Crypreservation of oocytes is recently being considered to be a valid choice in infertility treatments.Low survival and fertilization rates due to inefficient slow freeze protocols have been the outcome ofmany previous studies done in the field. However, introduction of the vitrification technique and itsapplication in reproductive medicine and to some extent new improved slow freeze protocols haveshown that oocytes can be cryopreserved with successful outcome.In this project the survival rate of oocytes after vitrification with MediCult Vitrification andWarming Media has been studied. Also, a comparison of the carriers Cryoloop (an open system) andCryopette (a closed system) has been performed.A total of 43 oocytes were vitrified and warmed according to MediCult's protocol, of which 21oocytes with Cryoloop and 22 with Cryopette. The cells were post-thaw incubated in a physiologicalenvironment for 24h. During that time the morphology and viability were observed and noted after 2h,over night and after 24h.

Platelets are important for the healing of damaged blood vessels since they have an importantpart to play in the coagulation process. At the same time, the blood must be kept fluid and notcoagulate at the wrong time. Therefore there are factors that effect the aggregation of plateletsin a positive or a negative way.Previous investigations have shown that platelets during stirring conditions produce reactiveoxygen species (ROS) that weaken the inhibiting effect of nitric oxides (NO) on platelets andthat the drug Dexamethasone (Dex) can reduce the ROS-production.The aim of this project was to investigate if glucocorticoids, in this case Dexamethasone,could restore the inhibiting effect of NO on platelets and if there was any decrease in ROS-production.The result of the ROS-measurements showed a great variance and it was difficult to draw anyconclusions from them, but a clear decrease in ROS, as previous reported, was not shown. In the aggregation experiments the inhibiting effect of NO was observed through the drug S-nitroso-N-acetylpenicillamine (SNAP), a NO-donator.From the aggregation experiments, the result seemed to be that SNAP during longerincubation time lost its inhibiting effect, probably because the cells become desensitized.With superoxid dismutase (SOD), the effect of SNAP increased, both in the experiment withlonger and shorter incubation times. Dex seemed to reinforce the aggregation in relation toboth SOD and SNAP.

Brämhults Juice AB is one of Sweden?s leading producers of fresh fruit juices and drinks. The fruit drinks last 3 days once opened and when stored in a refrigerator kept at 7°C. Since factors that shorten the drinks? best before date are usually not noticed until the entire batch has expired, it would be advantageous to find a way to accelerate the drinks? natural deterioration, so that an unusal short best before date is noticed before more products are shipped off to the stores.

A renewed application for environmental permit for the Hovgården landfill in Uppsala shall be submitted before December 2004, therefore the municipality of Uppsala needs improved knowledge of the contents, mostly organic compounds in the leachate and they also want to find a method to minimize the emissions of these compounds. The purpose of this study was to find a practical and economical method based on chemical oxidation using oxidants. The oxidants investigated are Fenton's reagent, hydrogen peroxide, Oxypro, potassium permanganate and potassium persulfate. The study was made on untreated leachate and leachate that has been treated in an aerated dam followed by sedimentation dams collected from the Hovgården landfill, and alson on sludge water from sludge storage cells. The effects of the five oxidants have been established by analysing the UV absorbance at the wavelengths 253,7 nm and 260,0 nm at different pH values. The UV absorbance was used to indicate the amount of aromatic hydrocarbons in the water. Also analyses of iron and manganese were done after the experiments with potassium permanganate, hydrogen peroxide and Fenton's reagent.

Background:Alzheimer's disease is a disease that primarily affects the elderly but also younger people. Alzheimer's disease is a type of dementia which means that you get changes in the cerebral cortex and cells gradually die. The disease causes memory loss and things that were obvious before will be difficult for the sufferer. Alzheimer's disease also affects next of kin to a large degree; they will have to take a great responsibility. The next of kin are entitled to support from healthcare.Aim:The aim was to highlight next of kin' experiences of healthcare to their family members with Alzheimer's disease.Method: The study was based on narratives, which in this case means analysis of autobiographies.

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.

Research in solar energy is taking big steps in both solar heating and solar electricity. It´s not only the technologies alone, but also the combination of both solar electricity and solar heating which is what is called a solar hybrid. The idea of a solar hybrid is that a solar cells efficiency decrease with increased temperature and can with help from a solar collector be cooled and the heat can be utilized. This thesis report compares heat production and electricity production with respect of, in first hand, a solar hybrids geometry in the cooler. The theory chapter describes solar heating and how different solar cell technologies work and their environmental impact at the production and how compatible these technologies are for the solar hybrid.

