It is important that any patient with a urinary diversion can accept the psychological impact alongside the surgical and physical aspects. However, there are currently no validated methods or instruments available to allow direct measurement of this phenomenon in these patients. Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is often high following different types of urinary diversion - this may suggest a

Using kilometric arrays of air Cherenkov telescopes at short wavelengths, intensity interferometry may increase the spatial resolution achieved in optical astronomy by an order of magnitude, enabling images of rapidly rotating hot stars with structures in their circumstellar disks and winds, or mapping out patterns of nonradial pulsations across stellar surfaces. Intensity interferometry (once pio

We investigate the survival performance of new technology-based firms (NTBFs) over the business cycle and compare them against other entrepreneurial firms. Our data comprise the entire population of entrepreneurial firms entering the Swedish economy from 1991 to 2002, which we follow until 2007. Discrete-time duration models are employed to investigate whether the business cycle impacts differentl

This Letter describes a model-independent search for the production of new resonant states in photon + jet events in 2.11 fb(-1) of proton-proton collisions at root s = 7 TeV. We compare the photon + jet mass distribution to a background model derived from data and find consistency with the background-only hypothesis. Given the lack of evidence for a signal, we set 95% credibility level limits on

The rationale for long-term prophylaxis in more severe forms of von Willebrand's disease (VWD) is obvious, as mucosal bleeding and haemophilia-like joint bleeds resulting in chronic morbidity may occur. However, the experience with prophylactic treatment in this group is scanty. An international VWD Prophylaxis Network (VWD PN) was established in 2006. The VWD PN will investigate prophylaxis with

Chondrosarcoma is a malignant bone tumor that is often resistant to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. We applied high resolution oligonucleotide array comparative genomic hybridization to 46 tumor specimens from 44 patients with chondrosarcoma and identified several genes with potential importance for the development of chondrosarcoma. Several homozygous deletions were detected. The tumor suppressor

The dielectric procperties of MSWI bottom ash as a function of volumetric water content (VWC) are reported in this paper. The objective was to aid the development of microwave based non-invasive emission monitoring and control system for various bottom ash applications. The dielectric measurements were made, on a 1.5-year-old bottom ash, with an electrical network analyzer in microwave range (300

Eight novel microsatellite markers were developed for Hieracium s.s. (excluding Pilosella) using a modified FIASCO protocol, and two out of nine microsatellites that were originally developed for Pilosella officinarum were optimised for Hieracium s.s.. All ten microsatellites consistently amplified loci from a wide range of representatives from north and central European species of various section

During the last decade, the ecological theory of adaptive radiation, and its corollary "ecological speciation", has been a major research theme in evolutionary biology. Briefly, this theory states that speciation is mainly or largely the result of divergent selection, arising from niche differences between populations or incipient species. Reproductive isolation evolves either as a result of direc

O-Mannosylation is an important protein modification in brain. During the last years, a few mammalian proteins have been identified as targets of the protein-O-mannosyltransferases 1 and 2. However, these still cannot explain the high content of O-mannosyl glycans in brain and the strong brain involvement of congenital muscular dystrophies caused by POMT mutations (Walker-Warburg syndrome, dystrog

The development of new techniques for detection and characterization of transient myocardial ischemia has benefited considerably from the STAFF database, acquired in patients receiving elective prolonged percutaneous transluminal coronary angiography. The present article reviews a range of techniques developed and/or evaluated on the ECG signals of this database, including techniques for exploring

Predicting the effects of amino acid substitutions on protein stability provides invaluable information for protein design, the assignment of biological function, and for understanding disease-associated variations. To understand the effects of substitutions, computational models are preferred to time-consuming and expensive experimental methods. Several methods have been proposed for this task in

Consultants are known to work extreme hours. We show empirically how consultants fantasize about off-work activities, which are impossible to realize with their work schedule. These fantasies are, however, not obstructing their work, but important to justify the extreme hours and sustain desire for work. We draw on Lacan's notion of desire as the Other's desire and analyze the consultants' desire

We argue that leadership promotion in China’s political elite relies on homophily for signals of trustworthiness and future cooperative behavior more than on economic performance. We first point to the limitation of the economic performance argument from within the framework of China’s specific M-form state structure, and then we proffer a sociological explanation for why higher-level elites in Ch

The understanding of the complex relationship between the home environment, well-being and daily functioning in the third age is currently weak. The aim of this paper is to present the methodological background of the Home and Health in the Third Age Study, and describe a sample of men and women in relation to their home and health situation.

This paper provides an overview of methodologies used for quantitative evaluations of security of supply. The studied material is mainly based on peer-reviewed articles and the methodologies are classified according to which stage in the supply chain their main focus is directed to, as well as their scientific background. Our overview shows that a broad variety of approaches is used, but that ther

We study biharmonic maps between Riemannian manifolds with finite energy and finite bi-energy. We show that if the domain is complete and the target of non-positive curvature, then such a map is harmonic. We then give applications to isometric immersions and horizontally conformal submersions.

Dynamic loading of elastic-plastic slabs is studied numerically using a finite element approach, where introduction of cohesive elements enables fracture. For the bulk material, J(2)-flow theory is chosen as constitutive model, whereas the behavior of the cohesive elements is described by an irreversible cohesive law. The fracture behavior is governed solely by the cohesive elements, which are inc

Oxidative stress (OS) is widely believed to be responsible for the generation of trade-offs in evolutionary ecology by means of constraining investment into a number of components of fitness. Yet, progress in understanding the true role of OS in ecology and evolution has remained elusive. Interpretation of current findings is particularly hampered by the scarcity of experiments demonstrating which