| 1. |
- Bengtsson, Henning, 1974-
(author)
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Att utveckla mellanstadieelevers kritiska och temporala tänkande : En lärandeverksamhetsteoretisk studie rörande hållbar utveckling
- 2021
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The aim of the study is to investigate what critical and temporal thinking can mean for younger students (aged 9-10) that requires the adoption of various perspectives in the context of sustainable urban planning, and how such knowing can be orchestrated in joint theoretical exploration work. A particular area of interest is the concept of contradictions (as used in activity theory) as a potential didactic tool for the subject, i.e. in what way it can be a driver for students and teachers to jointly identify problems, explore knowledge content with different tools (learning models) and discuss possible creative solutions to environmental and sustainability issues.This study used the learning study research approach. In collaboration with teachers, lessons were designed, analysed and evaluated to extract knowledge through the iterative process that characterises this approach. The design of the research lessons was structured in accordance with Davydov’s theory of learning activity. The students’ experiences were analysed phenomenographically and the analysis of the lessons was guided by Engeström and Sannino’s conceptual tools for how contradictions can manifest themselves (such as in dilemmas, conflicts and double-binds). The results of the study include phenomenographical descriptions of what it means to know how to use a natural site for sustainable urban planning, and what critical aspects students need to be able to discern in order to be competent to participate in such a practice. The results also show that the way contradictions are manifested in joint work (involving teachers and students) affects the form of practice that develops and the opportunities for students to jointly make the problem their own and explore the complexity of sustainable urban planning using mediating tools (learning models).The discussion highlights how the results of the study can be used as tools for designing, implementing and evaluating teaching, and, more broadly, the results are reflected in ways in which the task used in the research lessons can be developed.
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| 2. |
- Hort, Sofia, 1984-
(author)
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Skrivprocesser på högskolan : Text, plats och materialitet i uppsatsskrivandet
- 2020
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The purpose of this study is to explore how students in a higher education context handle the writing of their final essay. Applying a sociomaterial approach, the study offers comprehensive case studies of students’ writing processes. The thesis attempts to show how student writers handle writing challenges through different technologies and at different places. It does so by implementing the Mobile Technologies Process Logs (MTPL)-method, wherein participating students take an active role to create and gather data on their own writing processes.The results show that some students’ textual work could be described in terms of being comprehensive, and hence handled through varied writing technologies at various writing places. These students write a lot of texts to move the writing process forward. Other writers take a more product-oriented view in their writing, and hence write through fewer technologies, at a few places, and with a wish to finish their final text product directly. Many of the students make explicit how they process the literature through writing texts. The knowledge production, the analysis, which is central to academic writing, seems however more implicit and difficult for the students to handle, specifically if having a product oriented view on writing. The results also show how students mobilize different textual actions to meet challenges that writing an (digital) essay implies. This work is clearly emplaced ,at diverse or at more homogenous writing places.It is significant to make textual strategies as well as the functions of writing technologies and place visible to all students. It seems vital at times where higher education, as well as the students entering this institution, are put in front of a raft of (new) challenges. At the same time as the idea of the bad student writer is prevailing, higher education institutions seem not to teach how an academic writing process could be managed in successful ways. This thesis contributes to this field of inquiry with results on how students’ writing processes can be characterized.
