A constitutive model for ductile porous material is formulated within the thermodynamic framework. A yield function based on the lower-bound solution for a cylindrical void model embedded in a plastic matrix is proposed. The new yield function is compared to the classical Gurson yield function using cell model calculations. The results reveal that the proposed yield function agreed well with the p

BackgroundRetinal ischemia results in a progressive degeneration of neurons and a pathological activation of glial cells, resulting in vision loss. In the brain, progressive damage after ischemic insult has been correlated to neuroinflammatory processes involving microglia. Galectin-3 has been shown to mediate microglial responses to ischemic injury in the brain. Therefore, we wanted to explore th

Regular physical activity is understood to be an essential prerequisite for human health for both psychological and physiological well-being. However, there are differences in participation in physical activity among different groups in society, and participation in physical activity can also change over a lifetime. The general aim of this thesis was to investigate how different life-change events

Probing molecules using perdeuteration (i.e deuteration in which all hydrogen atoms are replaced by deuterium) is extremely useful in a wide range of biophysical techniques. In the case of lipids, the synthesis of the biologically relevant unsaturated perdeuterated lipids is challenging and not usually pursued. In this work, perdeuterated phospholipids and sterols from the yeast Pichia pastoris gr

Water-soluble chlorophyll-binding proteins (WSCPs) are interesting model systems for the study of pigment-pigment and pigment-protein interactions. While class IIa WSCP has been extensively studied by spectroscopic and theoretical methods, a comprehensive spectroscopic study of class IIb WSCP was lacking so far despite the fact that its structure was determined by X-ray crystallography. In this pa

Silicon dimer-containing reconstructions on Si(100) can be induced by submonolayer amounts of rare earth (RE) metals. The tilt of dimer bonds in such reconstructions can be controlled by the coverage and electronic properties of RE adsorbates. In this study, we have utilized improved high-resolution photoelectron spectroscopy with the synchrotron radiation and density functional theory (DFT) calcu

Background: We recently demonstrated that increased expression of the RNA-binding protein RBM3 is associated with a favourable prognosis in breast cancer. The aim of this study was to examine the prognostic value of RBM3 mRNA and protein expression in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) and the cisplatin response upon RBM3 depletion in a cisplatin-sensitive ovarian cancer cell line. Methods: RBM3 mRNA

Abstract Disorders in mineral metabolism and secondary hyperparathyroidism (sHPT) are well known complications in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Hyperparathyroidism (HPT) persists in a majority of patients after kidney transplantation (KTx). Parathyroidec-tomy (PTX) is indicated in patients who are resistant to medical therapy both before and after KTx. Overall aims of this thesis we

Political candidates often believe they must focus their campaign efforts on a small number of swing voters open for ideological change. Based on the wisdom of opinion polls, this might seem like a good idea. But do most voters really hold their political attitudes so firmly that they are unreceptive to persuasion? We tested this premise during the most recent general election in Sweden, in which

The broad aim of this thesis is to explain the fundamental themes and function of Swedish field sermons and field prayers, and so to re-examine the view in earlier research that field sermons were primarily ‘Old Testamentary’ in nature. Inspired by more recent international research, I hold that the sermons’ basic functions were twofold: discipline and comfort. What matters, is to understand the d

We have developed and characterized a hard x-ray accumulating streak camera that achieves subpicosecond time resolution by using single-photon counting. A high repetition rate of 2 kHz was achieved by use of a readout camera with built-in image processing capabilities. The effects of sweep jitter were removed by using a UV timing reference. The use of single-photon counting allows the camera to re

Background: Ghrelin, an endogenous ligand for the growth hormone secretagogue receptor (GHSR), has two major functions: the stimulation of the growth hormone production and the stimulation of food intake. Accumulating evidence also indicates a role of ghrelin in cancer development. Methods: We conducted a case-control study to examine the association of common genetic variants in the genes coding

The most commonly used technology currently used for autoradiography is storage phosphor screens, which has many benefits such as a large field of view but lacks particle-counting detection of the time and energy of each detected radionuclide decay. A number of alternative designs, using either solid state or scintillator detectors, have been developed to address these issues. The aim of this stud

Fermented milk is commonly eaten during breakfast or as a snack between meals either in one-portion cups or from a bowl with a spoon. Approximately 5-10% of the fermented milk remains in the packages upon pouring, which during the last years, has received attention in public media as newspapers and television. This is a problem, not only from an economical point of view, but also from an ecologica

In order to explore verbal-nonverbal integration, we investigated the influence of cognitive and linguistic ability on gaze behavior during spoken language conversation between children with mild-to-moderate hearing impairment (HI) and normal-hearing (NH) peers. Ten HI-NH and 10 NH-NH dyads performed a referential communication task requiring description of faces. During task performance, eye move

P>Background: Studies of the nasal lavage fluid proteome have previously identified proteins differently expressed in patients with symptomatic allergic rhinitis, e.g. S100A7, prolactin-inducible protein (PIP), wingless-type MMTV integration site family, member 2B (WNT2B), Charcot-Leyden crystal protein (CLC) and palate lung nasal epithelial clone (PLUNC). The aim of the present study was to inves

Current sampling of genomic sequence data from eukaryotes is relatively poor, biased, and inadequate to address important questions about their biology, evolution, and ecology; this Community Page describes a resource of 700 transcriptomes from marine microbial eukaryotes to help understand their role in the world's oceans.

I religionernas värld har man alltid varit medveten om vilken betydelse ljud och tystnad har för vårt välbefinnande. Ibland framhävs tystnaden; i andra fall kan det röra sig om det monotona ljude av exempelvis en upprepad bön. Sådana övningar blir föremål för en psykologisk kommentar.