https://www.mdu.se/

Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur klassrumsdiskussioner kan bidra till elevers begreppsförståelse enligt tidigare forskning. Vidare undersöker studien vilka undervisningsstrategier som framhålls som betydelsefulla i samband med lärarens undervisning. Studien genomfördes som en systematisk litteraturstudie med kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Vetenskapliga artiklar söktes i ERIC EBSCO och tio relevanta studier valdes ut utifrån studiens syfte. Materialet analyserades genom kodning, kategorisering och tematisering. Studien har genomförts enligt forskningsetiska principer med fokus på korrekt källhantering, transparens och trovärdighet. Resultatet visar att klassrumsdiskussioner har en positiv påverkan på elevers utveckling av matematiska begrepp. När elever deltar i matematiska samtal ges de möjlighet att reflektera över både sitt eget och andras tänkande, vilket kan bidra till en fördjupad begreppsförståelse. Resultatet visar även att lärarens val av frågor, uppgifter och organisering av diskussioner har en stor betydelse för elevernas möjligheter att delta och utveckla sin förståelse. Slutsatsen visar att gemensamt tänkande och diskussioner kan stödja elevers lärande genom att de får möjlighet att bearbeta och utveckla sina idéer i samspel med andra. Detta förutsätter dock att läraren har en aktiv roll i att vägleda, strukturera och stödja eleverna i diskussionerna.

Background: Behaviour-focused clinical reasoning is essential for effective physiotherapypractice. Physiotherapy education must equip students with competencies in psychosocialand behavioural aspects of assessment and intervention. Evidence of South Africanphysiotherapy students’ knowledge and competencies in behavioural medicine remainsunexplored.

Objectives: To assess behaviour-focused clinical reasoning competencies among final-yearphysiotherapy students at a South African university and compare these competencies withthose of final-year students from two Swedish universities with integrated behaviouralmedicine curricula.

Method: A cross-sectional comparative study design was employed. Final-year physiotherapystudents (N = 38) from a South African university completed the Reasoning 4 Change (R4C)questionnaire. Swedish comparative data (N = 61) were included. Data were analysed usingfrequencies, percentages and independent t-tests. Cohen’s d with 95% confidence intervals(CIs) was calculated.

Results: The South African cohort scored significantly lower for knowledge (mean 32.6,standard deviation [s.d.] ± 5.1 vs. 35.7 ± 4.8; p = 0.003; d = −0.63), cognition (31.7 ± 6.0 vs. 34.9± 5.8; p = 0.012; d = −0.53), input from client (34.2 ± 6.3 vs. 38.5 ± 7.2; p = 0.003; d = −0.62),functional behaviour analysis (21.8 ± 2.6 vs. 23.8 ± 2.9; p < 0.001; d = −0.71) and strategies forbehaviour change (16.2 ± 1.9 vs. 19.6 ± 3.7; p < 0.001; d = −1.07), but scored significantly higherfor self-efficacy (77.8 ± 12.5 vs. 70.4 ± 12.6; p = 0.005; d = 0.59) and contextual factors (20.2 ± 2.7vs. 14.9 ± 4.7; p < 0.001; d = 1.31).

Conclusion: Explicit behavioural medicine integration within physiotherapy education maystrengthen behaviour-focused clinical reasoning competencies.

Clinical Implications: Longitudinal integration of behavioural medicine content maystrengthen students’ behaviour-focused clinical reasoning, client engagement and behaviourchange competencies in physiotherapy practice

Access to real-world cellular network traffic data is often limited due to privacy concerns and security restrictions, which creates challenges for research, testing, and evaluation within wireless networking. Large Language Models have shown capabilities beyond traditional natural language processing, including the structured data generation. In this thesis, I investigate whether LLMs can be used to generate synthetic cellular network traffic datasets and how different prompt strategies and LLMs influence the quality of the generated data.

This study evaluates four prompting strategies: Basic, Constraint-Based, Chain-of-Thought, and Few- Shot prompting. The strategies are evaluated using two LLMs, GPT-4.1-mini and Claude Sonnet 5, multiple cellular network traffic datasets are generated containing metrics such as throughput, latency and timestamps. I evaluated the generated datasets using structural quality, descriptive statistics, distributional similarity, quantitative similarity and statistical comparison. Realism and representativeness are evaluated by comparing the generated datasets with measurements from the Glasgow Public and Private 5G Performance Dataset, using statistical measures such as Kolmogorov- Smirnov statistic, Wasserstein distance and quantile-based Mean Absolute Error.

The results show that both LLMs were able to generate structured cellular network traffic datasets, but their ability to follow the requested output structure differed. Constraint-Based and Few-Shot prompting generally produced datasets that were closer to the real-world reference dataset than Basic and Chain- of-Thought prompting. Constraint-Based prompting performed best for GPT-4.1-mini, while Few-Shot prompting performed best for Claude Sonnet 5. GPT-4.1-mini generally showed more consistent structural quality, while Claude Sonnet 5 also produced datasets with close similarity to the reference dataset. This shows that both the choice of LLM and prompting strategy influence the quality of the generated data and its similarity to the reference dataset.

Red mud (RM), a highly alkaline byproduct of alumina production, poses significant environmental risks due to its elevated pH and potentially toxic metal (loid)s. This study evaluated sustainable stabilization methods using multi-waste amendments (coal mining soil (CS), distiller's grains (DG), acid-modified biochar (AB)) supplemented with natural garden soil (GS) to immobilize metal (loid)s and mitigate RM's environmental impacts. Systematic incubation experiments comparing single-, two combined-, three combined-, and four combined-amendment systems demonstrated that the four combined-amendment system (RM + 1%CS + 1%DG + 1%AB + 1%GS) achieved the most effective metal (loid) stabilization. It reduced water-extractable metal (loid)s in RM by 99.0% (Pb), 86.2% (Cr), 85.2% (Cd), 68.8% (Sb), 60.9% (As), 56.6% (Zn), 32.7% (Ni), and 21.4% (Al), while maintaining low leachability under the Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP). However, this treatment mobilized certain cationic elements (Cu, Fe, Mg, and Mn). Despite this mobilization, the concentrations of these elements remained within Chinese groundwater Class II standards (GB/T14848-2017). The four combined-amendment system exhibited significant synergistic effects: 205% increase in organic matter content, 39% reduction in pH, 12% decrease in electrical conductivity, and reduced phytotoxicity (germination index >90%). Economically, it reduced costs by 8.1–68.5% relative to conventional treatments (lime stabilization and phosphate treatment), with a net present value advantage of $3.85 million over 10 years for a 100,000-ton annual capacity facility. This strategy, integrating multi-waste amendments and natural soil, embodies circular economy principles, transforming waste streams into valuable remediation resources and addressing RM management challenges, though its trade-offs warrant consideration for site-specific applications. © 2026 The Authors

The development of gambling-related harm and gambling disorder involves several genetic and environmental factors. However, how these factors interact to influence the development and whether such interactions confer to diathesis-stress or differential susceptibility models remains largely unexplored. To address this gap, data from the Survey of Adolescent Life in Västmanland (SALVe cohort) were utilized, Participants provided a saliva sample for genotyping, completed early life adversity (ELA) and Parents as Social Construct (PASCQ) surveys at age 17, and the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) at age 23. A total of 391 participants (54% females) with complete data were included for analysis. Negative binomial models were utilized to examine the interaction between candidate genes (COMT, BDNF, and DRD2), ELA, and parental support in PGSI scores. Interactions between COMT and BDNF, ELA, and parental support were found but not for DRD2, (β = −0.01 and −0.009, 95% CI [−0.02, −0.006 and −0.01, −0.005], p = 2.2 × 10–5 and 1.2 × 10–5 respectively). The interactions remained significant after accounting for sex interactions, p = 0.005. Notably, evidence for a differential susceptibility framework was found in gambling-related harm scores. Participants with the major allele for both COMT and BDNF displayed plasticity by exhibiting higher PGSI scores when exposed to weak parental support but lower PGSI scores in strong parental support despite higher ELA scores. Positive parental support acted as a protective factor against the genetic sensitivity of gambling-related harm. Studies pursuing the interplay between genetic and environmental factors would benefit from including positive environments that may mitigate the risk associated with adverse environments. 

