Adeno-associated viral (AAV) vectors have been shown to be potential vectors for the treatment of diseases, including protocols using RNA interference (RNAi). AAV vector production in insect cells using the baculovirus vector expression system has been a major advance in furthering their use. A major limitation of AAV vector production at high cell densities is a reduction in cell specific yield, which is thought to be caused by nutrient limitations. Nutrient consumption profiles after infection, however, have still not been fully characterized, probably due to the difficulty of characterizing consumption patterns based on increases in cell density, which are minimal after infection. It is known, however, that cells increase in size after infection; therefore, the driving hypothesis of this thesis was that biovolume, or the total volume enclosed by the membrane of viable cells, which accounts for both cell density and cell size, could be used to characterize nutrient consumption patterns both before and after infection. The relationships between nutrient consumption and change in cell density and biovolume were examined by statistical correlation analysis. It was found that in uninfected cultures, no significant correlation differences, using either cell density or biovolume, were observed since cell size remained relatively constant; however, in infected cultures, more than half of the nutrients were found to be better correlated with biovolume than with cell density. When examining the nutrient and metabolite concentration data on a biovolume basis, nutrient consumption remained relatively constant. It is hypothesized that since it has been reported that the rate of cell respiration increases after infection, a more complete oxidation of nutrients occurs to satisfy increased energy needs during infection. By having a basis to base nutrient consumption, we can better assess the needs of the culture. This will allow the development of feeding strategies based on cellular requirements instead of supplying the cultures with generic nutrient cocktails. It is expected that different nutrient mixtures can be used to target different goals such as 1) enhancing cell growth (before infection) and 2) improving the production of recombinant products (after infection). This will not only increase the efficiency of AAV vector production, but will also reduce the cost of production and make the process more economical by eliminating the addition of unnecessary nutrients. Although promising, some limitations of using biovolume still exist. A first limitation is the biovolume measure itself. This measure requires a device that measures cell size, such as a Coulter Counter Multisizer (Beckman-Coulter, Miami, FL, USA), which can be expensive. Capacitance probes can be a more cost effective tool to estimate biovolume; however, the availability of capacitance probes is still not common. A second limitation is the interpretation of the biovolume profiles, which can depend strongly on the fraction of cells in culture that are infected. If the culture is infected asynchronously, then there will be many different cell populations in the culture. Future work may require separating the cell size distribution into populations of viable and non-viable cells to get a better biovolume measure as opposed to assuming that viability is well distributed over the entire range of cell sizes. In infected cultures where the viability may be low, it is likely that the cell size distribution of non-viable cells will be concentrated at the lower end of the distribution (smaller diameter) rather than being well distributed over the whole range. If this is the case, for the infected cultures with low viability, the mean cell diameter calculated will be underestimated, which will lead to an overestimation of nutrient consumption for cultures with low viability. This will certainly affect the accuracy of the nutrient consumption profiles. By separating cell size distribution data into different cell populations of viable and nonviable, the accuracy can be improved.

