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This thesis explores and analyzes segregation and self-sorting in education. It aims at discussing how this relates to gender, individualization and young men and women's positionings in local practices, through choices of upper secondary school education. It focuses on how young men and women cope with and adapt to the changing society in late modernity. The thesis is based on three empirical st
This thesis presents results from two projects using photometric observations to investigate stellar populations in Local Group galaxies. In the first project, Strömgren photometry is used to study stellar populations in dwarf spheroidal galaxies. It is demonstrated that the Strömgren c1 and m1 colour indices can be efficiently used to identify RGB members in dwarf spheroidal galaxies, and d
It is commonly argued that the private sector needs to become actively involved for society to stand a chance of solving the most pressing global problems. This thesis, consisting of five articles previously published in refereed journals and an introductory essay, studies one case of private actor participation in global environmental governance: the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (
This thesis deals with signal processing algorithms for analysis of the electrocardiogram (ECG) during atrial fibrillation (AF). Such analysis can be used for diagnosing patients, and for monitoring and predicting their response to various treatment. The thesis comprises an introduction and five papers describing methods for ECG-based modeling and characterization of AF. Paper I--IV deal with meth
This thesis makes a contribution to strategy-proof social choice theory, in which one investigates the conditions under which it is possible to construct social choice functions (i.e., voting procedures) that can never be manipulated in the sense that some voter, by misrepresentation of his true preferences, can change the outcome of a voting and obtain an alternative he prefers to the one that ho
The objective of this thesis is to contribute to improved performance of district heating systems by focusing on three items. Item 1: Study of three methods for improving the performance of sub-systems within buildings connected to the distribution network. The methods can be considered as more or less innovative. Results from two of these measures are quantified in terms of so-called Primary Ener
This thesis describes experiments performed using different methods to produce aerosol nanoparticles with control over size and composition. The process included differential mobility analyzers (DMAs) as size-selecting instruments and tube furnaces for particle synthesis. A method to estimate the degradation of the DMA performance from the ideal case for individual DMAs was proposed and tested ex
Vitreoscilla is an obligate aerobic bacterium living in oxygen-poor environments such as stagnant ponds and decaying vegetable matter. Vitreoscilla expresses a homodimeric haemoglobin (VHb) when subjected to oxygen-limited conditions. In several organisms, expression of VHb has been shown to increase microaerobic cell growth and enhance oxygen-dependent cell metabolism. Moreover, the presence of V
Nematophagous fungi possess various mechanisms for infecting nematodes, and are either obligate parasites or facultative saprophytes. Nematophagous fungi have a potential as biological control agents against plant- and animal-parasitic nematodes. Generally there has been little success in using these fungi in such a way, and one reason might be that too little is known about the ecology of the nem
The interaction between murine bone marrow-derived dendritic cells (DC) and the Gram negative bacteria Salmonella typhimurium and Escherichia coli have been characterised. These studies showed that DC phagocytosed and processed S. typhimurium and E. coli expressing defined epitopes for peptide presentation on major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC-I) and class II (MHC-II) molecules. Process
Commonly cooked meat dishes contain heterocyclic amines (HAs) at ng/g levels. HAs are animal carcinogens, form DNA adducts in human tissues, and have been associated with increased risk of cancer in epidemiological studies, and it is thus recommended that human intake be decreased. The aim of this investigation was to find ways of modifying cooking practices to reduce the formation of HAs. Various
Approximately half of all women will sustain a fracture after the age of 50. Fractures may cause long-term disability and excess mortality. Identifying individuals at high risk of sustaining a fracture is important in the development of primary and secondary prevention strategies. In this study, initiated to identify factors associated with a high risk of future fractures, 1 044 women, all 75 yea
In this work, the synthesis and characterisation of new low-valence transition metal carbonyl clusters, and an investigation into their viability to act as catalysts/catalyst precursors in asymmetric synthesis, are described. Carbonyl clusters based on ruthenium and osmium have been tested as (pre)catalysts for asymmetric hydrogenation of alpha-unsaturated carboxylic acids, and cobalt carbonyl clu
Recruitment and selection of managers is to a large degree characterized by information uncertainty. Managers’ performance is difficult to evaluate, as their responsibility consists of so many different aspects, as they may not always be observed due to need for freedom of action and as their work is affected by factors in their environment, which are outside of their control. Also, selection deci
Most conventional ECG interpretation programs use decision tree logic for interpretation of the ECG. The performance is generally good but can be improved. Artificial neural networks represent a new computer method, which has proved to be of value in pattern recognition and classification tasks. The purpose of the studies in this thesis was to improve the analysis/interpretation of the 12-lead EC
This thesis focuses on electrical transport in semiconductor InAs nanowires grown by chemical beam epitaxy. Initially, transport length scales of homogeneous InAs n-type nanowires are characterized by low-temperature magnetoconductance measurements. The measurements show phase-coherent conductivity corrections. By fitting the data, we find the nanowire mean-free path to be 50 nm and the phase-cohe
As quality and performance demands on today’s products increases, more and more advanced materials are being used during modern production. The problem is however that this in turn place new demands on the machining processes utilized. Even though a significant amount of research has been published on the machining of these materials knowledge is still limited in several crucial areas. A problem w
We are interested in the effect of harvesting on population fluctuations and for that purpose we develop and analyze an age-structured model where recruitment is a stochastic process and the adult segment of the population is harvested. When a constant annual harvest is taken the coefficient of variation of the adult population increases for most parameter values due to the age truncation effect,
Starches and celluloses can be chemically modified in order to affect their physiochemical properties. Modification of these carbohydrate polymers entails derivatising their free hydroxyl groups with functional groups. Which properties are obtained depends on the nature of the functional groups as well as on how they are distributed throughout the polymeric structure of the carbohydrate. Unfortuna
In this thesis I present studies concerning genomic diversity and genetic heterogeneity as well as the evolution and maintenance of genetic variation at a specific immune defence gene in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar, L.). I here present data on nucleotide diversity showing that human activities as well as different post-glacial colonisation events have had considerable effects on the genomic diver
