Publikationer från Stockholms universitet
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Ethical Dimensions to Empirical Applications of Agent-Based Social Simulation
No full textThis paper builds on the contribution of Anzola, Barbrook-Johnson and Gilbert (J Artif Soc Social Simul 25(4):1, 2022) with a view to furthering the community’s discussion of ethical principles associated with our endeavours. We give particular attention to empirical applications of agent-based social simulation
Accommodations and Sustainability of Daily Routines in Culturally Diverse Families of Autistic Children
No full textEnhancing Zero Trust with Continuous Authentication
No full textThe core principle of zero trust architecture is based on “never trust, always verify”. Zero trust models emphasize the need for continuous monitoring and real-time validation. Traditional static authentication methods often fail because, stolen login credentials or an unattended session can be exploited by attackers. To address this issue, continuous authentication verifies user identity consistently throughout a session that supports zero trust principle. One innovative approach is to use a user’s typing patterns (Keystroke Dynamics) as a behavioral biometric authentication factor. This method identifies users passively, without disrupting their session. This study aims to develop a free-text continuous authentication system using machine learning that adapts to individual typing behaviors while supporting the zero trust principle. The research employs an experimental strategy with secondary data collection and quantitative analysis to evaluate the performance of different machine learning models. The study utilizes Random Forest (RF), Decision Tree (DT), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Convultional Neural Network (CNN), and a hybrid model combining CNN with Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), as machine learning algorithms to implement continuous authentication effectively. Among these CNN-LSTM achieved accuracy of 98.92 % with low false acceptance and false rejection rates. Training across each individual helped to capture unique typing patterns. The findings demonstrate the feasibility of real-time, device-independent, and user-specific continuous authentication aligned with zero trust principles. While promising, challenges such as model scalability and user behavior variability highlight areas for future research, including adaptive modeling and multimodal biometric integration
Configurations, dynamics, and temporality : Exploring the social networks of students and their relevance for successful transitions into higher education
No full textThis study examines social networks' role in high-achieving students' transitions from upper secondary school to higher education. A specific focus is on the configuration of their social network, its' stability over time, and how the students experience the nature of the relationships in the network. The case study is based on three student cases selected from a pool of 52 students, and the data includes three waves of interviews with students over two years, interviews with a significant other to the students, and a subjective mapping of their social network. Analytical tools are the concepts of cultural and social capital and weak and strong ties. The study shows how social and cultural capital works within a social network, experienced from the students’ perspectives. In addition, we conclude that the transition process is fragile for students with low cultural capital regarding network configurations, significantly when changing fields of interest from upper secondary to tertiary education. Here, the importance of having weak ties is illustrated in terms of the need for field-specific influx for a bridging support role in the transition. The active involvement and reciprocal nature of the relationships are vital, and the strength of the network depends on whether it pertains over time. The results have implications for practice due to the emerging interrupted transitions to higher education and how to support students in their apparent situations, which are characterised as being in a state of limbo with no clear resolution.Swedish Research Council [Grant 2016-03434 -Following footprints of resilient youth: successful educational trajectories and transition into higher educatio
Are Wetlands Deteriorating? Evaluating Habitat Models of Wader Distribution Changes in Stockholm’s Wet Meadows
No full textGurlesque Ecopoetics : Queer Readings of Embodiment, Materiality, Subjectivity, and Figurations of the Witch in the Authorship of Olga Ravn
