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Throughout this thesis, samples of various materials with applications in energy converting devices have been prepared by focused ion beam machining and investigated by transmission electron microscopy. Energy converting devices can be solar cells or light emitting diodes, which turn light into electricity or vice versa. They can also be fuel cells or electrolyzer cells, which turn chemical energy
Background Lifestyle exposures play a major role in the development of disease, yet people vary in their susceptibility. A critical step towards precision medicine is identifying individuals who are resilient or sensitive to the environment, and, assess whether the allocation to these predicted groups are more or less likely to develop cardiometabolic disease.Methods We have used repeated data fro
Understanding the critical soil moisture (SM) threshold (θcrit) of plant water stress and land surface energy partitioning is a basis to evaluate drought impacts and improve models for predicting future ecosystem condition and climate. Quantifying the θcrit across biomes and climates is challenging because observations of surface energy fluxes and SM remain sparse. Here, we used the latest databas
NASA's Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) is collecting spaceborne full waveform lidar data with a primary science goal of producing accurate estimates of forest aboveground biomass density (AGBD). This paper presents the development of the models used to create GEDI's footprint-level (~25 m) AGBD (GEDI04_A) product, including a description of the datasets used and the procedure for fi
AIMS: Unexplained syncope is an important clinical challenge. The influence of age at first syncope on the final syncope diagnosis is not well studied.METHODS AND RESULTS: Consecutive head-up tilt patients (n = 1928) evaluated for unexplained syncope were stratified into age groups <30, 30-59, and ≥60 years based on age at first syncope. Clinical characteristics and final syncope diagnosis were an
Vapor phase infiltration into a self-assembled block copolymer (BCP) to create a hybrid material in one of the constituent blocks can enhance the etch selectivity for pattern transfer. Mul- tiple pulse infiltration into carbohydrate-based high-χ BCP has previously been shown to enable sub-10 nm feature pattern transfer. By optimizing the amount of infiltrated material, the etch selectiv- ity shoul
The MEDIM study reports that Immigrants from the Middle East to Sweden – independently of other diabetes related risk factors – have a twice as high type 2 diabetes risk as compared to non-immigrated Swedes. Diabetes onset occurs 6 years earlier in this group and is partly explained by family history and/or obesity. But the MEDIM study has identified that Middle Eastern background per se is an ind
Hardware implementing spiking neural networks (SNNs) has the potential to provide transformative gains in energy efficiency and throughput for energy-restricted machine-learning tasks. This is enabled by large arrays of memristive synapse devices that can be realized by various emerging memory technologies. But in practice, the performance of such hardware is limited by non-ideal features of the m
Background: Antibiotics are commonly prescribed for outpatient management of cystitis. Previous evidence suggests that certain factors likely beyond the infection seem to influence the choice of antimicrobial treatment. However, studies on the specific antibiotic treatments for cystitis are lacking. This study aimed to explore the antibiotic treatments for cystitis using nationwide primary healthc
Health impact assessments (HIA) have largely focused on mortality; this report, therefore, examines and evaluates which morbidity impacts are appropriate to include in HIAs. The task was assigned by Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the original report (written in Swedish) was performed by Anna Oudin (AO), Erin Flanagan (EF), and Ebba Malmqvist (EM). The original report also inclu
Background: GCA is a systemic vasculitis of the elderly, viewed by many as a disease with multiple and overlapping clinical phenotypes. Retrospective studies have shown differences in clinical presentation between these phenotypes. To reflect the heterogeneity of GCA and novel diagnostic methods, new classification criteria have been proposed. Methods: This is a retrospective study of newly diagno
The molecular sensitivity provided by optical photons has potential advantages in medical diagnostics, for example, in distinguishing healthy from cancerous tissue. However, scattering resulting from inhomogeneities in the refractive index of tissues prevents spatially resolved optical measurements in biological material, except at very shallow depths. This thesis presents research on a medical im
Vertically oriented graphene (VG) has attracted attention for years, but the growth mechanism is still not fully revealed. The electric field may play a role, but the direct evidence and exactly what role it plays remains unclear. Here, we conduct a systematic study and find that in plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition, the VG growth preferably occurs at spots where the local field is stronge
After many years of preclinical development, cell and gene therapies have advanced from research tools in the lab to clinical-grade products for patients, and today they constitute more than a quarter of all new Phase I clinical trials for Parkinson's disease. Whereas efficacy has been convincingly proven for many of these products in preclinical models, the field is now entering a new phase where
Objective: Adverse event (AE) monitoring is central to assessing therapeutic safety. The lack of a comprehensive framework to define and grade maternal and fetal AEs in pregnancy trials severely limits understanding risks in pregnant women. We created AE terminology to improve safety monitoring for developing pregnancy drugs, devices and interventions. Method: Existing severity grading for pregnan
Recent advances in genome editing have brought new hopes for personalized and precision medicine but have also dramatically facilitated disease modeling studies. Combined with reprogramming approaches, stem cells and differentiation toward neural lineages, genome engineering holds great potential for regenerative approaches and to model neurological disorders. The use of patient-specific induced p
Sweden has the largest forest cover in the European Union, and for decades, Sweden's forest industry has pursued intensive forest management through tree plantations and clear-cutting in order to maximize wood production. The Swedish forestry sector is increasingly under pressure to transition away from intensive clear-cut forest management, but other forest management models are still a niche in
Paraffin wax and various nanoparticles (CuO, Al2O3 and Fe3O4) were used as matrix and heat conduction enhancer of phase change materials (PCMs), respectively. The dispersant Span 80 was added into the nanocomposite to provide stable PCMs. Based on analyses of melting and freezing curves and infrared thermal imaging tests, the phase change latent heat, viscosity, and thermal conductivity of the nan
Earth-abundant first row transition metal complexes are important for the development of large-scale photocatalytic and solar energy conversion applications. Coordination compounds based on iron are especially interesting, as iron is the most common transition metal element in the Earth’s crust. Unfortunately, iron-polypyridyl and related traditional iron-based complexes generally suffer from poor
