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Shape stability, the ability of the wood to retain its shape, is one of the most important parameters when using timber as a building material and for other applications. Generally, timber undergoes changes in dimensions and shape when its moisture content is changed. However, this can often not be tolerated in constructions and thus, methods to improve the shape stability have to be found. In th
The simulation of physical phenomena occurring in chemical reactors requires the description of the kinetics involved in the underlying combustion process. Kinetic models are developed for this purpose. A software package, BlueBellMouse, has been developed to facilitate a deeper automatization and ease of simulation, reduction and optimization of kinetic models. A kinetic model is made of a list o
This thesis examines the concept of travel habits, public responses to large-scale traffic congestion regulations and how travel patterns of urban dwellers can be made environmentally sustainable in the long term. It also examines the interrelationships of different scientific disciplines dealing with urban travel. The main conclusions relate to the scientific concept of habit. This concept and th
Background - The effects of intervention can be evaluated in different ways, and objective measurements of changes in lung function are commonly used as the outcome measure. Patient-reported outcome (PRO) is an umbrella term used for all patient-based assessments. One important PRO is health-related quality of life (HRQL), which may be used as an evaluative or discriminative measure. Objectives -
Proteins carry out the instructions encoded in genes and are crucial for many important tasks in the living organism. Often the specific three dimensional structure, or fold, of a protein enables it to carry out a given task. It is an open question whether protein folds have arisen independently or whether mutations to existing protein sequences have caused switches to new folds. In the main part
This thesis deals with different aspects of fatigue crack propagation in IN718. The ultimate objective of the work is to gain understanding of the fatigue process, from the macroscopic stress-strain relations to microscopic fatigue crack growth mechanisms. First, the stress-strain relations, which are fundamental in order to understand what the material encounter, are dealt with. The high temperat
Engagement in daily activities is central for people’s health and well-being. Today, our activity arenas mostly cover great geographical areas, and to reach different activities we must travel. However, people with functional limitations are sometimes restricted in their travelling. In order to investigate accessibility problems in different travel chains, the overarching objective of this thesis
Streptomycetes are Gram-positive bacteria with a complex developmental life cycle. They form spores on specialized cells called aerial hyphae, and this sporulation involves alterations in growth, morphogenesis and cell cycle processes like cell division and chromosome segregation. Understanding the developmental mechanisms that streptomycetes have evolved for regulating for example cell division i
Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) are omega-3 fatty acids, which have health promoting effects. Since they are highly prone to oxidation, they should be protected, in particular DHA. Several lipids containing DHA were evaluated with respect to the ability of the lipids to protect DHA against peroxidation using an HPLC method developed as part of this research. Furthermore,
Under Indonesia's authoritarian New Order regime of President Suharto, the role envisaged for the small nationalist-Christian coalition the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) was that of a pliant state corporatist party, the existence of which was meant to demonstrate the ostensibly democratic character of the regime. From the second half of the 1980s, however, the party began to develop in a criti
An efficient transfer of energy in molecular systems has proven to be of fundamental importance both in nature and industrial applications. The ability of molecules to work together forming collective excitations, so-called excitons, plays a key role in for example the extraordinary fast energy transfer involved in the first steps of photosynthesis. The characterization of excitonic states in conj
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is probably the most common source of treatable disability in the Western world. There are several disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs), which have proven to be of therapeutic efficacy in RA, but the lack of a potent, reliable treatment for early RA is a major problem in modern medicine. An obvious line of approach in the quest for better antirheumatic drugs is
Volatile agents are economically and ecologically acceptable only when administered via low-flow systems. However, sevoflurane degrades during low-flow anaesthesia to compound A, and a high carbon dioxide absorber temperature increases this degradation. This thesis suggests that there is a correlation between apparatus dead-space volume and absorber temperature during low- and minimal-flow sevoflu
Most cells are crowded with solutes, enzymes, nucleic acids, structural proteins and membranes. Crowding promotes macromolecular interactions and determines major properties of the cellular environment such as viscosity, diffusion and inhomogeneity. Macromolecular interactions that involve enzymes can affect the kinetic and regulatory properties of these, hence the interactions are part of the met
This thesis presents results from experimental studies of the interfacial behaviour of surfactants and enzymes at model surfaces. The main technique used throughout the work was ellipsometry. Studies of surfactant adsorption in static and dynamic wetting situations were performed to investigate adsorption behaviour close to the three-phase contact line (tpl) during dynamic wetting. It was demonst
The oxidation of Rh, Pd and Pt is studied under conditions ranging from ultra high vacuum to ambient pressures, with emphasis on a complete understanding of the geometry of the various oxide structures found. The investigations use a combination of various experimental methods, including high resolution core level spectroscopy, low energy electron diffraction, surface x-ray diffraction and scannin
Under aerobic conditions, most yeasts such as Kluyveromyces lactis, prefer the respiratory pathway and some, such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae prefer less energy efficient fermentative pathway for their energy metabolism. These two metabolic strategies are also known as Crabtree negative and Crabtree positive respectively, and the evolution of the latter has lately been explained by the “make-accum
Lymphocytes are important mediators of adaptive immune responses. Naive T lymphocytes circulate in the blood and lymph between different secondary lymphoid organs in search for their specific antigen. Upon activation, lymphocytes change their expression of adhesion molecules and chemokine receptors and become able to enter non-lymphoid tissues where they take part in fighting infections. Selective
The enzyme magnesium chelatase inserts magnesium into protoporphyrin IX (Proto) to produce to magnesium protoporphyrin IX, the first unique intermediate of the chlorophyll biosynthetic pathway. Magnesium chelatase is composed of three distinct proteins termed I (molecular weight ~40 kDa), D (~70 kDa) and H (~140 kDa). Defining the individual properties and structure of the magnesium chelatase comp
