| 1. |
- Johansson, Elin, et al.
(författare)
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Effects of wheat bran extract rich in arabinoxylan oligosaccharides and resistant starch on overnight glucose tolerance and markers of gut fermentation in healthy young adults.
- 2015
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Ingår i: European Journal of Nutrition. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1436-6215 .- 1436-6207.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Specific combinations of dietary fiber (DF) have been observed to result in improved glucose tolerance at a subsequent standardized breakfast. Arabinoxylan oligosaccharides (AXOS) are considered as DF with prebiotic potential, but so far no studies have investigated their metabolic effects in humans. This randomized cross-over study evaluated the overnight impact of breads containing AXOS-rich wheat bran extract and resistant starch (RS, Hi-Maize), separately or combined, on glucose tolerance, related metabolic parameters and markers of gut fermentation in healthy subjects.
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| 2. |
- Bergenfelz, Caroline, et al.
(författare)
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Wnt5a induces a tolerogenic phenotype of macrophages in sepsis and breast cancer patients.
- 2012
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Ingår i: Journal of immunology. - : The American Association of Immunologists. - 1550-6606 .- 0022-1767. ; 188:11, s. 5448-5458
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A well-orchestrated inflammatory reaction involves the induction of effector functions and, at a later stage, an active downregulation of this potentially harmful process. In this study we show that under proinflammatory conditions the noncanonical Wnt protein, Wnt5a, induces immunosuppressive macrophages. The suppressive phenotype induced by Wnt5a is associated with induction of IL-10 and inhibition of the classical TLR4-NF-κB signaling. Interestingly, this phenotype closely resembles that observed in reprogrammed monocytes in sepsis patients. The Wnt5a-induced feedback inhibition is active both during in vitro LPS stimulation of macrophages and in patients with sepsis caused by LPS-containing, Gram-negative bacteria. Furthermore, using breast cancer patient tissue microarrays, we find a strong correlation between the expression of Wnt5a in malignant epithelial cells and the frequency of CD163(+) anti-inflammatory tumor-associated macrophages. In conclusion, our data point out Wnt5a as a potential target for an efficient therapeutic modality in severe human diseases as diverse as sepsis and malignancy.
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| 3. |
- Bruhn, Anders, 1953-, et al.
(författare)
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Dimensions of discretionary practices : Swedish social insurance officials assessing work ability in a highly regulative context
- 2021
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Frontline work is most often performed in direct encounters with clients. Several scholars have developed models and methods for analysing these encounters to explain the distinctive features of discretionary practices. Such an analysis must move between several layers of social reality, and therefore it requires the integration of several different types of data. In this article our main objective is to develop a ‘multi-level’ approach for understanding how discretionary practices grow in the interplay between conditions at institutional, as well as interactional and individual levels. We hope to contribute to an enhanced understanding of frontline work in today’s public sector. Our data comes from a group of officials in the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (SSIA) investigating the needs and rights of applicants to receive sickness compensation (sickness pension). It includes recorded phone conversations, qualitative interviews, and both administrative and regulative documents. In spite of being a strictly regulated business, and even in cases of very similar situational conditions, the analysis reveals important variations between officials in their approaches to clients, and in ways of acting in dilemmatic situations. Such variations are traced back to individual-level differences in moral dispositions and professional beliefs.
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| 4. |
- Bruhn, Anders, 1953-, et al.
(författare)
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Swedish social insurance officials struggling with the vagueness of the work ability concept : The case of sickness compensation
- 2017
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In a research project – Practices of Frontline Interactions in the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (SSIA) – we are studying how goals and rules are shaped and handled in conversations between officials and clients. A central aim is to develop knowledge about what kind of room these officials have to develop policy in practice and how they make use of it. This is done by a multi-level research approach combining analyses on an institutional and interactional level (Bruhn & Ekström 2017). Data are collected via mixed methods: recorded interactions (official–client), qualitative interviews, and documents. In this paper, except for some minor changes identical with a paper originally presented at the 2nd Conference on Street-level Bureaucracy in Copenhagen 2017, we discuss officials’ room for and use of discretion when assessing work ability in investigations about sickness compensation (previously called sickness pension). To get sickness compensation the individual’s work ability must be permanently reduced (i.e. he/she shall not be able to take part in working life anymore). Work (dis-)ability is a diffuse and contested concept. It is a core concept not only for officials here in focus, but for several other organisational actors in the field of labour market and health insurance issues as well. Many actors with different missions and interests are recurrently involved in negotiations about how to interpret and take actions on the basis of this concept. The diffuseness of the concept often puts the investigating official – the Street Level Bureaucrat – in a position of having quite lot of room to assess and affect the outcome of the investigations at hand. Internal SSIA statistics also point to quite wide variations in outcome of investigations between different units in the organisation. At the same time there is also internal pressure on the investigators to “keep figures down”. The magnitude of such pressure is related to changes in pressure upon the authorities on the political level. This leads to fluctuations between different fiscal years. Last year (2016), 70% of the applications for this benefit were rejected. This is an increase from earlier years, and a hint of a growing restrictiveness in assessments of what is seen as permanently reduced work ability. In this paper, we discuss the work ability concept in relation to the room for assessment – the discretion – of these sickness compensation investigating officials. It is based on earlier research, official documents, qualitative interviews and speech recordings.