Adeno-associated viral (AAV) vectors have been shown to be potential vectors for the treatment of diseases, including protocols using RNA interference (RNAi). AAV vector production in insect cells using the baculovirus vector expression system has been a major advance in furthering their use. A major limitation of AAV vector production at high cell densities is a reduction in cell specific yield, which is thought to be caused by nutrient limitations. Nutrient consumption profiles after infection, however, have still not been fully characterized, probably due to the difficulty of characterizing consumption patterns based on increases in cell density, which are minimal after infection. It is known, however, that cells increase in size after infection; therefore, the driving hypothesis of this thesis was that biovolume, or the total volume enclosed by the membrane of viable cells, which accounts for both cell density and cell size, could be used to characterize nutrient consumption patterns both before and after infection. The relationships between nutrient consumption and change in cell density and biovolume were examined by statistical correlation analysis. It was found that in uninfected cultures, no significant correlation differences, using either cell density or biovolume, were observed since cell size remained relatively constant; however, in infected cultures, more than half of the nutrients were found to be better correlated with biovolume than with cell density. When examining the nutrient and metabolite concentration data on a biovolume basis, nutrient consumption remained relatively constant. It is hypothesized that since it has been reported that the rate of cell respiration increases after infection, a more complete oxidation of nutrients occurs to satisfy increased energy needs during infection. By having a basis to base nutrient consumption, we can better assess the needs of the culture. This will allow the development of feeding strategies based on cellular requirements instead of supplying the cultures with generic nutrient cocktails. It is expected that different nutrient mixtures can be used to target different goals such as 1) enhancing cell growth (before infection) and 2) improving the production of recombinant products (after infection). This will not only increase the efficiency of AAV vector production, but will also reduce the cost of production and make the process more economical by eliminating the addition of unnecessary nutrients. Although promising, some limitations of using biovolume still exist. A first limitation is the biovolume measure itself. This measure requires a device that measures cell size, such as a Coulter Counter Multisizer (Beckman-Coulter, Miami, FL, USA), which can be expensive. Capacitance probes can be a more cost effective tool to estimate biovolume; however, the availability of capacitance probes is still not common. A second limitation is the interpretation of the biovolume profiles, which can depend strongly on the fraction of cells in culture that are infected. If the culture is infected asynchronously, then there will be many different cell populations in the culture. Future work may require separating the cell size distribution into populations of viable and non-viable cells to get a better biovolume measure as opposed to assuming that viability is well distributed over the entire range of cell sizes. In infected cultures where the viability may be low, it is likely that the cell size distribution of non-viable cells will be concentrated at the lower end of the distribution (smaller diameter) rather than being well distributed over the whole range. If this is the case, for the infected cultures with low viability, the mean cell diameter calculated will be underestimated, which will lead to an overestimation of nutrient consumption for cultures with low viability. This will certainly affect the accuracy of the nutrient consumption profiles. By separating cell size distribution data into different cell populations of viable and nonviable, the accuracy can be improved.

Regelbunden fysisk aktivitet motverkar en rad fysiska och mentala sjukdomar. Hälsovinster av fysisk aktivitet är bland annat en högre funktionell muskulär- och kardiovaskulär kapacitet samt en högre livskvalitet. Stillasittande och inaktivitet kan leda till övervikt, kardiovaskulära sjukdomar, cancer, psykosociala problem och metaboliska sjukdomar. Mellan män och kvinnor finns fysiologiska skillnader som visar sig i kroppsstorlek och muskelmassa. Detta ger generellt sett kvinnor mer flexibel fysik medan män är fysiskt starkare. WHOs rekommendationer om daglig fysisk aktivitet är 150 min/vecka av moderat aerobisk träning eller 75 min mer ansträngande aerobisk träning. Styrketräning som involverar större muskelgrupper rekommenderas i åldrarna 18-64.   Till hjälp att undersöka hypotesen har två oberoende test används. En skriftlig enkät, SF-36v2 Health Survey, samt ett fysiskt test, Functional Movement Screen. I denna studie undersöks huruvida det finns ett samband mellan en ökad träningsmängd och ett högre FMS-resultat samt om en högre ålder ger lägre FMS-resultat, oavsett kön. Vi tror oss även se ett samband mellan högre FMS-poäng och ett högre uppskattat mentalt och fysiskt mående. Testpersonerna (N:30) som deltog i studien var arbetande eller studerande män (N:15) och kvinnor (N:15) i åldrarna 20-65år. FMS-resultaten visade ingen signifikant skillnad mellan kön eller stigande ålder. Däremot ser vi signifikanta skillnader mellan könen vid specifika styrke- eller rörlighetstester i FMS. Kvinnorna visar tydligt via resultaten att de generellt har en mer flexibel fysik medan männen är starkare. Som slutsats av denna studie kan vi konstatera att FMS som testmetod är könsneutralt och kan användas på blandade populationer. Detta ger testmetoden en bred användbarhet på just en blandad population. Fler studier krävs för att få fram normerande poängsättning om FMS skall användas på medelmotionären.

