Glucagon secreted by pancreatic α-cells plays an important role in the regulation of blood glucose. In this thesis, different techniques such as electrophysiology, immunohistochemistry and hormone secretion assay were combined to explore the mechanisms by which glucagon secretion is regulated. Like pancreatic β-cells, which produce insulin, α-cells are electrically excitable and equipped with dif

We report on the status of the Baltic/Wadden Sea flyway Eider population based on trends in breeding and wintering numbers throughout the region, supplemented by changes in the sex ratio and proportion of young Eiders as monitored in the Danish hunting bag. At the flyway scale, total numbers of breeding pairs decreased by 48% during 2000-2009, after relatively stable breeding numbers in 1991-2000.

Background: Previous research has focused exclusively on weight loss or weight maintenance following weight loss, i.e. secondary weight maintenance (SWM). The long-term results of SWM have been modest, suggesting that preventing initial weight gain among normal weight or overweight individuals, i.e. primary weight maintenance (PWM), may be more successful. The aim of this study was to compare the

The aim of this thesis is to critically investigate and problematize the Swedish Teacher Unions’ use of the concept of professionalism within the political negotiation of how to ascribe meaning and content to the idea of teacher professionalism within contemporary Swedish education debates. Departing from two recent educational reforms – the certification of teachers and the reformation of teacher

Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is the most lethal malignancy of the female reproductive tract. Due to vague symptomatology, the majority of EOC patients are diagnosed in advanced clinical stages with poor survival rates, despite improvements in surgical techniques and the advent of targeted therapeutics. Hence, there is an urgent need to identify novel biomarkers of early diagnosis, prognosis and

The Lyme disease spirochetes, Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto, Borrelia afzelii and Borrelia garinii. are tick-borne pathogens that can cause chronic disseminated infections. To survive in the human host borreliae need to evade the immune system. It is already well known that B. burgdorferi ss. and B. afzelii bind the complement (C) alternative pathway inhibitor factor H from serum using OspE a

Elemental abundance patterns can provide vital clues to the formation and enrichment history of a stellar population. Here we present an investigation of the Galactic bulge, where we apply principal component abundance analysis (PCAA) - a principal component decomposition of relative abundances [X/Fe] to a sample of 35 microlensed bulge dwarf and subgiant stars, characterizing their distribution i

A three-dimensional (3D) Dirac semimetal is a novel state of quantum matter which has recently attracted much attention as an apparent 3D version of graphene. In this paper, we report results on the electronic structure of the 3D Dirac semimetal Na3Bi at a surface that reveals its nontrivial ground state. Our studies reveal that the two 3D Dirac cones go through a topological change in the constan

The concept, design and prototype developments for the Lund-York-Cologne CAlorimeter (LYCCA) is presented. LYCCA is a modular device for the NUclear STructure, Astrophysics and Reactions (NUSTAR) science pillar of the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) at Darmstadt, Germany. LYCCA is designed to discriminate heavy ions produced in nuclear reactions induced by relativistic radioactive

Abstract in UndeterminedThis article analyses the role of government effectiveness in the determination of informal employment. A theoretical model is developed, in which local governance and worker skill level are assumed to influence the decision of the worker whether to seek employment in the formal or informal sectors. The model is assessed empirically using data from Brazil, where almost half

The study investigated 2 aspects of the accuracy (i.e., realism) of confidence judgments of persons age 60-93 years (N = 1,384) regarding their answers to general knowledge questions. These aspects are the level of confidence (calibration) in relation to the proportion of correct answers and the ability to discriminate between correct and incorrect answers by means of confidence judgments. No age

Real-time rendering is increasingly being performed on battery powered devices, such as laptops and mobile phones. As a result, performance in rendering time is not the only important factor, but the energy consumption is also becoming more and more important, as a lower energy usage directly translates to longer battery time. The main topic of this thesis is energy consumption of graphics process

BACKGROUNDQuinoa is a pseudo-cereal grown predominantly in South America. The quinoa stalks are lignocellulosic residues, which have a limited use today. The objective of the current study was to assess the potential of this material as a source of monosaccharides for fermentation purposes by means of steam pretreatment giving sugars from the hemicellulose part, and enzymatic hydrolysis of the sol

This study addresses the question of whether Vietnamese L1 speakers make an adequate distinction in tonal patterns when producing two tonal accent words in their L2, Swedish. Both languages use tonal features to distinguish lexical meaning. Some previous studies suggest that a lexical tonal L1 may provide L2 learners an advantage in perceptually discriminating between different tones in another to

The literature on the relationship between the size of government and economic growth is full of seemingly contradictory findings. This conflict is largely explained by variations in definitions and the countries studied. An alternative approach – of limiting the focus to studies of the relationship in rich countries, measuring government size as total taxes or total expenditure relative to GDP an

Equinatoxin II (EqtII), a eukaryotic pore-forming toxin, lyses cell membranes through a mechanism involving the insertion of its N-terminal α-helix into the membrane. EqtII pore formation is dependent on sphingomyelin (SM), although cholesterol (Chol) and membrane microdomains have also been suggested to enhance its activity. We have investigated the mechanism of EqtII binding and insertion by usi

The wake flow behind a cantilever beam of quadratic cross-section at a Reynolds number of 50,000 is investigated using detailed simulations. Two cases are considered, the first one using a stiff beam and the second one with a beam allowing for elastic deformation due to the hydrodynamic forces. The flow is simulated using an implicit large eddy simulation (ILES) approach in OpenFOAM and the struct