Graduate School of International Studies

Purpose: engineering production is increasing. New regulations in Europe will require pharmacopoeia products. The aim was to produce an animal free culture medium totally based on pharmacopoeia graded chemicals. Methods and Materials: A culture medium was designed from salt and amino acid composition present in the knee joint, in collaboration with Nidacon International AB. The proliferative capacity of human chondrocytes was tested in monolayer cultures and results compared with standard DMEM/F-12 culture medium. The proliferation rate was assessed by calculating the number of cells at every passage for 4 weeks. The redifferentiation capacity of the cells was tested by culturing the cells in a 3D pellet mass system at different passages. After 14 days, the pellets were processed in order to determine the histoarchitecture. Results: The new medium resulted in much higher proliferation rate compared to the standard medium, i.e. a ten fold increase in total number of cells after 4 weeks in culture. No difference was seen in redifferentiation capacity of the cells cultured in the new medium compared to the standard medium. Conclusions: The new pharmacopoeia based medium resulted in much higher proliferation rate compared to the standard medium. The reason for this may be that the new medium is better optimized compared to the media that were developed in the 60´s when the cell culture technique was still under development. P206 New possibilities of allogeneic chondrocyte transplantation for cartilage repair: an in vitro study of immunological properties of human articular chondrocytes derived from osteoarthritis joints.

It has often been claimed that there are two major patterns of core case marking: a nominative-accusative system in which only the accusative is overtly marked, and an ergative-absolutive system in which only the ergative is overtly marked. This tendency is presumed to be constrained by the Case Hierarchy. The present investigation, based on a sample of 123 languages manifesting core case marking on full noun phrases, provides typological evidence that this tendency is not universal. Possible explanations besides the Case Hierarchy for the results are suggested (e.g., geographical/genealogical characteristics and the development of overt case markers from other markers).

It is generally assumed that languages with rich agreement allow null subjects, while languages with poor agreement do not. However, the concept of agreement richness has been remarkably difficult to define. This study, based on a sample of 403 languages, measures agreement richness by counting the number of person, number, and gender combinations encoded by subject agreement on the verb. It is shown that, among languages with subject agreement on the verb, null subject languages (NSLs) with seven or more such distinctions are the most widespread geographically and genealogically. On the other hand, NSLs without subject agreement on the verb are more widespread than NSLs with seven or more combinations only in Eurasia. Possible explanations for these tendencies are suggested.

In the present paper I verify this tendency against a genealogically and geographically diverse sample of 123 languages with core case marking on full noun phrases. Section 2 introduces the basic notions of alignment typology and case marking, as well as the previous large-scale cross-linguistic investigations on unmarked core case. Section 3 discusses some