Till grund för denna uppsats ligger datamaterial från LSH-studien -Livsvillkor, Stress och Hälsa, som har genomförts av forskare vid Hälsouniversitetet vid Linköpings universitet. Med studien undersöker forskarna hur människors livsvillkor kan ge upphov till stress och hur stress i sin tur kan påverka hälsan. Datamaterialet är insamlat år 2003, det omfattar tio vårdcentraler runt om i Östergötland och består av drygt 1000 individer i åldern 45-69 år jämnt fördelade över ålder och kön mellan vårdcentralerna. Syftet med denna uppsats är att identifiera och försöka justera variationer i resultaten mellan de tio medverkande vårdcentralerna i LSH-studien. Den statistiska analysen är genomförd i tre steg. I steg ett har ett stort antal variabler valts ut från ursprungsmaterialet. Därefter har skillnader identifierats med Chi2-tester och variansanalys för några av variablerna rörande självskattad hälsa, stress, psykosociala faktorer samt traditionella riskfaktorer för hjärt- och kärlsjukdomar. I steg två har vi med bakgrundsfaktorer försökt justera dessa skillnader. Av de 19 variabler som har analyserats med linjär eller logistisk regression är det fem där bakgrundsfaktorerna förklarar skillnaderna mellan vårdcentralerna. Frapperande är att samtliga fem variabler har med den psykiska hälsan att göra, ingen av variablerna angående fysisk hälsa eller riskfaktorer har justerats. Efter justering för bakgrundsfaktorerna kvarstår skillnader för fyra variabler om psykisk hälsa, dessa är Tillit, Upplevelse av stress, Upplevelse av sömnkvalitet, Psykiskt välbefinnande. Även för samtliga tio riskfaktorer och mätvärden kvarstår skillnader, dessa är Puls, P-LDL-Kolesterol, Systoliskt blodtryck logaritmerad, Systoliskt blodtryck utan uteliggare, Diagnostiserad diabetes, Medicin för blodtryck de senaste två veckorna, Alkohol riskgrupper, Motion totalt, B-Hemoglobin, P-Glukos logaritmerad. Orsaker till dessa skillnader kan vi inte fastställa, men för mätdata kan mätfel vara en tänkbar anledning. I sista steget, steg tre, har vi tagit upp analysen ett plan till vårdcentralsnivå. Genom ekologisk korrelation har vi undersökt samband mellan inkomst och betaskattningar för vårdcentralerna när justeringar har gjorts för bakgrundsfaktorer. För variabeln Tillit har vi funnit ett positivt samband, där högre inkomst i ett område innebär generellt mer tillit. Dock avviker vårdcentralen i Ödeshög där man istället har en hög grad av tillit trots relativt låg inkomst.

The advance of technology brings the flourish and vigor in economy to global market. It also changes the way we do business. Every company is struggle to gain the competitive advantage. Peter Drucker (1999), a management master, points out that in the 21st century, the most valuable assets of an organization are knowledge workers and the productivity of knowledge workers. Last ten years, high-tech industries become the main force in Taiwan. However, there are some attributes under this industry that make employees hard to differentiate between work and life, for example, short period of product life cycle, nonstop product line and so on. The researches from Fassel(1990), Schaef & Fassel(1988) indicate that some companies are workaholics itself. Schneider(1987) thought that people will stay in a company suitable to himself/herself longer due to attraction-selection-attrition theory. Many researches pointed out that workaholics are more involved in work than other workers.(Fassel, 1990; Scott et al., 1997; Spence & Robbins, 1992). Therefore, maximizing the efforts from workaholics is an challenge. In this study, workaholism is defined as an independent variable. Other variables like health, work-family conflict and job performance are as independent variables. Besides, personal attributes and job characteristics are defined as antecedents. This study will take 136 engineers in high-tech industry to examine the effect of workaholism on other dependent variables, like health, work-family conflict and job performance. The findings in this study are as follows: 1. After using factor analysis to examine three dimensions of wokaholism from Spence & Robbins(1992), the result points out that job involvement is an unstable factor, but work enjoyment and driveness are applicable to this study. 2. The hypothesis that there is a significant effect of health on work enjoyment and driveness is partly supported. Driveness is a risk factor related to health because it has a negativ effect on general health, social function and mental health. Besides, work enjoyment has a positive effect to general health, vitality, social function and mental health. 3. The hypothesis that there is a significant effect of work-family conflict on work enjoyment and driveness is supported. Work enjoyment has a negative effect on work-family conflict. However, driveness has a positive effect on work-family conflict. 4. The hypothesis that there is a significant effect of job performance on work enjoyment and driveness is partly supported. Work enjoyment has a positive effect on task and contextual performance. However, driveness has a positive effect on contextual performance. 5. The hypothesis that there are significant differences in work enjoyment and driveness among personal attributes is partly supported. No significant difference was found in work enjoyment among personal attributes. In addition, there is a significant difference for marital status in driveness. The married workers experience a higher level of driveness than unmarried workers. 6. The hypothesis that there is a significant effect of job characteristics in work enjoyment and driveness is partly supported. The result indicates that time control is positively related to work enjoyment. Monitoring demand and product responsibility are positively related to driveness. Method control is negatively related to driveness. 7. After using cluster analysis, three types of workaholics are identified in this study. They are enthusiastic workers, disenchanted workers and relaxed workers.¡@Among three types of workaholics, enthusiastic workers have a better health condition, job performance and a lower level in work-family conflict than other two types of workaholics. Furthermore, enthusiastic workers have a higher level in time control and method control than disenchanted workers.

