| 1. |
- Alenezi, Ali
(författare)
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On enhancement of bone formation using local drug delivery systems
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Introduction: Despite that many reports have confirmed the long-term clinical success rates associated with implant treatment, implant failure to achieve and maintain osseointegration still occurs in many cases. Local and sustained drug release at the bone-implant interface is one of the strategies that have been suggested to improve the osseointegration. The local drug release could help avoiding the risks usually associated with systemic administration, such as high drug dose or the loss of drug bioavailability. Aims: To map out the most commonly used chemical compounds and drug delivery systems used in animal experiments for implant research (Study I). Furthermore, to develop a new surface coating designed for medical devices and implants, and to examine the drug release mechanism from the coating using near infrared light (NIR) as an external stimulus (Study II). In addition, we examined the release of clarithromycin from PLGA microspheres within beta-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP), and evaluated their osteogenic effect in a calvaria defect model in vivo (Study III). In Study IV, we evaluated the local release of strontium ranelate (Sr-ranelate) from implant surface coated with mesoporous titania films, and investigated if the local release of Sr-ranelate could improve bone formation around implants in an animal model. Materials and Methods: The articles included in the present thesis consist of four different studies. For Study I, an electronic search was done in three databases (PubMed, Scopus, Embase) to map out the most commonly used methods for local drug and chemical compound delivery to implant sites, and to assess their influence on bone response. Meta-analyses were performed for the outcome of bone-to-implant contact (BIC). In Study II, PNIPAAm-AAm polymers were synthesized at different compositions. The polymers were then incorporated with gold nanorods (GNRs) since these rods at predetermined aspect ratio can absorb NIR light to generate heat within the polymeric layer to initiate a drug release. The volume-phase transition behavior for the polymers was analyzed using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The GNRs-incorporated PNIPAAm was characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D). The release behavior using phenol as drug model was investigated upon NIR irradiation using UV/VIS spectroscopy. In addition, the antibacterial behavior of polymer layers loaded with vancomycin was examined against Staphylococcus epidermidis. In Study III, four bone defects (5 mm of diameter) were created in the calvaria of New Zealand White rabbits (n = 21, n= 7/time point). The defects were randomly designated to four groups. Group 1: no augmentation (sham), Group 2: β-TCP, Group 3: β-TCP with 0.12 mg clarithromycin, and Group 4: β-TCP with 6.12 mg PLGA microspheres loaded with 0.12 mg clarithromycin. After 2, 4, and 12 weeks of healing, bone regeneration was evaluated using micro-computed tomography (µCT) and histology. In Study IV, mini-screw titanium implants were coated with mesoporous TiO2 films using Pluronic (P123) with or without poly propylene glycol (PPG) to create films with two different pore sizes. The implants were then incorporated with Sr-ranelate. SEM evaluation was performed to visualize the mesoporous TiO2 films and determine the pore size. The absorption and release kinetics of Sr-ranelate from mesoporous TiO2 films were evaluated by QCM-D. For the in vivo experiment, mini-screw titanium implants with or without Sr-ranelate were inserted in rats’ tibia bone to evaluate bone formation after 2 and 6 weeks. Results: In the systematic review (Study I), sixty-one studies met the inclusion criteria. Calcium phosphate (CaP), bisphosphonates (BPs), and bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) were the most commonly used chemical compounds. There were two main methods for local drug delivery at the bone-implant interface: (1) directly from an implant surface by coating or immobilizing techniques, and (2) the local application of drugs to the implant site, using carriers. There was a statistically significant increase in BIC for both local drug delivery methods (p= .02 and p < .0001, respectively) when compared to controls. There was a statistically significant increase in BIC when CaP (p= .0001) and BMPs (p= .02) were either coated into implants or delivered to the implant site, in comparison to when drugs were not used. The difference was not significant for the use of BPs (p= .15). In Study II, the DSC analyses showed that PNIPAAm-AAm containing 10% acrylamide had an appropriate phase transition temperature of 42◦C. SEM images showed that the surface coating consisted of a 200 nm thick uniform polymer layer. The QCM-D analysis coupled with in situ NIR irradiation demonstrated a dramatic shift in frequency that was attributed to mass being released from the surface upon irradiation. This mass release correlated well with the drug release profile as determined using UV/VIS spectroscopy with phenol as a model drug. For Study III, clarithromycin release from PLGA microspheres revealed sustained release for around 4 weeks with 50% release during the first week. Histologically, new bone formation was evident at 2 and 4 weeks of healing in all groups and bone formation increased as a function of healing time. At 12 weeks, Group 4 (β-TCP with PLGA microspheres loaded with clarithromycin) showed significantly higher amount of newly formed bone compared to Group 1 (sham). The µCT showed that Group 4 expressed significantly higher bone formation compared to Group 1 at all time points. In Study IV, the SEM images showed TiO2 films with porous structures covering the entire surface with pore sizes determined to be 6 nm for P123 and 7.2 nm for P123-PPG. The QCM-D analysis revealed an absorption of 3300 ng/cm2 of Sr-ranelate on the 7.2 nm TiO2 films, which was about 3 times more than the observed amount on the 6 nm TiO2 films (1200 ng/cm2). The histomorphometric analyses revealed higher percentages of bone implant contact (BIC) and bone area (BA) for implants with Sr-ranelate compared to implants in the control group after 2 and 6 weeks of healing. However, these differences were found not to be significant (BIC with a p-value of 0.43 after 2 weeks and 0.172 after 6 weeks), (BA with a p-value of 0.503 after 2 weeks, and 0.088 after 6 weeks). The mean BIC and BA values within the same group showed significant increase among all groups after comparing 2 and 6 weeks. Conclusions: Most studies assessing local drug/chemical compound release systems in implants evaluated the influence of the use of BPs, CaP, and BMPs on bone healing. The use of local chemical compound delivery systems around implants could significantly improve implant osseointegration in animal models (Study I). In addition, on demand-release of the antibiotic agent vancomycin from the coating induced by NIR light resulted in a clear inhibition zone around a coated substrate in a bacteria culture test, thereby providing proof of concept of the developed drug delivery system (Study II). The in vivo findings showed that β-TCP with clarithromycin-loaded microspheres can enhance bone formation in bone defects (Study III). Meanwhile, the in vivo findings on Sr-ranelate study (Study IV) could not confirm the positive effects of Sr-ranelate on implant incorporation in bone made by other authors.
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| 2. |
- Andersson, Mika
(författare)
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Hate crime victimization : consequences and interpretations
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The field of hate crime studies is a young one and as such it is characterized by a high proportion of explorative and inductive studies. This methodological approach is well founded when a field is unfolding as they often generate theoretical conclusions or assumptions. Since I began working with the present dissertation in 2013, I have observed an increased tendency towards deductive studies testing the conclusions and assumptions made by field pioneers. The present dissertation is part of this branch and has two primary aims; 1) to test field assumptions and 2) develop present theoretical frameworks on causes and consequences of hate crime.In Article 1, me and my co-author examine the assumption that hate crime victimization result in higher levels of fear in comparison to non-bias crime. The assumption is tested by comparing fear of crime, behavioral adaptations and place-based worry among students with an immigrant and/or national minority background. The results show that hate crime victims reported significantly higher levels of fear of crime in comparison to non-victims and non-bias victims. However, there were few significant differences in behavioral adaptations and place-based worry. From interviews with hate crime victims we learned that place-based worry is not primarily associated with the physical characteristics of a certain area, but geographical concentrations of racist attitudes. Moreover, the behavioral adaptations that the interview participants used to avoid future victimization were often based upon de-identification. From these results we can conclude that traditional measures of place-based worry and behavioral adaptations does not adequately capture consequences of hate crime.In Article 2, me and my co-authors examine the assumption that police reporting is lower among victims of hate crime that target more than one of their identity categories. Contrarily to the assumption, we find that victims of hate crime with multiple motives report their experiences to the police to a higher extent in comparison to victims of hate crime with single motives. We also found that participants with several intersecting group identities endowed with stigma were more likely to be targets of hate crime with multiple motives, but not more likely to experience repeat victimization. These results support the branch of intersectional theory holding that group belongings primarily influence the expressions of violence rather than the risk of being subjected to violence.In Article 3, me and my co-authors examine the assumption that hate targets the identity of the victim and thereby attack the core of the victim’s self. We found that hate crime targets a negative stereotype associated with the perceived identity of the victim. Consequently, interview participants did not regard hate crime as a direct attack on their selves as they did not identify with the negative stereotype. However, hate crime remain a violation of the self as it denies the victims self-representation. The results also showed that the meaning-making regarding hate crime victimization is reflexive as the participants used earlier experiences when assigning meaning to incidents. This process was also recursive as new incidents lead to re-interpretations of previous experiences. In sum, the participants developed and negotiated their experiences of hate crime over time.In Article 4, me and my co-authors examine the assumption that vicarious victims respond in similar ways as direct victims since hate crime signal the presence of threat beyond the initial victim, sometimes referred to as the in terrorem effect. We examine the in terrorem effect by comparing fear of crime between non-victims, vicarious victims of hate crime, and direct victims of hate crime in three communities; women, Muslims and sexual minorities. The results showed that direct victims were generally more afraid of crime in comparison to non-victims in all communities. Though not all differences were significant, the reaction pattern among non-victims, vicarious victims and direct victims in the studies commu-nities showed the pattern of a stair, with the lowest rates among non-victims and the highest rates among direct victims. These results thereby contradict the proposed pattern of the in terrorem effect in which vicarious victims and direct victims are held to react in similar ways.In sum, the results of the present dissertation call for a more complex understanding of both individual and community effects of hate crime. The theoretical development and integration in Chapter 3 along with the results of Articles 1-4 results in hypotheses for future research on causes and consequences of hate crime in Chapter 6.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Boda, Chad
(författare)
-
The Beach Beneath the Road : Sustainable coastal development beyond governance and economics
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- That Florida is in the midst of an ecological crisis is a perspective increasingly shared by academy, government, private industry and civil society. Ideas about the causes of the state’s environmental problems and how best to address them, however, are not so well aligned. While some are prone to emphasize the primacy of economic growth over environmental conservation, others argue that, like love and marriage, you cannot have one without the other. More particularly, Florida’s many densely populated barrier islands are experiencing increasingly severe critical erosion, threatening people, property and endangered species habitat. In the face of expanding urban development, rising seas and coastal squeeze, the traditional strategies for managing erosion are looking less and less appropriate and the need for a sustainable coastal development strategy is more and more apparent.To this end, this thesis has three main parts. First, I develop a plausible explanation of the origins of Florida’s environmental problems, tracing the relationship between changing systems of production and environmental impacts from pre-Columbian to modern times, developing in more concrete detail the case of Flagler County and the City of Flagler Beach. Second, by employing the method of immanent critique I provide a scientific evaluation of competing critical erosion solution options which have been historically considered in the case study area, demonstrating in particular how these competing alternatives can be organized from least to most adequate in terms of their capacity to address the problem under consideration. From this critique I turn to suggest a yet-unconsidered alternative decision making procedure which can reasonably be shown to be an advancement on the “best” idea currently on offer. Finally, I identify a promising pathway to achieving this alternative, arguing in particular that civil society, in contrast to government or the market, must provide the mechanism for realizing the necessary social change.The thesis aspires to make three main types of contribution: 1) practical contributions in the form of a variety of policy and strategy inputs in collaboration with local coastal management practitioners; 2) theoretical contributions via the critical comparison of competing solution alternatives related to coastal management in Florida’s coastal communities; and 3) methodological contributions to sustainability studies by demonstrating an approach to scientific research which I argue is more appropriate than other more dominant approaches in terms of its capacity to fulfill the field’s interdisciplinary and normative ambitions.