Brämhults Juice AB is one of Sweden?s leading producers of fresh fruit juices and drinks. The fruit drinks last 3 days once opened and when stored in a refrigerator kept at 7°C. Since factors that shorten the drinks? best before date are usually not noticed until the entire batch has expired, it would be advantageous to find a way to accelerate the drinks? natural deterioration, so that an unusal short best before date is noticed before more products are shipped off to the stores.

The calcium homeostasis in the body is normally strict regulated to be kept within very narrow limits. This regulation is due to the action of parathyroid hormone (PTH) which is synthesized in the chief cells of the parathyroid glands. In different diseases, the calcium homeostasis is disturbed and this could either be due to a dysfunction of the parathyroid gland itself, or it could have a completely different explanation. To investigate disturbed calciumhomeostasis, ionized calcium and PTH can be analyzed from a blood sample. There are a lot of different assays to measure PTH in humans.

The high level of energy consumption that the industrialised countries have reached and thepollution that this brings has long been a cause for analysis and debate, development and usageof so called renewable energy sources is therefore more important than ever. The energy in theelectromagnetic radiation from the sun is an interesting alternative. One way of harvesting thisenergy is by using solar cells, devices that generate DC current when exposed to electromagneticradiation.The goal of this master?s thesis was to design a solar powered power supply to Syntronic AB?sMidrange platform. The envisioned application is a stand-alone distributed embedded system,for example a node-based temperature monitoring system.

The E-department at GETRAG All Wheel Drive in Köping have problems with the efficiency on parts of their production equipment. The equipment with the most significant efficiency problems are four automated multifunctional production cells that produces housing for rear drive units. The major part of the problem is the large amount of small stops that causes the low efficiency.The department already worked with logging of interruptions and efficiency calculations before this project started. However this work was not done to the extent considered necessary for a systematic follow-up of the interruptions.The aim of this paper is to point out a more effective and systematic way to work with logging of interruptions and the follow-up. In addition the equipment were studied with a method for efficiency calculation that ? if used properly- is a more powerful and a visually better method than the one used by the company today.As the initial current state analysis of the equipment was made a lack of documented knowledge about the equipment was discovered.

Hematology-instruments that analyze blood cells can at specific cases be followed by manual counting with a hemocytometer. The plastic hemocytometer which has a fixed coverslip and is assigned for disposable use, appears to reduce the problems arising from the use of the traditional glass hemocytometer, for instance coverslip-application difficulty and dust particles. Capillary whole blood sampling may be useful for patients at the emergency department and in addition, a smaller volume of blood is taken compared to venous blood sampling. This study will focus on the platelet- and leukocyte count (PLT and WBC) in venous and capillary blood, in order to compare the plastic- and glass hemocytometers with Sysmex XN-2000 (Sysmex Corporation, Kobe, Japan), and verify if capillary whole blood sampling can be used for the measurement of these hematological parameters. 30 subjects donated both capillary- and venous blood samples and these blood samples were analyzed with glass- and plastic hemocytometers with Sysmex XN-2000 as the reference method.

The main interest of this study was to investigate whether there is hyperglycemia or hypoglycemia in cows suffering from abomasal displacement and to evaluate the effect of transport on blood glucose. Thirty-six cows with left- or right-sided abomasal displacement were included in the study together with 17 cows with other diseases for comparison. Fifteen cows with abomasal displacement and 7 cows with other diseases were sampled before transport. One third of the cows with abomasal displacement had hyperglycemia when the transport effects were corrected for. Separating this group in left- and right-sided abomasal displacement we found significantly higher blood glucose and insulin levels among cows with right-sided abomasal displacement. An explanation for this difference may be a strong stress response secondary to the right-sided dislocation.

This essay includes the planning and designing of a house as well as writing a rapport about howto increase fire safety in small buildings.More than 6000 homes burn in Sweden every year (Brandskyddsföreningen, 2012c). Thedevastation and the costs are usually very high. This report examines possible measures to reduceboth personal injuries and economic losses resulting from house fires in small buildings.Swedishbuilding regulationsplay a major role when it comes to constructional fire safety. However therequirements inSwedish building regulations are very low for small buildings and this is anargument for raising the requirements.The report shows and describes possible methods to build safer with regards to fire in terms ofmaterials and different building structures. Major focus has been on fire cells but other solutionsare also examined and described.

The purpose of this essay was to review the literature and describe the patophysiology, diagnosis, microscopic and macroscopic appearance of aortic body tumors in dogs. The tumors originate from the chemoreceptor organs situated at the base of the heart. The chemoreceptor organs are neuroendocrine cells responsible for surveillance of changes in e.g. the blood pH. Aortic body tumors are rare and represent 7 % of the total cases of primary cardiac tumors in canines.