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Although the civil aviation industry has gone through great technological and commercial change in the last decades, basic civil aviation training has not kept pace accordingly. The changes in civil aviation have rarely resulted in research programs in the field of basic training, which has long received minimal attention from the industry. In the research presented in this thesis, methods for und
The aim of this study is to examine the development of linguistic proficiency in written production of second-language French. In a longitudinal study of 30 months, we follow the written production of 5 guided learners of French as a second language. In order to apprehend proficiency we use the conventional parameters fluency, complexity and accuracy. The fluency and complexity are apprehended by
Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) develops in 3-6% of the population over 65 years and affects mainly men. AAA has a complex etiology involving inflammation, proteolysis, fibrinolysis and coagulation. The general aim of the present thesis was to study the associations between markers of inflammation, proteolysis, fibrinolysis and coagulation with aneurysm size and growth. In paper I associations bet
This thesis describes experiments performed using different methods to produce aerosol nanoparticles with control over size and composition. The process included differential mobility analyzers (DMAs) as size-selecting instruments and tube furnaces for particle synthesis. A method to estimate the degradation of the DMA performance from the ideal case for individual DMAs was proposed and tested ex
Vitreoscilla is an obligate aerobic bacterium living in oxygen-poor environments such as stagnant ponds and decaying vegetable matter. Vitreoscilla expresses a homodimeric haemoglobin (VHb) when subjected to oxygen-limited conditions. In several organisms, expression of VHb has been shown to increase microaerobic cell growth and enhance oxygen-dependent cell metabolism. Moreover, the presence of V
Nematophagous fungi possess various mechanisms for infecting nematodes, and are either obligate parasites or facultative saprophytes. Nematophagous fungi have a potential as biological control agents against plant- and animal-parasitic nematodes. Generally there has been little success in using these fungi in such a way, and one reason might be that too little is known about the ecology of the nem
The interaction between murine bone marrow-derived dendritic cells (DC) and the Gram negative bacteria Salmonella typhimurium and Escherichia coli have been characterised. These studies showed that DC phagocytosed and processed S. typhimurium and E. coli expressing defined epitopes for peptide presentation on major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC-I) and class II (MHC-II) molecules. Process
Commonly cooked meat dishes contain heterocyclic amines (HAs) at ng/g levels. HAs are animal carcinogens, form DNA adducts in human tissues, and have been associated with increased risk of cancer in epidemiological studies, and it is thus recommended that human intake be decreased. The aim of this investigation was to find ways of modifying cooking practices to reduce the formation of HAs. Various
Approximately half of all women will sustain a fracture after the age of 50. Fractures may cause long-term disability and excess mortality. Identifying individuals at high risk of sustaining a fracture is important in the development of primary and secondary prevention strategies. In this study, initiated to identify factors associated with a high risk of future fractures, 1 044 women, all 75 yea
In this work, the synthesis and characterisation of new low-valence transition metal carbonyl clusters, and an investigation into their viability to act as catalysts/catalyst precursors in asymmetric synthesis, are described. Carbonyl clusters based on ruthenium and osmium have been tested as (pre)catalysts for asymmetric hydrogenation of alpha-unsaturated carboxylic acids, and cobalt carbonyl clu
Recruitment and selection of managers is to a large degree characterized by information uncertainty. Managers’ performance is difficult to evaluate, as their responsibility consists of so many different aspects, as they may not always be observed due to need for freedom of action and as their work is affected by factors in their environment, which are outside of their control. Also, selection deci
Most conventional ECG interpretation programs use decision tree logic for interpretation of the ECG. The performance is generally good but can be improved. Artificial neural networks represent a new computer method, which has proved to be of value in pattern recognition and classification tasks. The purpose of the studies in this thesis was to improve the analysis/interpretation of the 12-lead EC
This thesis focuses on electrical transport in semiconductor InAs nanowires grown by chemical beam epitaxy. Initially, transport length scales of homogeneous InAs n-type nanowires are characterized by low-temperature magnetoconductance measurements. The measurements show phase-coherent conductivity corrections. By fitting the data, we find the nanowire mean-free path to be 50 nm and the phase-cohe
As quality and performance demands on today’s products increases, more and more advanced materials are being used during modern production. The problem is however that this in turn place new demands on the machining processes utilized. Even though a significant amount of research has been published on the machining of these materials knowledge is still limited in several crucial areas. A problem w
We are interested in the effect of harvesting on population fluctuations and for that purpose we develop and analyze an age-structured model where recruitment is a stochastic process and the adult segment of the population is harvested. When a constant annual harvest is taken the coefficient of variation of the adult population increases for most parameter values due to the age truncation effect,
Starches and celluloses can be chemically modified in order to affect their physiochemical properties. Modification of these carbohydrate polymers entails derivatising their free hydroxyl groups with functional groups. Which properties are obtained depends on the nature of the functional groups as well as on how they are distributed throughout the polymeric structure of the carbohydrate. Unfortuna
In this thesis I present studies concerning genomic diversity and genetic heterogeneity as well as the evolution and maintenance of genetic variation at a specific immune defence gene in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar, L.). I here present data on nucleotide diversity showing that human activities as well as different post-glacial colonisation events have had considerable effects on the genomic diver
This thesis presents the utilization of two different decomposition techniques, proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and dynamic mode decomposition (DMD), for enhanced understanding of flow structures and their stability. The advantages of these techniques are shown for a range of flow situations, most of which are turbulent. It is shown that by these methods additional insight into complex flow
The study of phyllotactic patterns have a long history, but the bulk of our detailed understanding of developmental processes in plants comes from research conducted in the last thirty or forty years. New modern techniques have made it possible to study plants in ways that previously was not possible. Using confocal microscopy it is possible to generate three-dimensional stacks of images of a plan
The lowering of energy use from artificial lighting in buildings is vital to reaching the goal of reducing CO2 emissions. Hence, changes in individuals’ behaviours regarding lighting use have received increased attention. Feedback on energy use has often been used to change individuals’ behaviour. However, it is not clear to what extent this approach can be applied for non-residential buildings, w