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| 5. |
- Braian, Michael
(författare)
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Digital dentistry : studies on the trueness and precision of additive manufacturing and intraoral scanning
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Artificial designs and features usually control production workflowsin the industry. The operator has the freedom to adapt designs toachieve the desired function; when the operator is satisfied, massproduction of the two objects is possible. The production workflowfor prosthetic restorations in dentistry is a fairly complicatedprocedure that requires several well-controlled processes, and eachunit is individually adapted to one unique situation. The aim of thefinal restoration is to replace damaged or missing soft and hard tissue,and to restore function, phonetics and aesthetics. The restoration hashigh material property requirements in order to withstand high forces,thermal changes, aging and humidity. If the fit of the reconstructionis insufficient there is a high probability for clinical failures rangingfrom inflammatory processes to reconstruction fractures. Thegrading of perfect, sufficient and insufficient fit is unknown althoughthe definition clinically acceptable fit has been used to describe andcontrol a reconstruction that is well seated and controllable by the clinician. Study I in this thesis focuses on the clearance (play) betweendifferent implant components in order to achieve a threshold value forhow accurate the production in dentistry needs to be. We found thatmetallic components on external hex connections have a clearanceof approximately 50 μm.Not only is every case individually designed and manufactured,but the receiving intraoral part also needs to be replicated into anextraoral part ahead of production, a procedure that has been possiblewith different impression materials. Subsequently, the production goes through a series of controlled compensations to fit the intraoralsituation. The conventional workflow starts by the selection of animpression tray, ranging from custom-made trays to plastic stocktrays. The ideal trays are rigid, thereby minimising flexure during theimpression taking. There are several types of impression materialswith different properties regarding setting time, volume changes andmechanical properties. The next step in the conventional workflowis the casting of the impression. There are various types of gypsumproducts utilised in dentistry, and they require different amounts ofwater. The differences depend on the shape and compactness of thecrystals. Type IV dental stone gypsum is often used in reconstructivedentistry with a typical setting expansion of 0.10%. For the partialdigital workflow the same volume changes can be seen for theconventional impression, the stone model production and the dieprocessing. In order to design the intended construction digitallyinstead of using wax, the model needs to be digitised in an extraoral scanner, also known as desktop scanner.The fully digital workflow consists of a direct digitisation of the oralcavity utilising intraoral scanning devices. All intraoral scanners havethe same goal, to digitise the size, shape and surface of a physicalobject into a geometrical virtual shape. This acquisition needs to berepeatable, reproducible and accurate. The IOS manufacturers tryto achieve these goals with different hardware and software setups.Study IV focuses on the acquisition accuracy of five different intraoralscanners for the digitisation of edentulous and dentated models. Theresults suggest that the devices had lower accuracy for the digitisationof the edentulous models when compared to the dentated model.Furthermore, Study IV presented observations suggesting that fullarchscans had lower accuracy when compared to shorter arch scanson both models. For the cross-arch measurements on the edentulousscans, the trueness values ranged from 6 μm to 193 μm, and, for the shorter arch measurements, the results ranged from 2 μm to 103 μm.For the dentated cast, the cross-arch trueness values ranged from6 μm to 150 μm, and, for the shorter arch measurements, the resultsranged from 4 μm to -56 μm.The digitised file is then utilised as a virtual model by a computeraideddesigner in order to virtually design the intended reconstruction.The designed file is then manufactured utilising computer-aidedmanufacturing, which can be performed either by a subtractivemachine (milling) or by additive systems (3D printing). Study II andStudy III explore the production tolerances for producing polymericand metallic objects from additive systems. Study III also containeda subtractive group. The results from these two studies suggest thatall tested additive systems for producing polymeric objects were, onaverage, 500 μm to
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| 6. |
- Callahan, Sara, 1975-
(författare)
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The Archive Art Phenomenon : History and Critique at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation investigates the relationship between art and archive at the turn of the twenty-first century. The object of study is the phenomenon of archive art, understood as a combination of theories of the archive, artworks, and different kinds of texts (catalogues, scholarly articles, critical essays, etc.) delineating the art here called archive art. The study has been conducted by cross-reading the different elements that make up the phenomenon of archive art with various discourses and developments both within and outside the artworld. It investigates how the archive became a ubiquitous reference in art discourse and the functions and implications the notion has within an art context.Each of the dissertation’s six chapters adds to and builds on the previous, thereby examining an increasingly thickening web of conceptual relations. Chapter I examines five texts about archive art written between 1995 and 2008. Chapter II outlines writings about archives from other disciplines frequently referenced in art discourse, and shows how this “archive theory” (including works by Foucault, Derrida and others) overlaps in many ways with the Institutional Theory of Art. Chapter III analyses the archive art phenomenon by juxtaposing three different aspects of the tension between materiality and immateriality: the artwork as object or idea; connotations of analogue and digital technology; and different notions of traditional and poststructural forms of history writing. Chapter IV is concerned with the role of the artist as historian, archivist and researcher, and examines how the discourse around studio-based research overlaps with the different modes of historical truth-claims outlined in the previous chapter. This chapter also analyses references to research as process and form in archive art discourse. Chapter V examines different kinds of critique of institutions and shows how the archive art phenomenon intersects with a critical paradigm in the academy and beyond. Chapter VI ties together many results of the previous discussions by analysing the archive art phenomenon within a broader historical context. The chapter shows that history, the presumed subject of much archive art, can also be considered indicative of a shift away from a grounding of the art object within a teleological art history, toward an institutionally defined concept of art as an archival structure. In that sense the archive art phenomenon is analysed both as a resistance to, and a symptom of, what some have called the presentism of the current era. The archive is an example of what Mieke Bal terms a “travelling concept”, as it moves between and within disciplines and contexts. The ubiquity of the concept in art discourse is part of a broader “turn” to the archive, however, this study shows that the archive takes on meaning specific to the contemporary artworld. The notion of the archive here functions as a short-cut for theorizing artists’ interest in the material traces of the past (the concrete, “dusty” archive) as well as their critical investigation of the post-1960s artworld (the archive as metaphor and structure). What may seem like a mere trend within contemporary art discourse, is thus shown to have functions and implications that interlock with the conceptual grounding of contemporary art.
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| 7. |
- Chaib, Josef
(författare)
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Evidence, Expertise and 'Other' Knowledge : Governing Welfare Collaboration
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- I den här avhandlingen studeras styrning av välfärdssamverkan, med focus på betydelsen av kunskap i styrning. I offentlig verksamhet – och i välfärd i synnerhet – är samverkan mellan myndigheter, kommunala förvaltningar och välfärdsprofessionella ett återkommande sätt att hantera olika problem som de traditionella offentliga institutionerna anses oförmögna att lösa. Genom att studera ett specifikt fall av välfärdssamverkan, med fokus på barn och unga, är syftet med den här avhandlingen att utforska hur samverkan styrs. Med en explorativ ansats – baserad på etnografisk metodologi och en Foucauldiansk syn på styrning – fokuserar studien på styrningspraktiker bortom formella styrinstrument och relationer. Avhandlingen skildrar praktiker som styr genom olika typer av kunskap och för att beskriva den här formen av styrning används begreppet kunskapsregimer. Utifrån en fallstudie bestående av huvudsakligen observationer och intervjuer visas hur olika typer av kunskaper kommer till uttryck inom samverkan. Genom en regim baserad på expertkunskap involveras forskare – som utvärderare och föreläsare – för att delge sin vetenskapliga kunskap. Genom en regim baserad på standardiserad kunskap tillämpas icke-personbunden och universell kunskap, såsom evidensbaserade verktyg och managementmodeller. Genom en regim baserad på lokal kunskap så tillämpas icke-artikulerad kunskap som olika professionella grupper besitter – en kunskap som ofta framstår som avvikande gentemot mer etablerade kunskapstyper. Olika typer av kunskap styr välfärdssamverkan genom de praktiker där de gestaltas och kommer till uttryck. En viktig slutsats och argument i avhandlingen är att mångfalden av kunskap och relationerna mellan olika typer av kunskap behöver beaktas i studier av välfärdssamverkan och inom offentlig sektor mer generellt. Studien visar hur olika kunskapsregimer existerar samtidigt och att olika kunskapstyper förekommer sida vid sida inom en och samma organisation och även inom samma samverkansprojekt. Genom att beskriva och analysera betydelsen av kunskap i styrningen av välfärdssamverkan innebär studien ett bidrag till forskning om välfärd och hur välfärden organiseras och styrs. Avhandlingen är också ett bidrag till forskning om relationen mellan kunskap och politik och betydelsen av kunskap i offentlig förvaltning i bred bemärkelse.
