Purpose: To presents results after 18 months of follow-up of a longitudinal study aiming at exploring the correlation between diabetic retinal vascular lesions and functional change. Methods: Patients were consecutively recruited from attendees to the screening program for diabetic retinopathy. Subjects are followed every sixth month for the first 3 years and thereafter annually up to 5 years. Pro

Aqueous solutions of charged spherical macroions with variable dielectric permittivity and their associated counterions are examined within the cell model using a field theory and Monte Carlo simulations. The field theory is based on separation of fields into short- and long-wavelength terms, which are subjected to different statistical-mechanical treatments. The simulations were performed by usin

Fertility rates have dramatically decreased in the last two decades, especially in men. It has been described that environmental factors, as well as life habits, may affect semen quality. Artificial intelligence techniques are now an emerging methodology as decision support systems in medicine. In this paper we compare three artificial intelligence techniques, decision trees, Multilayer Perceptron

Pollinator declines have raised concerns about the persistence of plant species that depend on insect pollination, in particular by bees, for their reproduction. The impact of pollinator declines remains unknown for species-rich plant communities found in temperate seminatural grasslands. We investigated effects of land-use intensity in the surrounding landscape on the distribution of plant traits

BACKGROUND: Several reports have been published on the gender differences associated with allergies in mice. GOAL: In the present study we investigate the influence of gender on allergy response using a strain of mice, B10.RIII, which is commonly used in the collagen-induced arthritis murine model. METHODS: Both male and female B10.RIII young mice were immunized with OVA and challenged four times

BACKGROUND: Optimal treatment of soft-tissue sarcoma requires multidisciplinary management at a sarcoma center. However, these rare tumors are often misinterpreted as benign and many are inadequately treated outside a sarcoma center, with an increased risk of local recurrence that often requires further extensive surgical treatment. To improve referral and centralization of soft-tissue sarcoma man

We describe integrated strategies that employ both translation of ENCODE data and major proteomic technology pillars to improve the identification of the missing proteins, protein isoforms, and PTMs. The results from proteoENCODEdb searches with experimental mass spectral data indicate that some novel splice forms detected at the transcript level are in fact translated to proteins. Our results pro

Edaphic fauna contributes to important ecosystem functions in grassland soils such as decomposition and nutrient mineralization. Since this functional role is likely to be altered by global change and associated shifts in plant communities, a thorough understanding of large scale drivers on below-ground processes independent of regional differences in soil type or climate is essential. We investig

The differential cross section for the process Z/gamma* -> ll (l = e, mu) as a function of dilepton invariant mass is measured in pp collisions at root s = 7 TeV at the LHC using the ATLAS detector. The measurement is performed in the e and mu channels for invariant masses between 26 GeV and 66 GeV using an integrated luminosity of 1.6 fb(-1) collected in 2011 and these measurements are combined.

We are using the label-free technique of holographic microscopy to analyze cellular parameters including cell number, confluence, cellular volume and area directly in the cell culture environment. We show that death-induced cells can be distinguished from untreated counterparts by the use of holographic microscopy, and we demonstrate its capability for cell death assessment. Morphological analysis

We calculate the radiation spectrum off a q (q) over bar pair of a fixed opening angle theta(q (q) over bar) traversing a medium of length L. Multiple interactions with the medium are handled in the harmonic oscillator approximation, valid for soft gluon emissions. We discuss the time-scales relevant to the decoherence of correlated partons traversing the medium and demonstrate how this relates to

Lund Observatory is presently designing and constructing a robotic telescope dedicated to studies of the Earth's albedo by measuring the ratio between the intensity of the dark and bright sides of the Moon. The telescope will operate both in broadband and narrow-band modes over the entire visible wavelength range and will transmit observational results back to the operation team over the Internet.

We study resolvent estimates for non-selfadjoint semiclassical pseudodifferential operators with double characteristics. Assuming that the quadratic approximation along the double characteristics is elliptic, we obtain polynomial upper bounds on the resolvent in a suitable region inside the pseudospectrum.

Through funding from the National Park Service's American Battlefield Protection Program, geographic information technologies were employed to create a high resolution, spatially accurate representation of the 1775 landscape of Boston's Inner Harbor and to conduct a geospatial and temporal assessment of the location, extent, and preservation potential of an American Revolutionary War battlefield a

Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) sheds light on the dimmer side of production and consumption patterns in modern societies. The rapid increase in its quantity and complexity contribute to the challenges it poses to solid waste management systems. Several members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have relied on the principle of extended producer re

Summary: Overweight and obesity constitute a major and increasing health and welfare problem throughout the world. Assessing the multifaceted mechanisms – biological, environmental and behavioural – behind this development is a crucial task in medical, social and economic sciences. We are, therefore, grateful to have been given the opportunity to, once again, discuss whether the risk of divorce ma