Recently, a number of studies have found adaptive brood sex ratio (BSR) manipulation in birds. The reason for such manipulations is thought to be the different reproductive value of male and female nestlings. Several studies have found that parental quality and food supply can affect BSR, however results are sometimes inconsistent between species and populations. We investigated BSR patterns in a

Superporous agarose beads contain two sets of pores, diffusion pores and so-called superpores or flow pores, in which the chromatographic flow can transport substances to the interior of each individual bead [Gustavsson and Larsson, J. Chromatogr. A 734 (1996) 231]. The existence of pore flow may be proven indirectly by the chromatographic performance of beads but it has never been directly demons

Popular Abstract in Swedish Jordens klimat har ändrats många gånger genom dess historia. Under de senaste 2,6 miljoner åren har de kontinentala landmassorna varit geografiskt fördelade på så sätt att relativt små skillnader i Jordens omloppsbana kring solen, s.k. orbitala förändringar, har givit upphov till övergångar mellan långvariga, kalla perioder (istider) och kortvariga, varma perioder (mellThis thesis aimed to examine the relationship between climate and atmospheric CO2 concentrations through rapid climate changes during the Holocene. Climate was reconstructed using high-resolution, radiocarbon dated, lake sediment geochemical proxies (magnetic susceptibility, loss-on-ignition, total carbon/nitrogen/sulphur determinations and biogenic silica), vegetational reconstruction (pollen ana

The PHENIX detector is designed to perform a broad study of A-A, p-A, and p-p collisions to investigate nuclear matter under extreme conditions. A wide variety of probes, sensitive to all timescales, are used to study systematic variations with species and energy as well as to measure the spin structure of the nucleon. Designing for the needs of the heavy-ion and polarized-proton programs has prod

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) with topical methyl aminolevulinate ( MAL) administered in two treatment sessions separated by 1 week is an effective treatment for actinic keratoses. This open prospective study compared the efficacy and safety of MAL-PDT given as a single treatment with two treatments of MAL-PDT 1 week apart. Two hundred and eleven patients with 413 thin to moderately thick actinic ker

Introduction - A small fraction of breast cancer is the result of germline mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 cancer susceptibility genes. Mutation carriers frequently have a positive family history of breast and ovarian cancer, are often diagnosed at a young age, and may have a higher incidence of double or multiple primary breast tumours than breast cancer patients in general. Objectives - To esti

Activated coagulation factor V (FVa) functions as a cofactor to factor Xa (FXa) in the conversion of prothrombin (PT) to thrombin. This essential procoagulant reaction, despite being the subject of extensive investigation, is not fully understood structurally and functionally. To elucidate the structure of the FXa-FVa complex, we have performed protein:protein (Pr:Pr) docking simulation with the p

This thesis consists of four empirical essays, all dealing with return volatility of financial assets and/or time-varying risk premia. In the first essay, Changing Risk Premia: Evidence from a Small Open Economy, the relation between risk and return is investigated for Swedish stocks. Little is known about the differences in the risk-return relationship in large economies compared with smaller, l

We are currently investigating a device capable of generating continuous, coherent radiation down in the Angstrom region in sub-ps pulses in a relatively compact set-up. By placing a cascaded optical klystron (OK) in the return path of a 3 GeV Race Track Microtron operating in Energy Recovery mode Harmonic Generation can be performed in several stages in parallel. A four stage OK can generate Angs

I denna rapport studeras inverkan av frost i kombination med fukt på bärförmågan hos armerad balk förstärkt med kolfiberkomposit på vidhäftningen mellan betongen och kolfiberkompositen.

"Such in truth is our lot that while we are English to the Irish, we are Irish to the English. For the one island does not detest us more than the other." The sentiment expressed by the Anglo-Norman knight Maurice Fitzgerald in 1171 was one that many Anglo-Irish shared more than 700 years later. This study deals with an area of Anglo-Irish literature neglected by present-day researchers: novels wr

Popular Abstract in Swedish Att vara äldre, beroende av hjälp och leva med varaktig smärta. För äldre människor som är beroende av hjälp från omvärlden för att klara av sitt dagliga liv, utgör inte bara den nedsatta funktion ett problem. Många är drabbade även av andra problem, varav ett vanligt är ihållande och varaktig smärta. För vissa äldre med gravt nedsatt funktion kan språket ha drabbat's This thesis explores everyday living with persistent pain from the perspectives of functionally dependent older persons in pain and of staff. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was chosen. Data were collected using interviews and tools for assessing pain. The first data collection included 66 persons (65+) living in sheltered accommodation and their corresponding contact nurses.

The bacterial surfaces of enterococci are not uniform. This fact is confirmed by several studies and by our results when great differences between individual strains with regard to their cell surface hydrophobicity, binding of eight ECM (extracellular matrix) molecules immobilized on latex beads and four selected ECM molecules in microtiter plates were observed. The strains expressing high binding

Interfacial electron transfer is one of the key processes in the novel type of photovoltaic cells-dye sensitized solar cells (DSSC). By means of transient absorption spectroscopy we have studied the dynamics of the initial photo-induced processes in dye-sensitized nano-porous thin films of wide-band gap semiconductor microcrystallines, which represent the main photoactive part of DSSC. In the most

This paper considers detection of internal decay in standing trees of species Picea abies (L.) Karst. The novel approach is based on two-dimensional spatiotemporal modal analysis of a cross-section which is excited by the hand-made impact of a hammer. An array of accelerometers is distributed around the cross-section, and the resulting impact response is analysed. The temporal frequency for a spec