Objectives. SSc is a systemic CTD characterized by fibrosis in skin and internal organs. Interstitial lung disease is a frequent complication with fibrosis in the lung parenchyma. The fibrotic process is believed to be influenced by leukotrienes (LTs) and also by oxidative stress. The aim of this study was to investigate the amount of LTs and 8-isoprostane, a marker of oxidative stress, in exhaled

Abstract Objectives. To compare identical versus compatible, ABO blood group matching effects on rejection and long-term survival after heart transplantation (HT). Design. Data were collected from 196 patients who underwent HT at Lund University Hospital between 1988 and 2008. Cox proportion hazard regression analysis was used to identify factors associated with reduced long-term survival. Results

Pancreatic cancer is an aggressive disease with poor prognosis, due, in part, to the lack of disease-specific biomarkers that could afford early and accurate diagnosis. With a recombinant antibody microarray platform, targeting mainly immunoregulatory proteins, we screened sera from 148 patients with pancreatic cancer, chronic pancreatitis, autoimmune pancreatitis (AIP), and healthy controls (N).

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Endovascular abdominal aortic repair requires an adequate sealing zone. The chimney graft (CG) technique may be the only option for urgent high-risk patients who are unfit for open repair and have no adequate sealing zone. This single-center experience provides long-term results of CGs with endovascular repair for urgent and complex aortic lesions.

Time resolved laser spectroscopy in the VUV spectral region is applied to investigate the (n=5-8) 3d(10) 4snp P-1(1) series of neutral zinc. The natural lifetimes of this series were measured by time-resolved laser-induced fluorescence. We find tau(n=5)=11.7(9) ns, tau(n=6)=80(8) ns, tau(n=7)=179(20) ns and tau(n=8)=356 (35) ns. These results are compared with a theoretical calculation.

We present a systematic study of the angular distributions of high-order harmonics generated with a femtosecond Cr:LiSrAlF6 laser. We investigate the influence of different parameters, namely laser intensity, nonlinear order, nature of the gas and position of the laser focus relative to the generating medium. We show that when the laser is focused before the atomic medium, harmonics with regular s

Autologous dermal fibroblasts may be useful in the treatment of diabetic skin wounds. We hypothesized that cultured fibroblasts or cultured keratinocytes would not only survive in a hyperglycemic wound environment but also enhance the rate of re-epithelialization. We previously developed a new porcine model of delayed cutaneous wound healing in the diabetic pig. Full thickness wounds were created

A new study has identified a large number of open chromatin regions harboring active regulatory elements in human pancreatic islets. A type 2 diabetes-associated SNP in TCF7L2 was found to be located in a region of allele-specific open chromatin and shows allele-specific enhancer activity, suggesting a potential mechanism for this disease association.

BACKGROUND: Cannabinoid (CB) receptors may be involved in the control of bladder function; the role of CB receptor subtypes in micturition has not been established. OBJECTIVES: Our aim was to evaluate the effects of cannabinor, a novel CB2 receptor agonist, on rat bladder function. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Sprague Dawley rats were used. Distribution of CB2 receptors in sensory and cholin

BACKGROUND: Subclinical myocardial injury has been reported in newborns with fetal weights < 2 SDs for gestational age. Intrauterine growth restriction might affect cardiac function and coronary flow (CF). METHODS: Seventeen newborns with intrauterine growth restriction and 15 age-matched healthy controls were enrolled in the study. Blood flow in the umbilical artery and maternal uterine artery wa

Many problems concerning resource management in modern communication systems can be simplified to queueing models under Markovian assumptions. The computation of the optimal policy is however often hindered by the curse of dimensionality especially for models that support multiple traffic or job classes. The research focus naturally turns to computationally efficient bounds and high performance he

The result of a search for the world's second type II (doubly-even and self-dual) convolutional code is reported. A rate R=4/8, 16-state, time-invariant, convolutional code with free distance dfree=8 was found to be type II. The initial part of its weight spectrum is better than that of the Golay convolutional code (GCC). Generator matrices and path weight enumerators for some other type II convol