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Poor ergonomics in production systems can compromise performance and cause musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), which pose a huge cost to society, companies, and afflicted individuals. This thesis presents a research trajectory through the problem space by: 1) Identifying and quantifying workplace risk factors for MSDs, 2) Identifying how these risks may relate to production strategies, and 3) Develo

Background: A prognostic marker should provide information about course and outcome of disease, e.g. predict time to a given endpoint or rate of progression due to disease in patients or subgroups of patients. Prognostic markers could be targeted to apply during the entire clinical course or just during distinct stages of the disease. Aim: The aim of this thesis is to identify, review and qualif

Evaluation of long-term side effects of treatment is important due to the growing number of childhood cancer survivors. How kidney function is affected over time needs to be clarified. In the first article, we investigated 247 healthy infants and children and established upper reference limits for several proteins in urine, to be used as markers for glomerular and tubular proteinuria in children w

Background: Acute ischemia of the lower limb is a vascular emergency associated with amputation and death. Patients suffering from acute limb ischemia are usually elderly, and multiple comorbidities are often present. Intra-arterial thrombolysis is, perhaps, the most important minimal-invasive treatment option available today. Although uncontrolled hemorrhage is a dreaded complication, it is consi

Central venous catheters are mainly being used for reliable infusion of fluids and potentially irritant drugs, for haemodialysis, and for assessment of right atrial or central venous pressure (RAP/CVP). Current guidelines state that central venous catheterization should be followed-up by immediate anterior-posterior chest X-ray to confirm appropriate positioning and to detect iatrogenic pneumothor

Chlorinated fatty acids (ClFAs) are the major contributors of extractable, organically bound chlorine in fish lipids. A known anthropogenic source of ClFAs is chlorine bleached pulp production. Additional anthropogenic sources may exist, e.g., chlorine-containing discharge from industrial and house-hold waste and they may also occur naturally. ClFAs have a wide geographic distribution. They have,

Amongst the various –omics sciences, proteomics has the highest potential for functional characterization and consequently can contribute significantly to the field of cancer research. In particular, the focus of this thesis is on breast cancer. Alas, since state-of-the-art technologies cannot meet the complexity of upper eukaryotic proteomes, a complete resolution of clinical samples is still una

This thesis deals with large eddy simulations (LES) of turbulent combustion processes in direct injection internal combustion (IC) engines. Modeling of direct injection IC engine combustion involves modeling of turbulent spray/gas two-phase flow, modeling of chemical reactions of large hydrocarbon fuels and coupling of chemistry with turbulent flows. LES is chosen in this thesis for it capability

Macroporous hydrogels are regarded as interesting materials both within biotechnology and biomedicine due to their properties. These materials can be prepared from a wide range of synthetic or naturally occurring compounds using a number of different techniques for their production. For this thesis, cryostructuring was used to prepare macroporous hydrogels, often named cryogels. The work utilized

The cells of higher organisms exist in a complex protein network, the extracellular matrix (ECM), which has a wide variety of different components such as glycoproteins, proteoglycans and carbohydrates. As well as being the physical scaffold on which the cells are dependent for their positioning and mobility, the ECM exercises control over the cells, and changes in the matrix will affect the adhes

Vision is an important source of information for many animals. The lens plays a central role in the visual pathway and hence the ecology of these animals. Fish have spherically shaped crystalline lenses that contain a gradient of refractive index. Like all refracting elements, lens performance depends on the wavelength of the refracted light. This wavelength dependent focusing leads to chromatic a

A sustainable treatment of organic wastes, generation of renewable energy, reduction of green house gas emissions, limiting the eutrophication and closing the nutrient cycles are several environmental challenges for which anaerobic digestion may be a suitable solution. There is today a large amount of available organic waste materials that could serve as potential feedstock for biogas production.

The human genome contains genetic elements which are more or less similar to infectious retroviruses. These are called human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) and are thought to be remnants of infections in the primate lineage. Most of them have been inserted 10 to 60 million years ago but have at different time points spread in the genome via intracellular retrotransposition and make up as much as

It is attractive to integrate a large deformable mirror for adaptive optics into an astronomical telescope rather than using relay optics within an auxiliary instrument. However, the resulting large deformable mirror can be expensive, particularly for extremely large telescopes. We have pursued a low-cost approach using force actuators connected to the back of the deformable mirror through suction

The overall aim of this thesis was to increase our knowledge of the relationship between structure and function of human skeletal muscle, and about factors affecting strength. The ankle dorsiflexor muscles (DF) were chosen as a representative model of human skeletal muscle, and because these muscles have important roles in gait and maintenance of balance. Specific aims in this thesis were: i) to d

Transplantation is the only cure for end-stage organ failure. With the transplantation follows the need for continuous treatment with immunosuppressive agents for as long as the graft functions, which entails major side effects. Less toxic treatments are therefore in great demand. Preferably, the treatment should also be limited in time. The ultimate solution would be induction of tolerance to t

HAMLET (human alpha-lactalbumin made lethal to tumour cells), a protein-lipid complex originally isolated from human milk, induces programmed cell death selectively in tumour cells. It consists of partially unfolded alpha-lactalbumin in complex with oleic acid. It was previously not known if the unfolding of alpha-lactalbumin alone accounts for the activity of HAMLET or if the lipid adds biologica

The inhibitory neuromuscular control of the human and cat lower oesophagus was investigated by morphological, functional, and biochemical methods. A supply of nerve fibres and myenteric cell bodies, containing nitric oxide synthase (NOS), haem oxygenase (HO)-2, vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP), and pituitary adenylate cyclase activating peptide (PACAP) was observed. The highest density of nerve

Proteolytic enzymes are enzymes that hydrolyze peptide bonds in peptides and proteins. This ability to carry out protein degradation is essential for many cellular and extracellular processes that occur in all living organisms. Cysteine peptidases constitute a class of proteolytic enzymes. Among these, papain-like (C1) peptidases are the mostly studied ones. Inhibitors regulate proteolytic activit