As artificial intelligence (AI) is introduced in knowledge work, boundaries of professional agency change. Human resources management professionals in Sweden have historically been struggling with claiming relevance in organizations. Through a qualitative analysis of articles from Swedish HR magazines, this study explores how the relevant HR professional is discursively constructed in relation to the increasing use of AI, and the ramifications of these constructions for the agency of HR professionals.The study shows that the HR professional is left to reconcile conflicting portrayals of herself—as both more and less biased than AI—and contradictory expectations to both fearlessly embrace and question AI.The relevant HR professional is thus one who successfully navigates these tensions, operating within the boundaries of agency shaped by these opposing constructions. This research contributes to the algorithmic HRM literature and the literature on AI and agency. 

Zero-day network attacks pose a significant threat because their unknown signatures evade traditional detection mechanisms. This research develops an AI-enhanced intrusion detection system that aims to detect such attacks while providing interpretable outputs for security analysts. Four machine-learning models are evaluated under strict zero-day conditions using two benchmark datasets. SHAP and LIME are applied to produce instance-level explanations, and a formal stability assessment is conducted to determine their reliability. Experimental results show that the hybrid model combining anomaly-based detection with deep learning achieves the highest zero-day Recall, with statistically significant advantages over individual models in detecting previously unseen attacks, while the standalone LSTM achieves the strongest overall balance between Precision and Recall. The generated explanations consistently reveal security-relevant features, and stability analysis confirms their robustness across conditions. The study demonstrates that integrating deep learning with stable explainable AI offers a practical and trustworthy solution for zero-day intrusion detection, contributing validated evidence to an area where explanation reliability is rarely examined. © 2026 by the authors.

Saffron is a bulbous herb with edible flowers and is considered a high-value crop. However, cultivating saffron at northern latitudes presents challenges, primarily due to adverse weather conditions during its productive phase. Therefore, this study tested whether microclimate modifications induced by a single-axis tracking agrivoltaic (AV) system could enhance saffron production. The experiment was carried out near Va & uml;ster & aring;s, in central Sweden. A field trial was set up to cultivate saffron both under open-field conditions and beneath the photovoltaic (PV) modules of a single-axis tracking system, utilizing areas that are typically unused for cultivation. Intercropping saffron within AV systems improved land-use efficiency by reducing land loss associated with PV panel structures from 10% to 3%, thereby creating approximately 700 m2 of additional cultivable area per hectare for saffron production as a secondary crop without affecting the primary crop. Beneath the AV system, a maximum density of 24.3 flowers/m2 was observed, compared with a maximum of 0.5 flowers/m2 in the open field. In total, 226 flowers were counted beneath the AV system, yielding 1.09 g of dry stigma, whereas only three flowers were observed in the open-field, corresponding to 0.02 g of dry stigma. Based on these plot-scale measurements and effective saffron cultivation within the AV system (700 m2 per hectare), the potential dry stigma yield was estimated at up to 203.4 g/ha under the single-axis tracking AV system, compared with 90.1 g/ha in open-field conditions. This represents a 2.26-fold increase in saffron yield while maintaining primary crop production within the AV system. Overall, the results demonstrate that AV systems can positively influence saffron productivity at northern latitudes. However, further research is required to assess the long-term productivity, as saffron was cultivated for only 1 year in this study, despite its potential productive lifespan of 5 to 10 years.

BackgroundTelephone triage at emergency medical dispatch centers (EMDCs) is often challenging for registered nurses (RNs), and some calls may be difficult to handle. To enable education and interventions for call-taking RNs, lessons can be learned by studying authentic calls.AimThe aim of this study was to describe the strategies used by RNs in difficult calls to EMDCs.MethodsCall data from 2022 to 2023 were extracted for 14 RNs at three EMDCs in Sweden. Difficult calls were identified based on prior research and operationalized primarily using keyword searches in the free text call notes. During the study period, the 14 RNs handled 27,805 calls. Of these calls, 4888 (17.6%) were identified as potentially difficult and RNs needed to apply different strategies to handle them. A purposive selection of 123 calls was extracted, anonymized, and a deductive content analysis was performed.ResultsThe present RNs used eight strategies to handle difficult calls. The most used strategies among the 123 calls were "pick up signs to understand the cause of the caller's problem" (used in 76% of calls) and "stay calm and focused" (55%). It was common that RNs applied several strategies during one call, especially if the call was about psychiatric illnesses, including expressions of suicidal intent and calls with vague descriptions of symptoms. Single strategies were used in 20% of calls, combinations of two strategies were used in 50% of calls, while three or more strategies were used in 29% of calls.ConclusionsRNs typically used combinations of several strategies in handling difficult calls. It is, however, unknown if these strategies were the most appropriate and how they were experienced by callers.Implications for Nursing ManagementRNs need continuous professional development, support from nurse managers and their organization, and further improvements in technical aids to support their handling of difficult calls.

This study explores how preschool educators can develop competence in attending to individual children's learning through participation in an action research (AR) project. Attending to children's learning processes is central in preschool education, grounded in the need to plan teaching to ensure high-quality education for all children. However, research indicates that many preschool educators experience tension between educational and care missions, leading to ambivalence and uncertainty, which may challenge their ability to plan and implement teaching. Therefore, this study investigates whether AR can strengthen educators' pedagogical efforts to attend to individual learning processes. The AR project involved two preschool teams, who identified areas for pedagogical development within their own practice. The analysis explored how participation in AR was associated with changes in educators knowledge, confidence, and professional practice. Findings show that AR promoted shifts in educators' understanding, strengthened their confidence, and supported developments in practice that contribute to improved conditions for children's learning. Consequently, results indicate that AR can serve as a powerful tool for pedagogical improvement as well as for enhancing educators' belief in their capacity to make meaningful contributions to children's learning.

Despite efforts to increase gender diversity in leadership, women remain undervalued, mainly due to gender stereotypes portraying females as less competent and of lower status. This study employs a novel mixed-gender dyad collaborative task with electroencephalography (EEG) and dipole source localization to investigate the neural mechanisms underpinning gender-biased rejection decisions in a real-time social context. In half of the trials, the male participants were designated as decision-makers, who evaluated their female partners' suggestions and provided the final team answer. EEG data collected from the male low-biased (LB) and high-biased (HB) groups, classified according to the Implicit Association Test (IAT), were analyzed during the decision periods which resulted in the rejection of female answers. The HB group rejected their female partners' choices at 57% in trials with conflict, which was similar in the LB group (55%). However, many rejections by the HB group resulted in wrong decisions (54%) which was significantly lower in the LB group (34%). Although criterion-based bias index from the signal detection theory could not explain this difference, a novel biased-rejection index (BRI), which measured the costly rejection behavior, could significantly separate the two male groups. Dipole source localization based on EEG during the entire decision period revealed significantly lower middle frontal gyrus (MFG), but higher inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) activation in the HB group compared to the LB group. Temporal dynamics analysis (resolution: 0.34 s) further showed (but not at a statistically-significant level) less activation in MFG for the HB group during the early stage, and a similar trend in SFG during the middle stage of cognitive processing. On the other hand, the moment magnitudes of IFG dipoles during the entire decision period were significantly correlated with the IAT D-scores, i.e. less IFG activation with lower implicit bias. Given the limitations of the study (lack of EEG from female decision-makers and 10-20 system montage), these findings suggest altered lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) activations as part of the neural correlates of gender-biased undervaluation of female contributions during a collaborative task.

