BACKGROUNDQuinoa is a pseudo-cereal grown predominantly in South America. The quinoa stalks are lignocellulosic residues, which have a limited use today. The objective of the current study was to assess the potential of this material as a source of monosaccharides for fermentation purposes by means of steam pretreatment giving sugars from the hemicellulose part, and enzymatic hydrolysis of the sol

When developing software platforms for product lines, decisions on which features to implement are affected by factors such as changing markets and evolving technologies. Effective scoping thus requires continuous assessment of how changes in the domain impact scoping decisions. Decisions may have to be changed as circumstances change, resulting in a dynamic evolution of the scope of software asse

Farming environment and environmental exposure to microbial agents have been suggested to promote favorable development of immune system in children and protect against allergic diseases. However, effects of farm exposure on adult immune responses are less clear. Aim of the present study was to examine associations of farm related factors and measured microbial exposure with stimulated production

A traffic encounter between individual road users is a process of continuous interplay over time and space and may be seen as an elementary event with the potential to develop into an accident. This paper proposes a framework for organising all traffic encounters into a severity hierarchy based on some operational severity measure. A severity hierarchy provides a description of the safety situatio

Cash Flow-at-Risk (CFaR) is a risk measure that conveys information on the shortfall in cash flow, associated with a certain probability, a firm could experience over a certain time period. However, to provide information on outcomes that are identified as costly by the risk management literature, in particular underinvestment due to financing constraints, a risk measure needs to make explicit ref

Blood lead concentration (B-Pb), the main biomarker of lead exposure and risk, is curvi-linearily related to exposure. We assessed plasma lead (P-Pb) as a marker for both lead exposure and toxic effects. We examined claims that delta-aminolevulinic acid dehydratase genotype (ALAD) can modify lead toxicity. In 290 lead-exposed and 91 unexposed Chinese workers, we determined P-Pb, B-Pb, urinary lead

Recent advances in the digital detector technology have paved the way for modalities such as two-dimensional digital mammography (DM) and three-dimensional breast tomosynthesis (BT). In this work, experimental studies were conducted to investigate the influence of reducing the average glandular dose (AGD) on detection of simulated lesions in DM and to compare the diagnostic accuracy of BT and DM.

Objective. To examine pregnancy outcomes in the partners of male patients with inflammatory joint disease who were or were not exposed to disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) before conception compared with the outcomes in reference subjects from the general population. Methods. Linkage of data from a longitudinal observational study of patients with inflammatory joint disease (the Norwe

Human immunodeficiency virus type-2 (HIV-2) infected individuals develop immunodeficiency with a considerable delay and transmit the virus at a lower rate as compared to HIV-1 infected. Conceivably, comparative studies on immune responsiveness of the HIV-1 and HIV-2 infected hosts may help to explain differences in pathogenesis and transmission between the two types of infection. Previous studies

Recension av Anders Wahlgren, Vasa 1628 – människorna, skeppet, tiden.

This study addresses the question of whether Vietnamese L1 speakers make an adequate distinction in tonal patterns when producing two tonal accent words in their L2, Swedish. Both languages use tonal features to distinguish lexical meaning. Some previous studies suggest that a lexical tonal L1 may provide L2 learners an advantage in perceptually discriminating between different tones in another to

Objectives. The low molecular weight heparin, Dalteparin, shortens human labor time. The aim of this study was to investigate if the mechanism behind this effect involves myometrial contractility and cervical ripening and if the anticoagulative activity is necessary for its effect. Design. Experimental in vitro study. Setting. Lund University and Karolinska Institute, Sweden. Methods. The effect o

We assessed the role of vegetation and hydrology in the Si cycle in the Okavango Delta. Our results show a large storage of biogenic Si (BSi) in vegetation and the sediments. The biological storage is among the highest observed so far for any ecosystem worldwide. Floodplain vegetation accumulates similar amounts of BSi in both the temporary floodplains and the permanent floodplains, with most valu

The literature on the relationship between the size of government and economic growth is full of seemingly contradictory findings. This conflict is largely explained by variations in definitions and the countries studied. An alternative approach – of limiting the focus to studies of the relationship in rich countries, measuring government size as total taxes or total expenditure relative to GDP an

The intestinal mucosa presents a huge surface area to the external environment and the intestinal immune system is continually exposed to a wide array of foreign antigens derived from resident intestinal microbiota as well as dietary constituents, including food proteins. In order to maintain intestinal homeostasis, the intestinal immune system relies on the ability to generate tolerogenic respons