Popular Abstract in Swedish Förekomsten av fetma ökar lavinartat över hela världen, Sverige inte undantaget, och detta är en stor bidragande orsak till att antalet fall av typ 2 diabetes tilltar på ett liknande sätt. Både fetma och typ 2 diabetes är sjukdomar med ett komplicerat mönster av samverkande genetiska och miljömässiga faktorer. Drabbade individer har en klart ökad risk att drabbas av hjäThe worldwide prevalence of obesity and type 2 diabetes is increasing rapidly. Both disorders depend on genetic and environmental factors. The studies included in this thesis investigated the possible association of the FOXC2 and CAPN10 genes with obesity, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, and related phenotypes. FOXC2 encodes a forkhead transcription factor, which was identified as a key regul

The use of energetic ion beams for the analysis of materials has been developed throughout the last four decades and has now evolved into a mature and powerful analytical set of tools applicable in great variety of fields. This paper summarises this development with a special emphasis on the use of nuclear microprobes. The main techniques used for ion beam analysis will be described, suitable appl

In a questionnaire study, men with prostate cancer (n = 155) or benign prostatic hyperplasia (n = 131) identified more sexual problems than did men from the general population (n = 129). Sexual dysfunction was acknowledged regarding sexual pleasure and attraction, erectile function and sexual satisfaction and sexual performance. Lowered rates of sexual desire, pleasure and attraction were found wh

Purpose: We studied treatment delay, and the impact on disease specific survival and stage progression in a series of patients who had undergone cystectomy. Materials and Methods: All 141 patients underwent radical cystectomy between 1990 and 1997 due to locally advanced bladder cancer. Treatment delay was defined as time from pathological confirmation of invasive disease to performance of cystect

Membrane extraction techniques permit the application of classical liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) chemistry to instrumental and automated operation. Various shortcomings of LLE are overcome by membrane extraction techniques as they use none or very little organic solvents, high enrichment factors can be obtained and there are no problems with emulsions. A three phase SLM system (aq/org/aq), where

Tissue transplantation is more common than organ transplantation. Legislative changes in 1996 transformed tissue banking and conditions for tissue transplantation in Sweden. After an initial decrease in donated tissue, heart valves are now available in sufficient numbers, but there is sometimes a shortage of valves the right size for pediatric cardiac surgery. Since the new transplantation legisla

This study considers detection of polyproline type II secondary structures from protein sequences. This difficult problem was handled with multilayer perceptron neural networks, which were found to be useful for such bioinformatics studies. Polyproline II secondary structures have not previously been tried to be predicted from sequences.

The systemic vasculitides are multisystem disorders with considerable mortality and morbidity and frequent relapses. In the absence of reliable serological markers, accurate clinical tools are required to assess disease activity and damage for treatment decisions, and for the performance of clinical trials. This article reviews and summarises the development and use of disease assessment tools for

In many bird species, floaters are present on the breeding grounds in one or more years before they breed. There is increasing evidence that they have specific home ranges in which they search for information about current and future breeding opportunities. We investigated the role of prospecting in a migratory European starling (Sturnus vulgaris) population. Radio-tracking showed that male starli

The production fractions of charged and neutral b-hadrons in b-quark events from Z(0) decays have been measured with the DELPHI detector at LEP. An algorithm has been developed, based on a neural network, to estimate the charge of the weakly-decaying b-hadron by distinguishing its decay products from particles produced at the primary vertex. From the data taken in the years 1994 and 1995, the frac

The achievement of a sustainable society is ultimately an educational enterprise. E-learning has a role to play in this endeavour, as it permits global access to environmental education, independent of time and place,once the courses are available on the Internet. Besides reaching new target groups not able to attend higher education on campus, e-learning may potentially be a more resource efficie