1,148 research outputs found
Soft Drink, Software and Softening of Teeth – a Case Report of Tooth Wear in the Mixed Dentition Due to a Combination of Dental Erosion and Attrition
This case report describes a 9-year-old boy with severe tooth wear as a result of drinking a single glass of soft drink per day. This soft drink was consumed over a period of one to two hours, while he was gaming intensively on his computer. As a result, a deep bite, enamel cupping, sensitivity of primary teeth and loss of fillings occurred. Therefore, dentists should be aware that in patients who are gaming intensively, the erosive potential of soft drinks can be potentiated by mechanical forces leading to excessive tooth wear
Strong Ultraviolet Pulse From a Newborn Type Ia Supernova
Type Ia supernovae are destructive explosions of carbon oxygen white dwarfs.
Although they are used empirically to measure cosmological distances, the
nature of their progenitors remains mysterious, One of the leading progenitor
models, called the single degenerate channel, hypothesizes that a white dwarf
accretes matter from a companion star and the resulting increase in its central
pressure and temperature ignites thermonuclear explosion. Here we report
observations of strong but declining ultraviolet emission from a Type Ia
supernova within four days of its explosion. This emission is consistent with
theoretical expectations of collision between material ejected by the supernova
and a companion star, and therefore provides evidence that some Type Ia
supernovae arise from the single degenerate channel.Comment: Accepted for publication on the 21 May 2015 issue of Natur
Multiyear Climate Variability and Dengue—El Niño Southern Oscillation, Weather, and Dengue Incidence in Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Thailand: A Longitudinal Data Analysis
Michael Johansson and colleagues use wavelet analysis to show that there is limited evidence for a multiyear relationship between climate and dengue incidence in Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Thailand
"Who am I? Where am I?" Experiences of married young women in a slum in Islamabad, Pakistan
Background: According to the cultural tradition in Pakistan, young women belonging to poor families should
marry shortly after menarche. However, existing data show that young people, especially women, are not
prepared for sexual life and have poor knowledge about sexuality and reproductive health. Many of the
difficulties young women experience are related to beliefs and expectations in the society related to their
reproductive roles making them more vulnerable to reproductive ill health.
Aim: The study explores the preparedness of young women for married life (communicating with spouse,
initiation of sexual activity and child bearing) and ability to negotiate in marriage with spouse on number of
children to have and on contraceptive use.
Methods: In order to obtain an in-depth understanding of young women’s lives qualitative and quantitative
approaches were used. Three qualitative studies using narrative and content analysis were carried out in a slum
setting in the outskirts of Islamabad city in Pakistan. Married young women (I), unmarried young women (II) and
parents (III) were selected with the help of a community worker. Young married women were interviewed three
times at different occasions. Narrative structuring was used to explore how the participants represented their
situation. In addition twenty qualitative interviews and three focus group discussions were conducted with young
unmarried women (II). Twenty-five parents participated in four gender specific focus group discussions (III).
Content analysis was used for analysis of study II and III. For the quantitative study (IV), a subset of 1803
married young women aged 15-24 years was drawn from a nationally representative adolescent and youth survey
conducted in Pakistan in 2001-2002 by the Population Council. Regression models were used for analysing the
following outcomes: reported agreement with spouse on the number of children to have, current use of
contraceptives, intention to use contraceptives in the future and the time elapsed between marriage and the first
contraceptive use. Key co-variates of interest were variables that measure the involvement of young women in
their marriage as having a say in selection of spouse, mobility outside the household, social role and decision
making in their homes.
Results: The main theme in all the qualitative studies was ‘socialisation of young women into submissiveness’.
For the married young women two themes were identified a) submissive-accepting and
b) submissive-victims. The married young women who belonged to the accepting group lived under compromised
conditions but described themselves as satisfied with their situation. Women belonging to the victimized group
experienced physical and verbal abuse for their inability to cope with the duties of a wife, caretaker of the home
and bearer of children. Their situation was compounded by the power dynamics within the household (I). For the
unmarried young women the main theme identified was security lies in obedience. The two sub-themes
contributing to the main theme were socialisation into submissiveness and transition into adulthood in silence
(II). The theme and the sub-themes illustrate the situation of young women in a poor setting in Pakistan. The main
theme identified in the study with the parents was ‘Good parents’ strive to raise ‘innocent daughters’. The three
sub-themes contributing to the main theme were: a daughter - a responsibility and a burden, social and sexual
innocence and parents’ roles in the preparation for marriage. The theme and the sub-themes illustrate how the
parents saw themselves as responsible for raising ‘innocent daughters’ and arranging good marriages (III). The
quantitative study on the married young women showed that having a say in the selection of spouse at the time of
marriage was significantly associated with agreeing with spouse over the number of children to have, intention to
use contraceptives and the time between marriage and first contraceptive use. These relationships existed after
controlling for education, socioeconomic status, mobility outside of house and decision making in the home (IV).
