In relation to last year’s introduction of Digital Archaeological Process this study is supposed to investigate the opportunities of using quantitative methods on the archaeological material. The subject of the investigation is to problematize and process the concept of ”central places”. The investigation is based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods executed on seven different grave- and settlement areas during the Iron Age in Skåne. The archeological material is gathered through archaeological reports and later processed in tables. The concept of central places is often based on luxury finds and places with much archaeological material. Quantitative methods on archaeological material are a possibility by many reasons. For example by getting an overview of each grave- and settlement area which is an opportunity for more interpretations. DAP is an opportunity to restore the archaeological material during excavations for future research. The introduction of DAP is a step in the right direction for future archaeology.

Today, assessment of the health of coastal waters is recognized as being important for both the conservation of nature and well-being of humans. Anthropogenic pollution has been the focus of extensive research for some time and a variety of programs for the monitoring and assessment of environmental pollution have been developed. Determination of the levels of pollution in sensitive ‘sentinels’ such as mussels, allows monitoring of these levels in a given area over a prolonged period of time. Furthermore, the biological effects of pollution are reflected in a series of biomarkers, none of which provides a general picture of the sentinel’s state of health and all of which are individually specific for certain pollutants and influenced by both biotic and abiotic factors. In an attempt to improve biomonitoring of marine pollution, we have developed two proteomic approaches here. In the first portion of the thesis, a proteomic analysis was performed on peroxisomes isolated from mussels exposed either to one of three model anthropogenic pollutants, or two different types of crude oil, or from mussels exposed to the Prestige oil spill. Application of two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) provided protein expression signatures (PES) for exposure to these different pollutants.Furthermore, several individual protein components of these PES could be putatively identified. In the second portion of this work, such analysis of subproteomes was developed further in order to improve the applicability of this approach to biomonitoring. A simple fractionation procedure in combination with liquid chromatography and 2-DE provided samples from mussels residing in different regions of a pollution gradient around the harbor of Gothenburg, as well as from mussels exposed to two types of fuel oil similar to that of the Prestige that were suitable for environmental proteomics. In addition, we constructed a model for this approach that can be cross-validated in the future and applied to assess sources of fuel oil pollution in connection with biomonitoring programs.

A stable mixed culture, deposited as ATCC 55644, previously shown to degrade petroleum hydrocarbons at relatively high concentrations was used as the source of inoculum. This culture was grown in Stanier’s minimal media, either in the presence of different concentrations of naphthalene, nitrobenzene and toluene (NNT) or naphthalene and toluene (NT) as the sole source of C and/or N. Results showed that the majority of the strains isolated from the mixed culture were able to grow in the presence of NNT or NT. A total of 20 different isolates were isolated from the mixed culture. Individual isolates were grown in Stanier’s minimal medium containing a single hydrocarbon as the source of carbon or carbon and nitrogen. Only one strain was found to grow solely in the presence of nitrobenzene as the source of C and N. Most of the other isolates were able to grow in the presence of naphthalene, toluene, acenaphthene, anthracene, fluoranthene and phenanthrene, n-dodecane, hexadecane, n-pentadecane, n-tetradecane, and n-octadecane. Planktonic and immobilized cells of the controlled mixed culture (ATCC 55644) were grown in separate Sequential Batch Reactors (SBR) using Stanier's media, to which naphthalene, nitrobenzene and toluene were added as the sole source of C and/or N. Biodegradation was determined by measuring the residual hydrocarbon in the SBR and the amount of trapped volatile organic carbon (VOC) and the evolved CO2. Gas chromatography data showed that immobilized cells were able to degrade NNT faster than the planktonic cells. This observation was confirmed by CO2 evolution. Over time the loading of hydrocarbon was significantly increased from a starting level of 400 ppm (Naphthalene), 100 ppm (Nitrobenzene), and 500 ppm (toluene), to a final level of 3000 ppm (Naphthalene), 400 ppm (Nitrobenzene), and 1600 ppm (toluene). While increasing nutrient loading, the frequency of re-feeding with hydrocarbons was changed from an initial re-feeding every 60 hrs to a final re-feeding frequency of 18 hrs. The experiments clearly showed that the attached, mixed microbial community was able to effectively and rapidly degrade high concentrations of hydrocarbons. This demonstrated the practical advantages of employing attached, mixed microbial cultures in a SBR.

