BACKGROUND: The variable penetrance of breast cancer in BRCA1/2 mutation carriers suggests that other genetic or environmental factors modify breast cancer risk. Two genes of special interest are prohibitin (PHB) and methylene-tetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR), both of which are important either directly or indirectly in maintaining genomic integrity. METHODS: To evaluate the potential role of ge

Diatom-based assays have been successfully associated worldwide with the tropic status of lakes. Several studies have demonstrated a correlation between epiphytic diatoms and nutrient load in shallow lakes and wetlands. We examine the relative importance of environmental factors in explaining the structure of epiphytic diatom communities in a set of Western European shallow lakes. The effects of l

Context:In clinical practice, the safety profile of GH replacement therapy for GH-deficient adults compared with no replacement therapy is unknown.Objective:The objective of this study was to compare adverse events (AEs) in GH-deficient adults who were GH-treated with those in GH-deficient adults who did not receive GH replacement.Design and Setting:This was a prospective observational study in th

AimTo investigate agreement between: (1) expected reasons and actual reasons for admission of people with dementia according to informal caregivers; (2) scores on measurement instruments prior to admission and the actual reasons for admission according to informal caregivers. BackgroundTimely admission of people with dementia is a crucial issue. Information is highly warranted on whether informal

During Botswana's four decades of high levels of growth the agricultural sector has lagged behind, with smallholder productivity being especially poor. This paper applies an equity perspective: its main claim is that one important explanation for the current lack of agricultural development is the unequal distribution of agricultural resources. It takes into account both the national institutional

PURPOSE: The aim of the study was to investigate how a diet high in dietary fiber, with several fiber sources included, modulates glucose and lipid metabolism and the inflammatory response in humans. METHODS: Subjects (n = 25) aged 58.6 (1.1) years (mean and SD) with a BMI of 26.6 (0.5) kg/m(2) and a total cholesterol (TC) of 5.8 (0.1) mmol/L (mean and SEM) were given a high fiber (HF) and low fib

Cryogels are formed in a semifrozen state when the solvent is frozen, but solutes are still soluble. The ice crystals are porogens and, upon thawing the system, pores appear where the frozen solvent was found earlier. Such gels have large pores, are elastic, and offer interesting opportunities in biotechnology. Cryogels with their large pores can meet demands that traditional chromatographic media

HAMLET (human alpha-lactalbumin made lethal to tumor cells) interacts with multiple tumor cell compartments, affecting cell morphology, metabolism, proteasome function, chromatin structure and viability. This study investigated if these diverse effects of HAMLET might be caused, in part, by a direct effect on the ATP synthase and a resulting reduction in cellular ATP levels. A dose-dependent reduc

OBJECTIVE: We examined the prospective association between self-labeled and witness-reported bullying and the risk of newly onset of depression. METHODS: Employees were recruited from two cohorts of 3196 and 2002 employees, respectively. Participants received a questionnaire at baseline in 2006 to 2007 with follow-up in 2008 to 2009 and 2011. New cases of depression were diagnosed in the follow-

The targeted killing judgment of the Israeli Supreme Court has, since it was handed down in December 2006, received a significant amount of attention: praise as well as criticism. Offering neither praise nor criticism, the present article is instead an attempt at a ‘critique’ of the judgment drawing on the German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin’s famous essay from 1921, ‘Critique of Violence’.

Several computational methods have been developed for predicting the effects of rapidly expanding variation data. Comparison of the performance of tools has been very difficult as the methods have been trained and tested with different datasets. Until now, unbiased and representative benchmark datasets have been missing. We have developed a benchmark database suite, VariBench, to overcome this pro

At the waste handling company NSR, Helsingborg, Sweden, the food waste fraction of source separated municipal solid waste is pretreated to obtain a liquid fraction, which is used for biogas production, and a dry fraction, which is at present incinerated. This pretreatment and separation is performed to remove impurities, however also some of the organic material is removed. The possibility of real

Functional analysis of quantitative expression data is becoming common practice within the proteomics and transcriptomics fields; however, a gold standard for this type of analysis has yet not emerged. To grasp the systemic changes in biological systems, efficient and robust methods are needed for data analysis following expression regulation experiments. We discuss several conceptual and practica

OBJECTIVE: Research concerning spinal mobility in axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) has focused on ankylosing spondylitis (AS), and data on the clinical diagnosis of undifferentiated spondyloarthritis (USpA) are limited. The objective was to study differences in spinal mobility between axSpA subgroups AS and USpA, including gender differences. METHODS: A total of 183 patients with axSpA from a rhe

BACKGROUND: Familial breast cancers are known to be of early onset. This article provides differences in the age of onset of breast cancer and death by breast cancer between women with and without a family history. METHODS: The Swedish Family-Cancer Database was used to estimate the cumulative risk of breast cancer and death by breast cancer according to family history with a stratified Cox model.

As our understanding of genetics has increased, so has the number of genetic tests that have entered clinical practice. Given the need of many European health care systems to contain costs, the question of how to prioritise genetic tests fairly has become an emerging concern. This study uses a discrete-choice experiment to assess the value judgements of clinical geneticists, patient representative

In order to gain further insight into (i) the use of conditioned quantities for characterizing turbulence within a premixed flame brush and (ii) the influence of front propagation on turbulent scalar transport, a 3D Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) study of an infinitely thin front that self-propagates in statistically stationary, homogeneous, isotropic, forced turbulence was performed by numeric

In this paper, we generalize Szegőʼs theorem for orthogonal polynomials on the real line to infinite gap sets of Parreau–Widom type. This notion includes Cantor sets of positive measure. The Szegő condition involves the equilibrium measure which in turn is absolutely continuous. Our approach builds on a canonical factorization of the M-function and the covering space formalism of Sodin–Yuditskii.

We describe the career of John Birks as a pioneering scientist who has, over a career spanning five decades, transformed palaeoecology from a largely descriptive to a rigorous quantitative science relevant to contemporary questions in ecology and environmental change. We review his influence on students and colleagues not only at Cambridge and Bergen Universities, his places of primary employment,