Filtyp
To meet the needs of an increasing, heterogeneous, ageing population it is imperative to understand links between home and health. In Latvia, only limited research targeting the health and home situation of very old people is available. Consequently, the aim of this study was to describe how the home environment and aspects of health have changed over nine years between 2002 and 2011 for very old
Ocean thermal energy refers to the thermal potential energy produced by the temperature difference between the warm surface seawater and the cold deep seawater. In this paper, a siphon flash evaporation desalination system using ocean thermal energy is proposed. Because it can utilize the ocean thermal energy directly for desalination, siphon flash evaporation desalination system has relatively hi
Background: Effective digestive enzymes are crucial for successful islet isolation. Supplemental proteases are essential because they synergize with collagenase for effective pancreatic digestion. The activity of these enzymes is critically dependent on the presence of Ca2+ ions at a concentration of 5–10 mM. The present study aimed to determine the Ca2+ concentration during human islet isolation
A numerical formulation is provided for secondary ice production during fragmentation of freezing raindrops or drizzle. This is obtained by pooling laboratory observations from published studies and considering the physics of collisions. There are two modes of the scheme: fragmentation during spherical drop freezing (mode 1) and during collisions of supercooled raindrops with more massive ice (mod
Background: Research suggests that humans have the tendency to increase the valence of events when these are imagined to happen in the future, but to decrease the valence when the same events are imagined to happen in the past. This line of research, however, has mostly been conducted by asking participants to value imagined, yet probable, events. Our aim was to re-examine this time-valence asymme
Objective: To evaluate the effect of dosage on the metabolic response to vegetables added to a mixed lunch meal, and to relate the amounts to the tripartite plate model. Carrots were chosen as an example, and the carrots were blanched, frozen and boiled to include possible effects of processing and cooking. The effects of carrots steeped in lactic acid, as produced at fermentation, were also studi
For memory retrieval, pattern completion is a crucial process that restores memories from partial or degraded cues. Neurocognitive aging models suggest that the aged memory system is biased toward pattern completion, resulting in a behavioral preference for retrieval over encoding of memories. Here, we built on our previously developed behavioral recognition memory paradigm—the Memory Image Comple
A previous study has shown that serum levels of the active vitamin D metabolite 1,25-(OH)2-vitamin D were inversely related to blood pressure levels while the prohormone 25-OH-vitamin D was found to be related to insulin metabolism. Also other clinical and experimental data support the view that vitamin D metabolism is involved in blood pressure regulation and other metabolic processes. The presen
Various ecosystems, including shallow lakes, are suggested to possess alternative stable state dynamics. The response of such systems to environmental change is non-linear and not fully reversible, which calls for identification of feedback mechanisms and subtle changes connected to structural stability. Here, we used a 25-year data series on water chemistry to make inferences on processes prior t
The lithology, age, geological setting, structural and metamorphic history of the granitic mylonites from the Mylonite Zone (MZ) in southwestern Sweden have been studied extensively. The deformation history, growth of microstructures, intensity of deformation, changes in mineral compositions, and pressure-temperature conditions of deformation have, however, not been addressed. In this study, powde
Phosphatase activity of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi has attracted attention in three fairly distinct domains: intracellular enzymes with defined metabolic functions that have been studied in intraradical hyphae, histochemical staining of alkaline phosphatase as an indicator of fungal activity measured both intra- and extraradically, and extracellular activity related to mineralization of org
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic inflammatory condition affecting the gastrointestinal tract, with a remitting and relapsing course. There are two main forms of IBD: Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). The etiology of IBD is not fully understood, however both CD and UC thought to be closely associated with dysregulated innate and adaptive immune responses. The aim of thi
Frataxin is a highly conserved protein found in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. It is involved in several central functions in cells, which include iron delivery to biochemical processes, such as heme synthesis, assembly of iron-sulfur clusters (ISC), storage of surplus iron in conditions of iron overload, and repair of ISC in aconitase. Frataxin from different organisms has been shown to undergo
The effects of fuel properties on the performance and emissions of an engine running in partially premixed combustion mode were investigated using nine test fuels developed in the gasoline boiling point range. The fuels covered a broad range of ignition quality and fuel chemistry.The fuels were characterized by performing a load sweep between 1 and 12 bar gross IMEP at 1000 and 1300 rpm. A heavy d
Hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) can achieve zero exhaust emission and zero pollution. In order to make FCEV reach a farther travel distance, greater demands are put on its pressure reducing system. In this paper, a two-step high pressure reducing system for FCEV is proposed. The system is made up of two parts, a new high multi-stage pressure reducing valve (HMSPRV) and a multi-stage muf
From experience, it has been well known that the performance of IEEE 802.11 wireless local area networks significantly drops in dense settings, largely driven by poor capacity of the medium access control (MAC) layer. The current 802.11 MAC mechanism utilizes a contention window (CW) for random access, and the CW size is dictated to take discrete values from a bounded finite set. In this paper, wi
A reliable phylogenetic reconstruction of the evolutionary history of contemporary species depends on a robust identification of the universal common ancestor (UCA) at the root of the Tree of Life (ToL). That root polarizes the tree so that the evolutionary succession of ancestors to descendants is discernable. In effect, the root determines the branching order and the direction of character evolu
Organo-metal halide perovskites are some of the most promising materials for the new generation of low-cost photovoltaic and light-emitting devices. Their solution processability is a beneficial trait, although it leads to a spatial inhomogeneity of perovskite films with a variation of the trap state density at the nanoscale. Comprehending their properties using traditional spectroscopy therefore
In this work, we investigate production of Drell-Yan (DY) pairs in proton-nucleus collisions in kinematic regions where the corresponding coherence length does not exceed the nuclear radius, RA, and the quantum coherence effects should be treated with special care. The results for the nucleus-to-nucleon production ratio available in the literature so far are usually based on the assumption of a ve
