| 1. |
- Albertsson-Wikland, Kerstin, 1947, et al.
(författare)
-
Dose-dependent effect of growth hormone on final height in children with short stature without growth hormone deficiency
- 2008
-
Ingår i: Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. - : The Endocrine Society. - 0021-972X .- 1945-7197. ; 93:11, s. 4342-4350
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- CONTEXT: The effect of GH therapy in short non-GH-deficient children, especially those with idiopathic short stature (ISS), has not been clearly established owing to the lack of controlled trials continuing until final height (FH).OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to investigate the effect on growth to FH of two GH doses given to short children, mainly with ISS, compared with untreated controls.DESIGN AND SETTING: A randomized, controlled, long-term multicenter trial was conducted in Sweden.INTERVENTION: Two doses of GH (Genotropin) were administered, 33 or 67 microg/kg.d; control subjects were untreated.SUBJECTS: A total of 177 subjects with short stature were enrolled. Of these, 151 were included in the intent to treat (AllITT) population, and 108 in the per protocol (AllPP) population. Analysis of ISS subjects included 126 children in the ITT (ISSITT) population and 68 subjects in the PP (ISSPP) population.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: We measured FH sd score (SDS), difference in SDS to midparenteral height (diff MPHSDS), and gain in heightSDS.RESULTS: After 5.9+/-1.1 yr on GH therapy, the FHSDS in the AllPP population treated with GH vs. controls was -1.5+/-0.81 (33 microg/kg.d, -1.7+/-0.70; and 67 microg/kg.d, -1.4+/-0.86; P<0.032), vs. -2.4+/-0.85 (P<0.001); the diff MPHSDS was -0.2+/-1.0 vs. -1.0+/-0.74 (P<0.001); and the gain in heightSDS was 1.3+/-0.78 vs. 0.2+/-0.69 (P<0.001). GH therapy was safe and had no impact on time to onset of puberty. A dose-response relationship identified after 1 yr remained to FH for all growth outcome variables in all four populations.CONCLUSION: GH treatment significantly increased FH in ISS children in a dose-dependent manner, with a mean gain of 1.3 SDS (8 cm) and a broad range of response from no gain to 3 SDS compared to a mean gain of 0.2 SDS in the untreated controls.
|
|
| 2. |
- Benrick, Anna, 1979, et al.
(författare)
-
A non-conservative polymorphism in the IL-6 signal transducer (IL6ST)/gp130 is associated with myocardial infarction in a hypertensive population.
- 2008
-
Ingår i: Regulatory peptides. - : Elsevier BV. - 0167-0115. ; 146:1-3, s. 189-96
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Inflammation is a key component in the development of atherosclerosis, and myocardial infarction (MI); therefore we investigated the association between an interleukin-6 signal transducer (IL6ST)/gp130 polymorphism, gp130 function and risk of MI. Structural modeling suggested that a non-conservative single nucleotide polymorphism in the gp130, Gly148Arg, can change the stability and functional properties of the molecule. In vitro studies were done with BAF/3 cells lacking endogenous gp130. Cells stably transfected with the gp130 148Arg variant proliferated less and showed slightly lower STAT-3 phosphorylation in response to gp130 stimulation as compared to cells transfected with gp130 148Gly. In a prospectively followed hypertensive cohort we identified 167 patients who suffered a MI during the study and compared them to matched controls (mean age 57 years, 73% males, n=482). Carriers of the 148Arg variant (f(Arg)=0.12) of the gp130 receptor had decreased odds ratio for MI in univariate analysis (0.56, 95% CI 0.34-0.91, p=0.02). In conclusion, a genetically determined structural variant of the IL-6 receptor subunit gp130 is, independently of other known risk factors, associated with decreased risk of MI. The variant is also associated with decreased IL-6 responsiveness and could lead to a configuration change in the gp130 receptor.
|
|
| 3. |
|
|
| 4. |
|
|
| 5. |
- Bylesjö, Max, et al.
(författare)
-
LAMINA : a tool for rapid quantification of leaf size and shape parameters
- 2008
-
Ingår i: BMC Plant Biology. - : BMC. - 1471-2229. ; 8
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: An increased understanding of leaf area development is important in a number of fields: in food and non-food crops, for example short rotation forestry as a biofuels feedstock, leaf area is intricately linked to biomass productivity; in paleontology leaf shape characteristics are used to reconstruct paleoclimate history. Such fields require measurement of large collections of leaves, with resulting conclusions being highly influenced by the accuracy of the phenotypic measurement process.Results: We have developed LAMINA (Leaf shApe deterMINAtion), a new tool for the automated analysis of images of leaves. LAMINA has been designed to provide classical indicators of leaf shape (blade dimensions) and size (area), which are typically required for correlation analysis to biomass productivity, as well as measures that indicate asymmetry in leaf shape, leaf serration traits, and measures of herbivory damage (missing leaf area). In order to allow Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to be performed, the location of a chosen number of equally spaced boundary coordinates can optionally be returned.Conclusion: We demonstrate the use of the software on a set of 500 scanned images, each containing multiple leaves, collected from a common garden experiment containing 116 clones of Populus tremula (European trembling aspen) that are being used for association mapping, as well as examples of leaves from other species. We show that the software provides an efficient and accurate means of analysing leaf area in large datasets in an automated or semi-automated work flow.
|
|
| 6. |
- de Blanche, Andreas, 1975, et al.
