| 1. |
- Ahrens, Lutz, et al.
(author)
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Analysis of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) and phenolic compounds in Swedish rivers over four different seasons
- 2018
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) and phenolic compounds are emerging organic pollutants characterized by their persistency, bioaccumulation and toxicity potential. In this study, 28 PFASs and 10 phenolic compounds were investigated in 10 Swedish rivers over four different seasons (October 2016, January 2017, April 2017 and July 2017). The objective was to investigate the levels, composition profiles, sesonal trends and fluxes for both compound classes. In total, 7 out of 28 PFASs and 9 out of 10 phenolic compounds were detected in surface water from the 10 rivers. The average concentration in all samples was 3.2 ng L-1 for ∑28PFASs (median 2.4 ng L-1, n = 40), while 230 ng L-1 for the sum of the phenolic compounds (median 0 ng L-1, n = 38). Highest average ∑28PFAS concentrations were found in Rönneån with 10 ng L-1 (median 11 ng L-1), followed by Norrström with 9.0 ng L-1 (median 9.1 ng L-1), whereas no PFASs were detected in Umeå älv and Ångermanälven. On the other hand, highest average of the sum of the phenolic compound concentrations were found in Nyköpingsån with 1500 ng L-1 (median 57 ng L-1), while for the other rivers the average ranged between 50 ng L-1 and 140 ng L-1, except for Emån where TBP was only detected in one sample with 0.33 ng L-1. This indicates that PFASs and phenolic compounds origin from different sources. The dominant PFASs were perfluorobutane sulfonic acid (PFBS, 38 % of the ∑28PFASs), perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA, 21 %), and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS (branched), 8.9 %), while the dominant phenolic compounds were 4nonylphenol (4-NP, 67 %), 4-tert-nonylphenol-diethoxylate (4-NP-EO2, 20 %), and 2,4,6tribromophenol (TBP, 10 %). The concentrations of PFASs and phenolic compounds were relatively constant during the four investigated seasons which indicates a relatively steady input of these two compound classes into the river systems. The daily fluxes of Σ28PFAS was estimated to be in total 220 g d-1 (81 kg year-1), whereas the daily fluxes of phenolic compounds was estimated to be 16000 g d-1 (5700 kg year-1) for all 10 investigated rivers. The Annual Average Environmental Quality Standard (AA-EQS) of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) was exceeded in 33% (n = 13) of the surface water samples for the sum of linear and branched PFOS and in 13% (n = 5) of the surface water samples for 4NP. This indicates that there is a potential risk for the aquatic environment. The AA-EQS of 4-octylphenol (4-OP) and pentachlorophenol (PCP) was not exceeded in any surface water sample.
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| 2. |
- Allen, Craig R., et al.
(author)
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Quantifying spatial resilience
- 2016
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In: Journal of Applied Ecology. - : Wiley. - 0021-8901 .- 1365-2664. ; 53:3, s. 625-635
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Research review (peer-reviewed)abstract
- 1. Anthropogenic stressors affect the ecosystems upon which humanity relies. In some cases when resilience is exceeded, relatively small linear changes in stressors can cause relatively abrupt and nonlinear changes in ecosystems. 2. Ecological regime shifts occur when resilience is exceeded and ecosystems enter a new local equilibrium that differs in its structure and function from the previous state. Ecological resilience, the amount of disturbance that a system can withstand before it shifts into an alternative stability domain, is an important framework for understanding and managing ecological systems subject to collapse and reorganization. 3. Recently, interest in the influence of spatial characteristics of landscapes on resilience has increased. Understanding how spatial structure and variation in relevant variables in landscapes affects resilience to disturbance will assist with resilience quantification, and with local and regional management. 4. Synthesis and applications. We review the history and current status of spatial resilience in the research literature, expand upon existing literature to develop a more operational definition of spatial resilience, introduce additional elements of a spatial analytical approach to understanding resilience, present a framework for resilience operationalization and provide an overview of critical knowledge and technology gaps that should be addressed for the advancement of spatial resilience theory and its applications to management and conservation.
