Solid electrolyte membranes based on comb-shaped poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) doped with lithium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (LiTFSI) salt in blends with poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) (PVDF-HFP) have been studied. Membranes containing between 70 and 100 wt% PEG were prepared by a convenient two-step process where films containing a mixture of mono- and dimethacrylate-termi

BACKGROUND: Total serum sialic acid is a recently investigated marker for cardiovascular mortality and carotid atherosclerosis. This study tested the hypothesis that past infection by Herpes simplex type 1 or type 2 viruses or Cytomegalovirus or Chlamydia pneumoniae accounts for the association between serum total sialic acid and atherosclerosis. METHODS: Population-based samples of men and women

The objective of this paper is to theoretically quantify large deflections of chromium nanocantilevers using Euler's theory. We show that, remarkably, Euler's theory originally derived for elastic macroscopic rods made of homogeneous material also describes the bending of nanocantilevers. In addition, the theory yields a precise method to deduce Young's extension modulus of the nanocantilevers. In

Extraskeletal myxoid chondrosarcoma (EMC) is a soft-tissue neoplasm cytogenetically characterized by the translocations t(9;22)(q22;q11-12) or t(9;17)(q22;q11), generating EWS/CHN or RBP56/CHN fusion genes, respectively. In the present study, 18 EMCs were studied both cytogenetically and at the molecular level. Chromosomal aberrations were detected in 16 samples: 13 with involvement of 9q22 and 22

Since publication of the 1998 UNEP Assessment, there has been continued rapid expansion of the literature on UV-B radiation. Many measurements have demonstrated the inverse relationship between column ozone amount and UV radiation, and in a few cases long-term increases due to ozone decreases have been identified. The quantity, quality and availability of ground-based UV measurements relevant to a

For a set of rooted, unordered, distinctly leaf-labeled trees, the NP-hard maximum agreement subtree problem (MAST) asks for a tree contained (up to isomorphism or homeomorphism) in all of the input trees with as many labeled leaves as possible. We study the ordered variants of MAST where the trees are uniformly or non-uniformly ordered. We provide the first known polynomial-time algorithms for th

Factor IX is a vitamin K-dependent procoagulant zymogen of a serine protease. In the presence of Ca2+ the active form of factor IX (factor IXa beta) forms a complex with factor VIIIa on suitable phospholipid surfaces such as aggregated platelets. This macromolecular complex rapidly activates factor X. We have previously provided data that suggest an interaction between the NH2-terminal epidermal g

Background: More than ever, clinicians need regularly updated reviews given the continuously increasing amount of new information regarding innovative cervical cancer prevention methods. Material and methods: A summary is given from recently published meta-analyses on three possible clinical applications of human papillomavirus (HPV)-DNA testing: triage of women with equivocal or low-grade cytolog

Increasing the knowledge of various cell cycle kinetic parameters, such as the length of the cell cycle and its different phases, is of considerable importance for several purposes including tumor diagnostics and treatment in clinical health care and a deepened understanding of tumor growth mechanisms. Of particular interest as a prognostic factor in different cancer forms is the S phase, during w

The purpose of this study was to develop a method based on artificial neural networks for interpretation of captopril renography tests for the detection of renovascular hypertension caused by renal artery stenosis and to assess the value of different measurements from the test. A total of 250 99mTc-MAG3 captopril renography tests were used in the study. The material was collected from two differen

In this study, we investigated the interaction of fengycin, a lipopeptide produced by Bacillus subtilis, with lipid monolayers using the Langmuir trough technique in combination with Brewster angle rnicroscopy. Thermodynamic analyses were performed to get further information about the mixing behavior and the molecular interactions between the two components. The effect of fengycin on the structura

In these notes I have given a personally flavored expose of static density-functional theory (DFT). I have started from standard many-body physics at a very elementary level and then gradually introduced the basic concepts of DFT. Successively more advanced topics are added and at the end I even discuss a few not yet published theories. The discussion represents many of the personal views of the a

We have shown that protein kinase C (PKC) var epsilon, independently of its kinase activity, via its regulatory domain (RD), induces neurites in neuroblastoma cells. This study was designed to evaluate whether the same effect is obtained in nonmalignant neural cells and to dissect mechanisms mediating the effect. Overexpression of PKCvar epsilon resulted in neurite induction in two immortalised ne

Testing takes a large share of software development efforts, and hence is of interest when seeking improvements. Several test process improvement frameworks exist, but they are extensive and much too large to be effective for smaller organizations. This paper presents a minimal test practice framework (MTPF) that allows the incremental introduction of appropriate practices at the appropriate time

Channels were activated, in ripped-off patches from rat-cultured hippocampal neurons, by propofol alone, propofol plus 0.5 muM GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) or GABA alone. The propofol-activated currents were chloride-selective, showed outward-rectification and were enhanced by 1 muM diazepam. The maximum propofol-activated channel conductance increased with propofol concentration from less than

Humans are able to attentively discriminate number from 6 months of age. However, the age of the emergence of this ability at the pre-attentive stage of processing remains unclear. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded in newborn human infants aged from 3 to 5 days. At 500-ms intervals, the infants were passively exposed to 200-ms sequences of four tones. Each tone could be either 1000 or

Although heat shock proteins (Hsp's) are present in the sera of healthy individuals and at elevated levels in subjects with early cardiovascular disease, their physiologic role in and value for predicting the development and/or progression of atherosclerosis have not been evaluated. Serum was obtained from 218 subjects with established hypertension (diastolic pressure > 95 mm Hg) before their enro