Intervention radiology is a discipline that is achieving a great advancement due to its significant success in the treatment of various diseases. Also, it relates to the increase of the number of angiographic performances in the last years. The extension of radiological methods has increased the share of this discipline on the overall medical irradiation of the population. All angiographic performances are accompanied by certain risk related to the exposure of the patient and staff to the ionizing radiation. Several cases were reported where the surface doses were reaching the limits of deterministic effects of radiation in some types of examination. This study monitors three core criteria related to the radiation burden in the set of 141 patients, which have undertaken different endovascular interventions. These criteria are: the dose area product (DAP), surface dose, and effective dosage. The relevant criterion was the value of DAP, read from the DAP meter directly during the examination. Other data were calculated. On basis of these results, this study tries to determine the strenuousness of singular examinations from the point of the radiation burden. It is the understanding the principles of the influencing the patient{\crq}s burden of the radiation in angiographic examinations, what can help in reducing the dosages. The analysis of this study results can help to prevent the occurrence of abnormal events during the examination.

During her theoretical training as an educational psychologist, the researcher was intrigued and fascinated by the expositions on the functioning of the self. With this study she pursued her goal to gain a clearer understanding of the formation and development of the self in a child, with the focus on the child in middle childhood (6 -12 years). In this study, she mainly focused on understanding the connection between the three crucial components of the self, self-concept and self-esteem. Her passion for art inspired her to be inventive and apply artistic creative methods of drawing, painting and clay human modelling as projective means to access the child’s unconscious mind, revealing pivotal experiences and emotions, revealing how the child relates to his or her self. According to this qualitative arts-based research study, the DAP (Draw a Person) and variations of PAP (Paint a Person) and CAP (Create a Person) with the use of appropriate DAP, PAP and CAP questionnaires, seem relevant therapeutic projective measures to assist in educational psychology in exploring the child’s self. / Further Teacher Education / M. Ed. (Guidance and Counselling)

Organic semiconducting polymers are widely employed in organic electronics such as organic photovoltaics (OPVs), organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) and organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). Their remarkable mechanical and charge transport properties as well as solution processability allow low-cost fabrication of light-weight and flexible devices. Among them indacenodithiophene (IDT)-based materials are promising candidates for application in organic electronics. Due to their low energetic disorder, extended conjugation and high electron density the IDT-based polymers show high field-effect mobilities and high absorption coefficients. However, their synthesis suffers from long reaction sequences and is often accomplished using toxic materials. Commercialization requires development of more efficient and sustainable reaction pathways to ease tailoring of structures and to limit molecular defects. Herein, the development of new synthetic pathways towards IDT-based polymers is presented in which all C-C coupling steps are achieved by C-H activation – an atom-economic alternative to conventional transition-metal catalyzed cross couplings. Two different strategies were established to synthesize a series of well-defined IDT-based homo- and copolymers with different side chain patterns and varied molecular weights. The first way starts by synthesis of a precursor polymer and subsequent cyclization affording IDT homopolymers. In the second approach, cyclized IDT monomers were prepared first and then polymerized using direct arylation polycondensation (DAP) yielding IDT homo- and copolymers. The synthetic pathways were optimized in terms of maximizing molecular weights and limiting defect structures. While the first pathway enables synthesis of well-defined homopolymers, the latter is the method of choice for preparation of IDT-based copolymers in high yields and adjustable molecular weights. The polymers were further characterized in detail by optical, thermal, electrical and morphological analyses. OFETs as well as all-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) were fabricated to investigate the influence of structural modifications and molecular weight on their optoelectronic performance. Thus, this thesis provides a comprehensive study of the structure-property correlations of IDT-based polymers and simplified synthetic protocols for the design and preparation of donor-acceptor copolymers in the future.

The intent of this study was to investigate changes in the curriculum caused by high-stakes testing mandates within 3 Southwest Virginia school systems to find best practices for instructional application in classrooms. This qualitative study was comprised of indepth interviews and observations with elementary school teachers and administrators. High-stakes testing has impacted the nation in myriad ways. The mandates from the government presented teachers and administrators with conditions that must be met according to the No Child Left Behind Act and individual state's standards. Teachers' perceptions of curriculum changes, Developmentally Appropriate Practices (DAP), testing mandates according to high-stakes testing, and accountability were examined through personal interviews and classroom observations. This study focused on policies and practices of esteemed teachers' creative abilities as they adhered to mandates and captivated students' abilities to perform in the classroom. Teachers and administrators shared their feelings and perceptions regarding new policies and how they made changes within the classrooms and school systems. The findings indicated that the most prevalent ideas concerning teachers and administrators developed into the patterns: educators' level of satisfaction, students' stress, school changes, and our future. Educators' level of satisfaction was the most frequent theme that demonstrated high-stakes testing affected their overall happiness level. The research reflected that educators were negatively affected by high-stakes testing. Constructive ideas were identified as to how they maintained creativity within the classroom that could inspire critical thinking. A model was developed to demonstrate the findings for best instructional practices for teaching high-stakes standards in the classroom. This research should add to existing research in this area and provide information that other educators might apply to their own classroom or educational environment. The participants in this study were the change agents, and their attitudes regarding the changes affected the decisions they made with the school curriculum.

