Publikationer från Uppsala Universitet
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Governance of Citizenship in Turkey : Exceptional Citizenship for Syrians amidst a Protracted Refugee Crisis
No full textFew issues stir more controversy than granting citizenship to refugees, particularly in nations hosting large numbers for extended periods. Turkey's decision to naturalise selected Syrians between 2016 and 2024 offers revealing insights into this challenge. This study examines two questions: (1) What role has crisis played in shaping the scope of the changes introduced? (2) How will Turkey's exceptional citizenship for Syrian refugees reshape citizenship governance in Turkey? We employ three conceptual lenses - crisis, grey zones and policy windows - within a historical institutionalist framework and refugee citizenship politics perspective. Using a multi-method approach and drawing on policy documents, political discourse analysis and 33 interviews with Syrian applicants, we find that the Syrian crisis opened a policy window, allowing the government to craft an ambiguous 'exceptional citizenship' scheme in 2016. This program operates under ambiguous conditions through selective invitations, fast-tracked processing and opaque eligibility criteria. Yet this bold experiment faces fierce resistance from opposition parties and the public. Rather than cementing institutional change in Turkey's ethnonationalist citizenship regime, it remains contested ground. The case illuminates how seemingly liberal refugee policies, born in crisis, can reshape migration governance and citizenship politics-even if their long-term impact remains uncertain
Epitopes targeted by autoantibodies in presymptomatic individuals predict early rheumatoid arthritis
No full textObjectives: To determine anticitrullinated protein antibody (ACPA) responses to novel peptides predicting the clinical outcomes of treatment-naïve early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in the presymptomatic stage. Methods: We analysed monoclonal ACPAs derived from RA patients, including a characterised protective ACPA (clone E4), along with plasma samples collected from 520 presymptomatic individuals, of whom 244 were also sampled at diagnosis of RA, and 530 population controls in Sweden. The validation cohort (The Nordic Rheumatic Diseases Strategy Trials and Registries, NORD-STAR) consisted of 690 treatment-na & iuml;ve early RA patients. Responses to citrullinated or native alpha-enolase (ENO1) or peptidylarginine deiminase 4 (PAD4) peptides were analysed by bead-based multiplex flow immunoassay. Clinical outcomes included C-reactive protein (CRP) and the 28-joint disease activity score (DAS28) with its components: tender joint count (TJC), swollen joint count (SJC), and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR). Results: Monoclonal ACPAs displayed distinct binding patterns to ENO1 and PAD4 peptides. A time-dependent increase of ACPA response to citrullinated peptides was observed in the presymptomatic stage towards onset. In the presymptomatic (0.2-5 years before onset) and early RA stage, ACPA responses to several ENO1 and PAD4 peptides were associated with less severe RA, assessed as lower levels of CRP and DAS28 and its components. In early RA, the association was more pronounced in rheumatoid factor (RF)-negative patients based on lower SJC. In presymptomatic individuals, ACPA responses widely predicted lower disease activity in early RA and were more pronounced in 5 selected peptides. Conclusions: Antibody responses to certain citrullinated epitopes are associated with lower disease activity in treatment-na & iuml;ve early RA and appear years before symptom onset of RA
Method Development and Validation for Beta-Agonists in Liver and Urine using UHPLC-MS/MS, according to EU-Legislation 2021/808
No full textA robust and sensitive analytical method was optimized and validated for the determination of 11 β-agonists in chicken liver as well as bovine and porcine urine in order to increase the sensitivity of the method. The study aimed to validate the method in accordance with the new EU legislation 2021/808 for the detection of prohibited substances and to meet the minimum performance requirements (MMPRs) established by the EU Reference Laboratory (EURL). Sample preparation involved enzymatic hydrolysis followed by solid-phase extraction (SPE), and analysis was performed using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS). The method was successfully validated for the intended matrices, and all relevant performance characteristics were evaluated in accordance with the new legislation criteria. In chicken liver, the decision limit (CCα) ranged from 0.063 to 0.348 µg/kg, and the detection capability (CCβ) from 0.059 to 0.319 ug/kg. In bovine and porcine urine, CCα ranged from 0.0636 µg/kg to 0.3428 µg/kg and CCβ from 0.0596 µg/kg to 0.3163 µg/kg. Trueness ranged from 94 to 115 %, while within-laboratory precision (CVR) was 5 to 18% across all matrices and concentration levels tested. Matrix-matched calibration curves demonstrated excellent linearity with correlation coefficients (R2) exceeding 0.95 for all analytes. The validated method demonstrates high accuracy, selectivity, and reproducibility, which makes it suitable for the detection of illegal β-agonists in food-producing animals
Language policy in Swedish public libraries : Three case studies from a broad perspective
