Reducing energy use in buildings is essential to decrease the environmental impact. Outside Gothenburg in Sweden, 20 terrace houses were built according to the passive house standard and completed in 2001. The goal was to show that it is possible to build passive houses in a Scandinavian climate with very low energy use and to normal costs. The houses are the result of a project including research

A machine learning conceptual clustering method applied to reaction mechanisms provides an automatic and, hence, unbiased means to differentiate between reactive phases within a total reactive process. Similar reactive phases were defined by means of local reaction sensitivity values. The method was applied to the Hochgreb and Dryer aldehyde combustion mechanism of 36 reactions. Three major time r

A model, MAKEDEP, was developed for reconstructing historic atmospheric deposition and nutrient uptake for forests using present day values. Deposition is reconstructed by separation of wet deposition and throughfall into five different categories. Dry deposition is assumed to depend linearly on needle biomass. Non-marine deposition is scaled using general European emission and deposition trends f

The use of microspheres and nanospheres of poly(d,l-lactide-co-glycolide) (PLG) as a controlled-release drug delivery system has been the subject of great interest for at least two decades within the field of pharmaceuticals. Salts of zinc and other divalent cations are sometimes co-encapsulated in PLG particles to control the pH or to stabilize encapsulated proteins or peptides. Zinc salts are kn

Fleeing the horrors of an internal armed conflict constitutes a ground for subsidiary protection under the Qualification Directive and in the Swedish Aliens Act. However, what is to be defined as such a conflict is disputed. This is obvious within the European context from the inconsistent interpretations of for example the situation in Iraq amongst Member States. In Sweden, the Migration Court of

The aim of this prospective study of 100 consecutive patients with a proximal humerus fractures primarily was to investigate the prevalence and importance of poor health and comorbidity. Seventeen men and 83 women with a mean age of 73 years were involved together with 138 age and gender- matched controls. Twenty patients with a mean age of 81 years, were severely ill with a physical and/or mental

[3H]Leucine- and [35S]sulfate-labeled proteoheparan sulfates were isolated from postconfluent or proliferating cultures of human skin fibroblasts. Cell layers were solubilized by Triton X-100, and transferrin-binding macromolecules were isolated by affinity chromatography. Proteoglycans with no affinity for transferrin were purified by using ion-exchange and gel permeation chromatography. Postconf

Increased intraarticular hydrostatic pressure (Pia) may inhibit juxtaarticular muscle function, obstruct blood supply to joint structures and promote anoxic joint destruction in chronic arthritis. Joint capsular stiffness together with synovial fluid volume determines Pia at rest. Seventeen knee joints with effusive arthritis and different degrees of radiological cartilage involvement in 13 patien

The formation of complexes appearing in solutions containing oppositely charged polyelectrolytes has been investigated by Monte Carlo simulations using two different models. The polyions are described as flexible chains of 20 connected charged hard spheres immersed in a homogenous dielectric background representing water. The small ions are either explicitly included or their effect described by u

Objective: To cross-culturally adapt and validate Singapore English and Chinese versions of the Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA) in Singapore. Methods: Singapore English and Chinese versions were cross-culturally adapted from the source English KOOS following standard guidelines (including cognitive debriefing). Patients were asked to co

We establish the local well-posedness for a new nonlinearly dispersive wave equation which has solutions that exist for indefinite times as well as solutions that blowup in finite time. We also derive an explosion criterion for the equation, and we give a sharp estimate of the existence time for solutions with smooth initial data.

Background As musculoskeletal disorders are common in general populations and they therefore constitute a heavy burden to society, the identification of their determinants is important. The aim of this study was to identify dose-response associations for location-specific prevalences of musculoskeletal disorders with various physical exposures and psychosocial factors in a large group of workers.

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE: There is a lack of large contemporary studies on the management of congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH), and the prediction of mortality remains difficult. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of perinatal factors on mortality rate in a contemporary multicenter study. METHODS: The authors conducted a retrospective multicenter cohort study. Twelve of 13 Scandi

Increased vascular permeability and oedema formation constitute a major clinical challenge following burns. Several clinical studies show that leukocytes are systemically activated following burns. Neutrophils have the capability to increase vascular permeability via mechanisms thought to involve the release of heparin binding protein (HBP). We hypothesised that HBP is elevated in plasma after maj

HAMLET (human -lactalbumin made lethal to tumor cells) is a complex of human -lactalbumin and oleic acid (C18:1:9 cis) that kills tumor cells by an apoptosis-like mechanism. Previous studies have shown that a conformational change is required to form HAMLET from -lactalbumin, and that a partially unfolded conformation is maintained in the HAMLET complex. This study examined if unfolding of -lactal

We studied the effects of predatory crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus), the non-lethal effects of fish chemical cues (Oncorhynchus mykiss), and the combined effects of crayfish and fish chemical cues on the performance of tadpoles of two co-existing anuran species, Rana temporaria and Bufo bufo, in experimental pools. We also examined grazing effects on periphyton, the main food source for the ta

Recent alcohol consumption is all established risk factor for squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) or the upper aero-digestive tract. In contrast, the role or lifetime exposure to alcohol with regard to risk of SCC is not well established. Historical data oil alcohol use are available in 271,253 participants of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC). During 2,330,381 pers