Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease, where joints are attacked by the own immune system, leading to chronic inflammation and destruction of bone and cartilage. Inflammation is a complex process, controlled by many different substances. One of them is adenosine, which has anti-inflammatory properties. In this project, three polymorphisms in different genes, involved in synthesis and signaling of adenosine, were genotyped for 188 patients with RA and 362 controls without RA. The results shows that for the polymorphism in A2a, a gene coding for an adenosine receptor, there was no significant difference in genotype distribution between the groups.

Erythropoiesis is a complex and carefully controlled process which is mainly regulated by erythropoietin. Using flow cytometry cells in a blood sample can be analyzed one by one. ADVIA 2120 using flow cytometry for analysis of red blood cells (RBC) and reticulocytes. Red blood cell distribution width (RDW) is a component of the RBC method. RDW indicates size variation on erythrocytes and is measured as a percentage of the mean cell volume (MCV). By measuring the RDW anemia can be divided into makrocytic, microcytic or normocytic. Reticulocytes refract light more strongly than red blood cells because they contain some cellular debris. The number of reticulocytes in the peripheral blood reflects erythropoiesis in the bone marrow. The purpose of this project was that by approved methods to establish reference ranges for the parameters, RDW and reticulocyte counts.The individuals who participated in the study, n=124, were considered healthy and had varying ethnicity. Reference subjects had not donated blood the last six months and participation in the study was voluntary.The statistic evaluation includes examination of distribution, and reference ranges for both men and women were established using the 2.5:t and 97.5:t percentiles. The calculated reference interval for RDW was between 12.0 ? 14.3% and the calculated reference interval for reticulocytes was between 38.0 ? 112.8 x109 cells/L. The results showed a significant difference between males and females for the parameter reticulocytes was seen. The difference indicates that different reference ranges should be established for men and women (p<0,0001). No significant difference between males and females were seen for RDW (p=0,74) indicating that the same reference ranges can be used for both men and women. .

School can be an effective environment for achieving a more equal health among children and adolescents, since many individuals can be reached by the health promoting work in the school. In the year of 2000 a project in Skåne was started for the development of health promoting schools. The health promoting projects however, have shown to be of short duration. So, as an alternative, the integration of the health in school ought to be tried. The aim of this study is to give examples how health promoting schools can strengthen their profile.

Humanity?s increasing consumption has resulted in an increasing use of resources and thus an increasing environmental impact. Hence, the environment has become an important political issue. The increasing demands from stakeholders on companies to "green" their products and work internally with environmental issues makes it more and more important for enterprises to address these issues. Small enterprises constitute the majority of all enterprises and therefore they have a significant impact on environmental problems.

Föreningsidrotten är en stor del av det svenska samhället och kan vara en plats som främjar en ömsesidig integration mellan svenskfödda och nyligt invandrade. Samtidigt som idrottsvärlden kan vara en plats för god gemenskap kan det även vara en plats för utslagning och exkludering. Syftet med studien har två delar. Första delen handlar om att undersöka varför och hur idrottsföreningar i Umeå agerar gällande inkludering av medlemmar generellt. Därefter syftar studien till att analysera dessa idrottsföreningars förhållningssätt och agerande i förhållande till gruppen nyligt invandrade specifikt.

This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between perceived popularity, social information processing and working memory. With the intentions of examining popularity 209 (98 female, 111 male) children in second and fourth grade were presented with a roster of their classmates and were to nominate whom they liked and whom they disliked. To study working memory capacity a working memory test, that places demands on the participant to work both with and store the given information, was used. To examine children's cognitive processing of empathy-provoking information a cognitive appraisal interview was conducted. The results imply (a) that working memory increases with age, (b) that there is a weak relation between working memory capacity and popularity, and between popularity and cognitive processing styles and (c) that there are some strong correlations between working memory and cognitive processing styles..

The purpose of this study was to investigate different relations between the damages of falls and background variables as well as the relation between the falls and the weather condition to later be able to use this report to expand the knowledge among workers at VTI about the pedestrian fall injuries. All of the fall injuries in the data that this study is based on have occurred in Sweden during the time period between January 2003 and December 2011.To be able to answer the questions that this report is based on several statistical methods are used. The statistical methods that have been used during the making of this report are multiple linear regression, binary logistic regression, correlation analysis, association analysis and descriptive statistics as well as visual analysis.The results of the study show that women around menopause age have a tendency to get a big increase in the amount of injuries compared to men of the same age. The study also suggests that men on average tend to have a lower level of injury compared to women.Age also seems to affect both the amount of injuries and the level of injury negatively. The study suggests that the most likely reason for this is both that the intake of ?Fall Risk Increasing Medicine?, which is medicine that increases the drowsiness, is higher among older individuals as well as lower estrogen levels among older women and lower amount of testosterone among older men, which causes a loss of bone density in both sexes.The weather seems to have a strong effect on how many injuries occur but also a noticeable effect on the scale of the injury.

