This thesis investigates how the Bear River marsh’s protection became a national interest and a cause for conservation in the Progressive Era. The thesis documents how the marsh declined because of irrigation development culminating with an outbreak of avian botulism in 1910, and traces the long process to protect the marshland. The research focused on examining local water development patterns of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, ornithological research in the 1910s, and the national sportsmen’s conservation movement of the 1920s. Upon examination of these events, it becomes clear that a coalition of ornithologists, sportsmen, and policy makers worked together to institute change that affected the marsh. Through showing how groups came together in the past to work for conservation, this research highlights the important role that a coalition of groups can have in reshaping how a landscape is viewed and managed.

The United States Army continues to develop new and effective ways to use simulation for training. One example is the Non-Rated Crew Member Manned Module (NCM3), a simulator designed to train helicopter crewmembers in critical, high risk tasks such as crew coordination, flight, aerial gunnery, hoist and sling load related tasks. The goal of this study was to evaluate visual modalities' effect on performance in mixed reality aerial door gunnery. There is a strong belief in the United States Army that the greater the degree of immersion in a virtual simulation, the more effective that simulation is. However, little scientific research exists that supports this notion. In fact, the true goal of training simulation is to optimize the degree of transfer to the trainee - not to create the most immersive experience possible. As a result, the Army Program Manager frequently faces trade-off dilemmas during the simulation design phase, balancing user desires with cost and schedule constraints. One of those trade-off predicaments, and the unscientific manner in which it was resolved, served as the motivation for this research. A review of the literature was conducted in order to investigate the benefits of simulation for training. The taxonomy of reality, as well as the training efficacy of virtual and mixed reality simulation, were examined. Major concepts, applications and components of virtual and mixed reality simulation training were studied. Prior visual modality research was reviewed and discussed. Two discrete groups of subjects, expert (n = 20) and novice (n = 76), were employed in this study. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two visual modality treatments (Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) flat panel screen or Head-Mounted Display (HMD)) and executed three aerial door gunnery training scenarios in the NCM3. Independent variables were visual modality, trial, immersive tendency and simulator sickness questionnaire scores. Dependent variables included performance, presence and simulator sickness change scores. The results of the study indicate no main effect of visual modality on performance for the expert population while a main effect of visual modality on performance was discovered for the novice population. Both visual treatment groups experienced the same degree of presence and simulator sickness. No relationship between an individual's immersive tendency and their performance and level of presence was found. Results of this study's primary objective are conflicting, by expertise group, and thus both support and challenge the commonly held notion that higher immersive simulation leads to better performance.

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No / The alkaloid cryptolepine (1) and eight synthetic analogues (2-8) were assessed for in vitro activities against Trypanosoma brucei. Four of the analogues were found to be highly potent with IC50 values of less than 3 nM and three of these were assessed against T. brucei brucei infection in rats. The most effective compound was 2,7-dibromocryptolepine (7); a single oral dose of 20 mg/Kg suppressed parasitaemia and increased the mean survival time to 13.6 days compared with 8.4 days for untreated controls. In addition, four huperzine derivatives (9-12) were shown to have in vitro antitrypanosomal activities with IC50 values from 303-377 nM.

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The diploma thesis deals with the topic of insurance system in the Czech Republic and its transformations since 2009. Analysis of social and economic effect that was brought by alternation in legislation in code 187 / 2006 has become the objective of this work. The reasons for issuing the legislation alternation were struggles to change negative trends in sick insurance, to avoid unjustified costs and to ensure financial stability of the system. The introduction mentions theoretical concepts concerning the topic of the work and methods and procedures used while composing this diploma thesis. The area of the sick insurance is characterized by basic principles, terms and conditions in claim system and brief history of social protection institute in Czech Republic is also covered. The empiric part describes individual changes as a part of public finance reform. Specific impact on selected actors was subsequently analyzed. Three possible sceneries of resolving sick insurance issue are designed in the final part of the work.

