Objectives: Osteoporosis is a known complication of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). This prospective study aimed to evaluate whether disease activity, disability, and glucocorticoid (GC) treatment in early RA were risk factors for loss of bone mineral density (BMD). Methods: We followed 97 women (mean age 58 years), for 24 months, with a history of RA of less than 12 months. At baseline, 77 women were

Abstract not available. Errata to article Spedding GR, Hedenström A, Rosén M (2003) Quantitative studies of the wakes of freely flying birds in a low-turbulence wind tunnel. Exp Fluids 34:291–303

The decolorization of two different textile dyes, Reactive Red 2 and Reactive Blue 4, was studied in batch as well as continuous experiments using Bjerkandera sp. Strain BOL 13. The batch experiments were performed to study the decolorization of the dyes separately as well as in a mixture. The results from the experiments showed that the fungus decolorized both dyes. The absorbance was measured at

Background and purpose In unstable distal radial fractures that are impossible to reduce or to maintain in reduced position, the treatment of choice is operation. The type of operation and the choice of implant, however, is a matter of discussion. Our aim was to investigate whether open reduction and internal fixation would produce a better result than traditional external fixation. Methods 50 pat

The four-electron reduction of dioxygen to water in multicopper oxidases takes place in a trinuclear copper cluster, which is linked to a mononuclear blue copper site, where the substrates are oxidized. Recently, several intermediates in the catalytic cycle have been spectroscopically characterized, and two possible structural models have been suggested for both the peroxy and native intermediates

The selection of unbiased representatives from a large database is complicated by the requirement for the chosen entries to be not only genuinely different from each other but also typical for the family of related entries. A method satisfying this 2-fold objective was developed by equipping complete linkage clustering with a novel noise elimination procedure to deal with overlapping cluster struc

Hereditary cystatin C amyloid angiopathy is a dominantly inherited disorder, characterized by dementia, paralysis, and death from cerebral hemorrhage in early adult life. A variant of the cysteine proteinase inhibitor, cystatin C, is deposited as amyloid in the tissues of the patients and their spinal-fluid level of cystatin C is abnormally low. The disease-associated Leu-68-->Gln mutant (L68Q) cy

Objective: To validate in a prospective study the surveillance algorithm WINROP for detecting infants at risk for proliferative retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). Methods: Fifty preterm infants with a mean gestational age of 26 weeks were included. In the first step of WINROP, weekly measures of body weight and serum insulinlike growth factor I (IGF-I) level from birth until postmenstrual age 36 we

Objective. To investigate the contrasting roles of plasminogen deficiency between models of collagen-induced arthritis (CIA) and antigen-induced arthritis (AIA). Methods. We developed a new animal model of arthritis, which we have called local injection-induced arthritis (LIA). In this model, we replaced methylated bovine serum albumin, which is normally used as an immunogen and is injected intraa

Far infrared spectra of seven different isotopologs of the water dimer have been measured in neon matrices at 2.8 K. The experiments are interpreted with the aid of density functional theory calculations, in particular the calculated harmonic isotopic shifts were utilized. All six intermolecular vibrational modes of the water dimer and the fully deuterated water dimer are assigned based the isotop

To process a stimulus as a holistic entity, the human brain must be able to conjoin its different features. Previous evidence suggests that this ability emerges during the first months of life, implying its considerable dependence on postnatal development. We recorded human newborn (1-3 days of age) electrical brain responses to frequently occurring (standard) sounds and to rarely occurring (devia

We consider an iterated function system (with probabilities) of isometrics on an unbounded metric space (X, d). Under suitable conditions it is proved that the random orbit {Z(n)}(ngreater than or equal to0) of the iterations corresponding to an initial point Z(0) is an element of X 'escapes to infinity' in the sense that P(Z(n) is an element of K) --> 0, as n --> infinity for every bounded set K

Chronic exposure to glutamate (glutamate excitotoxicity) exacerbates neuronal damage in the aftermath of stroke and is implicated in a variety of neurodegenerative disorders. mitochondria play a central role in the survival or death of the exposed neuron. calcium, oxidative stress and ATP insufficiency play closely interlocked roles that may be investigated with primary neuronal cultures.

Following the identification of metabolite signals in the in vivo MR spectrum, quantification is the procedure to estimate numerical values of their concentrations. The two essential steps are discussed in detail: analysis by fitting a model of prior knowledge, that is, the decomposition of the spectrum into the signals of singular metabolites; then, normalization of these signals to yield concent

Daily home hemodialysis (HD) patients have a much superior survival rate than patients on regular, 3 times a week in-center HD or on peritoneal dialysis. Present-day HD machines are unsuitable for use at home by patients. We present our concept of the ideal home HD machine that allows daily short and long HD, does all the work preparing for and cleaning up after dialysis, has an intravenous infusi