Publikationer från Örebro universitet
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En klaviaturspelares verklighet : En kvalitativ studie om pianolärares didaktiska val vid undervisningav synthesizer och digitalpiano.
No full textSyftet med detta arbete är att undersöka pianolärares erfarenheter och didaktiska val gällande undervisning i synthesizer och digitalpiano. Tre semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes med pianolärare som arbetar på musikgymnasier och kulturskola. Studien har vid tolkning och analys utgått från Nielsens 5 aktivitetsformer reproduktion, produktion, perception, interpretation och reflektion för att syntetisera lärarnas beskrivningar av sin undervisning. I resultatet framkommer att ingen lärare fått undervisning i syntheziser eller digitalpiano. De anser att instrumentundervisningen bör vara verklighetsförankrad och relevant för eleverna. Lärarna ser ett stort behov av att undervisningen bör innehålla både akustiskt piano då det ger eleven en förståelse för instrumentets mekaniska och tekniska komponenter samt undervisning i synthesizer och digitalpiano då en keyboardist behöver vara flexibel och kunnig inom ljudskapande. Dock ser resurserna olika ut på olika skolor vilket medför att lärare inte alltid har möjligheten att undervisa i ljudskapande trots att behovet finns. För att underlätta pianolärarens didaktiska val kring vad eleven behöver lära sig, hur detta ska läras ut och varför, kan Nielsens aktivitetsformer användas som stöd när undervisning planeras och genomförs. Genom att reflektera över de val som görs, vad de får för konsekvenser och hur det påverkar ljudet så utvecklas förståelse för instrumentet och dess beståndsdelar och hur mångfacetterat det är att spela keyboard. Slutsats: För att en klaviaturspelare ska vara attraktiv efter avslutad utbildning behöver denne behärska speltekniska kunskaper gällande både akustiskt och elektroniskt klaverinstrument. Musikgymnasier och musikhögskolor bör ge eleverna möjlighet att, förutom akustiskt piano, lära sig spela både synthesizer och digitalpiano
Development of Langat virus infectious clones as a platform for live-attenuated tick-borne encephalitis vaccine
No full text Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) is one of the most important tick-transmitted diseases in Europe and Asia. TBE virus (TBEV) infections lead to a diversity of disease outcomes ranging from mild flu-like symptoms to severe neurological disorders. With no specific antiviral treatment available, vaccination remains the most effective protective strategy for TBE. Currently, only inactivated TBE vaccines are available on the market, which require repeated booster doses to sustain immunity. In addition, vaccine breakthroughs are reported in some patients, especially in the elderly. In contrary to inactivated vaccines, live-attenuated viral vaccines could provide long-term, or even lifelong immunity after a single dose. Langat virus (LGTV) is a naturally attenuated strain of TBEV, which makes it a potential candidate for a live-attenuated TBE vaccine. In this study, we engineered and rescued four infectious clones (ICs) of LGTV using RNA- and DNA-based reverse genetics methods. Next generation sequencing of the rescued ICs showed that the viruses rescued by DNA-based methods were more similar to the parental LGTV sequence and showed higher genetic stability after passaging in cell culture. One of the DNA-launched LGTV IC was further evaluated in vitro and in vivo which exhibited growth kinetics and immune profile comparable to the LGTV strain in our laboratory. This reverse genetics platform will be utilized to introduce targeted mutations within the LGTV genome to develop a live-attenuated TBE vaccine.Developvaccines@or
Competences needed for disaster responders
No full textDisasters strike worldwide and cause large-scale suffering. However, there is only limited knowledge on how to best prepare disaster responders, and no universal consensus on the core competences that disaster responders need or should be required to have. The aim of this thesis was to understand the competences used and needed by disaster responders. This thesis is based on four studies: two using a qualitative design with content analysis (Study I) and reflexive thematic analysis (Study IV), one scoping review (Study II) and one cross-sectional study (Study III). The results showed that although disaster responders are a diverse group, the competences they require are based on a combination of technical skills, non-technical skills, previous experience and personal traits. Leadership skills, teamwork skills and communication seem to be the most important skills for disaster responders’ ability to act during a disaster response mission. Another important aspect of disaster response is mental preparedness. Although disaster specific technical skills should form the foundation of disaster training programs, there is a need for a greater focus on non-technical skills. When technical and non-technical skills are combined with desirable personal traits, mental preparedness, and previous experience as well as training tailored for the disaster responders and adequate for the task, this seems to provide the best context for creating competence among disaster responders
