Damborgalbrektsen3430

The focus of the work is to understand and clarify the claims associated with polymer viscoelasticity in oil recovery by improvement of sweep efficiency, oil ganglia mobilization by flow instabilities, among others.While females are less affected by non-diabetic kidney diseases compared to males, available data on sex differences in diabetic nephropathy (DN) are controversial. Although there is evidence for an imbalance of sex hormones in diabetes and hormone-dependent mechanisms in transforming growth factor β1 (TGF-β1) signaling, causes and consequences are still incompletely understood. Here we investigated the influence of sex hormones and sex-specific gene signatures in diabetes- and TGF-β1-induced renal damage using various complementary approaches (a db/db diabetes mouse model, ex vivo experiments on murine renal tissue, and experiments with a proximal tubular cell line TKPTS). Our results show that (i) diabetes affects sex hormone concentrations and renal expression of their receptors in a sex-specific manner; (ii) sex, sex hormones and diabetic conditions influence differences in expression of TGF-β1, its receptor and bone morphogenetic protein 7 (BMP7); (iii) the sex and sex hormones, in combination with variable TGF-β1 doses, determine the net outcome in TGF-β1-induced expression of connective tissue growth factor (CTGF), a profibrotic cytokine. Altogether, these results suggest complex crosstalk between sex hormones, sex-dependent expression pattern and profibrotic signals for the precise course of DN development. Our data may help to better understand previous contradictory findings regarding sex differences in DN.Insight into antibiotic prescribing quality is key to general practitioners (GPs) to improve their prescribing behavior and to national antibiotic surveillance and stewardship programs. Additionally to numbers of prescribed antibiotics, quality indicators (QIs) linked to the clinical indication for prescribing are urgently needed. The aim of this proof of concept study was to define indication-linked QIs which can be easily implemented in Dutch primary care by collaborating with data-extraction/processing companies that routinely process patient data for GP practices. An expert group of academic and practicing GPs defined indication-linked QIs for which outcomes can be derived from routine care data. QI outcomes were calculated and fed back to GPs from 44 practices, associations between QI outcomes were determined, and GPs' opinions and suggestions with respect to the new set were captured using an online questionnaire. The new set comprises (1) total number of prescribed antibiotics per 1000 registered patients and percentages of generally non-1st choice antibiotics; (2) prescribing percentages for episodes of upper and lower respiratory tract infection; (3) 1st choice prescribing for episodes of tonsillitis, pneumonia and cystitis in women. Large inter-practice variation in QI outcomes was found. The validity of the QI outcomes was confirmed by associations that were expected. Oxaliplatin The new set was highly appreciated by GPs and additional QIs were suggested. We conclude that it proved feasible to provide GPs with informative, indication-linked feedback of their antibiotic prescribing quality by collaborating with established data extraction/processing companies. Based on GPs' suggestions the set will be refined and extended and used in the near future as yearly feedback with benchmarking for GPs and for national surveillance and stewardship purposes.Over the past two decades, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) have emerged as worldwide environmental contaminants, calling out for sophisticated treatment, decomposition and remediation strategies. In order to mineralize PFAS pollutants, the incineration of contaminated material is a state-of-the-art process, but more cost-effective and sustainable technologies are inevitable for the future. Within this review, various methods for the reductive defluorination of PFASs were inspected. In addition to this, the role of mechanochemistry is highlighted with regard to its major potential in reductive defluorination reactions and degradation of pollutants. In order to get a comprehensive understanding of the involved reactions, their mechanistic pathways are pointed out. Comparisons between existing PFAS decomposition reactions and reductive approaches are discussed in detail, regarding their applicability in possible remediation processes. This article provides a solid overview of the most recent research methods and offers guidelines for future research directions.We compute desorption rates for isolated polymers adsorbed to a solid wall with a rare event sampling technique called multilevel splitting, also known as forward flux sampling. We interpret computed rates with theories based on the conjecture that the product tdesDRg2 of the desorption time tdes and diffusivity D divided by squared radius of gyration Rg scales with exp(h/Rg) where h is the equilibrium ratio of adsorbed surface concentration of polymer Γ to bulk concentration of polymer c. As the polymer-wall interaction energy is increased, the slope of lntdesDRg2 vs. NVMFkBT nearly approaches unity, as expected for strongly-adsorbing chains, where N is the degree of polymerization and VMF is the height-averaged monomer-wall interaction energy for a strongly adsorbed chain. However, we also find that this scaling law is only accurate when adsorption strength per monomer exceeds a threshold value on the order of 0.3-0.5 kBT for a freely jointed chain without or with excluded volume effects. Below the critical value, we observe that tdesDRg2 becomes nearly constant with N, so that tdes∝Nα, with α≈2. This suggests a crossover from "strong" detachment-controlled to a "weak" diffusion-controlled desorption rate as VMF/kBT drops below some threshold. These results may partially explain experimental data, that in some cases show "strong" exponential dependence of desorption time on chain length, while in others a "weak" power-law dependence is found. However, in the "strong" adsorption case, our results suggest much longer desorption times than those measured, while the reverse is true in the weak adsorption limit. We discuss possible reasons for these discrepancies.