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TITLE: Curriculum of Lichens and the Problem of Its Integration into Biology Teaching at the Second Level of Elementary School AUTHOR: Pavla Češíková DEPARTMENT: Department of Biology and Environmental Studies SUPERVISOR: RNDr. Jana Skýbová, Ph.D. ABSTRACT This diploma thesis deals with the issue of integrating the topic of lichens into the teaching of natural science at the 2nd level of elementary schools. It contains informations about the representation of this topic in curricular documents, as well as a partial analysis and comparison of selected school educational programs and textbooks. In the practical part of this work there is a short interviews with the teachers, who the question of the difficulty integration this topicit into the teaching describe directly from the practice. Based on these findings, the work also includes a proposal for a possible concept of teaching this topic (Lichens), which was applied in practice and whose advantages and disadvantages are also part of the results of research. KEY WORDS: Lichens, curricular documents, textbooks, analysis, semi-structured interviews, natural science

Same-sex divorce is on the horizon in light of the 2015 legalization of same-sex marriage. Since most divorce case law is based on heteronormative presumptions, the authors were curious to understand how local district judges would adjudicate a same-sex divorce case involving a child born prior to the legal marriage. A qualitative study was implemented and a convenient sample of four local district judges in Upper East Tennessee were interviewed for this study. Interview questions were submitted to the judges prior to the interview and themes were identified following data collection. None of the judges had adjudicated a same-sex divorce. All of the judges admitted that they were unfamiliar with case law on same-sex divorce and acknowledged that they would most likely default to heteronormative case law. The judges indicated that they have not had any training on the changing case law as it relates to same-sex divorce and custody issues. Implications and future directions for research are discussed.

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This study aims to explore the English 5 syllabus in relation to what aspects of English are covered and what changes were introduced in the new 2022 version of the upper-secondary-school English 5 course in Sweden. Another aim is to compare and contrast the new English syllabus with the attitudes, practical implementation and priorities and non-priorities of Swedish upper secondary school teachers of English towards the new English 5 syllabus. The method used in this study was a semi-structured interview and the data analysis method was qualitative content analysis. The study found that only very few meaningful changes were made to the English syllabus and it further found that none of the interviewed teachers felt that the changes to the syllabus had affected their teaching. Teachers perceived the reformed English 5 syllabus to be much about the same things that are stated therein and stated different priorities depending on their teaching situation and the student groups they taught. Three out of the four participants stated having both particular priorities and non-priorities in their teaching. The findings of this study were in accordance with the theoretical background and previous research in the field. The findings of this study are relevant as they provide a clear description of the reformed syllabus and its educational consequences for teachers to utilise in order to better understand how to implement the changes to their teaching. Additionally, it may encourage state agencies to take teachers' perceptions and experiences into account when making policy decisions.

Misinformation poses a significant threat to democracy, as it undermines informed decision-making, creates distrust among citizens, and exacerbates social and political polarization. Public libraries can in theory mitigate this threat by serving as trustworthy sources of information and promoting critical thinking, but must contend with issues such as the politicization of library services, which have the potential to erode public trust in libraries. This paper explores the critical role of public libraries as democratic institutions in countering the growing problem of misinformation and disinformation. Six librarians and library managers from Sweden's largest public libraries were interviewed using semi-structured interviews to gather qualitative data on this topic. Thematic content analysis was conducted on the data, which resulted in several key themes that demonstrate issues involved in public libraries’ approaches to addressing misinformation. The results reveal that public libraries grapple with whether an open, unrestricted acquisitions policy is better, or whether a more selective policy is more effective in combatting misinformation-related problems. The results also indicate public libraries’ uncertainty in deciding how active and outspoken of a role they should take in combatting the issue of misinformation at large. The study highlights the importance of public libraries in addressing this societal challenge and provides insights into the tensions surrounding the library’s preservation of public trust and the protection of its democratic values when challenged by misinformation.

At the turn of the century, photographers started a transition from analogue to digital photography: a transition which took years to complete. The photographic landscape is now in a new period of development, with new AI-programs based on machine learning. These programs can be about (I) editing programs that aim to streamline the photographic workflow or correct pictures with technical flaws, such as reducing grain from a high ISO or enlarging pictures. The programs also incorporate (II) AI generated images based on prompting from an AI-artist, so called text-to-image programs like DALL-E 3, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion and Firefly 2. In this study we have done seven semi-structured interviews with Swedish photographers. We have used a postphenomenological theory based on Don Ihde’s philosophy. In analyzing the material from the interviews we have used narrative analysis. The results showed that photographers who worked in advertising, with organizations or clients had a higher tolerance for image manipulation with (II). These photographers valued effectiveness in their workflow and saw a larger need to adapt to new technology. While nature photographers valued authenticity and used (I) sparingly. Another result from the study was that Swedish photographers do not consider (II) photography and do not think that AI generated images should be allowed to compete in photo competitions, only in certain categories with only AI generated images.

