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Isocyanates are highly reactive compounds used in the production of polyurethane. Exposure to isocyanates is mainly associated with respiratory disorders, but may also result in allergic contact dermatitis. Reports describing contact allergy to isocyanates are few in number and it has been considered a rare phenomenon. In the present study it is shown that the low frequency of reported cases could
Little is known of respiratory symptoms in female hairdressers, and of the impact on the health-related quality of life (HRQoL), nor of knowledge of their own views on preventive work. The aim of this thesis was to examine the occurrence of asthma, symptoms and mechanism of bleaching-associated nasal symptoms, the effects on HRQoL and how young hairdressers reason about the work environment. A m
Pancreatic cancer (PC) is the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths, with a 5-year survival less than 6%. It does not show any symptoms in its early stages, hence most (>85%) of the patients are diagnosed at late stage. At the time of diagnosis, metastases are frequently observed which make most patients unsuitable for curative surgical treatment and chemotherapy remains the only choice fo
Non-thermal plasma is regarded as a collection of free electrons, ions and neutral particles that are not at local thermodynamic equilibrium. The high-energetic electrons formed in non-thermal plasmas are capable of generating chemically active species and modifying chemical kinetics in practical applications. One promising application of non-thermal plasmas is to achieve plasma-assisted combustio
Proteoglycans (PG) are highly anionic macromolecules consisting of a core protein covalently substituted with long unbranched polysaccharide chains called glycosaminoglycans (GAGs). PGs are central components in multicellular organisms, and they may occur in the extracellular matrix (ECM), at the cell surface, or in the secretory pathway. At the tumor cell surface, PGs and GAGs are involved in the
The aim of the present doctoral thesis was to examine to what extent personality traits and approaches to learning contribute to academic performance in upper secondary school (high school), after controlling for the well-known fact that general intelligence accounts for a large part of the variance. The general proposition of the thesis is that personality traits are stable dispositons and theref
Introduction: Drug therapy in primary care is a broad field, with two areas previously identified as particularly challenging: treatment of the elderly and prescription of antibiotics against uncomplicated upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs). General practitioners’ (GPs’) attitudes and adherence to evidence-based treatment guidelines might be influenced by different interventions and need t
Children born before 32 gestational weeks have a high incidence of neuropsychological deficits. The structural and functional correlates of such impairments in preterm infants are incompletely understood, and early diagnostic tools are needed, but still lacking. Auditory event-related potentials (AERPs) are neurophysiological measures of cortical sound detection, encoding, discrimination, and atte
The aims of this work were to determine the prevalence of postpartum diabetes among women with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) in a prospective study 5 years postpartum; to characterize these women according to insulin secretion, insulin sensitivity, autoimmunity and genetics; and to identify possible markers and predictors for the development of manifest diabetes. The subjects were recruited
In the hippocampus, dendritic spines are compartmentalized postsynaptic micro-domains in the excitatory synapse. Subsets of bigger and mushroom-shaped hippocampal dendritic spines contain tubules and cisterns of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) that are connected to the soma and dendrites of the neuron. These ER containing spines differ in their ability to retain ER. We hypothesized a functional couplin
This report presents an integrated simulation-based approach to study the on-site production of concrete frameworks by considering the multiple effects of weather on work task productivity and concrete curing process. The suggested approach enable to systematically study how different weather conditions and the use of climate-improved concrete in combination with different methods to shield concre
The purpose of group supervision in nursing care is to understand nurses’ experiences from real care settings and to structure these in a professional and personal context. An interventional and longitudinal method of research was chosen in this study of group supervision in nursing care. The overall aim of the present study was to examine and investigate how psychiatric nurses’ professional compe
This thesis addresses solving elliptic partial differential equation using integral equation methods, with emphasis on accuracy, speed and stability. Of particular interest are such equations on non-smooth domains, and several different elliptic problems such as electrostatic and elastostatic ones are treated and solved in this setting.
Rare-earth ions doped into a transparent crystal can have optically excited states with coherence times of milliseconds and hyperfine levels with coherence times of hours when cooled down to liquid helium temperatures. This makes them attractive for developing quantum computing hardware. A quantum transistor can be implemented in a rare-earth-ion-doped crystal by utilizing a dipole blockade effe
In the work presented in this thesis, different laser-based techniques were employed for measurements in different combustion devices. Laser-based techniques enable non-intrusive and in-situ measurements to be carried out, in which high spatial and temporal resolution can be obtained. Different parameters related to combustion research can be visualized, such as species concentrations, temperature
Computer generated imagery is vital to the entertainment industry in the production of games and films, for example. It is also increasingly important for visualization in design, architecture, engineering, and medicine, to name a few. Improvements to rendering techniques come from a combination of improved algorithms and more powerful hardware. Typically, hardware developments introduce new chall
