Velopharyngeal insufficiency may affect resonance, articulation and thus how speech is perceived by other listeners. Velopharyngeal insufficiency is frequently found in the cleft palate population due to structural abnormalities of the palate. The pharyngeal flap is the most commonly used operation designed to improve velopharyngeal function. The aim of the present study was to compare speech before and after pharyngeal flap surgery by perceptual evaluation regarding nasality, articulation and deviant speech. The study includes preoperative and postoperative speech samples of 28 patients who underwent pharyngeal flap surgery at the University Hospital in Linköping between 2002 and 2007.

This master thesis investigates the possibilities of using GPS-information from trains to create a model of a railway system, register the routes of the the trains and predict how the trains will travel in the railway system.The thesis work was done at Icomera AB which is a company that specializes in internet connected vehicle solutions.We describe how the GPS-information is sent from the trains in the form of samples and investigate limitations and possibilities with the available information. About three million samples from 83 SJ-trains were analysed and the samples were filtered with the intent of removing erroneous information. We here found that about 30 % of the samples from the trains were unreliable.A solution for how the samples from the trains can be used to create a model of the railway system traveled by the trains is presented. We use a large set of historical samples and use cluster nodes and Hermite curves to generate a graph that represent the railway system with stations, nodes and the railway itself. A fully automatic solution is not presented since it did not fit into the time frame of the thesis; instead we created a simple tool which can be used to manually finish the model of the railway system.Furthermore, we describe how the railway system and the samples from the train can be used to register the routes the trains travel.

ABSTRACT: Commercial swab transport systems are used for collection and transporting of fecal and other microbiological samples. This system must maintain viability and contribute to survival of microorganisms during transport to the laboratory. Four swab transport systems have been compared, eSwab, ?- Transwab and fecalSwab, all three with flocked swabs, and Copan Venturi Transystem with rayon swabs. The study followed the recommendations from the Clinical Laboratory Standard Institute; document M40-A for recovery of Samonella, Shigella, Yersinia and Neisseria gonorrhoeae after storage for 0, 6, 24, 48 and 72 h at room- (22-25°C) and refrigerated (2-8ºC) temperature.

ABSTRACT: Commercial swab transport systems are used for collection and transporting of fecal and other microbiological samples. This system must maintain viability and contribute to survival of microorganisms during transport to the laboratory. Four swab transport systems have been compared, eSwab, ?- Transwab and fecalSwab, all three with flocked swabs, and Copan Venturi Transystem with rayon swabs. The study followed the recommendations from the Clinical Laboratory Standard Institute; document M40-A for recovery of Samonella, Shigella, Yersinia and Neisseria gonorrhoeae after storage for 0, 6, 24, 48 and 72 h at room- (22-25°C) and refrigerated (2-8ºC) temperature.

ABSTRACTIntroduction: Preoperative hand disinfection aims to prevent surgical site infections. After the preparing hand wash, drying is performed using an aseptic technique. It?s important to dry hands thoroughly in order to achieve the full effect of the alcohol based hand disinfection. Due to the lack of a evidence-based guideline on this procedure, the hand drying techniques differ among operating theatre nurses, depending on which technique seen as the most appropriate.

Today the milk production per cow is increasing but the milk delivered by the Swedish farmer contains less amounts of fat and protein than earlier. The contents have decreased since 1993. In average the milk contain 4,2 percent fat and 3,4 percent protein. Earlier the fat content in milk was important. Nowadays the dairy?s attention has turned to the milk?s valuable proteins, principally the caseins, which have a considerable nutritional value and are important for several dairy products like cheese and yoghurt.

In 2003 the recommended phosphorus allowance for dairy cows in Sweden was lowered approximately 10 %. For a cow at a production level of 35 kg ECM it decreased from 0,40 to 0,36 % of dry matter. To investigate if the decrease has been implemented at farm level, analysis of following minerals; P, Ca, Mg, K, Na, S, Se, Cu, Mn and Zn was performed on the TMR at 20 farms in Sweden in the summer of 2004. The purpose was to describe the actual allowance of different minerals as compared to the new recommendations. One hypothesis was that the decrease in recommended allowance of phosphorus would lead to the need of new mineral feeds on the market.

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the non steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) meloxicam in connection with dehorning of goat kids. Six 2-3,5 weeks old dehorned kids were given daily intramuscular injections of meloxicam (0,5 mg/kg; MG) and five age-matched dehorned kids were given isotonic NaCl (NG) for 3 days. The study was randomized and double blinded. The behavior of the kids was studied one day before dehorning, on the dehorning day and three days after. Blood samples were collected each day before the treatment and analyzed for plasma concentrations of meloxicam, hematocrit, cortisol, progesterone and glucose.