No full textThis thesis explores the representations and workings of embodiment, materiality, subjectivity, and narrative positionality in the works of Danish author Olga Ravn by fusing literary ecocriticism with perspectives from feminist posthumanism, queer temporality studies and Gurlesque studies. Here, queer reading practices and the crafting of a feminist figuration as a queer assemblage, the figure of the Witch, is paired with methodological insights from literary ecocriticism and environmental humanities. The inquiry centers four novels by Ravn: particular attention is given to the novels De ansatte (2018) and Voksbarnet (2023) as expressions of speculative fiction. The remaining two, Celestine (2015) and Mit arbejde (2020), function as illuminating examples. Substantial analytical focus is invested in what epistemological and ontological implications such readings can bring to feminist understandings of more-than-human relationality, subject formation, and embodied agency. Thus, the subsequent inquiry addresses a research gap in the Nordic context by linking ecocritical readings of materiality with the tradition of feminist and queer posthumanist criticism dealing with the political potential of speculative fiction. Additionally, it furthers and develops Gurlesque as a theoretical term situated in queer theory and gender studies. This is accomplished by locating the works of fiction in the queer and Gurlesque aesthetic continuum that Ravn’s poetics constitute. This Gurlesque ecopoetics, I argue, permeates Ravns artistic practices, thereby highlighting theoretical and political potentials of further queer-feminist submersions into this teeming and genre-crossing authorship. The conclusion of the thesis is further visualized through what I call the Witch’s Manifesto, a sort of Gurlesque coverage technique that sums up the concluding discussion in the shape of a heptagram: a seven-edged star
The global plastics pollution challenge : A social-ecological perspective
No full textPlastics and their pollution have been understood as inert, safe materials whose environmental impacts arise only after disposal, caused by careless consumers and poor waste management practices. This representation, constructed by industry over decades, reduces plastics pollution to a waste problem, one assumed solvable through clean-ups, recycling or technological fixes. This thesis challenges that simplification, by studying plastics pollution as an inseparable social-ecological challenge. This approach reveals plastics as deeply embedded in ecological degradation, toxic chemical use, dependency on fossil fuels, and systemic social injustice. Plastics pollution disrupts multiple Earth system processes, with many irreversible impacts. This requires governance approaches grounded in justice, equity, and planetary stewardship. Adopting a systems-based perspective, the research establishes plastics pollution as an issue of concern at planetary scale. It presents a multi-metric approach for characterizing the complex, large-scale and long-term impacts, and it also shows why a narrow focus on biophysical metrics is inadequate information for science-policy processes. With a particular focus on ongoing Plastics Treaty negotiations, it describes efforts by scientists with policy-influence to reframe the plastics pollution issue as an inseparable social-ecological challenge. Paper I situates plastics pollution within the planetary boundaries framework as a representative case of novel entities. Paper II traces how plastics pollution interacts with all other planetary boundaries, including climate change, biosphere integrity and biogeochemical flows, highlighting the need for multiple control variables across the full impact-pathway (i.e., from fossil fuel extraction and production to Earth system disruption). Paper III critiques narrow ecological framings, emphasizing the need for integrated responses that account for social, economic, and political drivers. Paper IV operationalizes this integration through an interdisciplinary multi-expert elicitation process, identifying quantifiable indicators that span environmental, human health, governance, and economic dimensions. Paper V applies a feminist discourse policy analysis to the Global Plastics Treaty negotiations, showing how dominant, industry-aligned representations shape the treaty’s ambition, while exposing sustainability “winners” and “losers” embedded in these representations. Across all these papers, this thesis underscores the limitations of technocratic, single-metric governance approaches. It advances empirically derived indicators and analytical tools that can support more sustainable global governance, while stressing that sustainable solutions must operate across the full life-cycle of plastics, confront entrenched industrial interests, and address historical and structural injustices. It highlights the risks of science being instrumentalized or sidelined in policy contexts, and the need for deep reflection on these issues. These findings argue for transparent, power-aware science-policy interfaces that integrate plural knowledges, including marginalized voices to inform systemic solutions. They further show that while urgency is undeniable, slowing research and policy design to enable deliberation, trust-building, and co-production can yield more meaningful and equitable outcomes
The Ins and Outs of Meaning : Essays on Polysemy, Proper Names, and Slang
