Background: Smoking is reported to affect the risk of a number of chronic disorders, including rheumatic diseases. Previous cross-sectional studies have shown a lower frequency of smoking in patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS). The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of smoking and socioeconomic status on the risk of subsequent diagnosis of pSS in a nested case-control study

Objective: To determine if blood neurofilament light chain (NfL) protein can discriminate between Parkinson disease (PD) and atypical parkinsonian disorders (APD) with equally high diagnostic accuracy as CSF NfL, and can therefore improve the diagnostic workup of parkinsonian disorders. Methods: The study included 3 independent prospective cohorts: the Lund (n = 278) and London (n = 117) cohorts,

It is generally accepted that China will be a great competitor to the Western industrialized countries in the twenty-first century. Is this a reasonable opinion? Is it true that China’s size and growth rate are important in measuring its potential as a competitor? Two questions should be considered. First, is the growth rate of the Chinese economy based on productivity gains? If economic growth is

Stars in open clusters are expected to share an identical abundance pattern. Establishing the level of chemical homogeneity in a given open cluster deserves further study as it is the basis of the concept of chemical tagging to unravel the history of theMilkyWay.M67 is particularly interesting given its solar metallicity and age as well as being a dense cluster environment.We conducted a strictly

Simulation results for future measurements of electromagnetic proton form factors at P ¯ ANDA (FAIR) within the PandaRoot software framework are reported. The statistical precision with which the proton form factors can be determined is estimated. The signal channel p¯ p→ e+e- is studied on the basis of two different but consistent procedures. The suppression of the main background channel, i.e.p¯

In 2014 a small fire started in a forest in central Sweden. Within a few days it developed into the largest wildfire in Sweden in the last 50 years. As the scale of the fire increased, so did the need for direction and coordination of the resources engaged in the response operation. Both official investigators and the research community have studied the challenges and come up with recommendations

The Fourier dimension is not, in general, stable under finite unions of sets. Moreover, the stability of the Fourier dimension on particular pairs of sets is independent from the stability of the compact Fourier dimension.

These European Board of Anaesthesiology (EBA) recommendations for safe medication practice replace the first edition of the EBA recommendations published in 2011. They were updated because evidence from critical incident reporting systems continues to show that medication errors remain a major safety issue in anaesthesia, intensive care, emergency medicine and pain medicine, and there is an ongoin

Introduction: We aimed to determine the added value of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) to clinical and imaging tests to predict progression from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to any type of dementia. Methods: The risk of progression to dementia was estimated using two logistic regression models based on 250 MCI participants: the first included standard clinical measures (demographic, clinical, and ima

III-V compound semiconductors are used in, among many other things, high-frequency electronics. They are also considered as a replacement for silicon in CMOS technology. Yet, a III-V transistor outperforming state-of-the-art silicon devices in VLSI-relevant metrics has not yet decisively been demonstrated. In this work, the limits of III-V FET performance, for both RF and VLSI applications, are ex

In humans, the non-gastric H+/K+ ATPase (ATP1AL1) has previously been shown to be expressed in the epithelia of skin, kidney and colon. In this study we tested the hypothesis that the non-gastric H+/K+ ATPase is localized to the syncytiotrophoblast, the transporting epithelium of the human placenta. Microvillous (MVM) and basal plasma membranes (BM) of the syncytiotrophoblast were isolated from te

In vitro and animal studies suggest that bioactive constituents of coffee and tea may have anticarcinogenic effects against cutaneous melanoma; however, epidemiological evidence is limited to date. We examined the relationships between coffee (total, caffeinated or decaffeinated) and tea consumption and risk of melanoma in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC). EP

Objectives: The purpose was to study long-term outcome after thrombolysis for acute arterial lower limb ischaemia, and to evaluate the results depending on the underlying aetiology of arterial occlusion. Methods: This was a retrospective study of patients entered into a prospective database. Patients were identified in prospective databases from two vascular centres, including a large number of va

In contrast to classical transporting epithelia, the Na+/K+ ATPase is distributed to both the microvillous membrane (MVM) and the basal membrane (BM) of the placental syncytiotrophoblast. Na+/K+ ATPase is important in maintaining the electrochemical gradient for Na+, which represents the driving force for Na+-coupled transport of nutrients. We hypothesized that syncytiotrophoblast Na+/K+-ATPase ac

Respiratory tract infections are one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide urging better understanding of interactions between pathogens causing these infections and the host. Here we report that an extracellular matrix component proline/arginine-rich end leucine-rich repeat protein (PRELP) is a novel antibacterial component of innate immunity.We detected the presence of PRELP in human bron

Many of the transport processes across the Syncytiotrophoblast (ST), such as amino acid transport, are Na+-coupled. The maintenance of a low intracellular Na concentration by Na+-K+-ATPase is therefore crucial for placental transport of nutrients and consequently, foetal growth. In pregnancies complicated by diabetes foetal growth is often accelerated despite rigorous glycemic control of the mothe

Regulation of syncytiotrophoblast intracellular pH is critical to optimum enzymatic and transport functions of the placenta. Previous studies of Na+/H+ exchanger (NHE) activity in the placenta from pregnancies complicated by intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) have produced conflicting results. The possible role of altered placental pH regulation in the development of acidosis in some fetuses s

BACKGROUND: Autonomic disorders of the cardiovascular system, such as orthostatic hypotension and elevated resting heart rate, predict mortality and cardiovascular events in the population. Low-energy-fractures constitute a substantial clinical problem that may represent an additional risk related to such autonomic dysfunction.AIMS: To test the association between orthostatic hypotension, resting

This review article considers the purposes and mechanisms of regulation of placental transfer in general terms and then illustrates some key points with reference to the Na+/H+ exchanger (NHE), a transport protein found in the syncytiotrophoblast. NHE probably has a role in the homeostasis of syncytiotrophoblast intracellular pH and may also be involved in syncytiotrophoblast cell volume regulatio