The Nordic countries represent an institutional setting with tax-based health care financing and universal access to health care services. Very few health care services are excluded from what are offered within the publically financed health care system. User fees are often non-existing or low and capped. Nevertheless, the markets for voluntary private health insurance (VPHI) have been rapidly exp

Recurrent ear infection in children during pre-school years is an important public health problem. Common advice given to parents is to minimize exposure of susceptible children to crowding and air pollution. This study aimed at investigating what changes parents undertake to improve the health of an otitis-prone child. Parents of children with 5 events before age thirty months (index children; n

The proliferation of massive open online courses (MOOCs) has been a phenomenon in higher education but only recently the subject of academic literature. MOOCs combine the traditional ideas of cohort and guided learning with open access and a truly global classroom. With over twenty thousand learners attracted to such courses, we argue that they can be a powerful tool in advancing sustainability ed

Savanner är ett landskap med både träd och gräs som skapar en miljö som varken är skog eller gräsmark. Savanner tar upp cirka en sjättedel av världens totala landyta och de har på grund av detta en stor betydelse för den globala kolbalansen. De flesta savanner har två distinkta säsonger, en regnperiod då vegetationen grönskar samt en period med torka utan nederbörd. Detta gör att förändringar i deSavannahs are land areas where grass and trees co-exists to create a landscape that is neither a grassland nor a forest. It is estimated that savannahs cover approximately one sixth of the global land surface. They also play an important role in the global carbon cycle due to their total size. Most savannahs are characterized with two distinct seasons, one dry season and one wet season where a maj

The atrioventricular (AV) node plays an important role during atrial fibrillation (AF). In particular, the refractoriness of its cells influences the conduction of atrial impulses to the ventricles and, thus, the ventricular response. This study introduces a novel statistical model of the AV node, accounting for pathway switching, which can be used for non-invasive assessment of the refractory pro

A novel edge-preserving denoising method for MR images is proposed. Local statistical homogeneity testing is combined with the well-known for structure preserving properties, Non Local Means (NLM) denoising method. The detection of homogeneity reduces remarkably the computational effort required by NLM which is applied only to information-rich image areas. Preliminary qualitative results on fetal

The paper explores autobiographical narratives of sexual violence in the main solicited, published, and circulated online in relation to various campaigns against sexual violence that in part strives to change the Swedish criminal law on sexual offences. Since 2010, several anti-rape campaigns have used social media platforms for their campaigns and have solicited experiential stories of rape as p

This paper investigates autobiographical narratives of sexual violence published in various online forums. In particular, it investigates narratives published in connection to social movement campaigns aiming to change the Swedish Criminal Law on sexual offences. In Sweden, starting in 2010, major campaigns on sexual violence have used the Internet (and specifically the genres blog and twitter) to

The hormones insulin and glucagon both play important roles in the development of diabetes.

Surgical site infections (SSIs) are common complications after open heart surgery. Fortunately, most are superficial and respond to minor wound debridement and antibiotics. However, 1–3% of patients develop deep sternal wound infections that can be fatal. Late infections with sternocutaneous fistulas, are encountered less often, but represent a complex surgical problem. This evidence-based review

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is considered an early onset subtype of breast cancer that carries with it a poorer prognosis in young rather than older women for reasons that remain poorly understood. Hematopoiesis in the bone marrow becomes altered with age and may therefore affect the composition of tumor-infiltrating hematopoietic cells and subsequent tumor progression. In this study, we

Leptospirosis is a worldwide spread zoonotic and neglected infectious disease of human and veterinary concern that is caused by pathogenic Leptospira species. In severe infections, hemostatic impairments such as coagulation/fibrinolysis dysfunction are frequently observed. These complications often occur when the host response is controlled and/or modulated by the bacterial pathogen. In the presen