Historically, leadership research has focused on managers’ characteristics and behavior, their leadership style and its implications for a business’s success. In contrast, this dissertation examines how working conditions in the workplace affect first-level managers’ everyday work, their possibilities to practice leadership, and consequently their leadership style. The theoretical framework guiding the dissertation is a gender analysis with a doing gender perspective and the methodology is a case study. Two workplace organizations in a Swedish municipality are studied: a male-dominated manufacturing industry and a female-dominated elderly care service. The empirical materials consist of twenty-six semi-structured interviews, primarily with male and female first-level managers, but also with their immediate supervisors. In addition, the materials include a questionnaire and organizational documents. The results show that organizational structure and culture have implications for managers’ working conditions and consequently the leadership style they are willing and able to implement. The sex ratio among employees did not have any implications for which type of leadership informants described in their everyday practices. The ideal leadership and the everyday leadership practices portrayed by informants entail being explicit, controlling and rational managers who are able to make decisions and carry forth extensive structural changes. Their narratives reveal an authoritarian and task-oriented leadership style that has its roots in early industrialism. Leadership is strongly marked by masculinity, and even though women and men describe practicing the same type of leadership in their everyday work, their ideas about gender depict two complete opposites in which women and femininity is subordinated to men and masculinity. This indicates a divergence between the gender we think and the gender we do. Nonetheless, sex ratio among employees has implications for the level of sexism. While informants in both workplace organizations described gender discrimination, only those in the manufacturing industry described experiencing sexual harassment.

Organic solar cells (OSCs) are lightweight, flexible, scalable alternatives to traditional silicon solar panels. In OSCs, molecular semiconductors convert solar energy into electricity. With efficiencies exceeding 20%, OSCs have become a promising renewable energy technology.

The photoactive layer in a photovoltaic device is typically coated from a blend solution of electron-donor and electron-acceptor molecules. Recent development of new materials introduces new challenges in controlling and characterizing the morphology of the photoactive layer.

In this work, we use X-ray absorption spectroscopy to demonstrate that the choice of solvent used to process the photoactive layer plays an important role in determining the molecular orientation of the molecules. In addition, we introduced a novel approach that allows selective probing of the molecular orientation of the electron-acceptor in blended films. We also demonstrate that the deposition method can be used to control the vertical stratification in donor-acceptor systems. Complementary SPM techniques were applied to investigate the morphology-property relations at the nanoscale, highlighting both opportunities and challenges in the study of modern photoactive layers.

Utköp, eller överenskommelser om att avsluta en anställning mot ekonomiskkompensation, har blivit en allt vanligare men också omdebatterad praktik idet svenska arbetslivet. Utköp kan förstås som en del av en bredare juridifieringav arbetslivet där konflikter hanteras administrativt i stället för att lösasgenom dialog; i gränslandet mellan juridik, ekonomi och organisationsstyrning.Studiens syfte är att analysera vad utköp har för roll på den svenskaarbetsmarknaden utifrån ett arbetsmiljöperspektiv genom att beakta vad somföregår överenskommelsen. Datainsamling skedde genom en fokusgruppmed fackliga förhandlingsombud, som representerar medlemmar i förhandlingarom överenskommelser. Resultatet visar att överenskommelser föregåsav intressemotsättningar mellan arbetsgivare och arbetstagare, olika former avförtroendebrist men också att organisationspolitiska strategier. Studien visaratt utköp kan förstås som en forcerad överenskommelse där den anställde harlite att sätta emot. Utköp legitimerar en utbyteslogik på arbetsmarknaden ochrubbar maktbalansen i den svenska arbetsmarknadsmodellen.

I en tid präglad av demokratisk tillbakagång och ett allt mer polariserat samhällsklimat kan undervisning om kontroversiella samhällsfrågor (KSF) stärka elevers demokratiska förståelse och politiska handlingsförmåga. Samtidigt visar forskning att lärare ofta undviker denna typ av undervisning på grund av osäkerhet kring genomförande och oro för känsloladdade klassrumssituationer. Denna studie undersöker hur lärarstudenter i samhällskunskap kan förberedas för KSF‑undervisning genom användningen av en nyutvecklad ämnesdidaktisk planeringsmodell. Syftet är dels att designa och utveckla modellen med utgångspunkt i tidigare forskning, dels att analysera de didaktiska val, kritiska moment och medborgarbildande potentialer som framträder när modellen används i lärarstudenternas planering och undervisning under deras verksamhetsförlagda undervisning (VFU).

Studien är kvalitativ och bygger på dokumentanalys av lektionsplaneringar och didaktiska analyser samt semistrukturerade intervjuer med fjorton lärarstudenter. Planeringsmodellen har utformats utifrån forskning inom controversial issues education, tysk politische Bildung och nordisk samhällskunskapsdidaktik, och struktureras utifrån tre didaktiska principer: det kontroversiella, det emotionella och det exemplariska. 

Resultaten visar att modellen erbjuder ett stödjande ramverk som både riktar och utmanar lärarstudenternas undervisningsplanering. I deras didaktiska val framträder bland annat skillnader mellan elevnära och samhällsnära frågor, variationer i hur politikens olika dimensioner används och svårigheter att balansera institutionell och specialiserad kunskap. De kritiska momenten i klassrummet rör främst strävan efter lärarens neutralitet, hantering av elevers emotioner och klassrumskontextens betydelse. I den planerade undervisningen synliggörs en bred samhällskunskaplig bildning med fokus på att förstå samhället, utveckla egen politisk identitet och delta demokratiskt. Sammanfattningsvis indikerar studien att planeringsmodellen kan bidra till reflekterad och medborgarbildande KSF-undervisning och verka som ett didaktiskt stöd i undervisningsprocessen. 

Sedan RUT-avdraget infördes år 2007 har sektorn för hushållsnära tjänsterexpanderat, och personer över 65 år utgör idag en av de största användargrupperna.Ett växande antal företag erbjuder idag olika tjänster som riktar sig tilläldre och deras anhöriga. Utifrån intervjuer med RUT-företag, arbetsgivarorganisationeroch fackförbund är syftet med artikeln att analysera privata omsorgstjänstersplats i relation till den offentligt finansierade äldreomsorgen.Särskilt analytiskt fokus ligger på hur omsorgens innehåll och relationellakaraktär beskrivs. Resultaten visar att åtstramningar i den offentliga äldreomsorgenhar bidragit till att etablera en privat marknad för RUT-omsorgstjänster.Andra konsekvenser av marknadiseringen är att omsorgens relationerpåverkas, samtidigt som könade ojämlikheter riskerar att reproduceras.

Studien fokuserar på internationella mastersstudenters upplevelserav inträdet till arbetsmarknaden, att arbeta i Sverige samt möjligheter tillrörlighet på arbetsmarknaden. Genom intervjuer med tidigare internationellamastersstudenter som etablerat sig på arbetsmarknaden bidrar artikeln medkunskap om en grupp som hittills fått begränsad uppmärksamhet i litteraturen,trots deras ställning som önskvärda arbetskraftsinvandrare grundat påhög utbildningsnivå och teknikinriktning. Analysen synliggör mönster somexkluderar icke-europeiska mastersstudenter, medan de med europeisk bakgrunderfar färre hinder i övergången mellan studier och arbete. Väl etableradepå arbetsmarknaden upplever båda grupper att annorlundaskap kan utgöraett hinder för att avancera och/eller byta jobb i Sverige.

This thesis presents a design research project, comprising five papers on the design and implementation of a topic-centered research-based teacher guide for quadratic equations in Swedish upper-secondary school. The thesis aims to explore if and how such teacher guides can be designed to support mathematics teachers in their planning and teaching, and their professional learning. Further, it examines how teachers and their contexts affect conditions for such support.

