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A long-standing enigma concerns the geographic and ecological origins of the intensively studied vinegar fly, Drosophilamelanogaster. This globally distributed human commensal is thought to originate from sub-Saharan Africa, yet untilrecently, it had never been reported from undisturbed wilderness environments that could reflect its precommensalniche. Here, we document the collection of 288 D. mel

The Ultrasound Velocity Profiling (UVP) technique allows real-time, non-invasive flow mapping of a fluid along a 1D-measuring line. This study explores the possibility of using the UVP technique and X-ray video-fluoroscopy (XVF) to elucidate the deglutition process with the focus on bolus rheology. By positioning the UVP probe so that the pulsed ultrasonic beam passes behind the air-filled trachea

Background: The health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of tonsillar carcinoma survivors was explored to investigate any HRQOL differences associated with tumor stage and treatment. The survivors' HRQOL was also compared to reference scores from the population. Methods: In this exploratory cross-sectional study patients were invited 15 months after their diagnosis and asked to answer two quality of

Relaxor ferroelectrics have drawn attention for possible applications in solid-state cooling and thermal energy harvesting, owing to their electrothermal energy conversion properties. Here, we have synthesized and characterized the structure-property correlations of a new Sn- and Nb-doped (Ba,Ca)TiO3 relaxor ferroelectric with large pyroelectric and electrocaloric effects over a broad temperature

Aims: Invasive haemodynamic profiles at rest and during exercise after heart transplantation (HTx) have never been described in a randomized trial where de novo everolimus (EVR)-based therapy with early calcineurin inhibitor (CNI) withdrawal has been compared with conventional CNI treatment. We report central invasive haemodynamic parameters at rest and exercise during a 3 year follow-up after HTx

To investigate the genetic identities of the mucins secreted in cystic fibrosis (CF) airways, sputum was collected from five individuals. Samples were separated into gel and sol phases by high-speed centrifugation and the gel phase was extracted in 6 M guanidinium chloride. The 'insoluble' residue remaining after extraction of the gel phase was brought into solution by reduction/alkylation. Densit

Density-gradient centrifugation of bovine tracheal epithelial cell extracts revealed a 'high-density' (1.48 g/ml) sialic-acid-rich population as well as a 'low-density' (1.42 g/ml) one that reacted more strongly with a periodate-Schiff (PAS) assay. The sialic-acid-rich mucins were oligomeric molecules containing disulphide-bond-linked subunits and large glycosylated domains, whereas the PAS-reacti

Bovine trachea in organ culture secretes mucus containing a 'high-density' (1.46 g/ml) and a 'low-density' (1.37 g/ml) mucin similar to those identified previously in bovine respiratory secretions [Hovenberg, Carlstedt and Davies (1997) Biochem. J. 321, 117-123]. After pulse-labelling, autoradiography showed uptake of [35S]sulphate by both epithelial goblet cells and submucosal glands, while [3H]p

In patients with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the addition of long-acting β2-agonists (LABA) to glucocorticosteroids (GCS) results in better control than increasing the dose of GCS alone. In smooth muscle cells and fibroblasts, one apparent underlying mechanism involves the ability of LABAs to activate the glucocorticoid receptor (GR). The present study investigates the effect

Objective: The aim was to create pathological changes in mice relevant to human smoke exposure that can be used to further understand the mechanisms and pathology of smoke-induced inflammatory disease. Methods: Mice were exposed to tobacco smoke or lipopolysaccharide (LPS) to generate an inflammatory infiltrate within the lungs. Results: Tobacco smoke exposure over a 4 day period led to neutrophil

The interest for studying server systems subject to cloned requests has recently increased. In this paper we present a model that allows us to equivalently represent a system of servers with cloned requests, as a single server. The model is very general, and we show that no assumptions on either inter-arrival or service time distributions are required, allowing for, e.g., both heterogeneity and de

Interesting approaches to counteract performance variability within cloud datacenters include sending multiple request clones, either immediately or after a specified waiting time. In this paper we present a performance model of cloud applications that utilize the latter concept, known as speculative execution. We study the popular Join-Shortest-Queue load-balancing strategy under the processor sh

In this Rapid Communication we analyze the efficiency of operations based on transferring charge from a quantum dot (QD) to two coupled topological superconductors, which can be used for performing non-Abelian operations on Majorana bound states (MBSs). We develop a method which allows us to describe the full time evolution of the system as the QD energy is manipulated. Using a full counting stati