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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
Nearly one million new cases of gastric cancer are diagnosed annually throughout the world. Even though the incidence has fallen dramatically in recent decades, this disease is still the second leading cause of cancer death in a global perspective. The geographic distribution of gastric cancer varies markedly, with the highest rates in Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, and China. This variatio
The price of a good is said to be nonlinear if the unit price not is constant but depends on some aspect of the quantity (or quality) purchased. This form of pricing is commonly used in many industries, e.g. the electricity and water industries, and has many desirable properties. For example, nonlinear pricing is often necessary for (Pareto) efficiency and nonlinear pricing can be used as an instr
One month and one year after acute myocardial infarction (AMI) (n=296), coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) (n=99) and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) (n=18) patients completed a questionnaire for self-assessment of quality of life (QoL) during the period 1989?1991. Patients differed from age- and sex-matched controls (n=88) in both somatic and emotional dimensions, but less after one
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
Important phenomena related to tunnel fires are presented including both experimental and theoretical work. The main focus is on the large-scale fire tests performed in 2003, in the Runehamar tunnel in Norway. During these tests heat release rate (HRR), temperatures, gas concentrations (O2, CO2, CO, HCN, and H2O), velocities, radiation, and smoke were measured. Four tests with a set-up simulating
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 thesis consists of an introductory chapter and four independent research papers, summarized as follows. The introductory chapter discusses the role of economics in international health and the policy contributions of each of the particular papers. In addition, the data and the methods that have been used are discussed. Paper I, entitled Community-based health insurance in low-income countries:
In this thesis, the usability of Virtual Reality (VR) has been investigated and developed within two applications: participatory design of workplaces and brain injury rehabilitation. In the first application, VR is used in combination with full scale modelling, drama and democratic meetings in an Envisionment Workshop. This workshop has been developed and tested through several real workplace int
ABO is the most important blood group system in transfusion medicine and transplantation immunology. The ABO blood groups differ by the presence or absence of antigens on RBCs and antibodies in plasma. Accurate determination of ABO status is critical. Genomic typing can increase the precision of blood group determination in complicated cases, e.g. when variant expression of A or B antigen is encou
This thesis deals with different aspects of fatigue crack propagation in IN718. The ultimate objective of the work is to gain understanding of the fatigue process, from the macroscopic stress-strain relations to microscopic fatigue crack growth mechanisms. First, the stress-strain relations, which are fundamental in order to understand what the material encounter, are dealt with. The high temperat
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,
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
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
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is probably the most common source of treatable disability in the Western world. There are several disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs), which have proven to be of therapeutic efficacy in RA, but the lack of a potent, reliable treatment for early RA is a major problem in modern medicine. An obvious line of approach in the quest for better antirheumatic drugs is
Volatile agents are economically and ecologically acceptable only when administered via low-flow systems. However, sevoflurane degrades during low-flow anaesthesia to compound A, and a high carbon dioxide absorber temperature increases this degradation. This thesis suggests that there is a correlation between apparatus dead-space volume and absorber temperature during low- and minimal-flow sevoflu
Most cells are crowded with solutes, enzymes, nucleic acids, structural proteins and membranes. Crowding promotes macromolecular interactions and determines major properties of the cellular environment such as viscosity, diffusion and inhomogeneity. Macromolecular interactions that involve enzymes can affect the kinetic and regulatory properties of these, hence the interactions are part of the met