The papers investigate teachers’ existing resource use when planning, previous research on quadratic equations, the design of the teacher guide, and the support found through teachers’ interactions with the teacher guide in two cycles of implementation.

The practice of planning and teaching is examined through teachers’ interactions with resources, perceiving and mobilizing them in designing instruction. Professional learning is operationalized as developing Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching and is further discussed through the lens of the Documentational Approach to Didactics. A theoretical contribution of the thesis is that the notion of what is educative differs across lenses for professional learning. Previous ideas on educative features in curriculum materials are extended by highlighting how these are interrelated and context-dependent in relation to the support they provide. Such support is found to function differently across stages of planning and teaching.

The findings provide empirical insights into teachers’ use of teacher guides, and further suggest that teacher support will be most effective when designed features meet the needs of teachers within their context. For Swedish upper-secondary teachers, this was found to include providing suggestions for lesson activities with rationale, grounded in implications emerging from issues found in research, rather than providing student tasks alone. The designed teacher guide constitutes a practical contribution for teaching quadratic equations.

Den här rapporten beskriver lärandet av ett delprojekt inom projektet Helhetsenkelt, som finansieras av Vinnova inom ramen för Impact Innovation och SustainGov. Helhetsenkelt använder systemdesign för att undersöka och utveckla åtgärder för att minska den upplevda regelbördan inom lantbruket.

Det här delprojektet har fokuserat på de regelgivande och regelutformande nivåerna i systemet. Problembeskrivningar och formuleringar av uppdrag sker bland annat på Regeringskansliet. Arbetsgruppen har inte i detta arbete haft möjlighet att utforska i vilken utsträckning aktörsinvolvering och kontakter med bransch sker i de riktigt tidiga faserna, där direktiv och uppdrag formuleras.

Arbetet har drivits av behovet av att besvara frågan: Hur skulle vi kunna öka inflytandet från lantbrukarnas  verklighet med syfte att förstå, tydliggöra och beskriva konsekvenser av reglering?. Syftet är att minska den upplevda regelbördan och skapa beslutsunderlag som är mer ändamålsenliga, genomförbara och heltäckande. Arbetet har avgränsats till den svenska delen av lagstiftningskedjan. Jordbruks- och livsmedelspolitiken styrs i hög grad av vad som sker inom EU. Hur och när involvering sker i den delen har inte rymts inom detta arbete.

Dagens konsekvensutredningar bedrivs per regelområde och är expertstyrda, vilket innebär att de fokuserar på enskilda regler snarare än den samlade regelbördan i lantbrukarens vardag. Utredningarna missar ofta den kognitiva och emotionella belastningen samt de målkonflikter som uppstår när olika regelverk krockar. Dessutom betraktas lantbrukare ofta som en homogen grupp, trots stora skillnader i förutsättningar och drivkrafter. Involvering sker framförallt genom textbaserade metoder som ger begränsat utrymme för att uttrycka erfarenheter samt i regel för sent i processen. Exempelvis i remissförfarandet när förslagen redan är färdigformulerade, vilket begränsar möjligheten till reellt inflytande.

Projektet har använt sig av systemdesign för att se helheten och samla relevanta aktörer. Arbetet har innefattat:

• Intervjuer och dokumentstudier för att kartlägga nuvarande regelprocesser.
• Workshops med lantbrukare, handläggare och experter för att identifiera problembilder.
• Metodtester med visualiseringar, där man skapat fallföretag och jämfört ”nu- och nylägen” för att göra komplexa lagförslag (t.ex. SOU 2025:64) begripliga och möjliga att reagera på för lantbrukare.
• Visuellt stödd dialog med lantbrukare för att fånga upplevda och relationella dimensioner av kontroll.

Genom att utgå från olika fallföretag kunde projektet tydliggöra diversifieringen hos lantbruksföretagen och hur den upplevda regelbördan skiftar beroende på verksamheternas förutsättningar och logik. De visuellt stödda dialogerna gjorde det möjligt för lantbrukare att bidra med expertkunskap om sin vardag på ett sätt som textbaserade remisser inte tillåter.  [SH1]Behöver ”systemdesign” förklaras? Jag känner i alla fall inte till definitionen/innebörden.

Space is “a set of relations between entities and is not a substance” (Urry, 1985, p. 25). Starting from this proposition, this article examines the constitution of protest spaces enacted through a set of physical and technological entities. The case study is of Russian anti‐war actors who aimed to organise anti‐war protests following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, after which repression in the country significantly intensified and many were forced into exile. By conducting qualitative interviews with anti‐war actors, underpinned by offline and online ethnography, the study examines hidden street anti‐war agitation in Russia and reveals logistical orchestration in exile. Drawing on previous research that studies activism through a framework of “algorithmic tactics,” this article reveals that while anti‐war actors cope with algorithms, their broader approach extends beyond the algorithmic logic of social media. Instead, anti‐war actors incorporate infrastructural adaption. The study argues that in order to foster proximity between dispersed geographical localities, actors utilise the affordances of both digital and physical environments. Specifically, it zooms in on logistical media, particularly Telegram, that enables polycentric coordination among multiple sites and allows anti‐war actors to navigate in different contexts—inside the country as well as abroad. 

This thematic issue advances digital geographies of hope as a lens for examining how possibilities for action, connection, and alternative futures take shape in a deeply datafied and platformized world. While critical scholarship has documented extraction, surveillance, bordering, and algorithmic injustice, the contributions foreground hope as situated, relational, and contested, emerging within crisis rather than outside of it. Drawing on utopian and feminist thought, queer and decolonial critique, and research on affect, care, and solidarity, the thematic issue conceptualizes hope as both affective and infrastructural: enacted through everyday practices, collective struggles, and sociotechnical imaginaries that expand “room to act.” Cases range from feminist and anti‐war organizing to rural and regional media ecologies, post‐digital work cultures, and AI governance debates. Read across these contexts, hope appears as ambivalent yet generative, enabling refusal, repair, solidarity, and world‐making across scales. 

The re‐emerging nature of virtual reality (VR) and recurring waves of hype have made this technology a conduit for imaginations of solving complex social and ecological problems. Recent iterations of VR, such as mobile VR and VR head mounted displays (HMDs) for casual users, have made it evident that the spatial relations of VR are multiple and complex. This article utilizes the Foucauldian concept of heterotopia to explore how spatilities of VR are imagined and practiced as counter‐spaces in a digital landscape of smartphones and social media. Focusing on the heterotopia’s ability to provide a space for contesting and inverting the societies within which they exist, I show how VR is constantly juxtaposed against other technologies, digital places, and techno‐embodiments in user imaginaries and practices. Through ethnographic materials on domestic VR usage collected in Swedish homes, I found that notions of VR as an “other” or different medium are laden with imaginings of VR technology bringing about a better society—a virtual utopia. These positive futures are paired with and derived from dystopic imaginaries and fictions. Recognizing the necessity to take media imaginaries and their inherent spatiality seriously, through how they are expressed and acted upon in the digital geographies of everyday life, I explore how VR users’ contesting ideas are deployed to make VR a hopeful other in a technological landscape. I conclude that conceptualizations that are slippery, self‐contradicting, and do works as tricksters have much to offer digital geographies. 

Detta material utgör en bilaga till lärarhandledningen Utforskande och fördjupande litteratursamtal (https://doi.org/10.59217/zvtv4214). Såväl lärarhandledningen som denna observationsguide har utarbetats inom ramen för forskningsprojektet Utforskande och fördjupande litteratursamtal (UTFORSK), som finansierades av Skolforskningsinstitutet åren 2022–2024. Projektet är ett samarbete mellan Karlstads universitet, Linköpings universitet, Universitetet i Stavanger, Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet och Karlstads kommun.

