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Labour is said to be obstructed when the presenting part fails to descend through the birth canal despite strong uterine contractions. The condition is mostly prevalent in low-income countries where the main causes are cephalopelvic disproportion and malpresentation. The overall aim of this thesis was to investigate the individual, community and health system factors associated with obstructed lab
Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and human glandular kallikrein 2 (hK2) are secreted by the prostate into seminal plasma and through leakage into blood. This leakage increases rapidly in prostate disease, and PSA is used worldwide as a marker of prostate cancer. PSA is activated in vitro by hK2, and cleaves the semenogelins in semen, which releases motile sperm, and low levels of PSA have been asso
The anaerobic digestion process results in the production of biogas from a large diversity of organic residues, which can be used as an alternate source of energy generation and for waste management. However, the biogas production technology is not exploited efficiently due to the characteristics of raw materials, poor methane yields, process instability, limited raw materials and lack of knowledg
Present-day electronics employ circuits of smaller and smaller dimensions, and today the length scales are so small that the laws of physics which rule micro-cosmos, quantum mechanics, become directly important. This thesis reports on theoretical work on electron transport in different nanostructures. We have studied semiconductor quantum wells, layered materials where each layer can be only a few
Abstract: Balanced microbiota of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract is important for maintaining health of the host. Altered gut microbiota have been found to be associated with various life-style induced and other intestinal inflammatory diseases. Gut microbiota is viewed as a metabolic organ and considered as new target for therapies. This thesis describes the work on exploring the microbiota of th
We apply causal loop diagrams (CLD) to picture how complex societal scenarios can be understood in terms of interdependent drivers and mechanisms between actors from the public and private sectors respectively. And we show how un-sustainable scenarios can be understood in terms of insufficient balancing feed-back in the system. We apply the methodology to picture such imbalances as funda- mental d
Mass spectrometry was used to determine the endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide, LPS) marker 3-hydroxytetradecanoic acid and 3-deoxy -D-manno-2-octulosonic acid in cigarette tobacco and smoke particles. Tobacco from cigarettes of different brands purchased in four different countries in Europe and Asia contained similar amounts of LPS. Indoor exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) in rooms of smo
Contemporary advancements in miniaturization of analytical systems have advantageously fostered development, automation, and hyphenation of a variety of sample preparation techniques. Among several downscaled extraction designs, porous synthetic polymeric membranes (such as flat sheet (FS) or hollow fiber (HF)) have been utilized for membrane-based extraction, separating two aqueous phases (as in
There are two major types of diabetes mellitus, Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) and Type 2 Diabetes (T2D), however a number of subtypes have been defined and classified. Maternally Inherited Diabetes and Deafness (MIDD) and Maturity Onset Diabetes of the Young (MODY) are monogenic forms, whereas Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults (LADA) is thought to be a polygenic subtype similar to T1D. Mutations in the
Abstract: Previous experiments have shown that severe hypoglycemia disrupts cerebral energy state in spite of a maintained cerebral oxygen consumption, suggesting uncoupling of oxidative phosphorylation. Other studies have demonstrated that hypoglycemia leads to loss of cerebral cortical phospholipids and phospholipid-bound fatty acids. The objective of the present study was, therefore, to study r
This chapter illustrates the application over a decade of action research in the Swedish healthcare arena. Its focal question of how to deliver high quality, equitable and efficient care to an aging population – what is termed integrated care for the elderly – is one of the most central issues facing the future development of healthcare systems in all advanced economies. Countering early systems c
For patients with gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumours (GEP-NET), health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is important. Meanwhile, whether tumour volume is associated with HRQoL is unknown. Hence, the aim of this study was to assess if total somatostatin receptor expressing tumour volume is correlated with HRQoL in patients with metastatic GEP-NET. Some 71 patients were included in the stu
Biomolekyler, så som proteiner, produceras genom att DNA som kodar för dessa molekyler tillsätts i celler. Cellerna kan exempelvis vara bakterier, jäst eller från däggdjur. Dessa celler producerar inte enbart de önskade proteinerna utan även andra proteiner som är nödvändiga för att cellerna ska kunna överleva. Som en följd av detta är upprening en av de viktigaste processerna i produktionen av prDownstream processing is an essential part in the production of biomolecules and the optimization of these processes are of great value, since they can be both time consuming and expensive. One common type of enzyme used in different biotechnical approaches is proteases and in this study Protease X was investigated. In order to use the enzyme in a process, a purification procedure needs to be esta
Slow light and Whispering Gallery Mode Resonators are two interesting and useful fields with applications in optical sensing and laser stabilisation among others. Slow light can lead to long interaction times which are useful in light-matter interactions such as sensitive non-linear optics. Whispering Gallery Mode Resonators have small mode volumes and strong beam confinement leading to high Quali
