| 1. |
- Henrekson, Ebba
(författare)
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Exceptions in the Swedish School System : Exploring the Conditions Facing Secular and Confessional Nonprofit Schools
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Swedish school system underwent a series of reforms that opened up the system for independent schools funded through vouchers. Since then, for-profit firms have gained significant traction and constitute a far greater share of the school system compared to nonprofits. This dissertation aims to contribute to a better understanding of the conditions facing secular and confessional nonprofit schools, both during the establishment process and the day-to-day operations. To achieve this aim, I have adopted an institutional approach which in this case implies that I focus both on formal rules and regulations (i.e., legal framework) as well as systems of beliefs, values, and ideas. The articles included in the dissertation analyze four conditions. First, I point to how confessional schools have always been perceived as deviant and as reducing social cohesion. This remains true regardless of whether the value system of the Swedish school system has been said to rest on a secular or a religious foundation. Second, I show how a lack of a philanthropic infrastructure in Sweden makes it harder for nonprofits to initiate new schools. Third, I discuss how due to the marginal presence of independent schools in Sweden before the school choice reform there is a lack of intermediary organizations giving advice to nonprofit schools regarding best practices and representing them at the political level. Fourth, I show how the design of the legal framework of the school system puts high demands on nonprofit schools to conform both to a bureaucratic logic and a market logic. Taken together, the results point to various conditions that contribute to a situation in which secular and confessional nonprofit schools have difficulties asserting themselves in the Swedish school system.
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| 2. |
- Arshamian, Artin, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Olfactory awareness is positively associated to odour memory
- 2011
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Ingår i: Journal of Cognitive Psychology. - : Informa UK Limited. - 2044-5911 .- 2044-592X. ; 23:2, s. 220-226
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We investigated the relationship between olfactory awareness and olfactory proficiency as determined by a set of standardised olfactory tasks. Olfactory awareness was indexed by scores in questionnaires focusing on odour interest, imagery ability, and prevalence of olfactory dreams. Nineteen subjects with high and 20 subjects with low odour awareness were presented with a set of standardised olfactory tasks: odour threshold, episodic odour recognition, and odour identification. The results showed that individuals with high odour awareness excelled in odour memory and identified more odours as compared with the low awareness group. Interestingly, odour naming ability exerted no influence on odour memory. Furthermore, high odour awareness was not related to a more sensitive olfactory sensory system as determined by olfactory threshold measurements.
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| 3. |
- Arshamian, Artin, et al.
(författare)
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The functional neuroanatomy of odor evoked autobiographical memories cued by odors and words
- 2013
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Ingår i: Neuropsychologia. - : Elsevier BV. - 0028-3932 .- 1873-3514. ; 51:1, s. 123-131
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Behavioral evidence indicates that odor evoked autobiographical memories (OEAMs) are older, more emotional, less thought of and induce stronger time traveling characteristics than autobiographical memories (AMs) evoked by other modalities. The main aim of this study was to explore the neural correlates of AMs evoked by odors as a function of retrieval cue. Participants were screened for specific OEAMs and later presented with the odor cue and its verbal referent in an fMRI paradigm. Because the same OEAM was retrieved across both cue formats (odor and word), potential cue dependent brain activations were investigated. The overall results showed that odor and word cued OEAMs activated regions typically associated with recollection of autobiographical information. Although no odors were presented, a verbal cuing of the OEAMs activated areas associated with olfactory perception (e.g., piriform cortex). However, relative to word cuing, an odor cuing of OEAMs resulted in more activity in MTL regions such as the parahippocampus, and areas involved in visual vividness (e.g., occipital gyrus and precuneus). Furthermore, odor cues activated areas related to emotional processing, such as limbic and tempopolar regions significantly more. In contrast, word cues relative to odor cues recruited a more widespread and bilateral prefrontal activity. Hippocampus activity did not vary as function of the remoteness of the memory, but recollection of OEAMs from the 1st vs the 2nd decade of life showed specific activation in the right OFC, whereas the 2nd reflected a higher activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus.