Aim: The aim of this study is to map the current design requirements and practices that influence steel safety door design and to develop recommendations for improving circularity in future steel door systems.

Research questions: RQ1: What current design requirements and practices influence steel door design, and how do they support or limit circularity?

RQ2: How can circular strategies be translated into design recommendations for future steel safety doors, including end-of-life considerations, given the identified requirements and constraints?

Methods: This study is based on qualitative research using an abductive approach. Empirical data was collected through meetings, a production walkthrough, semi-structured interviews with actors connected to the steel door value chain, and benchmarking of circularity practices in the steel door sector. The analysis followed a Gioia-inspired methodology to identify first-order concepts, second-order themes and aggregate dimensions. The empirical findings were analyzed in relation to circular economy, the 10R hierarchy, Design for X, modularity, traceability and product information.

Conclusion: For the first research question, the study identified that steel safety door design is strongly influenced by certification, fire safety requirements, durability demands, production practices, material selection and formal product compliance. These requirements support circularity through long service life, robustness, maintenance and selected component replacement, but they also limit higher-value circular strategies such as reuse, refurbishment and remanufacturing when certified performance cannot be verified. For the second research question, the study presents design recommendations focused on product information, traceability, maintenance support, replaceable wear components, controlled disassembly and clearer boundaries between safety-critical and replaceable components. The study concludes that circularity in certified steel safety doors should be developed step by step, starting with improved documentation and traceability before more advanced circular strategies such as reuse, refurbishment and remanufacturing are implemented.

This work is at a bachelor´s level in the field of information design with specification in spatial design. The purpose of the work is to investigate how lighting design and wayfinding can be integrated through special design to increase orientability and reduce perceived insecurity in a pedestrian area at Stora Gatan 14 in Västerås. 

The work focuses on analysing the location based in the users’ experience based on method results and previous research in wayfinding, lighting design and special design. These elements thus form the basis for the developed design proposal. 

A digital three-dimensional design proposal has been developed in order to visualize how light, landmarks and special elements can be used to increase orientability and reduce perceived insecurity in the location (a pedestrian area at Stora Gatan 14 in Västerås). 

Den här studien handlar om hur lärare i årskurs 4–6 arbetar med att utveckla elevers muntliga förmåga i engelska och vilka möjligheter och utmaningar de ser i det arbetet. Studien bygger på kvalitativa intervjuer med fem lärare från tre olika skolor samt sex elever från en av skolorna. Materialet spelades in, transkriberades och analyserades tematiskt. Resultatet visar att lärarna ofta arbetar på ett kommunikativt och elevaktivt sätt, där muntliga aktiviteter som pararbete, gruppdiskussioner och rollspel är vanliga inslag. Syftet är att ge eleverna fler tillfällen att faktiskt använda engelska i samtal. Samtidigt används engelska främst i planerade moment, medan svenska tar större plats i mer spontana situationer i klassrummet. Lärarna lyfter särskilt små grupper, tydliga uppgifter och ett tryggt klassrumsklimat som viktiga faktorer för att få elever att våga prata engelska. Samtidigt finns utmaningar, framför allt att få alla elever att delta, tidsbrist och elevers osäkerhet och rädsla för att göra fel. Sammantaget visar studien att muntlig kommunikation påverkas av både undervisningens upplägg och det sociala klimatet i klassrummet. 

Sugar dating is a growing social problem that is difficult to identify because the phenomenonhides behind digital platforms. This study aims to examine professionals’ perceptions of thephenomenon of sugar dating within practical social work among professionals working tocombat prostitution and human trafficking. The study was conducted using a qualitativemethod where a purposive selection was made to find relevant participants for the study.Professionals were interviewed with experience working with women who are in sugardating. Relevant theories are used as analytical tools to analyze the results. These theories areGoffman’s stigma theory and Herman’s Theoretical concept of captivity. A thematic analysismethod was used to carry out the analysis work, where four central themes were presented. Based on the collected material, the study’s results were presented, showing thatprofessionals perceive that the underlying reasons why women end up in sugar dating areprevious victimization and financial vulnerability. The professionals further perceive thatsugar dating can lead to extensive consequences, the women are in great need of support andhelp from professionals, and sugar dating can be equated with prostitution. The study’sconclusion is that sugar dating is a complex social problem and a hidden vulnerability thatmany women involuntarily find themselves in, and there is a need for further research anddevelopment work in the area

This study examines multimodality in early literacy instruction, focusing on the role of drawing in the Swedish preschool class (ages 5–6). Drawing is conceptualized as a communicative resource within classroom practice, explored through interviews with teachers, to understand how drawing is enacted and valued in this setting. While drawing is deeply integrated in preschool (Änggård, 2005), its position in early primary education remains less defined. Addressing a limited research field and current policy reforms shaping literacy instruction in Sweden, the study identifies three dimensions of drawing: (1) the pedagogical width, that is, drawing’s pervasive presence across instructional practice; (2) the bridge-building function; and (3) the contradictory positioning as both intrinsically valuable and interlinked with other modes, primarily alphabetic writing.

Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) and associated with them Platooning Systems are considered key elements of future Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication allows vehicles in a platoon to maintain close distance gaps, which improves traffic efficiency, reduces fuel consumption and improves road safety. At the same time, platooning relies heavily on reliable and low-latency wireless communication, which is vulnerable to cyberattacks. Communication delays, interference, or targeted attacks can negatively impact string stability, and therefore safety of platoons. This thesis focuses on a specific type of attack: the delay attack. It analyzes its impact on CAVs braking, string stability of CAVs and different control models used for platooning. The experiment in this research was conducted using simulation frameworks. A series of experiments were conducted for different communication delay values, inter-vehicle distances, vehicle speeds, deceleration levels, and the number of vehicles in the platoon. Robustness of different vehicle control models in the platoon under delay-attack conditions was analyzed. Results show that communication delay can significantly affect platoon stability and collision occurrence, with the severity of its impact depending on the injected delay, attack timing, platoon size, and controller configuration. These findings demonstrate the importance of considering communication delays when evaluating safety, fault tolerance and robustness of automated vehicle platoons.

Transformer feed-forward (MLP) blocks perform nonlinear transformations, but their internal structure is often difficult to interpret using current methods. This paper presents anexact soft-gate decomposition that extracts the effective weight matrix for each MLP blockat varying inputs. This approach generalises exact piecewise-affine decomposition fromReLU networks to Gaussian Error Linear Unit (GELU) and Sigmoid Linear Unit (SiLU)activations, covering both standard and gated MLP architectures. Verification across fivemodels, including BERT-base, mBART-50, and GPT-2 Small for language tasks, ViT-basefor vision tasks, and the gated SiLU architecture TinyLlama-1.1B, confirms the accuracyof this method at floating-point arithmetic precision. The application of singular value decomposition to the effective weight matrix yields six structural metrics that characteriseeach block based on the dimensionality, intensity, and spectral concentration of its transformation. When applied to one model from each of three architectural configurations,BERT-base, mBART-50, and GPT-2 Small, alongside ablation as causal ground truth, thisanalysis indicates that MLP computation is organised differently across the models studied.Specifically, BERT-base’s blocks vary by transformation dimensionality, mBART-50’s blocksby transformation intensity, and GPT-2 Small’s blocks by intensity with negative ablationvalues in the later layers. These structural differences, revealed only through the exact effective weight matrix, explain why scalar importance measures often fail to generalise acrossthe models studied.

