The pathogenesis of prostate cancer is unclear, although experimental evidence implicates androgens as playing an important role. Infertile men frequently suffer from some degree of hypogonadism and may hence be hypothesized to be at lower risk of developing prostate cancer than fertile men. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a case-control study nested within "the Malmö Diet and Cancer Study"

Although it is known that college students have a high alcohol consumption, less is known about the long-term drinking trajectories amongst college students and, in particular, students living in residence halls, known to be high-risk drinkers. Over four consecutive years, the drinking habits of 556 Swedish residence hall students were analyzed. The main instruments for measuring outcome were AUDI

More than 15 percent of children in Europe are overweight; another 5 percent are obese. The high prevalence of obesity emphasizes the necessity of developing evidence-based treatment programs that are useful in a clinical setting. Management of childhood obesity is commonly based on lifestyle interventions where nutrition, physical activity, and behavior modification are the main targets. To incor

New radiative lifetimes have been measured for the 5s (3)P(0,1,2)degrees and 5s (1)P(1)degrees levels of Ge I using a laser-produced plasma subject to selective laser excitation. A diffraction grating based emission spectrometer of moderately high resolution has been used to remeasure the branching ratios of the 4p-5s depopulating transitions. The oscillator strengths of astrophysical interest, wh

Optical properties are important parameters in port wine stain laser treatment models. In this study we investigated whether changes in blood optical properties occur during a 0.5 ms laser pulse, Blood from three volunteers was irradiated in vitro with laser pulses (radiant exposure 2-12 J cm(-2), wavelength 586 nm, pulse length 0.5 ms). Reflection and transmission coefficients, measured using dou

The early cancer studies on immigrants, which started to appear some 50 years ago, showed that the incidence in cancers changes to the level of the new host country in one or two generations. These findings were fundamental to the understanding of the environmental etiology of human cancer. Many immigrant groups originate from countries with no cancer registration, and, hence, the immigrant studie

MIG/CXCL9 belongs to the CXC family of chemokines and participates in the regulation of leukocyte-trafficking and angiogenesis. Certain chemokines, including human MIG/CXCL9, exert strong antibacterial activity in vitro, although the importance of this property in vivo is unknown. In the present study, we investigated the expression and a possible role for MIG/CXCL9 in host defense during mucosal

Several methods to detect faults have been developed in various fields, mainly in chemical and process engineering. However, minimal practical guidelines exist for their selection and application. This work presents an index that allows for evaluating monitoring and diagnosis performance of fault detection methods, which takes into account several characteristics, such as false alarms, false accep

Chronic pruritus is a frequently occurring symptom of various dermatoses that causes a high burden and impaired quality of life. An effective anti pruritic therapy is important for the patient, but its effectiveness is difficult to evaluate. Diverse methods and interpretations of pruritic metrics are utilized in clinical trials and the daily clinical practice in different countries, resulting in d

Time-gated x-ray tomography with scatter reduction is demonstrated using a laser-produced plasma as an ultrashort-pulse x-ray source in combination with a time-resolving streak-camera detector. Backprojections of a phantom imbedded in 9 cm of water show an effective 50% increase in contrast when scattered x-ray quanta (being delayed in time) are suppressed by gating on the prompt, nonscattered pho

This article presents a protocol for assessing team performance in terms of control based on cognitive systems engineering theory. The protocol changes the focus of team performance assessment from good and bad behaviours towards team activity. By using Hollnagel’s contextual control model (COCOM), a protocol is developed so that team activity can be described as four control modes. Data is collec

Gram-negative bacteria have the ability to produce outer membrane-derived vesicles (OMVs) that are released into the extracellular milieu. Even though this intriguing phenomenon is well-known since many years, various aspects of bacterial OMVs are not fully described and are still in the process of being characterized in detail. One major reason for this is that depending on the bacterial species

The objective was to identify inflammatory biomarkers that predict risk of 90-day mortality in patients with acute dyspnea.

Affinity extraction of dye- and metal ion-binding proteins, respectively, in a polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP40)-Reppal PES 100 two-phase system was investigated. Due to the ability of PVP to complex azo dyes and inorganic ions, covalent coupling of the ligands was not essential. Cibacron Blue F3GA was used as the ligand for extraction of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) from porcine muscle, while copper io

Human serum and mother's milk are frequently used to assess exposure to polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), including transplacental transfer to the foetus. However, little is known about the kinetics of PBDEs, especially the highly brominated BDE congeners. In this pilot study, maternal serum samples were collected from 10 women at delivery and five to six weeks post partum. Umbilical serum w

The integrity of our bodies is under constant threat by external forces. Blood coagulation and inflammatory pathways are important, highly efficient defence systems that support health and well-being in both normal and challenged conditions. Being potentially dangerous for the own organism, they are kept under strict control by anticoagulant and anti-inflammatory mechanisms. Coagulation and inflam