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- de Woul, Mattias, 1972-
(författare)
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Response of glaciers to climate change : Mass balance sensitivity, sea level rise and runoff
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this study is to enhance our understanding of the response of glaciers to climate change. Global sea level is affected by changes in glacier ice volume, and melt-water from glaciers is a principal water source in many regions. This study applies glacier mass balance modelling, with varying complexity and spatial resolution, ranging from individual glaciers to regional and global assessments of glacier mass losses. Glaciers located in maritime environments generally show considerably higher mass balance sensitivities than those in continental settings. On average, an assumed increase in annual precipitation of +10% tends to offset the effect of an annual temperature change of +1 K, by roughly 20%. Two case studies, at Storglaciären, Sweden, and Hofsjökull, Iceland, involve model results of future mass balance change and glacier melt induced changes in runoff. Applying a temperature and precipitation scenario for Iceland in 2050 results in increased total runoff from Hofsjökull by roughly one third, and results emphasize the role of the firn layer in delaying water flow through glaciers, yielding a redistribution of discharge within the year. Based on a global gridded data set of glacierized area, the sea level equivalent from all mountain glaciers and ice caps outside the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica during 1961–2004, caused by changes in temperature and precipitation, is estimated to be 0.58±0.34 mm a–1. The mountain glaciers and ice caps around Antarctica alone contribute almost 40% of the global estimate, and hence their contribution is considerably larger than previously assumed.
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| 3. |
- Hansson, Jonas, 1970-
(författare)
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Synthesis of phosphate-containing oligosaccharides corresponding to capsular antigen structures from Haemophilus influenzae
- 2000
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis describes the synthesis of spacer-equipped di- and trimeric oligosaccharide structures corresponding to fragments of the capsular polysaccharides of Haemophilus influenzae types c and f. Both of these polysaccharides are of the teichoic acid type, built up by disaccharide repeating units linked via interglycosidic phosphodiester bonds. Introduction of the phosphodiester linkages was accomplished employing the glycosyl H-phosphonate method. The syntheses are designed in such a way as to allow the formation of even larger structures, as well as conjugation to a carrier protein. The first section of this thesis presents a general overview of the biological significance and structural features of anomeric phosphodiesters and synthetic approaches towards these structures, including a literature survey of research in this area during the past decade. In the second part, a new approach to the synthesis of anomeric phosphodiester linkages, utilizing non-anomeric glycosyl H-phosphonate acceptors and various galactosyl donors in glycosylation reactions, is described. Finally, synthesis of the capsular polysaccharide fragments of H. influenzae types c and f is discussed.
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| 5. |
- Persson, Anders J, 1959-
(författare)
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Workplace Ethics : Some practical and foundational problems
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of the present thesis is twofold: first, to analyse some practical ethical problems that stem from the workplace and the working environment and to offer guidelines concerning how such problems can be solved; second, to illuminate how the specific nature of work and the working environment is intimately connected to the relation between the employee and the employing entity, as set forth in an employment contract, and how the form and content of such contracts are, among other things, determined by culturally and socially established ideas. The normative question to be addressed is thus: which of these ideas should be maintained? This can be seen as a second-order, or more fundamental, ethical question whose answer depends on determining which normative principles are right. An additional aim of this thesis is thus to illuminate that the contract relation has relevance to practical ethical problems in the workplace context in this second-order mode. The thesis consists of an Introduction and five papers. In Paper I (written together with Sven Ove Hansson) we argue that employees have a prima facie right to privacy, but that this right can be overridden by competing moral principles that follow, explicitly or implicitly, from the contract of employment. A set of ethical criteria is developed and summarized in the form of a guideline for determining the moral status of infringements into workplace privacy. In Paper II these criteria are applied to three broad classes of privacy-intrusive workplace practices: (1) monitoring and surveillance, (2) genetic testing, and (3) drug testing. In relation to some scenarios on these themes, it is shown that it is possible to handle such practical ethical problems systematically by way of the proposed guideline. Paper III deals with the fact that employees are protected by health and safety standards that are less protective than those that apply to the general public. Emphasis is put on the distinction between exposure and risk, and this distinction is claimed to be a key determinant for the relevance of arguments put forward in support of such double standards. In Paper IV the nature of the contract of employment is explored from an ethical point of view. An argument is developed against the claim that (a) the individual’s freedom of decision and (b) the practice of institutional arrangements are sufficient to justify a contract of employment. Paper V questions the standpoint that the voluntariness of the contracting parties in an employment relationship has substantial value. One overarching issue concerns the meaning of voluntariness in the employment context, another, its normative importance. It is argued that it is indeterminate exactly where the line should be drawn between voluntary and non–voluntary agreements in this context. Concerning the latter issue, it is claimed that even if we were able to draw such a line, this fact does not tell us anything about the normative importance of the voluntariness condition, nor how much normative weight we should assign to the fulfilment of its conditions in the workplace context.
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