 Background: Palliative care at the end of life aims to alleviate suffering, promote quality of life and support relatives. Care should be characterized by symptom relief, communication and person-centered care. Previous research shows that older patients and their relatives value continuity, clear information and involvement in care. Insufficient resources and communication are perceived to reduce the quality of care. Aim: The aim was to investigate nurses experiences of providing palliative care for older adults at the end of life. Method: A general literature review was conducted. 13 scientific articles were included, of which eleven were qualitative and two quantitative. The articles were quality-reviewed and analyzed based on similarities and differences in purpose, method and results. Results: Three main themes were identified: “meeting relatives’ wishes”, “need for skills development” and “the importance of communication”. Nurses experienced that the patients needs and wishes sometimes conflicted with relatives expectations och other circumstances in care. Furthermore, a need for skills development among nurses emerged, and communication was described as a central prerequisite for providing person-centered palliative care. Conclusion: Good palliative care is based on nurses being given good conditions in their work. This means working with clear communication, sufficient skills and with care where the elderly patient’s wishes are at the center of palliative care in the final stages of life.

Background: Nurses work environment at the emergency room (ER) is characterized by high work-related stress which, according to the nurses, affects how they interact with patients. Nurses have experience that the different models and guides, used in the ER, objectifies the patient, as the medical diagnosis are prioritized. Nurses understand the importance of positive encounters with patients but express obstacles in implementing this work manner. Aim: The aim was to create an overview of patients experiences with nurses’ encounters at the ER. Method: A systematic literature review consisting of eleven articles, of which seven had a qualitative approach, two a quantitative approach and two a mixed-method approach. Result: In the result, four themes were identified; The importance of communication, When communication is lacking, The importance of being acknowledged, and When acknowledgement is missing. Conclusion: Patients appreciated when the initial encounter with nurses was characterized by respect and empathy. Communication problems and challenges existed where patient vulnerability was in focus. Poor communication led to feelings of powerlessness and fear amongst patients. A trusting relationship could be created though clarity, adaptability, and continuity in communication from nurse to patient.

Citizen dialogues strive for inclusivity but often exclude marginalized groups. New participatory and creativity-based approaches are needed to be evaluated and become a part of the skillset repertoire for public officials to foster an inclusive dialogue. This paper reflects on photo-based conversations as a dialogic method for societal development and inclusion. The results show that the method provides possibilities to creatively involve participants, strengthen relationships and open a space for diverse narratives between different actors in society. However, the challenges of internal exclusion, lack of strategies for impact, and the need to build competence in handling conflicting stories, without depoliticizing discussions, must be addressed. This research contributes to design methods as drivers of public sector innovation by discussing how creative, participatory approaches can support inclusive dialogue in society. The results presented is part of a four-year research project aiming to enhance coordination between diverse actors and organizations in everyday landscapes.

The aim of this study is to analyze how digitalisation and system integration in an automated warehouse affect outbound transport planning and capacity utilization. An exploratory case study has been conducted and is based on interviews, observations and literature studies.

The results show that despite a high degree of automation in warehouse processes, transport planning is still largely based on manual working methods, where the use of Excel constitutes a central part of the planning process. Furthermore, experience-based decision-making dominates over data-based decisions.

A further central challenge is the lack of system integration between heterogeneous IT systems and platforms, such as ERP, WMS and SAP, which in some cases leads to limited real-time information, fragmented data and inefficient data transfers. These challenges negatively affect capacity utilisation and can be exploited in over- or underfilling of trucks, which in turn can lead to pallets that are to be delivered to customers being left behind. The study also shows that small deviations between planned and actual volumes can have major consequences and reduce both the reliability and robustness of the planning process.

The study also identifies several improvement opportunities. Increased digitalisation, improved system integration and developed data visualization can contribute to a more data-driven, robust and efficient transport planning process. The results also indicate that improved traceability and decision support can reduce manual efforts and improve resource utilization.

As cyber threats evolve, unconventional attack vectors such as side-channel techniques arebecoming increasingly relevant in modern security research. This bachelor thesis investigateswhether electromagnetic and thermal emissions from modern Ethernet cables can be used todetect the volume of network traffic from a distance. To address this research question,controlled experiments were conducted using instruments like RTL-SDR, Keysight spectrumanalyzer, and FLIR thermal cameras. Measurements of electromagnetic and thermal emissionswere collected before, during, and after network traffic transmission in a controlledenvironment. Multiple tests were conducted with different network traffic load. For theenvironment, we used different techniques to minimise the impact on the Ethernet cables beingtested by minimising airflow and outer external factors. The results demonstrate a measurablecorrelation between increases in electromagnetic emissions and thermal emissions from theEthernet cable. As this bachelor thesis is, to the best of our knowledge, the first study on thisproblem, more rigorous tests are needed to draw an exact conclusion to the problemformulation. To conclude, state of the practice equipment was used to investigate the possibilityand to what extent the volume of Ethernet traffic can be picked up from a distance. But furtherwork is required to determine whether a quantifiable relationship exist. These findings highlighta potential side-channel vulnerability in Ethernet based communication systems. 

 ABSTRACT 

Background: Municipal home care is a central part of social work with older adults and places high demands on managers. Previous research has often examined governance, organizational conditions, and managers’ experiences separately, leaving limited knowledge of leadership as a coherent practice. Aim: The aim was to explore how managers in Swedish municipal home care perceive their leadership role in relation to organizational conditions. Method: A qualitative design was used, based on semi-structured interviews with five managers in municipal home care. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Results: The findings indicate that leadership is an integrated practice in which relational leadership, organizational coordination, and professional judgement are closely interconnected. Participants described translating organizational demands into everyday practice while supporting staff and creating conditions for participation, competence, and responsibility. Financial constraints, administrative demands, and organizational ambiguity challenged this work. Professional experience, relational competence, and discretionary judgement were key resources for managing these conditions. Conclusions: Managers understand leadership as a coherent practice integrating organizational, relational, and professional dimensions. Their ability to act is shaped by organizational conditions beyond their direct control. The findings highlight the importance of leadership for enabling high-quality social work and care in municipal home care. 

Keywords: Home care Managers, leadership, municipal home care, social work, organizational conditions, qualitative research.

BiHom-groups are a nonassociative generalization of groups with the associativity law replaced by a twisted associativity law: α(a)(bc)=(ab)β(c), where α and β are two multiplicative mappings. The objective of this paper is to introduce and study BiHom-groups. We define the concept and provide examples of BiHom-groups. Additionally, we establish fundamental properties such as normal BiHom-subgroups, BiHom-quotient groups, and homomorphisms of BiHom-groups, and present the first, second, and third isomorphism theorems for BiHom-groups.

Architectural decisions shape system quality, yet the design space is too large to explore exhaustively, so architects often fall back on familiar patterns and weigh few alternatives. Large language models can propose designs but lack organizational context, and the knowledge that would supply it lies scattered across decision records, documentation, and code.

