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This thesis documents my work in the luminosity and supersymmetry groups of the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. The theory of supersymmetry and the concept of luminosity are introduced. The ATLAS experiment is described with special focus on a luminosity monitor called LUCID. A data-driven luminosity calibration method is presented and evaluated using the LUCID detector. This method

The aim of this dissertation was to examine whether the temporal distance of moral events affects the moral judgments and decisions people make in response to those events. Drawing upon Construal Level Theory (CLT; Trope & Liberman, 2003) which posits that the distant future is represented at a higher, more abstract level of mental construal than the near future, and that high-level mental con

The design and implementation of a hearing conservation programme in a heavy industry with high noise levels is described. Action was taken on several points, including noise measurements, noise reduction, education on hearing protector use, and audiometric monitoring. It was found that the noise at the plant has been greatly reduced during a period of 25 years. The reduction in noise was made pos

Cardiovascular diseases are characterized by changes in morphology and function of the blood vessels. Different signalling molecules are involved in these changes. Endothelin-1 (ET-1) is one of the most potent signalling molecules found in man. Its actions are mediated by two receptors, the ETA and the ETB receptors. The ETA receptor is located on the smooth muscle cells and mediates potent contra

Non-heme mononuclear iron oxygenases catalyze a large number of oxidation reactions in biological systems. The reactions are often proposed to proceed via the intermediacy of high valent Fe(IV) oxo (ferryl) or, Fe(V) oxo (perferryl) intermediates. Therefore, in order to mimic the high valent Fe(IV) oxo chemistry as well as the catalytic processes exhibited by those enzymes, new functional model co

Our research group has previously shown that treatment with the polyamine biosynthesis inhibitors a-difluoromethylornithine (DFMO) or amidinoindan-1-one 2´-amidinohydrazone (CGP 48664) inhibited S phase progression before any other cell cycle phase was affected. This study was undertaken to further investigate the role of polyamines in the regulation of S phase progression and DNA synthesis. I hav

Schizophrenia is now generally considered to be a brain disease resulting from disturbed neurodevelopment, mediated by genetic and/or adverse events in utero and/or in early childhood. This process manifests itself in schizophrenia in young adulthood, when the brain completes its maturation. The background and development of affective psychosis have been less extensively investigated. Our aim was

Birds use vision to guide navigation, foraging and mate choice, and studies of the limitations in bird visual perception are most helpful for the understanding of bird ecology. Here, I present four studies of bird vision in bright and dim light. Paper I is a quantification of how sensitive colour vision modelling is to variation in data, such as the spectral sensitivity of photoreceptors and recep

In a retrospective follow-up study, n=202, long-term pain relief (>6 months) after a course of acupuncture treatments was found mainly among patients with chronic nociceptive pain while patients with neurogenic or psychogenic pain did not benefit much. In a placebo-controlled randomised single-blind long-term study with independent observer of chronic nociceptive low back pain, n=50, it was found

The work in this thesis concerns polymer gels, especially their swelling and mechanical properties modelled using a coarse-grained model of polyelectrolytes. The method used to study polymer gels was molecular simulation utilising the simulation package MOLSIM. Particular focus is on the effect of salt, macroions and network topology effects (polydispersity, loose-ends and interpenetrating network

Temperature-dependent structure and function of group A streptococcal M proteins.This thesis describes the temperature-dependent structure of the members in the group A streptococcal M protein family. M proteins are cell-surface proteins that are important for the bacterial virulence and bind to a diverse set of human plasma proteins. The proteins are dimeric coiled-coil molecules, but temperature

Just as all other organisms, plants adapt to various environmental conditions. This work focuses on the role of chloroplast light harvesting complex II, LHCII, in adaptation of photosynthesis to changed light conditions. The two photosystems of oxygenic photosynthesis, photosystem I and II, use light of slightly different wavelengths for photochemistry. Since the photosystems are coupled in serie

The objective of the work described in this thesis is to identify the principles and parts of an aftertreatment system for the catalytic NOx reduction for heavy-duty diesel vehicles, and to demonstrate such a system in full-scale. The reducing agent is diesel fuel. Many advantageous features of the diesel engine, such as life span, reliability and efficiency, make the engine the most frequent pow

Ultrafast nano-optics is a new and quickly evolving research field centred around the control, manipulation, and application of light on a nanometre and femtosecond scale. This can lead to improved electro-optical devices, more sensitive spectroscopy, and real-time control of chemical reactions. However, understanding the simultaneous nanometre and femtosecond evolution of nano-optical fields requ

During the last decade it has been shown that nitric oxide (NO) and carbon monoxide (CO) are produced in our own body, and that they constitute a novel class of messenger molecules. In 1992 a constitutive NO-producing NO-synthase (cNOS) was found in the islets of Langerhans, and in 1997 we could show for the first time that the islets also contained a CO-producing constitutive heme oxygenase (HO-2

Exposure to isocyanates may induce disorders in the airways of workers. Therefore, application, development and validation of methods for exposure assessment is of great importance. In the present study, we have determined the personal air and biomarker levels of isocyanates for a group of occupationally exposed workers (n=170) in different types of industrial processes. Also, the biomarker levels

The technology of cDNA microarrays has given us the possibility to monitor the state of cells by measuring the activity of thousands of genes simultaneously. This high-throughput techniqe has in cancer research allowed exploratory studies of molecular mechanisms behind for example metastasis and response to therapy. This increased knowledge can hopefully result in new therapies and improved progno

Mature blood cells are crucial for life, but they have a short lifetime and thus have to be replaced. These mature blood cells are produced by lineage restricted progenitors, which themselves are generated by rare multipotent hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) in a highly dynamic process called hematopoiesis. In addition to the ability of HSCs to generate all blood cell lineages, they possess the uni

A highly dealuminated form of zeolite FAU, ultra-stable zeolite Y (USY), was used as an adsorbent matrix in the purification of proteins. Undesired proteins were removed from a crude preparation by adsorption on USY, increasing the purity of an unadsorbed protein (horse radish peroxidase), or the protein of interest was adsorbed on the zeolite and subsequently eluted through changes in the solutio

The aim of this thesis was to investigate and describe different aspects of variation in the Dactylorhiza maculata complex and to relate the variation patterns to underlying biological processes such as Quaternary migration history, hybridization and polyploid evolution. The variation patterns were analysed at various geographic levels using molecular markers (plastid DNA and ITS of nrDNA), cytolo