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Background: Prior studies show that sickness induces anxiety as rated by subjective reports but have not linked this to overt behavior in humans. This study investigates the expression of distress during experimental sickness, its relation to self-reported anxiety, and the moderating role of gender in the association between overt distress and self-rated anxiety. Methods: 21 participants (18-34 yrs, 10 women) were semi-randomly chosen from a placebo-controlled, double-blind, within-subject experiment, in which participants were intravenously injected with a bacterial endotoxin lipopolysaccharide (LPS, 0.8 ng/kg body weight) triggering a transient inflammatory reaction and an acute state of sickness. In the current study, we coded the participants’ expression of moans, sighs and deep breaths (overt distress) during sickness from the video recordings of the experiment and analyzed these parameters in relation to the state part of the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger et al., 1979) that was collected during the experiment. Results: The frequency of overt distress increased strongly during experimental sickness (1-3h post-injection of LPS) compared to baseline. The level of overt distress was not related to subjective feelings of anxiety. No clear difference was found between men and women in the frequency of expressed distress during sickness. Interestingly however, there was an inverted relation between anxiety and the expression of distress in women, so that women who reported higher anxiety expressed less distress overtly (ß = -0.52, p = 0.018). Conclusions: Experimental sickness strongly induces an increase of moans, sighs and deep breaths, but these are not directly associated with the level of state anxiety reported. The results also suggest that moans, sighs and deep breaths might have a different function in men and women.

I och med de restriktioner som Covid-19-pandemin medförde blev hemarbete ett nytt arbetssätt för många arbetstagare i Sverige. Forskning som vi tagit del av beskriver att sjukfrånvaro i organisationer minskar samtidigt som mörkertalet gällande sjuknärvaro är stort, vilket skapade intresset för denna studie. Forskning kring sjuknärvaro fokuserar på den fysiska arbetsplatsen och inte vid hemarbete som nu är ett vedertaget arbetssätt i Sverige. Denna studie syftar till att skapa förståelse för hur arbetstagare upplever sjuknärvaro vid hemarbete samt hur den upplevda arbetskvaliteten påverkar valet att sjuknärvara. Samtliga arbetstagare inom en organisation som tillhandahåller både produkter och tjänster inom den privata sektorn ombads besvara en enkät och åtta respondenter har intervjuats i semistrukturerade intervjuer. Samtliga intervjuer har tematiserats och analyserats vilket har lett fram till resultatet av denna studie. Resultatet visar att sjuknärvaro i hemarbete förekommer i hög grad och tillgängligheten som arbetssättet innebär ökar anställdas val att sjuknärvara. Valet att sjuknärvara tas speciellt då arbetstagarna upplever hög arbetsbelastning, lojalitet mot kollegor samt arbetsgivare och ur ekonomiska aspekter. Arbetstagare upplever att sjuknärvaron har en negativ påverkan på effektiviteten då arbetstempot inte sker i samma takt, samt fler pauser behövs för att klara av att arbeta sjuk vid hemarbete. Genom att arbeta med arbetskvalitet och tillgodose de behov arbetstagare har för att uppleva en god arbetskvalitet menar författarna av denna studie att sjuknärvaro kan förebyggas. / With the restrictions imposed by Covid-19-pandemic, work from home (WFH) became a new method of working for many employees in Sweden. The research we have found describes that sickness absence in organizations is decreasing, but the prevalence of sickness presenteeism is still unknown, which created the interest for our study. Research on sickness presenteeism focuses on the traditional physical workplace and not WFH, which is now an established method in Sweden as a result of the Covid-19-pandemic. This study aims to understand how workers experience sickness presenteeism when working from home and how the perceived quality of work affects the decision to choose such presenteeism. A survey was sent out to all workers in an organization in the private sector, which provides both products and services and eight respondents were interviewed in semi-structured interviews. All the interviews were then thematized and analyzed, leading to the results of this study. The results show that sickness presenteeism in WFH occurs to a high degree, and is perceived by workers as common due to the accessibility of the working method. The choice to work with sickness presenteeism is made especially when employees experience high workload, loyalty to colleagues and employers and from economic aspects. Employees feel that sickness presenteeism has a negative effect on efficiency as they do not work at the same pace, and need to take more breaks to cope with working from home while sick. By working on quality of work and meeting employees' needs to experience good quality of work,the authors of this study argue that sickness presenteeism can be prevented.

