One of the major problems in contemporary Swedish society is an increasing proportion of psychologically ailing young people. It is often argued that one of the reasons for this situation is declining possibilities for young people to actively participate and engage in Swedish society. One important area of participation and involvement for young people could be religious organizations. Thus, the

Background: Despite the fact that HIV-positive women carry an increased risk of developing cervical cancer (CC) in comparison with HIV-negative women, HIV and CC screening programs in many developing countries have remained unintegrated. The objective of this study is to explore perceptions and preferences of community members in Uganda, including women, men, and village health teams, regarding th

Objectives To determine the detection rate of fetal malformations and chromosomal abnormalities and the rate of false-positive ultrasound diagnoses at routine ultrasound examinations carried out by specially trained midwives in an unselected pregnant population front 2000 to 2005, and to describe the consequences of true-positive and false-positive ultrasound diagnoses of fetal malformations. Meth

Background: Changes in soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks significantly influence the atmospheric C concentration. Agricultural management practices that increase SOC stocks thus may have profound effects on climate mitigation. Additional benefits include higher soil fertility since increased SOC stocks improve the physical and biological properties of the soil. Intensification of agriculture and la

Objective: To examine the association between body mass index (BMI) and osteoarthritis (OA) leading to total hip (THR) or knee (TKR) joint replacement. Methods: Case-control study design. All patients still living in Iceland who had had a THR or TKR resulting from OA before the end of 2002 were invited to participate. First-degree relatives of participating patients served as controls. A total of

This survey was conducted in two protected areas in Nigeria to genetically identify individual lions and to determine the genetic variation within and between the populations. We used faecal sample DNA, a non-invasive alternative to the risky and laborious task of taking samples directly from the animals, often preceded by catching and immobilization. Data collection in Yankari Game Reserve (YGR)

The Nordic countries are all established welfare states, and there has for some time existed a notion of a distinctive Nordic or Scandinavian welfare state. Considerable differences seem to exist between for example the psychiatric services within, as well as between, the Nordic countries when it comes to history, mental health acts and allocation of resources. Some argue that it is not even possi

A circular polarization selective structure (CPSS) reflects one handedness of circular polarization and transmits the other. We present a new multilayer structure with significantly improved bandwidth compared to classical solutions, which are typically based on resonant structures. The proposed structure consists of layers of printed metal meander lines interspaced by low-permittivity rigid foams

This article presents the results of a pilot study exploring the feasibility of using non-destructive energy dispersive x-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) spectrometry for chemical sourcing of flint from southern Sweden and eastern Denmark. EDXRF results showed that flint samples from Stevns Klint are all chemically alike on the basis of Si/Ca/Fe and Ca/Fe ratio data, yet they possess markedly different v

Direct determination of hydrodynamic radius from retention time is an advantage of the field-flow fractionation techniques. However, this is not always completely straight forward since non-idealities exist and assumptions have been made in deriving the retention equations. In this study we investigate the effect on accuracy from two factors: (1) level of sophistication of the equations used to de

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy(LIBS) was used to in situ monitor the concentration of alkali elements in combustion environments. Particular efforts were made to optimize the temporally resolved spectra of Na and K elements. Calibration curves were constructed by relating the intensities of the specific lines to the corresponding elemental concentrations. The detection limits of Na and K ele

The Natural gas Combined Cycle (NGCC) with post combustion capture using liquid solvents may in some cases be of interest to design with a flexible steam bottoming cycle, so that it can operate both with and without CO2 capture. It is then important that the choice of the low pressure (LP) steam turbine exhaust size is made accordingly. The paper describes why a flexible NGCC requires a LP steam t

In heart transplantation, selection of an optimal recipient-donor match has been constrained by the lack of individualized prediction models. Here we developed a customized donor-matching model (CODUSA) for patients requiring heart transplantations, by combining simulated annealing and artificial neural networks. Using this approach, by analyzing 59,698 adult heart transplant patients, we found th

Glomalin is a glycoprotein produced by arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, and the soil fraction containing glomalin is correlated with soil aggregation. Thus, factors potentially influencing glomalin production could be of relevance for this ecosystem process and for understanding AM fungal physiology. Previous work indicated that glomalin production in AM fungi may be a stress response, or relate

We studied the nature of the relationship between bone mineral density (BMD) and the risk of death among elderly men. BMD was associated with mortality risk and was independent of adjustments for other co-morbidities. A piecewise linear function described the relationship more accurately than assuming the same gradient of risk over the whole range of BMD (p = 0.020). Low BMD was associated with a

The topic of this thesis is estimation of nonlinear dynamical systems, focusing on the use of methods such as particle filtering and smoothing. There are three areas of contributions: software implementation, applications of nonlinear estimation and some theoretical extensions to existing algorithms. The common theme for all the work presented is the pyParticleEst software framework, which has b