Multi-spectroscopic study of electrochemically-formed oxide-derived gold electrodes.

Oxide-derived metals are produced by reducing an oxide precursor. These materials, including gold, have shown improved catalytic performance over many native metals. The origin of this improvement for gold is not yet understood.

Lake browning counteracts cyanobacteria responses to nutrients: Evidence from phytoplankton dynamics in large enclosure experiments and comprehensive observational data.

Lakes worldwide are affected by multiple stressors, including climate change. This includes massive loading of both nutrients and humic substances to lakes during extreme weather events, which also may disrupt thermal stratification. Since multi-stressor effects vary widely in space and time, their combined ecological impacts remain difficult to predict.

The alcohol biomarker phosphatidylethanol (PEth) - test performance and experiences from routine analysis and external quality assessment.

Phosphatidylethanol (PEth) are membrane molecules formed from phosphatidylcholine and ethanol through transphosphatidylation catalyzed by phospholipase D. Measurement of the main PEth form 16:0/18:1 is used as a specific and sensitive alcohol biomarker, since its formation requires ethanol, it accumulates in the blood upon repeated ethanol exposure, and it is only slowly eliminated during abstinence. PEth formation correlates with alcohol intake at the population level, albeit with considerable inter-individual variation as for the half-life during withdrawal.

[The alcohol biomarker phosphatidylethanol (PEth) - recommendations for use and interpretation of test results].

Phosphatidylethanol (PEth) is a group of phospholipids that are formed in blood from the corresponding phosphatidylcholines in the presence of ethanol by action of phospholipase D. Since PEth formation requires ethanol, it is used as a specific alcohol biomarker. Use of PEth measurement in whole blood as an alcohol biomarker has risen sharply in recent years, increasing the demand for knowledge about how it should be utilized and test results evaluated.

Vaccination of Elms against Dutch Elm Disease-Are the Associated Epiphytes and Endophytes Affected?

Dutch elm disease (DED) is causing extensive mortality of ecologically and culturally valuable elm trees ( spp.). Treatment of elms with the biological vaccine Dutch Trig has been found to provide effective protection against DED by stimulating the defensive mechanisms of the trees.

Optical frequency combs in dispersion-controlled doubly resonant second-harmonic generation.

We report on the experimental realization and a systematic study of optical frequency comb generation in doubly resonant intracavity second harmonic generation (SHG). The efficiency of intracavity nonlinear processes usually benefits from the increasing number of resonating fields. Yet, achieving the simultaneous resonance of different fields may be technically complicated, all the more when a phase matching condition must be fulfilled as well.

Women´s experiences of preeclampsia as a condition of uncertainty: a qualitative study.

Background: Preeclampsia is a severe condition that annually affects about 3-8% of pregnancies worldwide. Preeclampsia is thereby one of the most common pregnancy complications for both mother and child. Despite that, there is limited research exploring the women´s perspective of experiencing preeclampsia.

Elevated-Temperature Tensile Properties of Low-Temperature HIP-Treated EBM-Built Ti-6Al-4V.

Evaluation of the high-temperature tensile properties of Ti-6Al-4V manufactured by electron beam melting (EBM) and subjected to a low-temperature hot isostatic pressing (HIP) treatment (800 °C) was performed in this study. The high-temperature tensile properties of as-built and standard HIP-treated (920 °C) materials were studied for comparison. Metallurgical characterization of the as-built, HIP-treated materials was carried out to understand the effect of temperature on the microstructure.

Efficient Kerr soliton comb generation in micro-resonator with interferometric back-coupling.

Nonlinear Kerr micro-resonators have enabled fundamental breakthroughs in the understanding of dissipative solitons, as well as in their application to optical frequency comb generation. However, the conversion efficiency of the pump power into a soliton frequency comb typically remains below a few percent. We fabricate and characterize a hybrid Mach-Zehnder ring resonator geometry, consisting of a micro-ring resonator embedded in an additional cavity with twice the optical path length of the ring.

