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BACKGROUND: National European cancer survival rates vary widely. Prolonged diagnostic intervals are thought to be a key factor in explaining these variations. Primary care practitioners (PCPs) frequently play a crucial role during initial cancer diagnosis; their knowledge could be used to improve the planning of more effective approaches to earlier cancer diagnosis. OBJECTIVES: This study sought t

Migratory birds use celestial and geomagnetic directional information to orient on their way between breeding and wintering areas. Cue-conflict experiments involving these two orientation cue systems have shown that directional information can be transferred from one system to the other by calibration. We designed experiments with four species of North American songbirds to: (1) examine whether th

The Hyttsjo granites occur in the extensively mineralised Langban-Nordmark area in the westernmost part of the Bergslagen ore province. They have been classified as late Svecokarelian granites due to their homogeneous and generally isotropic appearance in addition to a WR Rb/Sr age. Moreover, they have been considered as possible candidates for supplying essential metals to epigenetic mineralisati

Study objective: The principle of equity aims to guarantee allocation of healthcare resources on the basis of need. Therefore, people with a low income and persons living alone are expected to have higher healthcare expenditures. Besides these individual characteristics healthcare expenditure may be influenced by country of birth. This study therefore aimed to investigate the role of country of bi

Rationale Vitamin D has been shown to be involved in the host immune response toward Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Objectives: To test whether vitamin D supplementation of patients with tuberculosis (TB) improved clinical outcome and reduced mortality. Methods: We conducted a randomized, double-blind, place-bocontrolled trial in TB clinics at a demographic surveillance site in Guinea-Bissau. We incl

Neuroblastoma, the most common extracranial tumor of childhood, is derived from neural crest progenitor cells that fail to differentiate along their predefined route to sympathetic neurons or sympatho-adrenergic adrenal cells. Although expression of the high-affinity neurotrophin receptors, TrkA and TrkB, is of major importance in neuroblastoma, the significance of the expression of the low-affini

Background: Diabetes-prone (DP) congenic DR.lypllyp BioBreeding (BB) rats all develop Type I diabetes between 50 and 81 days of age, while DR. lyp/+ or DR.+/+ BB rats are diabetes resistant (DR). The DP rats display reduced weight gain prior to developing hyperglycemia, implying that metabolic events may precede diabetes onset. We tested the hypothesis that temperature measurements could serve as

A series of triclinic Fe1−xAlxVO4 phases with 0 <= x <= 1 were prepared and used in the oxidation of methanol to formaldehyde. The activity measurements revealed that both the activity and especially the selectivity to formaldehyde increased with time of operation for at least 16 h, indicating restructuring of the catalysts. Characterisation of the catalysts with XRD, XANES, and electron microscop

Nitric oxide (NO) is known to be an important relaxant of contractile activity in various muscles including the human uterine arteries. It has been suggested that NO plays a role in modulation of vascular action of arginin vasopressin (AVP), a strong vasoconstrictor of the human uterine arteries. Therefore, the purposes of this study were to investigate an involvement of endogenous NO in regulatio

The PDE3 enzymes or "low Kin cGMP-inhibited phosphodiesterases" have long been established as important mediators of cellular physiology, and synthetic PDE3 inhibitors have been critical to the delineation of the enzymes' roles. Yet despite decades of progress on the biology of these enzymes, the medicinal chemistry landscape relating to PDE3 inhibitors has remained essentially unchanged since the

Objective. C1q deficiency is the strongest risk factor known for the development of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), since almost all humans with a genetic deficiency of C1q develop this disease. Low C1q serum concentration is also a typical finding in SLE during flares, emphasizing the involvement of C1q in SLE pathogenesis. Recent studies have revealed that C1q has a regulatory effect on Toll

Ion microprobe U-Th-Pb analyses of zircons in variably metamorphosed and veined orthogneisses in the southern part of the parautochthonous Eastern Segment of the Sveconorwegian (1.20-0.90 Ga) orogen, SW Sweden, broadly define two age groups, oscillatory and sector zoned magmatic zircon cores yield 1.70-1.68 Ga while overgrowths, homogeneous crystals, and recrystallized domains in primary zircon yi

Airway reactivity to bronchoconstrictor mediators changes with age. We studied the effects of maturational change on airway responses induced by a thromboxane A2 mimetic, U-46619 (2, 6 and 20 nmol/kg; i.v.), leukotriene D4 (0.6 and 2 nmol/kg; i.v.) or vehicle (0.9% NaCl; i.v.) in immature (196 +/- 3 g: 2 weeks) and adult guinea pigs (512 +/- 5 g: 11 weeks). In the same animals, we measured both lu

Slipped-strand mispairing at sites containing so-called coding repeats (CRs) can lead to phase variation of surface proteins in Gram-negative bacteria. This mechanism, believed to contribute to virulence, has so far not been identified in a Gram-positive bacterium. In the genome of the Gram-positive human pathogen Streptococcus pyogenes, we identified pentanucleotide CRs within a putative signal s

The extant mammalian groups Monotremata, Marsupialia and Placentalia are, according to the ‘Theria’ hypothesis, traditionally classified into two subclasses. The subclass Prototheria includes the monotremes and subclass Theria marsupials and placental mammals. Based on some morphological and molecular data, an alternative proposition, the Marsupionta hypothesis, favours a sister group relationship

Objectives The aim of the present study was to test whether construction workers, who are known to have a relatively higher risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), had higher concentrations of cortisol in saliva and a lower relative variability when compared with white-collar workers. Methods Data from two groups of male construction workers with physically demanding job assignments, with either reg

There is a need to develop the enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose for production of ethanol from biomass. In recent years the inhibitory effects of lignin in lignocellulosic substrates has been the focus of several studies. This points to the importance of understanding the interactions between cellulose degrading enzymes and lignin. Surface active substances have been shown to adsorb to lignin sur

In the search for a triggering mechanism for the Paleocene-Eocene (P-E) boundary event, 55 Ma, centimeter-resolution chemical (e.g., Ir, Os, Pt) and isotope (e.g., (OS)-O-187/Os-188, He-3/He-4, Sr-87/Sr-86) records across this boundary have been established for six uplifted marine sections in Egypt, Spain and Denmark. The sections studied represent some of the stratigraphically most complete recor

Human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) and other long terminal repeat (LTR)–containing elements comprise a significant portion (8%) of the human genome and are likely vestiges of retroviral infections during primate evolution. Many of the HERVs present in human DNA have retained functional promoter, enhancer, and polyadenylation signals, and these regulatory sequences have the potential to modify t