Nuclear Charge Radius of

Collinear laser spectroscopy was performed on the isomer of the aluminium isotope ^{26m}Al. The measured isotope shift to ^{27}Al in the 3s^{2}3p ^{2}P_{3/2}^{○}→3s^{2}4s ^{2}S_{1/2} atomic transition enabled the first experimental determination of the nuclear charge radius of ^{26m}Al, resulting in R_{c}=3.130(15) fm. This differs by 4.5 standard deviations from the extrapolated value used to calculate the isospin-symmetry breaking corrections in the superallowed ß decay of ^{26m}Al. Its corrected Ft value, important for the estimation of V_{ud} in the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix, is thus shifted by 1 standard deviation to 3071.4(1.0) s.

Evolution of Octupole Deformation in Radium Nuclei from Coulomb Excitation of Radioactive

There is sparse direct experimental evidence that atomic nuclei can exhibit stable "pear" shapes arising from strong octupole correlations. In order to investigate the nature of octupole collectivity in radium isotopes, electric octupole (E3) matrix elements have been determined for transitions in ^{222,228}Ra nuclei using the method of sub-barrier, multistep Coulomb excitation. Beams of the radioactive radium isotopes were provided by the HIE-ISOLDE facility at CERN. The observed pattern of E3 matrix elements for different nuclear transitions is explained by describing ^{222}Ra as pear shaped with stable octupole deformation, while ^{228}Ra behaves like an octupole vibrator.

Effects of occupational cobalt exposure on the heart in the production of cobalt and cobalt compounds: a 6-year follow-up.

OBJECTIVE: It has been suspected that cobalt is toxic to the heart. It can cause cardiotoxicity in heavily exposed humans and in experimental systems. The issue of interest for this study is whether cobalt also affects the myocardium at occupational exposure levels. METHODS: To study the effect of occupational cobalt exposure on the heart, we conducted a follow-up of workers at a cobalt production plant. The workers' hearts had been examined by echocardiography in 1999-2000. Altogether 93 exposed and 49 non-exposed workers examined in 1999-2000 were re-examined in 2006. Occupational history and health data were collected with a questionnaire. Blood pressure was measured, and electrocardiography (ECG), laboratory tests, Holter registration, and echocardiography were conducted for all participants. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to analyse the data. RESULTS: No differences were found between the exposed and unexposed groups for any of the echocardiographic parameters in 2006. There were no differences in the laboratory values, the ECG parameters, or the results of the Holter registration of the exposed and unexposed workers. CONCLUSIONS: Although the previous results in 2000 suggested an association between cumulative exposure to cobalt and echocardiographic findings, the results of this new cross-sectional study with a tissue Doppler 6 years later did not confirm the association in the present cohort. If cobalt exposure affects heart muscle functions at this exposure level, the effects are smaller than those caused by physiological changes due to ageing, medication, and traditional cardiovascular risk factors, such as elevated blood pressure.

Laser-irradiating infrared attenuated total reflection spectroscopy of articular cartilage: Potential and challenges for diagnosing osteoarthritis.

Objective: A prototype infrared attenuated total reflection (IR-ATR) laser spectroscopic system designed for in vivo classification of human cartilage tissue according to its histological health status during arthroscopic surgery is presented. Prior to real-world in vivo applications, this so-called osteoarthritis (OA) scanner has been tested at in vitro conditions revealing the challenges associated with complex sample matrices and the accordingly obtained sparse spectral datasets. Methods: In vitro studies on human knee cartilage samples at different contact pressures (i.e., 0.2-0.5 â€‹MPa) allowed recording cartilage degeneration characteristic IR signatures comparable to in vivo conditions with high temporal resolution. Afterwards, the cartilage samples were assessed based on the clinically acknowledged osteoarthritis cartilage histopathology assessment (OARSI) system and correlated with the obtained sparse IR data. Results: Amide and carbohydrate signal behavior was observed to be almost identical between the obtained sparse IR data and previously measured FTIR data used for sparse partial least squares discriminant analysis (SPLSDA) to identify the spectral regions relevant to cartilage condition. Contact pressures between 0.3 and 0.4 â€‹MPa seem to provide the best sparse IR spectra for cylindrical (d â€‹= â€‹3 â€‹mm) probe tips. Conclusion: Laser-irradiating IR-ATR spectroscopy is a promising analytical technique for future arthroscopic applications to differentiate healthy and osteoarthritic cartilage tissue. However, this study also revealed that the flexible connection between the laser-based analyzer and the arthroscopic ATR-probe via IR-transparent fiberoptic cables may affect the robustness of the obtained IR data and requires further improvements.

Infrared spectroscopy is suitable for objective assessment of articular cartilage health.

