The extracellular enzyme activities of wood-decomposing basidiomycetes are essential for wood degradation, but are also able to degrade various recalcitrant organic pollutants. The possible application of wood-decomposing fungi in bioremediation has increased the interest in understanding their growth and activity in soil. Degradation and mineralization of pollutants can also be influenced by syne

Fighting infectious disease in the past, much like today, focused on isolating the disease and thereby stopping its spread. New insights into the modes of transmission and the causal agents in the mid-nineteenth century, together with fear of new epidemic outbreaks, motivated public investments aimed at reducing mortality from infectious disease. Combining longitudinal individual-level data on 17,

Popular Abstract in Swedish Syftet med denna avhandling är att förstå och förklara frivården, som organisation och som praktik samt att få en fördjupad förståelse av förhållandet mellan stöd och kontroll. Avhandlingen bygger på två empiriska material. En studie av arkivhandlingar och publicerade texter från 1820-2000. En intervjustudie där tjugo frivårdsklienter, tjugo handläggare och tio lekmannaThe purpose of this thesis is to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between support and control. The purpose is reached by a study of the probation service as an organization and the practical side of its work The thesis is based on two empirical studies. One is a study of records and published texts from the period 1820-2000. The second is an interview study, in which twenty probatio

Popular Abstract in Swedish Evolutionsteorin säger att de anpassningar som leder till en ökad mängd ungar och ättlingar i senare led kommer att sorteras fram av det naturliga urvalet. Det är dock inte alltid så självklart vad som kommer att gynnas av selektionen. Ofta får hanar mer avkomma om de parar sig med många honor, i stort sett oavsett hur de uppnår detta. Hanliga anpassningar för detta ändIn sexual conflicts and conflicts between parents and offspring, natural selection acts in different directions on the two sides. For example, males may be selected to achieve many mates, but female fitness may be maximised by monogamy. In this thesis I study the evolutionary outcome of these situations mainly by theoretical modelling. I present an empirical investigation of mating interactions in

The aim of this study is to analyse the role of newspapers as an image formation agent for retailers. The role of the media has been emphasised in theories about image formation but there are few empirical studies of the role of newspapers. This is an explorative study of how IKEA is represented in British and Swedish newspapers. The study is based on a quantitative content analysis of 153 news ar

For Marx, technologies are either tools or machines and both are physical things. He was interested in the study of their intrinsic labor value in the capitalist production process. He recognizes that the life of a machine depends first on two physical factors: 1) erosion by use and 2) corrosion by abandonment: However, Marx recognizes also a third “moral” factor that depreciates the productivity

We address the issue of Western European regional productivity growth and convergence by means of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), decomposing labor productivity into efficiency change, technical change and capital accumulation. The decomposition shows that most regions have fallen behind the production frontier in efficiency and that capital accumulation has had a diverging effect on the labor pr