OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to use transvaginal ultrasonographic measurements to find the thickness of the endometrium below which the risk of endometrial abnormality in women with postmenopausal bleeding is low. STUDY DESIGN: This multicenter study was carried out at eight clinics in four Nordic countries. The study included 1168 women with postmenopausal bleeding scheduled for curet

Purpose: To compare apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) measurements from hyperpolarized (HP) helium (He-3)-magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with quantitative data from multislice Computed Tomography (CT) (MSCT) of the whole lungs and pulmonary function tests (PFT). Materials and methods: Twenty-seven subjects, 22 with established emphysema and 5 with preclinical emphysema defined by PFT criteria

A bed load transport formula for non-cohesive sediment, based on the bed-shear concept of Meyer-Peter and Muller, was developed and validated for steady flows, oscillatory flows, and combined steady and oscillatory flows. The bed load formula introduced in this study was examined using data from experimental and field measurements for a wide range of flows and sediment conditions, as occurring in

In the production of pharmaceutical drugs, a large part of the production costs stem from the downstream processing and the chromatographic purifications required. In order to reduce purification costs the process performance must be increased, which means that the processes need to be less robust since robustness comes with the price of lower process performance, and thus, higher production costs

Alternative oxidase (AOX) functions in stress resistance by preventing accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), but little is known about in vivo partitioning of electron flow between AOX and the cytochrome pathway. We investigated the relationships between AOX expression and in vivo activity in Nicotiana sylvestris and the complex I–deficient CMSII mutant in response to a cell death elicito

Visual observations of Perseid meteors carried out in 1953-83 at the Onsala Space Observatory are analyzed to study the fine structure of the Perseid meteor stream maximum. Observed hourly rates are corrected for weather conditions and to a zenithal value. The Perseid activity curve is studied (1) for all observed Perseids, (2) for Perseids of app. magnitude 2.0 or brighter. The activity curve for

Using high-throughput technologies, abundances and other features of genes and proteins have been measured on a genome-wide scale in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. In contrast, secondary structure in 5'-untranslated regions ( UTRs) of mRNA has only been investigated for a limited number of genes. Here, the aim is to study genome-wide regulatory effects of mRNA 5'-UTR folding free energies. We performed

A total of 45 subfossil reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) antlers and bones - artefacts excluded - have been found over the years in the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The relatively high number of specimens suggests a stable residence of the species in the eastern Baltic region. For the first time, 12 of these finds were radiocarbon-dated. The ages of the samples range between 1208

The aim of this study was to investigate the pattern of 2-deoxy-2-[F-18]fluoro-D-glucose (FDG) uptake in relation to the intratumoral histopathological appearance. Materials and Methods: Intratumoral distribution of FDG in nude mice with xenografted tumours originating from an established head and neck squamous cell carcinoma was studied. FDG uptake and the con-elation to histopathological appeara

Consider a risk Y-1 (x) depending on an observable covariate x which is the outcome of a random variable A with a known distribution, and consider a premium p(x) of the form p(x) = EY1 (x) + etap(1) (x). The corresponding adjustment coefficient gamma is the solution of E exp{gamma[Y-1(A) - p(A)]} = 1, and we characterize the rule for the loading premium p(1)((.)) which maximizes gamma subject to t

Primary Sjogren's syndrome (SS) shares many features with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Here we investigated the association of the three major polymorphisms in IRF5 and STAT4 found to be associated with SLE, in patients from Sweden and Norway with primary SS. These polymorphisms are a 5-bp CGGGG indel in the promoter of IRF5, the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs10488631 downstream of

Intracellular cyclic AMP, determined in part by cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases (PDEs), regulates proliferation and immune functions in lymphoid cells. Total PDE, PDE3, and PDE4 activities were measured in phytohemagglutinin (PHA)-activated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC-PHA), normal natural killer (NK) cells, Jurkat and Kit225-K6 leukemic T-cells, T-cell lines transformed with huma

A constrained nonapeptide phage display library was evaluated as a potential source of affinity ligand(s) for purification of cutinase, a lipolytic enzyme. After seven cycles of biopanning, 500 clones were isolated and individually tested for their capability to interact with cutinase. Three out of six sequenced clones carrying a cutinase-specific constrained peptide showed the same insert sequenc

A Chlamydia trachomatis variant that contains a 377 bp deletion in the cryptic plasmid was recently reported in Sweden. This deletion includes the targets for Cobas Amplicor, Cobas TaqMan48, and Abbott m2000. We examined the proportion and characteristics of this variant in Örebro county, Sweden and developed an effective diagnostic solution. In total, 2,401 consecutive C. trachomatis culture samp

Traditional timber engineering design approaches use for simple geometries stress- or strain-based criteria for strength analyses. For more complex cases purely empirical methods are also used. Although practical, purely empirical methods are not general, and could lead to estimations on the unsafe side, if extrapolated outside their original scope. It is furthermore known that stress- or strain-b

Most current density functional theories rely upon the presence of hard cores, also between ions of like charge. These hard cores should in principle reflect exchange repulsion. However, by the way in which these theories are formulated, the hard cores effectively determine the range of ion-ion correlations. This is because the mutual repulsion between like-charged ions is truncated below the corr

Andrena hattorfiana is a rare solitary bee which has declined during the last decades throughout western Europe. It is specialised to forage pollen from plants of the family Dipsacaceae. Knowledge of distribution, dispersal propensity, and local population sizes is essential for successful conservation of A. hattorfiana. The investigated local bee populations (n = 78) were dominated by small local