This study has aimed to examine the rapid change in the issue of the Swedish conscription. In the year 2009 the government decided to abandon the national conscription and replace it with a professional army. However, in 2014 the minister of defence announced that the government would investigate the possibilities of bringing the national conscription back. John Kingdons Multiple Stream Theory aims to reveal the process of “knowing when an idea ́s time has come”, and has been applied to several policyprocesses spanning over a longer time-period. This study has a twofold purpose: to examine whether the theory can be applied to a case of rapid policy change and whether it can help explain a case of rapid change in existing policy. The method chosen in this study is processtracing through a qualitative method. The study concludes that the theory is indeed applicable to a case of rapid policy change and that the content and nature of the problemstream (what appears to be the problem) can be one explanation to rapid change in existing policy.

This research shed the light on regulations and their effects on operational risk management within the Swedish Swedish Banking Sector. The focus lies on operational risk management due to the introduction of new regulations such as FFFS 2014:1, FFFS 2014:4 and FFFS 2014:5. What could be found in the empirical analysis is that the regulations affected organizational changes.  Additionally, differences between large and small banks could be seen. All changes in terms of implementation of regulations are strongly performed throughout the Three Lines of Defence model where clear organization structure and work description are of importance. The Three Lines of Defence is tightly combined with the COSO framework and operational risk management to conduct compliant organization that is adaptable for any regulatory changes.

For a decade, the EU and NATO have both claimed to have a relationship purported to be a Strategic Partnership. However, this relationship is widely understood by both academics and practitioners to be problematic. Although not denying that the relationship is problematic, it is claimed here that the argument, whereby the EU and NATO simply do not cooperate, is very limited in its value. In fact, it is argued that the two organisations cooperate far more, albeit less efficiently, outside of the formal Agreed Framework for cooperation. According to the formal rules of Berlin Plus/Agreed Framework (BP/AF), the EU and NATO should not cooperate at all outside of the Bosnia Herzegovina (ALTHEA) context. This is clearly not the case. The fundamental aim of this thesis is to investigate how this cooperation - beyond the BP/AF has emerged. Above all, it asks, within a context where formal EU-NATO cooperation is ruled out, what type of cooperation is emerging? This thesis attempts to explain the creation and performance of the informal EU-NATO institutional relationship beyond Berlin Plus. This thesis, drawing on insights from historical institutionalist theory and by investigating EU-NATO cooperation in counter-piracy, Kosovo and Afghanistan, puts forward three general arguments. First, in order for informal EU-NATO cooperation to take place outside of the BP/AF, cooperation is driven spatially away from the central political tools of Brussels, towards the common operational areas and hierarchically downwards to the international staffs and, in particular, towards the operational personnel. Second, although the key assumptions of historical institutionalism (path dependency, punctuated equilibrium and critical junctures) help to explain the stasis of the EU-NATO relationship at the broad political and strategic level, a more complete understanding of the relationship is warranted. Including theoretical assumptions of incremental change helps to explain the informal cooperation that is now driving EU-NATO relations beyond Berlin Plus. Finally, this thesis makes the fundamental claim that the processes of incremental change through informal cooperation reinforce the current static formal political and strategic relationship. Events and operational necessity are driving incremental change far more than any theoretical debates about where the EU ends and NATO begins. Until events force a situation whereby both organisations must revisit the formal structures of cooperation, the static relationship will continue to exist, reinforced by sporadically releasing the political pressure valve expedited through the processes of informal cooperation. If the EU and NATO are to truly achieve a Strategic Partnership , it will stem from an existential security critical juncture and not from internal evolutionary processes.