How to prevent alcohol and illicit drug use among students in affluent areas: a qualitative study on motivation and attitudes towards prevention.

Background: The use of alcohol and illicit drugs during adolescence can lead to serious short- and long-term health related consequences. Despite a global trend of decreased substance use, in particular alcohol, among adolescents, evidence suggests excessive use of substances by young people in socioeconomically affluent areas. To prevent substance use-related harm, we need in-depth knowledge about the reasons for substance use in this group and how they perceive various prevention interventions.

AZD0284, a Potent, Selective, and Orally Bioavailable Inverse Agonist of Retinoic Acid Receptor-Related Orphan Receptor C2.

Inverse agonists of the nuclear receptor RORC2 have been widely pursued as a potential treatment for a variety of autoimmune diseases. We have discovered a novel series of isoindoline-based inverse agonists of the nuclear receptor RORC2, derived from our recently disclosed RORC2 inverse agonist . Extensive structure-activity relationship (SAR) studies resulted in AZD0284 (), which combined potent inhibition of IL-17A secretion from primary human T17 cells with excellent metabolic stability and good PK in preclinical species.

Tensile Properties of 21-6-9 Austenitic Stainless Steel Built Using Laser Powder-Bed Fusion.

Alloy 21-6-9 is an austenitic stainless steel with high strength, thermal stability at high temperatures, and retained toughness at cryogenic temperatures. This type of steel has been used for aerospace applications for decades, using traditional manufacturing processes. However, limited research has been conducted on this alloy manufactured using laser powder-bed fusion (LPBF) Therefore, in this work, a design of experiment (DOE) was performed to obtain optimized process parameters with regard to low porosity.

Defects in Electron Beam Melted Ti-6Al-4V: Fatigue Life Prediction Using Experimental Data and Extreme Value Statistics.

Electron beam melting is a powder bed fusion (PBF) additive manufacturing (AM) method for metals offering opportunities for the reduction of material waste and freedom of design, but unfortunately also suffering from material defects from production. The stochastic nature of defect formation leads to a scatter in the fatigue performance of the material, preventing wider use of this production method for fatigue critical components. In this work, fatigue test data from electron beam melted Ti-6Al-4V specimens machined from as-built material are compared to deterministic fatigue crack growth calculations and probabilistically modeled fatigue life.

[Increased availability needed for analysis of anabolic androgenic steroids outside of sports - proposal of a uniform clinical analysis method in Sweden].

The abuse of anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) outside of sports is a far greater societal problem than the abuse in sports. Therefore, there is an increasing need for a suitable clinical method for analysis of AAS in urine samples, but only three clinical laboratories in Sweden currently perform analyses of AAS outside of sports. There is a need for harmonization regarding which substances to be analyzed,  which analytes to measure and which concentration thresholds (»cut-offs«) to us.

On the Microstructure of Laser Beam Powder Bed Fusion Alloy 718 and Its Influence on the Low Cycle Fatigue Behaviour.

Additive manufacturing of Alloy 718 has become a popular subject of research in recent years. Understanding the process-microstructure-property relationship of additively manufactured Alloy 718 is crucial for maturing the technology to manufacture critical components. Fatigue behaviour is a key mechanical property that is required in applications such as gas turbines.

Localized structures formed through domain wall locking in cavity-enhanced second-harmonic generation.

We analyze the formation of localized structures in cavity-enhanced second-harmonic generation. We focus on the phase-matched limit, and consider that fundamental and generated waves have opposite signs of group velocity dispersion. We show that these states form due to the locking of domain walls connecting two stable homogeneous states of the system, and undergo collapsed snaking.

Nonlinear beam self-imaging and self-focusing dynamics in a GRIN multimode optical fiber: theory and experiments.

