The Austrian physician Hans Asperger (1944; created the label autistic psychopathy to describe a group of his patients who demonstrated unique problems with communication and a tendency to maintain idiosyncratic interests. This condition was similar, though not identical, to autism, the more widely known disorder of early childhood introduced by Asperger's contemporary, Kanner (1943). Much later, Wing (1981) reintroduced Asperger's work to a broader audience and provided additional descriptions and case studies of her patients with Asperger's syndrome. Wing's work prompted further research on this condition (Klin, 1994).Wing (1981) and subsequent researchers have described the core clinical characteristics of Asperger's syndrome as: (a) minimal empathy; (b) naïve, inappropriate, one-sided social interaction and limited capacity to form friendships; (c) pedantic and repetitious speech; (d) poor nonverbal communication; (e) intense preoccupation with circumscribed topics; and (f) clumsy movements, poor coordination, and odd posture. The recent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) has distilled these clinical features into two main criteria: severe and

Prestorage filtration seems to diminish the amount of IL-1, IL-6, IL-8, and TNF alpha RBCs during storage. The possible clinical implications of this should be elucidated.

Approximately half of the elderly patients in this study developed POD. Bleeding was found to be an important risk factor for delirium.

The results indicate the presence of TNF, IL-1, IL-6 and IL-8 in stored RBCs, though there was a great variability over the period of storage and between units of RBCs. In some samples of RBCs the content of cytokines reached levels that may be anticipated to contribute to systemic inflammation and the symptomatology of acute transfusion reactions.

The public defence of the thesis is held in lecture hall Månen (9Q), Alfred Nobels Allé 8,