Although a combinatorial interpretation of Macdonald polynomials involving fillings of Ferrers diagrams of partitions has been known since 2004, a general combinatorial proof of a well-known symmetry property of these polynomials remains elusive. Our paper frames the problem and discusses an already-solved special case, that of one-dimensional (single-row or single-column) Ferrers diagrams, and...

In a survey of 640 human subjects, a subgroup of 356 persons without recent exposure to antibiotics demonstrated that those with a high prevalence of Hg resistance in their intestinal floras were significantly more likely to also have resistance to two or more antibiotics. This observation led us to consider the possibility that mercury released from amalgam ("silver") dental restorations might...

We propose a major index statistic on 01-fillings of moon polyominoes which, when specialized to certain shapes, reduces to the major index for permutations and set partitions. We consider the set F(M, s;A) of all 01-fillings of a moon polyomino M with given column sum s whose empty rows are A, and prove that this major index has the same distribution as the number of north-east chains, which a...

We exhibit a canonical connection between maximal (0, 1)-fillings of a moon polyomino avoiding north-east chains of a given length and reduced pipe dreams of a certain permutation. Following this approach we show that the simplicial complex of such maximal fillings is a vertex-decomposable, and thus shellable, sphere. In particular, this implies a positivity result for Schubert polynomials. Mor...

The aim of this study was to assess the impact of environmental factors: cigarette smoking, dental amalgam fillings, eating habits and osteoporosis, on the concentrations of copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd) and mercury (Hg) in the bone of hip joint in patients in the Orthopedics Clinic in Szczecin, Poland. Amalgam dental fillings had an effect on the Cu concentration in the carti...

OBJECTIVE Individuals with diabetes pay increased premiums and experience limited coverage when taking out accident insurance, despite the lack of scientific support for this practice. The aim of the present study was to analyze whether diabetic individuals have an increased risk of accident or an increased risk of permanent disability after an accident, compared with two nondiabetic groups. ...

BACKGROUND A low socioeconomic position (SEP) is consistently associated with ill health, sickness absence (SA) and permanent disability, but studies among young employees are lacking. We examined the interrelationships between education, occupational class and income as determinants of SA among 25-34-year-old employees. We also examined, whether the association between SEP and SA varied over t...

One hundred ninety-five rear impacts with both front- and rear-seat occupants in the struck car, where at least one occupant sustained permanent disability, were selected for study. There was a significantly higher disability risk for the female rear-seat occupant compared with the male driver. Furthermore, a higher risk was found for female rear-seat occupants compared with female front-seat p...

STUDY DESIGN A retrospective comparative cohort study. OBJECTIVE To compare return to work (RTW) rates for patients who underwent single-level cervical fusion for radiculopathy compared with fusion for degenerative disc disease (DDD) as an indication for surgery. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA Studies have shown that workers' compensation subjects have less favorable surgical and functional out...

We examined the effect of mercury (Hg) associated with dental amalgam fillings on biomarkers of renal and oxidative stress in children between the ages of 5-15.5 years. Urine samples were analyzed for N-acetyl-β-D-glucosaminidase (NAG), α(1)-microglobulin (α(1)-MG), β(2)-microglobulin (β(2)-MG), retinol binding protein (RBP), albumin (ALB), 8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) and malondialdehyd...