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| 8. |
- Cuartielles Ruiz, David Joaquin
(författare)
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Platform Design : Creating Meaningful Toolboxes When People Meet
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Platform Design is a study of different viewpoints on the creation of digital systems, and how they converge in platforms designed, built, and managed by communities. As sociotechnical constructs in which features emerge through the interaction of different stakeholders, platforms are understood as both means and outcomes—the ‘things’ or boundary objects in a design process—generating the spaces where communities of practice can form. Utilizing two strongly interwoven timelines in education and research (both in academia and industry), the thesis shifts the centre of balance in actor–networks by iteratively recalibrating from a techno-deterministic analysis towards a community-driven one. The theoretical background in the fields of cybernetics, critical theory, design, and the sociology of technology frames the empirical work, which consists of academic publications, design reports, and the publicly available documentation of realized projects. In the space between theory and praxis, a methodological toolbox is developed, a posteriori revisiting experiences gathered over a decade Drawing on a series of functional concepts, the thesis proposes an alternative co-design framework, termed inclusive multiple prototyping. Meant to augment new sensibilities that are pertinent to the design process of platforms, this framework addresses the inherent complexity of actor–networks and human–machine communities. In practical terms, the thesis describes a series of projects, some of which can be considered platforms, while others would be better categorized as tools, toolboxes, kits, or infrastructure. These include co-creating the Arduino community, repurposing kitchen appliances for connection to the cloud, designing a modular prototyping platform involving programming and electronics, deploying an indoor location system, creating educational kits for upper secondary school teachers, and inventing new haptic interactive interfaces. Some of the projects required the long-term involvement of the researcher in intimate communities of practice; others were temporal interventions, yet reached thousands of users. Practice-based and transdisciplinary, the thesis contributes to the field of interaction design by bringing in elements of a sociotechnical discourse, while problematizing notions such as democracy and governance, openness of tools and outcomes, modularity, generalizability, and transferability—the three latter terms further fuelling the research questions. The research shows that these are properties that enable the creation of platforms, although the question remains whether there is such a thing as a standardized platform. While this thesis touches upon the potentials of state-of-the-art platform technology, it also points to the fact that there is work to be done, socially, ethically, and politically, when considering the augmentation of platforms for everyday use as pervasive and artificial intelligence agents.
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| 9. |
- Djampour, Pouran
(författare)
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Borders crossing bodies : The stories of eight youth with experience of migrating
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In public discourse on migration, people who migrate are often portrayed as deviating from the rest of the population. This is especially true for the group categorised as ‘unaccompanied’ children who are portrayed as homogeneous and not seldom with a common history. Such simplifications create a ‘single story’ that reduces people who migrate and their complex lives to stereotypes. This dissertation derives from a willingness to contest this single story through multiple stories by multiplestorytellers. This is done by seeking tocomprehend what borders do in the lives of eight youth with experience of migrating. The aim is thus to study what borders do and how the participants navigate, experience and challenge those borders at different stages of their lives.This study is based on ethnography among eight youth, who at some point have been categorised as ‘unaccompanied’ children in Sweden and other countries. The fieldwork was carried out during a period between 2013 and 2017 involving interviews and conversations with the participants. Borders are analysed from a multiperspectival standpoint, which means that borders are seen as practices of both material and symbolic divisions performed by different actors constituting control. Borders not only hinder or stop some while granting passage to others; they also construct people differently. Those who are repeatedly crossed by borders eventually become inhabitants of the borderlands. Influenced by feminist and postcolonial scholarship, this study calls for epistemic plurality by acknowledging different sources of knowledge which are placed in dialogue with the stories of the youth. Aspects of their lives before moving from their homes are considered equally important for their experience of borders as their lives in Europe.
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| 10. |
- Engstrand, Sandra
(författare)
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State Learning and Role Playing : International environmental cooperation in the Arctic Council
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study investigates state interaction as a social learning process, where the ultimate aim is to enhance an understanding on how states learn of environmental norms. An entry into the domain on such learning processes is offered through a Constructivist approach and more specifically through the employment of a role theoretical perspective; a role here is signified as a state's repertory of behavior and its social position within a group. Attention has been devoted to states' ego- and alter expectations, which provide access to how states reflect and deliberate regarding their preferred behavior, when also taking into account those behavioral/normative prescriptions found in the social context, and in others' expectations. To enhance an understanding on how states learn of environmental norms, investigations and discussions are carried out on the links between: learning and expectations, environmental protection and fossil energy interests, and learning and role changes. Furthermore, such discussions are linked to the Arctic context, and more precisely to state interaction within the Arctic Council. This intergovernmental forum - dedicated to sustainable development and environmental protection - has eight Arctic states as founding members: Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the U.S. In this study, each state's role is mapped through a text analysis, of foremost Senior Arctic Official's meeting minutes during the period 1999-2016. Two specific negotiation processes (2013-2015) are then investigated from a micro perspective, focusing on the question of how states learn. These negotiations are on oil spill prevention and the reduction of short-lived climate pollutants, respectively. Three theoretical conclusions are drawn: firstly; roles in international relations are stable but flexible, thus adaptive; secondly, the flexible dimension of roles is activated in relation to understanding - to which degree states understand their social context to contain behavioral prescriptions, and thirdly; states cannot learn in a speedier and more thorough manner than the role allows for flexing. For the progression of environmental protection, learning about such norms are thus suggested to be successive learning, connected to states' expectations of their (role) purpose within a social context. Moreover, it is suggested that conceptions of being a good cooperator is superior, why learning of environmental norms also is connected to understandings of what would constitute such an actor.
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| 11. |
- Fabijan, Aleksander
(författare)
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Data-Driven Software Development at Large Scale : from Ad-Hoc Data Collection to Trustworthy Experimentation
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Accurately learning what customers value is critical for the success of every company. Despite the extensive research on identifying customer preferences, only a handful of software companies succeed in becoming truly data-driven at scale. Benefiting from novel approaches such as experimentation in addition to the traditional feedback collection is challenging, yet tremendously impactful when performed correctly. In this thesis, we explore how software companies evolve from data-collectors with ad-hoc benefits, to trustworthy data-driven decision makers at scale. We base our work on a 3.5-year longitudinal multiple-case study research with companies working in both embedded systems domain (e.g. engineering connected vehicles, surveillance systems, etc.) as well as in the online domain (e.g. developing search engines, mobile applications, etc.). The contribution of this thesis is three-fold. First, we present how software companies use data to learn from customers. Second, we show how to adopt and evolve controlled experimentation to become more accurate in learning what customers value. Finally, we provide detailed guidelines that can be used by companies to improve their experimentation capabilities. With our work, we aim to empower software companies to become truly data-driven at scale through trustworthy experimentation. Ultimately this should lead to better software products and services.
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| 12. |
- Fonseca Alfaro, Claudia
(författare)
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The Land of the Magical Maya : Colonial Legacies, Urbanization, and the Unfolding of Global Capitalism
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The land of the Magical Maya is a mythical region in the south of Mexico where there are enigmatic creatures such as cosmic Indios, vultures, ghosts, white elephants, pineapples, swallows, and flamingos; and wondrous places like cenotes, pyramids, blue moons, old frontiers, new frontiers, and paradise-Zones. In the 1980s, henequen, the agro-based industry that had sustained Yucatán since the 19th century, was close to collapsing. With a sense of urgency, the state government looked for alternatives to diversify the economy in an attempt to prevent the effects of mass unemployment. Almost by chance, but with the help of state intervention, the maquiladora industry filled the gap left by the old system and boomed between 1990 and 2001, followed by a bust, and then a decline. Drawing on fieldwork, and with an analysis that starts with abstractions and zooms in to the level of the everyday, this thesis tells a tale at different scales. This is the story of how people in the city of Motul experienced the rise and decline of Montgomery Industries, the most important maquiladora in the state. There are glimpses into how people’s lives changed and how their city transformed; how the state built infrastructural veins to support the maquiladora industry; and how the government attempted to sell the idea of Yucatán as an exotic, maquiladora paradise where Magical Mayas await. This is also a bigger tale about the relationship between colonial legacies, urbanization, and global capitalism. Through instances of magic, capitalism exists in tension between its tendency to homogenize and its propensity to thrive in differentiation. Capitalism in Yucatán is articulated via the Imperial South through processes of racialization and colonization. Urbanization unfolds in tension between invisibility and visibility. This work contributes to the third wave of Lefebvrian thought, offers insights to the continuous debate of the urban question, advances the project of postcolonial urban studies, and adds to the body of maquiladora studies.