The development of autonomous vehicles is progressing rapidly through extensive efforts by the automotive industry and researchers. One of the key factors for the adoption of autonomous driving technology is motion comfort and the ability to engage in non-driving tasks such as reading, socialising, and relaxing without experiencing motion sickness while travelling. Therefore, for the full success of autonomous vehicles, it is necessary to learn how to design and control the vehicles to mitigate motion sickness for the passengers.  This thesis aims to investigate methods for prediction of motion sickness in autonomous vehicles and how to mitigate it using vehicle dynamics based solutions, with an emphasis on trajectory planning. As a first step, a review and evaluation of existing motion sickness prediction methods were performed. The review highlighted the importance of accurate motion sickness assessment in the early phases of autonomous vehicle design. Two chosen methods (ISO 2631-based and sensory conflict theory-based) were evaluated to estimate individual motion sickness feelings using measured data and subjective assessment ratings from field tests. It can be concluded that the methods can be adjusted to predict individual motion sickness feelings, as shown by the comparison with the experimental data. To continue the work, a review of vehicle dynamics based motion sickness mitigation methods for autonomous vehicles was performed. Several chassis control strategies in literature like active suspension, rear-wheel steering and torque distribution have demonstrated the potential help to reduce motion sickness. Another effective approach to mitigate motion sickness in autonomous vehicles is to regulate vehicle speed and path using trajectory planning which was chosen to be further investigated. The trajectory planning was constructed as an optimisation problem where there is a trade-off between motion sickness and manoeuvre time. The impact of the trajectory planning algorithm to reduce motion sickness was analysed by simulating two different vehicle models in specific test manoeuvres. The results indicate that driving style has a significant influence on motion sickness and trajectory planning algorithms should be carefully designed to find a good balance between journey time and motion sickness. The research presented in this thesis contributes to the development of methodologies for predicting and mitigating motion sickness in autonomous vehicles, helping to achieve the goal of ensuring their overall success. / Utvecklingen av autonoma fordon går snabbt framåt tack vare omfattande insatser från fordonsindustrin och forskare. En av de viktigaste faktorerna för införandet av teknik för autonom körning är åkkomfort och möjligheten att ägna sig åt andra saker än körning, som att läsa, umgås och koppla av, utan att drabbas av åksjuka under resan. För att autonoma fordon ska lyckas fullt ut är det därför nödvändigt att förstå hur man utformar och styr fordonen för att minska risken för att passagerarna drabbas av åksjuka.  Denna licentiatuppsats syftar till att undersöka hur åksjuka kan förutsägas i vägfordon och hur den kan reduceras med hjälp av fordonsdynamikbaserade lösningar, med tonvikt på trajektorieplanering. Som ett första steg genomfördes en granskning och utvärdering av befintliga metoder för åksjukeprediktion. Granskningen belyste vikten av en korrekt bedömning av åksjuka i de tidiga faserna av autonom fordonsdesign. Två valda metoder (ISO 2631-baserad och sensorisk konfliktbaserad) utvärderades för att uppskatta individuell åksjuka med hjälp av uppmätta data och subjektiva bedömningar från fälttester. Slutsatsen är att metoderna kan justeras för att förutsäga individuell åksjuka, vilket framgår av jämförelsen med experimentella data. För att fortsätta arbetet gjordes en genomgång av fordonsdynamikbaserade metoder för att minska åksjuka i autonoma fordon. Flera chassireglerstrategier i litteraturen, såsom aktiv fjädring, bakhjulsstyrning och drivmomentfördelning, har visat sig kunna bidra till att minska åksjuka. En annan effektiv metod för att minska åksjuka i autonoma fordon är att reglera fordonets hastighet och bana med hjälp av trajektorieplanering, vilket valdes att undersökas ytterligare. Trajektorieplaneringen konstruerades som ett optimeringsproblem där det finns en avvägning mellan åksjuka och manövertid. Effekten av trajektorieplaneringsalgoritmen för att minska åksjuka analyserades genom att simulera två olika fordonsmodeller i specifika testmanövrar. Resultaten indikerar att körstil har en betydande inverkan på åksjuka och att algoritmer för trajektorieplanering bör utformas noggrant för att hitta en bra balans mellan restid och åksjuka. Forskningen som presenteras i denna uppsats bidrar till utvecklingen av metoder för att förutsäga och mildra åksjuka i autonoma fordon, vilket hjälper till att uppnå målet att säkerställa deras framgång.