Beam self-imaging in nonlinear graded-index multimode optical fibers is of interest for many applications, such as implementing a fast saturable absorber mechanism in fiber lasers via multimode interference. We obtain a new exact solution for the nonlinear evolution of first and second order moments of a laser beam of arbitrary transverse shape carried by a graded-index multimode fiber. We have experimentally directly visualized the longitudinal evolution of beam self-imaging by means of femtosecond laser pulse propagation in both the anomalous and the normal dispersion regime of a standard telecom graded-index multimode optical fiber.

Geometric Induction in Chiral Superconductors.

We consider a number of effects due to the interplay of superconductivity, electromagnetism, and elasticity, which are unique for thin membranes of layered chiral superconductors. Some of them should be within the reach of present technology, and could be useful for characterizing materials. More speculatively, the enriched control of Josephson junctions they afford might find useful applications.

[Simplified laboratory analysis of ethylene glycol allows improved management of poisoning cases].

Toxicological analysis constitutes an important part of the acute treatment of poisonings. Timely laboratory results are essential for the patient to be diagnosed and treated appropriately, but also to exclude poisoning and avoid unnecessary overtreatment. Ingestion of ethylene glycol may cause acute kidney injury and, in severe cases, death, unless treated early with an antidote (ethanol infusion or fomepizole) to inhibit the formation of toxic metabolites.

Time-Resolved Photoelectron Spectroscopy Studies of Isoxazole and Oxazole.

The excited state relaxation pathways of isoxazole and oxazole upon excitation with UV-light were investigated by nonadiabatic ab initio dynamics simulations and time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy. Excitation of the bright ππ*-state of isoxazole predominantly leads to ring-opening dynamics. Both the initially excited ππ*-state and the dissociative πσ*-state offer a combined barrier-free reaction pathway, such that ring-opening, defined as a distance of more than 2 Å between two neighboring atoms, occurs within 45 fs.

Fatigue Crack Growth of Electron Beam Melted Ti-6Al-4V in High-Pressure Hydrogen.

Titanium-based alloys are susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement (HE), a phenomenon that deteriorates fatigue properties. Ti-6Al-4V is the most widely used titanium alloy and the effect of hydrogen embrittlement on fatigue crack growth (FCG) was investigated by carrying out crack propagation tests in air and high-pressure H environment. The FCG test in hydrogen environment resulted in a drastic increase in crack growth rate at a certain Δ K, with crack propagation rates up to 13 times higher than those observed in air.

Optical Frequency Combs in Quadratically Nonlinear Resonators.

Optical frequency combs are one of the most remarkable inventions in recent decades. Originally conceived as the spectral counterpart of the train of short pulses emitted by mode-locked lasers, frequency combs have also been subsequently generated in continuously pumped microresonators, through third-order parametric processes. Quite recently, direct generation of optical frequency combs has been demonstrated in continuous-wave laser-pumped optical resonators with a second-order nonlinear medium inside.

Needle Fasciotomy or Collagenase Injection in the Treatment of Dupuytren's Contracture: A Retrospective Study.

Unlabelled: Dupuytren's contracture is common among older people in Sweden. Previous studies comparing the treatment with an injection of collagenase with percutaneous needle fasciotomy found no differences.

Methods: We retrospectively compared the degree of improvement in the deficit in extension of the joints in 2 groups of patients who had been treated with collagenase (71 fingers) or needle fasciotomy (109 fingers) before and 1 year after treatment.

Competition between ring-puckering and ring-opening excited state reactions exemplified on 5H-furan-2-one and derivatives.

The influence of ring-puckering on the light-induced ring-opening dynamics of heterocyclic compounds was studied on the sample 5-membered ring molecules γ-valerolactone and 5H-furan-2-one using time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations. In γ-valerolactone, ring-puckering is not a viable relaxation channel and the only available reaction pathway is ring-opening, which occurs within one vibrational period along the C-O bond. In 5H-furan-2-one, the C=C double bond in the ring allows for ring-puckering which slows down the ring-opening process by about 150 fs while only marginally reducing its quantum yield.