Flowcytometric technology has been widely used for measurement of the absolute numbers of T-lymphocytes subsets in Human Immunodeficiency virus (HIV), defining the disease state, monitoring antiviral treatment, and identifying any risk for opportunistic infections. A manual preparing of the samples is required. More recently an automated and enclosed blood cell counting, Celldyn Sapphire has been introduced. In this study the performance of the Flow cytometer EPICS XL as a reference method for analysis of CD3+, CD4+ and CD8 T-lymphocytes was evaluated with blood from 40 individual?s samples.

The wide distribution range of our boreal pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) provides a great variation in growing conditions and climate/weather factors that influence the wood development of the trees. A great number of extensive studies have been conducted over the years in order to clarify growth trends of this and other species over more or less wide-ranging areas. In this thesis effects of weather factors were instead compared between different forest stands from the about same geographical location. The effects of precipitation, temperature and frost on the year ring characteristics of pine were studied in the research forest of Svartberget Vindeln, in northern Sweden. The stands differed in site index and silvicultural treatment; fertile ? high stem density, fertile ? low stem density, poor ? high stem density and poor ? low stem density.

To make it easier for forestry planning the forest owners needs data which describe characteristics of the forest. Such data you usually get from some type of inventory. A relatively new technology which probably is getting more important in the future, is laser scanning because of lower costs. But because the laser technology is relatively new you need to compare it with conventional inventory technologies to get better understanding of the possibilities the laser technology gives. This work intends to estimate field measured characteristics of the forest from laser data with help of regression analysis and then see which of the field measured properties that best could be estimated and which laser variables that gave the best results. This study shows that heights has the best estimates, but biomass, diameter and volume also gives good estimates.

Hemp has been used for textiles for a long time in history until it became illegal to grow in many countries in the 1930s. It is interesting from an environmental point of view because it doesn?t need any pesticides and in most locations it doesn?t need any irrigation either, compared to cotton, which normally requires big amounts of both pesticides and water for irrigation. Hemp is a bast fiber, which means that the fibers are located on the bast of the stem (on the outer layer of the stem). Therefore they cannot be spun directly, they have to be removed from the stem first.

Vectors based on lentivirus backbones have revolutionized our ability to transfer genesinto many cell types. Lentiviral vectors integrate into the chromatin of target cells and do not transfer any viral genes causing vector replication. Both of these features arecommonly used in gene therapy and have been used clinically in individuals sufferingfrom cancer, infections and genetic diseases. It has been discovered that T-cells can be genetically modified to be used as effective weapons against cancer: therefore virus mustbe produced to deliver the gene of interest into the T-cells. In this project, lentiviralvectors have been produced to transfer the gene coding for a chimeric antigen receptor(CAR) which is directed to CD19 on B-cells.

Milk yield levels in dairy cows are influenced by many factors such as nutrition, breed, health status, management and environment. This study was conducted among small scale farmers in Zambia, where the climate can be dry for up to six months per year and cause a lack of green pasture for livestock and on-farm produced feed. The purpose of this study was to identify management factors that can influence milk yield at small scale dairy farms in Zambia, and present advice that could improve productivity, without the need of expensive investments. The study included semi-structured questionnaires presented to the farmers (n=29) including questions about cattle management and milk production. Testing of somatic cell count (SCC) with DCC (DeLaval Cell Counter) from herd milk samples (n=56) and observation of housing and animal body condition on-farm was also made.

Syftet med den här undersökningen var att beskriva hur anhöriga upplever och hanterar sin livssituation, med fokus på familjen och deras egen hälsa, under den akuta fasen vid allogen stamcellstransplantation. Undersökningen ägde rum på Centrum för Allogen Stamcellstransplantation vid Karolinska Universitetssjukhuset Huddinge. Sju anhöriga till patienter som genomgick en allogen stamcellstransplantation deltog. Metoden som användes var att genom semistrukturerade intervjuer låta anhöriga själva berätta om sin livssituation. Dessa intervjuer analyserades sedan med hjälp av kvalitativ innehållsanalys vilket resulterade i att temat den nuvarande situationen formulerades.