Detta material har utarbetats inom ramen för forskningsprojektet Utforskande och fördjupande litteratursamtal (UTFORSK), som finansierades av Skolforskningsinstitutet åren 2022–2024. Projektet är ett samarbete mellan Karlstads universitet, Linköpings universitet, Universitetet i Stavanger, Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet och Karlstads kommun. Till materialet hör även observationsguiden Vad fokuserar vi på i klassrumsobservationer av lärarledda litteratursamtal? (https://doi.org/10.59217/aqmo7290)

Rising seawater temperatures fundamentally reshape marine ecosystems, with the Southern Ocean exhibiting vulnerability to climatic perturbations. Antarctic teleosts have evolved under near-constant sub-zero conditions, developing unique physiological adaptations. In this study, responses of Trematomus bernacchii, an endemic Antarctic fish, to three successive marine heatwave-like events were addressed. Using implantable bio-loggers, core body temperature and heart rate were monitored over 15 days, revealing a statistically significant positive correlation between core body temperature and cardiac performance, with an approximately 25% increase per degrees C. Molecular analyses of cardiac tissue revealed a sequential antioxidant response. An early upregulation of gpx4 suggests immediate mitochondrial protection against lipid peroxidation, while the subsequent induction of gpx1, prdx3, and prdx5 indicates a broader cytosolic defence. Furthermore, the marked decoupling between elevated gpx1 transcript levels and diminished Selenium-dependent glutathione peroxidase activity highlights a hitherto unrecognised post-transcriptional regulatory mechanism under acute thermal stress. Our findings suggest that T. bernacchii activates a sequential, organ-specific stress response to short-term warming, which may allow it to overcome episodic heatwaves.

Purpose Acquired brain injuries (ABI) have a profound impact on both individuals and their families, making psychosocial support a crucial component of neurorehabilitation. Understanding this support is essential for enhancing the services provided by healthcare social workers (HSWs). This study aimed to explore the experiences of individuals with ABI and their next of kin regarding psychosocial support, with a particular focus on the support received from HSWs.MethodA total of 33 interviews were conducted, 23 with individuals with ABI and 10 with next of kin. Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis.ResultsParticipants with ABI and their next of kin valued the support provided by HSWs in addressing challenges related to medical, emotional, financial, and social needs. The importance of informational support-such as explanations of the medical condition and treatment options-was emphasized, alongside instrumental support that helped individuals navigate complex welfare systems.ConclusionsWhile counselling and crisis management are essential, the informational and practical support provided by HSWs should not be regarded as secondary. The need for support varies significantly-both between individuals and over time-highlighting the importance of tailoring interventions to each person's unique circumstances in order to achieve truly person-centered care.

The pyrolysis potential of date seeds (DS) (an abundant agricultural residue that can support sustainable and resilient energy systems) as a renewable bioenergy feedstock was examined. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) of date seeds was performed from ambient temperature to 1000 degrees C under nitrogen at heating rates of 6, 9, 12, and 15 degrees C/min. The feedstock showed high volatile matter and a higher heating value (HHV) of 20.185 MJ/kg, confirming its suitability for thermochemical conversion. Isoconversional model-free methods such as Friedman (FR), Kissinger Akahira-Sunose (KAS), Ozawa-Flynn-Wall (OFW) and an advanced Vyazovkin (VZ) approach were applied over a conversion range of 0.2 to 0.8. A linear combined kinetics analysis gave an apparent activation energy (Ea) of 272.4 +/- 11.8 kJ/mol with a correlation coefficient of 0.9948 with the higher reaction order. Four machine learning (ML) models, including Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), Classification and Regression Trees (C&RT), Boosted Regression Trees (BRT), and Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS), were used to predict Ea obtained from thermogravimetric data. The ANN achieved the best performance metrics, with a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.985 and a Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) of 3.84. The integrated kinetic and machine-learning framework provides reliable estimates of Ea for DS pyrolysis. The predicted Ea determines the temperature sensitivity of pyrolysis, setting the required heating rate, residence time, and temperature profile in the reactor. These results provide process-level input for reactor design, scaling-up, and optimizing bioenergy production from DS waste.

Previous research has demonstrated that basing self-esteem on performance in a specific context can yield both favorable and adverse outcomes. To assist high achievers whose performance is strongly connected to their selfworth, an important initial step is to identify when this becomes problematic. From a theoretical standpoint, we hypothesize that shame following performance failure may help explain the association between basing selfesteem on performance and negative outcomes related to performance and health. That is, it may be when basing self-esteem on performance develops into shame following performance failure that such consequences emerge. To explore this hypothesis, we conducted a cross-sectional study with 176 elite athletes to examine whether shame following performance failure statistically mediates the associations between basing self-esteem on performance and competitive anxiety and athlete burnout. The findings in the present study were consistent with the idea that shame following performance failure could play a key explanatory role. Initial analyses showed significant direct associations between basing self-esteem on performance and five out of six dimensions of competitive anxiety and athlete burnout, with correlation coefficients ranging from 0.42** to -0.22**. However, when shame following performance failure was statistically tested as a potential mediator, these direct effects were substantially reduced and became non-significant (ranging from 0.08 to -0.02). This pattern is statistically consistent with mediation, although it should not be interpreted causally given the cross-sectional nature of the data. Despite limitations, this study may offer an important step toward a better understanding of when, and under what circumstances, basing self-esteem on performance leads to negative outcomes.

The aim of this article is to explore how place and physical space are perceived by girls and young women living in two neighbourhoods marked as marginalized and how they orientate in urban spaces and their everyday lives. Data were collected through teller-focused, walk-along and photo-elicitation interviews with twenty-one 13- to 22-year-old girls and young women in racially diverse neighbourhoods in two Swedish cities and analysed using queer phenomenology and conceptions of space. Three themes emerge: orientations in everyday life, place as the Other, and belonging and the contestation of space. The girls' and young women's everyday life movements are understood as voluntary and forced into different directions in urban spaces. They orientate in spaces where class and racial boundaries divide people and places, as the local neighbourhoods and inhabitants are stigmatized as the Other. However, these boundaries are contested by the girls taking pride in where they live, their Muslim identity and forward orientations in life.

Limitations to full social participation in physical activity-both during leisure time and in physical education-persist among young individuals with cerebral palsy. This study explores the experiences of physical education and physical leisure activities among youth with cerebral palsy living in Sweden. It examines how these youths navigate contextual barriers and facilitators to participation, focusing on norms of function and gender. Individual interviews with 13 youth, aged 15-18 years, were analysed using Qualitative Content Analysis resulting in a main theme: Being in a continuum between exclusion and empowerment, with three categories: 1) Excluded and denied of support; 2) Resisting prejudice and discrimination; and 3) Empowered, with appropriate support. Most participants had experienced not being given equal opportunity in particularly in physical education but also in leisure activities and had encountered limiting norms and preconceptions based on gender and function. The findings indicate that norm-consciousness, respect and involvement in decision-making are key for participation and empowerment.

