Scientist and decision-makers on the international and national arena agree that the climate is changing and will continue to change over this century. In fact, even if greenhouse gas emissions are brought to a halt today, the earth is already, to an extent, locked in towards climate change over the next 30-40 years, as a result of the emissions that have been released during the development of the modern society. The next 20 to 30 years efforts to respond to climate change will decide the long-term effects of global warming (IPCC, 2007). Sweden and the Swedish business sector have now the opportunity to set an example for other countries, also concerned with sustainable development, by taking advantages of the possibilities to “climate-proof” business activities within commercial boarders. This qualitative study has examined the Swedish businesses’ understanding of the need to respond to climate change, with focus on mitigation and adaptation strategies. The study is based on eleven in-depth interviews with respondents that represent businesses within the sectors housing (including infrastructure), forestry industry (including paper and pulp production) and transport (including public transportation). The sectors were selected on the basis as they were particularly exposed to climatic impacts, but also with the aim to cover a large span of business activities. By applying a conceptual model of how a response process can take place in an organizational context (based on the parameters awareness and concern, idea of response strategy and response options), the understanding of the respondents was analyzed and assessed. The result indicates that the awareness of climate change is now high among the respondents, while the concern of its impacts varies in the sectors. In general, climate change is perceived as a wide-ranging external threat, that foremost changes conditions in the external context. Hence, in the perspective of the respondents, the largest reverse climate effects will not take place in “their backyard”, but will impact others directly and business indirectly. For that reason they do not consider themselves as exposed to direct impacts, but connect climate change to a need to reduce energy consumption and fossil fuel dependency. Hence, in many cases, the climate change issue has transcended from being treated as an environmental issue to an energy issue. Finally, the results indicate that there is a strong link between adaptation and mitigation in a business context. As climate change is perceived as one by many external factors that can impact activities, businesses will not handle it differently from any other external challenges. For this reason, the concept of examining a systems’ totally response capacity, as has been the focus in this study, could improve further studies on businesses’ perspectives on dealing with climate change.

High-dose pharmacologic ascorbate has promise as an adjuvant to traditional therapies for cancer. It is hypothesized that the peak plasma concentration is a key determinant in treatment efficacy. From the Phase I clinical trails on the use of pharmacological ascorbate as an adjuvant to Gemcitabine in the treatment of stage IV pancreatic cancer at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, we found that monitoring plasma ascorbate concentration [AscH-]pl with each infusion is both very time consuming and expensive for large scale implementation. A method to determine the amount and protocol to infuse ascorbate to achieve a desired patient [AscH-]pl would be of great benefit. Current models lack flexibility for various infusion proto- cols. Additionally, constructing a model of ascorbate pharmacokinetics would allow investigation of an optimal dosing regime to maintain constant plasma ascorbate levels. A mechanistic model and an empirical model were developed and validated. The mechanistic model suitably replicated the results obtained in the clinical trial but contained too many variables to be useful in a clinical setting. The empirical model showed good results in replicating the trial results and requires only a few easily measured variables to generate predictions High dose ascorbate has been shown to produce hydrogen peroxide. In furthering the studies of how ascorbate affects tumor cells, the action of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) is considered because it supplies NADPH to several peroxide removal pathways. To this end, the kinetics of G6PD were studied using kinetic simulations. G6PD exhibits a reserve capacity, which is the difference between the activity when all intracellular NADP is oxidized to the rate at which is operates when intracellular NADP is at the physiologic 90 % reduced to 10 % oxidized ratio. These simulations yielded an interesting pattern which is also seen by evolutionary biologists. G6PD exhibits a response capacity, which is the difference between the maximum G6PD activity exhibited when there is no demand for NADPH greater than normal cell functions and the activity exhibited when all cellular NADP is oxidized.

Ecosystem services are intrinsically social-ecological. The capacity to provide them over time is both dependent on the functional attributes of species that contribute to ecological processes and social assets underpinning management practices. Yet, these two dimensions are rarely integrated or empirically assessed, even though their interaction contributes to the overall capacity of a social-ecological system to respond. In this study, theoretical frameworks of resilience, adaptive capacity, and ecosystem services are combined to explore “social-ecological response capacity” as the ability of a social-ecological system to respond to extreme weather events. This study focuses on Swedish livestock farms and was set up in response to the drought of 2018 and concerns raised about the general lack of drought mitigation and adaptation strategies in Europe. 15 surveys and semi-structured interviews were conducted and combined with ecological data collected before the drought, to create a baseline for the capacity to respond before the disturbance. The relationship between assets and drought impact on farm performance was indirect and results revealed that social-ecological response capacity was not a mitigating factor of the impacts of drought on the financial and subjective success of farms. However, financial capital and diversification of income might have a disproportionate influence on the farms performance. Moreover, results showed that farms used a wide diversity of strategies to handle drought effects that focused on increasing current and future fodder supply. These findings can provide useful information for all stakeholders that rely on the stability and provision of essential ecosystem services when navigating similar, as well as other disturbances in the future. Additionally, this study contributes to insights on the empirical assessment of properties that are essential for specified and general resilience.

This diploma thesis deals with using of interregional and international aid forces and means of rescue services during floods. The first chapter describes Civil Protection legislative conditions, coordination, capacity, monitoring tools and information support in the Czech republic, EU and UN. The second capter contains cases study "Floods in BiH, Serbia and Croatia 2014", "Floods in Czech republic 2002". The case studies are focused on EU Civil Protection Mechanism response. Other part describes and compares three High capacity pumping teams. Aim of the last part is design optimization of emplacement of the modules in EU.