<p>Till grund för denna uppsats ligger datamaterial från LSH-studien -Livsvillkor, Stress och Hälsa, som har genomförts av forskare vid Hälsouniversitetet vid Linköpings universitet. Med studien undersöker forskarna hur människors livsvillkor kan ge upphov till stress och hur stress i sin tur kan påverka hälsan. Datamaterialet är insamlat år 2003, det omfattar tio vårdcentraler runt om i Östergötland och består av drygt 1000 individer i åldern 45-69 år jämnt fördelade över ålder och kön mellan vårdcentralerna.</p><p>Syftet med denna uppsats är att identifiera och försöka justera variationer i resultaten mellan de tio medverkande vårdcentralerna i LSH-studien. Den statistiska analysen är genomförd i tre steg. I steg ett har ett stort antal variabler valts ut från ursprungsmaterialet. Därefter har skillnader identifierats med Chi2-tester och variansanalys för några av variablerna rörande självskattad hälsa, stress, psykosociala faktorer samt traditionella riskfaktorer för hjärt- och kärlsjukdomar. I steg två har vi med bakgrundsfaktorer försökt justera dessa skillnader. Av de 19 variabler som har analyserats med linjär eller logistisk regression är det fem där bakgrundsfaktorerna förklarar skillnaderna mellan vårdcentralerna. Frapperande är att samtliga fem variabler har med den psykiska hälsan att göra, ingen av variablerna angående fysisk hälsa eller riskfaktorer har justerats.</p><p>Efter justering för bakgrundsfaktorerna kvarstår skillnader för fyra variabler om psykisk hälsa, dessa är Tillit, Upplevelse av stress, Upplevelse av sömnkvalitet, Psykiskt välbefinnande. Även för samtliga tio riskfaktorer och mätvärden kvarstår skillnader, dessa är Puls, P-LDL-Kolesterol, Systoliskt blodtryck logaritmerad, Systoliskt blodtryck utan uteliggare, Diagnostiserad diabetes, Medicin för blodtryck de senaste två veckorna, Alkohol riskgrupper, Motion totalt, B-Hemoglobin, P-Glukos logaritmerad. Orsaker till dessa skillnader kan vi inte fastställa, men för mätdata kan mätfel vara en tänkbar anledning.</p><p>I sista steget, steg tre, har vi tagit upp analysen ett plan till vårdcentralsnivå. Genom ekologisk korrelation har vi undersökt samband mellan inkomst och betaskattningar för vårdcentralerna när justeringar har gjorts för bakgrundsfaktorer. För variabeln Tillit har vi funnit ett positivt samband, där högre inkomst i ett område innebär generellt mer tillit. Dock avviker vårdcentralen i Ödeshög där man istället har en hög grad av tillit trots relativt låg inkomst.</p>

Measurement invariance (MI) is a prerequisite to conduct valid comparisons of Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) measures across distinct populations. This research investigated the performance of estimation methods for testing MI hypotheses in complex survey data using a simulation study, and demonstrates the application of these methods for a HRQOL measure. Four forms of MI were tested using confirmatory factory analysis. The simulation study showed that the maximum likelihood method for small sample size and low intraclass correlation (ICC) performed best, whereas the pseudomaximum likelihood with weights and clustering effects performed better for large sample sizes with high ICC to test configural invariance. Both methods performed similarly to test other forms of MI. In the numeric example, MI of one HRQOL measure in the Canadian Community Health Survey was investigated and established for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal populations with chronic conditions, indicating that they had similar conceptualizations of quality of life.