Holding Form in a Shifting World : Flexible and Reliable Robot Manipulation through Behavior Trees
No full textThe increasing complexity and unpredictability of manipulation tasks in modern industrial and service robotics have highlighted the limitations of pre-programmed robot solutions. Robots operating under changing object positions, variable obstacles, and unforeseen perturbations must adjust their actions online to reliably satisfy the high-performance requirements of real-world deployment scenarios. A promising direction for enabling such flexible and reliable manipulation lies in the use of Behavior Trees (BTs), a formalism for transparent decision-making that structures robot behavior hierarchically through modular, reusable components. BTs are a well-suited solution because their inherent reactivity allows the system to respond effectively to high-level disturbances, such as perception or grasping failures. At the same time, their modular design facilitates the reuse of sub-behaviors across different scenarios, enabling automation systems to be easily reconfigured to meet varying operational demands. However, existing BT-based approaches fall short in scenarios in which more advanced forms of robustness to local perturbations and task variations are required. This thesis contributes novel solutions to address these limitations and enhance the applicability of BTs as control policies in real-world manipulation settings. To rigorously assess the solutions proposed in this thesis, we first need to formalize the terminology and evaluation criteria associated with BT-based robot control. We begin by identifying a subset of properties that are most relevant to our scope, such as reactivity, modularity, and robustness, and clarifying their definitions by resolving ambiguities found in prior work. For each of these properties, we examine how they have been evaluated in the literature and propose additional metrics to address identified gaps in existing evaluation practices. The first technical contribution addresses the reactivity of BT policies and their way of handling simultaneous control objectives. While BTs effectivel ymanage global, high-level disturbances, flexible manipulation also requires rapid response to local, low-level perturbations that do not warrant changes to the high-level plan. Furthermore, when BTs are coupled with convention allow-level controllers for redundant manipulators, they often struggle to satisfy multiple, potentially competing objectives in a coherent and reliable manner. To address these limitations, we integrate BTs with a prioritized control strategy that decomposes each manipulation skill, such as grasping, into multiple control objectives with defined priorities, distributed across the BT nodes and executed concurrently. This integration introduces an additional layer of low-level reactivity, ensures the reliable satisfaction of multiple objectives, and reinforces the modularity of the BT policy by assigning distinct goals to separate leaf nodes. Although the proposed framework provides robustness to both high- and low-level disturbances during execution, it still relies on manually specified parameters, which often need adjustment to specific task variations, such as minor changes of object positions or obstacle configurations. The second technical contribution is a data-driven approach based on Reinforcement Learning that augments the BT with a context-based adaptation policy. This module observes task-relevant features, referred to as a context, and selects appropriate BT parameters at execution time. The result is a policy that adapts its behavior on the fly to previously unseen variations, without manual intervention. Despite its benefits, the proposed framework remains limited to adapting only to directly observable task variations and requires training procedures that, when performed on a physical robot, are often unsafe and timeconsuming. The last technical contribution addresses both limitations by introducing a context estimator that infers latent dynamics parameters — such as friction coefficients or object mass — from recent interaction data. Conditioning the context-based adaptation policy on this latent estimate enables the BT-based policy to operate robustly even under partial observability. Moreover, because these latent parameters often underlie the discrepancies between simulation and reality, the very same mechanism also provides a principled way to bridge the sim-to-real gap: policies are trained in simulation with domain randomization, while the estimated context compensates for the mismatched dynamics, improving robustness at deployment