No full textThis thesis explores the language policy of public libraries in Sweden, both in terms of description and motivation. It does so through three case studies conducted in the public libraries in three cities: Helsingborg, Umeå, and Uppsala. The material consists of three parts: interviews with a librarian in each city, observations of the linguistic landscape in the city’s main public library, and the municipality library plan. The method of analysis is qualitative thematic analysis, and the study is approached from a historical-structural theoretical standpoint. Largely, the language policy of the public libraries mirrors that of Swedish society. Unsurprisingly, the Swedish language dominates. The English language is also present to a large degree. Other present languages are mainly the national minority languages and the major immigrant languages. Their presence varies between the libraries. English is used more, including in practical matters, while other languages’ presence is mainly symbolic. The libraries’ operational work largely revolves around prestige planning and is centred on groups rather than languages themselves. There are common themes between the libraries, mainly that the languages offered are based on demand, the premise that the prioritised groups should be made visible, and that children and young people are a priority, particularly regarding language acquisition. Another common theme is difficulties involved in and practical considerations when working with languages other than Swedish. The public libraries are to work for the prioritised groups in the Swedish library act, and this largely motivates their language policies. However, the library act is unclear as to how they should be supported apart from that literature should be provided in their languages. This uncertainty is also reflected in the library plans and in turn in how the libraries structure their work differently. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science
Impact of gas background on XFEL single-particle imaging
No full textSingle-particle imaging (SPI) using X-ray free-electron Lasers (XFELs) offers the potential to determine protein structures at high spatial and temporal resolutions without the need for crystallization or vitrification. However, the technique faces challenges due to weak diffraction signals from single proteins and significant background scattering from gases used for sample delivery. A recent observation of a diffraction pattern from an isolated GroEL protein complex Ekeberg T et al. (Light Sci Appl 13:15, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1038/274s41377-023-01352-7) had similar numbers of signal and background photons. Ongoing efforts aim to reduce the background created by sample delivery, with one approach replacing most of the used gas with helium Yenupuri T et al. (Sci Rep 14:4401, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-54605-9). In this study, we investigate the effects of a reduced background on the resolution limits for SPI of isolated proteins under different experiment conditions. As a test case, we used GroEL, and we used experimentally derived parameters for our simulations. We observe that background significantly impacts the achievable resolution, particularly when the signal strength is comparable to the background. This is best exemplified at 6.0 keV, where a background reduction by a factor of 10 leads to a resolution improvement from 1.9 to 1.2 nm, for a dataset of 104 patterns
Reproducible Power Method in Parallel Environments
No full textReproducible and accurate eigenvalue computation is critical in many scientific and engineering problems, particularly when solving large and sparse linear systems. The power method is an iterative algorithm, efficient for computing the dominant eigenvalue in such systems. This project investigates four parallel implementations of the power method, OpenMP, OpenMP Offloading, CUDA, and CUDA with ExBLAS, with the goal of enhancing reproducibility while ensuring performance. While one might expect different run of the parallel power method to compute the same result, this is not guaranteed due to the fact that floating-point operations are non-associative. We evaluate each implementation using five sparse matrices from the Suite Sparse Matrix Collection, measuring both reproducibility and execution time. The results show that only the CUDA ExBLAS implementation consistently produces reproducible results with high accuracy across all configurations. For lower precision 10-6 all implementations produced reproducible results. In terms of performance, OpenMP achieved the best execution times, while CUDA ExBLAS performed the slowest on a gaming GPU. However, with access to hardware optimized for scientific computation, both CUDA and CUDA ExBLAS are expected to deliver significantly better performance
Evaluation of a multicomponent child development intervention delivered through the government health system : a feasibility study
No full textIntroduction Small efficacy trials have demonstrated that multicomponent interventions can improve early child development. We evaluated the large-scale delivery of a multicomponent intervention delivered by government health workers throughout a rural subdistrict in northwestern Bangladesh. Methods We evaluated a group-based, multicomponent intervention with a curriculum covering responsive parenting, caregivers' mental health, lead exposure prevention strategies at the household level, water, sanitation, hygiene and nutrition. Group sessions were held throughout a rural subdistrict of Bangladesh (August 2019-March 2020). A longitudinal sample of caregivers (n=517) of children 6-24 months was assessed at baseline and endline (primary cohort), and 1179 additional caregivers were assessed only at endline (supplementary cross-sectional). Outcomes were the variety of child play activities and materials, number of books, caregiver depressive symptoms and nutrition and lead knowledge. For primary analyses, we used difference-in-difference. Results Over half (n=276, 53%) of the cohort participants attended any of the 16 intervention sessions and of these, 83% (228) attended 2+. Caregivers attending 2+ sessions, compared with <= 1 session, had more play materials (adjusted mean difference: 0.58; 95% CI: 0.30, 0.85) and were more likely to have any children's books (adjusted prevalence difference (aPD): 0.26; 95% CI: 0.18, 0.34), to have heard of lead (aPD: 0.13; 95% CI: 0.07, 0.19) or to know how to avoid harm from lead (unadjusted PD: 0.13; 95% CI: 0.08, 0.17). These findings were similar to those from the supplementary cross-sectional analysis. There were no differences in caregiver depressive symptoms in either analysis. More child play activities and nutrition knowledge were associated with attendance in the cross-sectional sample. Conclusions A multicomponent child development intervention delivered by government health workers increased the presence of children's toys and books and caregiver knowledge of lead in families who attended two or more sessions. Further adaptation and alternative delivery methods are likely to improve the reach and the breadth of impacts.Trial registration number NCT04111016