This thesis aims to explore the potential of virtual reality (VR) to promote sustainable behaviours. The literature review draws from various fields that discuss the advantages and limitations of VR in design experiences (Scurati, et al., 2021)and how VR can provide an overview on training and transfer, education, and procedural, cognitive and maintenance training (Psotka, 1995) In virtual reality and education and training paper Joseph Psotka provides a brief overview of existing VR research on. Contributing to this literature in VR and education for designing behaviour change with a sustainability focus, by utilizing VR technology, this research focuses on transforming a carbon calculator into an immersive VR environment with the goal of increasing users’ awareness of carbon emissions. Hence, this research allows individuals with little to no experience to create and be part of immersive experiences that effectively convey information and increase users’ awareness of carbon emissions. Adopting semi-structured interviews and digital material exploration as its research methodology, this study involves participants from different backgrounds and levels of knowledge about carbon emissions aiming to create an immersive experience that could effectively educate and engage users in understanding and addressing sustainability issues. Through the development of a hi-fi prototype, participants who tested the VR experience expressed an increased interest in learning about carbon emissions, indicating the potential of immersive VR in raising awareness and fostering behaviour change. The study was conducted in collaboration with Nordic Waves Group, a Denmark-based organization that focuses on UN’s 17 New World Goals, demonstrates the practical application of the research in a real-world context, aligning with their commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals. The findings of this study emphasize the potential of VR in promoting sustainable behaviours and highlight the importance of incorporating immersive experiences in sustainability education and awareness campaigns. Overall, this research provides insights into the use of VR as a tool for promoting sustainability and offers practical solutions for designing behaviour change interventions with a focus on carbon emissions. / <p>Examensarbetet är utfört vid Institutionen för teknik och naturvetenskap (ITN) vid Tekniska fakulteten, Linköpings universitet</p>

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Websites have become a critical source of information for many organizations in today's digital era. However, extracting and organizing semi-structured data from web pages from multiple websites poses challenges. This is especially true when a high level of automation is desired while maintaining generality. A natural progression in the quest for automation is to extend the methods for web data extraction from only being able to handle a single website to handling multiple ones, usually within the same domain. Although these websites share the same domain, the structure of the data can vary greatly. A key question becomes how generalized such a system can be to encompass a large number of websites while maintaining adequate accuracy. The thesis examined the efficiency of automated web data extraction on multiple Swedish insurance company websites. Previous work showed that good results can be achieved with a known English data set that contains web pages from a number of domains. The state-of-the-art model MarkupLM was chosen and trained with supervised learning using two pre-trained models, a Swedish and an English model, on a labeled training set of car insurance customers' web data using zero-shot learning. The results show that such a model can achieve good accuracy on a domain scale with Swedish as the source language with a relatively small data set by leveraging pre-trained models. / Webbsidor har blivit en kritisk källa av information för många organisationer idag. Men att extrahera och strukturera semistrukturerade data från webbsidor från flertal webbplatser är en utmaning. Speciellt när det är önskvärt med en hög nivå av automatisering i kombination med en generaliserbar lösning. En naturlig utveckling i målat av automation är att utöka metoderna för datautvinning från att endast kunna hantera en specifik webbplats till flertal webbplatser inom samma domän. Men även om dessa webbplatser delar samma domän så kan strukturen på data variera i stor utsträckning. En nyckelfråga blir då hur pass generell en sådan lösning kan vara samtidigt som en adekvat prestanda uppehålls. Detta arbete undersöker prestandan av automatiserad datautvinning från ett flertal svenska försäkringssidor. Tidigare arbete visar på att goda resultat kan uppnås på ett känt engelskt dataset som innehåller webbsidor från ett flertal domän. Den toppmoderna modellen MarkupLM valdes och blev tränad med två olika förtränade modeller, en svensk och en engelsk modell, med märkt data från konsumenters bilförsäkringsdata. Modellen blev utvärderad på data från webbplatser som inte ingick i träningsdatat. Resultaten visar på att en sådan modell kan nå god prestanda på domänskala när innehållsspråket är svenska trots en relativt liten datamängd när förtränade modeller används.