Background Factors influencing the early-life skin microbiome and the association with atopic dermatitis (AD) are relatively unexplored.Objectives To evaluate associations with the infant skin microbiome during the first year of life.Methods Three-month-old infants from the Enquiring About Tolerance (EAT) birth cohort were examined for AD at enrolment and at 1 and 3 years of age. Parent-completed questionnaires, transepidermal water loss (TEWL) and FLG mutation status were evaluated. Bacterial swabs were collected from the elbow crease and volar forearm from 148 infants at 3 months and 1 year of age, and the microbiome composition was characterized using 16S rRNA gene sequencing (V3-V4 region).Results Shannon diversity was significantly higher at the forearm compared with the elbow. Staphylococcus, Acinetobacter and Streptococcus were the most abundant genera across time and body site. Microbiome community composition was primarily associated with body site and age (P <= 0.001 for both). Other significant associations were found with ethnicity (P = 0.009), FLG status (P <= 0.001), urban vs. rural residence (P = 0.005), older siblings (P = 0.04) and bath product use at 3 months (P = 0.01) but not with pets (P = 0.16), systemic antibiotics (P = 0.27) or bathing frequency (P = 0.11). The microbiome was associated with elevated TEWL (P = 0.004 at 3 months and P <= 0.001 at 1 year) and with concurrent AD (P = 0.03 at 3 months, P <= 0.001 at 1 year). Streptococcus parasanguinis was significantly less abundant in the nonlesional skin of infants with AD at 3 months.Conclusions In addition to age and body site, the infant skin microbiome is associated with heritable factors, the home environment, hygiene practices and with the presence of AD. An author video to accompany this article is available online.Conclusions In addition to age and body site, the infant skin microbiome is associated with heritable factors, the home environment, hygiene practices and with the presence of AD. An author video to accompany this article is available online. At birth, our skin encounters the environment for the first time. We become carriers of 'microbes', including bacteria, viruses and fungi. Eczema affects around 1 in 4 children in the UK. It is caused by various genetic and environmental factors. Previous studies have found a strong link between eczema and the bacteria living on our skin, known as the skin 'microbiome'.In this study, we wanted to find out whether any of the environmental factors linked with eczema also affected the skin microbiome. We studied 3-month-old babies from a UK clinical trial called 'Enquiring About Tolerance'. The babies' parents answered questions about their home, bathing habits and their baby's health. The babies were examined for eczema until they were 3 years old. We collected skin swabs from their elbows and forearms. We did this again when they were 1 year old. We then processed the swabs to study the skin microbiome. We found that the body part (elbow or forearm) and the baby's age were the key factors shaping the skin microbiome. We found other factors were linked with the skin microbiome. These included the baby's genetics, having a parent or sibling with eczema, living in a city or urban area, and using soaps and/or shampoos regularly. We did not find any links between the skin microbiome and with having pets, using antibiotics or how often the baby had a bath.Finally, we found a link between the skin microbiome and whether the baby had eczema. But, we did not find the same bacteria that we expect in older children and adults with eczema. We studied the infant skin microbiome during the first year of life, using skin swabs and clinical data collected during the Enquiring About Tolerance (EAT) clinical trial, and found that the skin microbiome was primarily determined by body site and age. There were significant, but weaker associations with ethnicity, FLG mutation status, urban vs. rural residence and regular bath product use. Thirty per cent of infants had atopic dermatitis (AD) at 3 months of age. The skin microbiome was associated with skin barrier dysfunction (defined by elevated transepidermal water loss) and with concurrent AD; however, Staphylococcus aureus was scarcely identified in this young cohort.

Rivers are increasingly fragmented and degraded, yet the European Union Nature Restoration Regulation calls for restoring at least 25,000 kilometres of free-flowing rivers by 2030. Translating this ambition into effective implementation remains challenging because restoration priorities differ across ecological, social, economic, and governance contexts. Here, we synthesize expert knowledge from 45 countries through a structured, multi-step prioritization process to identify research priorities for restoring free-flowing rivers in Europe. We identified 27 priorities and analysed how expert background and spatial context influenced their ranking. Restoration priorities differed systematically depending on whether experts emphasized ecological integrity, community engagement, economic considerations, or governance capacity, revealing clear patterns in how disciplinary and professional perspectives shape implementation pathways. This demonstrates that restoration strategies cannot be universal but must be adapted to local and regional political, institutional, and ecological conditions. Building on these findings, we propose a structured prioritisation framework that links barrier removal, connectivity restoration, governance mechanisms, and policy instruments to context-specific needs. Together, our results provide an empirically grounded and implementation-oriented roadmap to support European Union Member States in delivering ambitious river restoration targets in a context-sensitive and socially robust manner.

The construction sector worldwide is producing a massive amount of waste materials. In worst-case scenarios, most of these materials end up in landfills. In the Swedish national waste plan, construction and demolition waste is an area of priority, when transforming from a linear to a circular economy. The aim of this paper is to determine if it is possible to industrially produce good quality pellets from wood waste. The scope includes Swedish construction and demolition wood waste. Four assortments of wood waste from the building sector were turned into fuel pellets in a single pellet press, and their quality was determined. The main pellet quality aspects investigated were moisture content, solid density, hardness, mechanical durability and ash content. The results for these quality aspects were compared to the standards and the results of others. Also, the energy use was determined. The results demonstrate that it is possible to produce good quality pellets from construction and demolition wood waste. The achieved pellet moisture content is such that the investigated wood waste material is suitable for pellet production. The container mix resulted in the highest hardness and durability. However, since the ash content is too high, it should be mixed with pure pine sawdust to make it suitable as a high-quality raw material for the pellet industry.

Objective To explore the experiences and perceptions of oral care cards among strategic-level leaders within municipal and dental care organisations.Background Oral health is integral to overall well-being, especially in older adults, who frequently rely on caregiving services. In Sweden, paper-based oral care cards are intended to enhance communication and coordination across municipal and dental care, yet their practical effectiveness remains underexplored. Leaders are crucial for facilitating integrated person-centred care; exploring a strategic-level leadership perspective on these cards is therefore important for developing comprehensive cross-organisational oral health care strategies for ageing populations.Materials and Methods Using a qualitative, exploratory design, data were collected through semi-structured group interviews with leaders in municipal and dental care, as well as with senior researchers in nursing/person-centred care and the oral health domain. In total, 20 participants took part in the interviews. Inductive content analysis was employed.Results Participants called for a more cohesive, cross-organisational framework to improve the scope and usefulness of oral care cards. Three main categories emerged: (1) the necessity of a dynamic, adaptable process that accommodates changing oral health needs; (2) the importance of integrating oral care cards into existing workflows through coordinated leadership; and (3) the potential of oral care cards to promote reciprocal learning, person-centred care and preventive strategies.Conclusion Oral care cards hold considerable promise for strengthening oral health among older adults. Long-term sustainability in a digitalising care system likely requires a hybrid approach, where paper-based cards function as low-threshold bedside prompts while key information is mirrored in secure digital infrastructures to enable follow-up, shared access and accountability.

The aim of this study is to enhance understanding of how social robots affect the emotional labour of frontline employees in the service sector. It employs a qualitative case study approach, using semi-structured interviews, observations, and document analysis. The study participants include frontline employees, managers, and HR officers at an amusement park in Sweden. Our findings demonstrate that the introduction of robots changed the conditions for emotional labour by facilitating work in some cases, complicating it in others, and in some instances fundamentally transforming it. A key finding is the increased theatricalisation of labour, whereby frontline employees bring robots to life through performance and role-playing. This behaviour was shaped by overarching organizational expectations rather than direct managerial instructions. The robots also shifted the balance between onstage and backstage roles, as employees spent more time performing in customer-facing roles and less time recovering backstage. This study contributes to the development of emotional labour theory by cross-fertilizing it with Goffman's dramaturgical perspective, which adds dimensions related to self-presentation and the adaptation of emotions and behaviour. By focusing on employees with experience working alongside robots, the study offers new insights into how robots reshape the emotional and social interactions of frontline service work.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a heterogeneous neurodevelopmental condition influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. Prenatal and perinatal exposures have been implicated in ASD etiology, but their influence may vary across clinical subgroups, including subgroups defined by co-occurring intellectual disability (ID).Methods We conducted a population-based case-control study in southern Sweden including all children diagnosed with ASD before the age of 9, and whose mothers were born in Sweden. Diagnoses were confirmed through detailed medical record review, and information on ASD severity, ID status, and familial ASD were collected for subgroup analyses. A total of 996 ASD cases and 9,960 age- and sex-matched controls were identified from a regional perinatal database. Multivariable logistic regression estimated adjusted odds ratios (aORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for maternal, obstetric, and neonatal factors.Results Higher maternal body mass index (BMI) in early pregnancy was associated with increased likelihood of ASD (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 1.41-1.76 for overweight and obesity compared with normal weight), with broadly similar associations observed across ASD subgroups defined by severity, intellectual disability, and familial ASD. Maternal smoking in early pregnancy (aOR 1.49, 95% CI 1.22-1.82) and both elective (aOR 1.22, 95% CI 1.01-1.48) and emergency cesarean delivery (aOR 1.40, 95% CI 1.15-1.81) were also associated with higher odds of ASD, with generally stronger associations in children without intellectual disability and in those with less severe ASD. Subgroup-specific associations were observed for maternal epilepsy and gestational diabetes, while prematurity showed weaker associations than anticipated and was mainly observed in severe ASD and non-familial cases. Low Apgar scores at 5 minutes showed no consistent association with ASD.Conclusions Multiple maternal and perinatal factors were associated with ASD in this large Swedish cohort. Stratified analyses by ASD severity, ID status, and familial ASD revealed both shared and subgroup-specific association patterns, underscoring the value of considering ASD heterogeneity in studies of neurodevelopmental variation.