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| 3. |
- Petros, Fikre Bogale, 1985-
(author)
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Edge Precoloring Extension of Trees
- 2022
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Given a set of k colors and a graph G with a subset S of precolored edges (a partial k-edge coloring of G), we consider the problem of determining whether G has a proper edge coloring of G with the same k colors (an extension of the partial coloring) where the colors of edges in S are not changed. If such a coloring exists, then the partial k-coloring is called extendable.Some scheduling problems as well as some combinatorial problems can be reformulated as partial edge coloring extension problems for corresponding graphs. Partial edge coloring extension problems seem to have been first considered in connection with the problem of completing partial Latin squares. In 1960 Evans stated his conjecture that any partial Latin square of size n with at most n – 1 non-empty cells can be completed to a Latin square of size n. In terms of edge colorings this is equivalent to the statement that any proper partial n-edge coloring of the balanced complete bipartite graph Kn,n with at most n – 1 precolored edges is extendable. This classical conjecture was proved by Smetaniuk (1981), and also independently by Andersen and Hilton (1983). Moreover, Andersen and Hilton completely characterized which partial Latin squares of size n with n non-empty cells that cannot be completed to a Latin square of size n. In addition, Andersen (1985) characterized partial Latin squares of size n with n+1 non-empty cells that are completable to Latin squares of size n.More recently, the problem of extending a partial edge coloring where the precolored edges form a matching has been considered by Edwards et al. (2018). Casselgren, Markstrom and Pham (2020) studied questions on extending partial edge colorings of the n-dimensional hypercubes Qn. In particular, they obtained an analogue of the positive solution to Evans' conjecture on completing partial Latin squares by proving that every proper partial edge coloring of at most n – 1 edges of Qn can be extended to a proper n-edge coloring of Qn. They also characterized which partial edge colorings of Qn with precisely n precolored edges are extendable to proper n-edge colorings of Qn.In this thesis we study similar partial edge coloring extension problems for trees. Let T be a tree with maximum degree Δ(T). First, we characterize which partial edge colorings with at most Δ(T) precolored edges in T that are extendable to proper Δ(T)-edge colorings, thereby proving an analogue of the aforementioned result by Andersen and Hilton for Latin squares. Then, we prove an analogue for trees of the result of Andersen by characterizing exactly which precolorings of at most Δ(T) + 1 precolored edges in a tree T that are extendable to Δ(T)-edge colorings of T. We also prove sharp conditions on when it is possible to extend a precolored matching or a collection of connected precolored subgraphs of a tree T to a Δ(T)-edge coloring of T. Finally, we consider the problem of avoiding a given (not necessarily proper) partial edge coloring.
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| 4. |
- Schoultz, Magnus, 1989-
(author)
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Seniorers lärande : Intrinsikala värden som hälsoresurs
- 2023
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis focuses on older adults’ participation in non-formal education where learning does not lead to qualifications for a vocational career. In recent decades learning has been discussed in relation to older adults, where concepts like lifelong learning have been put forward as instruments for facing challenges such as demographic changes and ageing. Research demonstrates that intrinsic aspects of learning, such as the joy of learning, are important for older adults’ participation in education. However, research seldom considers intrinsic values of education as a point of departure. Against this background, the aim of the thesis is to develop a deeper understanding of older adults’ experiences of intrinsic values in organised educational activities and their significance for older adults’ health.The thesis consists of three articles. One article is a review focusing on how the research field has explained the relation between learning and health for older adults. The other two articles focus specifically on the educational practice. One of the articles explores older adults’ experiences of intrinsic values, while the other looks at the teachers’ didactical principles for organising education for older adults. To fulfil the purpose of the thesis and facilitate an in-depth understanding, a synthesis is created based on the three articles, didactic theory, John Dewey’s theory of values and his conceptualisation of experience and Aron Antonovsky’s salutogenic perspective on health. By synthesising the results from the articles and the theories new theoretical explanations emerge as to how older adults’ learning can contribute to their health. With support from the concepts intrinsic values, interaction, continuity, health resources and sense of coherence, the synthesis emphasises that older adults’ experiences of intrinsic values in education can be understood as health resources that contribute to their sense of coherence.
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| 5. |
- Sjödin, Karin, 1972-
(author)
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Friluftsliv och naturmöten i utbildningspraktik
- 2024
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The overall interest of this thesis is to contribute with knowledge about meaning making processes in educational encounters with nature in different educational practices. The exploration consists of four studies based on a pragmatic perspective on meaning making inspired by the works of John Dewey and Ludwig Wittgenstein. A discourse analytical approach is also used in the first study to analyse the curriculum documents. The result confirms that encounters with nature have a clear position in the curriculum documents, and friluftsliv is a prioritised content in PETE. It is further confirmed that the field of outdoor education is a field of conflicting meanings that pose significant educational challenges. Indeterminate situations occur and may influence students’ possibilities to transform the educational content in PETE to a school context. Another conclusion from the results is that instrumental meanings and a sportification of friluftsliv often get precedence over more emotional based meanings connected to nature. The results also show empirical examples where encounters with nature enable participants to create moral relations towards nature. This potential is highlighted in previous research as one of the most important in order to (re)connect our relation towards nature and in extension better conditions to deal with environmental questions.
