Plastics have become ubiquitous in modern society. It is a group of materials that is versatile and useful in many types of applications and have thus become extremely popular. Plastics are thus important for many industries and value chains as well as for everyday practices of most individuals – and should thus be also for investors and financial actors. A transition to sustainable plastics will

Demographic explanations for the rise in household income inequality include increased educational assortative mating and changes in the division of paid labour within families. Building on this research, the current study focuses on the connected nature of these two inequality-producing mechanisms, while at the same time bridging the divide with the economic literature on the role of income diffe

BACKGROUND: Surgical site infection (SSI) represents almost 40% of nosocomial infections. Risk for SSI is most prominent following colorectal surgery. There is no Swedish standard SSI classification or surveillance. We have failed to find validation of SSI surveillance programs presently in use. This study investigates SSI registration routines at Halmstad County Hospital, Sweden (HCH) as well as

Population ageing is putting pressure on pension systems and health care services, creating an imperative to extend working lives. At the same time, policy makers throughout Europe and North America emphasize home care. Thus, the number of people combining caregiving responsibilities with paid work is growing. We investigate the conflicts that arise from this by exploring the time costs of unpaid

An increasing number of patients with central nervous system (CNS) tumour could survive to reproductive age. However, it is largely unknown whether the history of CNS tumour might affect pregnancy outcome. We aimed to explore the risk of being born pretem among children of CNS tumour survivors. By linking several nationwide registers in Sweden, we identified 1369 children whose parents were childh

Knowledge of dynamics in protein is very important in the description of protein function and molecular recognition. The thesis investigates protein dynamics on time-scales from milli- to sub-nanosecond, with focus on the latter, using NMR spin relaxation experiments on two proteins, the 138-residue carbohydrate recognition domain of galectin-3 (Gal3C) and the 56-residue B1 domain of bacterial pro

Narcolepsy type 1 (NT1) is a neurological sleep disorder. The biological cause is the degeneration of hypocretin neurons located in the hypothalamus. It has been suggested that NT1 has an autoimmune pathogenesis, as in most patients, the Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA)-DQB1*06:02:01 is present. An increased incidence of NT1 was observed in Sweden following the 2009 influenza Pandemrix®-vaccination.

The aim of this work is the development of a thermodynamically consistent fully coupled thermo‐viscoplastic material model for metals. The model is based on a split of the free energy into a thermo‐elastic, a thermo‐plastic and a purely thermal part and covers nonlinear cold‐work hardening and thermal softening. Nonlinear temperature dependent effects are accounted for the elastic moduli, the plas

The aim of this work is the development of a thermodynamically consistent fully coupled thermo-viscoplastic material model for metals undergoing finite deformation and large temperature changes.The deformation gradient is supposed to be decomposable into a thermal, an elastic, and a plastic part, where purely volumetric thermal expansion and isochoric plastic distortion is assumed. The model is ba

AbstractCurrent mental health services across the world remain expert-centric and are based on traditional workflows, mostly using impractical and ineffective electronic record systems or even paper-based documentation. The international network for digital mental health (IDMHN) is comprised of top-level clinicians, regulatory and ICT experts, genetic scientists, and support organizations. The IDMCurrent mental health services across the world remain expert-centric and are based on traditional workflows, mostly using impractical and ineffective electronic record systems or even paper-based documentation. The international network for digital mental health (IDMHN) is comprised of top-level clinicians, regulatory and ICT experts, genetic scientists, and support organizations. The IDMHN has b

Beta-haemolytic streptococci (BHS) are important causes of human infections and they have traditionally been grouped according to Lancefield antigens. The spectrum of infections caused by BHS includes pharyngitis, skin infections, bacteraemia/sepsis, endocarditis, septic arthritis and meningitis. The most studied BHS is the group A Streptococcus (GAS), which concurs with the species Streptococcus

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) permits the visualization of anatomical structures not appreciated by conventional radiographic imaging, and may assess inflammatory disease and its progression with greater sensitivity than conventional radiography. In this study of 30 patients with early rheumatoid arthritis (RA), which could be considered as a pilot study because of the relatively small number o

Lignin is one of the major constituents in lignocellulosic biomass and is the mostabundant source of renewable aromatics on terrestrial ecosystems. The workcarried out in this thesis concerns bacterial conversion of low molecular weightlignin. This thesis is divided into three major sections, with an initial emphasison screening and characterization of selected bacterial species on lignin modelcom

A case of acute interstitial nephritis caused by sodium valproate is reported. The sodium valproate treatment was continued after initial diagnosis and the patient developed end-stage renal failure. After transplantation, interstitial nephritis was demonstrated in the renal graft.

The involvement of sodium/potassium-ATPase in regulating parathyroid hormone (PTH) secretion is inferred from in vitro studies. Recently, the α-klotho-dependent rapid recruitment of this ATPase to the parathyroid cell plasma membrane in response to low extracellular calcium ion was suggested to be linked to increased hormone secretion. In this study, we used an in vivo rat model to determine the i

Klotho is a protein of significant importance for mineral homeostasis. It helps to increase parathyroid hormone (PTH) secretion and in the trafficking of Na+/K+-ATPase to the cell membrane; however, it is also a cofactor for fibroblast growth factor (FGF)-23 to interact with its receptor, FGFR1 IIIC, resulting in decreased PTH secretion. Studies on the regulation of parathyroid klotho expression i

The self-assembly of the two anomeric forms of n-hexadecyl-D-maltopyranoside (denoted α-C16G2 and β-C16G2) has been studied in dilute aqueous solution by means of surface tension measurements, scattering methods (dynamic light scattering, static light scattering, and small-angle X-ray and neutron scattering) and cryo-transmission electron microscopy at different surfactant concentrations and tempe

The advent of nanofocused X-ray beams has allowed the study of single nanocrystals and complete nanoscale devices in a nondestructive manner, using techniques such as scanning transmission X-ray microscopy (STXM), X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Further insight into semiconductor devices can be achieved by combining these techniques with simultaneous electrical measurements.

In the last 15 years we have seen, as a response to power and thermal limits for current chip technologies, an explosion in the use of multiple and even many computer cores on a single chip. But now, to further improve performance and energy efficiency, when there are potentially hundreds of computing cores on a chip, we see a need for a specialization of individual cores and the development of he