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| 13. |
- Fred, Mats
(författare)
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Projectification : The Trojan horse of local government
- 2018
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis aims to conceptualize local government projectification by answering the questions of how projectification is manifested in practice, and what the consequences of the project logic are for local government organizations and their employees. An institutional ethnography is conducted in the Swedish municipality of Eslöv and its organizational and institutional surroundings. Through an institutional logic perspective informed by translation theory, local government projectification is conceptualized as a process of proliferation, transformation and adaptation, as well as organizational capacity building. Projectification as proliferation emphasizes the increasing use and diffusion of projects and project ideas. Projectification as transformation and adaptation highlights processes of transformation of “permanent” ordinary organizational activities to temporary projects, and adaptation in the surrounding organizations and structures. Projectification as organizational capacity building implies that the project logic diffuses in local government organizations, not primarily through specific projects, but through practices encouraging the project logic, which reinforces the organizational project capacity of local government. Three conclusions are drawn. First, projectification must be regarded as something more than many projects. Second, projects are not “just” vehicles carrying something forward, but techniques, tools and practices that produce specific effects of their own, independently of their stated objectives or aims ascribed to them.Third, the practical outcome of the project logic is more related to the rational and technical aspects of the project as a form than the innovative and flexible aspects of the project as a process. Hence, local government bureaucracy appears to be battle bureaucracy with more bureaucracy.
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| 14. |
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| 15. |
- González Arribas, Elena
(författare)
-
Flexible and transparent biological electric power sources based on nanostructured electrodes
- 2018
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Portabel medicinteknisk utrustning framträder alltmer som en av de mest lovande metoderna för vårdövervakning och personlig behandling. Förebyggande vård och hantering av kroniska sjukdomar är resurskrävande och en överföring av det konventionella sjukhuscentrerade sjukvårdssystemet till ett individcentrerat vårdsystem skulle vara samhällsekonomiskt gynnsam. I ett sådant scenario representerar bärbara mätenheter en teknik för övervakning av patienter på ett icke-invasivt och lättanvänt sätt. Denna teknik har möjlighet att tillhandahålla långsiktiga hälsostatusövervakningar och förmedla realtidsdata som läkare kan analysera för att ge patienterna återkoppling utan att behöva träffa patienterna lika ofta. Dessutom är många utan kroniska sjukdomar också intresserade av att övervaka kroppens hälsotillstånd för att förhindra sjukdomar och uppnå en högre livskvalitet. Dagens bärbara enheter integrerar elektronik med låg strömförbrukning och trådlös teknik, s.k. ”low power wireless technology”, för att överföra information från enheten till en mottagare. Elektronik behöver tillförlitliga strömkällor för att säkerställa funktionen, och biologiska kraftkällor är särskilt lämpliga alternativ att använda i bärbara enheter, eftersom de har hög prestanda när de används under fysiologiska förhållanden. Olika biologiska kraftkällor har tillverkats och testats i denna avhandling. Materialen som används för att tillverka dem är transparenta och flexibla. Dessa två egenskaper bidrar starkt till användarvänligheten och ökar därmed benägenheten att använda sådana kraftkällor. De biologiska kraftkällorna omvandlar kemisk energi till elektrisk energi genom att oxidera glukos och reducera syre under förhållanden som liknar dem som föreligger i mänsklig tårvätska. Detta arbete bidrar till att öka kunskapen om flexibla, transparenta och nanostrukturerade material som används för tillverkning av biologiska kraftkällor.
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| 16. |
- Grander, Martin
(författare)
-
For the Benefit of Everyone? : Explaining the Significance of Swedish Public Housing for Urban Housing Inequality
- 2018
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Housing has a special place in the Swedish welfare state. Ever since Gustav Möller, Minister for Social Affairs, in 1945 was handed the result of Bostadssociala utredningen, a state investigation on housing from a social perspective, housing has been a bearing pillar in the Swedish ‘Folkhem’. Since the post-war period, Swedish housing policy has been universal in the sense that housing consumers have not been categorized by income or living conditions. Instead, the policy has had the aim of ‘good housing for all’. The main instrument for achieving this goal—the figurehead of the universal housing policy—has been allmännyttan, the national model of public housing, constituted by municipal housing companies with the task of offering rental housing of high quality, for the benefit of everyone. This PhD thesis analyzes allmännyttan based on the observation that the contemporary housing situation is largely characterized by inequality. The housing consumer is to a lesser extent independent from inherited conditions: Access to housing and the characteristics of housing are increasingly dependent on economic resources. The dissertation highlights the role of public housing in this development. The municipal housing companies and the context they exist in have changed over the past decades through gradual political reforms and alignment with European competition law. Such a development might influence the ability of allmännyttan to contribute to keeping housing inequality at bay. The purpose of the thesis is thus to study the potential and actual significance of allmännyttan for housing inequality in Swedish cities. The thesis is grounded in critical realist ontology and analyzes how and why (or why not) allmännyttan’s latent mechanisms to counteract inequality are actualized. Through studies of municipal housing companies throughout Sweden, including eleven in-depth case studies, the thesis seeks to answer whether the contemporary allmännytta counteracts housing inequality, or if it rather contributes to a more unequal housing provision. The dissertation consists of three peer-reviewed papers. Together with the framing chapter of the dissertation, the papers highlight how housing inequality could be understood from a national context and in terms of multidimensionality; how events triggered by allmännyttan counteracts or contributes to housing inequality; and how allmännyttan’s discretion to counteract housing inequality is identified and used by the municipal housing companies. The results indicate that, despite a gradual shift towards businesslike conditions and demands on return on investment, allmännyttan still has a latent and potential ability to counteract housing inequality. The core of universalism consists, so do the expectations of social benefit. However, the contextual conditions have changed: The state-organized housing provision has gone from state-financed to financialized, i.e., dependent on financial motives, institutions, tools and financial capital. Allmännyttan exists in a state of financialized universalism. In spite of this development, the thesis identifies ample discretion for municipal housing companies to actualize underlying mechanisms which contribute to counteracting housing inequality. However, how this discretion is perceived and used varies from city to city. The discretion is interpreted—consciously or unconsciously— in different ways, depending on the local political governance, but also on the local institutional path-dependence, i.e., its past decisions, its culture and traditions. How the discretion is identified has implications on the events that affect housing inequality. The conclusion is that public housing is more than ever locally diversified. An imaginary of financialized economy has been adopted by many municipal housing companies, but this imaginary is challenged and negotiated by other companies. Given this variation, allmännyttan simultaneously—and contradictory—contributes to both reduced and increased housing inequality. The character of the ambiguous allmännytta is thus determined at local scale, a conclusion which stands in contrast with national objectives of a state-organized housing provision based on good housing, for the benefit of everyone.
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| 17. |
- Hajinasab, Banafsheh
(författare)
-
A Dynamic Approach to Multi-Agent-Based Simulation in Urban Transportation Planning
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Reviewing previous studies on using computational models for analyzing the effect of transport policies on transportation systems shows that agentbased models have not been used much in spite of their great potential for simulating dynamic aspects of policy instruments and travel behavior. The main reason can be the need for a lot of input data which is hard to prepare for the modeler. This has led to limited use of agent-based models in previous studies and even in those studies the scope of simulation is limited to only particular scenarios. In this thesis, I proposed a general-purpose agent-based simulation model for urban transportation that supports simulation of a wide range of policy instruments. The proposed model is designed in a way that a large part of the input data can be generated automatically using online web-services. The thesis also reports an empirical study on using our proposed generalpurpose model together with on-line travel planners in agent-based simulation for predicting the effect of different policy instruments on travel behavior. The results from our empirical study showed that our generalpurpose agent-based model predicts 72% of the real travel decisions correctly. Furthermore, the results of the simulation for various scenarios and combination of them seem to be acceptable. Finally, we found out that the use of on-line services for data collection increases the speed and flexibility of the system for defining and running new scenarios. However, the scalability of using on-line services in simulation is constrained by limitations of online service providers. The main contributions of this thesis are a general-purpose agentbased simulation model for urban transportation and a novel approach to automatically generate input data to the simulation using online travel planners and other web-services. This novel approach mitigates the challenge of agent-based simulation as a data-intensive method. This can lead to more widespread use for agent-based simulation in solving complex and realistic transportation scenarios. Another contribution of this thesis is on visualization of simulation output. One of the main challenges of using simulation systems by transport planners and decision makers as end-users is to understand the complex output of the simulation. In this thesis, I empirically demonstrated how the usability of a freight transport simulation system is improved by adding a visualization module that illustrates the results of the simulation for the end-users.