No full textThe semantics-pragmatics distinction is of great importance within both the philosophy of language and linguistics, but the question of how to really draw this distinction remains disputed. Part of the dispute rests on differing intuitions about the extent to which the context of utterance plays a role in determining the semantic contribution of a given expression. Another part of it stems from the difficulty of accounting for communicative phenomena that appear not to fit neatly on either side of the distinction. In this theoretical context, the present thesis argues for four conclusions: (i) That the currently available empirical evidence on polysemy processing and resolution fails to support a one-representation model of the meanings associated with polysemous expressions. (ii) That the inherent polysemy exhibited by some proper names puts pressure on Kripke’s two main theses about the semantics of proper names. (iii) That the social significance of a slang word is analyzable in terms of the lexical metadata related to it, and the inferences people competent with the word will be disposed to draw on the basis of that metadata. (iv) That slang words are best understood as words that are nonstandard, nontechnical, informal, and part of the in-group language of a social group. These conclusions are of wider importance. Establishing (i) and (ii) mandates rethinking the significance of polysemy vis-à-vis the semantics-pragmatics boundary: Contrary to a widely held view, the phenomenon fails to vindicate any particular way of drawing the semantics-pragmatics boundary and yet, polysemy continues to have bearing on semantic theorizing. Establishing (iii) and (iv) constitutes a major step towards clarifying how the phenomenon of social meaning, which is not easily placed on the semantics-pragmatics boundary, can be integrated into the philosophy of language
International peer collaboration in group work : Language quality, agency, and problem-solving
No full textThe chapter explores students’ reported experiences of international peer collaboration during the preparation of their graded assignments as part of their English-medium university programme. Peer collaboration in the form of group work is a common learner activity in Nordic universities, especially in the context of programmes in Business studies. Compared to other social sciences, Business studies are particularly prone to offer English-medium programmes already at the bachelor level. The chapter thus investigates undergraduate students’ perspectives on group work as part of developing disciplinary literacy, with a focus on language quality, students’ agency, and problem-solving strategies. The findings highlight students’ uncertainties regarding acceptable (language) standards for the written assignment which is an outcome of their group work. It also shows that the students’ aim to reach consensus in groups with diverse linguacultural backgrounds is in sharp contrast with who has access to powerful roles in the group work. Students with advanced English language proficiency tend to occupy more powerful positions and act as language regulators for written assignments. The chapter thus opens up for discussions on accommodating different perspectives within group work in EME Business studies settings.
Understanding Soil Rewetting Respiration Pulses : From Laboratory-Based Microbial Mechanisms to Field Validation
No full textUnder climate change, the frequency and/or severity of droughts, as well as the intensity of rainfall events, are increasing. The resulting intensification of soil drying and rewetting (DRW) cycles is expected to alter ecosystem dynamics and function, and contribute to a large proportion of annual carbon emissions from soils through respiration pulses at rewetting. These respiration pulses, also called the ‘Birch effect’, are primarily driven by microbial responses after rewetting, and can be modulated by climate background, vegetation or land use, and soil properties. This thesis aims to further our understanding of rewetting respiration pulses from laboratory-based microbial mechanisms to field validation. Specifically, the objectives were to understand: (1) the drivers of microbial growth recovery after rewetting dry soils at the functional group level, (2) the drivers of microbial community-level carbon use efficiency (CUE, carbon used for growth over total carbon uptake), life history strategies, and fungal-to-bacterial ratio changes after rewetting, (3) the comparability of the drivers of rewetting microbial respiration pulses derived from laboratory data and field data without plants, and (4) the drivers of soil respiration and its temperature sensitivity during rewetting periods derived from field data with plants, and whether these drivers resemble those during drying periods. Results show: 1) drying intensity and acidity slow down microbial growth recovery after rewetting, 2) CUE before DRW events explains microbial CUE recovery, whereas soil pH and carbon availability explain changes in functional groups and life history strategies after rewetting, 3) the drivers of rewetting microbial respiration pulses are partially inconsistent in the laboratory and the field, and 4) soil respiration during both rewetting and drying periods is mainly explained by soil temperature and moisture; however, pH explains temperature sensitivity of soil respiration during drying, whereas clay content does so during rewetting. In summary, microbial growth and CUE recovery after rewetting are dependent on the intensity of DRW events and soil properties; caution is needed when translating laboratory-based insights on microbial respiration pulses obtained in controlled conditions to applications at the ecosystem scale.