Traditional school oral health education, delivered through lectures and printed materials, is often passive and overlooks emotional and behavioural learning. This highlights the need for more interactive approaches. Drama-based techniques, such as role-play and storytelling, engage children, foster reflection and encourage social interaction, though evidence for long-term oral health remains limited.

In this study, we analyzed students' confessions during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, comparing Facebook Confession Boards (FCBs) from universities in 4 countries. Themes were interpreted through the framework of eudaemonic media entertainment (EME). Using semantic network analysis, we map the central themes in students' confessions and use qualitative content analysis to explore them further through eudaemonic lenses. Our findings reveal three main cross-national themes: personal life, university life, and romantic relationships. While COVID-19 was a relatively less central topic across all countries, it was present in every aspect of students' lives. In different countries, sentiments and topics varied according to cultural differences and national policies vis-a-vis the pandemic. Many confessions contained eudaemonic elements, as students used FCBs for support and personal growth, as well as to address sensitive topics. The anonymity and peer-group context of FCBs fostered open discussions on taboo subjects, creating sympathetic communities and facilitating collective meaning making during a global crisis.

As a scholar and a feminist, I find myself fascinated, bewildered, and frustrated by rest on conceptual, empirical, and personal levels. In this Open Forum text, based on a project investigating rest practices as well as articulations of rest and their significance in contemporary Sweden, I draw upon existing research to identify meanings of rest. I discuss the multifacetedness and elusiveness of rest on conceptual levels and as lived experience, noting that this elusiveness is exacerbated by acceleration, “productivism,” and gendered, racialised, and classed power relations as well as compulsory able-bodiedness and able-mindedness. Situating rest as a justice and access issue and as highly subjective and elusive, the text calls for more research on rest from feminist perspectives.

Gut content analysis of common predators such as spiders using DNA metabarcoding has facilitated the understanding of community level predator-prey relationships in ecosystems. To interpret the DNA metabarcoding result correctly knowledge of different factors influencing persistence of prey DNA in the predator gut is crucial. Our study investigated four such factors; i.e., the effects of (1) starvation time prior to feeding; (2) time elapsed since feeding; (3) spider size; and (4) presence of egg sacs or spiderlings on the detection rate of prey DNA in the gut contents of field-collected Lycosidae spiders. We performed feeding trials in a controlled lab environment and analyzed predator gut content data using PCR and DNA metabarcoding techniques. We used two primer combinations (NoSpi2 with BR2 or fwhR2n) and three different prey species Drosophila hydei, Gryllus bimaculatus, and Coecobrya tenebricosa in our feeding trials. The NoSpi2-fwhR2n primer combination was more effective at amplifying a PCR product of the correct size compared to the NoSpi2-BR2 combination and was therefore used for the DNA metabarcoding. The results showed that time since feeding significantly influenced the detection rate of Drosophila and Gryllus DNA, with longer time intervals leading to decreased detection odds. Spider size, starvation time, and the presence of egg sacs or spiderlings had minimal or no influence on prey detection. This study highlights the importance of considering different factors that influence prey DNA detection in spider diet studies and using appropriate primers. Future research should account for variables such as prior gut contents, starvation period, and their potential interaction with spider metabolic rate.

Introduction: Registered nurses are challenged by many different situations in their work environment. The psychosocial work environment can affect the health and well-being of registered nurses, which in turn can affect the quality of service provided to patients. Registered nurses' self-reported psychosocial work environment in the ambulance service is an important issue to improve their psychosocial work environment. Aim: To investigate and describe the self-reported psychosocial work environment of registered nurses in the ambulance service and to assess individual and work-related features of importance. Methods: The study has a descriptive and analytical cross-sectional design. A web-based survey questionnaire of registered nurses (n = 176) working in 42 different ambulance stations was analyzed with descriptive and inferential analysis. The Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire and the Psychosocial Safety Climate Scale were used for data collection. Results: The assessment of Occupational Safety and Health among registered nurses varied, with the majority perceiving it as fair. The psychosocial safety climate in the ambulance service indicates a moderate risk for job strain and psychological distress. Registered nurses experience high emotional demands and are exposed to the threat of violence. However, they find their work meaningful and experience strong support from colleagues and a high degree of variation in their work. The reported presence of stress and burnout is low and they generally perceive their health as good. Conclusion: The findings in this study revealed that registered nurses in Sweden generally perceive more resources than demands in their psychosocial work environment. To provide and maintain a positive psychosocial work environment, the ambulance service organization should place more focus on improving risk management and fostering a supportive social work environment. Further studies in this area are important to validate these findings.

Landfill mixed waste plastics are difficult to recycle mechanically and often end up in open burning or uncontrolled disposal, especially in low- and middle-income countries. This study evaluates supercritical water liquefaction as a contamination-tolerant, water-based route to recover transport fuel range oils from real landfillsourced mixed waste plastics and mechanically recycled HDPE, LDPE, and PP, including their blends. Batch experiments were carried out in a 400 mL stainless steel reactor at 425 degrees C for 3 h and 450 degrees C for 1 h, with a feed plastic-to-water mass ratio of about 1:2. Phase-separated products were quantified and characterized by thermogravimetric fractionation, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and gas chromatography mass spectrometry. At 425 degrees C and 3 h, oil yields reached 75 f 4 wt% for HDPE, 70 f 3.5 wt% for LDPE, 60 f 3 wt% for PP and 22 f 1.5 wt% for landfill mixed waste plastics, with mass closures of 92 to 95 percent in experiments with gas analysis. At 450 degrees C and 1 h, resulted in enhanced gas formation and a pronounced shift toward aromatic hydrocarbons, with PP-rich systems exhibiting aromatic peak areas reaching about 90% and gasoline-range (C6 -C12) fractions of 56 to 78 wt% by thermogravimetric pseudo distillation. The results show structure-dependent reaction pathways in supercritical water: PP favors aromatic products, PE-rich feeds favor paraffinic and olefinic products, and blends with landfill-mixed waste plastics still deliver significant gasoline-range fractions. These findings indicate that supercritical water liquefaction can couple water-based chemical recycling of contaminated plastic streams with recovery of high-quality hydrocarbon fuels, with direct relevance for integrated energy and waste management systems at the energy environment nexus.