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| 18. |
- Hallström, Hadar
(författare)
-
On prevention and treatment of peri-implant inflammation
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis focuses on prevention and treatment of biological complications around dental implants.BackgroundAn increasing number of individuals have restorations that are anchored to the jaws by dental implants. Modern-day implants are a Swedish invention that became available to patients in the 1970s. Implant restorations are common and several patients have had their implants for more than twenty years. The long-time survival rate is good, but as with all treatments, complications do occur. These complications can be technical problems, like fractures of the framework, discolouring and wear of the prosthesis, or fractures of the actual implant. Biological complications appear initially as peri-implant mucositis (PiM) which is a bacterially induced inflammation of the soft tissue around an implant. PiM may progress into peri-implantitis (Pi) that involves the implant supporting bone and can ultimately lead to loss of the implant. The prevalence of complications has been debated. Depending on patient population and definition used, the prevalence has been reported in the range of 19-65% for PiM and 1-47% for Pi. Treatment of peri-implant diseases consists of reinforcement of the patients’ oral hygiene, non-surgical mechanical therapy and incases with bone loss adjacent to the implant surgical interventions may be needed. Irrespective of treatment method complete resolution of the diseases is rare and even though no evidence exists that the use of antibiotics improves the treatment outcome antibiotics are often prescribed. Frequent use of antibiotics is a main contributor to the development of bacterial resistance that has developed into a serious global problem. Probiotics are live bacteria that inadequate doses are beneficial to the host and under certain circumstances have demonstrated abilities to hamper inflammations.AimsThe aim of the thesis was to clarify whether 1) probiotics administered in lozenges can prevent or lower the inflammatory reaction to plaque accumulation, 2) if the use of probiotics as an adjunct to mechanical treatment of peri-implant mucositis has a beneficiary effect, and 3) if systemically administered antibiotics given as additive enhance the outcome following the treatment of peri-implant mucositis and peri-implantitis.MethodsFour studies were designed to fulfil the aim:· a placebo controlled cross-over study testing whether probiotics can prevent or lower the inflammatory response to a bacterial challenge.· a placebo controlled RCT study evaluating whether probiotics given as an additive to mechanical treatment of peri-implant mucositis provides any benefits.· a RCT study evaluating whether systemically administered antibiotics given as an additive to mechanical treatment of periimplant mucositis are beneficial.· a RCT study evaluating whether systemically administered antibiotics given as an additive to surgical treatment of periimplantitis are beneficial.Clinical, microbiological, and immunological parameters were used to analyse study outcomes.Results· Daily probiotic lozenges had no significant effect on the inflammatory response in an experimental gingivitis model compared to placebo.· Daily probiotic lozenges as additive to oral hygiene instructions and mechanical debridement had no significant effect on the clinical, microbiological, or immunological outcome in the treatment of peri-implant mucositis compared to placebo.· Systemically administered antibiotics as additive to oral hygiene instructions and mechanical debridement had no significant effect on the clinical or microbiological outcome in the treatment of peri-implant mucositis.· Systemically administered antibiotics as additive to oral hygiene instructions and surgical mechanical debridement had no significant effect on the clinical or microbiological outcome in the treatment of peri-implantitis.ConclusionsNeither probiotics containing Lactobacillus reuteri or Azithromycin have any major effect on the treatment outcome of periimplant mucositis or peri-implantitis when given as additive to conventional treatment. The use of daily lozenges containing Lactobacillus reuteri yields no benefits when it comes to preventing gingivitis under experimental gingivitis conditions.
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| 19. |
- Holst-Hansson, Annette
(författare)
-
On a journey for survival : everyday life during radiation therapy from the perspectives of women with breast cancer and their families
- 2018
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis focuses on women diagnosed with breast cancer and their familymembers. Since a breast cancer diagnosis and its subsequent treatment are astrenuous experience not only for the woman afflicted but also for her familymembers, this thesis aimed to explore the experiences of everyday life duringradiation therapy from the perspectives of the woman with breast cancer andher family, as well as exploring families’ experiences of participating in shortfamily health conversations (SFamHC).All included studies were interview studies (Papers I, II, III & IV), where 30women (20 in Paper I and 10 in Paper II) with breast cancer, 19 family membersincluding the women with breast cancer (Paper III) and 9 families (PaperIV) were interviewed. The data from the interviews was analysed using qualitativecontent analysis (Papers I & II), a hermeneutical phenomenologicalmethod (Paper III) and thematic analysis (Paper IV). The women’s experiences of breathing adapted radiation therapy (BART)(Paper I) were identified in an overall theme, The breath of life, as the womenexperienced the breathing as a way to influence their treatment andthus their survival. The overall theme could be divided into one main category:Participating in one’s treatment, for good or ill, with four subcategories:Knowing one has done something good, Getting an extra bonus –healthwise, The experience of being in control and Being in a hightechnologyenvironment.Women born in Iraq and the former Yugoslavia, diagnosed with breast cancerand living in Sweden, experienced their everyday life during radiation therapyas a narrow and challenging treatment road to survival (Paper II). Theirexperiences were structured into three categories: Strategies for survival, Keepingup appearances and Staying in control. More focus should be on acknowledgingthe woman behind the diagnosis, regardless of her origin, in order to develop individualised support programmes to help women cope with everydaylife during radiation therapy.The families’ lived experience when a family member is diagnosed withbreast cancer (Paper III) was described as a challenging endeavour to regain anordinary, safe life, hoping to reach a safe haven. The families felt that life as theyknew it had disappeared and they were fumbling in the dark and pursuing balanceby struggling to keep the family together and by maintaining a positive attitude.They were also struggling with guilt and inadequacy, due to their difficultiesin communicating emotional distress and to feeling abandoned by thehealth care professionals.Families’ experiences of participating in short family health conversations(SFamHC) (Paper IV) were identified in four key themes: Bringing everythingout in the open, Being confirmed as an individual and as a family, Gaining anunexpected insight and Timing and context matter. The findings from this thesis can deepen the understanding of what livingwith breast cancer is like, from the perspectives of the women with breast cancerand their families, as well as increasing the understanding of their needs.Their experiences could be described as a journey for survival, a journey thatstarts at the time of diagnosis and that they are still partaking in when concludingtheir radiation therapy treatment. The journey for survival sends themoff into the unknown, where they strive to regain control, balancing betweenhope and despair, experiencing their life as divided into an outer and innerworld and needing support from each other as well as from health care professionals.A possible way to support the women and their family members couldbe to offer them participation in short family health conversations (SFamHC),since these conversations provide them with an opportunity to verbalise andshare their feelings and thoughts. Those participants (Paper IV) who took partin SFamHC felt that their participation in the SFamHC helped them to moveforward and beyond the breast cancer diagnosis.
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| 20. |
- Kolben Waaranperä, Ulrika
(författare)
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Histories of land : Politicization, property and belonging in Molo, Kenya
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis aims to explore the politicization of land in a local setting in Kenya. The purpose is to study how access to land is justified through histories about relational property and belonging. The notion of deep politics is used in order to suggest that these histories of property and belonging not only transform the meanings of land but also the meanings of politics.The empirical chapters describe how the ordeals of the high politics of the state—such as the creation of settlement schemes, the provision of landed resources, or the alteration of constituency boundaries—have given rise to local histories about how property and belonging are constituted. The findings of the thesis build on extensive fieldwork. The main empirical material consists of qualitative interviews with 129 persons, undertaken primarily in Molo. The interviews are complemented with ethnographic observations and archival sources.In policy and theory alike, land is usually treated as a purely economic resource, subject to property rights regulations of a technical, universal and decontextualized nature. Such assumptions have underwritten many large-scale land privatization reforms in the Global South. In contrast to such assumptions, this dissertation contributes to the literature on access to land in Africa by suggesting that even when property rights to land are generally accepted, they are also backed up by other claims, such as various histories of belonging. The idea that property rights, decades after titling-reforms, are both accepted and complemented with other notions of what constitutes legitimate access to land is an original finding of the thesis. This adds further complexity to the notion of property as inherently relational and potentially eligible for politicization. Additional light is hereby cast on why conflicts over land might not be solved but instead reinforced by land reforms.
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| 21. |
- Kroona, Liv
(författare)
-
Oral contact allergy to carvone : with a focus on oral lichen
- 2018
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Avhandlingen undersöker karvon (l-karvon), ett mintsmakandearomämne, och hur kontaktallergi mot karvon yttrar sig. Karvonfinns framför allt i grönmynta/spearmint, men aromämnet kan ävenframställas ur limonen, ett citrondoftande parfymämne. Karvonär ett svagt kontaktallergen och allergiförekomsten är bara någraprocent i lapptestade populationer. Kontaktallergi mot karvon har ienstaka studier visat sig vara vanligare hos individer med lichenoidamunslemhinneförändringar som oral lichen planus. Avsikten medavhandlingen har varit att studera detta samband vidare.I studie I analyserades mängden karvon i 66 tandkrämer inköptai Sverige. Även innehållsförteckningarna studerades. Lagstiftningenoch innehållsmärkningen av karvon diskuterades. Karvonmängdeni tandkräm varierar stort, 0,35–0,00005 %, men återfinns i allatandkrämer med någon form av smak, även fruktsmak. De uppmättamängderna är under det tillåtna gränsvärdet för att inte kunna gekontaktallergi men några av tandkrämerna innehåller tillräckligtmycket karvon för att ge en reaktion hos redan kontaktallergiskaindivider.I studie II studerades journal- och databasdata från alla patienteri södra Sverige som testats positivt för kontaktallergi mot karvonmellan 1996-2016. Gruppdata jämfördes med andra lapptestadegrupper som inte var karvonallergiska, bl.a. en matchad grupp(ålder, kön, tidpunkt för test och liknande besvär). Karvonallergiskapatienter hade hög medelålder och var ofta kvinnor. De hade oftabesvär från munhålan och över hälften hade orala lichenoidaförändringar. I den matchade jämförelsen hade karvonallergiskapatienter betydligt mer orala lichenoida förändringar jämfört medpatienter utan karvonallergi.I studie III undersöktes hur allergi mot karvon i tandkräm yttrarsig. Karvonallergiska försökspersoner fick använda tandkrämmed 1 % karvon under en månads tid. Även försökspersonermed orala lichenoida förändringar och individer utan allergi ellermunslemhinneförändringar deltog. Slemhinnorna och läpparnaundersöktes vid tre tillfällen under det månadslånga användartestet.Förutom den kliniska bedömningen svarade försökspersonerna påen livskvalitetsenkät (S-OHIP-49) före och efter användartestet.Karvonallergiska individer exponerade för karvon i tandkrämreagerade med antingen eksem runt munnen eller med förvärradeorala lichenoida förändringar. Även livskvaliteten försämrades hosdessa individer.I studie IV undersöktes vävnadsprover från kind tagna påförsökspersonerna i studie III. Inflammationen och olika markörer förinflammationsceller undersöktes. Det gick inte att finna någon störreskillnad i inflammationsgrad eller i förekomst av inflammationscellermellan individer med karvonallergi och individer med oral lichenplanus förutom avseende förekomst av Langerhans celler, vilka varvanligare i vävnader från individer med oral lichen planus. Denlichenoida reaktionen som ses i de undersökta grupperna tolkasdärför som ett reaktionsmönster vilket kan ha olika orsaksursprung.För de flesta individer är karvon ett ofarligt smakämne trotslivslång exponering från tandkräm och andra mintsmakandeprodukter. Individer med orala lichenoida förändringar tycks dockha en ökad risk för karvonallergi och allergin förvärrar dessutomsymptomen från munslemhinnan. Karvonallergi kan både klinisktoch på vävnadsnivå likna oral lichen planus vilket normalt sett intekopplas samman med kontaktallergi. Karvonallergiska individerriskerar därför att inte bli diagnostiserade för sin allergi. Kliniker somhandhar patienter med oral lichen planus bör därför uppmärksammasom denna form av allergi.
