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Around 1750 a German chemist discovered it to be possible to extract sugar crystals from beet juice. Since then, breeding and improved agricultural practices have increased the concentration of sucrose per root from around 4% to around 18%. Sugar content is still one of the most important characters in sugar beet breeding, but breeders of today are also faced with many more characters, many of a c
Carex humilis forms rings of densely aggregated ramets in dry grassland vegetation in Central Europe. In the thesis I conclude that ramet demography is important both for analyzing fitness in clonal plants and for understanding how C. humilis rings are formed. I studied the ramet demography of C. humilis from 1993-1998 at the Hexenberg mountain, 300 m.a.s., 60 km east of Vienna, Austria. In total,
he hematopoietic development is a highly dynamic but tightly regulated process. The flexibility to produce blood cells through more than one route will allow the blood system to respond rapidly in stress situations such as infections. On the other hand, regulation of the blood system is required to prevent blood cells from uncontrolled proliferation that could result in leukemia or bone marrow fai
This thesis is based on five papers, which all analyse different aspects of splitting schemes when applied to nonlinear parabolic problems. These numerical methods are frequently used when a problem has a natural decomposition into two or more parts, as the computational cost may then be significantly decreased compared to other methods. There are two prominent themes in the thesis; the first co
The MAX II and MAX III synchrotron light sources at MAX-lab provide synchrotron radiation for experiments in a wide variety of research fields. The synchrotron radiation is emitted by ultra-relativistic electrons circulating in electron storage rings. In this thesis the transverse and longitudinal electron beam sizes and the electron beam lifetime limitations in electron storage rings are discusse
The DEK gene is upregulated in a growing number of cancers and translocated to form the DEK-NUP214 fusion gene in a subset of acute myeloid leukemia. In this thesis, we studied the cellular and molecular functions of the DEK and DEK-NUP214 proteins. We found that the expression of DEK is increased by the leukemia-associated fusion protein NUP98-HOXA9, suggesting that DEK may be a downstream mediat
This thesis describes a number of coherent processes, such as quantum information processing, superradiance and electromagnetically induced transparency, which have been experimentally implemented using rare-earth-ion-doped crystals. The rare-earths are a class of elements that have in common, an atomic structure that allows for very long lifetimes as well as coherence times, both on optical trans
Gene therapy is a promising therapeutic tool for many diseases of the CNS. Lentiviral vectors are particularly attractive since this vector type can transduce both dividing and non-dividing cells, have a relatively large cloning capacity, can sustain long-term transgene expression and have low immunogenicity. The specificity of the vector is however important to avoid potential off-target effects
Morphogens such as Hedghog, Wnt, FGF, and retinoic acid are important signals whose concentrations need to be tightly regulated in the vertebrate embryo to ensure body axis development and formation of the central nervous system. We first show that the intracellular cytoplasmic protein XSufu acts as a dual regulator of Hedgehog (Hh) and Wnt signals during neural induction and patterning in the Xen
Familial hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is the most common inherited heart disease, transmitted in an autosomal dominant fashion, i.e. 50% risk for transmission of the disease-causing mutation to each child of the affected family. Previous studies reveal a high risk for HCM related cardiac events including sudden cardiac death (SCD) during childhood, with a peak incidence of up to 10% during th
Transplantation of vital organs is today a widely used treatment when failure of the organ is a fact. To prevent rejection immunosuppresive treatment must be maintained lifelong, unless transplantation is perfomed between identical twins. Many immunosuppresive agents introduced in clinical practice have been benificial in improving graft survival rates, but adverse effects remains a huge problem t
Sepsis is a systemic inflammatory response syndrome to a localized or systemic infection that leads to the over production of proinflammatory cytokines and the ultimate failure of multiple organ systems. However, little is known about the potential role of Rac1 in controlling sepsis-induced intracellular signaling pathways. We hypothesized that Rac1 might be involved in sepsis mediated signaling p
Three different methods for Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes computational fluid dynamics modeling of non-premixed ignition and combustion using tabulated chemistry have been developed. All methods make use of flamelet libraries, where the flamelet auto-ignition process is parameterized using a progress variable. The progress variable parameterization of the auto-ignition chemistry allows for using
Hematopoiesis is the process of blood formation that originates with the hematopoietic stem cell (HSC), a cell type that is responsible for the life-long supply of mature blood cells. HSCs are defined by their ability to self-renew as well as giving rise to differentiated cells of all blood lineages. Because of these features, HSCs are also the basis for bone marrow transplantation regimens for tr
Nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi) is a remarkably proficient colonizer of the human respiratory tract. The aim of this thesis has been to characterize currently known, and identify novel, bacterial factors involved in the key processes of colonization and pathogenesis, namely adherence to host tissue and evasion of the host innate immunity. We have shown that the NTHi virulence factor Pr
Outer membrane vesicles (OMV) have the size of nanoparticles and are released from the outer membrane of most Gram-negative bacteria. The OMV reflect the composition of the bacterial outer membrane, including lipids and virulence factors specific for the pathogen, and are involved in pathogenesis and bacterial survival. Moraxella catarrhalis and Haemophilus influenzae are Gram-negative bacterial s
One of the major determinants of the final infarct size during an acute coronary occlusion is the size of the myocardium subjected to ischemia. Identification and quantification of this so-called myocardium at risk in the acute phase of ischemia has been difficult in patients with conventional methods, such as myocardial perfusion single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) or electrocardio