Highlights What are the main findings? A novel encoder-decoder framework integrating self-supervised DINOv3 with a hybrid Transformer-LSTM decoder achieves 9-12% improvement over CNN and Vision Transformer baselines across BLEU, CIDEr, METEOR, and ROUGE-L metrics on RSICD and UCM-Captions datasets. DINOv3's self-supervised visual representations eliminate the need for domain-specific supervised pretraining while producing semantically rich features that outperform traditional supervised encoders (VGG16, ResNet50) for remote sensing image description tasks. What are the implications of the main findings? Self-supervised vision transformers represent a robust alternative to supervised CNN-based encoders for multi-modal remote sensing applications, particularly valuable when annotated training data is scarce or expensive to obtain. The proposed LSTM aggregation module between encoder and decoder effectively captures spatial continuity in structured patterns (roads, rivers, boundaries), demonstrating that lightweight sequential processing enhances caption coherence for aerial imagery analysis.Highlights What are the main findings? A novel encoder-decoder framework integrating self-supervised DINOv3 with a hybrid Transformer-LSTM decoder achieves 9-12% improvement over CNN and Vision Transformer baselines across BLEU, CIDEr, METEOR, and ROUGE-L metrics on RSICD and UCM-Captions datasets. DINOv3's self-supervised visual representations eliminate the need for domain-specific supervised pretraining while producing semantically rich features that outperform traditional supervised encoders (VGG16, ResNet50) for remote sensing image description tasks. What are the implications of the main findings? Self-supervised vision transformers represent a robust alternative to supervised CNN-based encoders for multi-modal remote sensing applications, particularly valuable when annotated training data is scarce or expensive to obtain. The proposed LSTM aggregation module between encoder and decoder effectively captures spatial continuity in structured patterns (roads, rivers, boundaries), demonstrating that lightweight sequential processing enhances caption coherence for aerial imagery analysis.Abstract Effective interpretation of coherent and usable information from aerial images (e.g., satellite imagery or high-altitude drone photography) can greatly reduce human effort in many situations, both natural (e.g., earthquakes, forest fires, tsunamis) and man-made (e.g., highway pile-ups, traffic congestion), particularly in disaster management. This research proposes a novel encoder-decoder framework for captioning of remote sensing images that integrates self-supervised DINOv3 visual features with a hybrid Transformer-LSTM decoder. Unlike existing approaches that rely on supervised CNN-based encoders (e.g., ResNet, VGG), the proposed method leverages DINOv3's self-supervised learning capabilities to extract dense, semantically rich features from aerial images without requiring domain-specific labeled pretraining. The proposed hybrid decoder combines Transformer layers for global context modeling with LSTM layers for sequential caption generation, producing coherent and context-aware descriptions. Feature extraction is performed using the DINOv3 model, which employs the gram-anchoring technique to stabilize dense feature maps. Captions are generated through a hybrid of Transformer with Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) layers, which adds contextual meaning to captions through sequential hidden layer modeling with gated memory. The model is first evaluated on two traditional remote sensing image captioning datasets: RSICD and UCM-Captions. Multiple evaluation metrics like Bilingual Evaluation Understudy (BLEU), Consensus-based Image Description Evaluation (CIDEr), Recall-Oriented Understudy for Gisting Evaluation (ROUGE-L), and Metric for Evaluation of Translation with Explicit Ordering (METEOR), are used to quantify the performance and robustness of the proposed DINOv3 hybrid model. The proposed model outperforms conventional Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and Vision Transformers (ViT)-based models by approximately 9-12% across most evaluation metrics. Attention heatmaps are also employed to qualitatively validate the proposed model when identifying and describing key spatial elements. In addition, the proposed model is evaluated on advanced remote sensing datasets, including RSITMD, DisasterM3, and GeoChat. The results demonstrate that self-supervised vision transformers are robust encoders for multi-modal understanding in remote sensing image analysis and captioning.

Climate change adaptation's place in the contemporary climate change discourse continues to evolve, as does its identity as a form of inquiry, mode of critique, form of policy and type of practice. In this article we argue that there is an evolution in scholarship occurring in terms of a transition from a scientific/technical mode of inquiry to one more engaged with the social sciences. We argue that politics determine society's adaptation responses and that politics constitute an adaptive response in its own right. With support of the reviewed literature, we conclude that it is fruitful, and even necessary, to understand climate change adaptation as politics in order to facilitate stronger scholarship but also to foster more inclusive practices. We argue that politics is, in itself, climate change adaptation and that this understanding of climate change adaptation has implications for both scholarship and practice.

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a chronic skin disease associated with impaired quality of life. Evidence from Sweden on out-of-pocket expenses and productivity losses remains limited. This study assessed the burden of AD among adults in relation to health-related quality of life (HRQoL), work productivity, activity impairment, willingness to pay for symptom relief, economic outcomes, considering comorbid asthma, allergies, depression and anxiety. A cross-sectional survey was conducted between 2024 and 2025 among 220 members of the Swedish Asthma and Allergy Patient Association. Validated instruments included the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI), EuroQol five-dimensions, five-levels instrument (EQ-5D-5L), Patient Benefit Index, questionnaire. Descriptive and regression analyses age 43 years) reported moderate HRQoL impairment (mean DLQI 10.1). DLQI and EQ-5D-5L were worse among those with allergic or non-atopic comorbidities but did not differ by asthma status. Mean annual out-of-pocket costs and productivity losses were & euro;900 (95% CI: 401.1-1,758.4) and & euro;1,972 (95% and activity impairment were associated with lower HRQoL and higher costs. AD is related to worsened work and activity functioning and high economic burden, suggesting the need for improved support and management strategies for affected adults.

This study investigates the impact of multilayer structures and drying strategies on the barrier properties of high-speed starch/bentonite-coated paperboard. The study examines the impact of drying at a high machine speed of 400 m min-1, addressing a key knowledge gap. The hypotheses were that thin multilayer coatings reduce oxygen permeability more effectively than thick single or double coatings and that gentle infrared (IR) drying would be required to achieve this effect. The experiments comprised up to six consecutive coating applications, each providing a dry coat weight between 0.5 and 1.5 g m-2. The IR dryer power ranged from 207 kW to 829 kW, and different IR frame positions were tested. The results indicated that thin multilayer coatings resulted in fewer pinholes, lower oxygen transmission rates, and improved grease resistance compared with one or two thick layers. However, the effectiveness of the multilayer-coated paperboard was influenced by the employed drying strategy. Specifically, gentle IR drying reduced pinholes, lowered oxygen transmission rates and enhanced grease resistance.

Background In perioperative care, patient encounters are limited and care planning is not always based on the patient's needs and wishes. Operating theatre nurse students were given the opportunity to use the perioperative dialogue in patient care together with their supervisor. It is of interest what students experience using the perioperative dialogue in clinical practice. Aim This study aims to describe the operating theatre nurse students' experiences and reflections of the perioperative dialogues with patients in clinical practice. Methods A qualitative approach was chosen and has a hermeneutical design. During clinical practice, the operating theatre nurse students carried out the perioperative dialogues with patients, together with an operating theatre nurse supervisor. Data were text from 116 student examination tasks in a perioperative nursing universal course. This text was interpretive with hermeneutical text interpretation with five steps. Results The result showed that the perioperative dialogue is understood as a unique caring process and continuity in the perioperative dialogue created a coherent whole. It offered the opportunity to meet the patient as a unique person, to gain knowledge about them and carry out their perioperative care. Continuity created a mutual community through the care relationship between the patient and operating theatre nurse students. Through the perioperative dialogues, the patient became participated in perioperative nursing care. Conclusion The perioperative dialogue serves the patient's desire for dignified care and thereby ensures the provision of higher quality care. It also offers the operating theatre nurse students a new way of caring and arouses reflections about their main task of caring for the suffering patient. The perioperative dialogue with patients offers the possibility to ensure good and safe perioperative care.