This thesis investigates how retrieval-augmented large language models can support the generation and iterative refinement of context-aware architectural alternatives.

We propose a workflow that structures a problem description into a decision frame, composes a retrieval query from it, and retrieves from wiki pages, architecture decision records (ADRs), and a code graph. Two alternatives are generated, each with its reasoning, trade-offs, risks, and sources. The architect refines them by excluding one with a stated reason or by providing guidance, and the accepted alternative is published as an ADR and ingested back into the knowledge base. The prototype was evaluated over five scenarios using automated quantitative metrics and qualitatively with a software architect.

Retrieval reached a mean context precision of 0.921, and context recall was perfect in four of the five scenarios. Faithfulness differed between the two alternatives in every scenario, indicating that generation exposed distinct design directions rather than converging on one.

In conclusion, our work presents an approach for generating and iteratively refining architectural alternatives that are grounded in organizational knowledge and captured as reusable decision records.

As fifth-generation (5G) networks grow in complexity and increasingly incorporate AI-driven autonomous management, the ability to explain automated decisions has become critical for operator trust, regulatory compliance, and network governance. Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) methods, and in particular SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations), provide principled feature attribution scores for individual predictive models. However, in multi-domain 5G architectures where distinct machine-learning models predict Quality of Service (QoS) KPIs across the Radio Access Network (RAN), Core, and Transport domains, explanations are inherently model-specific, operate over partially heterogeneous feature subsets, and are of unequal reliability. While prior work has proposed aggregation methods for feature-based explanations, no existing framework simultaneously addresses quality-informed weighting, formal aggregation across heterogeneous feature spaces, and alignment with operator-facing intents in a multi-domain 5G setting.

This thesis proposes a reliability-aware framework for aggregating SHAP feature attributions across heterogeneous 5G domain models. Central to the framework is the Explanation Aggregation Metric (EAM), which scores each model’s explanation quality along three dimensions: Fidelity, Stability, and Consistency. These scores drive an EAM-weighted convex aggregation along the cross-KPI axis, which combines the different-KPI models of a single domain into a domain-level attribution profile. Along the complementary cross-domain axis, the per-domain models of a single KPI are instead composed through that KPI’s physical QoS operator (additive for latency, minimum for throughput, and product for availability) rather than by reliability weighting, since the domains are related by a known composition law; this composition layer produces intent-aligned end-to-end explanations.

Evaluated on gradient-boosted tree models trained across three network domains and three KPIs, EAM weighting attenuates contributions from less reliable models in proportion to their measured explanation quality, without discarding them entirely, and top-ranked features remain consistent across both weighting schemes, confirming that dominant signals are robust to the choice of aggregation. Cross-model-family agreement on feature rankings within each domain, together with cross-domain agreement on the physical relevance of load-related features, provides empirical evidence that the framework recovers genuine network structure. The thesis identifies limitations of the current EAM formulation, most notably the absence of range-normalisation in the Stability score and the sampling-based nature of KernelSHAP attributions for composite operators, and outlines probable future works.

Cloud cost optimization is an important challenge for large-scale data platforms, where workloads are often over-provisioned to avoid performance problems. While existing FinOps tools provide visibility into cloud spending, they do not always provide clear and safe recommendations on how cluster resources should be changed.

This thesis presents a data-driven framework for rightsizing Databricks clusters using historical workload telemetry, cluster configuration data, and pricing information. The framework identifies underutilized workloads and evaluates several possible configuration changes, including reducing the number of workers, downsizing worker instances, downsizing driver instances, and combinations of these actions. Statistical Power-Law models and machine-learning models based on XGBoost, LightGBM, and Quantile Regression are used to estimate how CPU and memory utilization may change after rightsizing. Runtime changes are also considered when estimating the financial benefit of each configuration.

The models are evaluated using held-out production transitions together with controlled benchmark experiments. The results show that gradient-boosted models provide the strongest prediction accuracy on production workloads, while the Power-Law model transfers more reliably to controlled workloads that differ from the production data. Quantile regression provides a useful way to reduce false-safe recommendations by making utilization predictions more conservative. The experiments also show that simple worker-related changes are more predictable than compound actions involving driver downsizing.The final safety-constrained policy targets a relatively small set of underutilized, high-cost workloads. Within the underutilized workloads considered for rightsizing, removing high-risk candidate actions still preserves around 80% of the original projected savings. Across the full workload fleet, this corresponds to an estimated monthly cost reduction of approximately 12%. Overall, the work demonstrates how predictive resource modelling can be combined with safety constraints, runtime awareness, and cloud pricing to provide practical and explainable rightsizing recommendations for enterprise FinOps.

Large organizations today have an extensive amount of unstructured data that needs to be processed, such as PDF documents containing free text, tables, and values expressed in different formats or languages. At Ericsson, information from Request for Quotation documents is currently extracted manually, which is time-consuming, costly and prone to error. This thesis investigates how existing AI-based text management tools can be combined to automate this process, and whether Microsoft Fabric can fulfill the company’s needs for extracting and normalizing information from unstructured Request for Quotation documents.  The work focuses on vehicle leasing Request for Quotation PDF files and presents the development of a prototype workflow in Microsoft Fabric. The prototype ingests PDF files from SharePoint, processes them through a Python notebook using Fabric AI functions, extracts selected vehicle and pricing values, normalizes the result into standardized English terms, and exports the structured output into an Excel file. To include a human-in-the-loop approach, a Needs Review column is included for values that require manual validation.  The results show that Microsoft Fabric can be used to orchestrate a document processing workflow and that the prototype performs well on text-based Request for Quotation documents with varying formats and languages. However, there are limitations, especially for image-based documents where the extraction produced unreliable results. The thesis contributes a practical prototype for automated Request for Quotation information extraction in an enterprise context.

Embedded systems executing soft real-time workloads are increasingly expected to maintain predictable timing behaviour under varying computational load. When a task repeatedly exceeds its deadline on a resource constrained local platform, system quality degrades and recovery is not guaranteed. Edge computing, which places additional processing resources close to the device, offers a potential remedy by allowing tasks to be offloaded to a faster remote server. However, the communication cost of offloading means that migration is only beneficial under certain conditions and an uninformed decision can worsen timing rather than improve it.This thesis investigates whether a lightweight runtime mechanism can reliably detect deadline violations and make correct, network-aware offloading decisions for soft real-time tasks.  Two components are designed and implemented, Task Runtime Execution Monitor (TREM), monitoring agent that detects per-job deadline violations at runtime and Network-aware Offloading Decision Engine (NODE), decision engine that estimates whether executing a violating task on the edge server would allow it to meet its deadline given the current network conditions.The mechanism is evaluated through four experiments that vary the presence of the decision engine, the edge speed factor and the network quality. The results show that TREM correctly identifies persistent violation states, that NODE approves offloading only when it is genuinely beneficial and that the mechanism eliminates deadline violations once triggered, a task that misses every one of 37 consecutive deadlines without the mechanism misses only 6 before NODE offloads it and none of the following 35 job instances violate their deadline. The work demonstrates that dynamic, network-aware offloading is a viable strategy for recovering soft real-time tasks from persistent deadline violation states on resource-constrained platforms.