Cathelicidins are cationic host defence peptides (CHDP) with essential roles in the innate defence system. These peptides have antimicrobial potential and the capacity to modulate innate immunity and inflammatory processes. Neutrophils (PMN) are the main reservoir of cathelicidins and play key roles in first line defence against infection. The appropriate regulation of PMN function, death, and clearance is critical to innate immunity, and the efferocytosis of apoptotic PMN, in contrast to necrotic cells, is proposed to promote the resolution of inflammation. In this thesis I demonstrate that the human cathelicidin LL-37 rapidly induced secondary necrosis of apoptotic human PMN and identify the essential C-terminal region of LL-37 required for this activity. In addition to the induction of secondary necrosis, higher concentrations of LL-37 also promoted PMN granule contents release. LL-37-induced secondary necrosis did not affect PMN ingestion by human monocyte-derived macrophages and, in contrast to expectation, was not proinflammatory. Interestingly, the anti-inflammatory effects of apoptotic PMN on activated macrophages were retained and even potentiated where LL-37-mediated secondary necrosis induced anti-inflammatory granule content release. Consistent with the results of in vitro studies, in vivo murine sterile peritonitis model revealed the same phenomenon: LL-37-induced secondary necrosis diminished inflammatory responses with decreased PMN influx. I also present data on LL-37- mediated modulation of innate immune effector cell cytokines responses to inflammatory signals. I propose that during acute inflammation LL-37 can modulate innate immune responses through its activity on cytokine production, and that LL-37-mediated secondary necrosis of apoptotic PMN has anti-inflammatory effects, but may also mediate host damage by promoting the release of potentially harmful intracellular contents under chronic or dysregulated conditions.

Ticks are important vectors of a wide variety of pathogens including protozoa, bacteria and viruses. Many of the viruses transmitted by ticks are of medical or veterinary importance including tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) and Crimean- Congo hemorrhagic fever virus causing disease in humans, and African swine fever virus and Nairobi sheep disease virus affecting livestock. Although several studies have elucidated tick antimicrobial mechanisms including cellular immune responses such as nodulation, encapsulation and phagocytosis and humoral immune responses such as the JAK/STAT pathway, complement-like proteins, antimicrobial peptides, lectin like pattern-recognition molecules and lysozymes, very little is known about the innate immune response of ticks towards viral infection. This study therefore aimed to identify molecules that might be involved in the response of ticks to viral infection. The hypothesis was that TBEV infection leads to changes in the expression of immunity-related transcripts and proteins in Ixodes spp. tick cells and that at least some of these might be antiviral. Ixodes scapularis-derived cell lines IDE8 and ISE6 were chosen since I. scapularis is currently the only tick species with a sequenced genome and an Ixodes ricinus-derived cell line, IRE/CTVM19, was used because I. ricinus is the natural vector of TBEV. Basic parameters required to study the responses of tick cells to infection were determined, including levels of virus infection, kinetics of virus replication and production, formation of replication complexes and uptake of dsRNA or siRNA. The cell lines IDE8, ISE6 and IRE/CTVM19 were infected with either of two tick-borne flaviviruses, TBEV and Langat virus (LGTV), or with the mosquito-borne alphavirus Semliki Forest virus (SFV). Infection was characterised using techniques including plaque assay, luciferase assay, immunostaining and conventional, confocal and electron microscopy. Two time points for transcriptomics and proteomics analysis of TBEVinfected IDE8 and IRE/CTVM19 cells were selected: day 2 post-infection (p.i.) when virus production was increasing and day 6 p.i. when virus production was decreasing. RNA and protein were isolated from TBEV-infected and mock-infected tick cells at days 2 and 6 p.i. and RNA-Seq and mass spectrometric technologies were used to identify changes in, respectively, transcript and protein abundance. Differential expression of transcripts was determined using the data analysis package DESeq resulting in a total of 43 statistically significantly differentially expressed transcripts in IDE8 cells and 83 in IRE/CTVM19 cells, while differential protein representation using Χ2 test statistics with Bonferroni correction in IDEG6 software resulted in 76 differentially represented proteins in IDE8 cells and 129 in IRE/CTVM19 cells. These included transcripts and proteins which could affect stages of the virus infection, including virus entry, replication, maturation and protein trafficking, and also innate immune responses such as phagocytosis, RNA interference (RNAi), the complement system, the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway, cell stress and the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress response. After verification of sequencing data by qRT-PCR, the ability of several of the identified transcripts or proteins to affect virus infection was determined by knockdown experiments in IDE8 and IRE/CTVM19 cells using wild type LGTV, LGTV replicons or TBEV replicons. Knockdown of genes encoding proteins including the ER chaperone gp96 and the heat-shock protein HSP90 resulted in increased virus production in both cell lines, hinting at an antiviral role. In contrast, knockdown of calreticulin, another ER chaperone, resulted in a decrease in virus production in IRE/CTVM19 cells but not in IDE8 cells, implying a requirement for virus production. This functional genomics approach has identified possible novel genes/proteins involved in the interaction between flaviviruses and tick cells and also revealed that there might be antiviral innate immune pathways present in ticks additional to the exogenous RNAi pathway.