Bull terrier hereditary nephritis is caused by a mutation that leads to an inadequate synthesis of collagen type IV, which is an important component in the basement membranes. The inheritance of the mutation is autosomal dominant in bull terriers and progression to renal failure takes variable time, from several months to ten years. Proteinuria is the first clinical sign of the disease and the diagnosis is confirmed by transmission electron microscopy of renal tissue where typical ultrastructural changes in the glomerular basement membrane (GBM), thickening and multilaminar splitting are found. This study was performed in order to find out the occurrence of hereditary nephritis in bull terriers in Sweden through examination of urine samples and renal tissue and comparisons with how the disease is described in the literature. Urine samples from 76 Swedish bull terriers were collected and examined for proteinuria.

The aim of the project was to study the effect of oral administration of glucose and leucin on the resynthesis of muscle glycogen after intense exercise in Standardbred trotters. In a crossover design, 11 Standardbred trotters performed a standardized exercise test on two occasions in order to deplete muscle glycogen. The exercise test comprised a warm up period, 7 repeated bouts of exercise on an uphill 500 m slope, and a recovery period. After the exercise test horses received: 1) a solution of glucose and leucine via a nasogastric tube at 0 minutes and at 240 minutes post exercise and a single bout of glucose at 120 minutes post exercise or 2) water (placebo) at 0, 120 and 240 minutes. Blood samples for measurement of glucose and insulin concentrations were collected at rest, when the horses returned to the stables directly after exercise and throughout the 6 hour recovery phase. During the first recovery hour, samples were collected every 15 minutes and then every 30 minutes over the next 5 hours.

Objective: To determine the frequency of antimicrobial resistance in bacteria from healthy Swedish dogs and whether they are carriers of methicillinresistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Material: Samples from skin from the perineal region and from faeces collected in the anus with cottonswab (Copan) from 299 healthy Swedish dogs. Samples were collected at dog exhibitions. Method: Specimens were submitted for bacterial culture where bacteria (Escherichia coli, enterococci and staphylococci) were isolated and identified by current methods. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed with a microdilution method where MIC-values were determined. Staphylococci with high degree of resistance were tested for presence of mecA-gene by PCR.

Bronchiolitis is a common performance decreasing disease in horses (Bracher et al, 1991¸Dixon et al, 1995) Its medical treatment includes inhalation therapy with corticosteroids and b2-adrenoceptorer stimulators. Use of both these medicines is prohibited for sport horses and athletes. Because the facemasks used for inhalation therapy are not airtight, there is a risk for leakage of these medicines. We wanted to see if cross exposure of nearby horses can result during normal recommended treatment of a horse, and assess if this could result in doping positive urine sample from the person treating the horse and from horses in the same airspace. We did a pilot study with four healthy horses. The experiment was divided into four parts.

When implementing syncronous filters with global clock nets, a substantial amount of energy is consumed in the clock net. Hence, it is interesting to reduce the size of the clock net, which in turn will reduce the total energy consumption. One way to acheive this, is to create a SIC (Structured Interfacing of Computational elements) since such a structure can be created without a global clock net. Our results show that a fifth order wavedigital filter with a sample rate of at least 10M samples/sec may be achieved.

Brominated flame retardants (BFRs) has for many years been used in products to reduce their flammability, mainly in electronic products, textiles and construction materials. In 2003, Sweden imported 300 tons of brominated flame retardants. Leakage of these compounds has polluted natural environments. Fishes has shown increased contents of these substances, especially fat fish, since brominated flame retardants tends to accumulate in fatty tissues. They are also regarded as persistent and that gives them the ability to travel long distances. What also is really scary is that increased levels of brominated flame retardants have been detected in human breast milk. The knowledge of the brominated flame retardants is limited and not so much research has been done in this field. There are many reasons though, to keep the research going. Partly their structural resemblance to well-known toxics as PCB, but also their ability to accumulate in biological systems and enrich in food chains. In which way they affect humans we really don?t know yet.

The concentration and storage of organic chlorine and chloride were determined in soil, to a depth of 40 cm, in a coniferous forest in the Stubbetorp catchment area in south-east Sweden. Also, the spatial distribution of the two forms of chlorine was determined. Soil samples were collected at 49 of the nodes in a grid with approximately 105 m between the nodes. The analysis of spatial variability suggested that no spatial autocorrelation was present either within the variable organic chlorine or chloride. This means that no sample was more influenced by another nearby sample, as compared to other samples further away.