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| 5. |
- André, Hampus, 1989
(author)
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Resource and Environmental Impacts of Resource-Efficiency Measures Applied to Electronic Products
- 2018
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Natural resources such as ecosystems, land, water and metals underpin the functioning of economies and human well-being, and are becoming increasingly scarce due to growth in population and affluence. Metals are increasingly demanded for their specific properties as modern technology develops. The dependence on metals is of growing concern due to the environmental impacts related, for example, to energy use and local impacts from mining, as well as the scarcity risks posed by socio-economic, geological and geopolitical constraints. Thus, there is a clear need to use metals and other natural resources more efficiently. The vision of a circular economy has been proposed as a way to do this, for example by improving durability, reusing, repairing and recycling. Such so-called resource-efficiency (RE) measures are commonly assumed to be environmentally beneficial, although the evidence is not plentiful. It is plausible that focusing on recirculating products and materials could shift burdens to other environmental impacts or life cycle stages. It has therefore been argued that a life cycle-based approach, such as in life cycle assessment (LCA), is useful to critically assess the environmental implications of RE measures. LCA aims to quantify the environmental impacts of products over their entire life cycles - from cradle to grave - assessing a wide range of impacts such as toxicity, climate change and metal resource use. For metal resource use, however, there are a number of perspectives as to what constitutes the actual environmental problem. These perspectives are represented in a variety of life cycle impact assessment methods (LCIA) which have previously been shown to give diverging results. Electronic products are emblematic of metal resource use challenges since they deploy a broad spectrum of scarce metals. This thesis aims to provide knowledge on the potential for RE measures to reduce the environmental impacts of electronic products, by addressing the following research questions: (1) What resource-efficiency measures result in reduced potential environmental impacts and resource use – for what types of products and under what conditions? (2) How does extended use of electronic products through design for increased technical lifetime, reuse and repair affect environmental impacts, particularly metal resource use? (3) How does the application of different LCIA methods for metal resource use influence interpretations of resource-efficiency measures applied to electronic products? This thesis builds on three appended papers which are all based on comparative assessments of resource efficiency, studied as resource use and environmental impacts per function delivered, using LCA and material flow analysis. The results indicate that extended use of electronic products through increasing technical lifetimes, reusing and repairing, is generally resource-efficient. Exceptions may occur, however, if extended use is insufficient to motivate impacts from producing more durable products or spare parts. Use extension of electronic products leads to resource efficiency in two distinct ways: through the intended use extension and by increasingly steering material flows into recycling. Further resource efficiency could be realised by combining RE measures over the entire life cycles of products. With regards to metal resource use, the choice of LCIA method can influence the interpretation of the results of RE measures for electronic products. Therefore, it is advisable to use several complementary LCIA methods to minimise the risks of overlooking potentially important resources issues. Furthermore, better understanding and transparency of such issues is valuable in order to provide more comprehensive information to decision-makers.
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| 6. |
- Angeler, David
(author)
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Deathcore, creativity and scientific thinking.
- 2016
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In: Research Ideas and Outcomes. - : Pensoft Publishers. - 2367-7163. ; 2, s. 2-6
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Journal article (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Major scientific breakthroughs are generally the result of materializing creative ideas, the result of an inductive process that sometimes spontaneously and unexpectedly generates a link between thoughts and/or objects that did not exist before. Creativity is the cornerstone of scientific thinking, but scientists in academia are judged by metrics of quantification that often leave little room for creative thinking. In many scientific fields, reductionist approaches are rewarded and new ideas viewed skeptically. As a result, scientific inquiry is often confined to narrow but safe disciplinary ivory towers, effectively preventing profoundly creative explorations that could yield unexpected benefits. New information This paper argues how apparently unrelated fields specifically music and belief systems can be combined in a provocative allegory to provide novel perspectives regarding patterns in nature, thereby potentially inspiring innovation in the natural, social and other sciences. The merger between basic human tensions such as those embodied by religion and music, for example the heavy metal genre of deathcore, may be perceived as controversial, challenging, and uncomfortable. However, it is an example of moving the thinking process out of unconsciously established comfort zones, through the connection of apparently unrelated entities. We argue that music, as an auditory art form, has the potential to enlighten and boost creative thinking in science. Metal, as a fast evolving and diversifying extreme form of musical art, may be particularly suitable to trigger surprising associations in scientific inquiry. This may pave the way for dealing with questions about what we don´t know that we don´t know in a fast-changing planet.
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| 7. |
- Anikin, Andrey, et al.
(author)
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Human Non-linguistic Vocal Repertoire : Call Types and Their Meaning
- 2018
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In: Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1573-3653 .- 0191-5886. ; 42:1, s. 53-80
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Recent research on human nonverbal vocalizations has led to considerable progress in our understanding of vocal communication of emotion. However, in contrast to studies of animal vocalizations, this research has focused mainly on the emotional interpretation of such signals. The repertoire of human nonverbal vocalizations as acoustic types, and the mapping between acoustic and emotional categories, thus remain underexplored. In a cross-linguistic naming task (Experiment 1), verbal categorization of 132 authentic (non-acted) human vocalizations by English-, Swedish- and Russian-speaking participants revealed the same major acoustic types: laugh, cry, scream, moan, and possibly roar and sigh. The association between call type and perceived emotion was systematic but non-redundant: listeners associated every call type with a limited, but in some cases relatively wide, range of emotions. The speed and consistency of naming the call type predicted the speed and consistency of inferring the caller's emotion, suggesting that acoustic and emotional categorizations are closely related. However, participants preferred to name the call type before naming the emotion. Furthermore, nonverbal categorization of the same stimuli in a triad classification task (Experiment 2) was more compatible with classification by call type than by emotion, indicating the former's greater perceptual salience. These results suggest that acoustic categorization may precede attribution of emotion, highlighting the need to distinguish between the overt form of nonverbal signals and their interpretation by the perceiver. Both within- and between-call acoustic variation can then be modeled explicitly, bringing research on human nonverbal vocalizations more in line with the work on animal communication.
