The splice variant INS-IGF2 entails the preproinsulin signal peptide, the insulin B-chain, eight amino acids of the C-peptide and 138 unique amino acids from an ORF in the IGF2 gene. The aim was to determine whether levels of specific INS-IGF2 autoantibodies (INS-IGF2A) were related to age at diagnosis, islet autoantibodies, HLA-DQ, or both, in newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes patients and controls

In several reports, the construction industry has been criticized for inefficiencies, errors and increasing costs. Although the industry's critics and researchers implicitly call for a change in human behaviour, this is seldom explicitly problematized by any of them. It is rather seen as a natural consequence of the suggested measures for improvements. Researchers have begun to question if the inf

Utilizing time series modeling entails estimating the model parameters and dispersion. Classical estimators for autocorrelated observations are sensitive to presence of different types of outliers and lead to bias estimation and misinterpretation. It is important to present robust methods for parameters estimation which are not influenced by contaminations. In this article, an estimation method en

Recent investigations have indicated that different solvation methods give qualitatively different results for the nonpolar solvation contribution to ligand-binding affinities. Therefore, we have calculated the nonpolar solvation contribution to the free energy of benzene binding to the T4 lysozyme Leu99Ala mutant using thermodynamic integration (TI) and three approximate methods. The total bindin

Objectives We investigated the association between occupational exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDC) and the risk of uveal melanoma using international data of a case control study from nine European countries. Methods After exclusion of proxy interviews, 280 cases and 3084 control subjects were included in the final analysis. Information on possible exposure to EDC was derived from 27

A number of minimal problems of structure from motion for cameras with radial distortion have recently been studied and solved in some cases. These problems are known to be numerically very challenging and in several cases there were no practical algorithms yielding solutions in floating point arithmetic. We make some crucial observations concerning the floating point implementation of Gröbner bas

surgery (i.e. resection or liver transplantation), but only 10-20% of patients are candidates for this. In other patients, a variety of palliative treatments can be given, such as chemoembolization, radiofrequency ablation or recentlyPrimary liver cancers (i.e. hepatocellular carcinoma or cholangiocarcinoma) are worldwide some of the most frequent cancers, with rapidly fatal liver failure in a lar

The aim of the study was to identify whether a ventilated cooling shirt was effective in reducing heat strain in hot climate. 8 female volunteers (age: 26±5 years; height: 165±7 cm; body weight: 58±9 kg) were exposed in heat (38 °C, 45 % RH) for 2 hours with simulated office work. In the first hour they were in normal summer wears (total thermal insulation 0.7 clo); in the second hour a ventilated

The aim was to investigate job strain and stress of conscience among nurse assistants working in residential care and to explore associations with personal and work-related aspects and health complaints.

We revisit the question how inward FDI and multinational ownership affect relative labor demand. Motivated by the recent literature that distinguish between skills and tasks, we argue that the impact of multinational and foreign ownership on the demand for labor is better captured by focusing on job tasks rather than education. We use Swedish matched employer-employee data and find that changes of

An adjuvanted pandemic H1N1 influenza (pH1N1) vaccine (Pandemrix®) was reported as highly immunogenic resulting in seroconversion in 77 to 94% of adults after administration of a single dose. The aim of the study was to investigate the impact of different anti-rheumatic treatments on antibody response to pH1N1 vaccination in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and spondylarthropathy (SpA).

SUMMARY Malaria parasites often manage to maintain an infection for several months or years in their vertebrate hosts. In humans, rodents and birds, most of the fitness costs associated with malaria infections are in the short initial primary (high parasitaemia) phase of the infection, whereas the chronic phase (low parasitaemia) is more benign to the host. In wild birds, malaria parasites have ma

The concept of ‘social return on investment’ (SROI) has come to play an important role in debates about how social enterprises and charities conceptualise, measure and communicate their achievements. In this paper we analyse the nature and role of SROI as used in the UK for impact assessment of such organisations. The paper offers insight into methodological and procedural aspects of the framework

Thrombospondin-4 (TSP-4) is a multidomain calcium-binding protein that has both intracellular and extracellular functions. As an extracellular matrix protein it is involved in remodeling processes. Previous work showed that in the cardiovascular system, TSP-4 expression is induced in the heart in response to experimental pressure overload and infarction injury. Intracellularly, it mediates the end

The shortage of donor lungs restricts the number of lung transplantations that can be performed. However, extension of the donor pool using organs donated after cardiac death (DCD) could potentially increase the number of patients who undergo transplantation. To establish acceptance among hospital personnel and the donor's next of kin for the uncontrolled DCD procedure we proposed a simplified pre

Aims. Oxidation of LDL in the extracellular matrix of the arterial wall results in formation of malondialdehyde (MDA) that modifies surrounding matrix proteins. This is associated with activation of an immune response against modified extracellular matrix proteins present in atherosclerotic plaques. Clinical studies have revealed an inverse association between antibodies to MDA-modified fibronecti

To determine the relationship between changes in antibody levels towards citrullinated peptides derived from different candidate autoantigens and therapeutic outcome in early rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

We relate the adsorption from mixtures of well-defined poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM) dendrimers of generations 4 and 8 with sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) at the air-water interface to the bulk solution properties. The anionic surfactant shows strong attractive interactions with the cationic dendrimers at pH 7, and electrophoretic mobility measurements indicate that the association is primarily driven by