AIMS: Prolongation of interatrial conduction time has been reported in patients with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF). The study objective was to localize the region of the conduction delay in patients with lone PAF. METHODS AND RESULTS: Twenty-one patients with lone PAF and 23 patients with AV nodal re-entrant tachycardia ablation without history of PAF (control group) were recruited. Endocar

Measurements of regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) were performed in 16 women suffering from spider phobia. The non-invasive 133Xe inhalation method, giving information about the blood flow of superficial areas, was used. The subjects were studied under three conditions: during resting, when exposed to a videotape showing nature scenery, and finally when watching a video with living spiders. Duri

This article addresses the predominant degradation modes and life prediction of a plasma-sprayed thermal barrier coating (TBC). The studied TBC system consists of an air-plasm a-sprayed bond coat and an air-plasma-sprayed, yttria partially stabilized zirconia top layer on a conventional Hastelloy X substrate. Thermal shock tests of air-sprayed TBC and pre-oxidized TBC specimens were conducted unde

The conversion of sodium lactate to lactic acid with water-splitting electrodialysis was investigated. One way of reducing the power consumption is to add a conductive layer to the acid compartment. Doing this reduced the power consumption by almost 50% in a two-compartment cell, whereas the electric current efficiency was not affected at all. Three different solutions were treated in the electrod

Soft tissue sarcomas (STS) are characterized by deregulated proliferation. Ki-67 is a cell cycle antigen which may be elevated in proliferative states. We analysed Ki-67 expression in fixed and embedded tissues from STS in order to examine associations between proliferation, primary tumour characteristics, and metastasis. One hundred and eighty-two adult patients with trunk wall or extremity STS w

The glucose/xylose facilitator Gxf1 from Candida intermedia was expressed in the recombinant xylose-fermenting Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain TMB 3057. The new strain, TMB 3411, displayed approximately two times lower K (m) for xylose transport compared to a control strain not expressing Gxf1. In aerobic batch cultivation, the specific growth rate was significantly higher at low xylose concentrat

The purpose of the study was to investigate whether baseline quality of life (QoL) and changes in QoL scores from baseline are prognostic for time to progression (TTP) and/or overall survival (OS) in patients with advanced breast cancer receiving docetaxel (T) or sequential methotrexate and 5-fluorouracil (MF). QoL was assessed at baseline and before each treatment using the European Organization

IEEE802.11 WLANs show increasing growth in popularity. Since these networks operate in the unlicensed ISM bands where the number of non-overlapping channels is limited, the growing number of wireless nodes leads to interference. It is well known that the interference leads to degraded performance of WLANs, especially in densely populated areas where the number of overlapping nodes is very large. C

Replacing fossil fuels by bio-fuels has many advantages, such as the reduction of CO2-emission to the atmosphere, the possibility for non-oil-producing countries to be self-sufficient in fuel, and increased local job opportunities. Bio-ethanol is such a promising renewable fuel. However, today it is produced from sugar or starch-raw materials that are relatively expensive. To lower the production

Lately, many different methods of linkage, association or joint analysis for family data have been invented and refined. Common to most of those is that they require a map of markers that are in linkage equilibrium. However, at the present day, high-density single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) maps are both more inexpensive to create and they have lower genotyping error. When marker data is inco

Müller cell morphology and degree of activation in adult retinal transplants have, to our knowledge, never been reported previously. We transplanted adult rabbit neuroretinal full-thickness sheets, prepared under strict control, to the subretinal space of adult rabbits. After surviving 6-174 days, eyes were examined in the light microscope, and grafts displaying the normal laminated morphology wer

Solid electrolyte membranes based on comb-shaped poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) doped with lithium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (LiTFSI) salt in blends with poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) (PVDF-HFP) have been studied. Membranes containing between 70 and 100 wt% PEG were prepared by a convenient two-step process where films containing a mixture of mono- and dimethacrylate-termi

BACKGROUND: Total serum sialic acid is a recently investigated marker for cardiovascular mortality and carotid atherosclerosis. This study tested the hypothesis that past infection by Herpes simplex type 1 or type 2 viruses or Cytomegalovirus or Chlamydia pneumoniae accounts for the association between serum total sialic acid and atherosclerosis. METHODS: Population-based samples of men and women

The objective of this paper is to theoretically quantify large deflections of chromium nanocantilevers using Euler's theory. We show that, remarkably, Euler's theory originally derived for elastic macroscopic rods made of homogeneous material also describes the bending of nanocantilevers. In addition, the theory yields a precise method to deduce Young's extension modulus of the nanocantilevers. In

Extraskeletal myxoid chondrosarcoma (EMC) is a soft-tissue neoplasm cytogenetically characterized by the translocations t(9;22)(q22;q11-12) or t(9;17)(q22;q11), generating EWS/CHN or RBP56/CHN fusion genes, respectively. In the present study, 18 EMCs were studied both cytogenetically and at the molecular level. Chromosomal aberrations were detected in 16 samples: 13 with involvement of 9q22 and 22

Since publication of the 1998 UNEP Assessment, there has been continued rapid expansion of the literature on UV-B radiation. Many measurements have demonstrated the inverse relationship between column ozone amount and UV radiation, and in a few cases long-term increases due to ozone decreases have been identified. The quantity, quality and availability of ground-based UV measurements relevant to a