C3 nephritic factors are autoantibodies that prolong the half-life or prevent regulation of the alternative pathway C3 convertase, resulting in uncontrolled complement activation. They are strongly associated with renal disease but their role in pathogenesis remains controversial. Here we optimized and compared a panel of assays to identify and interrogate nephritic factor activities. Of 101 patie

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of dietary supplementation with alpha-ketoglutarate (AKG) sodium salt on growth rate in relation to bone collagen formation during the first 70 d of postnatal life in piglets. The results show that dietary AKG supplementation increased body weight of the experimental piglets in comparison to the controls, especially between 21(st) and 56(th) d of l

In most parts of preindustrial Europe, road transport was a crucial part of rural life as it linked the agricultural producers with urban markets. This study focuses on the development of road transport during the agricultural transformation in order to understand its importance in agricultural change. Scania, in southern Sweden, provides the possibility of examining the basic patterns in the road

The present investigation is a multifaceted study of the receptor tyrosine kinase Axl, whose overexpression and activation is implicated in several human malignancies, with focus on renal cell carcinoma (RCC). At first, our main interest concerned the intracellular Axl interactor named Tensin2 (Tns2) and its family member Tensin3 (Tns3). Tns2 and Tns3 are structural focal adhesion proteins, linkin

Cassava cultivars are classified following different criteria, such as cyanogenic glucoside content or starch content. Here, flours from the roots of 25 cassava varieties cultivated simultaneously in a single plantation, were characterized in terms of starch content (SC), amylose content (AC), alpha-amylolysis index (AI) and gel formation ability. Resistant starch content (RS) was measured in 10 o

Numerous fossil meteorites and high concentrations of sediment-dispersed extraterrestrial chromite (EC) grains with ordinary chondritic composition have previously been documented from 467 +/- 1.6 Ma Middle Ordovician (Darriwilian) strata. These finds probably reflect a temporarily enhanced influx of L-chondritic matter, following the disruption of the L-chondrite parent body in the asteroid belt

This study uses a 12-year time series (2001-2012) of eddy covariance measurements to investigate the long-term net ecosystem exchange (NEE) of carbon dioxide (CO2) and inter-annual variations in relation to abiotic drivers in a boreal fen in northern Sweden. The peatland was a sink for atmospheric CO2 in each of the twelve study years with a 12-year average (+/- standard deviation) NEE of -58 +/-

Johannesson A, Larsson G-U, Ramstrand N, Lauge-Pedersen H, Wagner P, Atroshi I: Outcomes of a standardized surgical and rehabilitation program in transtibial amputation for peripheral vascular disease: A prospective cohort study. OBJECTIVE:: To study the outcomes of a new surgical and rehabilitation program for initial unilateral transtibial amputation in patients with peripheral vascular disease.

We used an extensive dataset (1220 vegetation plots of 1 m(2)) to study vegetation gradients and fine-scale plant diversity in dry calcareous grasslands (including alvar grasslands) in the Baltic Sea region. The study area covers the entire European distributional range of alvar habitats: Sweden (Oland, Gotland, Gotaland), Estonia (Saaremaa, Hiiumaa, north Estonia, west Estonia), and western Russi

This paper presents the major outcome of the IEA Hydrogen Implementing Agreement (IEA-HIA) Task 23 “Small-scale reforming for on-site hydrogen supply”. The task is briefly described, including the three sub-tasks: harmonized industrialization, sustainability and renewables and market information. An exclusive network of worldwide suppliers of reformers as well as gas companies has contributed to

We provide a general mechanism for obtaining uniform information from pointwise data. For instance, a diffeomorphism of a compact Riemannian manifold with pointwise expanding and contracting continuous invariant cone families is an Anosov diffeomorphism, i.e., the entire manifold is uniformly hyperbolic.

Background: Metastatic prostate cancer is associated with a high morbidity and mortality but the spreading mechanisms are still poorly understood. The aminobisphosphonate alendronate, used to reduce bone loss, has also been shown to inhibit the invasion and migration of prostate cancer cells in vitro. We used a modified orthotopic PC-3 nude mouse tumor model of human prostate cancer to study wheth

For most of his life economist and economic historian Eli Heckscher was the most firmly principled economic liberal Sweden had. He fought against state-socialist tendencies, Keynesian crisis policy, and economic planning. In his younger days, however, he was a social conservative who adopted an almost state-socialist stance. This article provides an account of Heckscher’s ideology and its developm

Fundamental optical properties of thin films of the (Ga,Mn) As diluted ferromagnetic semiconductor with low (1%-2%) and high (4%-6%) Mn content and of a reference GaAs film, grown by low-temperature molecular-beam epitaxy, have been investigated by photoreflectance (PR) spectroscopy. In addition, the films were subjected to complementary characterization by means of superconducting quantum interfe

Background: Endothelin-1 and angiotensin II are strong vasoconstrictors. Patients with ischemic heart disease have elevated plasma levels of endothelin-1 and angiotensin II and show increased vascular tone. The aim of the present study was to examine the endothelin and angiotensin II receptor expression in subcutaneous arteries from patients with different degrees of ischemic heart disease. Method

Background: S100A9 has been shown to be important for the function of so called Myeloid Derived Suppressor Cells (MDSC). Cells with a similar phenotype are also involved in pro-inflammatory processes, and we therefore wanted to investigate the gene expression and function of these cells in animals that were either subjected to chronic inflammation, or inoculated with tumors. Methods: CD11b(+)Ly6C(