The aim of this study was to describe and analyze the terms for lgbtq people in an honor context. Qualitative, semi-structured interviews have been conducted with six people who identify with the lgbtq community and who describe that they have been exposed to honor related norms. The interviews were analyzed using Stockholms stads model about the staircase of honor and Suad Joseph's theory of connectivity. The results show that due to partly methodological shortcomings, it is difficult to determine whether the target group has been exposed to honor related norms or not. This is partly due to the fact that too few questions were asked about how the honor was expressed, but also to the fact that it is difficult to determine whether the target group is exposed to violence due to honor or due to heteronorms. Despite this, there are similarities between the interviewees and previous literature on the target group in terms of vulnerability, strategies and consequences. The conclusion is therefore that further research on the target group is needed to be able to more easily determine when people in the target group have been exposed to honor related norms or not.

No description available.

This paper explores how craft in general, and the tradition of machine knitting in particular, can act as support and an alternative method within healing processes connected to stress and burn-out. The paper uses creative writing and an intimate approach to reach for and highlight metaphors and epiphanies within the making of craft, discussed from micro and macro perspectives. The search for the garden of fiber delights includes discussions and reflections about the artistic practice in relation to thinkers as sociologists Bruno Latour and the actor-network theory, and Hartmut Rosa, and his theory about an accelerating society and the need for resonance. Some of the artists referenced in the paper are Hilma af Klint, Yayoi Kusama and Niki de Saint Phalle. The main wonder of this project and paper is: what will happen when I as an artist start to respond to the seed of resonance within, and not follow the norms and expectations emerged by capitalism causing stress? How can this knowledge be applied in the meeting with other people in need of healing and rest?

Image registration methods underpin many analysis techniques in neuroimaging. They are essential in group studies when images of different individuals or different modalities need to be brought into a common reference frame. This thesis explores the potential of brain connectivity- driven alignment and develops surface registration techniques for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which is a noninvasive neuroimaging tool for probing function and structure of the human brain. The first part of this work develops a novel surface registration framework, based on free mesh deformations, which aligns cortical and subcortical surfaces by matching structural connectivity patterns derived using probabilistic tractography (diffusion-weighted MRI). Structural, i.e. white matter, connectivity is a good predictor of functional specialisation and structural connectivity-driven registration can therefore be expected to enhance the alignment of functionally homologous areas across subjects. The second part validates developed methods for cortical surfaces. Resting State Networks are used in an innovative way to delineate several functionally distinct regions, which were then used to quantify connectivity-driven registration performance by measuring the inter- subject overlap before and after registration. Consequently, the proposed method is assessed using an independent imaging modality and the results are compared to results from state-of-the-art cortical geometry-driven surface registration methods. A connectivity-driven registration pipeline is also developed for, and applied to, the surfaces of subcortical structures such as the thalamus. It is carefully validated on a set of artificial test examples and compared to another novel surface registration paradigm based on spherical wavelets. The proposed registration pipeline is then used to explore the differences in the alignment of two groups of subjects, healthy controls and Alzheimer's disease patients, to a common template. Finally, we propose how functional connectivity can be used instead of structural connectivity for driving registrations, as well as how the surface-based framework can be extended to a volumetric one. Apart from providing the benefits such as the improved functional alignment, we hope that the research conducted in this thesis will also represent the basis for the development of templates of structural and functional brain connectivity.

No description available.

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are important conservation tools that can support the resilience of marine ecosystems. Many countries, including Canada, have committed to protecting at least 10% of their marine areas under the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Aichi Target 11, which includes connectivity as a key aspect. Connectivity, the movement of individuals among habitats, can enhance population stability and resilience within and among MPAs. This thesis aimed to understand regional spatial patterns of marine ecological connectivity, specifically through the mechanism of adult movement, and how these patterns may be affected by climate change. I used the Northern Shelf Bioregion in British Columbia, Canada, as a case study for four objectives: (1) evaluate potential connectivity via adult movement for the entire bioregion, using habitat proxies for distinct ecological communities; (2) assess potential connectivity via adult movement among existing and potential MPAs, using the same habitat proxies; (3) model potential connectivity via adult movement among marine protected areas for two focal species (Metacarcinus magister and Sebastolobus alascanus) and predict how this interconnectedness may shift based on projected ocean temperature changes; and (4) contribute the results of these analyses to the MPA technical team’s ongoing planning process so that connectivity may be considered in the implementation of a new MPA network in the bioregion. This thesis developed an approach to assess and design MPA networks that maximize inferred connectivity within habitat types for adult movement when ecological data are limited. It applied least-cost theory and circuit theory to model MPA suitability and interconnectedness, finding that these are projected to decrease for Sebastolobus alascanus but increase for Metacarcinus magister. I showcased some methods that may be used in MPA design and evaluation, with lessons for other contexts. Importantly, this thesis informed an ongoing MPA planning process, enabling ecological connectivity to be considered in the establishment of a new MPA network in the bioregion. Overall, this work provided examples for incorporating connectivity and climate change into MPA design, highlighting what is possible even when data are limited. / Graduate