Osteoporos är en sjukdom som under de senaste decennierna ökat. I Sverige inträffar det cirka 70 000 osteoporosrelaterade benbrott varje år. Den största gruppen som drabbas är kvinnor efter menopaus. Syftet var att belysa faktorer som är av betydelse för prevention av osteoporos och osteoporosrelaterade frakturer hos postmenopausala kvinnor. Metoden var en systematisk litteraturstudie bestående av 10 vetenskapliga artiklar varav 9 baserade på kvantitativ och en på kvalitativ forskning.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate how the crisis communication was perceived between SAS, massmedia and citizens during the volcano crisis in 2010. The questions posed are: - How did the communication between SAS, media and citizens function during the crisis? - How did senders, intermediaries and beneficiaries experience the information and communication during the crisis? - How important was the internet communication for SAS, media and citizens during the crisis?The collected material consists of interviews and desktop research of material from Internet.The study shows that the communication between SAS, the media and citizens worked well on the social medias but was weaker in all other mediachannels. SAS was also weak in following up information received by media and travelers, and they therefore they had a different picture of the situation during the crisis. SAS thought that the communication worked fine between the parties involved.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate how the crisis communication was perceived between SAS, massmedia and citizens during the volcano crisis in 2010. The questions posed are: - How did the communication between SAS, media and citizens function during the crisis? - How did senders, intermediaries and beneficiaries experience the information and communication during the crisis? - How important was the internet communication for SAS, media and citizens during the crisis?The collected material consists of interviews and desktop research of material from Internet.The study shows that the communication between SAS, the media and citizens worked well on the social medias but was weaker in all other mediachannels. SAS was also weak in following up information received by media and travelers, and they therefore they had a different picture of the situation during the crisis. SAS thought that the communication worked fine between the parties involved.

School can be an effective environment for achieving a more equal health among children and adolescents, since many individuals can be reached by the health promoting work in the school. In the year of 2000 a project in Skåne was started for the development of health promoting schools. The health promoting projects however, have shown to be of short duration. So, as an alternative, the integration of the health in school ought to be tried. The aim of this study is to give examples how health promoting schools can strengthen their profile.

This is an empirical cross-sectional study with the aim to examine the patient?s comprehension about their quality of life within two to seven years after their stem-cell transplantation with reference to physical, social, emotional, psychological and functional wellbeing and to investigate if the patient groups have disease specific problems. Differences in quality of life between men and women and also between allogeneic and stem cell transplantation with an unrelated donor (URD) were studied. The measurement Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy (FACT) and the bone marrow transplant subscale (BMT) is a 49 item, valid and reliable measure that was used. The questionnaire was answered by 43 of 47 patients (91%).There is a significant difference between men and women in physical, social and functional wellbeing.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate how the crisis communication was perceived between SAS, massmedia and citizens during the volcano crisis in 2010. The questions posed are: - How did the communication between SAS, media and citizens function during the crisis? - How did senders, intermediaries and beneficiaries experience the information and communication during the crisis? - How important was the internet communication for SAS, media and citizens during the crisis?The collected material consists of interviews and desktop research of material from Internet.The study shows that the communication between SAS, the media and citizens worked well on the social medias but was weaker in all other mediachannels. SAS was also weak in following up information received by media and travelers, and they therefore they had a different picture of the situation during the crisis. SAS thought that the communication worked fine between the parties involved.

This thesis analyses how romanies look upon schooling and how they reflect upon the possibility of getting an education. Many inquiries relating to romanies have been published in Sweden but very few are based on fieldwork among romanies. The aim of this thesis is therefore to through fieldwork focus on how romanies themselves look upon their educational situation.The main questions for this study are: How is the image of romanies as a problem constructed in school? How are romanies separated from other students? How is the interplay between romanies and school representatives formed? How do romanies look upon the possibility of getting an education and does their perception differ from the usual official apprehension?An important conclusion concerns how social workers and teachers continuously categorize romanies as different. The group is constantly differentiated from other ethnic groups and is often the target of integration projects.

Background: Nursing staff use touch on a daily basis, often without reflecting over it. It is not only the touch itself that emerges, everyday nursing staff get involved in the meeting with patients. The use of touch can be divided in to different kinds of touch, due to its purpose these are instrumental- and expressive touch. Purpose: The purpose with the study was to illustrate what physical touch means for the meeting between patient and caregiver. Method: A literature review has been done, based on ten scientific articles and by these four domains emerged.