This dissertation deals with the modern predicament of the Rabha or Kocha people, their survival in the forest and their quest for identity. Rabhas are one of India's indigenous or tribal people, and they live in the jungle tracts where the Himalayan mountains meet the plains of Bengal. When the area came under British rule and was converted into tea gardens and reserved forests Rabhas were forced

Repair and reconstruction of major nerve trunks in the upper extremity is a very challenging surgical problem. Today, there is no surgical repair technique that can assure recovery of tactile discrimination in the hand of an adult patient following nerve repair. In contrast, young individuals usually attain a complete recovery of functional sensibility. The outcome from nerve repair depends mainly

Reactions of trans and cis isomers of the Ru-II complex [RuCl2(DMSO)(4)] with single-stranded hexanucleotide d(T(2)GGT(2)) were studied in aqueous solutions in the absence and presence of excess chloride by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionisation time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). Despite the different reactive species formed from

To determine the variability in fibre areas in the human vastus lateralis muscle, cross-sections (15 microns) of whole autopsied muscles from eight young men have been prepared, and the cross-sectional area (CSA) of 375 type 1 and 375 type 2 fibres has been measured in five different regions throughout each muscle. The CSA of both fibre types varied significantly within all muscle cross-sections.

Background: Stimulation of the immune system by gut microbes might prevent allergy development. Objective: The present study examined the hypothesis that sensitization to food allergens and atopic eczema are influenced by the infantile intestinal colonization pattern. Methods: Infants were recruited perinatally in Goteborg (n = 116), London (n = 108), and Rome (n = 100). Commensal bacteria were id

The vertical absorption spectra of phenanthrene and its radical cation have been studied theoretically by means of a multiconfigurational second-order perturbation approach. Singlet-singlet transition energies and oscillator strengths, and singlet-triplet excitation energies have been studied in the absorption spectrum of phenanthrene up to 6 eV. The absorption spectrum of the phenanthrene radical

The gene coding for cystatin D (CST5), a cysteine proteinase inhibitor, was mapped by fluorescent in situ hybridization to human chromosome 20p11.21. This assignment, together with previous data on mapping of members of the cystatin gene family, indicates that cystatin family II genes are all clustered on the short arm of chromosome 20, whereas cystatin family I and III genes are located on the lo

Popular Abstract in Swedish Humant immunbrist virus (HIV) bryter långsamt ner kroppens immunförsvar. Sjukdomen AIDS uppstår när den HIV infekterade personens immunförsvar är så pass försvagat att kroppen inte längre kan bekämpa infektioner som en frisk individ inte blir sjuk av. Världshälsoorganisationen, WHO, uppskattar att det idag lever omkring 40 miljoner människor i världen smittade med HIV. HIV-1 uses the coreceptors CCR5 and/or CXCR4 in addition to CD4 to enter the host cell. CCR5-using HIV-1 (R5 phenotype) appears to transmit infection and usually dominates the early stages of disease. Evolution of HIV-1 coreceptor use is usually described as the acquisition of CXCR4-using virus (X4 or R5X4 phenotype), and is linked to accelerated disease progression. However, the switch to CXCR4 u

Background: Improved diagnostics in suspected acute coronary syndrome (ACS) are considered to be needed. To help clarify the current situation and the improvement potential, judged risk in the emergency department (ED) and outcome were analyzed among patients with suspected ACS at a university hospital. Methods: 157 consecutive patients with symptoms of ACS were included at the ED during 10 days.

We provide a construction technique for multiple-output resilient functions F: F-2(n) --> F-2(m) with high nonlinearity. The construction leads to the problem of finding a set of linear codes with a fixed minimum distance, having the property that the intersection between any two codes is the all-zero codeword only. This problem is considered, and existence results are provided. Moreover, the cons

The mechanisms by which glucagon-like peptide 1(7-36)amide (GLP-1[7-36]amide) potentiates insulin secretion were investigated by measurements of whole-cell K+ and Ca2+ currents, membrane potential, the cytoplasmic Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i) and exocytosis in mouse pancreatic B-cells. GLP-1(7-36)amide (10 nM) stimulated glucose-induced (10 mM) electrical activity in intact pancreatic islets. The

To obtain more information about muscle function in patients with dysphagia, simultaneous barium swallow and computerized pharyngeal manometry with solid-state pressure transducers was employed for the evaluation of the pharynx and the pharyngoesophageal segment (PES) in 30 consecutive patients. The manometry catheter was positioned under fluoroscopic control, providing localized measurements of t

This thesis is devoted to the characterisation in time and frequency, and to spectroscopic application, of extreme ultraviolet (XUV) pulses. High-order harmonic generation or wave mixing processes were used to produce the pulses in the XUV spectral region. Time-frequency characterisation of femtosecond XUV pulses generated as high-order harmonics is important both for applications in XUV spectrosc

The effects of five different meat raw materials used for making beefburgers on the evolution of mass transfer (total, water and fat losses), patty diameter shrinkage and porosity were studied during frying from the frozen state (-20 degrees C) to a centre temperature of 72 degrees C in a double-sided pan fryer. The normalised water losses increased linearly with increasing average temperature at

Pre-fractionation of a complex mixture of proteins increases the resolution in analytical separations of proteins from cells, tissues or organisms. Here we demonstrate a novel method for pre-fractionation of membrane proteins by a detergent-based aqueous two-phase system. Membrane proteins are strongly under-represented in proteomic studies based on two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE). As a mod