Although research indicates that single parenting is not by itself worse for children than their being brought up by both their parents, there are reasons why it is better for children to have more than one committed parent. If having two committed parents is better, everything else being equal, than having just one, I argue that it might be even better for children to have three committed parents

In this paper, we are concerned with the ethical implications of the distinction between natural reproduction (via sexual intercourse) and reproduction that requires assistance (either medical or social). We argue that the current practice of enforcing regulations on the latter but not on the former means of reproduction is ethically unjustified. It is not defensible to tolerate parental ignorance

There is a large variability between individuals in the response to anesthetic drugs, that seriously limits the achievable performance of closed-loop controlled drug dosing. Full individualization of patient models based on early clinical response data has been suggested as a means to improve performance with maintained robustness (safety). We use estimation theoretic analysis and realization theo

The prospect of ex vivo functional evaluation of donor hearts is considered. Particularly, the dynamics of a synthetic cardiac afterload model are compared to those of normal physiology. A method for identification of continuous-time transfer functions from sampled data is developed and verified against results from the literature. The method relies on exact gradients and Hessians obtained through

This thesis analyses medals issued between 1560 and 1792 in Sweden and studies the practices and roles related to these objects. It aims to contribute to the understanding of the varying uses and functions of early modern medals by applying a long-term perspective that connects Renaissance, Baroque, and Neoclassical medals. The study asks why are medals commissioned, how the intention is reflected

Some parasites are known to bioaccumulate some environmental pollutants within their host. We hypothesized that these parasites may be beneficial for their hosts in polluted environments. We experimentally increased long-term (five weeks) exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs, three levels: 0.1X, 1X, 10X environmental exposure) in European chubs (Squalius cephalus) that were naturally

Changes in the state of rivers resulting from the activity and expansion of urban areas are likely to affect aquatic populations by increasing stress and disease, with the microbiota playing a potentially important intermediary role. Unraveling the dynamics of microbial flora is therefore essential to better apprehend the impact of anthropogenic disturbances on the health of host populations and t

Environmental pressures, such as urbanization and exposure to pollutants may jeopardize survival of free-living animals. Yet, much remains to be known about physiological and ecological responses to currently-released pollutants, especially in wild vertebrate ectotherms. We tested the effect of urbanization and pollution (phthalates, organochlorine and pyrethroid pesticides, polychlorobiphenyls, p

Some parasites are expected to have beneficial impacts on wild populations in polluted environments because of their bioaccumulation potential of pollutants from their hosts. The fate of organic micropollutants in host-parasite systems and the combined effect of parasitism and pollution were investigated in chub Squalius cephalus, a freshwater fish, infected (n = 73) or uninfected (n = 45) by acan