The success or failure of many organisms to respond to the challenges of habitat destruction and a warming climate lies in the ability of plant species to disperse between isolated habitats or to migrate to new ranges. European semi-natural grasslands represent one of the world's most species-rich habitats at small scales, but agricultural intensification during the 20th century has meant that many plant species are left only on small fragments of former habitat. It is important that these plants can disperse, both for the maintenance of existing populations, and for the colonisation of target species to restored grasslands. This thesis investigates the ecological, geographical and historical influences on seed dispersal and connectivity in semi-natural grasslands, and the mobility of plants through time and space. Seed dispersal by human activity has played a large role in the build-up of plant communities in rural landscapes, but patterns have shifted. Livestock are the most traditional, and probably the most capable seed dispersal vector in the landscape, but other dispersal methods may also be effective. Motor vehicles disperse seeds with similar traits to those dispersed by livestock, while 39% of valuable grasslands in southern Sweden are connected by the road network. Humans are found to disperse around one-third of available grassland species, including several protected and red-listed species, indicating that humans may have been valuable seed dispersers in the past when rural populations were larger. Past activities can also affect seed mobility in time through the seed bank, as seeds of grassland plant species are shown to remain in the soil even after the grassland had been abandoned. Today however, low seed rain in intensively grazed semi-natural grasslands indicates that seed production may be a limiting factor in allowing seeds to be dispersed in space through the landscape. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: Accepted. Paper 4: In press. Paper 5: Manuscript.</p>

ASEAN transport connectivity is critical to the completion of the ASEAN Economic Community. Cross-border transportation development helps to lower trading time and transaction costs, therefore facilitates the regional economic integration. ASEAN Member States initiated two regional land transport projects: the ASEAN Highway Network project and the Singapore-Kunming Railway Link. The implementation of regional transport projects requires involvement of various stakeholders, but the disparity of funding capacity of individual states is likely to cause collective action dilemma. Regional development banks and donor countries have provided financial sources for the projects, but their contribution remained limited. This research suggests that the main obstacles are the lack of focused mechanisms on transport development, weak project coordination, and overemphasize of ASEAN-way diplomacy in ASEAN. Consequently, different national priorities bottleneck the least developed countries to utilize donors’ funding, and thus slowed down the implementation of regional transport networks. All these make not only the realization of the project but also the completion of ASEAN Economic Community very difficult.

Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is an emerging non-invasive optical neuro imaging technique that monitors the hemodynamic response to brain activation with ms-scale temporal resolution and sub-cm spatial resolution. The overall goal of my dissertation was to develop and apply NIRS towards investigation of neurological response to language, joint attention and planning and execution of motor skills in healthy adults. Language studies were performed to investigate the hemodynamic response, synchrony and dominance feature of the frontal and fronto-temporal cortex of healthy adults in response to language reception and expression. The mathematical model developed based on granger causality explicated the directional flow of information during the processing of language stimuli by the fronto-temporal cortex. Joint attention and planning/ execution of motor skill studies were performed to investigate the hemodynamic response, synchrony and dominance feature of the frontal cortex of healthy adults and in children (5-8 years old) with autism (for joint attention studies) and individuals with cerebral palsy (for planning/execution of motor skills studies). The joint attention studies on healthy adults showed differences in activation as well as intensity and phase dependent connectivity in the frontal cortex during joint attention in comparison to rest. The joint attention studies on typically developing children showed differences in frontal cortical activation in comparison to that in children with autism. The planning and execution of motor skills studies on healthy adults and individuals with cerebral palsy (CP) showed difference in the frontal cortical dominance, that is, bilateral and ipsilateral dominance, respectively. The planning and execution of motor skills studies also demonstrated the plastic and learning behavior of brain wherein correlation was found between the relative change in total hemoglobin in the frontal cortex and the kinematics of the activity performed by the participants. Thus, during my dissertation the NIRS neuroimaging technique was successfully implemented to investigate the neurological response of language, joint attention and planning and execution of motor skills in healthy adults as well as preliminarily on children with autism and individuals with cerebral palsy. These NIRS studies have long-term potential for the design of early stage interventions in children with autism and customized rehabilitation in individuals with cerebral palsy.

