Alcohol and tobacco consumption are closely correlated and published results on their association with breast cancer have not always allowed adequately for confounding between these exposures. Over 80% of the relevant information worldwide on alcohol and tobacco consumption and breast cancer were collated, checked and analysed centrally. Analyses included 58515 women with invasive breast cancer an

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in Europe and the US. This paper reviews the evolution of the Joint European Societies' guidelines with respect to their lipid recommendations. We stress the importance of lowering lipid levels to, or below, the currently recommended goals and argue that patients' global risk for CVD, rather than baseline lipid levels, should direct the in

Membrane filtration is a separation process already used in many industrial applications. However, optimization of the design and operating conditions is necessary to lower the investment and operating costs. To achieve this for industrial (multi-component) process streams, a combination of experiments and calculations is needed. The permeate flux and energy requirement are important design parame

A method for 3D mapping of scattering particle concentration in a gaseous medium based on the back-scattered light in a single direction has been demonstrated. The technique is originally developed for microscopy but now implemented on larger-scale samples. The technique used is known as structured illumination, where a sinusoidal grid pattern is projected onto the medium, thus marking the in-focu

Caregiving relatives continue to feel primarily responsible for the care and well-being of elderly persons, when they are admitted to hospital. Although involvement of relatives in decision-making is rare, and the hospitalisation therefore may be a frustrating experience, little is known of relatives, experience of the hospitalisation of elderly persons from a life-world perspective. In this pheno

This article studies the importance of demand and supply factors in the Swedish fertility transition using county-level data and panel regressions. Fertility started to decline around 1880 when marital fertility began a continuous decline. A gradual diffusion of parity-specific control was important in this process. The fertility of the oldest age groups declined fastest, even though the decline s

Evidence supports an important role for beta-amyloid (A beta) in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease ( AD). Here, we investigate baseline levels of the 40- and 42-amino-acid-long A beta peptides (A beta 40 and A beta 42) in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from a cohort of patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI, n = 137) in relation to the final diagnosis after 4 - 6 years of follow-up time. CS

The number of discovered non-radially pulsating white dwarfs (WDs) in cataclysmic variables (CVs) is increasing rapidly by the aid of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We performed photometric observations of two additional objects, SDSS J133941.11+484727.5 (SDSS 1339), independently discovered as a pulsator by Gansicke et al., and SDSS J151413.72+454911.9, which we identified as a CV/ZZ Ceti h

Heparin, a negatively charged sulphated glycosaminoglycan, is clinically the most important antithrombotic drug. Heparin augments the inhibitory activity of antithrombin (AT) towards thrombin, factor Xa (FXa) and other activated clotting enzymes. Tissue factor pathway inhibitor (TFPI) is an endogenous heparin releasable three domain Kunitz-type coagulation inhibitor which inhibits the crucial tiss

BACKGROUND: The study focused on investigating the effect of aminoguanidine on cardiovascular damages in diabetes and the possible mechanisms of its action. METHODS: Aminoguanidine (AMNG) was used to treat streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats, and the effects were compared to those obtained under insulin treatment. Blood metabolic parameters, *NO and ONOO- as well as protein carbonyl levels and ca

Purpose: To assess the frequency of embolization into retrievable inferior vena cava (IVC) filters during catheter-directed thrombolysis (CDT) and stent placement for acute iliocaval deep venous thrombosis (DVT). Methods: Serial phlebograms from 40 patients (28 women; median age 32 years) consecutively treated with CDT for DVT during a 12-year period were retrospectively evaluated for visible embo

The Hieracium flora of westernmost Dalarna, comprising the southern fringe of the Scandes alps (central Scandinavia), is extremely rich in species. The area is dominated by species-poor coniferous sub-alpine and taiga forest, but within this matrix there are small and isolated sites with high species richness of both Hieracium and other plants. Both steep mountain slopes with outcrops of base-rich

Protein H, a molecule expressed at the surface of some strains of Streptococcus pyogenes, has affinity for the constant (IgGFc) region of immunoglobulin (Ig) G. In absorption experiments with human plasma, protein H-sepharose could absorb not only IgG but also albumin from plasma. The affinity constant for the reaction between albumin and protein H was 7.8 x 10(9) M-1, which is higher than the aff

The Atlantic auk assemblage includes four extant species, razorbill (Alca torda), dovekie (Alle alle), common murre (Uria aalge), and thick-billed murre (U. lomvia), and one recently extinct species, the flightless great auk (Pinguinus impennis). To determine the phylogenetic relationships among the species, a contiguous 4.2-kb region of the mitochondrial genome from the extant species was amplifi

A method for studying PCB desorption behaviour from sediments using supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) and pressurized liquid extraction (PLE) is presented. Four sediments were investigated and extracted with supercritical carbon dioxide employing increasingly harsher extraction conditions ranging from 40 degrees C and 12MPa to 100 degrees C and 36.5 MPa. To ensure quantitative extractions, the

Statins inhibit cholesterol biosynthesis and protect against ischaemic stroke. It has become increasingly apparent that the beneficial effects of statin therapy may extend beyond lowering of serum cholesterol. The present study was done to explore possible pleiotropic statin effects at the level of the cerebral vascular smooth muscle. Lovastatin, lovastatin acid, simvastatin and pravastatin, were

The ADAM ( a disintegrin and metalloprotease) family consists of multidomain cell-surface proteins that have a major impact on cell behavior. These transmembrane-anchored proteins are synthesized as proforms that have ( from the N terminus): a prodomain; a metalloprotease, disintegrin-like-, cysteine-rich, epidermal growth factor-like, and transmembrane domain; and a cytoplasmic tail. The 90-kDa m