This report, commissioned by the Governing Board’s working group on volunteering and the secretariat of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, aims to provide a picture of volunteering development since 1999 across the globe. It provides a broad outline of decision-making and commitments within the International Federation and describes the situation in National Soci

Syftet i forskningsrapporten är att analysera om och i så fall hur statlig och kommunal arbetsmarknadspolitik överlappar varandra samt om arbetslösa riskerar att varken aktualiseras inom kommunal eller statlig arbetsmarknadspolitik. Forskningsrapporten omfattar en kunskapsöversikt av forskning om kommunal arbetsmarknadspolitik samt en intervjustudiemed nyckelpersoner inom statlig och kommunal arbe

Depicting developmental processes as movements in free energy genetic landscapes is an illustrative tool. However, exploring such landscapes to obtain quantitative or even qualitative predictions is hampered by the lack of free energy functions corresponding to the biochemical Michaelis– Menten or Hill rate equations for the dynamics. Being armed with energy landscapes defined by a network and its

During pregnancy and involution, an extensive remodelling of the human cervical connective tissue occurs. This cervical ripening is one of the most pronounced physiological remodelling processes known in human connective tissue. To investigate how the remodelling is accomplished, the levels of mRNA for collagen I and III, versican and three small proteoglycans, biglycan, decorin and fibromodulin,

Xylose forms the direct carbohydrate-protein link in extra- or pericellular proteoglycans (PGs) that are substituted with either chondroitin sulfate (CS)/dermatan sulfate (DS) and/or heparan sulfate (HS). Cell surface PGs carrying HS are important regulators of cell growth. Xylose coupled to an aromatic compound can enter cells and initiate either CS/DS synthesis or both HS and CS/DS synthesis, de

OBJECTIVE: To study whether stress urinary incontinence after menopause is correlated to changes in the paraurethral connective tissue ultrastructure and metabolism.METHODS: Transvaginal biopsies were obtained from the paraurethral connective tissue in stress urinary incontinent women after menopause with and without estrogen replacement therapy, and from comparable controls. All the stress-incont

BACKGROUND:Atrioventricular plane displacement (AVPD) is an indicator for systolic and diastolic function and accounts for 60% of the left ventricular, and 80% of the right ventricular stroke volume. AVPD is commonly measured clinically in echocardiography as mitral and tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion (MAPSE and TAPSE), but has not been applied widely in cardiovascular magnetic resonanc

OBJECTIVE: The objective was to test the hypothesis that stress urinary incontinence in women is correlated to changes in the paraurethral connective tissue ultrastructure and metabolism.METHODS: Transvaginal biopsies were obtained from the paraurethral connective tissue in women of fertile age with stress urinary incontinence and in matched continent controls. All the stress-incontinent women wer

We have studied the effects of cytokines, separately or in combination, on the production of proteoglycans in confluent cultures of fibroblasts. The cytokines used were the transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta), the platelet derived growth factor-AA (PDGF-AA), the platelet derived growth factor-BB (PDGF-BB) and the epidermal growth factor (EGF). Hyaluronan production increased in cells treate

Binding, internalization, and degradation of 125I-labeled, antiproliferative, or nonantiproliferative heparan sulfate by human embryonic lung fibroblasts was investigated. Both L-iduronate-rich, antiproliferative heparan sulfate species as well as L-iduronate-poor, inactive ones were bound to trypsin-releasable, cell-surface sites. Both heparan sulfate types were bound with approximately the same

OBJECTIVE: To study whether changes in the properties of skin from patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) are the result of altered metabolism of dermatan sulfate proteoglycans.METHODS: Fibroblast cultures were established from skin of healthy controls, and from affected and unaffected skin of patients with SSc. Synthesized proteoglycans were labeled with 3H glucosamine and 35S sulfate. The amount

Image quality assessment (IQA) plays an important role in quality monitoring, evaluation and optimization for image processing systems. However, current quality-Aware feature extraction methods for IQA can hardly balance accuracy and complexity. This paper introduces multi-order local description into image quality assessment for feature extraction. The first-order structure derivative and high-or

OBJECTIVE: To study whether the transition to menopause is accompanied by changes in the paraurethral connective tissue and if these changes are modified by estrogen replacement therapy.STUDY DESIGN: Biopsies were obtained from the paraurethral tissue from 34 women; 12 menstruating, 14 postmenopausal without estrogen treatment, and 8 with estrogen treatment. Collagen concentration and collagen ext

The effects of various glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) on the growth rate of normal fibroblasts and a fibrosarcoma cell line (HT 1080) were examined. Cells were grown in 96-well microplates in the absence or presence of serum mitogens, epidermal (EGF), platelet-derived (PDGF), acidic fibroblast (aFGF), or basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF). Cell number was measured by using crystal violet to stain ce

We have modified a method (Gilles et al: Anal. Biochem., 159:109-113, 1986) for measuring cell number, that is based on the binding of crystal violet to cell nuclei and used it to assay effects of various glycosaminoglycans on growth of human lung fibroblasts. The procedure was modified by growing cells in microcultures (96 well microplates) and by measuring the amount of adsorbed dye using a micr

Fibroblasts synthesize a variety of proteoglycans among which is a family of structurally related small proteoglycans, i.e. PG-S1 (biglycan) and PG-S2 (decorin). Fibromodulin, which is present in some tissues as a keratan sulfate proteoglycan, also belongs to this family. We have used primary fibroblasts from fetal skin and bovine sclera in culture to study the metabolism of proteoglycans. In part

Quantitative proteomics plays an important role in validation of breast-cancer-related biomarkers. In this study, we systematically compared the performance of label-free quantification (LFQ) and SILAC with shotgun and directed methods for quantifying breast-cancer-related markers in microdissected tissues. We show that LFQ leads to slightly higher coefficient of variation (CV) for protein quantif

BACKGROUND: Clinical outcome of patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is highly variable. This study aims to identify and validate a prognostic protein signature for TNBC patients to reduce unnecessary adjuvant systemic therapy.METHODS: Frozen primary tumors were collected from 126 lymph node-negative and adjuvant therapy-naive TNBC patients. These samples were used for global proteom

Ferritin heavy chain (FTH1) is a 21-kDa subunit of the ferritin complex, known for its role in iron metabolism, and which has recently been identified as a favorable prognostic protein for triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) patients. Currently, it is not well understood how FTH1 contributes to an anti-tumor response. Here, we explored whether expression and cellular compartmentalization of FTH1

There is considerable pressure to define the key requirements of 5G, develop 5G standards, and perform technology trials as quickly as possible. Normally, these activities are best done in series but there is a desire to complete these tasks in parallel so that commercial deployments of 5G can begin by 2020. 5G will not be an incremental improvement over its predecessors; it aims to be a revolutio