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OBJECTIVE:: To compare the rates of abdominal surgery during pregnancy among women with previous bariatric surgery (women in the case group) and women with first-trimester body mass index (BMI) greater than 35 and no previous bariatric surgery (women in the control group). METHODS:: We conducted a national cohort study, merging data from the Swedish Medical Birth Registry and the Swedish National
Semiconductor nanowires show a great deal of promise for applications in a widerange of important fields, including photovoltaics, biomedicine, and informationtechnology. Developing these exciting applications is strongly dependent onunderstanding the fundamental properties of nanowires, such as their opticalresonances and absorption spectra. In this thesis we explore optical absorption spectra of
Gallium nitride based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are presently fundamentally transforming the lighting industry, but limitations in the materials and fabrication methods of LEDs introduce substantial challenges to their future development. Among the remaining key bottlenecks of GaN LEDs are the resistive losses and current crowding that strongly increase the heat generation at high powers. In th
The present study aims at exploring the influence of voice quality on listening effort in children performing a language comprehension test with sentences of increasing difficulty. Listening effort is explored in relation to gender ( = cisgender). The study has a between-groups design. Ninety-three mainstreamed children aged 8;2 to 9;3 with typical language development participated. The children w
Purpose: A gold standard for evaluation of aesthetic outcome after breast-conserving therapy (BCT) is still lacking. The BCCT.core software has been developed to assess aesthetic result in a standardised way. We aimed to study how the result of BCCT.core after BCT is associated with quality of life, measured with the BREAST-Q™, a validated questionnaire. Methods: Women eligible for BCT were consec
Background: To investigate the risk of first-time acute coronary syndrome (ACS), stroke and venous thromboembolism (VTE) in patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS), psoriatic arthritis (PsA) and undifferentiated spondyloarthritis (uSpA), compared to each other and to the general population (GP). Methods: This is a prospective nationwide cohort study. Cohorts with AS (n = 6448), PsA (n = 16,063)
Improving our understanding of biological motors, both to fully comprehend their activities in vital processes, and to exploit their impressive abilities for use in bionanotechnology, is highly desirable. One means of understanding these systems is through the production of synthetic molecular motors. We demonstrate the use of orthogonal coiled-coil dimers (including both parallel and antiparallel
The mechanical and electrical response of acoustophoretic microfluidic devices attached to an ac-voltage-driven piezoelectric transducer is studied by means of numerical simulations. The governing equations are formulated in a variational framework that, introducing Lagrangian and Hamiltonian densities, is used to derive the weak form for the finite-element discretization of the equations and to c
Purpose: We describe the frequency and variations in bullying among a representative national sample of school-age children and examine whether sociodemographic characteristics are associated with bullying. Design and Methods: This study is based on a cross-sectional school-based survey-the Icelandic contribution to the international research network Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC)
Optical mapping (OM) has been used in microbiology for the past 20 years, initially as a technique to facilitate DNA sequence-based studies; however, with decreases in DNA sequencing costs and increases in sequence output from automated sequencing platforms, OM has grown into an important auxiliary tool for genome assembly and comparison. Currently, there are a number of new and exciting applicati
Precarious employment has been associated with poor mental health. Moreover, increasing labour market precariousness may cause individuals to feel ‘locked-in’, in non-desired workplaces or occupations, out of fear of not finding a new employment. This could be experienced as a ‘loss of control’, with similar negative health consequences. It is plausible that the extent to which being in a non-desi
Purpose: In response to the need for hearing aids in low-income countries, an approach to provide hearing aids through trained community workers was developed. This study compares the effectiveness of the community-based approach with that of a centre-based approach. Methods: One hundred and forty adolescents (56% girls; 12–18 years; mean: 15 years) from eleven sub-districts participated in a clus
Zn-Sb compounds (e.g., ZnSb, β-Zn13Sb10) are known to have intriguing thermoelectric properties, but studies of the Zn3Sb2 composition are largely absent. In this work, α-Zn3Sb2 was synthesized and studied via temperature-dependent synchrotron powder diffraction. The α-Zn3Sb2 phase undergoes a phase transformation to the β form at 425 °C, which is stable until melting at 590 °C. Rapid quenching wa
The impact of different drying techniques and storage conditions on the formation of carboxymethyl lysine (CML) as an advanced glycation end product (AGE) was investigated in various pilot-scale produced skim milk powders (SMP). CML, an indicator of advanced stages of the Maillard reaction, was analyzed by isotope dilution ESI-LC-MS/MS after drying and at intervals during storage for 200 days. The
Graphitic nitrogen-doped graphene is an excellent platform to study scattering processes of massless Dirac Fermions by charged impurities, in which high mobility can be preserved due to the absence of lattice defects through direct substitution of carbon atoms in the graphene lattice by nitrogen atoms. In this work, we report on electrical and magnetotransport measurements of high-quality graphiti
Geometrically designed III-V nanowire arrays are promising candidates for disruptive optoelectronics due to the possibility of obtaining a strongly enhanced absorption resulting from nanophotonic resonance effects. With normally incident light on such vertical nanowire arrays, the absorption spectra exhibit peaks that originate from excitation of HE1m waveguide modes in the constituent nanowires.
Background Tumour suppressor genes when mutated in the germline cause various cancers, but they can also be somatically mutated in sporadic tumours. We hypothesized that there may also be cancer-related germline variants in the genes commonly mutated in sporadic well-differentiated thyroid cancer (WDTC). Methods We performed a two-stage case-control association study with a total of 2214 cases and
Background: The glomerular filtration rate (GFR) is the most important measure of kidney function and chronic kidney disease (CKD). This study aims to validate commonly used equations for estimated GFR (eGFR) based on creatinine (cr), cystatin C (cys), β-trace protein (BTP), and β2-microglobulin (B2M) in older adults. Method: We conducted a validation study with 126 participants aged between 72 an
Background: There is a need for a prehospital stroke test that in addition to high sensitivity for stroke, also is able to communicate stroke severity similar to the National Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS). Methods: The PreHospital Ambulance Stroke Test (PreHAST), an eight item test based on NIHSS, which scores stroke severity from 0-19 points, was designed and adapted for the ambulance