Long, multimodal technical documents are becoming more difficult to search reliably because evidence can be scattered across sections, figures, and tables. When conventional Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) breaks documents into smaller chunks, the document structure is heavily flattened and structural relationships are lost. As a result, a typical Large Language Model (LLM) tends to hallucinate more during answer generation when it comes to processing large, complex documents. This thesis addresses this problem and proposes a Stateful Agentic Framework for Retrieval-Augmented Generation (SAF-RAG) to preserve structural metadata and recover missing evidence through bounded agentic control. A five-condition ablation ladder was evaluated on two representative datasets, LongDocURL and Visdom, under text-only and multimodal ingestion. It progressively introduced structural expansion, reranking, and a planner-navigator-reviewer agentic loop on top of state-of-the-art retrieval techniques. The main goal of this thesis was to improve answer groundedness and faithfulness while striking the right balance between reliability and cost. Each of five conditions was therefore evaluated for retrieval quality, lexical answer overlap, judge-based quality, and processing cost. Structural reranking consistently produced the biggest gains in retrieval quality. Across both datasets and ingestion variants, Normalized Discounted Cumulative Gain (nDCG) gains ranged between 11.3% and 44.4%, while Token F1 improved by 6.4% to 35.6%. Bounded agentic review then increased the combined LLM-judge score by 11.8% to 18.9% over structural reranking, although multimodal LongDocURL faithfulness declined by 13.6%. The results support structural reranking as the most stable choice for quality and cost and reserve agency review for cases where further judged answers justify mixed faithfulness and added computation.

Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly used to summarize business data such as customer reviews. Although these models produce fluent outputs, they can generate statements that are not fully supported by the input data, a problem referred to as hallucination. In business analytics, where summaries may directly influence operational decisions, this creates a significant reliability risk. This thesis investigates how different grounding strategies affect the quality of LLM-generated restaurant review summaries. Grounding constrains generation to rely on explicitly provided external data rather than on knowledge learned during training. The research question is: How do different grounding strategies affect the quality and reliability of LLM-generated review summaries? Four strategies are evaluated in a single-factor controlled experiment: Plain Prompting, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), Aggregated-Statistics Grounding, and Template-Constrained Generation. Each is applied to eleven evaluation scenarios built from real restaurant review data and supplemented with synthetic cases covering text-rating conflicts, ambiguous opinions, and high information density. Generated summaries are assessed using atomic-fact verification, golden-insight coverage scoring, citation-quality metrics, and operational telemetry, with an LLM-as-a-Judge pipeline as the primary evaluator. The results reveal clear trade-offs. RAG is the most computationally efficient but underperforms in information coverage. Aggregated-Statistics Grounding and Template-Constrained Generation achieve the highest mean factual accuracy, but their advantage over the Plain Prompting long-context baseline is not statistically significant. Template-Constrained Generation shows the weakest attribution quality. No single strategy is superior across factual accuracy, coverage, attribution quality, and operational cost, so the findings provide practical guidance for selecting a strategy based on deployment requirements.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate three waterproofing systems (conventional polyethylene (PE) mats, Rockdrain, and XiiT-Foam) to determine the most sustainable maintenance solution for Stockholm’s hard rock metro tunnels. A comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) were conducted using a functional unit of 1 m² over a 60-year service life, combining field observations with industry data. An assumption-based harmonization approach was applied for XiiT-Foam due to limited cradle-to-grave data. The results showed both alternatives significantly outperformed conventional PE mats (GWP: 114.1 kg CO2-eq/m², LCC: 593.5 EUR/m²). Rockdrain yielded a verified improvement (GWP: 87.18 kg CO2-eq/m², LCC: 265.8 EUR/m²). While XiiT-Foam presented the lowest impacts (GWP: 1.74 kg CO2-eq/m², LCC: 159.5 EUR/m²), sensitivity analyses revealed high dependence on uncertain new-build variables like avoided-excavation credits. It was concluded that Rockdrain represents the most defensible, immediately viable sustainable upgrade for existing tunnels, whereas XiiT-Foam requires independent, maintenance-specific verification.

Aims and Objectives

To elucidate meanings of encountering ambulance staff when living in stigmatized neighbourhoods.

Methodological Design and Justification

The study was conducted using a phenomenological hermeneutical approach based on narrative interviews.

Ethical Issues and Approval

The study was approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority and conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Research Methods

A phenomenological hermeneutical analysis was conducted. Interviews were performed with 18 persons living in stigmatized neighbourhoods who had lived experiences of encountering ambulance staff, either as relatives or as patients.

Results

These encounters carry meanings of being dependent on how the staff act in situations marked by fear, involving fear for one's own or a relative's health, or fear of being judged based on ethnicity, culture, or place of residence.

Study Limitations

The participants shared similar demographic backgrounds, and recruitment through gatekeepers may have constrained the range of perspectives. As an interpretive method, the findings represent one possible understanding, and other interpretations may emerge from different backgrounds or theoretical lenses.

Conclusions

Encounters with ambulance staff carried meanings of fear of being judged and of dependence, while ambulance staff's interpersonal actions could either reinforce or alleviate these meanings.

Purpose

To illuminate the meanings of encountering patients in a suicidal process from the perspective of ambulance clinicians.MethodsNarrative interviews were conducted with eighteen ambulance clinicians in Sweden. Data were analyzed using a phenomenological hermeneutical approach inspired by the philosophy of Ricœur.

Results

The main theme, “Navigating a fragile capability,” reveals a profound tension within professional identity. Traditionally anchored in technical agency, this identity is challenged by a movement toward vulnerability and shared humanity. Capability in these encounters is defined not only by medical problem-solving but by the courage to remain present during existential crises. Entering the patient’s narrative imposes an extensive responsibility, where experiences of indecisiveness and powerlessness emerge as expressions of moral sensitivity rather than professional inadequacy.

Conclusions

Encountering suicidal patients reveals professional capability as a fragile construct dependent on reciprocity, requiring a shift from technical agency toward an ethical presence when medical protocols reach their limit. By validating being with as a clinically meaningful component of care, the encounter moves beyond procedural care toward a meaningful ethical aim. Practically, professional standards must expand beyond technical management to integrate relational competence and existential care as core elements of prehospital practice.

Wayshowing for the aging population is a thesis in information design with focus on spatial design. The aim with this thesis is to examine how older visitors navigation at the Mälarsjukhus are affected by the rebuilding and the existence of two primary entrances, this with an emphasis on wayfinding strategies and the spatial design. 

Furthermore the aim of the project is to create a design proposal that shows how the healthcare environment can be designed with accommodation for the older visitors needs and prerequisites. This proposal can be seen as an alternative solution to make the healthcare environment more available for the older part of the population. 

Through observation, notations of the movement, conversations, think-aloud protocol and a answering box it’s been shown that the navigation around the hospital works somewhat. However there are potential improvements to be made to reduce visitor struggle. 

A design proposal has been developed, grounded in theory and empirical data. Through a design adapted for wayfinding strategies, the proposal aims to create a space that guides hospital visitors to the correct entrance. 

This study is a bachelor thesis in the field of Information design with focus onvisualization and text design examines how tone of voice in text and imageryaffects young women’s attitudes toward information about stress. Throughenvironmental analysis, semi-structured interviews, sketching, and a qualitativeA/B test, a fact-based, abstract design is compared with an empathetic, warm,narrative version. The results show that a personal and empathetic tone of voice ispreferred by the target group of young women. It increases receptivity to thematerial and motivation to act regarding stress-related problems. The studyconcludes with a final design.

Keywords: tone of voice, rhetoric, stress, empowerment, health communication.

