Avian malaria parasites can have severe fitness effects on the host although most infections seem to be mild. Some of the avian malaria parasites are host specific and infect specific bird species while others infect a wide range of species. Avian malaria can serve as a natural model system for studies of the effect of environmental change on parasites distribution patterns. The global changes of

Bumblebees and other pollinators are important contributors to the ecosystem service of pollination of wild plants and crops. As in many pollinating insects, their abundance and diversity have declined in recent years, due to loss of natural habitats and fragmentation associated with urbanization and agricultural intensification. However, in urban areas, green space management beneficial to pollin

Body appreciation-unappreciation and body satisfaction-dissatisfaction are in the literature seen as conceptually different, but construct distinction has only been supported using qualitative methods. Because of limits in using Likert-style questionnaires to measure multidimensional constructs, quantitative research has yet to directly demonstrate that it is possible to appreciate the body withou

The purpose of this essay is to investigate the ecclesiological meaning of church buildings in the context of the Church of Sweden. In order to investigate views of ecclesiology and church self-understanding through history, based on the church building as a symbol, I have chosen to study how church buildings are presented in several Swedish sermons. In this essay I analyze and compare four sermo

En viktig komponent i vårt moderna samhälle är plaster och användandet av detta material ökar. Plaster skapas av komponenter som extraheras från petroleum, ett icke-förnybart fossilt bränsle. För en hållbar framtid måste användandet av petroleum minska. Alternativ till petroleum-baserade plaster är bio-plaster. Bioraffinaderier använder idag mindre än 20 % av biomassan för etanolproduktion, överskBioplastics are a promising alternative for petroleum-based plastics that today is on high demand in our contemporary lifestyles. They are made from biopolymers such as polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs). Producing biopolymers from waste material feedstock using microbes increases profitability and environmental benefits as well as sustainability for biorefineries. Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a robust m

Foragers increase their fitness by choosing the most profitable food source to forage on. Food resource is spatially distributed in a landscape context and, most importantly, in a patch scale. Therefore, they have to make daily decisions about where to forage based on their ecological information about the surrounding environment. There is a lack of descriptive studies on the relationship between

This thesis studies the relationship between urbanization and income inequality in China in the period 2001 to 2012. To analyze this question, firstly, it studies the urbanization development by looking of the urbanization ratio, growth rate of urban population and the share of agriculture in GDP. Secondly, it conducts the Gini coefficient of urban and rural sector respectively based on the data p

This thesis aims to show the prospect of capacitance measurements over nanowire arrays as an evaluation method of the p-doping level in weakly p-doped p-n nanowires. The premise of the method is that there will be a high yield of statistical data regarding the doping level of the nanowires. The majority of the work carried out and presented in this thesis is however aimed at the manufacturing of a

Hur bryts apo-katalas ned i bakterien Enterococcus faecalis? Väteperoxid, H2O2, är ett kemiskt ämne som används som blekningsmedel för allt från papper till hår. Det används också i somliga bränslen och desinfektionsmedel. Celler producerar vanligtvis väteperoxid som en biprodukt av sin metabolism. I celler ställer väteperoxid till potentiella problem då ämnet kan orsaka bildning av ”fria radikalCatalase is a heme-containing homo-tetrameric enzyme that catalyzes the degradation of hydrogen peroxide. Apo-catalase is in the bacterium Enterococcus faecalis produced also in the absence of heme. In this work I have enriched and studied proteolytic activity causing apo-catalase degradation in stationary growth phase E. faecalis cells. The activity was enriched from soluble cell free extract of

The possibility of improving indoor climate in residential buildings in Botswana was examined as the foundation of this Master’s Thesis. Initially articles were studied to gain understanding of previous research in the field as well as to gain understanding of local energy related conditions. Furthermore, a software called TRNSYS was thoroughly studied as this was found to be a powerful tool able

Torr jord ger ifrån sig mer koldioxid när det regnar När det regnar på torr jord bildas under en kort tid mycket mer koldioxid än vad jorden vanligtvis avger. Detta fenomen har varit känt sen 1950-talet och kallas enkelt för torkning och återfuktning. Även om vi vet att det sker så vet vi väldigt lite om varför det sker. Till en början trodde man att det hade att göra med en ökad aktivitet hos ma

This thesis analyses ten indepth interviews on domestic workers, class and gender roles with ten young, politically inclined and often adamantly feminist women towards the upper end of the Indian class spectrum. It aims to deepen the understanding of employerworker relations and gendered domestic roles in contemporary Indian households. Previous literature on the middletoupper class employers of d

The leading internet companies display a dominance in world markets unparalleled in many industries. Despite this, China remains a hurdle no major internet company has been able to overcome. The role of government, culture and strategic decisions are all posited as potential explanatory factors. This paper concentrates on the significance of guanxi as an explanatory factor, linking its utilisation

How will baby fish react to global warming? As most people have been aware of, global warming is just one of many consequences of climate change and increasing CO2-levels in the atmosphere. The oceans are experts at absorbing energy, which makes the ocean temperature rise. In many parts of the world, especially Australia, the sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are increasing rapidly today. This is e

This master thesis seeks to convey an alternative approach for studying post-soviet civil society, with a particular focus on Azerbaijan. It rejects utilization of mainstream and overused liberal-democratic approach to civil society, which has been a predominant contextual framework for growing body of literature on civil society’s contribution to democracy in the post-communist space. By using Gr

Malaria is an infectious disease caused by the protozoan of the genus Plasmodium. It is a major problem in third-world countries, with hundreds of millions of infections and millions of fatalities annually. The extreme challenge in malaria management is the resistance of parasites to traditional chemotherapies like chloroquine and artemisinin. Plasmodium falciparum dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (Pf

The aims of this study are two-fold. Firstly, the purpose is to discuss consultancy companies as actors in private-public partnerships (PPPs) in development assistance. Secondly, the study aims to explore the actions of consultancy companies in partnership with country-beneficiaries. The theoretical base of this study is grounded in debates about PPPs in development and theoretical accounts of pos

Sepsis is a severe and often lethal inflammatory response to an infection. During sepsis the cells and organs no longer function as they should because of the intense immune response. Some of the cell dysfunction may be because of an important “sugar layer” known as the glycocalyx. In this study, we determined whether an inflammatory protein, heparin binding protein (HBP), might contribute to the

Approximately a quarter of a million women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer annually worldwide. Identifying the genes involved may ultimately lead to the development of corrective and preventive measures to fight this type of cancer. Next Generation Sequencing is a technology that can reveal the genes central to cancer initiation and development, however the analysis of the data is problematic du