| 1. |
- Ahlgren, Fredrik, 1980-
(författare)
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Reducing ships' fuel consumption and emissions by learning from data
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the context of reducing both greenhouse gases and hazardous emissions, the shipping sector faces a major challenge as it is currently responsible for 11% of the transport sector’s anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Even as emissions reductions are needed, the demand for the transport sector rises exponentially every year. This thesis aims to investigate the potential to use ships’ existing internal energy systems more efficiently. The thesis focusses on making existing ships in real operating conditions more efficient based logged machinery data. This dissertation presents results that can make ship more energy efficient by utilising waste heat recovery and machine learning tools. A significant part of this thesis is based on data from a cruise ship in the Baltic Sea, and an extensive analysis of the ship’s internal energy system was made from over a year’s worth of data. The analysis included an exergy analysis, which also considers the usability of each energy flow. In three studies, the feasibility of using the waste heat from the engines was investigated, and the results indicate that significant measures can be undertaken with organic Rankine cycle devices. The organic Rankine cycle was simulated with data from the ship operations and optimised for off-design conditions, both regarding system design and organic fluid selection. The analysis demonstrates that there are considerable differences between the real operation of a ship and what it was initially designed for. In addition, a large two-stroke marine diesel was integrated into a simulation with an organic Rankine cycle, resulting in an energy efficiency improvement of 5%. This thesis also presents new methods of employing machine learning to predict energy consumption. Machine learning algorithms are readily available and free to use, and by using only a small subset of data points from the engines and existing fuel flow meters, the fuel consumption could be predicted with good accuracy. These results demonstrate a potential to improve operational efficiency without installing additional fuel meters. The thesis presents results concerning how data from ships can be used to further analyse and improve their efficiency, by using both add-on technologies for waste heat recovery and machine learning applications.
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| 2. |
- Arvidsson, Ann-Sofie, 1969-
(författare)
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Makten och döden : Stat och kyrka möter svenska efterlevande under ett långt 1700-tal
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis addresses the issue of how the Swedish governmental authorities – the secular (the State) and the ecclesiastical (the Swedish church) – aimed at treating the population during the early modern era. The question asked is whether the authorities always strived to foster the people, or whether there were areas where care for individuals was more important. This is explored by a study of the authorities’ general normative principles for the handling of death.The study focuses two normative problems: the first concerns how the authorities decided that the deceased should be taken care of; the second concerns the norms formulated regarding the actions of the survivors. These problems are explored through normative source material – laws, royal ordinances, church regulations, service books and hymnbooks – and to some extent illustrated by funeral sermons and grief correspondence. A framework for interpreting the handling of death is used where care is placed on a level equal to social support, and fostering to that of demands. The handling of death was characterised by great continuity. The norms concerning the handling of the deceased foremost aimed at getting the deceased interred in a respectable fashion, and they were motivated by care. The prescriptions concerning the survivors are more complex and the amount of care and fostering respectively varied, depending on whether the regulations had ecclesiastic or secular origin. The study shows that the authorities and especially the Church were mainly acting out of care for individuals. There were also obvious fostering elements, but it is impossible to say that the authorities always displayed a single fostering ambition. Hence care and fostering must be considered parts of a whole, since all fostering in some sense could be understood as motivated by care.
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| 3. |
- Bark Persson, Anna
(författare)
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Steel as the Answer? : Viking Bodies, Power, and Masculinity in Anglophone Fantasy Literature 2006–2016
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation examines the motif of the popular Viking in contemporary Anglophone fantasy literature, with a focus on masculinity, power, embodiment,and sexuality. The study draws on queer-theoretical perspectives on masculinity and the method of queer reading, and approaches the Viking as at once bound up with the legitimization of normative and hegemonic forms of masculinity and open to (queer) negotiations and possibilities beyond normative male masculinities.The material consists of contemporary gritty fantasy, a recent subgenre deeply invested in contemporary concerns regarding masculinity, masculine failure, and masculinity crisis narratives, where the Viking motif plays a major role. The texts under consideration are Joe Abercrombie’s The First Law (2006–2012) and The Shattered Sea (2014–2015), Richard K. Morgan’s A Land Fit for Heroes (2008–2016), Mark Lawrence’s The Red Queen’s War (2014–2016), and Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette’s The Iskryne Saga (2007–2015).Understanding the Viking as a motif that is intractably bound up with ideas of the past and the historical period of the Viking Age but not reducible to it, the thesis considers the fantasy Viking as a medial representation of spectacular hardbody action masculinity and puts it in relation to the fantasy text and fantasy worldbuilding as well as more generalized cultural ideas of the North and the Nordics. Furthermore, it asks how we can understand the masculinity of the Viking – long made symbolic of or associated with white supremacy, misogyny, homophobia, and reactionary gender roles – beyond an assumed direct relation to men or men’s concerns.Analytically, the thesis considers the Viking in relation to spatiality, temporality, and embodiment, finding that in the fantasy text, the Viking emerges with a strong focus on a mighty, muscular body and as a barbarian Other connected to the past and in direct opposition to civilization and futurity, making it an escapist possibility outside the disciplining power of neoliberal late-stage capitalism. Furthermore, connecting to postfeminist perspectives on masculinity in media, the thesis finds that the fantasy Viking has developed in ways that seemingly take into account feminist and queer critique of traditional, homophobic forms of masculinity, transforming the Viking and offering it up for (queer) objectification. At the same time, the Viking also becomes a safe site of traditional masculinity, where anxieties and concerns regarding a supposed loss of male power in modernity can be projected and ultimately resolved.
