Despite being recognized as a widespread and evolutionary important phenomenon among vascular plants, interspecific hybridization among bryophytes has been strongly underestimated. In the present review, we summarize knowledge about bryophyte hybrids that are found in nature. Mechanisms of reproductive isolation in bryophytes are compared with those in vascular plants. The morphological and geneti

In this paper a method for the analysis of a frequency selective surface (FSS) supported by a bianisotropic substrate is presented. The frequency selective structure is a thin metallic pattern — the actual FSS — on a plane supporting substrate. Integral representations of the fields in combination with the method of moments carried out in the spatial Fourier domain are shown to be a fruitful way of

Background: There is limited information about risk factors for venous thromboembolism (VTE) in acutely ill hospitalized general medical patients. Methods: An international, randomized, double-masked, placebo-controlled trial (MEDENOX) has previously been conducted in 1102 acutely ill, immobilized general medical patients and has shown the efficacy of using a low-molecular-weight heparin, enoxapar

As the use of WLANs based on IEEE 802.11 increases, the need for QoS becomes more obvious. The new IEEE 802.1 le standard aims at providing QoS, but its contention-based medium access mechanism, EDCA, provides only service differentiation, i.e. soft QoS. In order to provide hard QoS, earlier we have proposed an extension called EDCA with resource reservation (EDCA/RR), which enhances EDCA by offer

Time-dependent rheological properties of three tomato paste suspensions in the concentration range of 200-1,000 g paste/kg suspension have been investigated by using the vane geometry at shear rates gamma < 10 s(-1). Creep tests were conducted to analyze the influence of the level of stress on the rheological behavior of the samples before and after homogenization. The experimental results indicat

Background: Prostacyclin (PGI(2)) and its stable analogues are known to reduce capillary hydraulic permeability. This study explores the biochemical and physiological effects of i.v. infusion of low-dose PGI(2) in an experimental model of vasogenic brain oedema. Methods: Twenty-seven anaesthetized and mechanically ventilated piglets with brain oedema induced by intrathecal injection of lipopolysac

Cognitive deficits and impaired olfactory function are observed in early stages of Huntington's disease (HD). The polysialylated form of the neural cell adhesion molecule (PSA-NCAM) is strongly associated with plastic events in the brain. During adulthood, it is most abundantly expressed in the hippocampus and the piriform cortex, which are involved in cognition and olfaction, respectively. We sho

The blood lead (PbB) and blood cadmium (CdB) levels, as well as the parental smoking habits, of 133 children aged 4 to 11 years were studied. The children were from a town with a lead smeltery and a surrounding rural area. There was a significant association between the higher PbB levels of the children and involuntary (parental) smoking in the home. The CdB levels of the children were not affecte

Sporulation in aerial hyphae of Streptomyces coelicolor involves profound changes in regulation of fundamental morphogenetic and cell cycle processes to convert the filamentous and multinucleoid cells to small unigenomic spores. Here, a novel sporulation locus consisting of smeA (encoding a small putative membrane protein) and sffA (encoding a SpoIIIE/FtsK-family protein) is characterized. Deletio

In this article, a teleological model for analysis of everyday ethical situations in dementia care is used to analyse and clarify perennial ethical problems in nursing home care for persons with dementia. This is done with the aim of describing how such a model could be useful in a concrete care context. The model was developed by Sandman and is based on four aspects: the goal; ethical side-constr

Lipophilic persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are ubiquitous in the environment and suspected to interfere with hormone activities and reproduction. In previous studies we demonstrated that POP exposure can affect sperm DNA integrity and differences between Inuits and Europeans in sperm DNA integrity and xenobiotic activity were observed. The aim of this study was to investigate possible relatio

We show that the boundary conditions entering in the definition of the self-adjoint operator Delta(A,B) describing the Laplacian plus afinite number of point interactions are local if and only if the corresponding wave equation phi = Delta(A,B)phi has finite speed of propagation.

OBJECTIVE. The objective of our study was to evaluate the effect of supplementation with docosahexaenoic acid and arachidonic acid for human milk-fed preterm infants. The primary end point was cognitive development at 6 months of age. METHODS. The study was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study among 141 infants with birth weights of

The feasibility of 17 beta-estradiol (E2) and 17 alpha-ethynylestradiol (EE2) removal by Trametes versicolor was demonstrated in batch and continuous cultures. In batch, E2 and EE2 initially supplied at 10 mg l(-1) were removed by more than 97% in 24 h, which corresponded to volumetric removal rates of 0.43 and 0.44 mg l(-1) h(-1), respectively. A bioreactor inoculated with T versicolor pellets wa

Among the responses to this month's question, the most common strategy for motivating compliance is providing information. This finding is also supported with the example from Australia, where stoke sufferers are highly compliant with any intervention aimed at prevention of future strokes. In this case, the high level of compliance and (probably) motivation can be explained by the fact that stroke

Ultrafast time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy has been used to investigate the excited-state dynamics of the basic eumelanin building block 5,6-dihydroxyindole-2-carboxylic acid (DHICA), its acetylated, methylated, and carboxylic ester derivatives, and two oligomers, a dimer and a trimer in the O-acetylated forms. The results show that (1) excited-state decays are faster for the trimer relativ

This paper describes a system to create animated 3D scenes of car accidents from written reports. The text-to-scene conversion process consists of two stages. An information extraction module creates a tabular description of the accident and a visual, simulator generates and animates the scene. We outline the overall structure of the text-to-scene conversion and the template structure. We then des