Tele-rehabilitation within Swedish hearing health care : The future of audiology care: An overview of needs and challenges
No full textBakgrund: Distansrehabilitering inom hörselvården i Sverige har ökat i klinisk praxis, särskilt efter covid-19 pandemin. Det finns begränsat med forskningsstudier om hur insatser kring distansrehabilitering skall implementeras och vad som behövs för att förbättra arbetet. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att kartlägga nuvarande rehabiliteringsåtgärder som sker på distans inom hörselvården i Sverige och göra jämförelser mellan regionala-, privata- och vårdvalsmottagningar, samt att identifiera enhetschefers syn på behov av förbättringar för dessa distansåtgärder. Metod: En empirisk undersökning genomfördes med en webbenkät riktad till enhetschefer inom audionom- och hörselmottagningar i Sverige. Enkätens slutna frågor analyserades för att jämföra mottagningstyper med hjälp av statistikprogrammet Jamovi. Förutom deskriptiv statistik, genomfördes Mann-Whitney U-test och Chi-två-test för att undersöka skillnader mellan grupper. De öppna fritextfrågorna analyserades med tematisk analys. Resultat: Distansrehabilitering används främst för behovsbedömning, rådgivning och tidsbokning. Tekniska hinder och säkerhetskrav utgör centrala utmaningar. Viss variation finns mellan mottagningstyper, där regionala mottagningar oftare använder patientportalen 1177 medan privata mottagningar i högre grad använder e-post. Studien indikerar att hörselvården i Sverige ännu inte uppfyller målen i Vision e-hälsa 2025. Slutsatser: Studiens resultat indikerar att det finns ett behov av att förbättra digital infrastruktur och öka IT-kompetensen inom hörselvården. För att utöka och förbättra distansrehabilitering inom audionom- och hörselmottagningar, krävs tydligare riktlinjer och stöd från enhetschefer.Background: Tele-rehabilitation within Swedish hearing health care has increased in clinical practice. There is limited research on how such interventions should be implemented and what clinics need to improve their work. Aim: The aim of the study is to give an overview of the current tele-rehabilitation interventions within Swedish hearing health care, compare types of hearing health care clinics, and identify the need for improvements of these interventions mirrored by unit managers. Method: An empirical survey was conducted using a web-based questionnaire directed to unit managers in Swedish hearing health care clinics. The closed-ended questions were analyzed using the statistical software Jamovi. In addition to descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U-test and Chi-squared-tests were used to examine differences between groups. The open-ended responses were analyzed using thematic analysis. Results: Tele-rehabilitation is mainly used for needs assessment, counseling and appointment scheduling. Technical barriers and security requirements are highlighted as significant challenges. There is some variation between different types of clinics, where regional clinics more often use the 1177 patient portal while private clinics rely more on email communication. The study indicates that hearing healthcare in Sweden has not yet achieved the goals of Vision e-health 2025. Conclusions: The results of the study, suggest a need of improved digital infrastructure and enhanced IT-competence. To expand and improve tele-rehabilitation in Swedish hearing health care clinics, there is a need for clearer guidelines and support from unit managers are required
A Multi-motive Risk Communication Model for “Making” Crisis Preparedness
No full textThis chapter introduces a mixed-motive model for the practice of risk communication for preparedness in a pre-crisis and pre-disaster phase. Rather than describing how research is done or presenting research results from a single study, this chapter focuses on how communication practitioners can integrate the extensive, but not always congruent, body of existing communication-related risk and preparedness research, in order to understand and reflect on their risk communication practice. The model especially aims to support practitioners in creating a holistic understanding of their own ongoing or future “communication practice” with the goal of increasing society’s level of crisis preparedness and resilience
A Quantum Information Theoretic Approach to Tractable Probabilistic Models
No full textBy recursively nesting sums and products, probabilistic circuits have emerged in recent years as an attractive class of generative models as they enjoy, for instance, polytime marginalization of random variables. In this work we study these machine learning models using the framework of quantum information theory, leading to the introduction of positive unital circuits (PUnCs), which generalize circuit evaluations over positive real-valued probabilities to circuit evaluations over positive semi-definite matrices. As a consequence, PUnCs strictly generalize probabilistic circuits as well as recently introduced circuit classes such as PSD circuits.