Conclusions: In a culture of silence around sexuality, young women’s socialisation into submissiveness lays the
foundation for the lack of control over their future reproductive health (I and II). The parents realised, though, that
bringing up daughters for marriage requires not only obedience, but also building confidence and knowledge
during their childhood (III). Women who had decision making freedom in their parental home carried this ability
with them into marriage in their new home and were better able to negotiate about their fertility (IV). Knowledge
about reproductive life could prepare young women better for the future life and give them more control of their
fertility. Innovative interventions targeting women need to challenge current societal norms of womanhood to
promote the upbringing of confident and knowledgeable young women
Galiellalactone Inhibits Stem Cell-Like ALDH-Positive Prostate Cancer Cells
Galiellalactone is a potent and specific inhibitor of STAT3 signaling which has been shown to possess growth inhibitory effects on prostate cancer cells expressing active STAT3. In this study we aimed to investigate the effect of galiellalactone on prostate cancer stem cell-like cells. We explored the expression of aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) as a marker for cancer stem cell-like cells in different human prostate cancer cell lines and the effects of galiellalactone on ALDH expressing (ALDH+) prostate cancer cells. ALDH+ subpopulations were detected and isolated from the human prostate cancer cell lines DU145 and long-term IL-6 stimulated LNCaP cells using ALDEFLUOR® assay and flow cytometry. In contrast to ALDH− cells, ALDH+ prostate cancer cells showed cancer stem cell-like characteristics such as increased self-renewing and colony forming capacity and tumorigenicity. In addition, ALDH+ cells showed an increased expression of putative prostate cancer stem cell markers (CD44 and integrin α2β1). Furthermore, ALDH+ cells expressed phosphorylated STAT3. Galiellalactone treatment decreased the proportion of ALDH+ prostate cancer cells and induced apoptosis of ALDH+ cells. The gene expression of ALDH1A1 was downregulated in vivo in galiellalactone treated DU145 xenografts. These findings emphasize that targeting the STAT3 pathway in prostate cancer cells, including prostate cancer stem cell-like cells, is a promising therapeutic approach and that galiellalactone is an interesting compound for the development of future prostate cancer drugs
Measurement and Interpretation of Fermion-Pair Production at LEP energies above the Z Resonance
This paper presents DELPHI measurements and interpretations of
cross-sections, forward-backward asymmetries, and angular distributions, for
the e+e- -> ffbar process for centre-of-mass energies above the Z resonance,
from sqrt(s) ~ 130 - 207 GeV at the LEP collider. The measurements are
consistent with the predictions of the Standard Model and are used to study a
variety of models including the S-Matrix ansatz for e+e- -> ffbar scattering
and several models which include physics beyond the Standard Model: the
exchange of Z' bosons, contact interactions between fermions, the exchange of
gravitons in large extra dimensions and the exchange of sneutrino in R-parity
violating supersymmetry.Comment: 79 pages, 16 figures, Accepted by Eur. Phys. J.
A Determination of the Centre-of-Mass Energy at LEP2 using Radiative 2-fermion Events
Using e+e- -> mu+mu-(gamma) and e+e- -> qqbar(gamma) events radiative to the
Z pole, DELPHI has determined the centre-of-mass energy, sqrt{s}, using energy
and momentum constraint methods. The results are expressed as deviations from
the nominal LEP centre-of-mass energy, measured using other techniques. The
results are found to be compatible with the LEP Energy Working Group estimates
for a combination of the 1997 to 2000 data sets.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures, Accepted by Eur. Phys. J.
A Measurement of the Tau Hadronic Branching Ratios
The exclusive and semi-exclusive branching ratios of the tau lepton hadronic
decay modes (h- v_t, h- pi0 v_t, h- pi0 pi0 v_t, h- \geq 2pi0 v_t, h- \geq 3pi0
v_t, 2h- h+ v_t, 2h- h+ pi0 v_t, 2h- h+ \geq 2pi0 v_t, 3h- 2h+ v_t and 3h- 2h+
\geq 1pi0 v_t) were measured with data from the DELPHI detector at LEP.Comment: 53 pages, 18 figures, Accepted by Eur. Phys. J.
Listeriolysin O Is Strongly Immunogenic Independently of Its Cytotoxic Activity
The presentation of microbial protein antigens by Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) molecules is essential for the development of acquired immunity to infections. However, most biochemical studies of antigen processing and presentation deal with a few relatively inert non-microbial model antigens. The bacterial pore-forming toxin listeriolysin O (LLO) is paradoxical in that it is cytotoxic at nanomolar concentrations as well as being the source of dominant CD4 and CD8 T cell epitopes following infection with Listeria monocytogenes. Here, we examined the relationship of LLO toxicity to its antigenicity and immunogenicity. LLO offered to antigen presenting cells (APC) as a soluble protein, was presented to CD4 T cells at picomolar to femtomolar concentrations- doses 3000–7000-fold lower than free peptide. This presentation required a dose of LLO below the cytotoxic level. Mutations of two key tryptophan residues reduced LLO toxicity by 10–100-fold but had no effect on its presentation to CD4 T cells. Thus there was a clear dissociation between the cytotoxic properties of LLO and its very high antigenicity. Presentation of LLO to CD8 T cells was not as robust as that seen in CD4 T cells, but still occurred in the nanomolar range. APC rapidly bound and internalized LLO, then disrupted endosomal compartments within 4 hours of treatment, allowing endosomal contents to access the cytosol. LLO was also immunogenic after in vivo administration into mice. Our results demonstrate the strength of LLO as an immunogen to both CD4 and CD8 T cells
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