Objective: To evaluate the feasibility of Fourier transform infrared attenuated total reflectance (FTIR-ATR) spectroscopy to detect cartilage degradation due to osteoarthritis and to validate the methodology with osteochondral human cartilage samples for future development towards clinical use. Design: Cylindrical (d â€‹= â€‹4 â€‹mm) osteochondral samples (n â€‹= â€‹349) were prepared from nine human cadavers and measured with FTIR-ATR spectroscopy. Afterwards, the samples were assessed with Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI) osteoarthritis cartilage histopathology assessment system and divided into two groups: 1) healthy (OARSI 0-2) and 2) osteoarthritic (OARSI 2.5-6). The classification was done with partial least squares discriminant analysis model utilizing cross-model validation. Receiver operating characteristics curve analysis was performed and the area under curve (AUC) was calculated. Results: For all samples combined, classification accuracy was 73% with AUC of 0.79. Femoral samples had accuracy of 74% and AUC of 0.77, while tibial samples had accuracy of 66%, and AUC of 0.74. Patellar samples had accuracy of 84% and AUC of 0.91. Conclusions: The results indicate that FTIR-ATR spectroscopy can differentiate between healthy and osteoarthritic femoral, tibial and patellar human tissue. If combined with a fiber optic probe, FTIR-ATR spectroscopy could provide additional objective intraoperative information during arthroscopic surgeries, which could improve clinical outcomes.

Publisher Correction: The observation of vibrating pear-shapes in radon nuclei.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Structural Features of Hydrolyzable Tannins Determine Their Ability to Form Insoluble Complexes with Bovine Serum Albumin.

The ability of 32 purified and characterized hydrolyzable tannins to form insoluble complexes with model protein bovine serum albumin was investigated with a turbidimetric 96-well plate reader method. The results showed a clear relationship between the hydrolyzable tannin structure and the intensity of haze that formed during the tannin-protein complexation. In addition to molecular weight, structural features such as number of galloyl groups, degree of oxidative coupling between the galloyls, positional isomerism, and cyclic vs acyclic glucose core were the major structural features that affected the ability of the monomeric hydrolyzable tannins to form insoluble complexes with bovine serum albumin. While oligomers were superior to monomers in their capability to precipitate the model protein, their activity depended less on the functional groups, but mostly on their size and overall flexibility. These results allowed us to construct an equation that predicted the protein precipitation capacity of the studied hydrolyzable tannins with high accuracy.

The observation of vibrating pear-shapes in radon nuclei.

There is a large body of evidence that atomic nuclei can undergo octupole distortion and assume the shape of a pear. This phenomenon is important for measurements of electric-dipole moments of atoms, which would indicate CP violation and hence probe physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. Isotopes of both radon and radium have been identified as candidates for such measurements. Here, we observed the low-lying quantum states in 224Rn and 226Rn by accelerating beams of these radioactive nuclei. We show that radon isotopes undergo octupole vibrations but do not possess static pear-shapes in their ground states. We conclude that radon atoms provide less favourable conditions for the enhancement of a measurable atomic electric-dipole moment.

IgE cross reactivity between reindeer and bovine milk beta-lactoglobulins in cow's milk allergic patients.

BACKGROUND: Allergic reactions to cow's milk are common in small children. One of the main protein allergens found in cow's milk is beta-lactoglobulin (beta-Lg). Reindeer and bovine milk both contain related beta-Lg proteins, but the allergenicity of reindeer beta-Lg has not previously been studied. The purpose of this study was to analyze the immunological cross-reactivity of IgE antibodies from children with cow's milk allergy to reindeer and bovine beta-Lg. METHODS: Sera from 17 children and a serum pool of 4 patients with elevated cow's milk-specific IgE were investigated. Beta-Lg from bovine and reindeer milk was isolated in native form and an enzyme-linked immunosorbent inhibition assay was developed. Bovine beta-Lg was used as a capturing antigen and the inhibiting effects of reindeer and bovine beta-Lg on the IgE binding were measured. RESULTS: Cross-reactivity patterns of bovine milk beta-Lg specific IgE to reindeer beta-Lg varied among patients. In general, reindeer beta-Lg showed significantly lower inhibition (mean 43%) of IgE binding to the capturing antigen than did bovine beta-Lg (mean 89%). In some patients, even high concentrations of reindeer beta-Lg only partly eliminated the IgE binding to bovine beta-Lg. CONCLUSIONS: The partial cross-reactivity of human anti-bovine IgE with reindeer beta-Lg suggests that it lacks important bovine epitopes and those that are recognized are only weakly bound.

Determination of clodronate in aqueous solutions by HPLC using postcolumn derivatisation.