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| 4. |
- Bergman, Maria, 1981-
(författare)
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Constructing communities : The establishment and demographic development of sawmill communities in the Sundsvall district, 1850-1890
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation studies the establishment and demographic development of the sawmill communities that emerged in the Sundsvall district during the latter half of the 19th century. The intention is to highlight the importance of the sawmill communities and their resident populations by discussing community construction from a demographic perspective as well as socially and symbolically. Based on church registers, this is a longitudinal study that includes information from 31 individual sawmill communities. This study has shown that the establishment and demographic development of the sawmill communities was not an instant process that necessarily followed the construction of the sawmill industries. The prerequisites of the geographical locations and year of establishment influenced population development, but the speed and size of the settlements were individual to each mill site. More prosperous times for the industry during the 1870s resulted in that migration increased consequently leading to quickly populated communities and larger registered core populations in residence. Migration to the sawmill communities from within the parishes was infrequent and the geographical backgrounds revealed that an extremely small proportion of the populations had been born within the district, implying a migratory hesitation among locally born. The sawmill populations were male-dominated due to the large groups of temporary workers inhabiting the communities, although, adult males barely made up one-third of the registered populations. The largest demographic group was children aged 0-14 years. The strong presence of children and high proportions of married individuals suggests that the sawmill communities were family oriented communities, more so than non-sawmill areas. Long-time settled families had usually formed kinship networks with other residents. This dissertation concludes that while time was important for the development of the sawmill communities, so were the registered populations residing in these communities. Residency would have been key in claiming belonging to the sawmill communities and to be considered as a real sawmill worker. Residency, family and kin therefore contributed to the construction of community structures, geographically, socially and symbolically.
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| 5. |
- Bighiu, Maria Alexandra, 1989-
(författare)
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Use and environmental impact of antifouling paints in the Baltic Sea
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Biocide-based antifouling (AF) paints are the most common method for preventing biofouling, i.e. the growth of algae, barnacles and other organisms on boat hulls. AF paints for leisure boats are predominantly based on copper (Cu) as the main biocide, with zinc (Zn) present as a pigment and stabilizer. Both metals are released from the paint matrix into the water column, leading to contamination of marinas which typically have only limited water exchange. Thus, the aim of this PhD thesis was to describe the use of AF paints in different regions in Sweden, as well as the associated environmental consequences with regard to contamination of the environment and toxicity to non-target aquatic snails. Using a recently developed X-ray fluorescence application, high levels of Cu were detected on boats moored in freshwaters, despite a more than 20-year-old ban, as well as high levels of tin (Sn) on 10 % of the boats, indicating the presence of (old) tributyltin paints (TBT), which might pose an environmental risk and a health hazard for people performing the paint scraping (paper 1). In addition, very high levels of Cu and Zn were measured in the biofouling material collected from the boat hulls, and this is problematic because the biofouling is commonly disposed of on the soil in boatyards at the end of each season. No difference was found in the amount of biofouling on boats coated with Cu or biocide-free paints, which implies that Cu might be currently overused in areas of low salinity and low barnacle density (paper 2). This work also introduces the use of a new species for ecotoxicological field experiments, the snail Theodoxus fluviatilis. Chronic field experiments (paper 3) revealed 6-fold increases in snail mortality, negative growth and up to 67-fold decreased reproduction in marinas, compared to areas not impacted by boating (‘reference areas’). Moreover, a higher prevalence of snails with histopathological alterations (e.g. necrosis of gills, gonads, midgut gland and parasite infestation, among others) was observed in the marinas, compared to the reference areas (paper 4). Statistical modelling indicated that the majority of the toxic effects were best predicted by the metals, most likely originating from AF paints. The results presented in this thesis depict some important aspects of AF paint use in brackish water and highlight the necessity of implementing a suitable management practice for the heavily contaminated biofouling waste in order to minimize the risk to soils. In addition, the evidence of toxicity to snails in marinas can be used as a basis to increase the public understanding of the impact of recreational boating and encourage people to choose less toxic alternatives to AF paints.
