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For years tools and techniques such as Brainstorming, Mind-Maps and Rich Pictures have been used in both academic and professional practices to assist people with making sense of complex problem spaces. These tools have their supporters and in many cases their uses can be argued to be interchangeable. Seldom however have they been systematically applied in combination in theory or practice. Even t

The complement system plays an important role in eliminating invading pathogens. Activation of complement results in C3b deposition (opsonization), phagocytosis, anaphylatoxin (C3a, C5a) release, and consequently cell lysis. Moraxella catarrhalis is a human respiratory pathogen commonly found in children with otitis media and in adults with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The species has ev

The transforming growth factor (TGF)-beta superfamily of growth factors, including the TGF-betas, activins, and bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs), provide cells with a broad spectrum of regulatory signals through the intracellular Smad pathway. Since loss-of-function studies of a majority of the TGF-beta superfamily members result in embryonic lethality, much of our current knowledge of the TGF-b

One of the major roles of seminal plasma is to provide antimicrobial protection for the spermatozoa in the female reproductive tract. We found that the bactericidal activity of seminal plasma was highest after resolution of the seminal clot and that this antibacterial activity subsequently became greatly diminished. The antibacterial activity was derived from peptides generated by fragmentation of

To identify risk factors for Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) in Danish patients consulting general practice with gastrointestinal symptoms, a prospective matched case-control study was performed; cases (N=259) had positive cultures for toxigenic C. difficile and controls (N=455) negative cultures. Data were analysed by conditional logistic regression. In patients aged 2 years (138 cases), ho

Humans have dramatic, diverse and far-reaching influences on the evolution of other organisms. Numerous examples of this human-induced contemporary evolution have been reported in a number of ‘contexts’, including hunting, harvesting, fishing, agriculture, medicine, climate change, pollution, eutrophication, urbanization, habitat fragmentation, biological invasions and emerging/disappearing diseas

Only in Sweden, single-family houses account for approximately 30% of energy use in all buildings and a large part uses only electricity for heating. The potential for improvements on energy efficiency in these houses is large. This study theoretically investigates retrofitting of electrically heated Swedish single-family houses by using an air-source heat pump for both space heating and domestic

Water uptake on aerosol and cloud particles in the atmosphere modifies their chemistry and microphysics with important implications for climate on Earth. Here, we apply an environmental molecular beam (EMB) method to characterize water accommodation on ice and organic surfaces. The adsorption of surface-active compounds including short-chain alcohols, nitric acid, and acetic acid significantly aff

Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) can quantify myocardial infarct (MI) size and myocardium at risk (MaR), enabling assessment of myocardial salvage index (MSI). We assessed how MSI impacts the number of patients needed to reach statistical power in relation to MI size alone and levels of biochemical markers in clinical cardioprotection trials and how scan day affect sample size.

Background: Analysis of sialic acid (SA) metabolites in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is important for clinical diagnosis. In the present study, a high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC/MS/MS) method for free sialic acid (FSA) and total sialic acid (TSA) in human CSF was validated. Methods: The method utilized a simple sample-preparation procedure of protein precipitatio

Peptide antibiotics are widespread in nature and, by providing a rapid first line of defense, may be key players in the innate immune system. Although epithelia are the main barriers shielding the internal environment from microorganisms, the role for peptide antibiotics in epithelial protection is unclear. We recently reported that the human cationic antimicrobial protein hCAP18, the precursor of

Maturation of lymphoid cells is controlled by the action of stage and lineage-restricted transcription factors working in concert with the general transcription and chromatin remodeling machinery to regulate gene expression. To better understand this functional interplay, we used Biotin Identification in human embryonic kidney cells to identify proximity interaction partners for GATA3, TCF7 (TCF1)

Aims/Introduction: Given that mutations related to maturity-onset diabetes of the young (MODY) are rarely found in Chinese populations, we aim to characterize the mutation spectrum of MODY pedigrees. Materials and Methods: Maturity-onset diabetes of the young candidate gene- or exome-targeted capture sequencing was carried out in 76 probands from unrelated families fulfilling the clinical diagnost

The risk for type 1 diabetes is strongly associated with HLA-DQ and the appearance of beta cell autoantibodies against either insulin, glutamate decarboxylase (GAD65), insulinoma-associated protein-2 (IA-2), or zinc transporter 8 (ZnT8). Prolonged exposure to autoantibodies may be related to T cell exhaustion known to occur in chronic infections or autoimmune disorders. It was hypothesized that au

We initiate a proof complexity theoretic study of subsystems of cutting planes (CP) modelling proof search in conflict-driven pseudo-Boolean (PB) solvers. These algorithms combine restrictions such as that addition of constraints should always cancel a variable and/or that so-called saturation is used instead of division. It is known that on CNF inputs cutting planes with cancelling addition and s

Background: Namibia has made significant gains in the fight against malaria, with a target of elimination by 2023. We examined the genotype and allele frequencies of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency to inform decisions on primaquine use, as we recently detected clusters of Plasmodium ovale curtisi in Kavango. Methods: A multistaged cross-sectional sampling method was used to enr

Undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma (UPS) is a highly aggressive soft tissue tumor. A subset of UPS is characterized by a CITED2–PRDM10 or a MED12–PRDM10 gene fusion. Preliminary data suggest that these so-called PRDM10-rearranged tumors (PRT) are clinically more indolent than classical high-grade UPS, and hence important to recognize. Here, we assessed the spectrum of accompanying mutations and

We present a model for the concurrent formation of globular clusters (GCs) and supermassive stars (SMSs, ≳103M⊙) to address the origin of the HeCNONaMgAl abundance anomalies in GCs. GCs form in converging gas flows and accumulate low-angular momentum gas, which accretes on to protostars. This leads to an adiabatic contraction of the cluster and an increase of the stellar collision rate. A SMS can