(författare)
-
Dual Core Efficiency for Engineering Simulation Applications
- 2008
-
Ingår i: International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Processing Techniques and Applications, Las Vegas, NV, USA, 14-17 July 2008. ; , s. 888-894
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- With the event of multi-core processors the parallel execution of simulation applications has resulted in new problems and possibilities in resource usage in high performance computing (HPC). In this paper we have investigated the impact of execution of engineering applications utilizing one and two cores in an Intel Core 2 Duo based Linux cluster. In engineering industry the number of licenses puts practical and economical constraints on the maximum number of processes. Consequently the issue of how to distribute a given number of processes over the compute nodes in a HPC resource becomes very important. When distributing the application over multiple nodes we found that having N processes on N computer nodes, only using one core on each node, is significantly faster than running N processes on N cores in N/2 computer nodes. Only in one case out of 32 it was beneficial to use both cores. The “one compute node – one simulation process” approach gave an average cost efficiency increase of 16.5%, and for several sub-cases it is actually costbeneficial to run on more nodes than fewer, which decreases the overall run time.
|
|
| 7. |
- Ermedahl, Andreas, et al.
(författare)
-
Loop Bound Analysis based on a Combination of Program Slicing, Abstract Interpretation, and Invariant Analysis
- 2007
-
Ingår i: OpenAccess Series in Informatics, Volume 6, 2007. - 9783939897057
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Static Worst-Case Execution Time (WCET) analysis is a technique to derive upper bounds for the execution times of programs. Such bounds are crucial when designing and verifying real-time systems. A key component for static derivation of precise WCET estimates is upper bounds on the number of times different loops can be iterated. In this paper we present an approach for deriving upper loop bounds based on a combination of standard program analysis techniques. The idea is to bound the number of different states in the loop which can influence the exit conditions. Given that the loop terminates, this number provides an upper loop bound. An algorithm based on the approach has been implemented in our WCET analysis tool SWEET. We evaluate the algorithm on a number of standard WCET benchmarks, giving evidence that it is capable to derive valid bounds for many types of loops.
|
|
| 8. |
|
|
| 9. |
- Fornara, Andrea, et al.
(författare)
-
Tailored Magnetic Nanoparticles for Direct and Sensitive Detection of Biomolecules in Biological Samples
- 2008
-
Ingår i: Nano letters (Print). - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 1530-6984 .- 1530-6992. ; 8:10, s. 3423-3428
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We developed nanoparticles with tailored magnetic properties for sensitive detection of biomolecules directly in biological samples in a single step. Thermally blocked nanoparticles obtained by thermal hydrolysis are mixed with sample solutions and the variation of the magnetic relaxation due to surface binding is used to detect the presence of biomolecules. The binding events significantly increase the hydrodynamic volume of nanoparticles, thus changing their Brownian relaxation frequency which is measured by a specifically developed AC-susceptometer.The system was tested for the presence of Brucella antibodies in serum samples from infected cows and the surface of the nanoparticles was functionalized with lipopolysaccarides (LPS) from Brucella abortus. The hydrodynamic volume of functionalized particles increased by 25-35% as a result of the binding of the antibodies, as measured by changes in the susceptibility in an alternating magnetic field. The method has shown high sensitivity, with detection limit of 7 nmol·L-1 in serum without any pre-treatment of the biological samples.The detection method is very sensitive, cost-efficient and versatile, giving a direct indication if the animal is infected or not, making it suitable for point-of care applications. The functionalization of tailored magnetic nanoparticles can be modified to suit numerous homogenous assays for a wide range of applications.
|
|
| 10. |
- Gustafsson, Erik, et al.
(författare)
-
Mathematical modelling of the regulation of spa (protein A) transcription in Staphylococcus aureus.
- 2009
-
Ingår i: International journal of medical microbiology : IJMM. - : Elsevier BV. - 1618-0607 .- 1438-4221. ; 299:1, s. 65-74
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the present work a general systems biology approach has been used to study the complex regulatory network controlling the transcription of the spa gene, encoding protein A, a major surface protein and an important virulence factor of Staphylococcus aureus. A valid mathematical model could be formulated using parameter values, which were fitted to quantitative Northern blot data from various S. aureus regulatory mutants using a gradient search method. The model could correctly predict spa expression levels in 4 different regulatory mutants not included in the parameter value search, and in 2 other S. aureus strains, SH1000 and UAMS-1. The mathematical model revealed that sarA and sarS seem to balance each other in a way that when the activating impact of sarS is small, e.g. in the wild-type, the repressive impact of sarA is small, while in an agr-deficient background, when the impact of sarS is maximal, the repressive impact of sarA is close to its maximum. Furthermore, the model revealed that Rot and SarS act synergistically to stimulate spa expression, something that was not obvious from experimental data. We believe that this mathematical model can be used to evaluate the significance of other putative interactions in the regulatory network governing spa transcription.
|
|
