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

Self-adaptive software systems monitor their operation and adapt when their requirements fail due to unexpected phenomena in their environment. This paper examines the case where the environment changes dynamically over time and the chosen adaptation has to take into account such changes. In control theory, this type of adaptation is known as Model Predictive Control and comes with a well-develope

We show that the two problems of computing the permanent of an n*n matrix of poly(n)-bit integers and counting the number of Hamiltonian cycles in a directed n-vertex multigraph with exp(poly(n)) edges can be reduced to relatively few smaller instances of themselves. In effect we derive the first deterministic algorithms for these two problems that run in o(2^n) time in the worst case. Classic pol

While a bottom-up approach to identifying problems affecting food production among small-scale farmers has been urged as an appropriate means of finding sustainable solutions, few studies have determined the practical process of doing so and measured the outcomes of such an approach. This paper uses information gained mainly through focus groups with small-scale farmers and semi-structured intervi

Background: Inflammatory cells and inflammatory mediators play an important role in colorectal cancer (CRC). Previous studies have shown that CRC patients with increased expression of cysteinyl leukotriene receptor 1 (CysLTR1) have a poorer prognosis, and Cysltr1−/− mice display fewer intestinal polyps. However, the role of mast cells (MCs) in colon cancer progression remains unclear. The aim of t

Svår fetma är ett svårbehandlat tillstånd och hittills har fetmakirurgi visat sig vara den metod som ger den största och mest beständiga viktminskningen över längre tid. Fetmakirurgi har tidigare endast erbjudits vuxna både i Sverige och i andra länder. Under senare år har fetmakirurgi börjat prövas som ett behandlingsalternativ till ungdomar med svår fetma där annan behandling inte har gett tillrBariatric surgery is tried out as a new treatment option for adolescents with severe obesity. Little is known about outcomes in mental health in adolescents who undergo weight loss surgery.The 3 studies in this thesis assess mental health in adolescents before, and after 4 months, 1 year and 2 years after undergoing gastric bypass. The studies are part of the Swedish national AMOS study and all ad

We report the discovery of two Li-rich giants, with A(Li) ~ 1.50, in an analysis of a sample of 40 giants of the open cluster Trumpler 20 (with turnoff mass ~1.8 M⊙). The cluster was observed in the context of the Gaia-ESO Survey. Methods. The atmospheric parameters and Li abundances were derived using high-resolution UVES spectra. The Li abundances were corrected for nonlocal thermodynamical equi

Background: Health care employees are often women, a group that has high degrees of sick leave and perhaps problems attaining occupational balance. However, people think differently about their everyday activities and it is therefore important to take their perceptions into account but occupational balance has not yet been measured in health professionals. The aim was to describe occupational bala

An implicit water all-atom model is used to study folding, aggregation and mechanical unfolding of small proteins. Physically reasonable results obtained for a variety of applications indicate healthy global properties of the interaction potential.

OBJECTIVE:: Early postoperative pain correlates to persisting pain, psychosocial distress, and delayed mobilization with thromboembolic and infectious complications. Electrical pain thresholds (EPT) have shown promising results in being able to predict postoperative pain, but the results are conflicting. The aim of this study was to test whether EPT levels can be used to predict postoperative pain

Cosmological models predict the oldest stars in the Galaxy should be found closest to the centre of the potential well, in the bulge. The Extremely Metal-poor BuLge stars with AAOmega survey (EMBLA) successfully searched for these old, metal-poor stars by making use of the distinctive SkyMapper photometric filters to discover candidate metal-poor stars in the bulge. Their metal-poor nature was the