Traffic forecasting in cellular networks is a challenging spatiotemporal prediction problem due to strong temporal dependencies, spatial heterogeneity across cells, and the need for scalability to large network deployments. Traditional cell-specific models incur prohibitive training and maintenance costs, while global models often fail to capture heterogeneous spatial dynamics. Recent spatiotemporal architectures based on attention or graph neural networks improve accuracy but introduce high computational overhead, limiting their applicability in large-scale or real-time settings. We propose HiSTM (Hierarchical SpatioTemporal Mamba), a spatiotemporal forecasting architecture built on state-space modeling. HiSTM combines spatial convolutional encoding for local neighborhood interactions with Mamba-based temporal modeling to capture long-range dependencies, followed by attention-based temporal aggregation for prediction. The hierarchical design enables representation learning with linear computational complexity in sequence length and supports both grid-based and correlation-defined spatial structures. Cluster-aware extensions incorporate spatial regime information to handle heterogeneous traffic patterns. Experimental evaluation on large-scale real-world cellular datasets demonstrates that HiSTM achieves better accuracy, outperforming strong baselines. On the Milan dataset, HiSTM reduces MAE by 29.4% compared to STN, while achieving the lowest RMSE and highest R2 score among all evaluated models. In multi-step autoregressive forecasting, HiSTM maintains 36.8% lower MAE than STN and 11.3% lower than STTRE at the 6-step horizon, with a 58% slower error accumulation rate compared to STN. On the unseen Trentino dataset, HiSTM achieves 47.3% MAE reduction over STN and demonstrates better cross-dataset generalization. A single HiSTM model outperforms 10,000 independently trained cell-specific LSTMs, demonstrating the advantage of joint spatiotemporal learning. HiSTM maintains best-in-class performance with up to 30% missing data, outperforming all baselines under various missing data scenarios. The model achieves these results while being 45 & times; smaller than PredRNNpp, 18 & times; smaller than xLSTM, and maintaining competitive inference latency of 1.19 ms, showcasing its effectiveness for scalable 5/6G traffic prediction in resource-constrained environments.

This review focuses on material distribution-based topology optimization methods for boundary-effect-dominated problems. More precisely, it addresses problems where the behavior at or near the boundaries of the domain significantly influences the physics, such as problems involving boundary layers or the skin effect. While traditional topology optimization techniques have been highly successful in idealized settings, boundary-sensitive problems introduce unique challenges. We survey the historical development of relevant ideas, including fictitious-domain methods and filtering techniques, and provide a detailed account of modern approaches for handling boundary effects. Key topics include cascades of filters, multi-field representations, and methods for controlling length scale and interface sharpness. We also review specialized strategies for pressure and thermal loads, as well as recent advances in the design of coated structures and impedance-based modeling of boundary layers. This article aims to provide a comprehensive and structured overview of the field.

Elever möter utmaningar i att förstå komplexa system inom molekylär livsvetenskap, delvis på grund av det ämnesspecifika språk som används. Denna avhandling ger insikter i hur ämnesspecifikt språk är strukturerat och används i gymnasieskolan för att kommunicera komplexa molekylära system, med proteinsyntes som exempel. I fyra delstudier analyserades elevers begreppsanvändning och mekanistiska resonemang om proteinsyntesen samt kemi- och biologiläroböckers beskrivning av proteinsyntes genom metaforer och ämnesspecifika begrepp. Resultaten visar att eleverna använder ämnesspecifika begrepp i fragmenterade kluster snarare än som en sammanhängande helhet. Elevers och läroböckers beskrivningar följer det centrala dogmats linjära struktur från DNA till protein och avgränsar användningen av ämnesspecifika begrepp till isolerade delar. mRNA visade sig ha en central roll i att brygga över dessa olika delar. Få elever nådde ett utvecklat mekanistiskt resonemang, och då endast i begränsade delprocesser. Läroböckerna använde två metaforsystem: informationsbaserade och konstruktionsbaserade metaforer. Lärare bör tydliggöra samband mellan begreppskluster och synliggöra ämnesspecifika begrepp och metaforer för att stödja elevers utveckling av en sammanhängande förståelse av proteinsyntes.  

Historieundervisning spelar en central roll för att förstå hur och varför historia används i samhället. Denna avhandling följer en gymnasieklass som hösten 2021, genom en frågedriven undervisningsmodell, arbetar med Black Lives Matter-protesterna och rivningen av Columbusstatyer i USA. Studien undersöker hur elever tolkar och resonerar kring historiebruk när de möter ett samtida, globalt och medierat fall, samt hur deras lärandeprocesser formas av den historiekulturella kontexten. Resultaten visar att elevernas förståelse av historiebruk fördjupas när undervisningen utgår från öppna frågor, komplexa källor och aktuella samhällsdebatter. Eleverna utvecklar mer nyanserade sätt att identifiera aktörer, syften och perspektiv, men deras resonemang påverkas också av egna värderingar och föreställningar.Studien pekar på behovet av en undervisning som balanserar elevernas självständighet och kritiska tänkande med ett medvetet stöd för deras olika förutsättningar. När elever arbetar med omstridda och aktuella historiebruk öppnas möjligheter för djupare reflektion – men också för friktion och viktiga samtal om hur historia används i vår tid.

This article analyses the content of adult migrants’ narratives in Sweden and Norway about transitions within vocational education and training (VET), including barriers and openings in their trajectories, practices of resistance, quests for recognition, and manifestations of agency. Anchored in a political‑philosophical understanding of action, plurality and the public realm, and informed by a narrative positioning approach, we read VET as relational settings where subjects become visible through action and speech vis‑à‑vis peers, professionals, and institutions. The study is based on interviews conducted in both countries. Six narratives (three Swedish, three Norwegian) were selected for in‑depth analysis to highlight variation across gender‑coded VET arenas and institutional conditions. Analytically, we combined a shared codebook with close reading of intradiegetic, interactional, and discursive positionings. Cross‑country comparisons were conducted only on anonymised excerpts. Across cases, resistance is narrated through strategic reorientation, relational work, communicative agency, self‑initiated competence‑building and quiet perseverance. Three analytical themes structure the findings: 1) appearance through action and speech, 2) plurality as a resource for recognition, and 3) education as an arena for negotiating the ‘right to have rights’. The analysis shows how possibilities for recognition are conditioned by membership regimes, language requirements and organisational procedures, while placements, validation and guidance can open relational pathways to visibility. We conclude that VET can function as a space for political emergence, but also reproduce exclusion, depending on how institutions recognise plurality and make room for subjects to appear as holders of rights.

Organic solar cells (OSCs) have achieved power conversion efficiencies exceeding 20%, yet their long-term operational stability remains a major challenge for commercial applications. This study investigates the photodegradation of state-of-the-art OSC materials and their impact on device performance using a combination of spectroscopy and microscopy techniques. UV-vis absorption spectroscopy, Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM), synchrotron-based X-ray and ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS and UPS), and near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy were employed to study chemical, structural, and morphological changes in photoactive layers exposed to AM 1.5 illumination in air.

The first part of the thesis focuses on the photodegradation mechanisms of donor and acceptor materials. Thin films of PBDB-T, Y5, PF5-Y5, and PYT were exposed to AM 1.5 illumination in air. The results show that the BDT-T unit present in PBDB-T and PF5-Y5 accelerates photobleaching, while its replacement with thiophene improves the photostability of PYT. Studies of PM6:Y6 blend revealed distinct degradation pathways. By employing long-wavelength band-pass filter illumination that selectively excites the acceptor, electron-transfer-induced superoxide formation was suppressed, and the remaining degradation occurred due to singlet oxygen via energy transfer. 

