The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) require nations to ensure adequate water supply for all. For Kazakhstan, this means that rural areas will need much stronger attention as they have been rather neglected in efforts to comply with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This study aims to establish a baseline data concerning the current situation in villages that will need interventions acc

A clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease is currently made on the basis of results from cognitive tests in combination with medical history and general clinical evaluation, but the peptide amyloid-beta (Aβ) in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is increasingly used as a biomarker for amyloid pathology in clinical trials and in recently proposed revised clinical criteria for Alzheimer's disease. Recent a

Procellariiform or 'tubenosed' seabirds are challenged to find prey and orient over seemingly featureless oceans. Previous studies have found that life-history strategy (burrow versus surface nesting) was correlated to foraging strategy. Burrow nesters tended to track prey using dimethyl sulphide (DMS), a compound associated with phytoplankton, whereas surface-nesting species did not. Burrow neste

This paper considers switching output feedback control of linear systems and variable-structure systems. Theory for stability analysis and design for a class of observer-based feedback control systems is presented. A circle-criterion approach can be used to design an observer-based state feedback control which yields a closed-loop system with specified robustness characteristics. The approach is r

Introduction: Most previous joint imaging scales for haemophilia have focused on earlier disease stages observed in younger patients. Aim: We sought to demonstrate that the 45-item extended magnetic resonance imaging (eMRI) scale is a valid instrument for measuring joint status in adults with severe haemophilia A. Methods: Six scale categories (effusion/haemarthrosis, synovial hypertrophy, hemosid

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

Galectin-3 is an important protein in molecular signalling events involving carbohydrate recognition, and an understanding of the hydrogen-bonding patterns in the carbohydrate-binding site of its C-terminal domain (galectin-3C) is important for the development of new potent inhibitors. The authors are studying these patterns using neutron crystallography. Here, the production of perdeuterated huma

Abstract– Neural grafting has over the last decade emerged as a possible tool for the substitution of damaged neurons in the central nervous system and for the promotion of symptomatic recovery after brain damage. Transplantation studies in the 6‐hydroxydopamine lesion rat model of Parkinson's disease were initiated in the late seventies. The first studies were based on the neuronal replacement pa

Objective To develop and validate ClinESSDAI (Clinical European League Against Rheumatism Sjögren's Syndrome Disease Activity Index), ie, ESSDAI without the biological domain. Patients and methods The 702 fictive vignettes derived from 96 real cases of primary Sjögren's syndrome of the ESSDAI development study were used. As for ESSDAI development, the physician assessment of disease activity (0-10

In diabetes, pancreatic ß-cells play a key role. These cells are clustered within structures called islets of Langerhans inside the pancreas and produce insulin, which is directly secreted into the blood stream. The dense vascularization of islets of Langerhans is critical for maintaining a proper regulation of blood glucose homeostasis and is known to be affected from the early stage of diabetes.

Measures of physical integrity rights violations typically focus on abuses by state actors. However, nonstate actors also represent a grave threat to personal security. This article introduces the Societal Violence Scale (SVS) which uses the US State Department Human Rights reports as a basis for developing a new scale of physical integrity rights abuses by nonstate actors to gain a more comprehen

We report the first results from our program to examine the metallicity distribution of the Milky Way nuclear star cluster connected to Sgr A∗, with the goal of inferring the star formation and enrichment history of this system, as well as its connection and relationship with the central 100 pc of the bulge/bar system. We present the first high-resolution (R ∼ 24,000), detailed abundance analysis

. C9orf72 repeat expansions are a common cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia. To date, no large-scale study of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) has been undertaken to assess the role of . C9orf72 repeat expansions in the disease. Here, we investigated the prevalence of . C9orf72 repeat expansions in a large cohort of DLB cases and identified no pathogenic repeat expan

The implementation of global anti-doping regulations was intended to provide a level playing field for all athletes entering sports competitions. However, studies have shown that the worldwide harmonization of rules has not been entirely efficacious. For instance, great variation has been found in how anti-doping organizations implement anti-doping regulations, and it has also been shown that athl

Mitochondrial disorders cause energy failure and metabolic derangements. Metabolome profiling in patients and animal models may identify affected metabolic pathways and reveal new biomarkers of disease progression. Using liver metabolomics we have shown a starvation-like condition in a knock-in (Bcs1lc.232A>G) mouse model of GRACILE syndrome, a neonatal lethal respiratory chain complex III dysfunc

Arsenic is a major contaminating heavy metal due to its frequent occurrence and toxicity. Out of different remediation approaches, bioremediation using bacteria has been extensively studied. In this study, 29 bacterial isolates were screened for their arsenic tolerance capacity. One of the isolate, MUM2 showed maximum arsenic tolerance (10mM). Antioxidant enzymes were assayed in this isolate under

Background Alveolar macrophages (AMFs) are critical regulators of lung function, and may participate in graft rejection following lung transplantation. Recent studies in experimental animals suggest that most AMFs are self-maintaining cells of embryonic origin, but knowledge about the ontogeny and life span of human AMFs is scarce. Methods To follow the origin and longevity of AMFs in patients wit