STUDY OBJECTIVE To examine the association between damp housing and adult health, taking into account a wide range of other factors that may influence health and could confound this relation. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING A general population sample of adults, aged 18-64, from Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Northamptonshire. DESIGN Secondary analysis of responses to a postal questio...

Polymerase eta is a member of the Y family of DNA polymerases which is able to bypass thymine dimers efficiently and in a relatively error-free manner. To elucidate the mechanism of dimer bypass, the efficiency of dAMP and pyrene nucleotide insertion opposite the thymine dimer and its N3-methyl derivatives was determined. Pol eta inserts pyrene nucleotide with greater efficiency than dAMP oppos...

The changes of defect characteristics induced by accelerated lifetime tests on solar cells of the heterostructure ZnO/CdS/Cu(In,Ga)(S,Se)2/Mo are investigated. Encapsulated modules were shown to be stable against water vapor and oxygen under outdoor conditions, whereas the fill factor and open-circuit voltage of non-encapsulated test cells are reduced after prolonged damp-heat treatment in the ...

BACKGROUND An association between indoor dampness and respiratory symptoms has been reported, but dampness as a risk factor for the onset or remission of respiratory symptoms and asthma is not well documented. METHOD This follow up study included 16 190 subjects from Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Estonia who had participated in the European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS I...

BACKGROUND The effects of indoor exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including formaldehyde, on respiratory health are not clearly understood. The aim of this study was to determine the independent effects of VOCs and other common environmental exposures in the home on the risk and severity of persistent wheezing illness in children. METHODS Total volatile organic compounds, formal...

STUDY OBJECTIVE To explore the relationship between damp housing and adult health using two separate measures of ill health and taking into account the confounding effects of health related lifestyles and social factors. DESIGN AND SETTING Analysis of responses gathered in a cross sectional, postal questionnaire survey of a randomly selected sample of 5347 residents of Worcester. PARTICIPAN...

In between the period of transplantation and revascularization, pancreatic islets are exposed to low-oxygen and low-nutrient conditions. In the present study we mimicked those conditions in vitro to study the involvement of different cell death processes, release of danger-associated molecular patterns (DAMP), and associated in vitro immune activation. Under low-oxygen and low-nutrient conditio...

Proinsulin is a single polypeptide chain composed of the B and A subunits of insulin joined by the C-peptide region. Proinsulin is converted to insulin during the maturation of secretory vesicles by the action of two proteases and conversion is inhibited by ionophores that disrupted intracellular H+ gradients. To determine if conversion of prohormone to hormone actually occurs in an acidic secr...

Background: The effects of indoor exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including formaldehyde, on respiratory health are not clearly understood. The aim of this study was to determine the independent effects of VOCs and other common environmental exposures in the home on the risk and severity of persistent wheezing illness in children. Methods: Total volatile organic compounds, formal...