The focus of this thesis is on KEL and JK, two clinically important blood group systems, and the investigations of blood samples with aberrant antigen expression as in null and weak phenotypes, or with a phenotype that does not correspond to genotype. With the increasing use of DNA assays based on single nucleotide polymorphisms for blood group prediction, it is important to characterize the bloo

Background: In most resource poor countries, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, modern contraceptive use and prevalence is unusually low and fertility is very high resulting in rapid population growth and high maternal mortality and morbidity. Current evidence shows slow progress in expanding the use of contraceptives by women of low socioeconomic status and insufficient financial commitment to fami

We present a variational assimilation system around a coarse resolution Earth System Model (ESM) and apply it for estimating initial conditions and parameters of the model. The system is based on derivative information that is efficiently provided by the ESM's adjoint, which has been generated through automatic differentiation of the model's source code. In our variational approach, the length of

Formal education has been proposed to shape life-long cognitive development. Studies reporting that gains from cognitive training transfer to untrained tasks suggest direct effects of mental activity on cognitive processing efficiency. However, associative memory practice has not been known to produce transfer effects, which is odd considering that the key neural substrate of associative memory, t

Studies of the spin and parity quantum numbers of the Higgs boson in the [Formula: see text] final state are presented, based on proton-proton collision data collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb[Formula: see text] at a centre-of-mass energy of [Formula: see text] TeV. The Standard Model spin-parity [Formula: see text] hy

Hypertensive encephalopathy with the clinicoradiological entity posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome in the setting of venlafaxine as single therapy has not been reported earlier.

Background: Optimal manual closed chest compressions are difficult to give. A mechanical compression/ decompression device, named LUCAS, is programmed to give compression according to the latest international guidelines (2005) for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). The aim of the present study was to compare manual CPR with LUCAS-CPR. Methods: 30 kg pigs were anesthetized and intubated. After a

2D resistivity modelling was done in order to examine the imaging resolution of 4 different configurations for mapping of fracture zones in bedrock. The studied arrays include Dipole-dipole, Gradient, Pole-dipole and Wenner. A variety of geological models were tested and the imaging possibilities and limitations of the different arrays were analysed. Apart from imaging fracture zones with various

Previous studies have indicated that survivors of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) have an increased morbidity measured in terms of health care utilization. However, earlier studies have several potentially important limitations. To overcome some of these, we investigated hospital contact rates, and predictors thereof, among 5-year survivors of ALL in a population-based setting, and co

Popular Abstract in Swedish Den farligaste formen av hudcancer, melanom, uppkommer genom okontrollerad tillväxt av melanocyter som är celler specialiserade i pigmentproduktion. Dessa celler skyddar oss från den farliga UV-strålingen med hjälp av pigment som omvandlar ljusvågor till värme. I Sverige drabbas drygt 2000 personer per år av sjukdomen. Cirka 80-85 % av dessa botas genom kirurgi men hos Melanoma is an aggressive disease that arises from deregulated signaling events in melanocytes. The KIT receptor tyrosine kinase and the Microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF) are two essential components that are required for the normal physiology of melanocyte development and function. Consequently, aberrant activities of these factors are involved in the development of melanoma.

Recent findings show that human fibroblasts can be directly programmed into functional neurons without passing via a proliferative stem cell intermediate. These findings open up the possibility of generating subtype-specific neurons of human origin for therapeutic use from fetal cell, from patients themselves, or from matched donors. In this study, we present an improved system for direct neural c

Abstract in UndeterminedBackground: For 2-dye microarray platforms, some missing values may arise from an un-measurably low RNA expression in one channel only. Information of such "one-channel depletion" is so far not included in algorithms for imputation of missing values.Results: Calculating the mean deviation between imputed values and duplicate controls in five datasets, we show that KNN-based

The New Zealand emissions trading scheme (ETS) wasintroduced by legislation in 2008. The legislated objectives asstated in section 3 of the Climate Change Response Act 2002are to ‘support and encourage global efforts to reduce theemission of greenhouse gases by (i) assisting New Zealandto meet its international obligations under the [UNFCCC].

A spectrophotometric assay for plasmin and plasminogen-derived activity in dairy products was optimised and extended to determine plasmin and plasminogen-derived activity in turbid samples of dairy products. The method was validated by assessing reproducibility, repeatability, level of detection and recovery of plasmin activity in different sample matrices. Plasmin activity in raw milk was not aff