We sought to determine whether the COMT val158met polymorphism (rs4680) is associated with delusions and hallucinations in people with dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Parkinson's disease dementia (PDD). A total of 218 individuals, recruited from centres in Norway, Sweden and the UK were included in this study; 121 with clinically or neuropathologically diagnosed DLB/PDD and 97 age-matched, cog

The respiratory tract pathogen Haemophilus influenzae frequently causes infections in humans. In parallel with all Gram-negative bacteria, H. influenzae has the capacity to release OMV. The production of these nanoparticles is an intriguing and partly unexplored phenomenon in pathogenesis. Here, we investigated how purified human peripheral blood B lymphocytes respond to OMV derived from unencapsu

We examined the independent and combined associations of physical activity and obesity with incident type 2 diabetes in men and women. The InterAct case-cohort study consists of 12,403 incident type 2 diabetes cases and a randomly selected subcohort of 16,154 individuals, drawn from a total cohort of 340,234 participants with 3.99 million person-years of follow-up. Physical activity was assessed b

In this paper we argue that the recently legislated carbon tax in Australia is a step in the right direction towards a low-carbon society, but not enough: de-carbonizing Australia calls for a radical structural transformation of the economy. Based on past experiences and economic theory, we argue that current climate policies should be complemented with an additional set of development policies ai

In order to establish a reference for analysis of the function of auxin and the auxin biosynthesis regulators SHORT INTERNODE/STYLISH (SHI/STY) during Physcomitrella patens reproductive development, we have described male (antheridial) and female (archegonial) development in detail, including temporal and positional information of organ initiation. This has allowed us to define discrete stages of

There is a need to develop simple and quick non-destructive tests to measure the complex dynamic modulus of asphalt over a wide frequency and temperature range, i.e. mastercurve. In this study results from free-free resonant frequency measurements on cylindrical disk shaped asphalt samples are presented. The resulting mastercurve, obtained by resonant frequency testing at different temperatures, c

Treatment for musculoskeletal disorders in primary care in Sweden is generally initiated with advice and medication. Second line therapy is physiotherapy and/or injection and radiography; third line therapy is referral to an orthopedist. Manual therapy is not routine. It is a challenge to identify patients who benefit from treatment by different specialists. The current referral strategy probably

Satellite sensor-derived data are suitable for regional estimations of several important biophysical variables. Data with a finer spatial resolution should improve regional estimations of GPP (gross primary productivity), since they better capture the variation in a heterogeneous landscape. The main objective of this study was to investigate if MODIS 500 m reflectance data can be used to drive emp

Background To account for differences in body size in patients with aortic stenosis, aortic valve area (AVA) is divided by body surface area (BSA) to calculate indexed AVA (AVA(index)). Cut-off values for severe stenosis are

We report the simultaneous measurement of the structural and electronic components of the metal-insulator transition (MIT) of VO_{2} using electron and photoelectron spectroscopies and microscopies. We show that these evolve over different temperature scales, and are separated by an unusual monocliniclike metallic phase. Our results provide conclusive evidence that the new monocliniclike metallic

The short-term Crabtree effect is defined as the immediate appearance of aerobic alcoholic fermentation upon a pulse of excess sugar to sugar-limited yeast cultures. In this paper we characterized ten different yeast species, having a clearly defined phylogenetic relationship. Yeast species were cultivated under glucose-limited conditions, and upon a glucose pulse we studied their general carbon m

There is evidence across several species for genetic control of phenotypic variation of complex traits(1-4), such that the variance among phenotypes is genotype dependent. Understanding genetic control of variability is important in evolutionary biology, agricultural selection programmes and human medicine, yet for complex traits, no individual genetic variants associated with variance, as opposed

Despite a variety of testing approaches, it is often difficult to make an accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD), especially at an early stage of the disease. Diagnosis is based on clinical criteria as well as exclusion of other causes of dementia but a definitive diagnosis can only be made at autopsy. We have investigated the diagnostic value of a 96-gene expression array for detection of

Given an undirected graph and two pairs of vertices $(s_i,t_i)$ for $i\in\{1,2\}$ we show that there is a polynomial time Monte Carlo algorithm that finds disjoint paths of smallest total length joining $s_i$ and $t_i$ for $i\in\{1,2\}$ respectively, or concludes that there most likely are no such paths at all. Our algorithm applies to both the vertex- and edge-disjoint versions of the problem.

Ground-based gamma-ray astronomy has had a major breakthrough with the impressive results obtained using systems of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes. Ground-based gamma-ray astronomy has a huge potential in astrophysics, particle physics and cosmology. CTA is an international initiative to build the next generation instrument, with a factor of 5-10 improvement in sensitivity in the 100 GeV

Background. The aim of this study was to map gastroscopies performed at a single tertiary pediatric surgery centre to investigate indications, complications, outcomes, and ethical aspects. Material and Methods. A retrospective study of gastroscopies performed during two time periods (2001-2004 and 2011-2014) was conducted. Data regarding indications, outcomes, and complications of pediatric gastro

We analyse global and regional changes in CO2 fluxes using two simple models, an airborne fraction of anthropogenic emissions and a linear relationship with CO2 concentrations. We show that both models are able to fit the non-anthropogenic (hereafter natural) flux over the length of the atmospheric concentration record. Analysis of the linear model (including its uncertainties) suggests no signifi

The current study is the first to investigate confabulatory introspection in relation to clinical psychological symptoms utilizing the Choice Blindness Paradigm (CBP). It was hypothesized that those with obsessive-compulsive symptoms are more likely to confabulate mental states. To test this hypothesis, an experimental choice blindness task was administered in two nonclinical samples (n = 47; n =