Educating students to prevent gender-based violence : predicting teachers’ intentions in Italy and Hungary
No full textSchools can play an important role in educating for the prevention of gender-based violence against women, as recognized by the Istanbul Convention treaty. However, in many countries, teachers do not receive mandatory training and it is up to them to develop and implement curricular, or extracurricular, activities to raise students’ awareness about gender-based violence. In the present research, we used a mixed-methods approach to investigate predictors of behavioral intentions to educate on this topic among Hungarian and Italian school teachers. In an initial pilot study, we interviewed teachers (N = 17) to understand perceived barriers to tackle this topic at school. In the main study, we then administered a questionnaire to Italian (N = 467) and Hungarian (N = 253) teachers. Our findings showed that teachers’ self-efficacy in their educational role and their moral attitudes toward combating gender-based violence positively predicted their behavioral intentions to organize awareness-raising initiatives at school. Conversely, perceived low students’ interest negatively predicted teachers’ intentions, while time constraints and lack of training were additional predictors among Italian school teachers only. Importantly, compared to Italian, Hungarian school teacher participants reported lower behavioral intentions, lower sense of self-efficacy, more perceived barriers, and that preventing GBV was more a family than a schools’ role. As Italy has ratified the Istanbul convention whereas Hungary has rejected it, the present findings suggest the potential importance of a regulatory framework in shaping teachers’ behavioral intentions and their role in educating to prevent gender-based-violence, in addition to individual moral values and beliefs about one’s skills. Implications of the findings for teachers’ training are discussed. Open access funding provided by Università degli Studi di Trento within the CRUI-CARE Agreement. </p
I Feel Blue, Let Us Share Something : A Multimethod Study on How Momentary Emotional States and Daily Events Shape Social Media Use
No full textSocial media presence is deeply embedded in everyday life, yet individual differences in usage patterns are still pronounced. While prior research has extensively examined personality traits and emotional dispositions in shaping online behaviors, less attention has been paid to the influence of situational (e.g., daily events) and state-like (e.g., narcissistic states) factors. This multimethod study, based on Hungarian participants, explores how emotional states and contextual experiences affect social media activity. Study 1 (N = 31) applied a qualitative approach to examine emotional drivers of social media use. Study 2 (N = 123) and study 3 (N = 109) used a longitudinal diary method over 5 days to assess the influence of daily events and narcissistic states on general social media usage and Instagram use, respectively. Findings from study 1 revealed that participants tend to avoid active use during negative emotional states but often post positively charged content to gain affirmation: highlighting social media’s role in self-esteem restoration. Study 2 and 3 showed that negative daily experiences were associated with increased online activity, suggesting a compensatory coping function. Across studies, results point to the paradox of digital self-presentation: positive content may stem from underlying emotional struggles. These insights carry implications for psychological interventions and social media literacy efforts. Open access funding provided by Eötvös Loránd University.</p
The Swedish sports confederation’s management and navigation through the COVID-19 pandemic
No full textThis study explores the Swedish Sports Confederation’s (RF) response to the COVID-19 pandemic, offering actionable insights into crisis management strategies. RF reshaped priorities and practices across the Swedish sports ecosystem by introducing a new institutional logic centred on infection control and emphasising the health-promotive role of sports. Using semi-structured interviews with 13 governing representatives, the research highlights RF’s initial decisions, adaptive strategies and the challenges of managing an unprecedented crisis. The pandemic caused significant disruptions, including activity declines and volunteer losses, yet also intensified conflicts and communication within the Swedish sports movement. RF demonstrated resilience and adaptability, employing infodemic management to balance public health mandates with organisational cohesion. This study underscores the importance of strategic internal and external negotiations in navigating complex crises, revealing how RF safeguarded societal interests while prioritising members’ well-being and setting a precedent for future crisis preparedness. Riksidrottsförbundets hantering av Coronapandemi