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| 6. |
- Caporaletti, Francesca, 1990-
(författare)
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MYC and MexR interactions with DNA : a Small Angle Scattering perspective
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Protein-DNA complexes govern transcription, that is, the cellular mechanism that converts the information stored in the DNA into proteins. These complexes need to be highly dynamic to respond to external factors that regulate their functions in agreement with what the cells need at that time. Macromolecular X-ray crystallography is very useful for structural studies of large molecular assemblies, but its general application is limited by the difficulties in crystallising highly dynamic and transient complexes. Furthermore, crystal lattices constrain the macromolecular conformation and do not entirely reveal the conformational ensemble adopted by protein-DNA complexes in the solution.Small-Angle X-Ray Scattering (SAXS) and Small-Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS) are two complementary techniques known jointly as Small-angle Scattering (SAS). SAS is a powerful tool for analysing the shape and changes of molecules in solution in their native state. It is beneficial if the variability of conformation or disorder complements high-resolution methods such as NMR or crystallography. With SANS, we can explore non-crystallisable protein-DNA complexes in solution without restrictions of artificially symmetrised DNA and limitations of a protein sequence. Neutrons are well-suited probes for studying protein-DNA complexes for the capability of the neutrons to scatter common atoms in biomolecules differentially and can thereby distinguish between hydrogen and deuterium. Together with varying the solvent deuterium ratio, the contrast variation approach can reveal shapes of distinct components within a macromolecular complex.The goal of this thesis is to explore unchartered territories of regulatory protein-DNA interactions by studying such complexes by SAS, with a specific focus on the flexibility of the complexes. In my study of the MexR-DNA complex, I try to elucidate the molecular mechanism by which the MexR repressor regulates the expression of the MexAB-OPrM efflux pump through DNA binding. This pump is one of the multidrug-resistant tools of the pathogen Pseudomonas Aeruginosa (P. Aer.). It can extrude antibacterial drugs from the bacteria enabling them to survive in hostile environments. In the second project, I strive to explore the MYC:MAX:DNA complex. This heterodimer assembly functions as a central hub in cellular growth control by regulating many biological functions, including proliferation, apoptosis, differentiation and transformation. Overexpression or deregulation of MYC is observed in up to 70% of human aggressive cancer forms, including prostate and breast cancers. By combining SAS with biophysical methods, the work presented in this thesis reveals novel information on the shape and dynamics of biomolecular assemblies critical to health and disease.This thesis comprises five chapters, each dealing with a different aspect of the work in those years. The first chapter introduces the reader to the motivations of this research, and it will give the reader a brief state of the art of the two projects. In the second chapter, I will give you all the theoretical instruments to understand better all the methods used in this thesis, I write first to provide an overview regarding the proteins and their capability to bind other macromolecules. I then will exploit the basics of the small-angle technique, focusing on the neutron contrast variation: the fundamental technique used throughout this thesis and the ab-initio modelling.In the third chapter, Methods, I will discuss the SAS measurements and the requirements for the experiments themselves, the procedure for the data reduction and the data processing and analysis to obtain the structural information.The fourth chapter is a summary of the results of the submitted papers and my contributions:Small-angle X-ray and neutron scattering of MexR and its complex with DNA supports a conformational selection binding modelResolving the DNA interaction of the MexR antibiotic resistance regulatory proteinUpgraded D22 SEC-SANS set-up dedicated to the biology communitySAS studies on the regulation of MYC303:MAX:DNA and MAX:MAX:DNA binding in cancer.
