Background The prognosis in adults with congenital aortic valve disease is usually favourable; nevertheless, a number of medical and social factors might hamper long-term prognosis and quality of life. With a focus on physical exercise level, data from the Swedish National Registry on Congenital Heart Disease (SWEDCON) were analysed and variables associated with health-related quality of life in a

We investigate the prognostic significance of the pro-angiogenic cytokine vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA), plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 (PAI-1), and S-phase fraction (SPF) for distant disease free survival (DDFS) in 219 premenopausal patients with node-negative breast cancer (NNBC). In univariate analysis significantly shorter DDFS was obs

Wnt5a is a non-canonical secreted glycoprotein of the Wnt family that plays important roles in organ development and tissue orientation. Previous studies have reported that Wnt5a was upregulated at both mRNA and protein levels in prostate cancer, but information regarding its role in predicting clinical outcome in patients after radical prostatectomy is limited. The aim of the present thesis is to

The aim of the present study was to examine the body burden of lead (Pb), mercury (Hg), and cadmium (Cd) in blood among Swedish adults and the association between blood levels, diet and other lifestyle factors. The study was based on a subgroup (n = 273) of the national survey Riksmaten 2010-2011 (4-day food records and questionnaire). Lead, Hg, and Cd were measured in whole blood, and Cd addition

From a control design point of view, modern diesel engines are dynamic, nonlinear, MIMO systems. This paper presents a method to find low-complexity black-box dynamic models suitable for model predictive control (MPC) of NOx and soot emissions based on on-line emissions measurements. A four-input-five-output representation of the engine is considered, with fuel injection timing, fuel injection dur

Laplace motion is a Levy process built upon Laplace distributions. Non Gaussian stochastic fields that are integrals with respect to this process are considered and methods for their model fitting are discussed. The proposed procedures allow for inference about the parameters of the underlying Laplace distributions. A fit of dependence structure is also addressed. The importance of a convenient pa

Background: Gastrointestinal (GI) dysmotility and autonomic neuropathy are common problems among diabetics with largely unknown aetiology. Many peptides are involved in the autonomic nervous system regulating the GI tract. The aim of this study was to examine if concentrations of oxytocin, cholecystokinin (CCK), gastrin and vasopressin in plasma differ between diabetics with normal function and dy

Permanent deformation is a serious distress mechanism in asphalt pavements. Modelling is a tool for performance prediction and deterioration assessment. This study evaluated the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (M-E PDG) model for permanent deformation in asphalt concrete by employing the v1.003 software at level 1 and 3 on two Swedish motorway sections. Dynamic modulus data was obtaine

This paper considers the choice of initial batch quantities when demand forecasts are improving. We assume that the standard deviation of the demand per period is decreasing exponentially and approaching a long-run value. A discrete time stochastic single-level inventory model is considered. There are traditional holding and backorder costs as well as an ordering cost. The ordering periods must be

The radioactive isotope Sn-107 was studied using Coulomb excitation at the REX-ISOLDE facility at CERN. This is the lightest odd-Sn nucleus examined using this technique. The reduced transition probability of the lowest-lying 3/2(+) state was measured and is compared to shell-model predictions based on several sets of single-neutron energies relative to Sn-100. Similar to the transition probabilit

Abstract in UndeterminedStrong resilience properties of dynamical networks are analyzed for distributed routing policies. The latter are characterized by the property that the way the outflow at a non-destination node gets split among its outgoing links is allowed to depend only on local information about the current particle densities on the outgoing links. The strong resilience of the network is

This paper presents findings on the need for traveler information among people with functional limitation(s), and how the need varies between groups with different functional limitation(s). Chi-Squared Automatic Identification Detector (CHAID) was used to identify groups (segments) in order to understand how functional limitations contribute to the need for traveler information. The key findings s

A model for the adsorption of colloidal particles on a planar surface is analyzed by using a thermodynamic chemical equilibrium model and Monte Carlo simulations. Central to this investigation are that (i) particles and surface are considered to be of the same material and (ii) the particle-surface and particle-particle interactions are related using the Derjaguin approximation using a surface-sur

A study of biospecific interactions between lectins and glycoproteins using a quartz crystal microbalance biosensor with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D) was reported. Four lectins were covalently immobilised on the thiol-modified gold electrode of the QCM chips in order to obtain sensing surfaces. The frequency shift served as analytical signal and the dissipation shift provided additional informat