Water scarcity can have severe implications for society; endangering human health and food security whilst also exacerbating social conflict around the world. These issues are exemplified in the case of the Ferghana Valley in Central Asia, where much of the valley suffers from water scarcity and conflicts despite having adequate water sources. This scarcity is primarily due to how water is used, m

Entrepreneurship has historically played a major role on the growth of economies. Its impact on countries’ economic and employment growth has been theoretically as well as empirically studied. The literature indicates a clear positive relation of entrepreneurship to those macro figures. Nevertheless, new evidence discusses that more entrepreneurs do not always signify a quick growth rate. In the d

På senare år har förekomsten av mjölk som koagulerar dåligt eller inte alls vid tillsats av löpe upptäckts. Denna, så kallade NC (icke-koagulerande), mjölk ger ett minskat ostutbyte vilket kan ge negativa följder både ur ett ekonomiskt och miljömässigt perspektiv. Ost är ett uppskattat livsmedel i Sverige, som för många utgör en del av den dagliga kosten. Det är kanske inte så konstigt med tanke Cheese products are an essential part of the human diet, consequently making the ability of milk to coagulate a critical part for the dairy industry. However, milk that coagulates poorly or not at all after the addition of rennet has been found among several dairy cattle breeds, including Swedish Red cows. This master thesis was therefore aimed to evaluate and compare a number of compositional, ph

The small protein α-synuclein is strongly associated with Parkinson’s disease. This protein is found in inclusion bodies, named lewy bodies inside neurons of people suffering from the disease. α-synuclein is very abundant in the human brain, and its normal function is still elusive and unclear. The factors that trigger the accumulation and fibrillation of this protein into pathogenic inclusion bod

This thesis analyses the discourse of cultural heritage by taking the European Heritage Label (EHL) as a case study. The European Heritage Label is an organization established in 2011 by the European Union (EU) and created an application process for historical and cultural sites to be labelled as “European Heritage”. This thesis aims to critically analyse heritage as a concept that is used and pro

Today re-identification of persons in disjoint camera views demand large human effort and resources. There is a need of autonomous re-identification systems. This thesis has been focused on the development of autonomous re-identification systems based on recurrent neural networks able to analyze sequences of images of persons, enabling the possibility to filter out outliers within sequences and m

This paper investigates the spillover effects of siblings growing up with a brother or sister diagnosed with a chronic disease. I focus on the effect of having a sibling diagnosed with low birth weight on outcomes measuring educational attainment and achievement. The empirical analysis draws on data from the ’NLSY79 Child and Youth Survey’ and I find evidence of a significant negative effect on th

The goal of this thesis project was to develop an energy surveillance system for the Swedish production industry. The main problem this project sought to solve is that several Swedish industries are currently only able to measure the energy consumption of their entire facilities, as one big black box. They cannot determine the energy consumption of the individual machines within each and every pro

Sex chromosomes are chromosomes that carry vital sex-determining genes. Different sex determination systems and sex chromosomes have evolved from autosomes independently in different taxa; nevertheless, they share strikingly similar characteristics. Sex chromosomes undergo somewhat unique evolutionary processes due to paucity in recombination and transmission through only one of the sexes. As a re

Use of wholegrain foods has shown importance in terms of prevention of obesity and related comorbidities. Positive metabolic effects of wholegrain barley have been investigated with this regard. In the same line of research, this study aims to investigate the effects of barley kernel bread on glucose regulation, appetite and colonic fermentation in middle aged subjects. A randomized control trial

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a devastating neurodegenerative disease with neither a known cause nor an available cure. With disease progression, toxic protein aggregates form in the brain, leading to the loss of the upper and lower motor neurons. While circulating bone marrow-derived inflammatory cells have not been shown to cross the blood brain barrier, changes in their number and comp

A proteomic approach to study the molecular processes of a novel putative zinc binding protein in erythropoiesis We have around 6 liters of blood in our body: each of them contain around 6 billion red blood cells, which travel around the 96.000km of blood vessels of our body. Blood contains many different types of cells, which play key roles for us. For example, Red Blood Cells (RBCs) are the on

Bakteriers kidnappning av mänskligt protein för att ta sig igenom vävnad För att sår och vävnadsskador ska läka behöver kroppen kunna bryta ner gammal vävnad för att göra plats åt nya celler, en process som även är viktig för barns bentillväxt. Detta komplexa system styrs av en typ av proteiner som är strikt reglerade men obalans i regleringen kan leda till cancer samt andra sjukdomar som hjärt-

Brain Inflammation in Alzheimer’s disease Nowadays, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the main cause of dementia worldwide but still is not well understood how is the disease developed. However, there are few known factors that are important in the progression of the disease. In the last decade, the role of the inflammatory cells has been clearly link to the pathology. Hence, the aim of our project is

Aims/hypothesis The aims of this project was to investigate the effect of glucolipotoxic treatment on DNA methylation and gene expression patterns in pancreatic islets and functionally test if and how these changes alter insulin secretion. Methods Genome-wide mRNA expression and DNA methylation patterns were analyzed in human pancreatic islets after control or glucolipotoxic treatment. Alterations

Hur kan cellers försvarsmekanismer hjälpa oss förstå Parkinsons sjukdom? Parkinsons sjukdom är den andra mest vanliga neurodegenerativa sjukdomen i världen, och under sjukdomens gång dör allt fler hjärnceller vilket leder till svårigheter för hjärnan. När fler och fler celler försvinner, får hjärnan problem att kontrollera de signaler som den skickar ut till kroppen, vilket leder till symptom somParkinson’s disease (PD) is a movement disorder of the brain which is hallmarked by the presence of large protein-rich cytoplasmic aggregates, called Lewy bodies (LBs), in the neurons. The protein α-synuclein (α-syn) is abundant in these aggregates, and can itself form aggregates. Several mutations linked to α-syn are also linked to an increased risk of contracting PD. In healthy neurons, the chap

The question of whether the choice of performance measure (PM) matters when evaluating Hedge funds has for a long time been subject to debate . This study explores the same question with a sample of individual monthly data from 669 Hedge Funds over a 10 year period. The standard rank correlation tests usually applied when studying the topic yield weaker correlations between the PM:s in our study t

This thesis sets out to evaluate a risk-managed momentum strategy in the European stock market. The recent performance of momentum in Europe is first evaluated. A momentum premium still exists in Europe but the strategy suffered large losses in 2009. A risk-managed momentum portfolio is created by dynamically scaling the exposure to momentum based on a monthly volatility forecast. The risk-managed

p33 as a potential novel therapeutic target in inflammatory diseases Inflammation is a condition usually triggered by infection of invading pathogens such as bacteria or viruses in the body. This invasion is quickly recognized by specific receptors localized on the membrane of cells, ready to sense these so called “danger” signals or foreign material. These receptors are part of the innate immuni

This study utilizes Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to gain an in-depth understanding of transgender individuals’ transition experiences and thoughts regarding the diagnostic classification of Gender Dysphoria issued by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and Transsexualism issued by the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). The study focused up