This thesis aims to abstract the physical layer (PHY) performance of current and upcoming technologies, so that, their suitability for various use cases and scenarios could be evaluated within an affordable time. For the said purpose, a new effective SINR mapping technique eEESM along with the dynamic optimization of the fitting parameter is proposed. The mapping accuracy of proposed eEESM techniques is analyzed and compared against the other state-of-the-art methods in the doubly selective channel. The results show that the proposed technique is more accurate and map closest to the reference packet error rate (PER) curves. Moreover, the mapping error of eEESM is the lowest for all considered MCSs. The justification for its better performance is the tighter symbol error rate (SER) approximation used to derive effective SINR and the proposed optimization approach. The main purpose of using PLA instead of full PHY simulations is to reduce simulation time. Therefore, a novel concept is presented to abstract PHY performance depending on the time and frequency selectivity of the channel. This further reduces the number of computations required to estimate performance using PLA. To demonstrate the gain in terms of simulation time, the computation complexity of PLA is compared against full PHY simulations. Results show that PLA is roughly 1000 to 1000000 times faster (depending on the abstracted fading conditions) compared to the PHY simulator. The effective SINR mapping approach is then further extended for future candidate multi-carrier techniques (i.e., OFDM, DFT-s-OFDM, GFDM, OTFS), which could be adopted by the upcoming technologies. For this purpose, the received SINR of symbols received through these multi-carrier techniques is derived. The resultant received SINR also considers the impact of ICI due to Doppler. Subsequently, the received SINR of symbols is mapped to effective SINR considering the selectivity of the channel. By comparing the effective SINR, OTFS outperforms other techniques. The reason for the better performance of OTFS is due to the spread of symbol energy over time and frequency, which results in higher effective SINR due to higher diversity. Furthermore, evaluation results show that the proposed PLA can accurately model the performance of these multi-carrier techniques under various fading conditions. Multi-connectivity is another enhancement being considered for future technologies, as an enabler for ultra-reliable communications under harsh channel conditions. Therefore, multi-connectivity communications are also studied in this thesis. Specifically, the frequency domain multi-connectivity networks are presented. To fully exploit frequency diversity under frequency selective channels, the subcarrier-based link combing scheme is proposed. The earlier derived received SINR is then extended for the state-of-the-art link combining schemes, i.e., SC, EGC, and MRC. The multi-connectivity gain in terms of the average received SINR is derived and compared for the above-mentioned combining schemes. To abstract the performance of multi-connectivity communications, the post-combined effective SINR mapping is proposed, where effective SINR represents the combined performance of connected links. The developed PLA performance is validated against the PHY simulations for the case of MRC. Results reveal that with the increase in multi-connectivity order, the RMSE error decreases due to the decrease in the variance of mapping SINRs. In the end, various applications of PLA are demonstrated. The developed multi-carrier PLAs are used to compare the performance of multi-carrier techniques under various fading conditions. Results depict that PER of multi-carrier techniques generally decreases with the increase in time or frequency selectivity, given that, the ideal channel estimation, ICI, and inter-symbol interference (ISI) cancellation is used. The multi-connectivity evaluation results depict that with the increase in channel selectivity higher diversity gain could be achieved. Besides, the proposed subcarrier-wise combining scheme achieves better performance compared to the traditional link combining approach. The next PLA application demonstrated is the performance comparison of V2X technologies, i.e., IEEE~802.11p, LTE-V2V, IEEE~802.11bd, and NR-V2X, in an Urban NLOS communications scenario. It is observed that 802.11bd outperforms other technologies in terms of PER and packet reception ratio (PRR). Its better performance is due to lower ICI compared to LTE-V2X and NR-V2X, and due to the use of LDPC codes compared to 802.11p. In contrast, NR-V2X outperforms other technologies in terms of data rates and packet inter-arrival time. The last PLA application shown is the link adaptation for single-link and multi-connectivity communications. In single-link communication, the performance of various PLA techniques is compared in terms of achieved data rates and outage probability against the case of perfect CQI. The CQI based on the proposed eEESM technique improves the data rates and reliability of the link, compared to other schemes. Further, in the case of multi-connectivity, the post-combined effective SINR mapping proposed in this thesis is used for link adaptation in terms of both MCS selection and adapting the number of links. The proposed scheme optimizes multi-connectivity data rates while using the lowest possible number of links required for the desired quality of service.