No description available.

Thesis (MMil)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Armed forces the world over have three primary functions — force development, force deployment and force employment. Defence policy plays a guiding role in all of these, but is especially important in establishing the rationale for the creation of those military capabilities that force development brings about. The end of the Cold War, which coincided with a new political dispensation in South Africa, also gave rise to a new security paradigm: a theory implying both a reduction in the utility of military force, and an adjustment in the use of military forces. This phenomenon changed the context within which states generate modern defence policy, but did not affect the causal relationship between policy publications and the outcomes of a military’s force development activities. Usually, a defence policy presupposes the development of armed forces that are effective and efficient at executing their mandate — a condition that is measurable in terms of the organisation’s levels integration, skill, quality and responsiveness. The thesis uses this concept, both as a point of departure and as a structural organising device, to describe the variance between defence policy and military capabilities. A general analysis of South Africa’s defence policy publications indicates that, indeed, the policymakers had thoroughly considered the armed forces’ effectiveness when they wrote the White Paper (1996) and the Defence Review (1998). By 2006, the South African Army has interpreted national defence policy and formulated a future strategy of its own, very much in alignment with the ‘modern system’ approach of the original policy publications. However, further analysis of the actual capabilities of the South African National Defence Force indicates a major variance between the relevant defence policy publications, the military’s force development outcomes, and the present demands of the South African security environment. There appears to be quite serious deficiencies in the attribute of integration, which arise primarily from political influences; furthermore, the military’s quality is under strain, mainly because of the defence force’s seeming inability to formulate a strategy that is not only acceptable, but also suitable and feasible. While the armed forces appear to be skilful enough to execute their present (peacetime) missions, success in the type of operations that policy demands is unlikely. In summary, the study suggests that the principal reason for the large variance between defence policy, military capabilities, and real operational demands stems from defence’s lack of responsiveness to its resource constraints and operational realities. The thesis therefore concludes that the defence force has been largely unsuccessful in complying with the demands of defence policy, irrespective of the fact that the policy by itself may be obsolete and/or inappropriate for the South African context; furthermore, that military effectiveness in meeting current operational demands is also doubtful. Finally, the defence force’s schizophrenic organisational culture may be the primary cause of it moving ever closer to reneging on its constitutional mandate. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Gewapende magte wêreldwyd het drie primêre funksies — magsontwikkeling, magsontplooiing en magsaanwending. Verdedigingsbeleid vervul ‘n rigtinggewende rol in al hierdie funksies, maar is veral belangrik om die skepping van die militêre vermoëns, wat deur magsontwikkelingsaktiwiteite daargestel word, te regverdig. Gevolglik beoog hierdie tesis om die mate van ooreenkoms tussen die voorskrifte van Suid-Afrikaanse verdedigingsbeleid en die werklike militêre vermoëns van die Suid-Afrikaanse Nasionale Weermag te beskryf, soos dit ontwikkel het tussen 2000 en 2011. Die einde van die Koue Oorlog (samelopend met die totstandkoming van ‘n nuwe bedeling in Suid-Afrika) het geboorte gegee aan nuwe denke betreffende veiligheid, wat ook ‘n afname in die nuttigheid van militêre mag en ‘n aanpassing in die aanwending van militêre magte tot gevolg gehad het. Hierdie verskynsel het die omgewing waarbinne moderne state verdedigingsbeleid ontwikkel verander, maar nie die kousale verband tussen beleidspublikasies en die uitkomste van ‘n weermag se magsontwikkelingsaktiwiteite aangeraak nie. Gewoonlik veronderstel ‘n verdedigingsbeleid die ontwikkeling van gewapende magte wat doeltreffend en doelmatig is in die uitvoering van hul mandaat — ‘n toestand wat meetbaar is in terme van die organisasie se vlakke van integrasie, vaardigheid, kwaliteit, en hul vermoë om toepaslik op omgewigsinvloede te reageer. Die tesis gebruik hierdie konsep, beide as ‘n vertrekpunt en as ‘n strukturele ordeningsmeganisme, en om die verskille tussen verdedigingsbeleid en militêre vermoëns te beskryf. ‘n Algemene ontleding van Suid-Afrika se verdedigingsbeleidspublikasies toon dat, met die skryf van die Witskrif (1996) en Verdedigingsoorsig (1998), beleidmakers wel deeglike oorweging geskenk het aan die weermag se doeltreffenheid; so ook die Suid-Afrikaanse Leër, wat teen 2006 sy eie toekomsstrategie die lig laat sien het. Desnieteenstaande getuig verdere ontleding van die Suid-Afrikaanse Nasional Weermag se werklike vermoëns van diepgaande verskille tussen verbandhoudende beleidspublikasies, die weermag se ontwikkelingsuitkomste, en die huidige eise van die Suid-Afrikaanse veiligheidsomgewing. Dit wil voorkom asof daar ernstige integrasie-leemtes is, komende hoofsaaklik vanuit die politieke omgewing; verder is die gewapende magte se kwaliteit onder druk, hoofsaaklik vanweë die weermag se onvermoë om ‘n strategie te formuleer wat gelyktydig aanvaarbaar, geskik en uitvoerbaar is. Die gewapende magte mag dalk vaardig genoeg wees om hul huidige (vredestydse) take te verrig, maar dit is te betwyfel of hulle suksesvol sal wees in die voer van die tipe operasies soos beleid voorgeskryf. Ter opsomming dui die studie aan dat die groot verskille tussen verdedigingsbeleid, militêre vermoëns en werklike operasionel eise voor die deur van ‘n gebrek aan doelmatige aanpassing by hulpbrontekorte en operasionele werklikhede gelê kan word. Die tesis maak dus die gevolgtrekking dat die weermag grootliks onsuksesvol was om aan die vereistes van verdedigingsbeleid te voldoen, ongeag die feit dat verdedigingsbeleid op sigself verouderderd en/of ontoepaslik binne die Suid-Afrikaanse konteks mag wees; verder, dat militêre effektiwiteit ter voldoening aan huidige operasionele eise tans ook verdag is. Ten slotte is die weermag se tweeslagtige organisasiekultuur moontlik die belangrikste oorsaak van die neiging na die versaking van verdediging se grondwetlike mandaat.