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| 7. |
- Dåderman, Anna Maria, 1953-
(författare)
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“Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde?” : Abuse of potent benzodiazepines, exemplified by flunitrazepam, in mentally disordered male offenders
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Flunitrazepam (FZ) is an example of a sedative-hypnotic benzodiazepine whose pharmacokinetic properties include a rapid onset of action and an intermediate duration of action. It has a high affinity to central benzodiazepine receptors and affects them profoundly. These properties, and its profile of activity, increase the probability of abuse by those who have access to it. Known side effects of FZ are abuse and amnesia. FZ is widely abused and it has become a drug of choice among opioid abusers, as a club drug, and as a classic “date-rape” drug. FZ is often involved in fatal intoxication. It is therefore expected that FZ abuse is common in serious offenders. I have studied the reasons for FZ abuse and mapped the prevalence of the abuse, with the objective of studying the personalities and the background factors of the abusers, and of drawing some conclusions about assessment procedures of FZ abuse and the position of FZ in society.The participants in the studies summarised here were fifty-six juvenile delinquents from Swedish youth correctional institutions, aged 14-20 years, and sixty non-psychotic male offenders referred for a forensic psychiatric evaluation (FPE), aged 16-35 years. The participants answered questions regarding their abuse, and this enabled us to understand why they abused just FZ (and not another substance). The participants also completed a number of self-reported inventories, which enabled us to obtain measures of personality traits. They were also rated for psychopathy. Five forensic psychiatric cases of FZ abusers were studied in more detail. Furthermore, the forensic psychiatric participants’ psychiatric diagnoses, and both groups’ crime-related measures, were obtained from their files.About 40% of the juvenile delinquents and 30% of the offenders referred for a forensic psychiatric evaluation abused FZ. The main reason for the FZ abuse was to change a perception of reality and to obtain an increased feeling of power and self-esteem, a feeling that everything was possible. Both samples of offenders differed from the normal population in many personality traits, suggesting that the participants possessed a high level of vulnerability for developing mental disorders, but only a few differences in personality traits were found between FZ abusers and non-FZ abusers. The juvenile delinquent FZ abusers had higher scores than non-FZ abusers in the verbal aggression and sensation-seeking boredom susceptibility scales. In the juvenile sample, FZ abuse was associated with the abuse of amphetamines and/or cocaine, cannabis, and opiates, and with childhood psychological/psychiatrical contact, with living in a metropolitan housing area, and with recidivism into crimes leading to care in a juvenile correctional institution. In this sample, FZ abuse was also associated with weapons offences and narcotics-related crimes. In the forensic psychiatric sample, FZ abuse was significantly associated with previous admission to an FPE, and convictions for robbery, for weapons-related offences, for narcotics-related offences and for theft. The results show that FZ is more common in offenders who score high on Facet 4 (Antisocial) in the Hare psychopathy model, and that FZ abuse has high correlation with Item 20 (Criminal versatility). All of the FZ abusers reported side effects from FZ that resulted in the brutality of their violent acts and anterograde amnesia. FZ abusers, when intoxicated with FZ, had a reduced capacity for both empathy and anticipatory anxiety, in contrast to their “daily” behaviour and “ordinary” (i.e., without the influence of the FZ) personality characteristics. They were not characterised by classic characteristics of psychopathy, such as lack of empathy. This may indicate that FZ induces psychopathic-like state-dependant (FZ intoxication) traits, and temporary dissociate states (“Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”?).In conclusion, FZ abuse is common in the population of young offenders with mental disorders, and FZ is often used for nonmedical purposes. The practical implications of these conclusions are that clinicians and those who develop or manage therapeutic programs should be aware of FZ abuse when choosing the most effective treatment for male offenders. General practitioners who prescribe potent sedative compounds should be aware of their possible adverse effects. The availability of FZ should be limited further, because FZ is frequently abused in vulnerable male offenders, and because FZ has serious adverse mental health-related effects and is related to robbery and weapons‑related crimes.
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| 8. |
- Ekstrand, Maria, 1977-
(författare)
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Sexual Risk Taking : – Perceptions of Contraceptive Use, Abortion, and Sexually Transmitted Infections Among Adolescents in Sweden
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The overall aim of this thesis was to inestigate Swedish adolescents' perceptions and behaviours regarding sexual risk taking. Specific objectives were to explore teenagers' perceptions of contraceptive use, unintended pregnancy, and abortion; teenage girls' experiences of decision making process and support connected to abortion; and male adolescents' perceptions of sexual risk taking and barriers to practicing safe sex. Another objective was to evaluate the effect of advance provision of emergency contraceptive pills to teenage girls. The methodologies included focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, and a randomized controlled trial. Among the adolescents in our studies, teenage parenthood was generally viewed as a "catastrophe", and the majority expressed supportive attitudes towards abortion (studies I-IV). Occasions of failure to use contraceptives were common, especially when sex was unplanned (studies I-V). Pregnancy prevention was perceived as the woman's responsibility. However, many girls were reluctant about using homonal contraceptives due to worries about negative side effects (I, III). Initiating condom use was difficult for girls, as well as for boys, for a number of reasons (I-IV): fear of ruining an intimate situation, associations with disease, distrust, pleasure reduction, and (for the boys) the fear of loosing one's erection. Males generally perceived personal and partner-related risks connected to unprotected intercourse as low. Few males were worried that an unintended pregnancy would be carried to term, and the majority would urge the girl towards abortion if she seemed ambivalent (II, IV). Girls viewed the abortion decision as a natural, yet difficult choice, strongly influenced by attitudes of partners, parents, peers and societal norms (III). Teenage girls provided with emergency contraceptive pills in advance used it more frequently and sooner after unprotected intercourse compared with controls, without jeopardising regular contraceptive use (V).