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| 8. |
- Axelsson Linkowski, Weronika
(author)
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Managing mountains, past and present conditions for traditional summer farming and Sami reindeer husbandry in northern Scandinavia
- 2017
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Traditional land use and conditions for maintenance of biodiversity are often interlinked. When land use changes and ecosystems change as a result, there is a risk to loose both the traditional ecological knowledge and the biodiversity connected to this land use. This thesis focuses on traditional land use, summer farming and Sami reindeer husbandry, in the mountain areas of northern Scandinavia (mainly Sweden), in a historical and contemporary perspective. The overall aim is to contribute to the understanding of the conditions for the traditional land use in the Scandinavian (mainly Swedish) mountains, using the concepts of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and a historical-ecological perspective. Both summer farming and reindeer husbandry are under strong external pressure and face large challenges today. Some of these challenges are shared and some differ between the two types of northern pastoralism. Scandinavian summer farmers experience that different views on their land use from different authorities affect them negatively. The increasing populations of large carnivores also worry the summer farmers. Recent depredation rates are in fact of the same level as historically (around 1900). Interviews showed that traditional knowledge about protective measures had eroded during years without carnivores, but also that farming practices have changed recently and that new knowledge developed. Sami plant use has been studied historically, but information about Sami plant management of Angelica archangelica was not documented. We argue that Sami ecological knowledge should be used to ensure sustainable harvest methods. Today traditional reindeer husbandry faces severe problems due to the reduction of winter grazing land by different encroachments, most importantly from modern forestry. The negative effects are even larger since increasingly difficult winter conditions create a need for a wider range of good grazing areas. Traditional knowledge is essential in the herders´ daily work, but the usability of the knowledge is severely constrained by recent changes. In the future planning of an ecologically and socially sustainable mountain management it is necessary to work with traditional land users and integrate their traditional knowledge.
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| 9. |
- Baird, Emily, et al.
(author)
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X-ray micro computed-tomography
- 2017
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In: Current Biology. - : Elsevier BV. - 0960-9822. ; 27:8, s. 289-291
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Emily Baird and Gavin Taylor describe how you can make three-dimensional models of biological samples using x-ray micro-computed tomography
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| 10. |
- Berglund, Örjan, et al.
(author)
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Land use on organic soils in Sweden – a survey on the land use of organic soils within agriculture and forest lands during 1983-2014
- 2016
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Data from the Geological Survey of Sweden (SGU), the Swedish Board of Agriculture and the Swedish National Forest Inventory were used in a GIS analysis to evaluate the distribution of organic soils (OS) used for agriculture and forestry in Sweden. The status of agricultural soils and agricultural land use changes were also studied, based on the most recent data available from the SGU. The total surface area of OS in Sweden was estimated to be 6 207 284 ha (15.2% of the land surface area), which is less than reported in previous assessments (Berglund and Berglund, 2008; Berglund et al., 2009). Of the total OS area 98.2% was peat, of which 4.7% was shallow peat and 2.5% 40K peat (peat determined using gamma radiation data). The remaining 1.8% were gyttja soils. Total agricultural area under EU regulations (i.e. on the EU agriculture block map) in Sweden was 3 232 039 ha (7.9% of the land surface area) and most of this was arable land (82.8%). Pasture occupied approx. 16% of the area, the land use on the remaining 1.2% is unknown. Agricultural area on OS (AOS) based on SGU-data and the EU agriculture block map was estimated to be 225 722 ha which is 7% of the total agricultural area based on EU agriculture block maps and 9.0% based on the national maps over agricultural land areas provided by the Swedish Board of Agriculture. More than 50% of AOS was arable land whereas approx. 40% was divided between pasture and unmanaged arable land. The remaining area was wetland, unknown or other land use type. In comparison to previously studies in 2003 (Berglund and Berglund, 2008) and 2008 (Berglund et al., 2009), both the total agricultural area and AOS area have decreased, probably due to structural changes in agriculture. The decline has been sharper for the surface area of AOS than for the total agricultural area. Among the Swedish National Forest Inventory plots, 12.3% were located on OS. Land use changes recorded on the Forest Inventory plots were mostly from arable land to other land uses rather than from other land uses to arable land both in total area and in OS.
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