Purpose: To assess baseline factors that may predict fast tibiofemoral cartilage loss over a 30-month period. Materials and Methods: The Multicenter Osteoarthritis (MOST) study is a longitudinal study of individuals who have or who are at high risk for knee osteoarthritis. The HIPAA-compliant protocol was approved by the institutional review boards of all participating centers, and written informe

Cavitation is common in high-pressure homogenizers, and has severe negative effects such as noise and mechanical wear, but may also have a beneficial effect in promoting fragmentation. Greater knowledge concerning cavitation in the homogenizer valve is thus important in optimizing the design and utilization of emulsification equipment. The aim of this study was to locate the region of cavitation a

The aim of the present study was to identify patterns of background factors related to the early RA patients' conceptions of the cause of the disease. Conceptions from a qualitative study formed the basis for the stratification of 785 patients from the Swedish EIRA study answering a question about their own thoughts about the cause to RA. Logistic regression analyses were used to explore the assoc

Abstract Background: As the supply of starch grain and sugar cane, currently the main feedstocks for bioethanol production, become limited, lignocelluloses will be sought as alternative materials for bioethanol production. Production of cellulosic ethanol is still cost-inefficient because of the low final ethanol concentration and the addition of nutrients. We report the use of simultaneous saccha

A PCR based survey of Festuca ovina plants from populations around the southern part of the Baltic Sea demonstrates both geographic and molecular variation in the enzyme gene PgiC2, horizontally transferred from a Poa-species. Our results show that PgiC2-a natural functional nuclear transgene-is not a local ephemeral phenomenon but is present in a very large number of individuals. We find also tha

This letter reports the results of a search for top and bottom squarks from gluino pair production in 4.7 fb(-1) of pp collisions at root s = 7 TeV using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The search is performed in events with large missing transverse momentum and at least three jets identified as originating from a b-quark. Exclusion limits are presented for a variety of gluino-mediated models with

Free radical polymerization of acrylate counterions to cationic alkyltrimethylammonium surfactant ions was performed in aqueous media. The results of the reactions were either formation, destruction or change of liquid crystalline surfactant structures, depending on the starting conditions such as the surfactant concentration, the content of inert counterions and the monomer-to-initiator ratio. Th

ASHEIM B. T., BOSCHMA R. and COOKE P. Constructing regional advantage: platform policies based on related variety and differentiated knowledge bases, Regional Studies. This paper presents a regional innovation policy model based on the idea of constructing regional advantage. This policy model brings together concepts like related variety, knowledge bases and policy platforms. Related variety atta

Film cooling effectiveness and its distribution characteristics on the gas turbine blade surface were investigated numerically. Seven rectangular ribs were located on the internal wall, and a film cooling hole had a compound inclined angle. The case with a compound angle of 45 degrees was designed to improve the lateral film cooling effectiveness on the downstream surface. The secondary flow jet f

The age specific patterns of reproduction and mortality dictated by the life history of an organism apply to potential invaders as well as resident species of an area, but whether certain life history traits are more invasive than others is an unresolved issue. We analyze a two-population system of an invading and a resident species and test the effects of age on the probability to invade when the

Hampton (1988) discovered that people are subject to overextension they categorize some things as falling under a conjunction (e.g., they categorize chess as a sport which is also a game) but not as falling under both of the corresponding conjuncts they do not categorize chess as a sport). Although subsequent literature has replicated this effect with a wider range of constructions than those orig

Abstract in French L'auteur suggére une série d'études comparatives qui traitent de la perception des pirogues à balancier, et qui visent à mieux cerner les rapports existant entre les relations sociales, la biodiversité et le développement durable dans les sociétés océaniennes des petites îles et des zones côtières exposées à de rapides mutations culturelles. Après avoir critique l'idée récente s

Three-dimensional simulations of the squealer tip on the GE-E-3 blade with eight film cooling holes were carried out. The effect of the rim width and the blowing ratio on the blade tip flow and cooling performance were revealed. Numerical simulations were performed to predict the leakage flow and the tip heat transfer with the k-epsilon model. For the squealer tip, the depth of the cavity is fixed

Several studies of meteorites show that a large disruption of an asteroid occurred ca. 470 Ma in our solar system's asteroid belt. As a consequence, a large number of meteorite impacts occurred on Earth during the following few million years. The finding and characterization, for the first time, of planar deformation features in quartz grains from rocks collected at the Middle Ordovician Hummeln s

Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are chronic inflammatory disorders of the gastrointestinal tract, and are collectively referred to as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). IBD is a major cause of lifetime morbidity, has a severe impact on quality of life of patients (equivalent to that of rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, migraine, or diabetes) and constitutes a substantial economic burden to the h

A common view is that an individual delinquent can be rehabilitated in a “home” in the countryside, away from his or her original urban social ties. An ironic result is new social ties with other juvenile delinquents as they spend a considerable amount of time together at a secluded institution. Drawing on ethnographic studies in residential care institutions, this article discusses two aspects to

The removal of particulate fine fractions by a proper high-temperature cleaning device is a very important issue in the development of the biorefinery concept. Therefore, in this investigation, particles from a 100 kW(th) steam-O-2 blown circulating fluidized-bed (CFB) gasifier were sampled and characterized. The sampling was performed with a specially designed heated dilution probe downstream of