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- Halme, P., et al.
(författare)
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Challenges of ecological restoration : Lessons from forests in northern Europe
- 2013
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Ingår i: Biological Conservation. - : Elsevier BV. - 0006-3207 .- 1873-2917. ; 167, s. 248-256
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- The alarming rate of ecosystem degradation has raised the need for ecological restoration throughout different biomes and continents. North European forests may appear as one of the least vulnerable ecosystems from a global perspective, since forest cover is not rapidly decreasing and many ecosystem services remain at high level. However, extensive areas of northern forests are heavily exploited and have lost a major part of their biodiversity value. There is a strong requirement to restore these areas towards a more natural condition in order to meet the targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Several northern countries are now taking up this challenge by restoring forest biodiversity with increasing intensity. The ecology and biodiversity of boreal forests are relatively well understood making them a good model for restoration activities in many other forest ecosystems. Here we introduce northern forests as an ecosystem, discuss the historical and recent human impact and provide a brief status report on the ecological restoration projects and research already conducted there. Based on this discussion, we argue that before any restoration actions commence, the ecology of the target ecosystem should be established with the need for restoration carefully assessed and the outcome properly monitored. Finally, we identify the most important challenges that need to be solved in order to carry out efficient restoration with powerful and long-term positive impacts on biodiversity: coping with unpredictability, maintaining connectivity in time and space, assessment of functionality, management of conflicting interests and social restrictions and ensuring adequate funding. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.
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- Barbens, P.T., et al.
(författare)
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Improving teaching methods of rock mass classification parameters
- 2014
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Ingår i: Rock Engineering and Rock Mechanics. - : CRC Press. - 9781138001497 - 9781315749525 ; , s. 451-455
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- To promote knowledge in rock mass classification methods, a short course was arranged in research tunnels beneath Aalto University in Espoo, Finland. After the course, the participants had a short (45+45 min) hands-on tunnel mapping exercise where they logged 12 core boxes and one 10 m tunnel wall section. The attendees were asked to submit their mapping sheets for a post-study. The objective of the study was to discover which parameters show most scatter and to develop suggestions to improve the teaching methods. Statistical analysis of the data was carried out and RQD parameter was analyzed in more detail as it had the largest amount of data. Insufficient logging time may be one of the causes for the lack of data for other parameters. Significant scatter was observed in the RQD parameter and the comparison between inexperienced and experienced mappers show no clear difference. The teaching arrangements and problems faced are stated and recommendations on how to improve the situation are presented.
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4. |
- Azremi, A.A.H., et al.
(författare)
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On diversity performance of two-element coupling element based antenna structure for mobile terminal
- 2010
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Ingår i: EuCAP 2010 Fourth European Conference on Antennas and Propagation, Barcelona, 12-16 April 2010.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In wireless communication systems, multipath interference has a significant impact on system design and performance. Fast fading is caused by the coherent summation of one or more echoes from many reflection points reaching the receive antenna. Antenna diversity can be used to mitigate multipath fading. The main challenge of antenna diversity in practical application is the integration of multiple antennas on a small ground plane. Two-element antenna structure based on coupling element antenna concept for diversity application has been studied in previous work and it has shown to be feasible for low frequency diversity application with stable and low envelope correlation across wide frequency range. The studied structure has been tuned to be operating at 1600 MHz for measurement evaluation purpose. This paper presents an analysis of diversity performance of the structure in terms of efficiencies, envelope correlation, and apparent and effective diversity gains in isotropic (i.e. statistically uniform) propagation channel, using spherical near-field technique in an ideal line-of-sight environment (anechoic chamber) and inside reverberation chamber. The envelope correlation is less than 0.1 and the diversity gain is equal to 10.2 dB at 99% reliability level using selection combining technique across simulation and both measurement methods. The measurement techniques are compared to show how accurately the diversity performance of a mobile terminal antenna can be estimated.
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5. |
- Bjorkgren, I., et al.
(författare)
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Targeted inactivation of the mouse epididymal beta-defensin 41 alters sperm flagellar beat pattern and zona pellucida binding
- 2016
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Ingår i: Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology. - : Elsevier BV. - 0303-7207. ; 427:C, s. 143-154
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- During epididymal maturation, sperm acquire the ability to swim progressively by interacting with proteins secreted by the epididymal epithelium. Beta-defensin proteins, expressed in the epididymis, continue to regulate sperm motility during capacitation and hyperactivation in the female reproductive tract. We characterized the mouse beta-defensin 41 (DEFB41), by generating a mouse model with iCre recombinase inserted into the first exon of the gene. The homozygous Defb41(iCre/iCre) knock-in mice lacked Defb41 expression and displayed iCre recombinase activity in the principal cells of the proximal epididymis. Heterozygous Defb41(iCre/+) mice can be used to generate epididymis specific conditional knock-out mouse models. Homozygous Defb41(iCre/iCre) sperm displayed a defect in sperm motility with the flagella primarily bending in the pro-hook conformation while capacitated wild-type sperm more often displayed the anti-hook conformation. This led to a reduced straight line motility of Defb41(iCre/liCre) sperm and weaker binding to the oocyte. Thus, DEFB41 is required for proper sperm maturation.
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7. |
- Janhunen, P., et al.
(författare)
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Invited Article: Electric solar wind sail : Toward test missions
- 2010
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Ingår i: Review of Scientific Instruments. - : AIP Publishing. - 0034-6748 .- 1089-7623. ; 81:11, s. 111301-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The electric solar wind sail (E-sail) is a space propulsion concept that uses the natural solar wind dynamic pressure for producing spacecraft thrust. In its baseline form, the E-sail consists of a number of long, thin, conducting, and centrifugally stretched tethers, which are kept in a high positive potential by an onboard electron gun. The concept gains its efficiency from the fact that the effective sail area, i.e., the potential structure of the tethers, can be millions of times larger than the physical area of the thin tethers wires, which offsets the fact that the dynamic pressure of the solar wind is very weak. Indeed, according to the most recent published estimates, an E-sail of 1 N thrust and 100 kg mass could be built in the rather near future, providing a revolutionary level of propulsive performance (specific acceleration) for travel in the solar system. Here we give a review of the ongoing technical development work of the E-sail, covering tether construction, overall mechanical design alternatives, guidance and navigation strategies, and dynamical and orbital simulations.
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