Filetype
Windows and the World Wide Web are two of the keys to the IT-explosion that we are all caught up in. Computers can do more and more and are getting easier to use. But how does a blind person handle a graphical environment like Windows? This article deals with Certec’s efforts to find a way to use haptics, i.e. controlling with movements and getting feedback via the sense of touch, to provide new
Appearance of dyskinesia is a common problem of long-term l-DOPA treatment in Parkinson's disease patients and represents a major limitation for the pharmacological management of the motor symptoms in advanced disease stages. We have recently demonstrated that dopamine released from serotonin neurons is responsible for l-DOPA-induced dyskinesia in 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA)-lesioned rats, raising
The Ebf (O/E) family of helix-loop-helix transcription factors plays a significant role in B lymphocyte and neuronal development. The three primary members of this family, Ebf1, 2, and 3, are all expressed in adipocytes, and Ebf1 promotes adipogenesis when overexpressed in NIH 3T3 fibroblasts. Here we report that these three proteins have adipogenic potential in multiple cellular models and that p
Shifting the resource base for chemical production from fossil feedstocks to renewable raw materials provides exciting possibilities for the use of industrial biotechnology-based process tools. This review gives an indication of the current developments in the transition to bio-based production, with a focus on the production of chemicals, and points out some of the challenges that exist in the la
The interactions between chelating agents and metal oxide particles play important roles for the distribution and availability of metal ions in aquatic environments. In this work, the adsorption of ethylenediaminetetraacetate (EDTA) onto goethite (alpha-FeOOH) was studied as a function of pH, time, and background electrolyte concentration at 25.0 degrees C, and the molecular structures of the surf
HbA1C is the stable glucose adduct to the N-terminal group of the beta-chain of HbA0. The measurement of HbA1c in human blood is most important for the long-term control of the glycaemic state in diabetic patients. Because there was no internationally agreed reference method the IFCC Working Group on HbA1c Standardization developed a reference method which is here described. In a first step haemog
The oscillations between glacial and interglacial climate conditions over the past three million years have been characterized by a transfer of immense amounts of water between two of its largest reservoirs on Earth - the ice sheets and the oceans. Since the latest of these oscillations, the Last Glacial Maximum (between about 30,000 and 19,000 years ago), similar to50 million cubic kilometres of
Short-hairpin RNA (shRNA)-mediated gene knockdown is a powerful tool for targeted gene silencing and an emerging novel therapeutic strategy. Recent publications, however, reported unexpected toxicity after utilizing viral-mediated shRNA knockdown in vivo. Thus, it is currently unclear whether shRNA-mediated knockdown strategy can be used as a safe and efficient tool for gene silencing. In this stu
The radiation and total efficiencies, the amount of gas radiation from vapour and carbon dioxide and contribution from convective heat transfer for different operating conditions have been measured and modelled in an industrial gas heated IR dryer. Instrumentation to facilitate the measurement of the spectral distribution of the radiation heat fluxes in industrial infrared equipment has been devel
Ontological analysis facilitates microarray data interpretation. We describe new ontological analysis methods which, unlike existing approaches, are threshold-free and statistically powerful. We perform extensive evaluations and introduce a new concept, detection spectra, to characterize methods. We show that different ontological analysis methods exhibit distinct detection spectra, and that it is
The most widely used model for rheumatoid arthritis is the collagen-induced arthritis (CIA) in mice. This model has gained acceptance since it is reproducible, well defined and has proven useful for development of new therapies for rheumatoid arthritis, as exemplified by the most recent advancement using TNFalpha neutralization treatment. The collagen-induced arthritis model, however, represents o
A generally implementable method for predicting salvageability on the presenting electrocardiogram (ECG) in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) would be of great clinical importance. ECG-derived Grades of Ischemia (1) have been proven useful in predicting the extent and severity of left ventricular dysfunction after anterior MI, estimating short and long-term prognosis, final infarct s
Timely regulation of phosphatidylinositol-3,4-bisphosphate [PI(3,4)P2] and phosphatidylinositol-3,4,5-trisphosphate [PI(3,4,5)P3] abundance in cells is essential for the control of cellular homeostasis. The concentrations of these lipids are low in quiescent cells but rapidly and transiently increase following growth factor receptor (GFR) stimulation, which triggers cellular metabolic changes, pro
Under anaerobic conditions, Saccharomyces cerevisiae uses NADH-dependent glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (Gpd1p and Gpd2p) to re-oxidize excess NADH, yielding substantial amounts of glycerol. In a Δgpd1 Δgpd2 double-null mutant, the necessary NAD+ regeneration through glycerol production is no longer possible, and this mutant does not grow under anaerobic conditions. The excess NADH formed can
Production of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) by an open mixed culture enriched in glycogen accumulating organisms (GAOs) under alternating anaerobic-aerobic conditions with acetate as carbon source was investigated. The culture exhibited a stable enrichment performance over the 450 day operating period with regards to phenotypic behavior and microbial community structure. Candidatus Competibacter pho
Let Ω be a B-regular domain in ℂn and let V be a locally irreducible analytic variety in Ω. Given a continuous function , we prove that there is a unique maximal plurisubharmonic function u on V with boundary values given by ϕ and furthermore that u is continuous on .
