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This thesis concerns how people with stroke describe their experiences of life with stroke and how they learn to live with stroke. In the western world the interest for research in lived experiences has increased. This might be due to the higher rate of people with illness and lifelong diseases. The aim of the study is to analyze stories from persons with stroke of their lived experiences of life
There is an ongoing controversy regarding how to take care of patients with mild primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT). Some recommend surgical treatment at diagnosis, others just follow-up as long as there is no evidence of disease progression. The aim of this thesis was to evaluate cardiac and skeletal risk factors related to the duration of mild PHPT. Fifty patients with mild PHPT were randomized
The aims of this research was to compare different risk score algorithms with regard to their validity to predict 30-day and one-year mortality after open-heart surgery, to evaluate if the preoperative risk stratification model EuroSCORE predicts the different components of resource utilization in cardiac surgery, and to systematically evaluate the accuracy and performance of artificial neural net
Diamond-Blackfan anemia (DBA) is a congenital erythroid aplasia that usually presents as macrocytic anemia during infancy. Linkage analysis suggests that at least four genes are associated with DBA of which two have been identified so far. The known DBA genes encode the ribosomal proteins S19 and S24 accounting for 25% and 2% of the patients respectively. This study shows that RPS19 gene transfer
The aim of this thesis is to describe and explain independent declarative clauses in German which have the finite verb in absolute clause-initial position. They are called verb-first declarative clauses. It is shown that this type of clause can be found in a variety of Germanic languages. There is evidence suggesting that this is a very old type with roots in ancient Indo-European. It has thus ex
In many developing tropical countries, rapid urban growth leads to several problems, including increased thermal stress. This has negative consequences for people's health and well-being, and affects social and commercial outdoor activities negatively. Consequently, the creation of thermally comfortable microclimates in urban environments is highly important. The main aim of this thesis is to dee
Over the last 25 years a number of new anaesthetic drugs have been introduced on the market to allow for better patient satisfaction and faster recovery after anaesthesia and sedation. Propofol (2,6-di-isopropylphenol), one of our most common iv anaesthetics, is associated with pleasant sleep and rapid recovery with little postoperative nausea. When used for anaesthetic induction propofol causes s
N-acylethanolamines (NAEs) belong to a growing family of endogenous signalling molecules acting on a variety of receptors and ion channels. In 1992, it was reported that the N-acylethanolamine anandamide is present in the brain and activates the central cannabinoid (CB) receptor. Anandamide and other NAEs are considered to be generated on demand following receptor activation or cell stress. The ti
Increased attention is nowadays devoted to waste management. The objective of this work is to analyse how commonly known business economic models and methods, as well as the Polluter-Pays Principle, can be applied to waste management in general and to waste fractionation in particular, so as to facilitate environmental optimisation of industrial and construction waste fractionation. In discussing
In all higher organisms, there is a need for intercellular communication. G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), located on the cell surface, play an important role in this communication. Cells synthesize and release signalling molecules (ligands), which produce a specific response only in those cells that have a receptor for that ligand. The total number of GPCRs is estimated to be around 800 where
The aim of this thesis is to investigate the relation between intrasubjective mental representations – ‘conceptual structures’ – and their intersubjectively available material manifestation, in particular morphosyntactic representations. Such an investigation presupposes the analysis of not only extralinguistically established modules but also of structural levels that are inherent components of t
Stroke is caused by an obstruction of blood flow to a part of the brain, resulting in brain damage. Stroke is the third most common cause of death in the industrialized world, and the primary cause of adult-onset disability. There is a spontaneous recovery of function after stroke but several factors, such as the environment can influence the speed and extent of this recovery. This thesis deals wi
Moraxella catarrhalis is a respiratory tract pathogen that causes significant health problems, including acute otitis media in children, lower respiratory tract infections in adults and the elderly and sinusitis in both children and adults. The interest in M. catarrhalis bacteria has increased over the past 20 years, both because of the emergence of the bacteria as a human pathogen and because of
Critically ill patients in intensive care units (ICU) often have coagulation disturbances. Clinical manifestations such as thromboembolism and/or bleeding may result from activation and consumption of coagulation factors and inhibitors. Disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) is a severe condition with an often-poor prognosis. Global haemostatic tests are inexpensive, widely available, and ma
This thesis treats various aspects of the measurement of trace components in aqueous solutions with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. This technique has several applications from such diverse fields as dairy industry and biomedical optics. The use of infrared spectroscopy for trace component quantification is made difficult by the large absorption of water which dominates the spectrum. The
Cardiac pumping physiology is important for understanding the pathophysiology of patients with cardiac disease. MRI gives the opportunity to measure volumes and flow non-invasively with high accuracy and precision. This thesis examines some aspects on cardiac pumping physiology. Study I showed that the total heart volume in humans decreases during systole by ~8 % (range 5-11 %), and anatomically i
In this thesis I study two-dimensional geometric optimization problems for which it is difficult to find efficient, exact, deterministic algorithms. All known solutions to these problems require time that is exponential in the total size of the input. The work done in this thesis is a contribution to the research directed at attacking and coping with such NP hard problems in computational geometry
Summary: For religious Sikhs, the Guru Granth Sahib is a holy scripture which enshrines ontologically divine words and the teaching and revelatory experiences of historical human Gurus. Simultaneously the Sikhs have taken the concept of a sacred scripture much further than any other religious community by treating the Guru Granth Sahib as a living Guru invested with spiritual authority and agency
Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are defined by their capacity to self-renew and differentiate into all hematopoietic cell lineages. Postnatally, HSCs reside predominantly in the bone marrow and are relatively rare, but important cells because of their therapeutic potential in bone marrow transplantation protocols and in their involvement in the origin of certain leukemias. To study how various gen
When a low-frequency laser pulse is focused to a high intensity in a gas, the electric field of the laser may become comparable to, or even exceed, the electric field between the electrons and the nucleus in the atom. Under such conditions, through a process known as high-order harmonic generation, bursts of extreme ultraviolet radiation may be emitted, with durations in the attosecond domain (1 a