A method for the determination of clodronate at ppm levels in aqueous solutions by HPLC is presented. Clodronate is first separated by anion exchange chromatography using a solution of nitric acid and sodium nitrate as eluent. Th-EDTA-XO mixed ligand complex is used as a postcolumn reagent for clodronate. Clodronate reacts quantitatively with this complex in slightly acid solutions, and a change in the absorbance of Th-EDTA-XO is used as a measure for the clodronate concentration. The detection limit is about 3 ppm, and the linear dynamic range of the method extends up to about 200 ppm. The RSD values varied between 5 and 16%. The effect of pH on appearance and retention of different forms of clodronate is studied. Different forms of clodronate can be separated and detected in the used anion-exchange system.

False inferoposterior fatty acid uptake rest defects in patients with first anterior myocardial infarction.

Fatty acid scintigraphy is an interesting new technique for assessing the extent of myocardial infarction. We studied 19 patients with electrocardiographically verified first anterior myocardial infarction using radioiodinated phenylpentadecanoic acid and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). Besides the expected lesions in the territory of the left ascending coronary artery, a total of nine patients (47%) had severe (uptake < 50% of maximum) defects in the presumptive territory of the right coronary artery at rest. A link between the size of anterior injury and the occurrence of inferoposterior lesions was established. Over 20% paradoxical relative filling-in was seen in four of these inferoposterior defects in the subsequent exercise imaging, but only once anteriorly. Exercise-induced ischaemia (reduction in relative uptake > 20%) was demonstrated in 11 cases (58%). Ischaemia occurred most frequently in patients with small infarcts, and it did not coincide with the reversed redistribution. We conclude that the inferoposterior rest defects are unlikely to have been caused by technical artefacts or local injury, and should perhaps rather be linked with general strain in the left ventricle during the early phase of myocardial remodeling after anterior infarction. In any case, our results indicate that shortly after infarction myocardial viability should be evaluated very cautiously.

Gender differences in fears related to coronary arteriography.

OBJECTIVE: To compare levels of fear and the intensity of specific fears in women and men related to coronary arteriography (CA). DESIGN: Prospective survey. SETTING: A 1360-bed university hospital. Data were collected before, during, and after CA, and again 6 months later. SUBJECTS: The sample consisted of 54 women and 166 men undergoing scheduled CA. METHODS: To compare fear levels at different points of evaluation; two analyses of covariance for repeated measures were performed. RESULTS: On average, women had significantly higher mean scores of fear across the points of evaluation on the Visual Analogue Scale than men (P <.001). During the hospital stay, the most intense fear for both women and men was the fear of coronary artery bypass grafting and the uncertainty about the illness, whereas at home it was the fear of myocardial infarction. On average, women reported significantly intense fears more frequently than men across time. On average, men experienced more intensive fear of problems in their sex life than women (P =. 032). The changes in intensity of fears over time were not significantly different by gender, except in fear of pain (P =.013), health care staff not having enough time to care for the patient (P =.039), and health care staff discussing the patient's condition without the patient being present (P =.048). Age and prior CA were found to be significantly related to most of the fears at different points of evaluation, and to the changes of fears over time. CONCLUSION: There existed differences in the tendency to report intensity of fears by gender; however, the intensity of fears changed in a similar way over time. The results suggest that the few gender differences in fears that existed may be explained by the treatment chosen for the patients and the patients' acceptance of it. Therefore, it is important to adapt information and support according to the treatment chosen for the patient.

Spatial genetic structure of aquatic bryophytes in a connected lake system.

Using genetic markers, we investigated the genetic structure of three clonal aquatic moss species, Calliergon megalophyllum Mikut., Fontinalis antipyretica Hedw. and F. hypnoides Hartm. on two scales: among populations in a connected lake system (large-scale spatial genetic structure) and among individuals within populations (fine-scale spatial genetic structure). Mean genetic diversities per population were 0.138, 0.247 and 0.271, respectively, and total diversities equalled 0.223, 0.385 and 0.421, respectively. Relative differentiation levels (FST values of 0.173, 0.280 and 0.142, respectively) were significant but showed that there is a moderate amount of gene flow taking place within the lake system connected with narrow streams. Bayesian STRUCTURE analysis provided some indication that the direction of water flow influences population genetic structuring in the studied aquatic mosses. We propose that dispersal leading to gene flow in C. megalophyllum, F. antipyretica and F. hypnoides takes place both along water via connecting streams and by animal vectors, such as waterfowl. Nevertheless, the slight genetic structuring pattern along the direction of water flow suggests that dispersal of shoots or their fragments along water is a means of dispersal in these mosses. The absence of sexual reproduction and spores may have caused the observed spatial genetic structure within populations, including aggregations of similar genotypes (clones or closely related genotypes) at short distances in populations otherwise showing an isolation by distance effect. Regardless of the results pointing to the dominance of vegetative propagation, it is impossible to completely rule out the potential role of rare long-distance spore dispersal from areas where the species are fertile.