Police Patrol Officers (PPOs) increasingly encounter individuals experiencing severe mental ill health who may pose a risk to themselves or others. In such situations, PPOs may act either independently or in collaboration with healthcare professionals, navigating a complex interplay between legal duties, safety considerations, and ethical responsibilities. This qualitative study aiming to explore PPOs’ ethical competence in such situations employed focus group interviews (n = 5) with PPOs (n = 32) and applied a deductive qualitative content analysis based on Lechasseur et al.’s framework of ethical competence, comprising ethical sensitivity, ethical knowledge, ethical reflection, ethical decision-making, ethical action, and ethical behaviour. The findings suggest that PPOs demonstrate several dimensions of ethical competence yet describe challenges related to emotional detachment, managing uncertainty, and balancing caregiving and law-enforcement responsibilities. Ethical competence was mainly articulated in relation to professional duty, harm reduction, and efforts to balance safety, autonomy, and support. The findings indicate a need for continued ethics education, structured opportunities for reflection, and strengthened interprofessional collaboration to support ethically grounded practice in encounters involving individuals experiencing severe mental ill health.

The aim of this study is to analyze how digitalisation and system integration in an automated warehouse affect outbound transport planning and capacity utilization. An exploratory case study has been conducted and is based on interviews, observations and literature studies.

The results show that despite a high degree of automation in warehouse processes, transport planning is still largely based on manual working methods, where the use of Excel constitutes a central part of the planning process. Furthermore, experience-based decision-making dominates over data-based decisions.

A further central challenge is the lack of system integration between heterogeneous IT systems and platforms, such as ERP, WMS and SAP, which in some cases leads to limited real-time information, fragmented data and inefficient data transfers. These challenges negatively affect capacity utilisation and can be exploited in over- or underfilling of trucks, which in turn can lead to pallets that are to be delivered to customers being left behind. The study also shows that small deviations between planned and actual volumes can have major consequences and reduce both the reliability and robustness of the planning process.

The study also identifies several improvement opportunities. Increased digitalisation, improved system integration and developed data visualization can contribute to a more data-driven, robust and efficient transport planning process. The results also indicate that improved traceability and decision support can reduce manual efforts and improve resource utilization.

Elevers svårigheter med att skilja mellan area och omkrets kan ofta kopplas till en mekanisk användning av formler. Denna litteraturstudie analyserar vetenskapliga artiklar i syfte att belysa mellanstadieelevers missuppfattningar av begreppen area och omkrets samt lärares behov av ämneskunskaper. Genom en tematisk analys framkommer elevers återkommande förlitande på formler utan tillräcklig begreppslig förståelse, vilket kan leda till förväxling av begreppen eller antaganden om ett konstant förhållande mellan area och omkrets. Resultaten visar vidare förekomsten av liknande missuppfattningar hos lärare. Därutöver framkommer betydelsen av en balans mellan procedurkunskap och laborativa arbetssätt för utvecklingen av elevernas begreppsliga förståelse. Slutsatsen visar att undervisningen bör präglas av ett begreppsinriktat arbetssätt snarare än ett rent mekaniskt lärande, för att motverka att elevernas svårigheter befästs.

This bachelor thesis in Information Design, with a specialization in Spatial Design, investigates how spatial and visual elements such as color, form, imagery, and storytelling can support wayfinding inlibrary environments. The focus is on guiding children and young people from the main entrance to the children and youth section at Västerås City Library.

The project was conducted in collaboration with the library and involved site analyses, interviews,focus groups, and prototype testing. The final design proposal is based on a camping theme, integrating visual tools like color coding, pop-out effects and narrative structures to enhance orientation, engagement, and identity. Prototypes were crucial in the development phase, allowing for hands-on testing and iterative improvements based on user feedback.

The findings suggest that themed and user-centered design can increase accessibility, stimulate curiosity, and support a welcoming atmosphere for younger audiences. The thesis concludes with recommendations for future research, including evaluating the long-term impact of thematic spatial interventions in public institutions.

This study evaluated the extent to which hazardous or contaminating chemical substances in building materials recovered from renovation and demolition activities limit their reuse and recycling potential within a circular economy framework. Four material categories were examined: concrete, timber, steel and PVC based products, selected based on their significant presence in construction related waste streams and their established pathway for circular use. These material categories were examined on their chemical acceptability and technical suitability. A quantitative research methodology was adopted using secondary data from peer-reviewed scientific studies that reported measured contaminant concentration and material properties. The concentration reported for recovered concrete, timber and steel-related electric arc furnace dust were compared with the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency guideline values for sensitive land use and less sensitive land use, while restricted phthalates in PVC based products were compared with the applicable EU REACH Annex XVII limit. The result showed that contamination patterns differed considerably between material categories. Heavy metal concentrations in recovered concrete were generally below the comparative guideline values, whereas some concrete fractions, particularly those exposed to tar or bituminous materials, contained polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) above both guideline levels. Recovered timber showed substantial variation between average and maximum contaminant concentration with preservative treated and surface treated wood contributing to elevated levels of several hazardous substances. Steel maintained strong circular potential when recovered intact, but remelting through electric arc furnace (EAF) generates EAF dust containing heavy metals at concentrations exceeding both KM and MKM thresholds. Some recovered PVC products contained restricted legacy phthalates above the REACH limit. The material properties analysis further showed that chemical contamination did not always cause direct deterioration of technical performance, as some treated or chemically modified materials retained acceptable or improved selected properties. The study concluded that chemical contamination represented a conditional rather than an absolute barrier to circular use. Safe circularity required contamination assessment, knowledge of material history, effective sorting, targeted chemical testing and consideration of both chemical acceptability and technical performance when selecting reuse, recycling, treatment or disposal pathways.

This thesis investigates the potential of phytofiltration as a nature-based solution for removing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from Swedish municipal wastewater. A systematic literature review was combined with a capacity-limited dynamic mass balance model developed in MATLAB to evaluate PFAS removal mechanisms in constructed wetlands. The model incorporated a finite plant uptake capacity (Qmax) derived from the adsorption capacity concept used in phytoremediation studies, coupled with a first-order uptake rate within a continuously stirred tank reactor (CSTR) framework. Simulations were conducted over a 24-week growing season for three emergent aquatic plant species: Carex rostrata, Cyperus alternifolius, and Eriophorum angustifolium. The results demonstrate that long-chain PFAS are removed more effectively than short-chain PFAS, with removal efficiencies ranging from 61% to 95% for long-chain compounds and 12% to 27% for short-chain compounds. Cyperus alternifolius exhibited the highest long-chain PFAS removal (95%), while Carex rostrata showed highest short-chain PFAS removal (27%). Eriophorum angustifolium exhibited the lowest overall performance. The cumulative uptake analysis revealed that plant uptake remained below the estimated Qmax for Carex rostrata and Eriophorum angustifolium throughout the modelled growing season. A sensitivity analysis showed variation in Qmax had a comparatively limited influence on predicted removal, while the model was more sensitive to variation in the plant uptake rate constant kU. The findings suggest that phytofiltration can contribute to PFAS removal in municipal wastewater, particularly for long-chain compounds. However, it is unlikely to function effectively as a standalone treatment method due to low removal efficiencies for short-chain PFAS. Phytofiltration may be more suitable as a complementary technology within hybrid treatment systems. Future research should focus on field validation of uptake rate constants in Swedish CWs, investigation of additional plant species, and integration with other treatment technologies.  

Model transformation is a core mechanism in Model-Driven Engineering (MDE), but its use requires expertise in metamodels, transformation languages, execution engines, runtime configuration, and diagnostics. Although LLMs can generate and revise transformation artifacts, direct prompt-to-output generation does not by itself provide an executable MDE workflow grounded in metamodel conformance and transformation rules execution.