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| 22. |
- Lindgren, Therese
(författare)
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Föränderlig tillblivelse : figurationen av det posthumana förskolebarnet
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In a time when the pursuit of equivalent quality is high on the Swedish ECEC (Early Childhood Education and Care) policyagenda, teachers’ responsibilities for evaluating educational practice, based on documentations of individual children’sdevelopment and learning, is emphasised. To aid teachers in this work, the Swedish National Agency of Education published anddistributed a support material promoting ‘pedagogical documentation’ as a tool and a method for documentation and evaluation,framed within a so called postconstructionist/posthumanist theoretical framework. In the support material, the (social)constructionist approach, previously associated with the tool pedagogical documentation, is criticised for having an excessive focuson interpersonal interaction and the constitutive power of language. Instead, an understanding of the world that acknowledges theforce and impact of nonhuman subjects and material objects on children’s subjectification and knowledge construction is called for.The theoretical ideas that are expressed in the support material corresponds to what broadly has been explained as a “material” turnin the humanities and social sciences. Against the backdrop of the alleged material turn, not only is the superior position oflanguage being questioned, but also the unique and ontologically superior position of the human mind. The theoretical stance takenby the National Agency of Education can be considered unique and raises questions concerning the meaning and aim of theoreticalintervention through research and policy, and of its subsequent consequences.The overall aim of the dissertation is to critically examine the figuration of the posthuman child in both a Swedish and internationalcontext of early childhood education. Part of this work involves investigating how posthumanist concepts and ideas travel,how they are picked up in policy and how posthumanist theory is being translated to fit the framework of early education. Thisinquiry concerns fundamental questions about the making of the preschool child in the intersection between educational research,educational policy and pedagogical practice. In the different studies of the dissertation, Claudia Castañeda's (2003; 2014)interpretation of the concept "figuration" is being used as an analytical tool for “unpacking” the practices, knowledge and meanings,that are built into the posthuman child as figure.
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| 23. |
- Mc Glinn, Malin
(författare)
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Translating Neoliberalism : The European Social Fund and the Governing of Unemployment and Social Exclusion in Malmö, Sweden
- 2018
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is concerned with how the governing of unemployment and social exclusion is accomplished through labor market projects that are initiated, tailored, and co- financed by the European Social Fund. The aim is to map and problematize how such projects, as examples of neoliberal programs of government that promote social cohesion and combat unemployment amongst identified “ethnic others,” become operational and legitimized in the Swedish context through multiple acts of translation. By scrutinizing the discursive, calculative, and visual practices that constitute them, the thesis also considers some of the consequences of this way of governing as well as the larger political landscapes in which they function. Ultimately, the political problem that is addressed concerns how certain “truths” about unemployed “ethnic others” in Sweden are facilitated within and co- produced by the European Social Fund and the projects it sets in motion. It thereby calls into question practices that are legitimized in the name of diversity, inclusion, and tolerance. The analysis includes discussions about the multivalent relationship between colonial and neoliberal rationalities of government, as well as how compassion and pity function to legitimize certain practices of inclusion.
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| 24. |
- Milosavljevic, Aleksandar
(författare)
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Periodontal treatment strategies in general dentistry
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Periodontal diseases, such as gingivitis and chronic periodontitis,are infectious diseases that are common in the adult population. InSweden, treatment is mostly provided in general dentistry by generaldental practitioners (GDPs) and dental hygienists (DHs). Thecare chain also comprises periodontists since they act as consultantsto the GDPs and DHs. Several studies have explored how cliniciansjudge, diagnose, and treat patients with different diseasesbut no previous study has explored how patients, with commonlyoccurring periodontal conditions in a population, are diagnosedand treated in general dentistry. Therefore the overall aim of thethesis was to study the treatment strategies applied by general dentistryclinicians to patients with common periodontal conditions.This thesis is based on five studies, where study I-IV are based on aquestionnaire and conducted using a quantitative approach while study V is based on in-depth interviews and conducted using aqualitative approach. The questionnaire in study I-IV comprised four simulated patientcases with different periodontal conditions. These four cases representthe periodontal status of the majority of middle-aged patientspresented in a general dentistry practice: 1) Generalised bone lossbut minimal signs of inflammation (well-maintained), 2) Generalisedbone loss and signs of inflammation (periodontitis), 3) Negligiblebone loss and minimal signs of inflammation (healthy), and4) Negligible bone loss but with signs of inflammation (gingivitis).The clinicians who participated in the studies were asked to judge each patient case as healthy or diseased, propose a diagnosis, evaluatetreatment needs, propose a treatment plan, and assess theprognosis.In study I, GDPs and DHs were combined in one group as generaldentistry clinicians (GDCs) and compared as to their judgement,proposed diagnosis and proposed treatment. Key findings: Three ofthe four patient cases was each judged as healthy by some GDCsand as diseased by others. The difference in judgement did not influencethe GDCs’ intention to treat or their proposed treatmentmeasures but did influence the estimated number of treatment sessions. In study II, GDCs were compared as to their prognostic assessment,treatment goals and estimation of treatment extent in termsof more or less treatment assigned to a given patient case in comparisonto the other patient cases (healthy patient case excluded).Key finding: The majority of GDCs was in general pessimistic intheir prognostic assessment and anticipated that all patient caseswere to experience a deterioration of their periodontal condition.The most common treatment goal, irrespective of the patient case,was to improve oral health awareness. The periodontitis patientcase was estimated to need the most treatment; slightly more thanthe gingivitis and the well-maintained patient cases where a similartreatment extent was estimated. In Study III, dental students (DSs) from Paris (DSP) and Malmö(DSM) were compared to each other as to judgement, diagnosis,treatment plans, and prognostic assessment. This was done in orderto discover if difference in educational background might influenceDSs’ treatment strategies. Key finding: The majority of bothgroups of DSs judged all the patient cases as diseased. DSPs proposedperiodontitis as a diagnosis more readily and estimated ahigher risk for disease progression in patient cases with no obviousbone loss (healthy and gingivitis patient cases). DSPs also recommendedmore treatment measures and estimated longer treatmenttime for all the patient cases than DSMs. In study IV, periodontists were primarily compared amongst eachother and secondly to GDPs as to their judgement, diagnosis, proposedtreatment plans, and prognostic assessment. Key findings:Both periodontists and GDPs varied in their judgement and proposeddiagnosis. The difference in periodontists’ judgement influencedtheir intention to treat and prognostic assessment. The GDPsintended to treat three out of four patient cases (except the periodontitispatient case) more often and were more pessimistic in theirprognostic assessment of patient cases with negligible bone lossthan the periodontists. In Study V, the phenomenon of lived experience of performing aperiodontal treatment in the context of general dentistry was describedby analysing interviews from three different DHs using thedescriptive phenomenological psychological method. Key finding:The periodontal treatment is perceived more as a standardisedworkflow than as an individually tailored treatment. The patients’oral hygiene and self-awareness are experienced as crucial partswhile the mechanical infection control is perceived as successfulbut sometimes difficult to perform. The DHs are experiencing aneed to be supportive of the patient but are sometimes doubtful ofthe patient’s ability to achieve and maintain a positive change inoral health behaviour.
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| 25. |
- Sixtensson, Johanna
(författare)
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Härifrån till framtiden : Om gränslinjer, aktörskap och motstånd i tjejers vardagsliv
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis explores the everyday life of a group of teenage girls living in the city of Malmö. The analytical focus is on how the girls’ encounter, negotiate with, reproduce and embody unequal socio-spatial gender structures, class relations and processes of racialization in their every day lives’. The partaking girls are positioned in different ways in relation to class and race. As well as live in different areas of the town of Malmö. This enables the thesis to explore how these differences affect the every day lives of the girls in various ways. Focus groups, individual semi-structured interviews and interviews in pairs where conducted between 2012 and 2013. The girls were recruited from upper secondary schools and youth projects within the Municipality of Malmö. In total 22 girls from an age range of 16-19 years old partook in the study. The narratives show that the partaking girls live under different everyday conditions but how they are also faced with similar power structures. The girls’ bodily orientations are in different ways affected by structural boundaries that regulate the girls’ social and spatial everyday movement. Unequal gender structures materialises for example by means of boys controlling spaces, by the dispersal of degrading rumours and by the girls' negotiations with gendered norms. By exploring the girls’ economic positions, material differences are revealed. Girls with families who have strong financial positions are able to finance their everyday life, but they can also afford extra treats, for example: trips abroad, luxury goods, clothes or savings accounts. The analysis also shows how consumption practices of the girls, and their families, are influenced by ideals driven by social status and class. Consumer practices, taste and style of clothes as well as different spatial settings are used as classed distinction markers. Encounters of everyday racism are tightly interwoven with normative constructions of Swedishness and need to be understood in relation to a hierarchical process of racialization where whiteness is constructed as a norm. In the girls’ narratives encounters of everyday racism on the one hand appear unpredictable; on the other hand, racist encounters appear as expected in some rooms and environments. The girls’ narratives often confirm patterns of segregation in Malmö described in previous research. However, the narratives also present nuances. The girls’ experience of different spatial settings seems to be ambivalent and paradoxical. The girls seem aware of power structures and boundaries and develop their agency to challenge them. They in different ways renegotiate ideals, create alternatives and practice resistance towards categorizations, social ideals and power-bearing norms. The thesis has especially focused on the exploration of means of collective resistance as well as collective alternative orientations. These acts of collective agency for instance takes place through the means of narrating (talk back), sometimes they appear as alternative ways of being and sometimes as a way of creating collective friendly (home) spaces.