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| 6. |
- Andersson, Karin, 1972-
(author)
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Naturmöten i pedagogiska verksamheter
- 2020
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The general public´s everyday encounters with nature have radically changed during the 20th century in industrial countries. Our relation towards nature in relation to environmental challenges is an important educational question, and this thesis investigates encounters with nature in educational practice. More specifically the aims are to investigate (i) how encounters with nature has been legitimated in the national curricula of Swedish school, and (ii) meaning making processes within pedagogical encounters with nature. In relation to the first aim a discourse analytical reading of the national curricula in Sweden is conducted. The results show that a scientific perspective of encounters with nature has been dominating during the last hundred years in the national curricula. In recent years, it is also more instrumental encounters that are expressed in the curricula, while students’ personal experiences and feelings are not focused in current curricula. Paper II and III examine moral meaning making in three different educational practices – Outdoor Education Centres, All-Weather Outdoor Schools and the Radical Outdoor movement. A multidisciplinary method is used in paper II, LEDmodel (Landscape, Ethical and Didactical). Paper III is based on the ethical tendency and language-game analyses. The results from these studies show that the educational purpose have an impact on moral processes in relation to nature. When the purpose is related to scientific knowledge there is often an instrumental relation towards nature in contrast to encounters that are more open. Open encounters instead seem to create relations that are built on a sense of responsibility and empathy. The results show that relations are created in different ways where some are more personal and built on emotion when other emotions are more based on stated rules or norms.
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| 7. |
- Öhman, Johan, 1991-
(author)
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Polarization-Resolved Particle Holography
- 2020
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In this thesis, measurement of particle fields using digital holography is the main subject. The questions investigated consider positioning, identification and sizing of nanometer and micrometer particles. The thesis explore these topics using both simulations and experimental measurements. Measuring particles is inherently a three-dimensional problem. Digital holography is, therefore, chosen as the measurement technique since it can record three-dimensional information in the interference pattern.Two main digital holographic setups are considered in this work, one single-view and one dual-view, both with off-axis configuration for the reference wave. Methods for positioning along the optical axis is the central question for the single-view system. This work presents a new method for axial positioning based on the wavefront curvature of the scattered light. In the reconstructed volume, along the optical axis, the scattered wave changes from converging to diverging around its location. This assumption is verified using simulations. An estimation of the position where this change occurs, hence, is an estimation of the actual axial position. Two different methods for quantification of the wavefront curvature is presented. The first uses the finite difference method of the reconstructed phase. The second uses a Chebyshev model for the phase-response. The difference between the two methods is that the one based on the Chebyshev model is more robust and less sensitive to noise.The dual-view system is an extension of the single-view setup where an identical system is placed perpendicular with the first system. The sample is illuminated from below, making the angle between the illumination and the two systems $90^\circ$. The concept of polarization-resolved registration is also incorporated in the detection. This detection is made possible by using two reference waves with linear and mutually orthogonal polarization at different off-axis tilts. One hologram can, therefore, be reconstructed into two complex amplitudes, one for each polarization component. The measurements using this system focus on how particle properties influence the polarization-response. The transition from single to dual-view polarization-resolved detection increases the complexity in the reconstruction. There is a need for accurate calibrations for this type of setup. The thesis contains details on calibrations of both the spatial mapping and polarization detection.The first application of the dual-view polarization-resolved setup is for identification and size estimation of nanometer-sized particles. The T-matrix method is used to establish a model for the sizing of spherical and spheroid particles. It is possible to estimate the size unambiguously up to approximately 200 nm for smooth particles. The sizing is limited to this lower size range.The second application investigates how the detected polarization varies for different kinds of microplastics. The measurements show that the microplastics have a complex polarization-response, indicating an irregular and non-spherical shape. In general, for both sizing and identification, the problem becomes more complex as the size increases and the particle shape is less smooth.This thesis shows that it is possible to estimate particle information from the polarization-response. However, the method is constricted both by the size and complexity of the particles.
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Öhman Fuchs, Peder, 1984-, et al.
(author)
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Fibrin fragment E potentiates TGF-beta-induced myofibroblast activation and recruitment
- 2020
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In: Cellular Signalling. - : Elsevier. - 0898-6568 .- 1873-3913. ; 72
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Fibrin is an essential constituent of the coagulation cascade, and the formation of hemostatic fibrin clots is central to wound healing. Fibrin clots are over time degraded into fibrin degradation products as the injured tissue is replaced by granulation tissue. Our goal was to study the role of the fibrin degradation product fragment E (FnE) in fibroblast activation and migration. We present evidence that FnE is a chemoattractant for fibroblasts and that FnE can potentiate TGF-beta-induced myofibroblast formation. FnE forms a stable complex with alpha(v)beta(3) integrin, and the integrin beta(3) subunit is required both for FnE-induced fibroblast migration and for potentiation of TGF-beta-induced myofibroblast formation. Finally, subcutaneous infusion of FnE in mice results in a fibrotic response in the hypodermis. These results support a model where FnE released from clots in wounded tissue promote wound healing and fibrosis by both recruitment and activation of fibroblasts. Fibrin fragment E could thus represent a therapeutic target for treatment of pathological fibrosis.
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