Filetype
The aim of this dissertation is to find relationships between folk art, an artist's personal life and influential factors originating in the context. Christmas wall hangings by the peasant painter Johannes Nilsson (17571827) are the focus of the study. The fact that he had a special approach to the painting tradition raises two questions: Why did he paint the way he did? How can his hangings be i
This study has involved investigation of number of populations of the damselfly Ischnura elegans over several years, looking at frequency changes over time, morphological differences between the sexes and the morphs, differences in growth rate and development time, differences in fecundity between the morphs, and genetic differentiation between populations. I. elegans is a small annual damselfly w
Microbial activity in soil is generally assumed to be limited by carbon availability. The soil closest to roots, the rhizosphere, is therefore a zone of high microbial activity due to carbon containing substances released by the root. In this work short-term effects in the rhizosphere have been the subject of investigation. I have shown that the thymidine and leucine incorporation techniques are w
As a cancer grows it will, at a certain stage of disease progression, start spreading in the body. For several types of cancer this spreading will first occur through the lymphatic system and the first place where metastatic cell will be encountered is the first lymph node that drains the area where the tumor is located. This lymph node is defined as the sentinel lymph node (SLN). By analyzing the
This thesis deals with Lennart Hellsing's works, and especially his texts for small children, from 1945 to 2000. In an introductory survey the oral transmission of literature is discussed in relation to orality and literacy. The presupposition is that there are similarities between oral culture and texts for the very young. Hellsing's production is surveyed along with his position as a poet, his i
Short high-frequency electromagnetic pulses, also referred to as wavelets, are considered for use in various short-range impulse based ultra-wideband applications, such as communication, imaging, radar, spectroscopy, and localization. This thesis investigates field-effect and tunneling based semiconductor devices and their operation in millimeter-wave (mm-wave) impulse transceivers. The main resea
Bacterial adhesion to the bladder mucosa is a critical step for the establishment of Escherichia coli bacteriuria. The P-fimbriae, encoded by the pap gene cluster, are considered as virulence factors but the mechanisms have been debated. This study defined the roles for P fimbriation during the early colonization of the human urinary tract. Patients with recurrent UTI were first subjected to deli
Evolutionary theory predicts a disadvantage to sexual reproduction. This manifests itself either by the higher growth rate of asexual females in a dioecious species, or by the higher transmission rate of a gene conferring asexual female function to its carriers in a hermaphrodite species. The disadvantage to sexual reproduction may be as high as two-fold provided all else is equal. This phenomenon
In children, it is often desirable to minimize allogenic blood transfusion, and this thesis explores the physiology of an alternative method of managing perioperative blood loss: hemodilution with Ringer´s dextran. Methods Clinical studies: Arterial pressure, superior caval venous oxygen saturation (ScvO2) and blood lactate concentration (L) were studied during bone marrow harvesting (BMH) on 23
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
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
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
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
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
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
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a well-established treatment for severe depressive disorder, but its clinical use has been limited by concerns about side effects such as memory disturbances. Despite over 70 years in clinical use, the exact mechanisms of action behind the therapeutic or adverse effects are not fully understood. Enhanced brain plasticity, including neurogenesis, angiogenesis and
The first part of this thesis deals with approximations of stochastic integrals and discrete time hedging of derivative contracts; two closely related subjects. Paper A considers the problem of approximating the value of a Wiener process. The discretization points are placed at times when the absolute difference between the value of the process and the approximation reaches a threshold level. It i
Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer affecting women in the western countries. Today x-ray digital mammography (DM) of the breast is commonly used for early detection of breast cancer. However, the sensitivity of mammography is limited, mainly due to the fact that a 3D volume is projected down to a 2D image. This problem can be partially solved by a tomographic technique. Breast tomosyn
Laser-driven particle acceleration makes use of sub-picosecond, pulsed, high-power laser systems, capable of producing intensities ~10^{19} W/cm^2 at the laser focus to form plasmas, and use ultra-relativistic and nonlinear dynamics to produce quasistatic acceleration fields. This allows electrons to be accelerated to ~100 MeV over sub-centimetre distances, while protons may be accelerated to the