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| 26. |
- Sjöman, Madeleine
(författare)
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Peer interaction in preschool: Necessary, but not sufficient : The influence of social interaction on the link between behavior difficulties and engagement among children with and without need of special support
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The overall aim of this thesis is to enhance knowledge regarding engagement among children with and without need of special support due to behavior difficulties. The influence of social interaction as well as the provision of special support in Swedish preschool were investigated. Specifically, the aim was to explore children’s engagement at the nodal point between environmental factors, children’s behavior and characteristics, peer-to-child interaction and teacher responsiveness, both in a cross-sectional perspective and over time. In addition, predictive factors for special support were explored.A prospective longitudinal survey design with three data points was used, with both quantitative and qualitative data. The sample consisted of 829 children, 425 boys and 394 girls (10 missing) from 92 preschool units in six municipalities in Sweden. The children participated in at least one wave of data collection. The preschool staff rated the children’s engagement, behavior difficulties, and the provision of special support. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses were conducted. For the cross-sectional analyses 663 children participated, and for the longitudinal analyses, 203 children participated. For the cross-sectional analyses logistics regression and content analyses as well as mediation analyses were used, meanwhile, structural equation models were used for longitudinal analyses, that is, growth curve model with multivariate analyses as well as autoregressive, cross-lagged panel analyses.Overall, children with high levels of hyperactive behavior were less engaged in everyday activities in preschool. In addition, the peer-to-child interaction and teacher responsiveness were rated lower for these children, both in current time and longitudinally. Children’s hyperactive behavior had more negative influence on their core engagement (e.g. attentional behavior and persistence behavior), compared to their developmental engagement, (e.g.problem solving, involvement in complex rule-based play, more common for older preschoolers). The levels of social interaction explained a large percent of the negative effect between hyperactive behavior and engagement. Peer-to-child interaction explained between 56-78 percent, whereas teacher responsiveness explained between 33-34 percent.Over time, the level of hyperactive behavior decreased more dramatically for girls than for boys. However, boys who became more engaged, showed less hyperactive behavior over time. The majority (63%) of the children displaying behavior difficulties (BD) did not receive special support on top of what was provided to all children in the classroom. No support was related to children being a second language learner in Swedish (EL2) or BDs that did not disturb the peer group or the teachers. Children more often received special support if the staff perceived the child’s behavior difficulties as disruptive in preschool activities or among peers. The most common type of support, mentioned by the staff, was paying attention to the child’s negative behavior, achieved by at least one member of the staff staying close to the child. Other examples of attention to the child’s negative behavior involved the preschool staff providing special support by paying attention to critical situations, by teacher’s proximity to the children, or by distracting the child from situations that could trigger negative behavior. Distractions were used more often for children with high engagement and BD.Concerning directional and transactional paths, children’s core engagement was a significant predictor for both peer-to-child interaction and teacher responsiveness. That is, high levels of core engagement at T1 predicted both types of social interaction at T2, which in turn predicted children’s levels of core engagement at T3. Children’s hyperactive behavior did not predict lower ratings in social interactions in preschool over time, whereas, high ratings in peer-to-child interactions and teacher responsiveness were significant predictors for decreased hyperactive behavior over time. Once again, social interactions were important factors for promoting a decrease in children’s hyperactive behavior. Children with high levels of core engagement were more likely to be met by teacher responsiveness and positive peer-to-child interactions over time.Several statistical relations exist between children’s engagement, BD, social interactions and special support in preschool settings. This thesis shows that perceived negative behaviors such as BD can co-exist with more positively perceived behaviors or characteristics, such as engagement. However, this research shows that well-functioning peer-to-child interaction and teacher interactions improve child engagement for children with hyperactive behavior, special support is not always provided and seldom focused on improving children’s engagement. In order to improve engagement among children in need of special support due to BD, it is necessary to consider both hyperactive behavior and engagement as well as the influence of social interactions. Teacher responsiveness and peer-to-child interaction may work as supportive factors for children with hyperactive behavior to help sustain attention and stay actively engaged in the activities. Preschool teachers need to self-reflect on their organization, planning ofeveryday activities and how to design special support that consider individual children’s needs for improving their engagement.
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| 27. |
- Stocchero, Michele
(författare)
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On Influence Of Undersized Implant Site On Implant Stability And Osseointegration
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The use of dental implants for the rehabilitation of edentulous areas is an established treatment, showing high success rates. Primary stability is one of the pre-requisites for osseointegration, and it is ensured by the mechanical interlocking at the bone to implant interface. Current procedures have changed from the original protocols, towards a reduction of treatment time. Nowadays, the achievement of a great magnitude of primary stability is demanded in clinical practice, since there is a trend to load the implant immediately or in the early stages after implant insertion. Aiming on this, several modifications have been introduced, such as more aggressive implant design, modified surfaces and novel surgical techniques. Undersized drilling preparation is one of the most commonly adopted protocols during the implant surgery. This technique creates an osteotomy that is consistently smaller than the implant diameter, so that a tight interfacial contact and compression is created. Clinically this is perceived with an increase of the insertion torque value (ITV). Albeit commonly performed, several aspects of undersized drilling are still not well investigated. It was hypothesized that a great magnitude of compression at the implant insertion would generate tissue damage and may trigger a negative bone response during the healing time. This could lead to an impairment of bone material properties, a decrease of stability and marginal bone loss. Based on a clinical need, the general aim of this thesis was a more consistent understanding of the effects of an undersized drilling osteotomy. Study I aimed to provide the current evidence based on the literature on biomechanical, biologic and clinical outcomes. An electronic and a manual search were undertaken including in vitro, animal, and clinical studies in which an undersized drilling protocol was compared with a non-undersized drilling protocol. 29 studies met the inclusion criteria, including 14 biomechanical, 7 biologic, 6 biologic and biomechanical, and 2 clinical. A meta-analysis was not performed. Several studies showed that implants inserted with an undersized drilling approach reached a significantly higher ITV than conventional drilling in low-density substrates, while this effect is less evident in denser substrates. Similar long-term bone-toimplant contact (BIC) was achieved between implants inserted with undersized and non-undersized protocols. Results in the short term were inconclusive. Clinical studies did not show negative outcomes for undersized drilling in low-density bone, although clinical evidence was sparse. In study II, clinical outcomes were evaluated with a retrospective design, which included 87 patients treated with 188 implants inserted with an adapted drilling protocol according to the surgeon’s perception of bone quality. ITV and Marginal bone loss (MBL) between implant placement and permanent restoration was calculated. ITV differed significantly based on mandible/maxilla, bone quality, implant diameter, and drilling protocol. Median MBL was 0.05 mm (0.00; 0.24). A significant difference was found between the mandible and maxilla and between drilling protocols. In particular, significantly higher MBL was found in the undersized drilling protocol. Multiple regression models were built to test the effect of independent variables on the outcomes. ITV was influenced by bone quality and implant diameter. MBL was influenced by bone quality, implant diameter, ITV, and the interaction between bone quality and ITV. It was estimated that MBL was greater with increased bone density and ITV. Study III aimed to evaluate in vivo the extent of cortical bone remodeling and the bone integration of implants placed after different drilling protocols. Forty-eight implants were inserted into the sheep mandible following two drilling protocols: undersized preparation and non‐undersized preparation. Healing time was set at 5 and 10 weeks. Removal torque (RTQ) was measured and the peri-implant bone was scanned using a micro-computed tomography (μ‐CT). Bone volume density (BV/TV) was calculated in pre‐determined hollow cylinders. Total BIC and newly‐formed BIC (newBIC) and Bone Area Fraction Occupancy (BAFO) was measured. Results showed that, at 5 weeks of healing, significantly greater RTQ value was present for the undersized group, while non-undersized group presented greater values of BV/TV, newBIC and BAFO. No differences were noted at 10 weeks. The purpose of study IV was to assess bone material properties and to predict the strain/stress distribution on cortical bone using a multiscale in silico model. Two types of micro-scale bone structures were assessed: cortical bone models with resorption cavities and without resorption cavities, following undersized and non-undersized drilling protocols respectively. In a macro-scale model, oblique load of 100N was simulated. Maximum principal stress/strain, and shear stress/ strain were calculated. Bone with resorption cavities presented anisotropic material properties. Compared to bone without cavities, greater maximum values of Maximum principal stress/strain was calculated, both in macro- and micro-scale models. These values were located at the implant neck area and in the proximity of cavities respectively. Greater values of shear stress/strain were found in the test along the mandibular longitudinal plane. In summary, this thesis suggested that undersized drilling technique can cause negative effects in the cortical bone. The literature indicated that undersized drilling technique is effective in increasing the ITV in low-density bone. However, ITV is mostly influenced by bone quality, rather than drilling protocol. Furthermore, high ITV can induce greater bone resorption in dense bone. Cortical bone has the capability to maintain high levels of rotational stability at undersized sites in the early phases of healing, despite the great amount of micro-damage. From a biologic point of view, this procedure causes a reduced apposition of newly formed bone at the interface and it initiates an intense bone resorption activity in the surrounding tissue. This creates a temporary porosity into cortical bone, reducing the volume of peri-implant mineralized tissue. Intra-cortical resorption cavities caused an impairment of material properties and compromised mechanical behavior. This bone model is more prone to micro-damage and to a delayed healing process. Therefore, avoiding early loading protocols is recommended. Future clinical studies should focus on the longer-term outcome of undersized drilling, since the current clinical evidence is insufficient.
