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BACKGROUND CONTEXT: Several studies report a favorable short-term outcome after nonoperatively treated two-column thoracic or lumbar burst fractures in patients without neurological deficits. Few reports have described the long-term clinical and radiological outcome after these fractures, and none have, to our knowledge, specifically evaluated the long-term outcome of the discs adjacent to the fra
Obesity is increasing rapidly in all parts of the world and is now considered to be a global epidemic. Obesity is a major risk factor for several health issues such as type 2 diabetes (T2D) and cardiovascular disease. The adipose tissue is central in the maintenance of a normal energy homeostasis in the body for instance via regulating lipid storage and release. Besides being an important energy r
Song is a sexually selected trait in many bird species and has been suggested to function as a signal of a male's health and parasite resistance. Here we present an experimental field study on the long-term effects of parasite exposure early in life on adult bird song. We exposed nestling great tits (Parus major) to ectoparasitic hen fleas (Ceratophyllus gallinae) and on their recruitment into the
ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: During production of sugar beet (Beta vulgaris) seeds in greenhouses, workers frequently develop allergic symptoms. The aim of this study was to identify and characterize possible allergens in sugar beet pollen. METHODS: Sera from individuals at a local sugar beet seed producing company, having positive SPT and specific IgE to sugar beet pollen extract, were used for immunobl
Capsule Resident Blackcaps in eastern Spain differ in morphology and isotope profile from central European conspecifics wintering in the area, but not from locally breeding migrants. Aims Natural selection shapes flight morphology in relation to migratory habits. Thus, intraspecific variation in migratory behaviour is often paralleled by morphological differentiation. We test whether differences i
Wing length is a key character for essential behaviours related to bird flight such as migration and foraging. In the present study, we initiate the search for the genes underlying wing length in birds by studying a long-distance migrant, the great reed warbler (Acrocephalus arundinaceus). In this species wing length is an evolutionary interesting trait with pronounced latitudinal gradient and sex
Lake water level forecasting is very important for an accurate and reliable management of local and regional water resources. In the present study two nonlinear approaches, namely phase-space reconstruction and self-exciting threshold autoregressive model (SETAR) were compared for lake water level forecasting. The modeling approaches were applied to high-quality lake water level time series of the
Context: Castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) refers to patients who no longer respond to surgical or medical castration. Standard treatment options are limited. Objective: To review the concepts and rationale behind targeted agents currently in late-stage clinical testing for patients with CRPC. Evidence acquisition: Novel targeted therapies in clinical trials were identified from registri
This paper presents a new damage identification technique based on the statistical moments of the energy density function of the vibration responses in the time-scale (or time-frequency) domain. The continuous wavelet transform is first conducted to decompose the vibration responses into discrete energy distributions as a joint function of time and scale. The principal structural response features
As the earth is getting warmer, many animals and plants have shifted their timing of breeding towards earlier dates. However, there is substantial variation between populations in phenological shifts that typically goes unexplained. Identification of the different location and species characteristics that drive such variable responses to global warming is crucial if we are to make predictions for
In contemporary Ghana, the traditional system and professional social work operate as two parallel systems within the field of social work. The aim of this study was to investigate if and how the teaching of contemporary professional social work in Ghana takes into account traditional actors and practices. The traditional system includes extended family members and traditional authorities such as
Supplemental Instruction (SI) is today a well known academic assistance program, providing help for students in “difficult” courses at colleges and universities. Little attention has been paid however to the possibility of also implementing the SI program in upper secondary school. In this study we present qualitative results from such an SI program in a Swedish setting. Here, students from the fa
This study describes for the first time the expression levels of genes encoding membrane transporters and drug-metabolizing enzymes in the lungs of ex-smoking patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Membrane transporters and drug-metabolizing enzymes are key determinants of drug uptake, metabolism, and elimination for systemically administered as well as inhaled drugs, with con
Knowledge of feeding rates is the basis to understand interaction strength and subsequently the stability of ecosystems and biodiversity. Feeding rates, as all biological rates, depend on consumer and resource body masses and environmental temperature. Despite five decades of research on functional responses as quantitative models of feeding rates, a unifying framework of how they scale with body
Modern societies' functionality is strongly dependent on the electricity. Efficient, environment friendly, and economical power production has been in focus for a long time. The introduction of computers and thereby computer-aided tools for pre-design studies, optimization and choice of the best operational strategies, has changed the conditions for power production tremendously. The most noticeab
We aimed to assess whether prey organisms with limited large-scale dispersal abilities are locally adapted to prevailing predator regimes by studying how chemical cues from predatory fish affected the behavior of Gammarus pulex (Amphipoda) from ponds with and without fish. We also examined, in the laboratory, the F1 generation from each pond by incubating them with or without cues from predatory f
The cytokine transforming growth factor beta-1 (TGFbeta1), was transfected into a TGFbeta1-negative rat colon carcinoma. The growth of isografts of TGFbeta1-expressing tumors was compared to that of vector control transfectants. The TGFbeta1 transfectant grew significantly more slowly after intrahepatic isografting than did vector control and wild-type tumors. The TGFbeta1-transfected tumor tissue
Radionuclide therapy is a growing and promising approach for treating and prolonging the lives of patients with cancer. For therapies where high activities are administered, the liver can become a dose-limiting organ; often with a complex, non-uniform activity distribution and resulting non-uniform absorbed-dose distribution. This paper therefore presents a small-scale dosimetry model for various
Sexual selection is often viewed as a promoter of population divergence, although some forms of sexual selection could rather hamper divergence. In the present study, we investigated whether sexual selection promotes divergence in sexually-selected traits. We studied population variation in sexual selection in relation to colour morph and body size in islet and mainland populations of the Skyros w
Horizontal gene transfer involves the non-sexual interspecific transmission of genetic material. Even if they are initially functional, horizontally transferred genes are expected to deteriorate into non-expressed pseudogenes, unless they become adaptively relevant in the recipient organism. However, little is known about the distributions of natural transgenes within wild species or the adaptive
