Pattern recognition is an integral part of the innate immune system. The human contact system has been shown to interact with the surface of many bacterial and fungal pathogens, and once activated leads to the generation of antimicrobial peptides and the proinflammatory mediator bradykinin. Here we show that apart from these surfaces also neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) provide a surface tha

A combined paleomagnetic and Ar-40/Ar-39 study was carried out along eight stratigraphically overlapping sections in the Oligocene Afro-Arabian flood volcanic province in Yemen (73 sites). The composite section covers the entire volcanic stratigraphy in the sampling region and represents five polarity zones that are correlated to the geomagnetic polarity time scale based on Ar-40/Ar-39 ages from t

A recently introduced silicon microextraction chip (SMEC), used for on-line proteomic sample preparation, has proved to facilitate the process of protein identification by sample clean up and enrichment of peptides. It is demonstrated that a novel grid-SMEC design improves the operating characteristics for solid-phase microextraction, by reducing dispersion effects and thereby improving the sample

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is associated with significant improvement of motor complications in patients with severe Parkinson's disease after some 6-12 months of treatment. Long-term results in a large number of patients have been reported only from a single study centre. We report 69 Parkinson's disease patients treated with bilateral DBS of the subthalamic nucleus (STN, n = 49) or globus pall

Radiopaque cement containing barium sulfate causes significantly more bone resorption in vivo and in vitro than radiolucent cement. The aim of this study was to investigate the osteolytic potential of an alternative radiopaque agent, triphenyl bismuth (TPB). Bone cement particles containing various concentration of TPB (15 and 25 wt%) prepared by two methods, blending and dissolution, were added t

In recent years, systematic searches of both prokaryote and eukaryote genomes have identified a staggering number of small RNAs, the biological functions of which remain unknown. Small RNA-based regulators are well known from bacterial plasmids. They act on target RNAs by sequence complementarity; that is, they are antisense RNAs. Recent findings suggest that many of the novel orphan RNAs encoded

We present a result on the global existence of classical solutions for quasilinear parabolic systems with homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions in bounded domains with a smooth boundary. Our method relies on the use of Lyapunov functions.

The fecal microbiota of two healthy Swedish infants was monitored over time by terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) analysis of amplified 16S rRNA genes. Principal component analysis (PCA) of the T-RFLP profiles revealed that the fecal flora in both infants was quite stable during breast-feeding and a major change occurred after weaning. The two infants had different sets of

This paper investigates efficiency properties of profit-maximizing non-linear outlay schedules. It demonstrates that some well-known efficiency characteristics of the profit-maximizing non-linear outlay schedule may not continue to hold when the single-crossing condition is relaxed.

54 female breast cancer patients from 22 families with BRCA2 germ line mutations from Sweden and Denmark were compared with 214 age- and date of diagnosis-matched controls identified among breast cancer patients from South Sweden. At diagnosis, BRCA2-associated cases were more often node-positive (N+). OR=1.9 (95% confidence interval (CI)=1.0-3.6; P=0.036), and were more often clinical stage IV: O

Formal closed models for vehicular traffic flow are obtained based on the novel equilibrium solution of the Prigogine--Herman equation. To that effect, Hilbert and Chapman--Enskog asymptotic series expansions are employed, obtaining the Euler and Navier--Stokes equivalent equations for traffic flow.

The performance of continuous-time (CT) Delta Sigma modulators is limited by their sensitivity to clock phase noise (PN). The clock PN-induced in-band noise (IBN) is dependent on the magnitude and frequency of both the desired in-band signals and the out-of-band signals, as well as the shape of the clock PN spectrum. This brief presents a discrete-time (DT) model of the dominant clock PN-induced e

The European crow (Corvus corone) occurs in two subspecies (or species) with distinct plumage coloration: the black carrion crow (C. c. corone) and the grey and black hooded crow (C. c. cornix). We tested 42 passerine microsatellite loci for amplification in the European crow and identified 20 loci that were both polymorphic and easy to score. In 50 individuals sampled in the Danish part of the sp

Mixtures of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) or hydrophobically modified CMC with an oppositely charged surfactant (benzyldimethyltetradecylammonium chloride) in water were prepared. When the global polymer concentration is 0.18% by weight and the surfactant content is high enough, a precipitate with hexagonal order is formed. The precipitate composition shows practically constancy in its water conte

Background: Perioperative bleeding and postoperative adhesions are two problems encountered in abdominal surgery. Commercial products are available that decrease both bleeding and development of abdominal adhesions, but no products are effective in both situations. The combination of differently charged bioactive polypeptides, administered intraperitoneally, has previously been shown effective in

The history of von Willebrand's disease (VWD) is fascinating because it demonstrates how good clinical observations, genetic studies and biochemical skills can improve basic understanding of a disease and its management. The continuous efforts of scientists and clinicians during the last 80 years have significantly improved the knowledge of von Willebrand factor (VWF) structure and function and th

In this paper, we present the expression and characterization of two novel enzymes from the a-amylase family exhibiting cyclomaltodextrinase specificity. The nucleotide sequences encoding the enzymes were isolated from the genomic DNA of two thermophilic bacterial strains originating from Icelandic hot springs and belonging to the genera Anoxybacillus (AfCda13) and Laceyella (LsCda13). The genes w