| 1. |
- Englund, Martin, et al.
(författare)
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Meniscal Tear in Knees Without Surgery and the Development of Radiographic Osteoarthritis Among Middle-Aged and Elderly Persons The Multicenter Osteoarthritis Study
- 2009
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Ingår i: Arthritis and Rheumatism. - : Wiley. - 1529-0131 .- 0004-3591. ; 60:3, s. 831-839
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objective. Although partial meniscectomy is a risk factor for the development of knee osteoarthritis (OA), there is a lack of evidence that meniscal damage that is not treated with surgery would also lead to OA, suggesting that surgery itself may cause joint damage. Furthermore, meniscal damage is common. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between meniscal damage in knees without surgery and the development of radiographic tibiofemoral OA. Methods. We conducted a prospective case-control study nested within the observational Multicenter Osteoarthritis Study, which included a sample of men and women ages 50-79 years at high risk of knee OA who were recruited from the community. Patients who had no baseline radiographic knee OA but in whom tibiofemoral OA developed during the 30-month followup period were cases (n = 121). Control subjects (n = 294) were drawn randomly from the same source population as cases but had no knee OA after 30 months of followup. Individuals whose knees had previously undergone surgery were excluded. Meniscal damage was defined as the presence of any medial or lateral meniscal tearing, maceration, or destruction. Results. Meniscal damage at baseline was more common in case knees than in control knees (54% versus 18%; P < 0.001). The model comparing any meniscal damage with no meniscal damage (adjusted for baseline age, sex, body mass index, physical activity, and mechanical knee alignment) yielded an odds ratio of 5.7 (95% confidence interval 3.4-9.4). Conclusion. In knees without surgery, meniscal damage is a potent risk factor for the development of radiographic OA. These results highlight the need for better understanding, prevention, and treatment of meniscal damage.
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| 2. |
- Hu, Qing-Miao, et al.
(författare)
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Site occupancy, magnetic moments, and elastic constants of off-stoichiometric Ni2MnGa from first-principles calculations
- 2009
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Ingår i: Physical Review B. Condensed Matter and Materials Physics. - 1098-0121 .- 1550-235X. ; 79:14
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The site occupancy and elastic modulus of off-stoichiometric Ni2MnGa alloys are investigated by the use of the first-principles exact muffin-tin orbital method in combination with coherent-potential approximation. The stable site occupancy at 300 K is determined by comparing the free energies of the alloys with different site-occupation configurations. It is shown that, for most of the off-stoichiometric Ni2MnGa, the "normal" site occupation is favorable, i.e., the excess atoms of the rich component occupy the sublattice(s) of the deficient one(s). Nevertheless, for the Ga-rich alloys, the excess Ga atoms have strong tendency to take the Mn sublattice no matter if Mn is deficient or not. Based on the determined site occupancy, the elastic moduli of the off-stoichiometric Ni2MnGa are calculated. We find that, in general, the bulk modulus increases with increasing e/a ratio (i.e., the number of valence electrons per atom). The shear moduli C-' and C-44 change oppositely with e/a ratio: C-' decreases but C-44 increases with increasing e/a. However, the Mn-rich Ga-deficient alloys deviate significantly from this general trend. The correlation of calculated elastic moduli and available experimental martensitic transformation temperatures (T-M) demonstrates that the alloy with larger C-' than that of the perfect Ni2MnGa generally possesses lower T-M except for Ni2Mn1+xGa1-x.
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| 3. |
- Liu, Kui, et al.
(författare)
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Kallikrein genes are associated with lupus and glomerular basement membrane-specific antibody-induced nephritis in mice and humans
- 2009
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Ingår i: Journal of Clinical Investigation. - 0021-9738 .- 1558-8238. ; 119:4, s. 911-923
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Immune-mediated nephritis contributes to disease in systemic lupus erythematosus, Goodpasture syndrome (caused by antibodies specific for glomerular basement membrane [anti-GBM antibodies]), and spontaneous lupus nephritis. Inbred mouse strains differ in susceptibility to anti-GBM antibody-induced and spontaneous lupus nephritis. This study sought to clarify the genetic and molecular factors that maybe responsible for enhanced immune-mediated renal disease in these models. When the kidneys of 3 mouse strains sensitive to anti-GBM antibody-induced nephritis were compared with those of 2 control strains using microarray analysis, one-fifth of the underexpressed genes belonged to the kallikrein gene family,which encodes serine esterases. Mouse strains that upregulated renal and urinary kallikreins exhibited less evidence of disease. Antagonizing the kallikrein pathway augmented disease, while agonists dampened the severity of anti-GBM antibody-induced nephritis. In addition, nephritis-sensitive mouse strains had kallikrein haplotypes that were distinct from those of control strains, including several regulatory polymorphisms,some of which were associated with functional consequences. Indeed, increased susceptibility to anti-GBM antibody-induced nephritis and spontaneous lupus nephritis was achieved by breeding mice with a genetic interval harboring the kallikrein genes onto a disease-resistant background. Finally, both human SLE and spontaneous lupus nephritis were found to be associated with kallikrein genes, particularly KLK1 and the KLK3 promoter, when DNA SNPs from independent cohorts of SLE patients and controls were compared. Collectively, these studies suggest that kallikreins are protective disease-associated genes in anti-GBM antibody-induced nephritis and lupus.
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| 4. |
- Resta, Andrea, et al.
(författare)
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Step enhanced dehydrogenation of ethanol on Rh
- 2008
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Ingår i: Surface Science. - : Elsevier BV. - 0039-6028. ; 602:18, s. 3057-3063
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We have investigated the adsorption and decomposition of ethanol on the Rh(111) and Rh(5 5 3) surfaces at room temperature with special emphasis on the dehydrogenation. We use high resolution Core level photoemission and density functional theory (DFT) based simulations. A detailed analysis of the C1s core level spectra, including analysis of the vibrational fine-structure and comparison to calculated C1s binding energy shifts, shows that the ethanol decomposes into CO, ethylidyne (C2H3) methylidyne (CH), atomic C, and hydrogen. At low ethanol exposures, CH is the dominating hydrocarbon fragment on Rh(111), whereas on Rh(553) atomic C dominates over CH, indicating an enhanced dehydrogenation due to the steps present on the latter surface. At higher ethanol exposures we find a similar behavior of atomic C dominating over hydrocarbons on Rh(553), while on Rh(111) atomic carbon remains a minority species. Our DFT based simulations show that the enhanced dehydrogenation results from a significant lowering of the CH dissociation barrier from Rh(111) to Rh(553), as well as from the dissociation changing from endothermic on Rh(111) to exothermic on Rh(553). (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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