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Rainfall characteristics of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, are studied in space and time; on a large scale, 550 km2, and long term scale to find out the monsoon influence, and on urban basin scale, 23 km2, to determine dynamic properties of rainfalls and spatial correlations, and on a point scale to determine the probabilities of very high rain intensities. The importance of spatial and temporal variabi
How well can we explain natural occurrences of cognitive behaviours given the theoretical frameworks available to us today? The thesis explores what has to be assumed in cognitive theory in order to provide such an explanation, in contrast to being able to predict behaviour under controlled circumstances. The behaviours considered are all of the type described as involving higher level cognition
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD, is manifested by chronic airflow limitation due to inflammation and tissue destruction in the lungs. COPD is caused primarily by smoking and with increasing cigarette consumption in the world, the prevalence for COPD will most probably increase in the future. The chronic inflammation in the lungs of these patients is thought to drive the pathogenesis fo
Evangelium Cyrillicum Gothoburgense, ECG, a tetraevangel treasured in Göteborg University Library, has been studied from several aspects. A codicological study showed that the MS bears signs of earlier restoration and that some leaves are missing at the beginning and at the end. The watermark is a "boar", and the date of ECG is believed to be 1605-1625 on the basis of an identical watermark in ano
Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is the most common form of epilepsy among adult patients, and the most problematic one as seizures cannot be controlled by currently available drugs in 30 % of patients. Gene therapy based on overexpression of endogenous anti-epileptic agents such as the neuropeptide galanin and the glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) represents a promising new approach
One of the most important aspects of the marriage legislation in medieval canon law is the doctrine of free choice. According to this doctrine, established by pope Alexander III in the second half of the twelfth century, the validity of a marriage depended solely on the freely given consent of the parties. Neither family nor witnesses, not even the presence of a priest were necessary to form a val
In this thesis the role of cartilage proteins and their potential as antigen and availability to the immune system in arthritis were investigated. Six papers are included; where four present new animal models for Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), one shows how genetic disorders in cartilage may affect arthritis and the last how posttranslational modification of collagen type II (CII) affects tolerance. P
The main contribution of this thesis is approximation algorithms for several computational geometry problems. The underlying structure for most of the problems studied is a geometric network. A geometric network is, in its abstract form, a set of vertices, pairwise connected with an edge, such that the weight of this connecting edge is the Euclidean distance between the pair of points connected. S
This study challenges the prevailing assumption that the expansion of cultivated land areas and increasing number of livestock in the agro-pastoral regions of northern China have aggravated the process of land degradation since the start of the rural reforms in 1978. Land-use and productivity trends in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (IMAR), with special attention to the Keerqin steppe region
This thesis discusses the religious metaphorical use of different words for "shield" in the Hebrew Bible and Egyptian and Assyrian literature. The literary contexts in the analysis are delimited based on the observation that they share a similar view of divine intervention in war and an analogous view of the enemy. Using the defensive weapon that we today call the "shield" often meant the differen
The aim of the thesis is to contribute to knowledge of (1) psychosocial illness in the population, (2) the prevalence and nature of psychosocial illness encountered in primary health care, and (3) encountered among persons with long-term illness. The data collected include the results of a questionnaire given to a population-based sample of 13 000 persons (20-84 years), a questionnaire given to ge
This thesis concerns clean and adsorbate covered metal surfaces and surface alloys. These systems have been studied using theoretical and experimental methods. In the first part of the thesis, the different techniques that have been utilized in this work are presented, and the included publications are summarized. The second part of the thesis consists of seven original publications. In the first
The serotonergic vascular control was investigated by in vitro pharmacology in the human uterine and umbilical arteries. The localisation of immunoreactive (IR) neuropeptide Y (NPY) and the influence of NPY on the adrenergic vascular effects in the human uterine artery were also studied. NPY-IR nerve fibres were observed predominantly at the media-adventitial border of the uterine artery. About 50
New measurements of the elements Ba, Fe, Ga, In and Ru are reported. The analysis of barium contains new wavelengths, improved energy level values and new values of the ionization limit in both Ba I and Ba II. Oscillator strengths and radiative lifetimes in Fe II, as a part of the FERRUM project, are reported. The gallium analysis includes new wavelengths, ab initio calculated oscillator st
Purpose: To study dark adaptation in patients with symptomatic carotid artery disease or polycythemia before and after treatment. This necessitated determinations of pupillary changes as such may influence the findings. To determine whether changes in the retinal blood flow in light and darkness occur in healthy humans. Methods: Repeated automatic dark adaptometry was recorded monocularly in 21 c
Telomeres are specialized complexes of DNA and proteins that cap and confer stability to the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes. The telomeric DNA of most eukaryotes is composed of tandemly arranged short repeats. Within the budding yeasts these repeats are diverged in length as well as in nucleotide composition. However, they contain a sequence resembling the consensus binding sequence of the major t
It is a necessity of life to make proteins, and it is an equal necessity to degrade those proteins, to eliminate dysfunctional proteins, and leave room for new ones. The processes of protein synthesis and degradation into peptides - proteolysis - have attracted a great interest during the last decades. The eye contains several highly specialized tissues, in which the protein turnover is of vital
The gram-positive bacterium Enterococcus faecalis is a commensal organism, often found in the gut of humans and other animals. It can cause opportunistic disease and it frequently causes nosocomial infections. Treatment of such infections is often impaired by this organisms broad intrinsic and acquired resistance to antibiotics. E. faecalis uses homo-lactic fermentation for energy pr
A network of perivascular nerve fibres was demonstrated in coronary arteries and veins from guinea-pig and man. Nerve fibres displaying immunoreactivity to neuropeptide Y (NPY) had a distribution pattern similar to those containing immunoreactivity to tyrosine hydroxylase. Immunoreactivity to substance P and calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) occurred in the same varicose nerve fibres, which w