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| 28. |
- Svalin, Klara
(författare)
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Risk assessment of intimate partner violence in a police setting : reliability and predictive accuracy
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The Swedish Police Authority conducts violence risk assessments in cases of intimate partner violence (IPV) using specific assessment tools. Such assessments are conducted in order to identify high-risk offenders and thereafter implement suitable interventions to prevent repeat IPV. In this thesis, two different risk assessment tools have been evaluated: The Police Screening Tool for Violent Crimes (PST-VC) and the Brief Spousal Assault Form for the Evaluation of Risk (B-SAFER, Kropp, Hart, & Belfrage, 2005; 2010). The overall aim has been to contribute to improving the knowledge on police employees’ violence risk assessment and management, specifically with regard to the predictive validity and inter-rater reliability of such assessments. In the first study, we evaluated whether the PST-VC can be used by police employees to identify high-risk cases of repeat IPV. In addition, the preventive effects of the recommended crime preventive and victim protective actions were discussed and also whether these create a confounding problem with respect to predictive validity. The results showed that the predictive accuracy of the tool was fairly weak. Further, the assessors recommended a higher level of interventions in high-risk cases, but these did not reduce the rate of repeat IPV. Study II aimed to examine the inter-rater reliability of the PST-VC and the BSAFER. Police employees conducted pairwise assessments of IPV cases using one of these tools. The tools were evaluated separately and the cases used for the assessments were different for each tool. This means that the consistency of the assessments could not be compared head-to-head across the tools. The results were nonetheless rather similar for both tools; the inter-rater reliability for the individual items was low for most of the individual factors, but was relatively high for the global risk assessments. A suggested explanation for this was that the assessors may have used their tacit knowledge, rather than the individual items, in their global risk assessments and that they shared this tacit knowledge, at least to some extent. The third study focused on the B-SAFER tool, and on the predictive accuracy of the individual items and the global risk assessments in relation to repeat IPV. The study also aimed to examine to what extent the recommended crime preventive and victim protective actions were implemented and whether these interventions had a preventive effect on repeat IPV. The predictive accuracy of the individual B-SAFER items and the global risk assessments was low overall. The majority of the recommended interventions were not implemented, and they did not prevent repeat IPV. The final study (IV) took the form of a systematic literature study with the aimof evaluating the predictive accuracy of IPV risk assessments conducted bypractitioners in different settings, with IPV recidivism as the outcome measure.The number of studies that fulfilled the inclusion criteria was small (N= 11).One of these studies was conducted in a treatment setting, while all the otherswere conducted in criminal justice settings. The predictive accuracy for theglobal risk assessments ranged from low to medium, and the role of treatmentor other interventions to prevent repeat IPV had been analyzed in one way orthe other in eight of the studies. However, there was no consistency withregard to the importance of the interventions for repeat IPV.In summary, the predictive accuracy of the police employees’ IPV riskassessments was rather low, and the same applied to the inter-rater reliabilityfor most of the individual items included in the tools. The level of consistencywas higher, however, for the global risk assessments. The IPV preventiveinterventions were not effective in preventing repeat IPV. The predictivevalidity of IPV risk assessments conducted in other settings was found to besimilar, but results regarding the potential mediating role of interventions weremixed.
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| 29. |
- Svensson Källberg, Petra, 1977-
(författare)
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Immigrant students' opportunities to learn mathematics : In(ex)clusion in mathematics education
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis explores immigrant students’ opportunities to learn mathematics. The research is concerned with issues of social justice and adopts a socio-political approach. Immigrant students are often described as students who do poorly in school because they lack “Swedishness” and have insufficient Swedish language skills. This deficit discourse is used when explaining immigrant students’ failure in mathematics, which this thesis aims to critique. Also, by adopting two theoretical frameworks, one that draws on the work of Skovsmose (1994, 2014) and one on the work of Foucault (2000, 2002), it aims at exploring possible understandings of immigrant students’ opportunities to learn mathematics.The research questions are addressed in a preamble and four articles. They address immigrant students’ perceptions of their opportunities to learn mathematics and how these perceptions come into existence, and the different contributions of using the theoretical frameworks.Data emanates from interviews, with immigrant students aged 15 to 16 years old and policy texts regarding schooling for newly arrived. Skovsmose’s notion of foreground is used when analysing immigrant students’ perceptions of their opportunities to learn mathematics. A Foucauldian perspective is used for exploring immigrant students’ identity formations as mathematical learners in a context of a forced school transition. The notions of fabrication and abjection (Popkewitz, 2012, 2013) are used as analytical tools when exploring how the newly arrived student as a mathematical learner is fabricated in policy texts.The findings show how conditions concerning future plans, otherness, Swedishness, perceiving their parents as deficit in relation to Swedish parents, segregation, feelings of exclusion and rowdy mathematics classrooms constitute their foregrounds, and affect their perceptions of their opportunities to learn mathematics. It was also shown how students’ identity formations as learners of mathematics are dynamic and enabled by discourse. For example, discourses operating in two different school contexts enabled the transitioning students to form identities as un-engaged and respectively engaged mathematics students. It was shown how students’ perceptions were influenced by public discourses, and thus how categorisations of them as immigrant students with deficiencies had looped into their lives. By exploring fabrication of the newly arrived student as a mathematical learner and the process of abjection information on how students may be ordered in relation to what degree they have come to master for example the Swedish language were provided. This may generate feelings of in(ex)clusion, which refers to the inseparability of inclusion and exclusion: any move to include brings with it potential exclusions.A conclusion is that to be able to understand immigrant students’ opportunities to learn mathematics and explain achievement in mathematics, deficiency explanations are not sufficient. Instead, it is of importance to try to understand the students’ perspectives and explore the role of discourse and power since it allows for explanations that ground students’ opportunities to learn mathematics in the socio-political conditions in which they emerge. This enables for learning more about what constitutes immigrant students’ perceptions and how they come into existence and thus allows for addressing processes of in(ex)clusion and critique deficiency explanations.
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| 30. |
- Vasiljevic, Zoran
(författare)
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Ambulatory risk assessment and intervention in the prison services : Using Interactive Voice Response to assess and intervene on acute dynamic risk among prisoners on parole
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The transition from prison to society is a challenging period for offenders released from prison. Recidivism rates are high, and the offender’s situation can change rapidly. Advances in technology in recent decades have provided new ways for correctional agencies to provide the level of supervision and immediacy needed to help prisoners to successfully re-enter society. One such area of advance is the widespread use of mobile phones and related developments in communication technologies, such as Interactive Voice Response (IVR), an automated telephony system. The overall aim of this thesis is to investigate the feasibility of using IVR to assess and intervene on everyday stress-related acute risk factors for crime among prisoners on parole. Paroled offenders (N=108) performed daily assessment during their first 30 days after leaving prison. Before release, they also completed a baseline assessment of stable risk factors, including personality, substance use problems, and mental health problems. Data on criminal recidivism one year following parole was collected from the Swedish Prison and Parole Service. After release, all subjects were called daily and answered assessment questions. Based on the content of their daily assessments, subjects in the intervention group received immediate feedback and a recommendation by automated telephony, and their probation officers also received a daily report by email. Although the intervention had no effect on criminal recidivism, the intervention group showed greater improvement than the control group on several of the acute dynamic risk factors studied. Several of these factors could predict criminal recidivism with marginal accuracy, and could provide incremental predictive validity beyond the baseline risk level of stable risk factors, i.e. problematic drug use and impulsiveness trait. In conclusion, IVR may be a feasible way to assess and intervene on daily stress-related acute dynamic risk factors among prisoners on parole.
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| 31. |
- Yeung, Sing Yee
(författare)
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Stimuli-responsive lipid bilayer mimics for protein, virus and cell recognition
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The most well-studied two-dimensional biomimetic cellular membrane modelsare self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) and supported lipid bilayers (SLBs).The former has the advantage of control over ligand density, homogeneity andorientation, allowing unambiguous interaction studies. It however lacks longrangelateral mobility, which is one of the most important aspects of cellularmembranes. SLBs are laterally mobile but they are fragile and instable uponexposure to air. Literature examples that contain all the above desirablecharacteristics with stimuli-responsiveness to fabricate biomaterials forbiosensing or modulating cell adhesion are rare. We here report on anadaptable platform, reversible self-assembled monolayers (rSAMs), featuringstrongly enhanced affinity towards influenza viruses as compared to SAMs,lateral mobility to investigate glycan-lectin interactions and tunable surfacedynamics to modulate cell adhesion. This new system utilizes noncovalentamidinium-carboxylate ion pairs for building up stable and ordered twodimensionalassemblies, akin to lipid bilayers but with a simple preparationprocess, stimuli-responsiveness and fast on/off rates.
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