Symptoms of infection and tissue pathology are caused by the host response; not by the microbe per se. The same response is also critical for the defence and is needed to clear infection. It is therefore essential to understand how the host response is activated and to identify the critical effector mechanisms of the defence. We have studied these issues in the urinary tract infection (UTI) model.

Poly(ethylene glycol) monomethyl ethers (MPEG) were grafted on copolymers of maleic anhydride and styrene, methyl methacrylate, and ethylhexyl methacrylate, respectively. Hydrolysis of the remaining anhydride residues gave graft copolymers carrying a large number of carboxylic acid groups along the main chains. The properties in aqueous solutions of these graft copolymers were studied with respect

In order to disentangle the causes of variations in water chemistry among European shallow lakes, we performed standardised sampling programs in 86 lakes along a latitudinal gradient from southern Spain to northern Sweden. Lakes with an area of 0.1 to 27000 ha and mean depth of 0.4-5.6 m located in low to high altitudes were investigated within the EC project ECOFRAME 1-4 times during June-October

A method for modelling reflectionless conductive dispersive media is presented. The media are either half-spaces or finite dispersive slabs with a spatially varying impedance. The problem of finding reflectionless media for plane waves at normal incidence is formulated as an inverse problem where the constitutive relation is to be determined as a function of depth given a reflection kernel which i

The electrochemical properties (such as the values of the formal potentials, the dependence of the formal potentials on solution pH, the reversibility of the electrochemical process) of flavin mononucleotide (FMN) and flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) adsorbed on a titanium electrode were dependent on the electrolyte. The formal potentials of adsorbed FMN and FAD in phosphate, HEPES and PIPES buff

he state-of-the-art understanding of activated sludge processes as summarized in activated sludge models (ASMs) predicts an instantaneous increase in the biomass activity (which is measured, e.g., by the corresponding respiration rate OUR, NUR, etc.) under sudden substrate concentration changes. Experimental data (e.g., short-term batch respiration experiments under aerobic or anoxic conditions) c

Self-catalyzed growth of axial InxGa1-xAs/GaAs heterostructures has been realized by molecular beam epitaxy. The growth of the wires is achieved from gallium/indium alloy droplets that are nucleated in situ. By variation of the In/Ga beam flux during the growth it was possible to vary the effective indium content up to x = 5%, as deduced from photoluminescence measurements. We have analyzed the de

The gap between theory and practice in social work continues to be great, and research results seem to live a life of their own, far from the field they were intended to improve. This article considers research information as a useful contribution to the practice of social work with elderly demented people and to qualitative methods used in the area of social scientific research. Arising out of a

A new type of agarose bead, superporous agarose, was used as a gel support for immobilization of human red blood cells (RBCs) mediated by wheat germ lectin. The number of immobilized cells was similar to that obtained with commercial wheat germ lectin–agarose but the cell stability appeared to be superior. This allowed improved frontal affinity chromatographic analyses of cytochalasin B (CB)-bindi

Immunodeficiencies form a distinct group of human hereditary diseases with several rare disorders. During recent years, information has been collected concerning immunodeficiency patients and mutations causing disorders. The large European (ESID) registry contains clinical data for some 7,000 patients. At present, international mutation databases have information for > 1,000 immunodeficiency patie

BACKGROUND: The intravenous anaesthetic propofol has been reported to increase cerebral vascular resistance in vivo. The underlying mechanisms are not fully understood, but may include effects on metabolism and direct effects on the vascular smooth muscle. The present study was designed to evaluate the direct effects of propofol on human pial arteries. METHODS: We investigated the direct effect of

Intrauterine fetal growth was followed in a prospective study of 654 consecutive singleton pregnancies. Ultrasound fetometry was performed in gestational weeks 17, 32, and 39, and then weekly until delivery took place. A total of 408 fetuses were examined in the 39th week and 55 investigations were performed in the postterm period. This enabled us to follow the intrauterine growth of the normal fe

Background/Aims: The aim of the study was to assess the prevalence of persisting symptoms 6 months or more after eclampsia. Methods: During a 2-year period (mid-1998 to mid-2000), 210 patients with eclampsia were included in a prospective cohort study of eclampsia in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. One hundred and twenty-three women (59%) were followed up with a structured telephone interview, 6-24 mo

A prospective study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy and safety of two-portal endoscopic carpal tunnel release. Two hundred and fifty-five consecutive hands (204 patients) were operated on by one surgeon using general or regional anaesthesia in the first 48 hands and local anaesthesia in the following 207 hands. The patients were evaluated preoperatively and 3 and 6 months postoperatively by

The growth of suitable protein crystals is an essential step in the structure determination of a protein by X-ray crystallography. At present, crystals are mostly grown using trial-and-error procedures, and protocols that rapidly screen for the crystal nucleation step are rare. Presented here is an approach to minimize the consumption of precious protein material while searching for the nucleation

The interaction between localized and extended vibrational modes in solids is of central importance in understanding how local vibrational modes decay into phonons. Interstitial oxygen (O-i) in silicon is a model system for studying such interactions. Using hydrostatic pressure, we have brought the antisymmetric stretch mode of O-18(i) in silicon into resonance with the second harmonic of the O-18