UpStory : the uppsala storytelling dataset
No full textFriendship and rapport play an important role in the formation of constructive social interactions, and have been widely studied in education due to their impact on learning outcomes. Given the growing interest in automating the analysis of such phenomena through Machine Learning, access to annotated interaction datasets is highly valuable. However, no dataset on child-child interactions explicitly capturing rapport currently exists. Moreover, despite advances in the automatic analysis of human behavior, no previous work has addressed the prediction of rapport in child-child interactions in educational settings. We present UpStory — the Uppsala Storytelling dataset: a novel dataset of naturalistic dyadic interactions between primary school aged children, with an experimental manipulation of rapport. Pairs of children aged 8–10 participate in a task-oriented activity: designing a story together, while being allowed free movement within the play area. We promote balanced collection of different levels of rapport by using a within-subjects design: self-reported friendships are used to pair each child twice, either minimizing or maximizing pair separation in the friendship network. The dataset contains data for 35 pairs, totaling 3 h 40 m of audiovisual recordings. It includes two video sources, and separate voice recordings per child. An anonymized version of the dataset is made publicly available, containing per-frame head pose, body pose, and face features. Finally, we confirm the informative power of the UpStory dataset by establishing baselines for the prediction of rapport. A simple approach achieves 68% test accuracy using data from one child, and 70% test accuracy aggregating data from a pair
Experiences of long-term benzodiazepine use and addiction amid changes in guidelines for the prescription of narcotic drugs : a qualitative study
No full textBackground Addiction to sedative, hypnotic, and anxiolytic drugs (collectively referred to as benzodiazepines), medications commonly used to treat anxiety and sleeping problems, has been described as a hidden epidemic. Growing concerns about addiction and other negative outcomes associated with use of these narcotics have resulted in their regulation and recommendations for more restrictive prescription. However, there are few studies on experiences of long-term benzodiazepine use from the user perspective, and even fewer focusing on people with addiction, who may be the most affected by changing regulations. The aim of this study was to explore experiences of people with long-term use and addiction to benzodiazepines during a time of major changes in guidelines for the prescription of narcotic drugs. Methods This qualitative study included nineteen individual interviews with adults (> 18 years) diagnosed with addiction to benzodiazepines who were undergoing treatment at an urban outpatient clinic in Sweden. The in-depth interviews were pseudonymized, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Results Two themes highlight the effect of changing prescription guidelines on long-term benzodiazepine users. The first theme, benzodiazepines were not always seen as problematic, but neither were the risks discussed, underscores the absence of psychiatric assessments and conversations about risks at the time of first prescription and highlights the need for clearer communication. The second theme, entangled in continued benzodiazepine use and increasing restrictions on prescribing, illustrates how addiction developed over time and describes how limited contact with prescribers facilitated long-term use, which often persisted until the participants were faced with deprescription. Conclusions This study describes the experiences of individuals with long-term use and addiction to benzodiazepines during a time of shifting attitudes towards prescribing. The results highlight areas for improvement in care for this vulnerable group of patients, including the need for proactive and regular communication about risks of addiction and additional support during deprescription
Heegaard Diagrams Through Morse Theory
No full textThis thesis aims to study the concept of Heegaard diagrams of 3-manifolds using onlyelementary concepts. This is done by describing Heegard splittings using the handledecompositions detailed by Morse functions, concepts that only require a backgroundin basic and differential topology. First, we define several core concepts in topology,such as smooth manifolds, homotopy, and retraction. Then we describe important aspects of Morse theory, like Morse functions and Morse lemma. Using Morse lemma,one can find that a manifold can be decomposed into a union of handles, each associated with a critical point of the Morse function. Restricting our study to 3-manifolds,we find that we can separate the manifold into two similar handlebodies, consistingof a solid sphere with several 3-dimensional 1-handles attached, called a Heegaardsplitting. It is then shown how one can construct the 3-manifold by detailing how theboundaries of the two handlebodies attach to the abstract Heegaard surface. The result is a complete description of the topological properties of the 3-manifold using acomparably simpler 2-manifold (Heegaard surface) and a collection of curves on thatsurface. Finally, the thesis ends with a set of examples, where we find the Heegaarddiagrams of product 3-manifolds of a circle and a genus g surface