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| 4. |
- Carrwik, Christian, et al.
(författare)
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Potential harms of interventions for spinal metastatic disease
- 2017
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Ingår i: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. - : John Wiley and Sons Ltd. - 1469-493X. ; :7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This is a protocol for a Cochrane Review (Intervention). The objectives are as follows:The primary objective of this review is to compare the potential harms of treatment for spinal metastatic disease for the following treatments:1. Surgical intervention.2. Surgical intervention with radiation therapy.3. Radiation therapy alone.Our secondary objectives are:1. comparing the harms of different surgical methods;2. comparing the harms between different radiation protocols.
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| 5. |
- Cornell Kärnekull, Stina, 1985-
(författare)
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Auditory and Olfactory Abilities in Blind and Sighted Individuals : More Similarities than Differences
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Blind individuals face various challenges in everyday life because of the lack of visual input. However, since they need to rely on the non-visual senses for everyday tasks, for instance, when navigating the environment, the question has been raised as to whether perceptual and cognitive abilities in these senses may be enhanced. This question has mainly been addressed for auditory and tactile abilities, whereas there is considerably less research into the chemical senses, such as olfaction. However, to determine whether blindness has general effects, different senses and types of tasks should be studied, preferably in one and the same study. Therefore, throughout this thesis, analogous auditory and olfactory tasks that varied in cognitive complexity were studied. In Study I, absolute thresholds, discrimination, identification, episodic recognition (i.e., after a short retention interval), metacognition, and self-reported imagery ability were assessed in early blind, late blind, and sighted participants. The only objective measure on which the blind and sighted clearly differed was the auditory episodic recognition task. The fact that early blind but not late blind participants displayed better memory than the sighted suggested that the onset age of blindness may be important for whether this ability becomes enhanced following blindness. Furthermore, the early blind participants rated their auditory imagery ability higher than the sighted, whereas both early and late blind participants rated their olfactory imagery ability higher than the sighted. In Study II, the participants from Study I were followed up after more than a year and retested on auditory and olfactory episodic recognition and identification. This time, the early blind displayed no advantage over the sighted, suggesting that the influence of blindness on auditory memory may be modulated by the length of the retention interval. Moreover, in line with Study I, identification of sounds and odors was similar in the three groups. In Study III, early blind and sighted participants were examined for potential differences in autobiographical memory as evoked by sounds and odors, respectively. Blindness did not influence the reminiscence bumps (i.e., memory peaks in certain age intervals) or have any clear impact on the number of retrieved sound- or odor-evoked memories. Taken together, the present findings indicate that blindness has no general influence across tasks or sensory modalities. Rather, specific auditory abilities, such as episodic memory, may be enhanced in blind individuals, although such effects may depend on both the onset age of blindness and the length of the retention interval. In conclusion, for most perceptual and cognitive abilities examined, performance seemed unaffected by blindness.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Cornell Kärnekull, Stina, et al.
(författare)
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Long-Term Memory for Odors : Influences of Familiarity and Identification Across 64 Days
- 2015
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Ingår i: Chemical Senses. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0379-864X .- 1464-3553. ; 40:4, s. 259-267
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Few studies have investigated long-term odor recognition memory, although some early observations suggested that the forgetting rate of olfactory representations is slower than for other sensory modalities. This study investigated recognition memory across 64 days for high and low familiar odors and faces. Memory was assessed in 83 young participants at 4 occasions; immediate, 4, 16, and 64 days after encoding. The results indicated significant forgetting for odors and faces across the 64 days. The forgetting functions for the 2 modalities were not fundamentally different. Moreover, high familiar odors and faces were better remembered than low familiar ones, indicating an important role of semantic knowledge on recognition proficiency for both modalities. Although odor recognition was significantly better than chance at the 64 days testing, memory for the low familiar odors was relatively poor. Also, the results indicated that odor identification consistency across sessions, irrespective of accuracy, was positively related to successful recognition.
