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Preterm infants undergo intensive care during a vulnerable period with hemodynamic instability and a rapidly developing and immature CNS. Adequate pain management is essential, since pain experience might lead to acute physiological reactions as well as neurological and neuropsychological sequels. There is no “golden standard” for objective pain assessment, and no evidence-based recommendations fo

The aim of physiotherapy is to promote health and well-being, and to facilitate increased activity and participation of individuals with diseases and injuries. The profession is influenced by different health paradigms which have emerged from different knowledge traditions. The biomedical paradigm of health adopts a dualistic view of mankind in which the normal is regarded as the standard, and the

Physical inactivity and obesity is a growing health problem world wide. Three different samples with a wide range of glucose tolerance were included in the thesis to represent a wider population. The exercise capacity was studied in one group of healthy sedentary middle aged men with normal glucose tolerance in study I and II. In a group of elderly men with normal glucose tolerance (NGT), impaire

The aim of this thesis has been to establish biomarkers for the blastemal element in Wilms tumour (WT) – the most common paediatric kidney cancer. Blastema is, together with epithelium and stroma, one of the three common histological elements of WT. WTs dominated by blastema after preoperative chemotherapy are classified as high risk tumours. According to the SIOP2001 protocol used in most Europea

The topic of this thesis is teamwork in healthcare. Healthcare is often described as complex. This description is more appropriate now than ever with the extensive specialization that has taken place in recent decades resulting in increasingly specialized physicians and nurses. While this specialization has made it possible to cure even sicker patients, it has also resulted in less overlapping kno

Cell-replacement therapy is a promising approach for treating patients with Parkinson ́s disease (PD). For this purpose, there is a need for developing a protocol that can generate high numbers of human transplantable mesencephalic dopaminer- gic (mesDA) neurons. For decades, studies have therefore been made in mouse and other model organisms in order to elucidate key-factors that can be used for

Sustainable development relies on our ability to make decisions today that will determine our tomorrow. Given that uncertainty is explicitly allowed to influence our view of what the future holds for us, most ex ante analyses of challenges for sustainable development can be viewed as analysing risk. Many frameworks for analysing risk exist today, but analysing risk for sustainable development enta

A large number of patients are treated with coronary stents, and restenosis (recurrent narrowing of the vessel) is a serious problem. Contact allergy to metal ions eluted from stainless steel stents has been suggested to contribute to in-stent restenosis. Studies have reported a higher rate of restenosis with gold-plated stents, but the correlation to contact allergy was not evaluated. Nickel is t

Epilepsy is a severe chronic neurological disorder, affecting about 1% of the population. The disease is manifested by spontaneous recurrent seizures, caused by hypersynchronized neuronal activity due to imbalance in the brain between the inhibition and excitation. Symptoms are treated with anti-epileptic drugs, but unfortunately, 30-40% of patients respond poorly to current treatment. Therefore,

Engagement in daily activities is central for people’s health and well-being. Today, our activity arenas mostly cover great geographical areas, and to reach different activities we must travel. However, people with functional limitations are sometimes restricted in their travelling. In order to investigate accessibility problems in different travel chains, the overarching objective of this thesis

Streptomycetes are Gram-positive bacteria with a complex developmental life cycle. They form spores on specialized cells called aerial hyphae, and this sporulation involves alterations in growth, morphogenesis and cell cycle processes like cell division and chromosome segregation. Understanding the developmental mechanisms that streptomycetes have evolved for regulating for example cell division i

Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) are omega-3 fatty acids, which have health promoting effects. Since they are highly prone to oxidation, they should be protected, in particular DHA. Several lipids containing DHA were evaluated with respect to the ability of the lipids to protect DHA against peroxidation using an HPLC method developed as part of this research. Furthermore,

An efficient transfer of energy in molecular systems has proven to be of fundamental importance both in nature and industrial applications. The ability of molecules to work together forming collective excitations, so-called excitons, plays a key role in for example the extraordinary fast energy transfer involved in the first steps of photosynthesis. The characterization of excitonic states in conj

Under Indonesia's authoritarian New Order regime of President Suharto, the role envisaged for the small nationalist-Christian coalition the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) was that of a pliant state corporatist party, the existence of which was meant to demonstrate the ostensibly democratic character of the regime. From the second half of the 1980s, however, the party began to develop in a criti

The problem of fluid-structure interaction, occurring in many industrial and engineering applications, are of great importance, since interaction of a flow and a structure in it can lead to serious damages of the structure. The fluid-structure interaction gives rise to a variety of different physical phenomena such as flow-induced vibration, noise generation, etc. As an alternative to experimental

Hematopoietic Stem Cells (HSCs) have been defined to have abilities of both self-renewal and multi-lineage differen-tiation. The balance between these abilities is rigorously controlled under steady-state status (homeostasis) and when the normal processes of self-renewal and differentiation become deregulated, a disorder of blood system (such as leukemias) can occur. HSCs are enriched in lineage n

The C1 subcomponent C1q and the mannan-binding lectin (MBL) are recognition proteins of the complement system, and have similar structure. C1q binds to IgG and IgM and activates the classical pathway. MBL binds to carbohydrate structures and activates the lectin pathway. Autoantibodies to C1q are frequently found in severe systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and are present in virtually all patient

The global expansion of democratic rule in the developing world has attracted much scholarly interest. The societal implications of the democratisation process, i.e. what democratisation actually means for the citizens in terms of opportunities for participation and influence, have not received as much attention though. This study makes a contribution to redressing the imbalance. Drawing on normat

The simulation of physical phenomena occurring in chemical reactors requires the description of the kinetics involved in the underlying combustion process. Kinetic models are developed for this purpose. A software package, BlueBellMouse, has been developed to facilitate a deeper automatization and ease of simulation, reduction and optimization of kinetic models. A kinetic model is made of a list o

In recent decades there has been an increasing interest in the indoor environment and its connections with public health. One important topic discussed has been the relation between the moisture in buildings and health.

Cementitious materials, when cast, contain excess water since this is necessary for workability and for flow properties. The pore solutions in cementitious materials, besid