Traditionellt skötta jordbrukslandskap hyser några av Sveriges mest artrika naturtyper, i huvudsak öppna gräsmarker till vilka en stor del av Sveriges hotade kärlväxter är knutna. Jordbrukets utveckling sedan 1800-talets slut har lett till kraftig minskning av gräsmarker och sämre kvalitet hos de kvarvarande. Skärgårdsjordbruket har små möjligheter till storskalighet och har inte haft samma effektiviseringstryck på sig som jordbruk på fastlandet. Det kan alltså tänkas ha behållit äldre tiders småskalighet – i de fall det fortfarande bedrivs – och därmed stora naturvärden. Studien är en jämförelse mellan jordbrukets utveckling i skärgården och på fastlandet, baserat på GIS-analys av historiska kartdata kompletterat med fältstudier och intervjuer. Undersökningsområdena omfattar Ingmarsö i Stockholms skärgård och Myra, norr om Norrtälje. Arbetet omfattar också en GIS-baserad hävdanalys där gräsmarker klassats utifrån historisk markanvändning. Resultatet är tänkt att vara ett hjälpmedel i restaureringsprojekt genom att ringa in marker med potentiellt höga naturvärden. Reslutatet visar att skärgårdsjordbruket gått tillbaka men behållit sin småskalighet och förblivit aktivt. Till skillnad från det undersökta fastlandsjordbruket som så gott som upphörde innan 1950-talet. Hypotesen att skärgårdsjordbruket skulle vara mindre påverkat av jordbrukets allmäna utveckling bekräftas alltså, men då studien inte bygger på replikat går det inte att dra några generella slutsater. Ett flertal tänkbara förklaringar finns, bland annat skärgårdsbondens bredare försörjningsbas med möjlighet till fiske och intäkter från sommargäster. Hävdanalysen ringar in ett flertal områden som kan vara intressanta föremål för restaurering, men inventeringar krävs för att utvärdera analysmetoden.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of History, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--West Virginia University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 57 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 55-57).

Review of Myra Inman: A Diary of the Civil War in East Tennessee. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2000.

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On 6 May 1966 the ‘Trial of the Century’ came to an end. Chester Assizes court convicted Ian Brady and Myra Hindley for the murders of 12-year-old John Kilbride, 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey, and 17-year-old Edward Evans. The court found Brady guilty on all three murder charges and sentenced him to three concurrent life sentences. Hindley received two life sentences for the murders of Downey and Evans, and a further seven years for being an after-the-fact accomplice in Brady’s murder of Kilbride. Following the description already given to the police investigation and trial, the newspapers gave Brady and Hindley the infamous label of the ‘Moors Murderers’ straight after the trial. The Moors murders have become a part of British folklore since the 1960s, but the case itself has hitherto received surprisingly little attention from academic historians. Following Martin Wiener’s injunction for historians to pay closer attention to murder stories, this doctoral thesis presents a cultural history of the Moors murders case. My study analyses the courtroom arguments, media coverage and post-trial books about the case, to interrogate broader themes of moral and cultural change in 1960s Britain. My thesis emphasises the multi-vocal nature of representations of both the case and the murderers in order to challenge the linear and progressive historiographies of the 1960s, associated in particular with Arthur Marwick. The thesis examines four major facets of the Moors murders story, dedicating a chapter to each. The first chapter explores how the news media (primarily the press, but also broadcast media) negotiated the story. The first detailed empirical analysis of newspaper coverage of the case reveals the limitations of studies structured primarily around social class. The thesis follows Stuart Hall and A.C.H. Smith in arguing that analyses of the press should not be reduced to a simple differentiation between popular, middle-brow and high-brow but should instead consider the ‘personalities’ of each publication and the moral relationships constructed with readers. Furthermore, the chapter engages with Adrian Bingham’s recent argument about the moral politics of the press, exploring his assertion that the popular press balanced commercial profits alongside a commitment to maintain their reputation as ‘family newspapers’. The chapter argues that content of the press coverage of the Moors murders case generated far greater concerns than the suspect practices of journalists. Chapters two and three focus in turn on the diverse representations of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. Commentators debated the origins of the evil behind the murders, with some highlighting his illegitimacy, others his reading of ‘dangerous’ books, the writings of the Marquis de Sade especially. Hindley’s role was hotly contested: most commentators emphasised how she had changed under Brady’s influence, but disagreed over the extent of her own involvement in the murders. The thesis reveals for the first time how images of Nazi Germany shadowed the case. The thesis thus contributes to historical investigations of permissiveness in post-war England, engaging with debates about censorship, child-rearing, the changing role of women, and the popular memory of the holocaust. The fourth and final chapter analyses the tensions generated around a murder story which took place in urban settings, but which became indelibly associated with the rural locations of the moors. The story mobilised a distinctive combination of gothic imagery with a long literary heritage, and the more recent language of social realism.

The purpose of this project is to create a light weight robotic version of an ant that can withstand great forces, trying to come close to the ant’s lifting technique as much as possible. This idea was chosen with inspiration from nature, especially from the obscure forces of an ant. These insects are proven to be able to lift and carry heavy loads, up to a thousand times their body weight. Various lifting technologies are used by several facilities today and therefore there is a need for improvements in this field. By trying to come close to an ant’s appearance and mimic certain ant movements, a hexapod was designed over a period of four months. The tests made in this project were divided into three categories; stability, lifting and gripping ability. The best balance was achieved by placing the legs’ contact points on the ground as far away from each other as possible. In total the robot ant could lift about 1.02 times its own weight and bear 3.01 times its own weight on the thorax. / Målet med projektet är att konstruera en lågvikts robotmyra som kan uthärda stora krafter och härma myrors rörelse vid lyft så mycket som möjligt. Projektidén valdes med inspiration från naturen, speciellt från de otroliga krafter hos en myra. Myror har bevisats kunna lyfta och bära tunga laster eller mer exakt tusen gånger sin egen vikt. Olika lyfttekniker används av flera faciliteter idag och därmed finns det behov av förbättringar i detta område. Genom att efterlikna en myras utseende och härma dess rörelser designades en sexfoting under en period på fyra månader. Testerna delades in i tre olika kategorier; stabilitet, lyft- och greppförmåga. Den bästa balansen uppnåddes då benens kontaktpunkter med marken placerades så långt ifrån varandra som möjligt. Totalt klarade robotmyran att lyfta 1.02 gånger sin egen vikt och bära 3.01 gånger egna vikten på ryggen.

This thesis examines Fielding Burke's Call Home the Heart, Grace Lumpkin's To Make My Bread, and Myra Page's Gathering Storm through the lens of ecofeminism, an interdisciplinary theory that contributes the necessary insight into the link between the abuse of power on personal, political, and economic levels that underlies the human oppression and environmental exploitation experienced by the novels' characters and communities. A resurrection of the Gastonia novels through the framework of ecofeminism will contribute to the scholarly discourse regarding this maturing theory as well as intensify the critical body of work concerning the Gastonia novels themselves. This thesis, in conjunction with the works of instrumental Appalachian scholars, literary critics, and historians as well as major landmark texts in the field of ecofeminism such as Kathy Warren's Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature and Greta Gaard's Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature, purposes to advance the critical standing of the Gastonia novels.