The aims of this thesis were to 1) compare different methods for detection of antibodies against thyroglobulin (TgAb) and thyroid peroxidase (TPOAb), particulary in children with chronic autoimmune thyroditis (AIT), 2) investigate if maternal enterovirus infection is a risk factor for development of AIT in offspring, 3) ascertain the prevalence of thyroid autoantibodies in cord blood sera from chi

An assessment of the impacts of changes in climate and UV-B radiation on Arctic terrestrial ecosystems, made within the Arctic Climate Impacts Assessment (ACIA), highlighted the profound implications of projected warming in particular for future ecosystem services, biodiversity and feedbacks to climate. However, although our current understanding of ecological processes and changes driven by clima

Objectives. To study trends in treatment, health status and health-related quality of life (HRQL) in two cross-sectional surveys over a 5-yr period and in an observational follow-up sub-cohort based on a population-based rheumatoid arthritis (RA) register in Malm6, Sweden. Material and methods. A continuously updated population-based RA register was established in Malm6 city in southern Sweden in

Popular Abstract in Swedish Abstract: Denna avhandling utvärderar CoreTherm systemet och dess metod för mikrovågsbehandling (TUMT), ProstaLund Feedback Treatment (PLFT), vid symtomgivande ålderförstorad prostata (BPH). Avhandlingen belyser biofysik, verkningsmekanismer, behandlingsindikationer, tilläggsmetoder, effektivitet och säkerhet vid PLFT. Två biofysiska ekvationer kan appliceras i en beräkAbstract: The purpose of this thesis was to evaluate ProstaLund Feedback Treatment® (PLFT®) and the CoreTherm® device with regard to biophysics, mechanisms of action, treatment indications, additional techniques, efficacy and safety in the treatment of patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). The application of two biophysical equations in the PLFT software is explained. The calculations

SoPIP2;1 is one of the major integral proteins in spinach leaf plasma membranes. In the Xenopus oocyte expression system its water channel activity is regulated by phosphorylation at the C terminus and in the first cytosolic loop. To assess its structure, SoPIP2;1 was heterologously expressed in Pichia pastoris as a His-tagged protein and in the non-tagged form. Both forms were reconstituted into

The advent of Java and similar languages on the real-time system scene necessitates the development of efficient strategies for scheduling the work of a garbage collector in a non-intrusive way. We propose a scheduling strategy, time-triggered garbage collection, based on assigning the collector a deadline for when it must complete its current cycle. We show that a time-triggered CC with fixed dea

The possibility of apparently negative causation has been discussed in a number of recent works on causation, but the discussion has suffered from being scattered. In this paper, the problem of apparently negative causation and its attempted solutions are examined in more detail. I discuss and discard three attempts that have been suggested in the literature. My conclusion is negative: Negative ca

Background: Hyper- as well as hypoglycemia may be detrimental for brain energy metabolism and even a moderate increase in blood glucose concentration can affect outcome adversely. During physiological conditions, glucose concentration obtained from microdialysis of subcutaneous adipose tissue adequately reflects plasma glucose concentration. This study examines whether this correlation is also obt

Structural properties of polymer brushes on nanopatterned surfaces in good solvent have been determined by computer simulations. Scaling relations for the brush height and brush width are proposed. The properties of the central part of the patterned brush remain constant as long as the pattern is wider than a few times the brush height. The results agree qualitatively with recent AFM experiments,

In this paper, we present a new way to control linear stochastic systems. The method is based on statistical bootstrap techniques. The optimal future control signal is derived in such a way that unknown noise distribution and uncertainties in parameter estimates are taken into account. This is achieved by resampling from existing data when calculating statistical distributions of future process va

Methods of avoiding common problems associated with operator work in automated process control, such as understimulation and difficulties in achieving and maintaining necessary skills and competence, are addressed in this paper. The source of these problems is deduced here to be that monitoring tasks are a predominant part of the job. This case study shows how work in a highly automated process ca

De båda modellerna har stora likheter och löser i princip samma energibalansekvationer. Målsättningarna, och därmed även modellernas användbarhet, är något olika. Parker koncenterar sig på beräkning av energiavgivningen från träet och validerar modellen mot ett försök i en konkalorimeter. I WOOD1 är målsättningen i första hand att beskriva kolskiktsinträning och temperaturprofil i grövre träkonstr

Introduction: Cyclic adenosine 3’5’-monophosphate (cAMP) and cyclic guanosine 3’5’-monophoshpate (cGMP) are critical intracellular second-messengers involved in the transduction of a wide variety of extracellular stimuli, including peptide hormones, growth factors, cytokines, neurotransmitters and light. These messengers modulate many fundamental biological processes, including growth, differentia

Objective. The popliteal artery is, after the aorta, the most common site for aneurysm formation. Why the popliteal artery is more susceptible than other peripheral muscular arteries is unknown. An important factor may be differences in arterial wall composition as compared with other peripheral muscular arteries, which in turn affect wall properties. These are however unknown. We studied the mech

Multistep methods are classically constructed by specially designed difference operators on an equidistant time grid. To make them practically useful, they have to be implemented by varying the step-size according to some error-control algorithm. It is well known how to extend Adams and BDF formulas to a variable step-size formulation. In this paper we present a collocation approach to construct v