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Background & aims: Short telomeres have been observed in chronic disease patients. Identifying environmental and lifestyle factors that could reduce telomere attrition is crucial for disease prevention. The aim of this work was to determine whether weight-loss induced by an energy-reduced Mediterranean diet (erMedDiet) and physical activity (PA) could modify telomere length (TL). Methods: In 3

The diagnosis of peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is not always evident as symptoms and signs may show great variation. As all grades of PAD are linked to both an increased risk for cardiovascular complications and adverse limb events, awareness of the condition and knowledge about diagnostic measures, prevention and treatment is crucial. This article presents in a condensed form information on P

BACKGROUND: Stereotypes may prevail, but little is known about the influence that the sex of an orthopaedic surgeon may have on outcomes. In a recently published study, there were no differences in the rate of adverse events following total hip arthroplasties (THAs) performed by female or male orthopaedic surgeons. The objective of the present study was to investigate whether there was any differe

UNLABELLED: Intraoperative radiographic guidance has traditionally been utilized in orthopedic surgery through 2-D navigation with the C-arm and recently with 3-D navigation with the O-arm. The aim of this study was to describe the outcome of surgical treatment of spinal osteoblastoma and osteoid osteoma with the utilization of the O-arm and conventional C-arm guidance. This is a retrospective coh

Methods: Three hundred and eighty newly diagnosed ANCA-associated vasculitis patients from six European multicentre studies treated with AZA maintenance were included; 58% were male, median age at diagnosis 59.4 years (interquartile range: 48.3-68.2 years); granulomatosis with polyangiitis, n = 236; microscopic polyangiitis, n = 132; or renal limited vasculitis, n = 12. Patients were grouped accor

Regulation of C4b-binding protein (C4BP) isoforms during acute phase and its relationship to the plasma concentration of free protein S was elucidated. An assay for β chain containing C4BP (C4BPβ+) was developed and the concentrations of total C4BP, C4BPβ+, total, free, and bound protein S were measured in patients with acute-phase response. Even though total C4BP was increased to 162% (mean value

The savanna complex is a highly diverse global biome that occurs within the seasonally dry tropical to sub-tropical equatorial latitudes and are structurally and functionally distinct from grasslands and forests. Savannas are open-canopy environments that encompass a broad demographic continuum, often characterised by a changing dominance between C3-tree and C4-grass vegetation, where frequent env

Osteopontin (OPN) is involved in various physiological processes and also implicated in multiple pathological states. It has been suggested that OPN may have a role in type 2 diabetes (T2D) by protecting pancreatic islets and interaction with incretins. However, the regulation and function of OPN in islets, especially in humans, remains largely unexplored. In this study, we performed our investiga

Material and energy costs represent about 50% of the operating costs incurred by European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Although the potential for resource efficiency improvements is high, the necessary awareness and human resource capacities to explore this potential are limited. Existing tools for exploration of resource efficiency improvement potentials have several shortcomings: t

There is considerable pressure to define the key requirements of 5G, develop 5G standards, and perform technology trials as quickly as possible. Normally, these activities are best done in series but there is a desire to complete these tasks in parallel so that commercial deployments of 5G can begin by 2020. 5G will not be an incremental improvement over its predecessors; it aims to be a revolutio

In a previous study, we detected a significant association between phosphoserine aminotransferase 1 (PSAT1) hyper-methylation and mRNA levels to outcome to tamoxifen treatment in recurrent disease. We here aimed to study the association of PSAT1 protein levels to outcome upon tamoxifen treatment and to obtain more insight in its role in tamoxifen resistance. A cohort of ER positive, hormonal thera

In the course of 2000s, the region of Campania in southern Italy and its capital city Naples became global icons of waste mismanagement after the images of piles of rubbish occluding their urban areas hit the headlines. Conventional explanations, in Italy and elsewhere, pointed to administrative failure, cultural backwardness and mafia infiltration as the main causes of waste mishandling. In the s

There is a widening gap between the fast advancement of computational methods for tomographic reconstruction and their successful implementation in production software at various synchrotron facilities. This is due in part to the lack of readily available instrument datasets and phantoms representative of real materials for validation and comparison of new numerical methods. Recent advancements in

Neonicotinoids are implicated in bee declines and laboratory studies imply that they impair the bee immune system, thereby precipitating a rise in pathogen levels. To establish whether such synergisms reduce bee performance in real-world agricultural landscapes, we analysed the microbial composition of the bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) samples from our recent landscape study on the impacts of fiel

The oral antidiabetic drug metformin is known to exhibit anti-inflammatory properties through activation of AMP kinase, thus protecting various brain tissues as cortical neurons, for example. However, the effect of metformin on the substantia nigra (SN), the main structure affected in Parkinson’s disease (PD), has not yet been studied in depth. Inflammation is a key feature of PD and it may play a

Introduction: The long-term risk of somatic disease in hepatoblastoma survivors has not been thoroughly evaluated in previous studies. In this population-based study of 86 five-year HB survivors, we used inpatient registers to evaluate the risk for a range of somatic diseases.Methods: In total, 86 five-year survivors of hepatoblastoma were identified in the Nordic cancer registries from 1964 to 20

Identifying and characterizing young stars in the Solar neighbourhood is essential to find and describe planets in the early stages of their evolution. This work seeks to identify nearby young stars showing a lithium 6708 Å absorption line in the GALAH survey. A robust, data-driven approach is used to search for corresponding templates in the pool of 434 215 measured dwarf spectra in the survey. I

We evaluated the use of two radiolabeled lambda DNA/Hpa II substrates to detect 5'-->3', 3'-->5' single and double stranded DNA dependent exonuclease and phosphatase activities found as contaminants in restriction and modifying enzyme preparations. Looking for the meaning of the radioactive assays results in a real cloning experience, we performed a cloning simulation assay using the same conditio

Magnetoliposomes (MLs) were synthesized and tested for longitudinal monitoring of transplanted pancreatic islets using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in rat models. The rat insulinoma cell line INS-1E and isolated pancreatic islets from outbred and inbred rats were used to optimize labeling conditions in vitro. Strong MRI contrast was generated by islets exposed to 50 µg Fe/ml for 24 hours witho

Background: Intracerebral transplantation of human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) can ameliorate behavioral deficits in animal models of stroke. How the ischemic lesion affects the survival of the transplanted cells, their proliferation, migration, differentiation, and function is only partly understood. Methods: Here we have assessed the influence of the stroke-induced injury on grafts of