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Continuous water-table (WT) measurements from peatlands are scarce and – if existing at all –very short. Consequently, proxy indicators are critically needed to simulate hydrological changes in peatlands over longer time periods. In this study, we demonstrate that tree-ring width (TRW) records of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) growing in the Čepkeliai peatland (southern Lithuania) can be used as

Constitutive activation of interferon signaling pathways has been reported in colorectal cancer (CRC), leading to a strong CD8+ T cell response through stimulation of NLRC5 expression. Primed CD8+ T cell expansion, however, may be negatively regulated by PD-L1 expression. Additionally, aberrant PD-L1 expression enables cancer cells to escape the immune attack. Our study aimed to select potential r

Background: Tumour hypoxia is a common characteristic of many solid human tumours, and is associated with a poor prognosis in various types of cancer. Metabolic changes occur when cells are exposed to low oxygen pressure; however, little is known about the mechanisms underlying malignant transformation and/or progression caused by hypoxia. Materials and Methods: We monitored global gene expression

One risk factor for osteoporosis which has attracted increasing attention in recent years is exposure to cadmium. The aim of this study was to examine the associations between low-level cadmium exposure, from diet and smoking, and BMD and incident fractures in elderly men. The study population consisted of 936 men from the Swedish cohort of the MrOS study, aged 70-81 years at inclusion (year 2002-

Idiopathic Scoliosis is a spinal deformity affecting approximately 3% of otherwise healthy children or adolescents. The etiology is still largely unknown but has an important genetic component. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified a number of common genetic variants that are significantly associated with idiopathic scoliosis in Asian and Caucasian populations, rs11190870 close to

PURPOSE: The R2Pulm trial was conducted to evaluate the effect of busulfan-melphalan high-dose chemotherapy with autologous stem-cell rescue (BuMel) without whole-lung irradiation (WLI) on event-free survival (main end point) and overall survival, compared with standard chemotherapy with WLI in Ewing sarcoma (ES) presenting with pulmonary and/or pleural metastases. METHODS: From 2000 to 2015, we e

Abstract: This study aims to investigate separate and combined impacts of land-use and climate variability on hydrological components in the Johor River Basin (JRB), Malaysia. The Mann-Kendall and Sen’s slope tests were applied to detect the trends in precipitation, temperature and streamflow of the JRB. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was calibrated and validated using measured monthly

Microstructure and crystallographic texture are the key factors that determine the properties of sputtering target used in integrated circuit fabrication. Multi-pass clock-rolling has been used recently to produce Ta sputtering targets. However, the effect of strain per pass, or the number of passes to achieve desired thickness, in clock-rolling on the homogeneity of final microstructure has not b

Accurately quantifying soil base cation pool sizes is essential to interpreting the sustainability of forest harvests from element mass-balance studies. The soil-exchangeable pool is classically viewed as the bank of "available" base cations in the soil, withdrawn upon by plant uptake and leaching and refilled by litter decomposition, atmospheric deposition and mineral weathering. The operational

Background: Informed consent is a prerequisite for patients included in clinical trials. Trial design, inclusion criteria and legal requirements are increasingly complex. This complexity challenges design and delivery of written and oral trial information to ensure understandable information. To evaluate the level of concordance between patients' and informing physicians' assessments regarding pat

1. Measurements of membrane capacitance, as an indicator of exocytosis, and intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i) were used to determine the Ca2+ dependence of secretion in single pancreatic B-cells. 2. Exocytosis was dependent on a rise in [Ca2+]i and could be evoked by activation of voltage-dependent Ca2+ currents. The threshold for depolarization-induced release was 0.5 microM [Ca2+]i. Onc

Previous studies in the rat have shown that a serotonergic depletion greatly potentiates the learning and memory impairments produced by pharmacological or lesion-induced cholinergic blockade in the forebrain. The impairment produced by combined serotonergic-cholinergic lesions is reminiscent of that seen in memory-impaired aged rats. In the present experiment, we investigated whether grafts of ch

Background and ObjectivesIntestinal levodopa/carbidopa gel infusion (LCIG) is superior to oral treatment in advanced Parkinson disease. The primary objective of this trial was to investigate whether continuous subcutaneous or intravenous infusion with a continuously buffered acidic levodopa/carbidopa solution yields steady-state plasma concentrations of levodopa that are equivalent in magnitude, a

The maintenance of protein homeostasis, also referred to as proteostasis, is essential for preserving the structural and functional stability of the proteome in living organisms. This involves the precise control of protein synthesis, folding, and degradation. As proteostasis disruption can cause growth and survival deficiencies in bacteria, the investigation of proteostasis has rapidly emerged as

Complete resection is the treatment of choice for most pediatric brain tumors, but early postoperative MRI for detection of residual tumor may be misleading because of MRI signal changes caused by the operation. PET imaging with amino acid tracers in adults increases the diagnostic accuracy for brain tumors, but the literature in pediatric neurooncology is limited. A hybrid PET/MRI system is highl

Background: Little is known about the long-term effectiveness of behavioural therapy for tics. We aimed to assess the long-term clinical and cost-effectiveness of online therapist-supported exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy for tics 12 and 18 months after treatment initiation. Methods: ORBIT (online remote behavioural intervention for tics) was a two-arm (1:1 ratio), superiority, sing

Estimates of land-atmosphere exchanges of carbon, energy, water vapor, and other greenhouse gases based on the eddy covariance (EC) technique rely on the fundamental assumption that the flux footprint area is homogeneous. We investigated the impact of source area heterogeneity on flux estimates in single-level EC measurements over a managed boreal forest landscape. For this purpose, we compared si

Background: Birds have extremely elevated metabolic rates during migratory endurance flight and consequently can become physiologically exhausted. One feature of exhaustion is oxidative damage, which occurs when the antioxidant defense system is overwhelmed by the production of damaging reactive oxygen species (ROS). Migrating birds have been shown to decrease the amount of oxidative lipid damage

Taking advantage of Estonia's small size and population, we have employed wastewater-based epidemiology approach to monitor the spread of SARS-CoV-2, releasing weekly nation-wide updates. In this study we report results obtained between August 2020 and December 2021. Weekly 24 h composite samples were collected from wastewater treatment plants of larger towns already covered 65% of the total popul