination and the lack of a long distance attraction pheromone set the scene for unusual sexual signalling systems. Male bed bugs (Cimex lectularius) mount any large, newly fed individual in an attempt to mate. Last instar nymphs overlap in size with mature females, which make them a potential target for interested males. However, nymphs lack the fema

The Siljan impact structure is the largest known impact structure in Europe, the result of a Late Devonian meteorite impact (380.9 +/- 4.6 Ma). It is outlined mainly by a ring of lakes and Palaeozoic sedimentary rocks of Ordovician to Devonian age. The Palaeozoic successions are generally poorly exposed, but often well preserved with clear stratigraphy. At some locations they are strongly tectonis

The standardization of work processes is a common feature of the public administration, aiming at both efficiency and equal treatment of citizens. Combining this standardization with employee motivation is considered a challenge. This challenge is explored, based on a survey to 261 social insurance officers (SIOs) at the Swedish Social Insurance Agency. Results reveal that, contrary to expectation

The interest in the evaluation of health effects due to EMF has accelerated in the last decades, mostly motivated by the occupational and environmental exposures to humans by such non-ionizing fields. The increasing exposure to electromagnetic fields has been suspected to contribute to the rising incidence of cancer in industrialized countries Despite detailed analysis which provide a wealth of ac

Non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC), comprising of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and basal cell carcinoma (BCC), is the most prevalent cancer amongst Caucasians. The main risk factor for the development of NMSC is UV-irradiation but human papillo-mavirus (HPV) might be a co-factor. We extended the heterogeneity of the genus Betapapillomavirus by characterizing six putative types, HPV93 (species 1), 96

Epigenetic events have emerged as key mechanisms in the regulation of critical biological processes and in the development of a wide variety of human malignancies, including gastric cancer (GC), however precise gene targets of aberrant DNA methylation in GC remain largely unknown. Here, we have combined pyrosequencing-based quantitative analysis of DNA methylation in 98 GC cases and 64 controls ne

One problem in concentrating photovoltaic systems without active cooling is the formation of hot spots on the solar module cells. These hotspots are a result of uneven concentration of radiation within the solar module cells. The overall effect of concentrated heating is the reduction in the fill-factor of the solar module cell and the subsequent decrease in the overall efficiency of the system. I

Multifunctional buildings are characterized by multiple functions located within the same building. In this report specific problem areas are identified by the means of interviews and previous method development. The risks identified consider multifunctionality and antagonistic attacks. As a result from the previous method developed and the interviews, reference scenarios are suggested and conclus

Popular Abstract in Swedish För att förstå tillväxten av den kontinentala jordskorpan är det nödvändigt att kunna uppskatta balansen mellan juvenilt bidrag från manteln, infra-krustal omarbetning av jordskorpa och transport av krustalt material tillbaka till manteln. Sedan början av seklet har användandet av in situ U–Pb, Lu–Hf och O-isotop analyser av mineralet zirkon som ett verktyg för att adreTo understand the growth of continental crust, the balance between juvenile mantle derived extraction, infracrustal reworking and crustal recycling, needs to be estimated. Since the beginning of the century, the use of coupled in situ zircon U–Pb, Lu–Hf and O isotope analyses as a tool to address these questions have increased exponentially. Numerous compilations of ever growing datasets have been

Suppressor of cytokine signaling 2 (SOCS2) is known as a feedback inhibitor of cytokine signaling and is highly expressed in primary bone marrow (BM) cells from patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). However, it has not been established whether SOCS2 is involved in CML, caused by the BCR/ABL1 fusion gene, or important for normal hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) function. In this study, we demo

Airway epithelial injury is regarded as a key contributing factor to the pathogenesis of exercise-induced bronchoconstriction (EIB) in athletes. The concentration of the pneumoprotein club cell (Clara cell) CC16 in urine has been found to be a non-invasive marker for hyperpnoea-induced airway epithelial perturbation. Exercise-hyperpnoea induces mechanical, thermal and osmotic stress to the airways

New polysulfone (PSF) copolymers from bis(4-fluorophenyl)sulfone and based on equimolar mixtures of the rigid/compact naphthalene moiety with bulky connectors from bisphenols: tetramethyl, hexafluoro, and tetramethyl hexafluoro, respectively, were synthesized to measure significant physical properties related to the gas separation field. The flexible and transparent polymer dense films TM-NPSF, HF

In this work we report results of ferromagnetic resonance studies of a 6% 15 nm (Ga,Mn)As layer, deposited on (001)-oriented GaAs. The measurements were performed with in-plane oriented magnetic field, in the temperature range between 5 K and 120 K. We observe a temperature induced reorientation of the effective in-plane easy axis from [(1) over bar 10] to [110] direction close to the Curie temper

A 3D model is developed to describe an anode-supported planar solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), by ANSYS/Fluent evaluating reactions including methane steam reforming (MSR)/water-gas shift (WGSR) reactions in thick anode layer and H-2-O-2/CO-O-2 electrochemical reactions in anode active layer, coupled with heat, mass species, momentum, and ion/electron charges transport processes in SOFC. The predicte

Experimental data obtained in this study (Part II) complement the speciation data presented in Part I, but also offer a basis for extensive facility cross-comparisons for both experimental ignition delay time (IDT) and laminar flame speed (LFS) observables. To improve our understanding of the ignition characteristics of propene, a series of IDT experiments were performed in six different shock tub

Background: Performance of migrating birds can be affected by a number of intrinsic and extrinsic factors like morphology, meteorological conditions and migration strategies. We compared travel speeds of four raptor species during their crossing of the Sahara desert. Focusing the analyses on this region allows us to compare different species under equivalent conditions in order to disentangle whic

This essay discusses Universal Grammar (UG) and the materialization of internal and external language (commonly misconceived of as “lexicalization”). It develops a few simple but central ideas. First, the Universal Lexicon (the “lexical” part of UG) contains two elements: an initial root, Root Zero, and an initial functional feature, Feature Zero, identified as the Edge Feature (zero as they are v

The cliff-edge hypothesis introduces the counterintuitive idea that the trait value associated with the maximum of an asymmetrical fitness function is not necessarily the value that is selected for if the trait shows variability in its phenotypic expression. We develop a model of population dynamics to show that, in such a system, the evolutionary stable strategy depends on both the shape of the f

The Geological Society of America has sponsored versions of the geologic time scale since 1983. Over the past 30 years, the Geological Society of America Geologic Time Scale has undergone substantial modifications, commensurate with major advances in our understanding of chronostratigraphy, geochronology, astrochronology, chemostratigraphy, and the geomagnetic polarity time scale. Today, many part