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This dissertation investigates the function of the sea in contemporary British and Irish literature, focusing on the following three novels: Dermot Bolger’s Temptation (2000), John Banville’s The Sea (2005), and Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach (2007). The analysis is divided into two main parts, where the sea is considered in its roles as a setting and as a symbol. The former section starts with a su
The average woman uses 11,000 tampons during her lifetime. Both sanitary pads and tampons have been proven to contain low levels of dioxins, which are a group of highly toxic environmental pollutants known to cause cancer, reproductive damage and endocrine disruption. Some scientists have concluded that dioxin levels in tampons are insignificant to the overall dioxin exposure of menstruating women
Most patients with symptoms suggestive of chronic coronary syndrome (CCS) have no obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD) and better selection of patients to be referred for diagnostic tests is needed. The CAD-score is a non-invasive acoustic measure that, when added to pretest probability of CAD, has shown good rule-out capabilities. We aimed to test whether implementation of CAD-score in clini
For the past 30 to 40 years, well before the concept of sustainable development became politically correct, regulation of the environment has been covered by Environmental Protection Agencies worldwide. Perhaps one of the most important things that we have learned is that regulations have significant costs, not just benefits, and that analysis of the cost and benefit of proposed rules is an indisp
Background: The objective was to compare patients with ischemic heart disease (IHD) undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) who were included in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) (trial participants) with patients who were not included (nonparticipants) on a trial-by-trial basis and according to indication for PCI. Methods: In this cohort study, we compared patients with IHD who were
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) commonly results in injury to the components of the white matter tracts, causing post-injury cognitive deficits. The myelin-producing oligodendrocytes (OLs) are vulnerable to TBI, although may potentially be replaced by proliferating oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs). The cytokine interleukin-1β (IL-1β) is a key mediator of the complex inflammatory response, and
OBJECTIVE: To compare neurofilament light (NfL) and tau as blood-based biomarkers for acute sports-related concussion (SRC) and determine whether their concentrations at different time points after the injury are associated with prolonged time to return to play (RTP).METHODS: A total of 288 professional hockey players were followed longitudinally from September 1, 2012, to April 30, 2015. Data col
Background: Guidelines recommend systemic thrombolysis (ST) as first-line reperfusion therapy for highrisk pulmonary embolism (PE), however, clinical concerns regarding bleeding risk frequently limit its use in clinical practice. Catheter-directed therapy (CDT) should be considered when ST is contraindicated or has failed but is increasingly used outside these recommendations despite limited guide
The expression treaty shopping is of American origin and it is closely related to the term forum shopping, a term used in U.S. civil procedure. Forum shopping describes a behaviour by which a party in a court case tries to ''shop'' into a jurisdiction or circuit where he expects a more favourable decision to be given. When treaty shopping, one uses double taxation treaties (and/or
Objective: To investigate whether intermittent short-term courses of penicillin V (PcV) administered as intermittent prophylaxis against acute otitis media (AOM) during upper respiratory tract infections altered the nasopharyngeal bacterial. flora and/or its susceptibility to penicillin. Methods: In a double blind, placebo controlled study 70 children (30 in the PcV group and 40 in the placebo gro
Hypoglycaemia is presumed to be the cause of death in about 3% of insulin-treated diabetic patients. Some of these patients suffer from hypoglycaemic brain damage, but the majority have no evident brain damage and are supposed to have died from other causes such as a cardiac arrhythmia. The putative mechanism is a hypoglycaemia-induced prolongation of the QT interval which increases the risk of ma
Ferrochelatase is the terminal enzyme in haem biosynthesis, i.e. the enzyme that inserts a ferrous ion into the porphyrin ring. Suggested reaction mechanisms for this enzyme involve a distortion of the porphyrin ring when it is bound to the enzyme. We have examined the energetics of such distortions using various theoretical calculations. With the density functional B3LYP method we calculate how m
We previously reported that injury-induced medial vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) proliferation and neointima formation in carotid arteries of inducible nitric oxide synthase knockout ( iNOS KO) mice were significantly reduced compared with wild type (WT). However, the molecular pathway underlying such differences is not known. In this in vitro study, we discovered that the AP-1/Ref-1/thioredox
OBJECTIVE—Sleep deprivation in healthy men has been experimentally found to result in disturbances in glucose metabolism and in sympathovagal imbalance. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether sleep disturbances and elevated resting heart rate are associated with increased risk of developing diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—A group of 6,599 initially healthy, nondiabetic men
STUDY OBJECTIVE. To evaluate the effect of family therapy on childhood obesity. DESIGN. Clinical trial. One year follow-up. SETTING. Referral from school after screening. PARTICIPANTS. Of 1774 children (aged 10 to 11), screened for obesity, 44 obese children were divided into two treatment groups. In an untreated control group of 50 obese children, screened in the same manner, body mass index (BMI
We investigated several aspects of the role of physical activity in colon and rectal cancer etiology that remain unclear in the European Prospective Investigation into Nutrition and Cancer. This cohort of 413,044 men and women had 1,094 cases of colon and 599 cases of rectal cancer diagnosed during an average of 6.4 years of follow-up. We analyzed baseline data on occupational, household, and recr
Energy turnover in the isolated rat portal vein was investigated by measurement of oxygen consumption (JO2) and lactate production (JLA) under simultaneous recording of mechanical activity. In spontaneous activity under aerobic conditions and at optimal muscle length JO2 and JLA were 0.55 and 0.62 micromol/min X g, respectively, corresponding to an ATP-production of 4.3 micromol/min X G. When musc
Glucagon, secreted from pancreatic islet a cells, stimulates gluconeogenesis and liver glycogen breakdown. The mechanism regulating glucagon release is debated, and variously attributed to neuronal control, paracrine control by neighbouring beta cells, or to an intrinsic glucose sensing by the a cells themselves. We examined hormone secretion and Ca2+ responses of a and b cells within intact roden
Analysis of atrial rhythm is important in the treatment and management of patients with atrial fibrillation. Several algorithms exist for extracting the atrial signal from the electrocardiogram (ECG) in atrial fibrillation, but there are few reports on how well these techniques are able to recover the atrial signal. We assessed and compared three algorithms for extracting the atria] signal from th
BACKGROUND: Global haemostatic tests are often abnormal in critically ill patients, secondary to activation or consumption of coagulation factors or inhibitors. Methods for analysing plasma levels of these factors are, however, not widely available, and the predictive value of global tests is not known. We examined the clinical applicability to predict the outcome of the global haemostatic tests u