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| 9. |
- Flinkfeldt, Marie, 1982-
(författare)
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Legitimacy Work : Managing Sick Leave Legitimacy in Interaction
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis studies how sick leave legitimacy is managed in interaction and develops an empirically driven conceptualization of ‘legitimacy work’. The thesis applies an ethnomethodological framework that draws on conversation analysis, discursive psychology, and membership categorization analysis. Naturally occurring interaction is examined in two settings: (1) multi-party meetings at the Swedish Social Insurance Agency, in which participants assess and discuss the ‘status’ of the sick leave and plan for work rehabilitation; (2) peer-based online text-in-interaction in a Swedish forum thread that gathers people on sick leave.The thesis shows how mental states, activities and alternative categories function as resources for legitimacy work. However, such invocations are no straight-forward matter, but impose additional contingencies. It is thus crucial how they are invoked. By detailed analyses of the interaction, with attention to aspects such as lexicality and delivery, the thesis identifies a range of discursive features that manage sick leave legitimacy. Deployed resources are also subtle enough to be deniable as legitimacy work, that is, they also manage the risk of an utterance being seen as invested or biased.While legitimate sick leave is a core concern for Swedish policy-making, administration, and public debate on sick leave, previous research has for the most part been explanatory in orientation, minding legitimacy rather than studying it in its own right. By providing detailed knowledge about the legitimacy work that people on long-term sick leave do as part of both institutional and mundane encounters, the thesis contributes not only new empirical knowledge, but a new kind of empirical knowledge, shedding light on how the complexities of sick leave play out in real-life situations.Traditional sociological approaches have to a significant extent treated legitimacy as an entity with beginnings and ends that in more or less direct ways relate to external norms and cognitive states, or that focus on institutions, authority or government. By contrast, the herein emerging concept ‘legitimacy work’ understands legitimacy as a locally contingent practicality – a collaborative categorially oriented accomplishment that is integral to the interactional situation.
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| 10. |
- Forslund, Maria, 1982-
(författare)
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From the cradle to the grave - in sickness and in health? : The welfare state and health outcomes
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Sickness, whether manifested through actual sickness or through fear of sickness, is a part of human life. Sickness cash benefits was one of the earliest social security programs implemented in modern welfare states. Previous research on how sickness benefits are associated with health outcomes has emphasized the significance of income. Sickness is a social risk in terms of income loss, and sickness benefits has the potential to compensate such losses. Just as cash benefits are an essential part of the welfare state, so are public services. Public services, and healthcare in particular, are crucial for health outcomes. Yet, comparative research on healthcare is just beginning to take off in research. This thesis extends previous research in two ways. First, the thesis considers the impact of sickness cash benefits and healthcare for health outcomes, as well as the interplay between cash and care. Secondly, the thesis applies a life course perspective aligning comparative welfare state research and cumulative dis/advantage theory. The thesis thereby contributes with new knowledge, empirically as well as theoretically, which together provides a comprehensive assessment of important links between the welfare state and population health. Study I examines the relationship between sickness benefits and life expectancy at age 65 in 15 OECD countries, 1960–2015. The study is novel as it applies a life course perspective on sickness benefits, combining cumulative dis/advantage theory and a comparative welfare state approach. It adds to previous research by focusing on the cumulative access cohorts have had to sickness benefits during their time active in the labour market. The results support previous research showing that universal coverage of sickness benefits appears to be associated with lower mortality. Study II analyses the relationship between primary care and inequalities in self-rated health based on educational attainment in 24 countries 2002–2018. Previous research has pointed to an increasing educational gradient in health over the last decades. Primary care has been argued to be especially important when aiming to reduce such health inequalities. The results show that in countries where primary care is of higher quality, the educational gradient in self-rated health is lower. Study III analyses the interplay between healthcare resources and sickness benefits in relation to premature mortality in a sample of 14 countries for the time period 1980–2011. The study lends support to there being an interaction effect between healthcare and sickness benefits. Although healthcare and sickness benefits are two different aspects of the welfare state, future research should consider the interplay between cash and care. Taken together, the thesis demonstrates the importance of considering how different aspects of the welfare state and separate policy programmes works in conjunction. The thesis further emphasizes the importance of using a life course approach in analysing health outcomes of the welfare state and social policy.
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