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| 8. |
- Cornell Kärnekull, Stina, 1985-, et al.
(författare)
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The reminiscence bump is blind to blindness : Evidence from sound- and odor-evoked autobiographical memory
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Autobiographical memories (AMs) evoked by sensory cues, such as words, pictures, and sounds, typically form reminiscence bumps in adolescence and young adulthood. However, odors constitute an exception by shifting the bump to early childhood. Olfaction may be a “sense of first impressions”, as indicated by a unique hippocampal representation in the brain for first odor-to-object associations. However, the influence of the individual’s sensory function on AMs has never been examined. We examined the reminiscence bumps of sound- and odor-evoked memories of early-blind and sighted individuals, since blindness implies considerable changes in sensory experience. Despite such changes, the groups displayed similar age distributions of both sound- and odor-evoked memories. The auditory bump seemed to span the first two decades of life, whereas the olfactory bump was once again found in early childhood. Hence, the reminiscence bumps were robust to differences in sensory function and experience.
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| 9. |
- Cornell Kärnekull, Stina, et al.
(författare)
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The reminiscence bump is blind to blindness : Evidence from sound- and odor-evoked autobiographical memory
- 2020
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Ingår i: Consciousness and Cognition. - : Elsevier BV. - 1053-8100 .- 1090-2376. ; 78
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The reminiscence bump is the disproportionally high reporting of autobiographical memories from adolescence and early adulthood and is typically observed when memories are evoked by cues, such as words, pictures, and sounds. However, when odors are used the bump shifts to early childhood. Although these findings indicate that sensory modality affects the bump, the influence of the individual's sensory function on the reminiscence bumps is unknown. We examined the reminiscence bumps of sound- and odor-evoked autobiographical memories of early blind and sighted individuals, since early blindness implies considerable effects on sensory experience. Despite differences in sensory experience between blind and sighted individuals, the groups displayed similar age distributions of both sound- and odor-evoked memories. The auditory bump spanned the first two decades of life, whereas the olfactory bump was once again found in early childhood. These results demonstrate that the reminiscence bumps are robust to fundamental differences in sensory experience.
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| 10. |
- Engström, Maria, et al.
(författare)
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A Review of the Methodology, Taxonomy, and Definitions in Recent fMRI Research on Meditation
- 2022
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Ingår i: Mindfulness. - : Springer. - 1868-8527 .- 1868-8535. ; 13, s. 541-555
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objectives As meditation is increasingly employed for the promotion of good health, there is a growing interest in using neuroimaging methods to investigate the neural mechanisms by which meditation acts. In the wake of this rising interest, criticism regarding the lack of clarity concerning theory, definitions, and taxonomy, as well as deficient or poorly reported methodology, has arisen. The aim of this study was to investigate trends in current neuroimaging research on meditation and to provide guidelines for future studies. Methods We made a literature search for articles published during 2016-2019 using the search phrases "meditation" and "functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI". Inclusion criteria were limited to meditation studies using resting-state fMRI or such task-based fMRI examinations that were specifically targeting meditative states in healthy participants. Text analysis was performed using Nvivo 12 Mac (QSR International). Results Twenty-eight articles were included from which we identified four different intention-based dimensions of meditation practice: The present moment, Wholesome qualities to cultivate, Unwholesome qualities to avoid, and Attitudes. Half of the studies do not make assessments of subjective experience. The results were related to networks and brain regions describing cognitive, affective, somatic, and self domains of brain function. Most studies describe meditation-related brain function in terms of "processes". Conclusions We defined five areas of potential improvement regarding research methodology: (1) Provide clear and unambiguous definitions of constructs and practices, (2) Include measures of subjective experience, (3) Perform correct assessment of processes, (4) Combine methodologies for more substantiated conclusions, (5) Avoid the risk of overinterpretation.
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