This paper proposes agentic model transformation: a service-mediated workflow in which an LLM agent generates candidate transformation specifications and coordinates MDE services for metamodel access, example retrieval, checking, execution, diagnostics, and repair. Model Context Protocol is used to expose these services to the agent. When execution succeeds, target artifacts are produced through the configured transformation infrastructure, serialized by the target modeling environment, and loadable against the registered target metamodel.

Early results from adopting the proposed framework for the UML-to-Java and SysMLv2-to-AAS cases show that constructing and repairing executable transformations is possible. The results also show that executable success and metamodel conformance are only first checks; structural completeness, mapping coverage, and semantic adequacy require additional MDE services. The framework, therefore, shifts LLM support for model transformation from one-off artifact generation towards service-supported transformation development, where specifications, diagnostics, and execution traces can be inspected, reused, and extended.

Background: Active involvement of residents, family members and staff in proactive end-of-life conversations remains uncommon in residential care facilities for older people, although these are common settings for the end-of-life. This study derives from a Participatory Action Research project with an intervention aimed at developing Death Literacy among residential care staff, to promote implementation of proactive end-of-life conversations. Objectives: This article has a two-fold aim: (1) to investigate effects and forms of impact derived from this project intending to improve Death Literacy, and (2) to discuss challenges in this investigation and contribute to critical debate and further inform the use and development of the Death Literacy concept and related index (DLI). Methods: We combined quantitative analysis of pre-post intervention DLI survey data from staff and qualitative framework analysis of official documents along with transcribed interviews and workshop data from various staff groups. The framework was based on a matrix with Death Literacy features on one axis and forms of impact on the other. Results: The DLI showed no positive change over time. Effect evaluation was challenged by high baseline mean scores and ceiling effects on the DLI, and issues associated with the use of a participatory research approach, e.g. baseline differences between groups related to recruitment strategies. However, qualitative findings indicated all three forms of impact described in Kleijberg et al.’s model: impact on individual and group development, action-oriented impact, and strategy-oriented impact. These were seen to be related to all Death Literacy features, most notably experiential learning and social action. Conclusion: Features of Death Literacy were relevant in understanding impact, although the usefulness of the DLI to measure change over time was limited in this study. A matrix framework provided nuanced insight beyond either model alone. Congruence of different methodological assumptions should be carefully considered when designing investigations of effect and impact of complex interventions with limited researcher control.

Background Timely and equitable access to cancer treatment are important markers of the quality and accessibility of cancer care, yet socially disadvantaged people experience a range of barriers to receiving cancer treatment, significantly impacting cancer outcomes, including survival and quality of life. However, interventions designed to improve treatment access for these populations have not been comprehensively mapped. This scoping review aimed to identify and summarize interventions, services, and models of care intended to improve access to cancer treatment among socially disadvantaged groups. Methods We conducted a scoping review to identify and summarize interventions designed to improve access to cancer treatment for people experiencing varying forms of social disadvantage. MEDLINE, EMBASE, and CINAHL were searched for relevant studies published before 2025. Data on study characteristics, intervention types, targeted barriers, and outcomes related to treatment access were extracted and synthesized descriptively. A formal risk-of-bias assessment was not conducted, consistent with scoping review methodology. Findings A total of 57 studies met the inclusion criteria, with nearly half published since 2020. Most studies were conducted in the United States (56) and used observational designs. Interventions addressed various treatment modalities, most commonly surgical treatment (37%), followed by radiotherapy and systemic therapy. Policy-focused interventions, particularly Medicaid expansion, were most frequently evaluated, followed by patient navigation programs. Education-based interventions were relatively few (7%). Institutional and system-level interventions showed more consistent improvements in treatment access. The barriers most commonly targeted included insurance coverage, financial constraints, and transportation. Conclusions Most interventions focused on financial or insurance-related disadvantage, highlighting gaps in evidence-informed strategies addressing other forms of social disadvantage. The predominance of U.S.-based studies also indicates a need for evidence on effective interventions in other health system contexts.

Nonlinear and internal coupling effects in oscillating devices often require advanced and complex modeling that goes beyond overly-simplistic linear models suitable for early design stage. As ocean testing is comparatively expensive and risky, wave energy developers rely heavily on wave tank experiments to test device dynamics, performance and survivability. Not all physical processes — such as viscous effects or power take-off systems — scale well. Careful design of physical components remains crucial to ensure that results from small-scale tests reliably represent real ocean behavior, making scaled experiments both technically challenging and essential for wave energy development. This study presents the design, validation, and dynamic investigation of a 1:10-scale, direct-driven point absorber wave energy converter moving in six degrees of freedom under regular and irregular sea states. A passive linear eddy-current brake is implemented as the power take-off system to emulate a linear damper. The results reveal that multi-degree of freedom interactions significantly alter system behavior, producing coupled peak responses that differ from the natural period. Sway instabilities driven by parametric resonance highlight the limitations of monochromatic testing. In irregular sea states, their impact on power capture primarily affects lower-energy period sea states that are not excited in the coupled peak response. The capture width ratios reaches its maximum of 26% under intermediate damping in the shortest energy period, while the optimal damping ranges between 123 and 314 N s m−1 for all considered sea states. A reduced 3-degree of freedom numerical model is validated and shown to perform well in the most linear sea states, predicting capture width ratios within 0.84–1.12 of the experimental values despite not accounting for sway instabilities. © 2026

Community-led urban interventions are shaped by uncertainties that affect their initiation, development, operation, and short- and long-term outcomes. Existing research offers insights into participatory practices but lacks a comprehensive framework for understanding how community initiatives evolve under uncertain conditions. In this paper, we develop a realist, process-oriented framework that integrates the logic model, uncertainty analysis, and context–mechanism–outcome configurations to examine the lifecycle of urban interventions and the effects of community-based mechanisms on these processes. The framework distinguishes six types of uncertainty: ambiguity, variability, event, systemic, ecological, and epistemic. It is then applied to seven community-led urban interventions across diverse contexts. The findings suggest that specific uncertainties can be associated with particular mechanisms: ambiguity with sense-making and co-design; variability with coordination, stewardship, and adaptive learning; and systemic uncertainty with sense-making. Additionally, similar mechanisms can produce different outcomes when operating in different contexts. The main output of the paper is a realist evaluation framework for understanding how community-led urban interventions respond to different types of uncertainty and support the social, environmental, governance, and learning dimensions of sustainability while helping practitioners and policymakers mobilize appropriate mechanisms under specific conditions of uncertainty. © 2026 by the authors.

This study explores how differentiated instruction (DI) is planned, implemented and evaluated in a Swedish Year 1 classroom that includes two gifted students. Applying a focused ethnographic mixed-methods design, it combines qualitative data with structured observations using the Classroom Observation Scales-Revised (COS-R). Thematic analysis was structured around three themes: planning for DI involving anticipation and collaboration (e.g. adjusting to students' readiness), implementing DI through a responsive and flexible practices (e.g. real-time adaptations), and evaluating DI through ongoing reflection (e.g. formative assessment in classroom interactions). This supported both academic growth and social inclusion. COS-R scores indicated strengths in curriculum planning (M = 2.50) and creative thinking (M = 2.50), and areas for improvement in critical thinking (M = 1.50) and research strategies (M = 1.13). The study shows how DI can be integrated into everyday classroom practice in ways that respond to student diversity. It contributes practice-relevant insights into how DI is understood, enacted and experienced in inclusive classrooms, and highlights professional judgement, responsiveness and teacher self-reflection as central to differentiated and inclusive teaching.