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A prospective clinical cohort study was established to investigate the humoral immune response in middle ear fluids (MEF) and serum against bacterial surface proteins in children suffering from recurrent acute otitis media (rAOM) and chronic otitis media with effusion (COME), using Luminex xMAP technology. The association between the humoral immune response and the presence of Moraxella catarrhali

Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) are increasingly used as an investigative therapeutic product for immune disorders and degenerative disease. Typically, MSC are isolated from human tissue, expanded in culture and cryopreserved until usage. The safety and efficacy of MSC therapy will depend on the phenotypical and functional characteristics of MSC. The freeze-thawing procedure may change these chara

Of the many ways hydrogen can be produced, this chapter focuses on biological hydrogen production 12 by thermophilic bacteria and archaea in dark fermentations. The thermophiles are held as promising candidates 13 for a cost-effective fermentation process, because of their relatively high yields and broad substrate palette. Yet 14 many challenges remain to be faced, including improving productivit

Lactic acid bacteria (LAB), including Lactococcus lactis, are abundant in nature. These bacteria convert carbohydrates into mainly lactate by a rather uncomplicated metabolism. An improved understanding of the physiological and genetical mechanisms involved in carbohydrate metabolism and its regulation will improve the industrial use of LAB. The aim of this study was to investigate the maltose an

There are many benefits offered by integrated enterprise computer systems. There are a growing number of options available to obtain such management information system support. A major problem when selecting Enterprise Information Systems, in special ERP systems, is how to deal with the great diversity of options as well as the number of criteria used to evaluate each alternative. There is an impl

Popular Abstract in Swedish I litteraturen kring marknadsföring av tjänster har det i flera sammanhang diskuterats hur tjänster baserade på kombinationer av kundmedverkan och teknologi kan erbjudas till kunden. Exempel som behandlats är bankers uttagsautomater, självbetjäning på bensinstationer och automatiska banktjänster över telefon. Innan man kan presentera sådana rekommendationer behövs det gThis doctoral thesis deals with consumers’ attitudes towards serving them-selves with machines rather than being served by personnel. Its aim is to contribute to the theory of perceived service quality by providing a better understanding of customers’ attitudes and preferences when using technology-based self-service. In addition to aspects of service dealt with by traditional service-quality rese

A general methodology for noise reduction and contrast enhancement in very noisy image data with low dynamic range is presented. Video footage recorded in very dim light is especially targeted. Smoothing kernels that automatically adapt to the local spatio-temporal intensity structure in the image sequences are constructed in order to preserve and enhance fine spatial detail and prevent motion blu

1. Responses of zooplankton to nutrient enrichment and fish predation were studied in 1998 and 1999 by carrying out parallel mesocosm experiments in six lakes across Europe. 2. Zooplankton community structure, biomass and responses to nutrient and fish manipulation showed geographical and year-to-year differences. Fish had a greater influence than nutrients in regulating zooplankton biomass and es

Smoking is widely considered a risk factor for future fracture. The aim of this study was to quantify this risk on an international basis and to explore the relationship of this risk with age, sex and bone mineral density (BMD). We studied 59,232 men and women (74% female) from ten prospective cohorts comprising EVOS/EPOS, DOES, CaMos, Rochester, Sheffeld, Rotterdam, Kuopio, Hiroshima and two coho

Popular Abstract in Swedish Mycken möda har under de senaste årtiondena lagts ner på forskning om försurande utsläpp och dess skadliga effekter på skogar, vattendrag och människor. Kritiska belastningsgränser, i folkmun kallat "vad naturen tål", har tagits fram och använts i europeiska förhandlingar om utsläppbegränsningar. För skogsekosystem baseras de kritiska belastningsgränserna för försurandeAcidification caused by emissions of Nitrogen and Sulphur and associated adverse effects on forest ecosystems has been an issue on the political agenda for decades. Temporal aspects of soil acidification and/or recovery can be investigated using the soil chemistry model SAFE, a dynamic version of the steady-state model PROFILE used in critical loads assessment on the national level, e.g. for Swede

Excited states in (196)AU, populated in the Pt-196(p,n) and (d,2n) reactions, were investigated by in-beam gamma -ray and conversion-electron spectroscopy. Two only weakly connected level structures, built on the 2(-) ground state (negative-parity level scheme) and on the 5(+) isomer at 84.7 keV (positive-parity level scheme), are observed. The point of main effort of the present work was the inve

We show that the undular stray light, diffusely scattered by the optical system of a synchrotron beamline, can play an important role in the formation of high-resolution resonant photoelectron (RPE) spectra. The influence of the stray light is mediated through the Stokes doubling effect, with the Lorentzian tail of the spectral function being replaced by a more complicated form. This effect is sho

Formation of calcium oxalate incrusts, scaling, may cause severe problems in the pulp and paper industry. Enzymatic degradation of oxalic acid provides a novel approach to eliminate the problems with calcium oxalate precipitation. The performance of two oxalate-degrading enzymes, oxalate oxidase from barley and oxalate decarboxylase from Aspergillus, was tested in model experiments with respect to

This paper takes inspiration from the field of bio-mimicry to suggest what a plant biosecurity system might look like if it was modelled on the human immune system. We suggest structural and institutional changes to current biosecurity systems that would facilitate adaptive preparation and response policies, focusing particularly on the Australian plant biosecurity system. By improving information

Purpose: T cells influence outcome in follicular lymphoma, but their contributions seem to be modified by therapy. Their impact in patients receiving rituximab without chemotherapy is unknown. Experimental Design: Using flow cytometry, we evaluated the T cells in tumors and/or blood in a total of 250 follicular lymphoma patients included in two Nordic Lymphoma Group randomized trials that compared

Our knowledge of the binding sites for neutralizing Abs (NAb) that recognize a broad range of HIV-1 strains (bNAb) has substantially increased in recent years. However, gaps remain in our understanding of how to focus B cell responses to vulnerable conserved sites within the HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein (Env). In this article, we report an immunization strategy composed of a trivalent HIV-1 (clade

Fibrillin-1 (FBN1) is an important constituent of the vascular wall and earlier studies have indicated an effect of the FBN1 2/3 genotype on blood pressure as well as aortic stiffness in men. The aim of the present study was to determine whether the FBN1 2/3 genotype was associated with the presence of carotid plaque and incident cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in middle-aged subjects. The

Excessive sweating is a major ergonomic concern in bicycle helmet use and low wearing rates are suspected to originate, at least partly, from impaired thermal comfort due to accumulated sweat increasing skin wettedness at the head region. As a development from COST Action TU1101 WG4, we introduce a modelling framework for assessing the thermal comfort of bicy-cle helmet use. We predicted local swe