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Over 100 million people around the world are exposed to high concentrations of arsenic (As) in drinking water, associated with a number of adverse health effects such as skin, lung and bladder cancer, vascular diseases and diabetes. In humans, As is metabolized via alternating reduction and methylation reactions, from inorganic As (iAs) into monomethylated (MMA) and dimethylated As (DMA). The most

Intraventricular haemorrhage (IVH) is the most common brain lesion in preterm infants and is most commonly seen in the sickest children, with 15-20% of very preterm infants developing IVH. The mortality of infants with severe IVH is 20-50 % in the neonatal period and over 50 % of surviving infants develop post-haemorrhagic ventricular dilatation (PHVD) and 40-80 % develop severe neurological impai

There were two principal objectives for this thesis. The first was to develop a methodology and evaluation model of moisture redistribution in order to make the future relative humidity in a screeded concrete slab predictable. The second objective was to develop a method to determine the critical humidity for ion transport in concrete. Residual moisture in screeded concrete slabs may be redistrib

Silicon (Si) is ubiqutious in natural waters as dissolved silica (DSi) and is used as a nutrient by many plant and animal species. DSi ultimately derives from the weathering of silicate minerals, a process which also consumes atmospheric CO2 and couples the silicon and carbon cycles. These processes, among others, impart observable fractionations to the stable isotopes of silicon, which makes the

In the event of a radiation accident, it is crucial to make rapid estimates of the absorbed dose received by both emergency workers, so-called first responders, and members of the public. Today, only personnel in rescue teams responding to nuclear emergencies have access to individual dosemeters. To make accurate assessments of the radiological consequences of an emergency situation, methods of re

In obesity and several other disease scenarios, the measurement of fat accumulation in various organs and tissues has become a sought-after technique in clinical diagnostics and research. Especially, quantitative and non-invasive techniques which also provide images of accumulated fat throughout the body would be valuable. In the typical hospital, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is the only techn

Neuroblastoma is a childhood tumor of the developing sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and is the most commonly diagnosed form of cancer in children before one year of age. Although survival curves have improved for these patients during the past decades, the conventional regimen of neuroblastoma treatment has clearly reached a plateau of efficiency with regard to increasing the survival rates of h

Hormone refractory prostate cancer occurs when androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) fails to stop the growth of prostate cancer for any longer. Recent studies point towards a role for neuroendocrine (NE) differentiation in the development of hormone refractory disease. It has been hypothesized that NE-differentiated malignant tumor cells survive during ADT and promote development of androgen-indepen

Parkinson's disease and L-DOPA-induced dyskinesia (LID) does not merely involve the dopamine (DA) system but also include non-dopaminergic systems such as glutamate and serotonin (5-HT). An aberrant glutamate transmission at the corticostriatal synapse, has been linked to LID. Pharmacological agents to glutamate receptors at this synapse, (of which some are already clinically tested), could preve

This thesis is about the regulation of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) that represent rare cells residing in the bone marrow (BM) of adults. They are multipotent cells that have the capacity to differentiate to all mature cells of the blood system and have the capacity to self-renew, i.e. generate new HSCs. These cells have tremendous therapeutic potential to treat a variety of hematopoietic disor

Post stroke shoulder pain, PSSP, is a common type of pain after stroke, but still further knowledge of this condition is needed. An increased knowledge of prevalence, contributing factors and impact on the individual’s life could enhance the possibility to find more effective treatments and therefore more studies are needed. The overall aim of this thesis was to evaluate PSSP with a special focus

Cell replacement by neural transplantation can, in animal models of neurodegenerative diseases, reconstruct damaged brain circuitry. In the clinical situation, the graft material used for cell therapy must, most likely, be of human origin. The human fetal brain is one potential source of neural stem cells (NSCs) for cell replacement therapy in neurodegenerative disorders such as stroke. Stroke is

Sepsis-related cardiovascular dysfunction associated with fluid-unresponsive tissue hypoperfusion might require inotropic treatment. This cardiovascular dysfunction seems to involve calcium desensitization and adrenergic unresponsiveness. We investigated the effects of clinically relevant plasma concentrations of the calcium sensitizer levosimendan during the first 6 h of endotoxemia in a model of

A large process industry can have somewhere between five hundred and five thousand control loops, and PID controllers are used in 90–97% of the cases. It is well-known that only 20–30% of the controllers in the process industry are tuned satisfactorily, but with the methods available today it is considered too time-consuming to optimize each single controller. This thesis presents tools for analys

Few planning practices in the South seem to be equipped with key concepts and technical, empirical and administrative capacities required to comprehend and visualize the phenomenon of poverty at inter- and intra-urban levels, which compromises their ability to inform decision-makers on the effects on poverty reduction of the land-based actions they design, implement and monitor. This challenge was

The research presented in this thesis investigates sea and aviation transport safety culture, with a focus on perceptions and attitudes. A safety culture reflects the attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, and values that individuals share in relation to safety. Safety culture is often identified as being essential to an organization's ability to manage safety-related aspects of its operations. The aims

Macrophages play an essential role in the defense against infection by phagocytosis and by production of inflammatory mediators. Such mediators are TNF? and eicosanoids. Many microbial agents elicit arachidonate release in macrophages that lead to the formation of eicosanoids. This thesis is based on studies performed with the use of microbial constituents which induce arachidonate release or/and

The treatment of flow in the area of traffic safety has a long tradition. The influence flow has on the number of accidents is, however, often considered so obvious that it tends to be trivial. In this thesis I can show that the relation between flow and accidents holds interesting information. In order to compare countermeasures, or conduct other types of traffic safety comparisons where the flo