This international task force report updates general considerations for bronchial challenge testing and the performance of the methacholine challenge test. There are notable changes from prior recommendations in order to accommodate newer delivery devices. Rather than basing the test result upon a methacholine concentration (provocative concentration (PC20) causing a 20% fall in forced expiratory

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) prognosis remains very poor and has only marginally improved during the last decades. Epigenetic alterations have been the focus of many recent studies and offer valuable options for PDAC detection, prognosis and treatment. DNA methylation, histone modifications and microRNA (miR) level changes can be used as biomarkers. These alterations occur early in carc

Background Childhood aggressive antisocial behavior (CD) is one of the strongest predictors of mental health problems and criminal behavior in adulthood. The aims of this study were to describe personality profiles in children with CD, and to determine the strength of association between defined neurodevelopmental symptoms, dimensions of character maturity and CD. Methods A sample of 1886 children

Background: Anxiety has been suggested to increase among young individuals, but previous studies on longitudinal trends are inconclusive. The aim of this study was to analyze longitudinally, the changes over time of prevalence of self-reported anxiety in the Swedish population between 1980/1981 and 2004/2005, in different birth cohorts and age groups. Methods: A random sample of non-institutionali

Background: Prostate cancer is the second most frequent cancer among males worldwide, and most patients with metastatic disease eventually develop therapy-resistant disease. Recent research has suggested the existence of cancer stem-like cells, and that such cells are behind the therapy resistance and progression. Methods: Here, we have taken advantage of the relatively quiescent nature of stem ce

Using a parsimonious, analytically tractable dynamic model, we are able to explain up to 100 years of the available data on the dynamics of top-wealth shares for several countries. We build a micro-founded model of heterogeneous agents in which - in addition to stochastic returns on investment - individuals disagree marginally on their expectations of future returns and thus hold different asset p

Background: There are two slow-release ready-to-use forms of leuprorelin acetate (1-month and 3-month) that are available as solid, biodegradable implants for the treatment of advanced, hormone-sensitive prostate cancer. These implants have been shown to be as effective as traditional leuprorelin acetate microspheres for achieving successful testosterone suppression (≥0.5 ng/ml) and lowering prost

Teachers’ perception of organizational communication was assessed with a tailored questionnaire sampling 401 primary and lower secondary school teachers from two municipalities in Sweden (response rate 61 %). Overall, the teachers were satisfied with the workplace communication climate, the communication structure, and collegial communication, while time for communication, was reported deficient. Teachers’ perception of organizational communication was assessed with a tailored questionnaire sampling 401 primary and lower secondary school teachers from two municipalities in Sweden (response rate 61 %). Overall, the teachers were satisfied with the workplace communication climate, the communication structure, and collegial communication, while time for communication, was reported deficient.

Objective: To prospectively validate a previously developed classification and regression tree (CART) model that predicts the likelihood of a good outcome among patients undergoing inpatient cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Design: Prospective validation of a clinical decision rule. Setting: Skåne University Hospital in Malmo, Sweden. Patients: All adult patients (N = 287) experiencing in-hospital c

It is often claimed that the social sciences cannot be reduced to a lower-level individualistic science. The standard argument for this position (usually labelled explanatory holism) is the Fodorian multiple realizability argument. Its defenders endorse token-token(s) identities between “higher-level” social objects and pluralities/sums of “lower-level” individuals (a position traditionally called

BACKGROUND: Analysis of circulating tumor cells (CTC) is a promising prognostic marker in castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). The aim of this study was to investigate CTC detection and phenotyping as prognostic biomarkers for response to primary androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) of metastatic prostate cancer (PC). METHODS: PC patients presenting with a prostate specific antigen (PSA) >80

An exocrine pancreatic insufficient (EPI) pig model was used in the study. The effects of milk formula pre-digestion with immobilized microbial lipase, on the absorption and tissue accretion of long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCPUFA) were assessed. Thirteen male EPI pigs, 10 weeks of age, were used in the study. Six healthy pigs, 6 weeks of age, were used as controls. The pigs were fed eit

The orchid family is the largest in the angiosperms, but little is known about the molecular basis of the significant variation they exhibit. We investigate here the transcriptomic divergence between two European terrestrial orchids, Dactylorhiza incarnata and Dactylorhiza fuchsii, and integrate these results in the context of their distinct ecologies that we also document. Clear signals of lineag

Gallium nitride based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are presently fundamentally transforming the lighting industry, but limitations in the materials and fabrication methods of LEDs introduce substantial challenges to their future development. Among the remaining key bottlenecks of GaN LEDs are the resistive losses and current crowding that strongly increase the heat generation at high powers. In th

The relationship between land-use and floristic diversity in the landscape, for the last millennia, is analysed from two small lakes in southern Sweden. Pollen analysis and the Local Vegetation Estimates (LOVE) model are used to quantify land-cover at local scales with 100-year time windows. Floristic richness is estimated using palynological richness, and we introduce LOVE-based evenness as a pro

Six Cr-spinel grains from NWA 6077 brachinite-like and NWA 725 winonaite achondrites have been studied by single-crystal X-ray diffraction and structural refinement. From a chemical point of view, spinels from NWA 6077 show Cr/(Cr + Al) (i.e., Cr#) and Mg/(Mg + Fe2+) (i.e., Mg#) values similar to other brachinites, while the Cr# of NWA 725 is lower than that of literature winonaites. Spinels from