<p>Hur beter sig skärpiplärkor (Anthus petrosus) när de försvarar reviret mot en inkräktare under häckning? Eskalerar de aggressivitet olika eller har de en gemensam strategi? Påverkas beteendet av häckningsfas? Kan använd tid säga något om motivation att försvara revir? För att besvara dessa frågor placerades en burhållen artfrände av endera kön i etablerade revir. I studien mättes ägnad tid åt olika aggressiva beteenden, vilka hade klassats och graderats beroende av styrkan i hoten. Resultatet visade att alla hanar eskalerar aggression på ett likartat sätt och ägnade i medeltal lika lång tid åt olika nivåer. Individuella skillnader förekom dock då några individer eskalerade lite snabbare men det tolkades inte som ökad motivation att försvara revir. Tiden de ägnade åt de olika nivåerna varierade inte beroende av häckningsfas.</p> / <p>How do rock pipits (Anthus petrosus) behave when they defend a territory against an intruder during their breeding season? Do they escalate aggression differently, or do they have a common strategy? Does breeding phase influence the behavior? May used time tell something about the motivation to defend the territory? To answer these questions a caged conspecific of either sex were placed in established territories. In the study the time was measured of each different aggressive behavior, which had been classified into levels according to the intensity of the threat. The results showed that all males escalated aggression in the same way and devoted similar lengths of time to the different levels. Some individual differences occurred as a few individuals escalated somewhat rapidly, however, this was not interpreted as increased motivation to defend the territory. The time they devoted to different levels did not vary depending on breeding phase.</p>