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| 5. |
- Dalby Landmark, Anne Marie, et al.
(författare)
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Couples living with dementia managing conflicting knowledge claims
- 2021
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Ingår i: Discourse Studies. - : Sage Publications. - 1461-4456 .- 1461-7080. ; 23:2, s. 191-212
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This conversation analytic study investigates how couples manage conflicting knowledge claims when one of the persons has dementia (PWD). The data are video-recordings of 16 couples talking with a third party. The analysis focuses on the negotiation of epistemic rights, more precisely how partners initiate repair and correct claims made by the PWD on matters belonging to the latter’s epistemic domain. We identified three main practices for correcting the PWD: (1) correcting the statement, thereby claiming epistemic authority for oneself and denying it to the PWD, (2) inviting the PWD to self-correct, thereby attributing some epistemic authority to the PWD, and (3) disagreeing and providing reasons for one’s alternative claim, establishing a more symmetric epistemic gradient. The PWDs responses to the corrections displayed different degrees of acceptance, ranging from self-denigration to resistance and insistence.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Ekström, Elin
(författare)
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From a place without speech : negotiations of othering among unaccompanied female minors in Sweden
- 2019
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The study presented in this thesis focuses on unaccompanied female minors and their experiences as newly arrived migrants in Sweden. As a group, unaccompanied female minors have until recently been rather invisible in both academic research and media. However, according to previous research on migration and integration, they risk being constructed as ‘others’ both due to their status as unaccompanied minors, being female and in relation to general perceptions of what it means to be Swedish.This study is based on qualitative interviews with 11 girls, 13 to 18 years old, who arrived in Sweden as unaccompanied minors in the period between 2014 and 2017. The interviews were conducted in two phases, with nine months to one year between the first and second phases. Whereas the focus in the first phase was on getting to know the participants, the second phase provided an opportunity to delve deeper into discussions on recurring themes from the first phase. The interviews were transcribed using a denaturalised approach and thematically analysed through an abductive process.The thesis explores the girls’ narratives of everyday experiences and interprets them through a theoretical framework of othering. Without losing sight of the social structures that situates the girls’ experiences, othering is approached as a reciprocal, three-dimensional relationship, focusing on knowledge, values and conduct towards the other.The findings indicate that the girls participating in this study were often seen through the normative perception of an already othered context, and as a consequence, their own voices and agency were disregarded. They were, metaphorically, put in places without speech. However, by engaging a critical perspective on their everyday interactions, the girls were also able to recognise and resist othering by keeping true to their own experiences. The thesis concludes that by exploring the margins between their comfort zones and new contexts the girls engage in an epistemic merging of different horizons, which can be understood as a slow but insistent process of moving out from the place without speech.
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| 8. |
- Ekström, Elin, et al.
(författare)
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'I don’t think you will understand me because really, I believe' – Unaccompanied female minors re-negotiating religion
- 2020
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Ingår i: Qualitative Social Work. - : Sage Publications. - 1473-3250 .- 1741-3117. ; 19:4, s. 719-735
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The role of religion in migration has been a contested subject in previous research and social work practice, with religion being considered both a bridge and a barrier to integration. When considering unaccompanied female minors, struggling to be recognised beyond the prevailing image of the victimised refugee girl, religion is sometimes seen as a force of oppression rather than a tool for integration. In this article, we focus on the embodied practices of young women?s lived religion in a context where such practices are constructed as otherness. Based on an interview study with 11 unaccompanied female minors, this article explores the identity negotiations that emerged when migrating from societies where religion plays an integral part in everyday life to a society with highly secular values. By using the concept of (oppositional) gaze, we explore how these young women negotiate their identities at a point where the normative, invisible gaze meets the embodied practices of lived religion. We demonstrate how these young women are themselves agents of their own faith, and we confirm previous research that points to religion as a support structure for unaccompanied minors; however, not without causing friction in their new society. The study shows how lived practices of religion and the development of an oppositional gaze can function as mutually reinforcing processes in identity negotiation. In social work, understanding the role of religion through lived practices might contribute to a more holistic approach when creating solutions for young people experiencing turbulent circumstances of arriving in a new country.
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| 9. |
- Ekström, Elin, et al.
(författare)
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"I've Got Many Stories You Know" : Problematizing Silence Among Unaccompanied Migrant Girls
- 2022
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Ingår i: Journal of International Migration and Integration. - : Springer. - 1488-3473 .- 1874-6365. ; 23, s. 797-814
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper presents a study on inhabited silence among unaccompanied female minors in Sweden. Silence among unaccompanied minors has often been explained by experienced trauma. Conversely, research also explains silence as a natural way of establishing autonomy during adolescence. By analyzing the narratives of 11 unaccompanied female minors, we aim to problematize and broaden the understanding of silence as a lack of communication. By using Bourdieu's concept of linguistic capital, we analyze how hegemonic narratives on migration and integration influence how the girls in this study use silence in their everyday interactions. Our findings suggest that silence can be understood as both a rejection of these narratives and a strategy to preserve the girls' integrity. We also demonstrate how these girls negotiate their linguistic capital in relation to embodiment and othering, thereby pushing boundaries of identity and what it means to be seen as Swedish. The paper concludes that silence itself speaks and shows that what is often perceived as a lack of communication can also be understood as a failure to listen.
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| 10. |
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