Search results

Asymptomatic bacteriuria (ABU) is a bacterial carrier state in the urinary tract that resembles commensalism at other mucosal sites. ABU strains often lack the virulence factors that characterize uropathogenic Escherichia coli (E. coli) strains and therefore elicit weak innate immune responses in the urinary tract. In addition, ABU strains are active modifiers of the host environment, which they i

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore experiences of persons in Nepal using lower-limb prostheses, in relation to specific articles in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that consider mobility, education, health, rehabilitation, and work and employment. Method: Qualitative interviews were conducted with 16 persons using lower limb prostheses. Content analysis was

A nested case–control study of invasive and in situ cervical cancer was performed within a community-based cohort of 13 595 Taiwanese women assembled in 1991, with a follow-up period of 9 years. Baseline serum or plasma samples were analysed for antibodies against human papillomavirus (HPV) types 6, 16 and 18 and Chlamydia trachomatis. In total, 114 cases (42 incident cases identified during follo

Background Impaired muscarinic receptor-mediated vasodilation is an important feature of early atherosclerosis. Earlier studies on apolipoprotein E-knockout mice (apoE-KO) mice suggested adverse effects of Chlamydia pneumoniae infection on the endothelial vasomotor responses of aortas to the muscarinic agonist methacholine. Using additional aorta samples the present study investigated the response

The precarious employment types growing most rapidly in Sweden are on-call with zero hour contracts, umbrella organizations and crowdwork in the gig economy. In the Swedish binary system, those in precarious work often fall between the regulations for employees and those for the self-employed. Both the legislator and the social partners in Sweden work with these problems in the field of employee p

A method is presented that combines advanced experimental and numerical techniques in the determination of constitutive parameters. The general principle is that a specimen, producing a non-homogeneous stress state, is deformed rapidly. Load and deformation is recorded during the deformation and the event is also simulated using FEM. For the numerical calculation a set of constitutive parameters i

Inference of antibody gene repertoires using transcriptome data has emerged as an alternative approach to the complex process of sequencing of adaptive immune receptor germline gene loci. The diversity introduced during rearrangement of immunoglobulin heavy chain variable (IGHV), diversity, and joining genes has however been identified as potentially affecting inference specificity. In this study,

Human C4b-binding protein (C4BP) protects host tissue, and those pathogens able to hijack this plasma glycoprotein, from complement-mediated destruction. We now show that the first two complement control protein (CCP) modules of the C4BP alpha-chain, plus the four residues connecting them, are necessary and sufficient for binding a bacterial virulence factor, the Streptococcus pyogenes M4 (Arp4) p

In this study, we found Lewis X (Le(X)) determinants on 68% of Helicobacter pylori isolates from patients with chronic gastroduodenal diseases. Anti-Le(X) IgG were detected more frequently in the sera from dyspeptic children and adults (45 and 46%), with or without proved (culture) H. pylori infection, than in the sera from healthy individuals (14%, and 25%). In contrast, the prevalence of anti-Le

Incidence of human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is rising in several countries. Intriguingly, large variations of HPV16 viral load and different proportions of the physical viral status among HNSCC have been reported. We analysed fresh biopsies of 275 HNSCC patients from the South Swedish Health Care Region for HPV types with modified general primer P

Manual selection of finger trabecular bone texture regions on hand X-ray images is time-consuming, tedious, and observer-dependent. Therefore, we developed an automated method for the region selection. The method selects square trabecular bone regions of interest above and below the second to fifth distal and proximal interphalangeal joints. Two regions are selected per joint (16 regions per hand)

This chapter explores how nursing home managers grapple with local manifestations of the wicked problems that plague elderly care. It shows the tension between managers' lofty ideals of high-quality, individualized care and their continuous struggle to handle very basic troubles that ultimately appear to be grounded in a lack of resources, such as high personnel turnover and staff complaints about

Infection represents an evolutionary arms race between pathogen and host. Thus, scientists find that pathogenic microbes have evolved elegant strategies to manipulate or avoid our immune system, allowing them to persist within the human population. This thesis is largely focused on how bacteria regulate and exploit the type I interferon (IFN) response in infected macrophages – a processes of centr

The purpose of the present study is to introduce a point process model for characterizing the pattern of atrial fibrillation (AF) episodes. A variant of the bivariate Hawkes process is proposed, accounting for clustered episodes. The model parameters are inferred by the maximum likelihood method. The goodness-of-fit analysis show that model fits the data in most of the recordings (27 out of 32). T

Coxsackievirus A24 variant (CVA24v), the main causative agent of acute hemorrhagic conjunctivitis (AHC), can be isolated from both the eyes and lower alimentary tract. However, the molecular features of CVA24v in feces is not well-documented. In this study, we compared the VP1 and 3C sequences of CVA24v strains isolated from feces during AHC epidemics in Cuba in 1997, 2003, and 2008–2009 with thos