Background The cholinesterase inhibitor donepezil is used to treat mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease. Its efficacy in severe dementia has not been assessed and is controversial. Our aim was to ascertain the effectiveness of donepezil in patients with severe Alzheimer's disease, by focusing primarily on cognition and activities of daily living. Methods We did a 6-month, double-blind, parallel-gr

Background Mental health interventions should demonstrate an effect on patients' functioning as well as his/her needs, in particular on unmet needs whose assessment depends on the perspective of either the patient or the clinician. However, individual met and unmet needs appear to change over time, qualitatively and quantitatively, raising questions about their sensitivity to change and about the

Population-based surveys have shown that health-related quality of life (HRQL) is influenced by patients' characteristics such as age, gender, living situation and diagnoses. The present study explores the impact of such factors on the HRQL of severely ill cancer patients. The study sample included 395 cancer patients who participated in a cluster randomised trial of palliative care. Median surviv

Cadmium is a widespread environmental pollutant, which is associated with increased risk of osteoporosis. It has been proposed that cadmium's toxic effect on bone is exerted via impaired activation of vitamin D, secondary to the kidney effects. To test this, we assessed the association of cadmium-induced bone and kidney effects with serum 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25(OH)(2)D); measured by enzyme

An ultrasound phase-locked, echo-tracking system was used to determine the dynamic properties of the distal abdominal aorta in 10 Caucasian male subjects (mean age, 25 years). Recordings were made at rest and during the blood pressure increase resulting from isometric exercise. The pressure diameter curve was nonlinear with an inflection at about 90-110 mmHg. Above this pressure range, the vessel

Intestinal alkaline sphingomyelinase (Alk-SMase) and neutral ceramidase may catalyze the hydrolysis of endogenous sphin-gomyelin (SM) and milk SM in human-milk fed infants. The enzymes generate sphingolipid metabolites that may influence gut maturation. Alk-SMase also inactivates platelet-activating factor (PAF) that is involved in the pathogenesis of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). We examined w

Precipitation is often the sole source of water replenishment in arid and semi-arid areas and, thus, plays a pertinent role in sustaining desert ecosystems. Revegetation over 40 years using mainly Artemisia ordosica and Caragana korshinskii at Shapotou Desert Experimental Research Station near Lanzhou, China, has established a dwarf-shrub and microbiotic soil crust cover on the stabilized sand dun

Purpose: Hypoxia in breast cancer is associated with poor prognosis and down-regulation of the estrogen receptor. Carbonic anhydrase IX (CA IX) is a hypoxia-inducible gene that has been associated with poor outcome in many epithelial cancers. Previous studies of CA IX in breast cancer have been carried out on mixed cohorts of premenopausal and postmenopausal patients with locally advanced disease

Hurlbutite has been identified as the first Be mineral from the Vastan (a) over circle iron mine, Sk (a) over circle ne, Sweden. The mineral is yellowish to whitish and its microscopic habit is platy and porous. Associated minerals are pinkish apatite, hematite, quartz and svanbergite. The unit cell dimensions calculated from powder X-ray diffraction data are: a = 8.321(8) Angstrom, b = 8.834(8) A

Novel propranolol analogues have been designed and synthesised and their enantioselective binding to the cellulose degrading enzyme, Cel7A, has been evaluated. Affinity and enantioselectivity have been determined by capillary electrophoresis experiments. Ligands with significantly improved affinity and selectivity have been obtained and an analysis of the results has led to insights concerning the

In October 1998 Stockholm County launched a 3-year vaccination campaign with the 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPV-23) directed towards all elderly persons. We analysed the impact of this campaign on the incidence and serotype distribution of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) in Stockholm County, where the vaccine coverage was 36%, as compared to Skane County, where no vaccinati

Fatty acid analysis was used for determining the extent of the development of the external mycelium of AM fungi (mixed inoculum from a sand dune) growing from roots of Festuca rubra and Plantago lanceolata in calcareous dune sand. The plants were raised in chambers specially designed to permit the growth of AM mycelium in root-free compartments. In two separate experiments, growth of external myce

Among the Cyanoprokaryota (blue-green algae), the genus Phormidium has thus far rarely been studied with respect to toxin production and potentially resulting human and environmental health effects. We here show that five previously unexplored freshwater species of this genus (Ph. bijugatum, Ph. molle, Ph. papyraceum, Ph. uncinatum, Ph. autumnale) are indeed capable of producing bioactive compound

The effects of the finite size of a liquid drop undergoing a phase transition are described in terms of the complement, the largest (but mesoscopic) drop representing the liquid in equilibrium with the vapor. Vapor cluster concentrations, pressure, and density from fixed mean density lattice gas (Ising) calculations are explained in terms of the complement generalization of Fisher's model. Account

We have found the equations that determine the self-adjoint extensions, and thus the boundary conditions, of the differential operator used in the multi-band k.p-theory, when the coefficients in the Kane-matrix are piecewise constant. Both the one-dimensional and the three-dimensional case have been investigated. A numerical calculation shows that the choice of boundary conditions affects the ener

Background: The objective was to investigate whether socioeconomic differences in fat intake may explain socioeconomic differences in cardiovascular diseases. Methods: The Malm Diet and Cancer Study is a prospective cohort study. The baseline examinations used in the present cross-sectional study were undertaken in 19921994. Dietary habits were assessed using a modified diet history method consist

We study the dynamics of highly excited states in acetylene initiated by an ultrashort vacuum ultraviolet laser pulse. Electronic states lying in the 4s-3d Rydberg region are excited with one femtosecond pulse, and the dynamic development of the states is monitored by a second short pulse which ionizes the system. We show that even for femtosecond pulses where the bandwidth of the exciting pulse c