På de flesta svenska sjukhus har samvård av mor och barn efter förlossning eftersträvats eftersom samvård bland annat främjar amning. I samband med kejsarsnitt och då barnet inte mår väl efter födsel separeras dock ofta mor och barn för en kortare eller längre tid, vilket påverkar amningen negativt. Mödrars tillit till sin förmåga att amma har visat sig ha stor betydelse för om de skall lyckas med amning. Mödrar med låg tillit har en högre risk att sluta amma tidigt än de som har hög tillit. Syftet med studien var att jämföra nyblivna mödrars tillit till sin förmåga att amma då mor och barn vårdas tillsammans respektive vårdas separerade efter förlossning. I studien ingick totalt 60 mödrar från fyra olika sjukhus i västra Sverige, varav hälften samvårdats med sitt barn respektive vårdats separerade. Undersökningen gjordes utifrån en kvantitativ ansats genom enkätundersökning med det validerade mätinstrument BSES-SF. Svarsdatan har analyserats med jämförande och förklarande statistik i form av Mann-Whitney U test samt Chi-Square test. Resultatet visade på att numerisk skillnad fanns. Mödrar som separerats hade en lägre tillit till sin förmåga att amma än mödrar som hade samvårdats med sitt barn. Skillnaden var dock ej signifikant. Studien har för litet urval och eventuella störande variabler har ej kunnat uteslutas för att resultatet skall anses tillförlitligt, men tendensen som framkommit stöds i annan forskning. I diskussionen lyfts även att vid initiala amningssvårigheter kan pedagogiska tillitshöjande interventioner vara av betydelse samt undvikande av mjölkersättning i de fall där medicinsk indikation för detta saknas.

Tumours are characterised by unorganised vasculature, which often results in hypoxic regions. Hypoxia is a common cause for photon radiotherapy (RT) treatment failure, as hypoxic cells require up to 2-3 times higher doses compared to well-oxygenated cells for the same effect in terms of cell kill. The increase in dose that would be required to treat the tumours of cancer patients is limited by the radiation sensitivity of surrounding normal tissues. Using carbon ions instead of photons, the radiation dose can be conformed to the tumour to a much higher degree, resulting in an improved sparing of normal tissues. In addition, carbon ions have a much higher radiobiological effectiveness near the end of their range, which is positioned in the tumour. Also, the radiation modes of action leading to cell death when carbon ions interact with living tissues, are less sensitive to the oxygen status compared with the action modes of photons. The focus of this thesis lies in the development of models for the computation of the cell surviving fraction and tumour control probability (TCP) in hypoxic tumours after photon and carbon ion RT. The impact of fractionation was evaluated with regard to possible spatial changes in oxygenation, both for stereotactic body RT and for carbon ion RT. The feasibility of a method to determine and deliver the optimal photon dose for achieving a high TCP according to spatial variations in radiation sensitivity was evaluated in a treatment planning study. The radiobiological models were finally used for the theoretical quantification of the gain in using carbon ions instead of photons. The results show that there are great possibilities to increase the number of positive outcomes of radiation treatment of tumours if the key influential factors are taken into account, such as level and distribution of hypoxia, radiation quality and choice of fractionation schedule. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defence the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows; Paper 3: Manuscript; Paper 4: Epubl ahead of print; Paper 5: Manuscript</p>

Introduction: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a chronic disease that causes illness and death over the whole world. There are a little available data about COPD patients in Vietnam and how the disease affects their health related quality of life (HRQL). Aim: The aim of this study was to examine HRQL among patients with COPD in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and investigate differences in HRQL between men and women with COPD. Method: This was a descriptive study with a cross-sectional design. The method was quantitative by using a questionnaire. The study was performed at the respiratory department at Cho Ray Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The sampling was made through a consecutive sample. The questionnaire was based on Short Form 36 (SF-36) which is a widely used questionnaire to measure HRQL. The answers from the questionnaires were turned into a scale where 0 represent the lowest possible HRQL and 100 represent the highest possible HRQL. Results: The results showed that patients with COPD have a low HRQL. Mean value for HRQL in the total group of respondents was 22.42.The result also showed that women suffering from COPD have a significant lower HRQL than men concerning total HRQL (P-value= 0.04), general health (P-value= 0.02) and pain (P-value= 0.05). Conclusion: Patients suffering from COPD in Ho Chi Minh City have a low score of HRQL. Better routines and knowledge about the symptoms and caring for these patients are needed. Keywords: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, Health related quality of life, Vietnam, SF-36