The second part of the thesis addresses the influence of photodegradation on device performance. The choice of processing solvent affected the morphology and molecular orientation in PM6:Y6 blends, but devices exhibited similar degradation rates. Incorporation of PC₇₀BM into PTQ10:Y6 blends reduced the formation of carbonyl species and improved photostability. Overall, this work provides insights into molecular- and device-level degradation pathways in high-performance OSC systems and identifies structural and compositional strategies to mitigate photooxidation processes. 

Objective: To provide an overview of mental health problems throughout the postpartum period and to describe the screening instruments as well as associated factors related to the relevant population.

Methods: The scoping study was guided by the framework outlined by Arksey and O’Malley and Levac et al. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guideline was used to report the findings including citation backtracking.

Results: Of the 2828 studies screened, 43 met the inclusion criteria, and three key categories were identified: postpartum mental health problems, screening instruments, and associated factors, including support systems, previous mental and medical conditions, and other associated factors. Sub-categories in the support systems included partner, family, social, and work support, while subcategories in the other associated factors included socioeconomic and sociodemographic, pregnancy and birth, partner violence, mode of delivery, gender preference, COVID-19, and immigration status.

Conclusion: A comprehensive approach to postpartum mental health problems is necessary to understand protective factors needed at all levels. It is imperative to offer a spectrum of support services and ensure high availability of care to all relevant subgroups of mothers throughout pregnancy and up to one year postpartum. Inconsistent use of screening instruments at different periods indicates a need for harmonized use in clinical settings to mitigate the risk of women being undiagnosed. Training healthcare professionals in the area of assessment and management of postpartum mental health problems will significantly help in alleviating the challanges women face during this period.

Stance, i.e., the expression of attitudes, judgements, and degrees of commitment, is a central feature of academic discourse. Yet its role in promotional communication within high-stakes genres such as grant proposals and their related subgenres remains relatively underexplored in EAP research. This study investigates the use of 193 features in a 2.7-million-word corpus of 12,187 abstracts from successful grant applications across five disciplinary domains, awarded by the Swedish Research Council between 2011 and 2022. Notably, the analysis reveals only moderate change over the 12-year period, despite broader trends toward increasingly promotional rhetorical styles in academic communication. A gradual rise in assertive modal verbs (will, can) and a decline in tentative ones (would, may) suggest a subtle shift toward greater rhetorical certainty. While a core repertoire of stance features is broadly shared across five disciplinary domains, hard science fields tend to favor more assertive and evidential expressions, whereas soft science fields more often employ hedging and interpretive stance, consistent with previous findings. Further variation is observed in how novelty, methods, and significance are promoted, providing more nuanced insights into disciplinary conventions of persuasion. These findings inform EAP pedagogy by supporting discipline-specific stance awareness and encouraging reflective, responsible self-promotion.

Many municipalities are increasingly challenged by demographic decline, which threatens their ability to deliver equitable services, particularly in sparsely populated areas. This study investigates the forms, patterns, and motives of inter-municipal collaboration in Sweden, with a focus on how geographical and demographic conditions shape collaborative practices. Using a nationwide survey of Swedish municipalities, the research maps collaborations between municipalities, analysing their prevalence and municipal types. The findings reveal that collaboration is a crucial - often necessary - strategy for municipalities to maintain statutory and welfare services amid shrinking populations and limited resources. Densely populated municipalities exhibit higher levels of collaboration, driven by opportunity and efficiency, while sparsely populated municipalities are motivated primarily by necessity and the need to secure skilled labour. However, the study also highlights barriers to collaboration, such as long distances and limited administrative capacity in sparsely populated areas, which can exacerbate inequalities between municipalities. The study concludes that understanding the geographical and demographic determinants of municipal collaboration is essential for developing policies that support sustainable service delivery and reduce disparities between urban and rural areas.

Does gender equality work feel like a joint exploration or a restrictive verdict? Through semi-structured interviews with managers and employees involved in organizational gender equality work in six Swedish private companies and one university, this study examines emotions in metaphors and their orientation toward organizational change. Emotions are understood as both embodied and social and are analyzed as integral components of experientially grounded metaphors. The article introduces situating metaphors as an analytic concept for examining how metaphors position speakers through emotions, local truths, and emotional orientations toward change in the organization. The analysis identifies three groups of metaphors capturing a spectrum of emotional experiences and tensions in gender equality work. First, to feel supported and curious in a joint exploration, that notices gender inequalities, was a common and highly valued emotional experience that signaled agency and hope, despite unclear goals. Second, the more ambivalent accountant metaphor conveyed emotions of hopefullness yet subordination, such as gratefullness and admiration, whereas the third verdict metaphor rendered gender equality work as a commitment imposed from above, experienced as potentially draining of hope. Metaphor use also followed gendered and organizational patterns. In organizations that valued independence and creativity, male participants more often used metaphors that conveyed the feeling that gender equality work was illegitimate and controlling. The study's metaphor analysis contributes to research on both gender equality work and emotions in organizations by advancing situating metaphors as a reflexive tool for understanding how emotions position participants in relation to hierarchy and organizational change.

Freshwater lakes are becoming warmer and browner, with poorly known ecosystem consequences. A major unresolved issue is how these changes will affect the feeding rates of predators that regulate top-down trophic cascades. We explored the effects of temperature and browning on the functional response and feeding rates of a keystone predator, the Northern pike Esox lucius. We first derived a simple mechanistic model on the effect of temperature and browning on predator feeding rates. To test predictions from the model, we performed two laboratory experiments where we estimated pike functional responses in brown and clear water at three temperatures and quantified feeding rates along a gradient from completely clear to extremely brown. We find strikingly weak effects of temperature and browning on pike feeding rates, even under extreme levels of browning. Pike showed an asymptotic Type II functional response under most conditions but switched to a dome-shaped Type IV functional response in cold clear water, possibly due to seasonal changes in the schooling behaviour of prey. Our results suggest that temperature and browning may have interactive effects on predator functional responses mediated via changes in prey behaviour and support the view that browning affects piscivorous fish mainly through bottom-up effects rather than changes in foraging efficiency.

Objective Given the clinical heterogeneity of Parkinson's disease (PD), identification of early -stage subgroups with shared non-motor symptom (NMS) profiles may clarify its pathophysiology. This study used latent-profile analyses (LPA) to define subgroups based on sleep disturbances, cognitive performance and neuropsychiatric symptoms, and examined dopaminergic function and brain volume differences between them.<br /> Methods We analyzed data from 51 cognitively normal non-PD older adults and 105 early-stage PD participants from the iPARK trial, including 19 who underwent [11C]-raclopride PET/MR. Participants completed the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, the short version of the Karolinska Sleep Questionnaire and a battery of neuropsychological tests. LPA were used in PD to identify subgroups based on NMS profiles, which were then characterized and examined in relation to dopaminergic integrity and brain morphology.<br /> Results LPA identified a two-cluster solution as the best fit. Group 1 (N = 49) showed poorer working memory, executive function and processing speed along with greater daytime sleepiness, depression and anxiety. Group 2 (N = 56) exhibited less affected cognitive function and minimal NMS. Groups were similar in demographics, disease duration, motor symptom severity and medication, but differed on UPDRS-1 NMS. Group 1 demonstrated significantly reduced [11C]-raclopride binding potential compared to Group 2 in the left putamen at both ROI- and voxel-wise analysis.<br /> Conclusion These findings indicate clinically distinct subgroups in early-stage PD. Greater NMS burden is linked to impaired dopaminergic integrity, suggesting a potential neurobiological signature. Early identification of such subgroups may improve understanding of disease heterogeneity and support personalized management and interventions.

Clinical trial registration https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT03680170?id=NCT03680170&rank=1, identifier (NCT03680170).