Background: Growing up with congenital heart disease (CHD) often means transfer to adult care and lifelong medical follow-up. An optimal transition process usually involves a multipart collaboration between the patient, their parents and other family members, and the healthcare providers. Taking an active role while knowing when it is time to step aside can be difficult for all the concerned parti

Aims: To evaluate hope in hepatitis C patients 9 years after curative treatment with pegylated interferon and ribavirin. Background: Successful treatment of hepatitis C leads to improved quality of life in responders compared with non-responders. The long-term effect of successful treatment on hope in these patients is not known. Design: Cross-sectional follow-up study of patients who displayed a

Development of molecular markers that help to identify high-risk individuals or diagnose indeterminate pulmonary nodules could have a major impact on lung cancer clinical management. In this study, we evaluated the diagnostic potential of a newly-developed ELISA that specifically detects complement C4d. We measured this marker in five independent cohorts of plasma and bronchoalveolar lavage sample

BACKGROUND: Type 2 diabetes is highly prevalent and devastating. Obesity is a diabetogenic factor, driving insulin resistance and a compensatory demand for increased insulin secretion from the pancreatic cells; a failure to address this demand results in diabetes. Accordingly, primary and secondary prevention of obesity are at the core of diabetes prevention programs. The development of obesity an

Peatlands are important carbon reserves in terrestrial ecosystems. The microtopography of a peatland area has a strong influence on its carbon balance, determining carbon fluxes at a range of spatial scales. These patterned surfaces are very sensitive to changing climatic conditions. There are open research questions concerning the stability, behaviour and transformation of these microstructures,

The "habitat heterogeneity hypothesis" predicts positive effects of structural complexity on species coexistence. Increasing habitat heterogeneity can change the diversity (number of species, abundances) and the functional roles of communities. The latter, however, is not well understood as species and individuals may respond very differently and dynamically to a changing environment. Here, we exp

BACKGROUND - Multiple laboratory tests are used to diagnose and manage patients with diabetes mellitus. The quality of the scientific evidence supporting the use of these tests varies substantially. APPROACH - An expert committee compiled evidence-based recommendations for the use of laboratory testing for patients with diabetes. A newsystemwas developed to grade the overall quality of the evidenc

Background: Apolipoprotein A-I (apoA-I) in high-density lipoprotein (HDL) is a key protein for the transport of cholesterol from the vascular wall to the liver. The formation and structure of nascent HDL, composed of apoA-I and phospholipids, is critical to this process. Methods: The HDL was assembled in vitro from apoA-I, cholesterol and 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (POPC) at

OBJECTIVE We tested the associations between genetic background and selected environmental exposures with respect to islet autoantibodies and type 1 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Infants with HLA-DR high-risk genotypes were prospectively followed for diabetesrelated autoantibodies. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) came from the Illumina ImmunoChip and environmental exposure data were

OBJECTIVE In this study, we aimed to explore the mechanism by which TCF7L2 rs7903146 risk allele confers susceptibility to impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) or type 2 diabetes (T2D) in obese adolescents. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS The rs7903146 variant in the TCF7L2 gene was genotyped in a multiethnic cohort of 955 youths. All subjects underwent an oral glucose tolerance test with the use of the O

Purpose: Male breast cancer is associated with female breast cancer in families but whether male breast cancer clusters with other discordant cancers has not been studied. As concordant male breast cancers are utterly rare, discordant associations of male breast cancer with other cancers may reveal genetic and possible environmental risk factors contributing to male breast cancer susceptibility. M

Purpose: A well-functioning curbside system must consider several properties, such as the location of collection points, from a logistical standpoint to ensure efficient hauling and transportation. The collection point itself should also promote a good working Environment for the collection personnel. However, many older urban areas were not designed with modern logistical and environmental aspect

Purpose: Construction waste is one of the larger waste streams in the developed world. Its environmental impact can be reduced by increased waste sorting. Waste sorting efficiency, however, is influenced by the characteristics of an evolving construction site with space limitation, changing layout, different waste streams over time, and the many different actors involved. This study explores facto