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Skillnaden i sysselsättningsgrad mellan inrikes och utrikes födda på den svenska arbetsmarknaden ökar och arbetslösheten bland utrikes födda är idag högre än någonsin tidigare. En anledning till att det är så svårt för utrikes födda att få tillträde till arbetsmarknaden är att de inte anses leva upp till de krav på svenskkunskaper som ställs. Samtidigt kan alltför höga krav på språkkunskaper utgör

Background: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia. In order to have effect of future disease-modifying therapies for AD, the disease must be identified early, before the patients have developed dementia. Many patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) have prodromal AD, but other causes for the syndrome are common. No diagnostic method can identify AD in patients with MC

Hemicellulose is the second most abundant group of renewable polysaccharides. Mannans can be found as the major hemicellulose in softwood and as storage polysaccharides in a range of plants. In this work, structural and functional characterisations of family 5 and 26 endo-1,4-b-mannanases (b-mannanases) have been performed. These families belong to the large and diverse glycoside hydrolase clan A,

It has been suggested that the cerebellar mossy fibre afferents transmit the conditioned stimulus (CS) information to the cerebellum. Several studies are consistent with this suggestion but alternative explanations have not been excluded. In conditioned ferrets, the forelimb CS was replaced by a direct stimulation of the cerebellar mossy fibre afferents. It was found that true conditioned response

HERA-B is a high-energy physics experiment at HERA. It is a fixed-target experiment with a forward spectrometer to benefit from the strong boost of beauty hadrons. The main goal of HERA-B is to detect and measure the degree of CP violation in exclusive B-decays, with emphasis on the {em golden} decay, $golden$. A computer simulated study on this decay is presented and the accuracy of the measureme

Contraction of blood vessels for the regulation of blood flow and pressure is dependent on vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) located in the medial layer of the vascular wall. Adult, differentiated VSMC have a well developed contractile system and a low rate of proliferation. Under the influence of hormones, growth factors, inflammatory mediators and tissue factors, cells may modulate to a ”synth

Neuropeptide expression in the nervous system is abundant and plastic, and an altered expression after injury is an example of a functional response, helping the neuron to cope with adverse changes, and involves effects on differentiation, synthesis, repair/regeneration, survival, and modulation of signal transmission. I have investigated the distribution/expression of the neuropeptides, orphanin

This thesis deals with large networks of limit cycle oscillators. A limit cycle oscillator is a dynamical system that has a periodic attractor in phase space, and is defined in continuous time. To each such oscillator one can associate a natural frequency. Virtually all biological systems that show periodic oscillations can be seen as limit cycle oscillators. The same is true for oscillating mecha

Controlled-release formulations reduce the frequency of injections and better maintain plasma concentrations within the therapeutic window. Poly(D,L-lactide-co-glycolide) (PLG) is currently the most frequently used biodegradable polymer for this application. In order to be able to control the release rate, it is vital to know the underlying release mechanisms. A novel method for measuring the diff

The aim was to explore the inherent meaning of total fat and to examine the associations between relative fat intake and postmenopausal breast cancer. Furthermore, the impacts of the alterations in dietary assessment routines are discussed. This thesis uses data from the Malmö Diet and Cancer study, a prospective cohort study. Information on dietary habits, lifestyle, and socioeconomic factors wa

The incidence of sexual selection in plants is today acknowledged, however, just as in animals, evolution and maintenance of mate choice is gravely underexplored. Moreover, the potential for sexual conflicts to occur in plants has only been assessed empirically to a very limited degree. Using the hermaphroditic annual herb Collinsia heterophylla, I looked deeper into the role of pollen-pollen comp

Thalidomide has a chiral center and the racemate of (+)-(R) and (-)-(S)-thalidomide was introduced as a hypnotic/sedative drug in 1957. In 1961 it was withdrawn due to teratogenicity and neuropathy. There is a growing interest in thalidomide treatment of immunomodulatory diseases. Given this renewed interest the aim of this thesis was to achieve a more rational use of thalidomide. Therefore some c

The outermost layer of skin (i.e., the stratum corneum, SC) is the interface that separates the water-rich inside of the body from the relatively dry external environment. SC forms an effective permeability barrier, which has to be overcome in transdermal drug delivery. Its function as a barrier for molecular diffusion depends on the SC molecular structure and phase behavior. Both structure and ph

We have examined the functional and structural roles of the cytoskeletal protein desmin in cardiac and skeletal muscles using a genetically modified mouse (Des-/-) with the desmin gene ablated. Desmin forms filaments at the Z-disks in the striated muscle sarcomere, have connections to the sarcolemma and most likely align sarcomeres and whole cells. We have shown a decreased contractile function of

Principles for sensorimotor transformation and plasticity in the spinal cord and functional repair in the root-avulsed spinal cord were studied. A comparative study confirmed that the nociceptive withdrawal reflex (NWR) system is composed of reflex modules, with each performing a finely tuned transformation of skin sensory input to activity in one muscle. This suggests that modularity of the NWR s

Abstract One important task for the mental health services is to prevent suicidal behaviour, especially among persons at high risk, e.g. those who have attempted suicide. In two follow-up samples, one and three months after a suicide attempts, both n=97, we found that 32% and 38% of the patients respectively had no treatment and 30% in each sample had suicidal thoughts. In a randomised controlled

The properties of different connective tissues depend on the synthesis and assembly of macromolecular structures composed of collagen and other extracellular matrix components. Mechanisms modulating these events play important roles in the formation of a functional tissue. We have studied the role of collagen-binding extracellular matrix leucine-rich repeat glycoproteins/proteoglycans in the forma