In order to measure how role-playing games could potentially influence the players’ attitudes towards death and mortality, 191 subjects were surveyed using the revised version of the Death Attitude Profile (DAP-R) (Wong, Reker, and Gesser 1994), a Likert-scale 32 item closed survey. 14 of the respondents were surveyed in person before playing the live-action role-playing game Hello In There (Hugaas 2019), a game that deals with themes of death and mortality, and again in an online form 24 days later. These results were compared to each other, and run through a one way ANOVA and a two-tailed Welch test to determine significance. The other 177 respondents were surveyed once, using an online form, and four demographic questions were added to use as functions from which to interpret the results. The demographic questions concerned themselves with age, gender, general role-playing experience, and specific role-playing experience with themes of death and mortality. These results were run through a one-way ANOVA, a post hoc Tukey-Kramer test, and a two-tailed Welch test to determine significance. The results as a whole were run through a Cronbach’s alpha test to determine internal consistency and reliability. For the group of 14 respondents who were surveyed twice, there were no statistically significant differences in results between the two surveys. For the group of 177 respondents, the results showed differences between men and women in relation to Approach Acceptance, and between Men and Non-Binary/Genderqueer respondents in relation to Death Avoidance. Furthermore the results showed differences in Neutral Acceptance and Approach Acceptance between different age groups, and differences in Fear of Death and Death Avoidance between groups with different levels of experience from games dealing with themes of death and mortality. The most significant differences were found between groups with different amounts of general role-playing experience, where differences were found in Fear of Death, Death Avoidance, Neutral Acceptance, Approach Acceptance, and Escape Acceptance.

Bacterial colonization of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract takes place during the perinatal period, thus coinciding with a critical window of enteric nervous system (ENS) development. Previous work has found that the myenteric plexus of germ free (GF) mice exhibits structural and functional aberrancies in the early postnatal period as compared to specific pathogen free (SPF) and altered Schaedler flora (ASF) mice. These early life disruptions in ENS development in GF mice compared to SPF mice, and more specifically ASF mice, support the notion that a simple intestinal flora is sufficient for directing perinatal ENS development. It has previously been believed that the intrauterine environment during fetal development is sterile. Recent evidence showing successful isolation of microbial communities from embryonic cord blood and newborn meconium that are not of maternal origin suggests that the intrauterine environment is not sterile and is unique to the fetus. Coinciding with this timeline of fetal microbial colonization is the development of the ENS through a population of precursors known as enteric neural crest derived cells (ENCDCs). The prenatal period is characterized by rapid expansion and differentiation of ENCDCs into the many enteric neuron subtypes that comprise the ENS. Terminal differentiation of ENCDCs continues into the early postnatal period. In the current study, we tested the hypothesis that ENCDCs interact directly with microbial products during ENS development. Further, these ENCDC-bacterial product interactions influence the proliferation, apoptosis, and chemical coding of enteric neuron precursors. These objectives were carried out in an in vitro model of ENCDCs isolated from the prenatal period that was established for the first time in our lab using immunoselection. Further, this model was characterized at key timepoints for proliferation, apoptosis, and differentiation. Our results are suggestive of direct ENCDC interactions with lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a TLR4 ligand, and flagellin, a TLR5 ligand, in stimulating ENCDC proliferation and differentiation into early born neurons of nitrergic and serotonergic subtypes. Peptidoglycan derivatives, muramyl dipeptide (MDP) and ƴ-D-Glu-mDAP (iE-DAP), ligands for NOD2 and NOD1 respectively, appear to mainly stimulate differentiation into nitrergic neurons, and possibly serotonergic neurons. The lack of apoptosis in all conditions is consistent with the notion that apoptosis is not an important characteristic of ENCDC maturation and ENS development. Finally, the lack of significance for differentiation into dopaminergic neurons could be further evidence of their late born nature, which has previously been reported to be stimulated by serotonin after the emergence of serotonergic neurons. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)