This exploratory thesis uses qualitative research to investigate how digital music is beeing packaged. The main study consists of 11 deep interviews with key representatives of the digital music industry in Sweden. These are (record companies) EMI, SonyBMG, Universal, Warner, (DSP) InProdicon, (mobile operators) 3, TeliaSonera and (cell phone producer) SonyEricsson. Packaging is a concept of marketing that has specific implications depending on which good or service that is being packaged. Packaging occurs at different levels in the production chain.

Profit in first commercial thinnings of today is hard to achieve. This is because of prevailing pulpwood prices and because of high costs of logging and transport. To reduce these costs higher productivity is advocated. One way to increase the productivity is the use of multi-tree handling harvester heads. The aim of this study was to calculate logging and transport costs in first thinnings, where multi-tree handling has been used.

Ethanol produced from lignocellulosic biomass has the potential to become a promisingalternative to gasoline. In this work the simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF)technology was applied for ethanol production from hardwood with focus on cell growth,ethanol production and contamination.The SSF was performed at PH 5.5 and 35°C for different suspended solid concentrations(8%, 10% and 12%) of pretreated birch slurry which contained 16 % total suspended solids.Two different hexose fermenting yeast strain (Ethanol Red) and pentose fermenting yeaststrain were used.Quantifying the concentration of chemical components and metabolites in the fermentationmedium demonstrated that glucose and xylose are the major fermentable sugars in the slurry.The higher load of slurry (12%) represents a higher content of carbohydrates and potentiallyhigher end concentration of ethanol. Moreover, more lactic acid is produced with the lowerload of slurry (8 % or 10 %), presumably due to a result of a less inhibitory environment forbacterial growth. In this context, acetic acid sticks out as the most important inhibitor withconcentrations of 15.2 and 12.5 and 9.7 g/l respectively in the 12 %, 10 % and 8 % (ofsuspended solids) trials. Using pentose fermenting yeast may lead to higher ethanolproduction, lower xylose uptake and lower lactic acid formation.

Determination of serum thymidine kinase 1 (TK-1) activity is used as a tumour marker in both human and veterinary medicine. TK-1 is an intracellular enzyme involved in a salvage pathway of DNA synthesis. The expression of TK-1 is cell cycle dependent and the activity increases markedly after the G1 to S transition in the cell cycle and then declines rapidly in G2. The pronounced proliferative activity in tumour cells result in a higher TK-1 enzyme activity within the cell. The fact that the increased TK-1 activity can be measured in serum makes TK-1 a useful marker in diagnostics of neoplastic diseases and it provides information regarding prognosis and treatment effectiveness. In human medicine a radioactive based test is used to determine the TK-1 serum activity.

In today?s society climate change has grown to one of the largest global issues. To reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, large changes of the energy system are required. An increasingly popular solution is investments in local production of renewable energy resources like wind, solar or geothermal power. The following report examines the possibility for implementing a solar power plant on the new hospital Nya Karolinska Solna. Two different technologies for extraction of solar energy has been studied, solar thermal collectors  to meet the need of heating and solar cells to satisfy the need for electricity linked to operating the hospital building.

Evaporation is a part of the chemical recovery department at wood pulping mills. The purpose of evaporation is to remove water from the black liquor, which makes the liquor combustible. The process is very energy demanding, and having a well-functioning model of the system is of greatest interest. The model can then be used to study energy consumption and to test different control strategies. Two models have been developed during the master thesis.

Storage of biomass is often associated with problems such as heat development, dry matter losses and reduction of fuel quality. The rise in temperature can potentially cause a risk of self-ignition in the fuel storage. Moreover, emissions from storage piles can cause health problems in the surrounding. The dry matter losses and reduction of fuel quality can have economical effects. The aim of this thesis project is to develop guidelines on how to store large amount of biomass at Vattenfalls heat and power plants in an optimal way.

Nötcenter Viken is a Swedish nucleus herd for dairy cattle. The goal for the farm is to select suitable mothers for the next top generation of bulls. Today the selection for udder health is based on a pedigree index and phenotype data. The pedigree index is based on the cow?s father and grandfathers breeding values.