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Techniques for searching for good quasi-cyclic (QC) LDPC block codes of short and moderate lengths which are suitable for practical purposes are studied. To facilitate implementations only codes whose parity-check matrices having bidiagonal structure of their submatrices and consequently having low encoding complexity are considered. The problem of finding QC LDPC codes with the near-optimum frame
Major limitations to the pharmacotherapy of Parkinson's disease (PD) are the motor complications resulting from l-DOPA treatment. Abnormal involuntary movements (dyskinesia) affect a majority of the patients after a few years of l-DOPA treatment and can become troublesome and debilitating. Once dyskinesia has debuted, an irreversible process seems to have occurred, and the movement disorder become
Proteome analysis involves many steps that generate large quantities of data in different formats. This creates a need for automatic data merging and extraction of important features from data. Furthermore, metadata need to be collected and reported to enable critical evaluation of results. Many data analysis tools are developed locally in research laboratories and are nontrivial to adapt for othe
In recent years, there has been an increased interest for use of pharmaceutical testosterone among elderly men. However, it is still scarcely studied if this use is conditioned by socioeconomic factors in the general population of elderly men.
Previous prospective cohort studies have shown that serum levels of sex steroids and sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) associate with non-vertebral fracture risk in men. The predictive value of sex hormones and SHBG for vertebral fracture risk specifically is, however, less studied. Elderly men (aged ≥65 years) from Sweden and Hong Kong participating in the MrOS study had baseline estradiol and
A key recovery attack on the stream cipher Achterbahn-128/80, a cipher in the second phase of eSTREAM, is given. The key observation is a high dependency between some input bits to the Boolean combining function generating the keystream. It results in the first known attacks on both the 128-bit and the 80-bit variants of the cipher. The number of keystream bits required in the attacks is less than
The MIC wild-type (WT) distribution for Mycobacterium tuberculosis in BACTEC 960 MGIT is not defined, which may result in poor reproducibility for drug susceptibility testing (DST), as several DST methods with different breakpoints are in use. In a comparison between MGIT and Middlebrook 7H10 medium of seven first- and second-line drugs, including 133 MIC determinations of 15 WT isolates, we found
Background: Short-term exposure to high levels of air pollution can increase stroke risk. In this study we investigated the short-term effects of air pollution on hospital admissions for stroke in a setting where pollutant levels are rather low. We also addressed methodological issues in evaluating the short-term effects of air pollution. Methods: Daily admissions of ischemic (n = 11,267) and hemo
Aberrant DNA methylation is frequently observed in breast cancer. However, the relationship between methylation patterns and the heterogeneity of breast cancer has not been comprehensively characterized.
Estrogens are sex hormones that are central to health and disease in both genders. These hormones have long been recognized to act in complex ways, both through relatively slow genomic mechanisms and via fast non-genomic mechanisms. Several recent in vitro studies suggest that GPR30, or G protein-coupled estrogen receptor 1 (GPER1), is a functional membrane estrogen receptor involved in non-genomi
A statistical approach to a posteriori blockmodeling for graphs is proposed. The model assumes that the vertices of the graph are partitioned into two unknown blocks and that the probability of an edge between two vertices depends only on the blocks to which they belong. Statistical procedures are derived for estimating the probabilities of edges and for predicting the block structure from observa
Microaggregate-poor erythrocyte concentrate with 3% dextran-60 as a plasma substitute was compared with microaggregate-poor whole blood for replacement of intra-operative blood loss. Their blood volume-conserving effects were studied by sequential blood volume determination with radioactive technetium (99mTc) in 19 patients undergoing total hip arthroplasty. Pre-operatively there was no difference
BACKGROUND: Technical developments in the management of atrial arrhythmias revived interest into the detailed knowledge of atrial anatomy. The atrial septum (AS), known for its complex structure, has been particularly difficult to study, and our knowledge of the muscular bundles providing routes for intra-atrial and interatrial conduction within the AS remains limited. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of th
Background: Fast-track (FT) programmes represent a series of multimodal concepts that may reduce surgical stress and speed up convalescence after surgery. The aim of this systematic review was to evaluate FT programmes for patients undergoing hepatopancreatic surgery. Methods: PubMed, Embase and the Cochrane Library databases were searched for studies of FT vs. conventional recovery strategies for
The pricing literature is mainly concerned with pricing in association with standardized products and services. This article addresses the topic of pricing from the perspective of value creation logics, focusing on highly customized deliveries rather than standardized products. The article first outlines a framework of pricing settings, depending on value creation logics. It then exemes parts of t
Clear cell adenocarcinoma of the female urethra is a rare tumour of unknown origin. Here, we report 4 patients with such malignancy and argue for proper identification of the disease entity and radical surgery based on the available literature.
Shed blood is known to be a source of lipid micro-emboli in cardiac surgery. The aim of this study was to characterize the occurrence of these particles at different stages of the operation, and to study their occurrence in the circulation at multiple time-points after the retransfusion of shed blood. 44 patients undergoing routine surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass were included. Blood was sampl
In this case-control study, interview data on smoking habits were available for 179 de novo cases (116 with cytogenetic data) of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) or myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). Smoking habits were compared with a pooled set of population controls and hospital controls (diagnosed with malignant melanoma). Each pack-year of smoking increased the risk of MDS with 1.3% (95% CI 0.1-2.6
