Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a metabolic disease characterized by insufficient insulin secretion and insulin resistance. Disturbed beta-cell function is the final culprit that leads to the development of T2D. In addition, impaired incretin effect is likely a part of the pathogenesis of T2D. The aim of this thesis was to study the role of CART in beta-cells and incretin producing L- and K-cells.Endogen

Finding new causes of monogenic diabetes helps understand glycaemic regulation in humans. To find novel genetic causes of maturity-onset diabetes of the young (MODY), we sequenced MODY cases with unknown aetiology and compared variant frequencies to large public databases. From 36 European patients, we identify two probands with novel RFX6 heterozygous nonsense variants. RFX6 protein truncating va

Migratory birds regularly perform impressive long-distance flights, which are timed relative to the anticipated environmental resources at destination areas that can be several thousand kilometres away. Timely migration requires diverse strategies and adaptations that involve an intricate interplay between internal clock mechanisms and environmental conditions across the annual cycle. Here we revi

Chronobiological research has seen a continuous development of novel approaches and techniques to measure rhythmicity at different levels of biological organization from locomotor activity (e.g. migratory restlessness) to physiology (e.g. temperature and hormone rhythms, and relatively recently also in genes, proteins and metabolites). However, the methodological advancements in this field have be

Globally, freshwater ecosystems are warming at unprecedented rates and northern temperate lakes are simultaneously experiencing increased runoff of humic substances (brownification), with little known consequences for future conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. We employed an outdoor mesocosm experiment during spring and summer to investigate the combined effects of gradually in

Simultaneously enhancing ecosystem services provided by biodiversity below and above ground is recommended to reduce dependence on chemical pesticides and mineral fertilisers in agriculture. However, consequences for crop yield have been poorly evaluated. Above ground, increased landscape complexity is assumed to enhance biological pest control, whereas below ground, soil organic carbon is a proxy

We determine the annual timing of spring recovery from spaceborne microwave radiometer observations across northern hemisphere boreal evergreen forests for 1979–2014. We find a trend of advanced spring recovery of carbon uptake for this period, with a total average shift of 8.1 d (2.3 d/decade). We use this trend to estimate the corresponding changes in gross primary production (GPP) by applying i

We demonstrate a femtosecond two-photon laser-induced fluorescence (fs-TPLIF) technique for sensitive CO detection, using a 230 nm pulse of 9 µJ and 45 fs. The advantages of fs-TPLIF in excitation of molecular species were analyzed. Spectra of CO fs-TPLIF were recorded in stable laminar flames spatially resolved across the flame front. A hot band (1, n) together with the conventional band (0, n) o

Background: Methylation quantitative trait loci (mQTLs) are the genetic variants that may affect the DNA methylation patterns of CpG sites. However, their roles in influencing the disturbances of smoking-related epigenetic changes have not been well established. This study was conducted to address whether mQTLs exist in the vicinity of smoking-related CpG sites (±50kb) and to examine their associa

Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have shown that common genetic variation contributes to the heritable risk of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). To identify new susceptibility loci for the largest subtype of ALL, B-cell precursor ALL (BCP-ALL), we conducted a meta-analysis of two GWASs with imputation using 1000 Genomes and UK10K Project data as reference (totaling 1658 cases an

The conversion of lignin to potentially high-value low molecular weight compounds often results in complex mixtures of monomeric and oligomeric compounds. In this study, a method for the quantitative and qualitative analysis of 40 lignin-derived compounds using ultra-high-performance supercritical fluid chromatography coupled to quadrupole-time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPSFC/QTOF-MS) has been

Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have identified several, mainly co-dominantly acting, single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with Hodgkin lymphoma (HL). We searched for recessively acting disease loci by performing an analysis of runs of homozygosity (ROH) based on windows of homozygous SNP-blocks and by calculating genomic inbreeding coefficients on a SNP-wise basis. We used da

The main objective was to locate QTL and estimate the proportion of total genetic variance attributable to quantitative trait loci (QTL) for production index traits and the udder health index identified on six Bos taurus autosomes in the Danish Holstein dairy cattle population. Data were obtained from a granddaughter design of 20 sire families with a total of 1 869 progeny tested sons. The number

Critical debates within the science of (social) epidemiology concern the relative lackof social theory in epidemiological research and the low discriminatory accuracy (DA)of much epidemiological knowledge on factors and markers of risk for disease.Against this background, this thesis integrates intersectionality theory intoepidemiological study. The purposes are to improve the understanding ofhete

In this study, the impact of various traits and effects on auction price of Texel, Suffolk and German white-headed mutton rams was determined. Furthermore, (co)variance components between auction price and performance traits recorded at licensing were estimated. Data from 1988 to 2007 were extracted from the recording database of the Sheep Breeding Organisation in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Auct

A granddaughter design with 10 grandsires was simulated to investigate different types of measurements of performance traits in marker assisted breeding evaluation (MA-BE). Genetic and phenotypic data were simulated for all grandsires, granddams and 500 sires. For each of the 100 replicates of the simulation the gametic relationship matrix was computed for one position and a MA-BE was performed to

Building on the works of James J. Helm, I argue that it is both fruitful and plausible to read Aeschylus’s Oresteia as expounding a coherent moral outlook. Going beyond Helm, I offer a reading of the trilogy as incorporating a system of deontic requirements that amounts to a kind of noncodi able ethical pluralism that does not fall prey to any blatant self-contradictions and that can be interprete

Aims: Impact of changes of treatments on outcomes in ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients in real-life health care has not been documented.Methods and results: All STEMI cases (n = 105.674) registered in the nation-wide SWEDEHEART registry between 1995 and 2014 were included and followed for fatal and non-fatal outcomes for up to 20 years. Most changes in treatment and outcomes occu

Background: Carbohydrate antigen 125 (CA125) is a mucin produced by serosal cells in response to mechanical and inflammatory stimuli. CA125 has emerged as prognostic biomarker in heart failure (HF) and correlates with markers of fluid overload, echocardiographic parameters and prognosis in HF patients. In patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS), elevated CA125 is correlated with a higher risk