Regulation of Cell Cycle Progression and Cellular Survival in Primary Rat Hepatocytes

In liver disease, irregular proliferation of hepatocytes is an important factor favoring hepatocarcinogenesis. The aim of this cell biological thesis has been to study the impact of epidermal growth factor (EGF) and cellular stress on the cell cycle- and cell survival machinery, mainly focusing on the MAP kinase pathway and PI3 kinase-Akt signalling. EGF-induced proliferation is partly driven by the cyclic formation of cyclin-CDK complexes. By using a combination of immunological methods, it was demonstrated that PI3 kinase activity was essential for activation of CDK4. CDK4 in turn was crucial for CDK2 activity, which is an important event in the G1 phase of hepatocyte cell cycle progression. Growth factor-induced PI3 kinase activity also mediated p53 induction, and the induction of this tumor suppressor protein played a key role in cell cycle progression by regulating CDK4 and CDK2 activity, via p21Cip1. EGF stimulation of hepatocytes activates the small GTP-protein Ras that signals through both ERK- and PI3 kinase pathways. Transient transfection of active- and inactive mutants of the Ras isoforms H-Ras and K-Ras, revealed different selectivity for the downstream mediators ERK and PI3 kinase. This distinction had impact on the iso-specific roles of H-Ras and K-Ras in survival and proliferation. It was further demonstrated that redox-activated ERK mediated survival from the cytoplasm and played an important role in adapting hepatocytes to a stressful environment

Et melopoetisk greb på Grundtvigsalmen

A Melopoetic Approach to Grundtvig’s HymnsThe church hymns written by N.F.S. Grundtvig are simultaneously poems,theological statements and music, but they have predominantly beenthe subjects of theological research and, to a lesser extent, literary research.Musicological research has avoided literary critique of the texts of hymnsand, as a result, has nearly reduced itself to a theological-literary subdiscipline.Hymn scholarship maintains an underlying logocentricsm, whichfollows conceptions of the text as the actual hymn and the melody as itssubsidiary facilitator. These conceptions are implicit in the use of the genitivein the phrase “Grundtvig’s church hymns.” However, this perspectivecan be defended neither on the basis of Grundtvig’s own hymnologicalpoetics or through contemporary aesthetic theories about how significationis produced in medially mixed utterances, like the church hymn.In this article the author seeks to question the place of church hymns inhierarchies of word-music by shifting focus from the issue of “to whatdegree does this particular melody redeem Grundtvig’s text” to “what significanceis produced from the merging of words and melody in the hymnduring its situational utterance”

Stå på tomma torg: Hinder för tillhörighet i bosnisk migrationslitteratur

The immigration of Bosnians to the Scandinavian countries in connection to the war in the 1990s is largely seen as a success. Aspects such as high employment and education levels has been foregrounded as indicating integration and personal accomplishment, especially among the younger population. However, the literature produced by Bosnian immigrant authors tells a different story, which focuses rather on personal hardships and obstacles in the affective and social “positionality” of the immigrant in the Scandinavian topography. Regarding texts by authors such as Alen Mešković, Bekim Sejranović, and Adnan Mahmutović, the article surveys recurrent themes associated with the immigrant’s inability to create belonging in the host country, such as the encounter with immigrant authorities or the continuous non-contact with Scandinavians. While the texts are not typical examples of literary “welfare criticism”, the article tries to suggest some ways in which these texts produce critique of mechanisms in the Scandinavian welfare state model

The sound of nonsense - on the function of nonsense words in pop songs

Nonsense words in songs challenge the common assumption that song meaning resides in song texts. Songs containing verbal nonsense thus make evident that meaning cannot be deduced from one element (e.g. text), but rather emerges as a constant negotiation between the different medialities involved: music, text, the visual, the aural etc. It has been pointed out by several musicologists that content analysis of texts, despite having had a long historical tradition, is nonetheless insufficient or even downright misleading as a methodological approach to interpreting songs. The extensive use of nonsense words in pop songs affirms this stance, as verbal sense is simply stripped away, forcing the analyst to look for other kinds of sense. Researchers from various fields have dealt with nonsense, and quite a few of their insights are very similar – although this theoretical convergence is often not explicated, probably due to disciplinary borders. This article juxtaposes different observations about nonsense for the purpose of illuminating their mutual concordance and contributing to a systematic and comprehensible framework for understanding types and functions of verbal nonsense in songs