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No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Centrosomin (Cnn) is an integral centrosomal protein in Drosophila with orthologues in several species, including humans. The human orthologue of Cnn is required for brain development with Cnn hypothesised to play a similar role in Drosophila. Control of Cnn incorporation into centrosomes is crucial for controlling asymmetric division in certain types of Drosophila stem cells. FRAP experiments on Cnn show that Cnn recovers in a pe- culiar fashion, which suggest that Cnn may be incorporated closest to the centrioles and then spread radially outward, either diffusively or ad- vectively. The aim of this thesis is to understand the mechanism of Cnn incorporation into the Drosophila centrosomes, to determine the mode of transport of the incorporated Cnn, and to obtain parameter estimates for transport and biochemical reactions. A crucial unknown in the modelling process is the distribution of Cnn receptors. We begin by constructing coupled partial differential equation models with either diffusion or advection as the mechanism for incorpo- rated Cnn transport. The simplest receptor distribution we begin with involves a spherical, infinitesimally thick, impermeable shell. We refine the diffusion models using the insights gained from comparing the model out- put with data (gathered during mitosis) and through careful assessment of the behaviour of the data. We show that a Gaussian receptor distribution is necessary to explain the Cnn FRAP data and that the data cannot be explained by other simpler receptor distributions. We predict the exact form of the receptor distribution through data fitting and present pre- liminary experimental results from our collaborators that suggest that a protein called DSpd2 may show a matching distribution. Not only does this provide strong experimental support for a key prediction from our model, but it also suggests that DSpd2 acts as a Cnn receptor. We also show using the mitosis FRAP data that Cnn does not exhibit appreciable radial movement during mitosis, which precludes the use of these data to distinguish between diffusive and advective transport of Cnn. We use long time Cnn FRAP data gathered during S-phase for this purpose. We fit the S-phase FRAP data using the DSpd2 profiles gath- ered for time points corresponding to the Cnn FRAP experiments. We also use data from FRAP experiments where colchicine is injected into the embryos to destroy microtubules (since microtubules are suspected to play a role in advective transport of Cnn). From the analysis of all these data we show that Cnn is transported in part by advection and in part by diffusion. Thus, we are able to provide the first mechanistic description of the Cnn incorporation process. Further, we estimate parameters from the model fitting and predict how some of the parameters may be altered as nuclei progress from S-phase to mitosis. We also generate testable predic- tions regarding the control of the Cnn incorporation process. We believe that this work will be useful to understand the role of Cnn incorporation in centrosome function, particularly in asymmetrically dividing stem cells.

In the spontaneous curvature model for two-phase lipid bilayer membranes the shape of vesicles is governed by a combination of an elastic bending energy and an interface energy that penalises the size of phase boundaries. Each lipid phase induces a preferred curvature to the membrane surface, and these curvatures as well as phase boundaries may lead to the development of kinks. In a rotationally symmetric setting we introduce a family of energies for smooth surfaces and phase fields for the lipid components and study convergence to a sharp-interface limit, which depends on the choice of the bending parameters of the phase field model. We prove that, if kinks are excluded, our energies $Gamma$-converge to the commonly used sharp-interface spontaneous curvature energy with the additional assumption of $C^1$-regularity across interfaces. For a choice of parameters such that kinks may appear, we obtain a limit that coincides with the $Gamma$-limit on all reasonable membranes and extends the classical model by assigning a bending energy also to kinks. We illustrate the theoretical result by some numerical examples.

This thesis focuses on the population dynamics of three antigenically diverse RNA viruses: dengue, influenza and HIV-1. It comprises a set of studies highlighting the roles of structural constraints on critical antigenic determinants, interactions between immune responses to different antigenic types, host lifespan, and the degree of mixing between different host populations in determining the epidemiology and within-host dynamics of these pathogen systems. Dengue exists in humans as a collection of four antigenically related serotypes. Although infection by one serotype appears to convey life-long protection to homologous infection, it is believed to be a risk factor for severe disease manifestations upon secondary, heterologous infection due to the phenomenon of Antibody-Dependent Enhancement (ADE). It is not clear if third or fourth infections are possible, and if so, how they contribute to dengue epidemiology. In this thesis, I investigate the effect of third and fourth infections on the transmission dynamics of dengue. By contrast with dengue, human influenza viruses are known to be in rapid antigenic flux, manifesting in the sequential replacement of antigenic types. This pattern of evolution does not appear to be the same in shorter-lived hosts such as swine and birds. In this thesis, I have used a simple multi-locus model to explore the relationship between host lifespan and viral evolution, as well as to elucidate the effects of transmission between hosts of different lifespan in effort to capture the cross-species element of influenza transmission. My final chapter concerns the within-host evolution of HIV-1. I propose a new model for the pathogenesis of HIV-1 where the transition to AIDS is primarily linked to the gradual loss of the ability to make new antibody responses as the CD4+ population declines. Together these studies emphasise that it is the changing profile of immune responses – either at the population level or within the host – that is the principal determinant of the dynamics of the pathogen, rather than the mode and tempo of antigenic innovation.

Studien har utgått ifrån en kvalitativ forskningsmetod i form av analys utav läromedel samt uppföljande intervjuer. I studien analyseras fem publikationer av läromedel från tre skilda utgivare och fyra behöriga lärare samt en skolsköterska intervjuades för studien. Sex- och samlevnadsundervisning är inget ett eget skolämne, utan ses i huvudsak som ett ämnesövergripande ämne. Därför är variationen stor vad gäller lärares kompetens och ämneskunskaper i dess frågor. Samtidigt finns det beskrivet som ett krav i Lgr11 att undervisningen ska både vara saklig och allsidig. Tidigare forskningsresultat i liknande ämne, visar bland annat variationer i undervisningens innehåll och därmed även brister i likvärdigheten.  Studiens resultat visar att samtliga läromedel som ingår i studien har brister i varierande omfång. Det den ena har kan det andra läromedlet sakna. De lärare som ingått i studien är överlag nöjda med att ha ett läromedel som de kan basera sin undervisning utifrån. Samtliga lärare har påtalat att de behöver komplettera deras läromedel med ytterligare material.

Ganska förvånansvärt är teknikämnet relativt nytt som obligatoriskt ämne i grundskolan. Med tanke på hur mycket vi nyttjar teknik i vår vardag idag och hur länge vi har gjort det historiskt sett är det också förvånansvärt att ämnet inte har en större roll i dagens skola. Den här undersökningen ser till vilken roll teknikämnet har i skolan och vilka förutsättningar lärare har för att hålla en tillräcklig teknikutbildning idag. Undersökningens resultat diskuteras utifrån forskning som har gjorts på området för att komma fram till vad som har förändrats över tid och vad som kanske inte har gjort det. Undersökningen genomfördes genom en enkätundersökning som skickades ut till lärare i årskurs 4-6 i ett antal kommuner spritt i Sverige. Resultatet visade på att förändring för att ämnet ska få större plats i skolan verkar ta lång tid. Avsaknad av tillräckligt material, tillräcklig utbildning, anpassade lokaler och intresse gör att ämnet inte alltid får ta så mycket plats det behöver. En slutsats av undersökningen är att ämnets roll behöver stärkas ordentligt. Detta kan ske genom utökade förutsättningar i fråga om lokal, material, utbildning och intresse. En vilja att lyfta fram ämnet verkar finnas hos de som deltagit i undersökningen.