Background: Breathlessness and exercise intolerance frequently impact the daily life of patients with COPD. Methods: This double-blind, multicentre, three-period crossover study randomised 111 patients with COPD (mean age 64 years, mean FEV1 38% of predicted normal) to budesonide/formoterol 320/9 mu g, formoterol 9 mu g or placebo, twice daily for 1 week, following a 1-week run-in period with 1-we

The American Society of Nuclear Cardiology and the Society of Nuclear Medicine conclude that incorporation of attenuation corrected (AC) images in myocardial perfusion scintigraphy (MPS) will improve diagnostic accuracy. The aim was to investigate the value of adding AC stress-only images for the decision whether a rest study is necessary or not.

The exothermic nature of oxidation causes nearly all semiconductor applications in various fields like electronics, medicine, photonics, and sensor technology to acquire an oxidized semiconductor surface part during the application manufacturing. The significance of understanding and controlling the atomic scale properties of oxidized semiconductor surfaces is expected to increase even further wit

Nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) is a post-transcriptional surveillance process that eliminates mRNAs containing premature termination codons (PTCs). NMD has been hypothesized to impact on several aspects of cellular function; however, its importance in the context of a mammalian organism has not been addressed in detail. Here we use mouse genetics to demonstrate that hematopoietic-specific dele

This paper assesses the potential effects from trade facilitation in terms of increased trade flows both on average and specifically for the six regional groups of ACP countries negotiating Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the EU. Data from the World Bank’s Doing Business Database on the time required to export or import are used as indicators of cross-border transaction costs, and a gr

Honing and Samuelsson have in a two papers (2014, 2015) criticized the Delmar and Shane (2003) paper on several grounds: The data are difficult to replicate; conflicting results with another paper using the same data and similar independent variable; the inability to fully rule out reversed causality because of tied events; and what is the choice of relevant dependent variable. I also commented on

Den här artikeln belyser hur långa linjer kan bedrivas också kring känslor som omsorg och medkänsla. Därigenom önskar vi nyansera en traditionell berättelse om västerlandets historia, som i hög grad förklarat historien som en förnuftslig och handgriplig triumf över tidigare dominerande känslor som ångest och rädsla. En sådan förklaringsmodell baseras på teorier om känslor som inte längre har stöd

Aim: Primary tumours in the central nervous system (CNS) are the second most common malignancy in childhood after leukaemia. Sweden has a high incidence and a high-survival rate in international comparative studies. This has raised the question about the type of tumours included in the Swedish Cancer registry. We therefore compared international data to the Swedish Childhood Cancer registry. Metho

Stat och kommun träffade 2010 en grundöverenskommelse om att införa en evidensbaserad praktik inom socialtjänsten. Sedan dess har överenskommelsen preciserats, en process som analyseras i denna artikel. Som vi kommer att visa återstår betydande oklarheter som det sociala arbetets aktörer behöver klargöra via förhandlingar. Detta är ett numera vanligt sätt att söka implementera politik och vi disku

Due to its four decades of high long-term economic growth and democratic system, Botswana has been depicted as an exceptional success story in a region full of economic and political failures. In this article,,a structural analysis is applied, and it is argued that Botswana's success should be understood as one of pre-modern growth without development. It is claimed that although the country may b

A series of QM/MM optimizations of the full protein of [Fe] hydrogenase were performed. The FeGP cofactor has been optimized in the water-bound resting state (1), with a side-on bound dihydrogen (2), or as a hydride intermediate (3). For inclusion of H4MPT in the closed structure, advanced multiscale modeling appears to be necessary, especially to obtain reliable distances between CH-H4MPT+ and th

Background: Zinc deficiency is a significant problem, in developing countries and in vegetarians, which can be caused by plant-based diets. Thus, dietary strategies, such as fermentation, to improve zinc bioavailability of diets should be investigated. Objective: To improve zinc bioavailability in a plant-based diet by the inclusion of fermented food. Design: Cassava tubers were fermented and made

The measurement of radioactive solutions containing organic or aggressive media may cause stability problems in liquid and plastic scintillation (PS) techniques. In the case of PS, this can be overcome by adding a crosslinker to the polymer structure. The objectives of this study are to synthesise a suitable crosslinked plastic scintillator (C-PS) for radioactivity determination in organic and agg

A multi-cell He gas scintillator active target, designed for the measurement of photoreaction cross sections, is described. The target has four main chambers, giving an overall thickness of 0.103 g/cm(3) at an operating pressure of 2MPa. Scintillations are read out by photomultiplier tubes and the addition of small amounts of N-2 to the He, to shift the scintillation emission from UV to visible, i