OBJECTIVE: Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is frequently associated with increased pulmonary vascular resistance and thus with systolic load of the right ventricle. We hypothesized that levosimendan, a new calcium sensitizer with potential pulmonary vasodilator properties, improves hemodynamics by unloading the right ventricle in patients with ARDS. DESIGN: Prospective, randomized, pla

Mucous membrane pemphigoid (MMP) is an autoimmune bullous disease that primarily affects mucous membranes leading to a scarring phenotype. MMP patients produce auto-antibodies (auto-ab) that preferentially recognize two components of the dermoepidermal basement membrane zone (BMZ): bullous pemphigoid (BP)180 and laminin 5 (LN5). Since detection of disease-specific auto-ab may be critical for diagn

The aim of this paper is to highlight a not yet recognized hazard for mass failure (landslides) of contaminated soils into rivers and to provide an understanding of important interactions of such events. A first effort to investigate the problem is made focusing on the south eastern part of the Gota A"lv river valley, in Sweden, by combining geographical information on potentially contaminated sit

We prove the existence and uniqueness of global weak solutions to a shallow water equation. The weak solution setting is important to model the interaction of solitons for this equation.

A series of conformationally restricted N-"furanosides" has been synthesized, where the carbons of the tetrahydrofuran ring are kept in one plane by a rigid norbornane skeleton, permitting only the ring oxygen to move above or below the tetrahydrofuran ring plane. This causes the substituents of the anomeric carbon to occupy a pseudoaxial or a pseudoequatorial position. On protonation of these "no

High-resolution core-level shift spectroscopy and temperature-programmed reaction experiments together with density functional theory calculations reveal that the oxidation of HCl with oxygen producing Cl-2 and water proceeds on the chlorine-stabilized RuO2(110)surface via a one-dimensional Langmuir-Hinshelwood mechanism. The recombination of two adjacent chlorine atoms on the catalyst's surface c

Objective. To examine infectious symptoms on a daily basis in families with small children and how often these infections cause people to stay at home or seek healthcare. Design. A population-based prospective study. Setting. Child health clinics in seven municipalities in Sweden. Subjects and main outcome measures. All family members of 835 families who came with an 18-month-old child to a child

We describe techniques for identifying functional promoter elements in the 5'-flanking region of the murine cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase 3B (mPDE3B) gene. The 5'-flanking region of the mPDE3B gene was cloned and sequenced, and putative transcription factor binding sites were identified with computational tools. A series of reporter plasmids containing the luciferase gene fused to different

OBJECTIVE: The serotonin system has long been of interest in biological models of human personality. The purpose of this positron emission tomography (PET) study was to search for relationships between serotonin 5-HT(1A) receptor density and personality traits. METHOD: Fifteen normal male subjects, ages 20-45 years, were examined with PET and the radioligand [(11)C]WAY100635. Personality traits we

Levels of mRNA for c-fos, nerve growth factor (NGF), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), neurotrophin-3 (NT-3), TrkB, and TrkC were studied using in situ hybridization in the rat brain at different reperfusion times after unilateral middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO). Short-term (15 min) MCAO, which does not cause neuronal death, induced elevated BDNF mRNA expression confined to ipsilat

BACKGROUND: Cathelicidins are a group of antibiotic peptides with broad antimicrobial activity. They are considered to be an essential part of the innate immune system. The only known human cathelicidin is the human cationic antimicrobial protein (hCAP-18), from which the antimicrobial peptide LL-37 is released. METHODS AND RESULTS: In the present study, we purified hCAP-18 from seminal plasma and

Lentiviral vectors containing recombinant envelope proteins that target hematopoietic stem cells have now been engineered to increase the efficiency of gene transfer.

OBJECTIVE: Coronary artery disease is a prevalent cause of morbidity and mortality in diabetes. Little is known about insulin-like growth factor-I receptors (IGF-IR) and insulin receptors (IR) in human coronary endothelium. Our aim was to characterize IGF-IR and IR in human coronary artery endothelial cells (HCAEC). DESIGN: Cultured human coronary artery endothelial cells were used. Gene expressio

The impact of the optical properties on the annual performance of flat plate collectors in a Swedish climate has been estimated with the MINSUN program. The collector parameters were determined with a theoretically based calculation program verified from laboratory measurements. The importance of changes in solar absorptance and thermal emittance of the absorber, the addition of a teflon film or a

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) cucumber seedlings and uncolonized controls were grown in growth chambers which allowed separation of compartments with roots from compartments with the extraradical mycelium alone. Two fungi, Glomus invermaium Hall and G. caledonium (Nicol. and Gerd.) Trappe and Gerdemann, were used. Bacterial numbers (direct and viable count) and activities (thymidine incorporation) w