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Background: Current information on the role of internists in the European countries is scarce. This report describes the results of a survey of the practice of internists in Europe. Methods: Two online questionnaire-based surveys were carried out by the European Board of Internal Medicine, one on the practice of internists and the other on postgraduate training in internal medicine. The national i
Primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS) is a systemic rheumatic disease in which gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms are common. Faecal calprotectin (FC) is a non-invasive biomarker that has been suggested to discriminate organic intestinal disease from functional disorders. The purpose of this study was to explore the usefulness of FC testing in patients with pSS.
We examine the problem of stability of persistent currents in a mixture of two Bose gases trapped in an annular potential. We evaluate the critical coupling for metastability in the transition from quasi-one- to two-dimensional motion. We also evaluate the critical coupling for metastability in a mixture of two species as a function of the population imbalance. The stability of the currents is sho
1. Temperate semi-natural grasslands are characterized by high levels of species diversity and have a high conservation value. Plant species diversity in grazed semi-natural grasslands is known to be influenced by management intensity and habitat connectivity. Both grazing pressure and between-patch connectivity are expected to depend on the movement patterns of livestock in the landscape. 2. The
(23) Na magnetic resonance imaging and the delayed gadolinium-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging methods to investigate cartilage can be used to determine the fixed charge density of cartilage. The methods give results that differ by a factor of 2. In this study, we use Monte Carlo simulations on a model system of cartilage and find that the difference originates from the Coulombic intermolecular
The oxidation of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) gives a range of products, from semi-volatile to extremely low-volatility compounds. To treat the interaction of these secondary organic vapours with the particle phase, global aerosol microphysics models generally use either a thermodynamic partitioning approach (assuming instant equilibrium between semi-volatile oxidation products and
Understanding the interaction between surfaces and their surroundings is crucial in many materials-science fields, such as catalysis, corrosion, and thin-film electronics, but existing characterization methods have not been capable of fully determining the structure of surfaces during dynamic processes, such as catalytic reactions, in a reasonable time frame. We demonstrate an x-ray-diffraction-ba
Background: Chronic postoperative pain is a major drawback of inguinal hernia repair. This study compared the frequency of chronic pain after laparoscopic (totally extraperitoneal patch, TEP) and open (Lichtenstein) repairs. Methods: A randomized multicentre study with 5 years' follow-up was conducted on men with a primary inguinal hernia. Chronic pain was categorized as mild, moderate or severe b
Abstract Objective. The aim of this study was to present early outcome data for patients treated for penile cancer with organ-sparing reconstructive surgery at two referral centres in Sweden. Material and methods. Oncological, cosmetic and functional outcome and complications were analysed retrospectively during the period 2011-2013. Twelve patients with non-invasive penile cancer were treated wit
Recent studies have shown that accounting for intraspecific trait variation (ITV) may better address major questions in community ecology. However, a general picture of the relative extent of ITV compared to interspecific trait variation in plant communities is still missing. Here, we conducted a meta-analysis of the relative extent of ITV within and among plant communities worldwide, using a data
Pneumonia is a form of lung infection that may be caused by various micro-organisms. The predominant site of infection in pneumonia is debatable. Advances in the fields of diagnostic and therapeutic medicine have had a less than optimal effect on the outcome of pneumonia and one of the many causes is likely to be inadequate antimicrobial concentrations at the site of infection in lung tissue. Trad
Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have begun to identify the common genetic component to ischaemic stroke (IS). However, IS has considerable phenotypic heterogeneity. Where clinical covariates explain a large fraction of disease risk, covariate informed designs can increase power to detect associations. As prevalence rates in IS are markedly affected by age, and younger onset cases may have h
Most biological functions of carotenoids relate to strong visible absorption. In a quest to protein matrix effects on spectra, the shifts produced by solvent refractive index (n) and static dielectric permittivity (ε) were quantified for visible absorption maxima of β-carotene and a model compound with sharper bands, tetra-tert-butylnonaene ttbP9. The dispersive red shift that depends on optical d
Background: The increasing incidence of oropharyngeal cancer in many developed countries has been attributed to human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV16) infections. Recently, HPV16 E6 serology has been identified as a promising early marker for oropharyngeal cancer. Therefore, characterization of HPV16 E6 seropositivity among individuals without cancer is warranted. Methods: 4,666 controls were pooled
Research on episodic memory has established that spontaneous eye movements occur to spaces associated with retrieved information even if those spaces are blank at the time of retrieval. Although it has been claimed that such looks to "nothing" can function as facilitatory retrieval cues, there is currently no conclusive evidence for such an effect. In the present study, we addressed this fundament
The content of zinc, iron, calcium and phytate in the 16 most consumed foods from 5 villages in a tropical rural area of Bolivia was analyzed. The fooditems were selected according to a completed food frequency questionnaire. Minerals were analyzed by atomic absorption and phytates by HPIC chromatography. The molar ratios of phytate:mineral are presented as indication of the mineral bioavailabilit
Cultural transmission can increase the flexibility of behavior, such as bird song. Nevertheless, this flexibility often appears to be constrained, sometimes by preferences for learning certain traits over others, a phenomenon known as "biased" learning or transmission [1]. The sequential colonization of the Atlantic Islands by the chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs) [2] provides a unique model system in
The Gauss–Lagrange model for ocean waves describes the vertical and horizontal movements of water particles as three correlated Gaussian fields. The model can produce irregular waves, asymmetric in both vertical and horizontal direction, and by judicious choice of a single skewness parameter the front–back asymmetry can be regulated to realistic values. In this paper, it is shown that this additiv
Ideals and visions of a Library 2.0 have in recent years been widely discussed in public library research and practice. Influenced by the Web 2.0 discourse, the Library 2.0 rhetoric has to a large extent been coloured by utopian and revolutionary overtones, identifying social media as key to transforming the public library institution. While previous research has primarily addressed this developme
The transient receptor potential, vanilloid 4 (TRPV4), is a calcium permeable ion channel expressed in airway epithelial cells. Based on studies of cell lines and animals, TRPV4 has been suggested to play a role in the regulation of ciliary beat frequency (CBF). Whether the same is true for human ciliated epithelial cells is not known. Therefore, the aim was to examine the expression and function