<p>The Swedish defence has, during the last couple of years, been under major restructuring that has influenced defence procurements as well. Cost-efficiency has become increasingly important in defence procurement due to higher demand from shrinking defence budgets. The purpose of this study has been to compare the view on cost-efficiency between Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV) and the Swedish Ministry of Defence and to discuss the potential differences. In order to compare the views, the study has looked at what is considered as cost-efficiency in Swedish defence procurement and how it could be achieved. The study has also considered the importance of Swedish defence industry in achieving cost-efficient procurements. For collecting data to make the comparison, focus group interviews were used as data collecting method. The use of focus groups has the advantage of allowing discussion and interaction between the participants. The study includes three focus group interviews, two were made at FMV and the third one was made at the Ministry of Defence.</p><p>When comparing the view on cost-efficiency in Swedish defence procurement between the three groups, there are no clear definition of what cost-efficiency is. However, a definition is suggested that combines the view of the three groups into the following definition; cost-efficient procurements should be good enough in order to satisfy the demand of the Armed Forces throughout the systems entire lifecy-cle. The study also concludes that the objective of becoming more cost-efficient is shared between the Defence Materiel Administration and the Ministry of Defence. However, there are differences on how this objective is to be achieved. The Ministry of Defence wants to use economical measures to make the organization around defence procurement more efficient and thus more cost-efficient procurement. The Defence Materiel Administration on the other hand would like to increase the per-sonnel since that would make it possible to utilize the market in a better way through competitive procurement.</p><p>The role of the Swedish defence industry is considered by all three groups as important for international cooperation and is said to contribute to cost-efficiency in procurements since the defence materiel market is characterised by barter transactions. With the intention of involving the industry in more parts of the system lifecycle through Public Private Partnerships, the importance of the defence industry will in-crease in order to make cost-efficient procurements.</p>

Three methods of communication were examined in the Middle Island tusked weta, Motuweta isolata (Orthoptera: Anostostomatidae); defence behaviour, acoustic and chemosensory signalling. Previous studies had been limited to basic autecology and anecdotal evidence. This study was undertaken to understand the behaviours of this species to assist in conservation efforts. Defensive behaviours were elicited through repeated stimulation while aggressive behaviours were acquired through male-male battles. Femoro-abdominal stridulation was induced within both situations. Defensive stridulation functioned as alarm behaviour and was often accompanied by a visual display. Agonistic stridulation was executed by the eventual winner of combat. Aggressive battles were a progression of behavioural units of increasing risk on injury until an individual was determined the winner. Acoustic analysis was preformed on stridulations observed in aggressive and defensive behaviours. Stridulation was a broad band signal covering a range well above 16 kHz and possibly into the ultrasound range (>20 kHz). Two different forms of stridulation were identified; click train sound and hiss sound. High speed frame-by-frame analysis of stridulation and scanning electron micrographs of the abdomen and medial femur deciphered the mechanism and found the interaction of the cuticle to be unique among weta. Strikingly, micrographs also revealed two morphologies of abdominal projections; truncated ridges and columnar pegs. Both these points were not previously observed. Y-maze and partition tests were utilized for evidence of chemosensory signalling, while gas chromatography-mass spectrometry identified faecal volatiles in M. iisolata and 4 other weta species in a parallel study. Through partition experiments, evidence exists for a species-specific volatile pheromone and a sex-specific chemo-tactile pheromone. Dimethylsulphide, (CH3)2S, was present in the faeces of all 5 weta species, and may be produced by the individual.